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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>your suggestion that life ceases when informational systems break down is
intriguing and made me stop and think. hard.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>but i suspect it's the other way around. when life ceases,
communications systems, informational systems, slowly break down.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>some of the cells continue to function after death. and almost
everything that happens within cells and between them is conversational,
communicative, and informational.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>but i suspect that this vast system of communication and information
storage depends on life--whatever life is--to function.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>in other words, life is an indispensable process built on informational
systems, but beyond and above information. as the taj mahal is above and
beyond the bricks of which it's made.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>with warmth and oomph--howard</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF" PTSIZE="10"><FONT
face=Verdana></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 2/15/2017 4:08:51 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
migodron@wanadoo.fr writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial>
<P>About the difference between death and life, it is possible to tell that
life persists as long as the information which controls the regulations which
give resistance of the living system to perturbations are efficient.
<BR></P>
<P>Do you agree ?</P>
<P>M. Godron</P>
<P><BR></P>
<P>Le 15/02/2017 à 01:04, <A title=mailto:HowlBloom@aol.com
class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated
href="mailto:HowlBloom@aol.com">HowlBloom@aol.com</A> a écrit :<BR></P>
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<DIV><BR> </DIV>
<DIV>brilliant summation, Pedro.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>we are missing the metaphors with which to explain the difference
between death and life or between smart communities like bacterial colonies
and consciousness.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>in The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates, i tell the tale of
the origin of the term "emergent property." But, alas, over 140
years after the concept's introduction, we still lack the tools that
would help us understand life and consciousness in scientific ways.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>i suspect the key will come from adding to the bottom
up vocabulary of reductionism by looking at top down
approaches. and i suspect that certain emergent properties are
possibilities of the cosmos waiting for matter to find them. very a la
wagner in his Arrival of the Fittest.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>but if emergent properties exist in an implicit future, in possibility
space, how did they get there? a hint: god is not the
answer. god is a way of dodging the question.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>i've hit all these issues in The God Problem. and i ache for the
new metaphors.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>with warmth and oomph--howard</DIV>
<DIV>----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Howardbloom.net<BR>author of : The
Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History
("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass
Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and
sobering"-The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of
Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable."James
Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God Problem: How A
Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara
Ehrenreich), How I Accidentally Started the Sixties (“a monumental,epic,
glorious literary achievement.” Timothy Leary), and The Muhammad Code:
How a Desert Prophet Gave You ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram--or How
Muhammad Invented Jihad (“a terrifying book…the best book I’ve read on
Islam,” David Swindle, PJ Media).<BR>Former Core Faculty Member, The
Graduate Institute; Former Visiting Scholar—Graduate Psychology Department,
NewYork University<BR>Founder: International PaleopsychologyProject; founder
and chair, Space Development Steering Committee; Founding Board Member: Epic
of Evolution Society; Founding Board Member, The Darwin Project; Board Of
Governors, National Space Society; Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media
Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of Political
Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International Society for
Human Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board Member, Lifeboat Foundation.
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 2/13/2017 10:32:36 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, <A
title=mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated
href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</A>
writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=moz-cite-prefix>Dear Howard,<BR><BR>In any extent, your
beautiful questions are beyond my reach. I think that the physical
characterization of life cannot even provide a whim on your demands; but
something of the informational might provide some limited inroads:
prokaryots could not achieve any significant progress in morphological or
differentiation capabilities within their "colonies". Conversely,
eukaryotes developed multicellularity due to their far higher information
content (genome), their far improved signaling resources, their endless
energy supply in support of the general combinatoric problem-solving tools
(mitochondria), and the incorporation of a new locus (cytoskeleton)
capable of feeling the force field and reacting to it. A chain of amazing
inventions is behind any of the existing branches of complex life... can
do they admit a general explanation, not just based on natural selection,
but on the improved evolvability that has been obtained by being able to
explore any molecular-recognition contraption (within partially collapsed
solution state-spaces, a la Wagner?). Otherwise we are lead to admit a
deep enigma, still uncharted, or to look for external "intelligence"
solutions outside the limits of current scientific paradigms.<BR><BR>What
is your own opinion??<BR><BR>Best wishes--Pedro<BR><BR> El
09/02/2017 a las 22:44, <A title=mailto:HowlBloom@aol.com
class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:HowlBloom@aol.com"
moz-do-not-send="true">HowlBloom@aol.com</A> escribió:<BR></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=mid:8dfbe9.42a35696.45ce3cbe@aol.com type="cite">
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>fascinating thinking, pedro.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>it triggers this:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN>
<P class=MsoNormal>The stages of development are far more than
real-world problem solvers.<SPAN> </SPAN>They set artificial
challenges, then achieve them.<SPAN> </SPAN>Making a caterpillar
that works is an<SPAN> </SPAN>enormously complex
challenge.<SPAN> </SPAN>Making a working butterfly is also
immensely more complex than any simple challenge mounted by the
environment.<SPAN> </SPAN>Changing from caterpillar to butterfly
in one lifetime is unachievable beyond all belief.<SPAN>
</SPAN>And these grotesquely artificial goals can’t be accounted for by
a simple goal of survival.<SPAN> </SPAN>The goal, if anything,
seems to be to accomplish the ornate, the unnecessary, the flamboyant,
and the impossible.<SPAN> </SPAN>How does a drive toward
impossible flamboyance get built into<SPAN>
</SPAN>life?<SPAN> </SPAN>How does<SPAN> </SPAN>it get built
into the cosmos?</P></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV>with warmth and oomph--howard</DIV>
<DIV>----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Howardbloom.net<BR>author of : The
Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History
("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass
Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and
sobering"-The New Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision
of Capitalism ("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously
enjoyable."James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God
Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates ("Bloom's argument will rock your
world." Barbara Ehrenreich), How I Accidentally Started the Sixties (“a
monumental,epic, glorious literary achievement.” Timothy Leary), and The
Muhammad Code: How a Desert Prophet Gave You ISIS, al Qaeda, and
Boko Haram--or How Muhammad Invented Jihad (“a terrifying book…the best
book I’ve read on Islam,” David Swindle, PJ Media).<BR>Former Core
Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting Scholar—Graduate
Psychology Department, NewYork University<BR>Founder: International
PaleopsychologyProject; founder and chair, Space Development Steering
Committee; Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding
Board Member, The Darwin Project; Board Of Governors, National Space
Society; Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York
Academy of Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of
Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science,
Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International Society for Human
Ethology, Scientific Advisory Board Member, Lifeboat Foundation.
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 2/9/2017 3:22:55 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, <A
title=mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated
href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es"
moz-do-not-send="true">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</A> writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV class=moz-cite-prefix>Dear Marcus and Colleagues,<BR><BR>Thanks
for your interest. The Chengdu's Conference represented for me an
occasion to return to my beginnings, in the 80's, when I prepared a
PhD Thesis: "Natural Intelligence: On the evolution of biological
information processing". It was mostly following a top down approach.
But in some of the discussions outdoors of the conference (a
suggestion for the next one in Shanghai: plenary discussion sessions
should also be organized) I realized that biomolecular things have
changed quite a lot. One could go nowadays the other way around: from
the molecular-informational organization of cellular life, to
intelligence of the cell's behavior withing the environment. The life
cycle es essential. It provides the source of "meaning" (as I have
often argued in discussions in the list) but it is also the reference
for "intelligence". Communicating with the environment and
self-producing by means of the environmental affordances have to be
smoothly organized so that the stages of the life cycle may be
advanced, and that the "problems" arising from the internal or the
external may be adequately solved. It means signalling and
self-modifying in front of the open-ended environmental problems,
sensing and acting coherently... It strangely connects with the notion
of human "story" and the communication cycle in the humanities.
Relating intelligence to goal accomplishment or to an architecture of
goals as usually done in computational realms implies that the real
life course (or the surrogate) is reduced to a very narrow segment.
True intelligence evaporates. <BR>These were some of my brute
reflections that I have to keep musing around (I saw interesting
repercussions for cellular signaling "narratives" too). Maybe this is
also a good opportunity for other parties of that conference to
expostulate their own impressions --very exciting presentations both
from Chinese and Western colleagues there.<BR><BR>Thanks
again,<BR>--Pedro<BR><BR>El 08/02/2017 a las 14:14, Marcus Abundis
escribió:<BR></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
cite=mid:CACJqm9w49FPTTqy257t9CQsABW_+ASFm4b4yj_JymdJ2-xQKAQ@mail.gmail.com
type="cite">
<DIV dir=ltr>> In next weeks some further discussion might be
started, but at the time being, the slot is empty (any
ideas?)<
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Hi Pedro,</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>For my part I would appreciate a chance to hear more about the
thoughts you have been developing (even if they are very rough) as
related to the talk you gave in China last summer.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Alternatively, further thoughts on Gordana's talk would be nice
to hear.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>For both of these talks, you both shared your presentation
stack . . . but there was so much information in both of those
talks, it would be nice to have some of "unpacked."</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV>Marcus</DIV></DIV><BR>
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<P><BR></P><PRE class=moz-signature cols="72">--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta 0
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<P><BR></P><PRE class=moz-signature cols="72">--
-------------------------------------------------
Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta 0
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
<A title=mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated href="mailto:pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es" moz-do-not-send="true">pcmarijuan.iacs@aragon.es</A>
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<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 size=2 face=Arial FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Howardbloom.net<BR>author of : The
Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History
("mesmerizing"-The Washington Post), Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind
from the Big Bang to the 21st Century ("reassuring and sobering"-The New
Yorker), The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism
("Impressive, stimulating, and tremendously enjoyable."James Fallows, National
Correspondent, The Atlantic), The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates
("Bloom's argument will rock your world." Barbara Ehrenreich), How I
Accidentally Started the Sixties (“a monumental,epic, glorious literary
achievement.” Timothy Leary), and The Muhammad Code: How a Desert
Prophet Gave You ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram--or How Muhammad Invented
Jihad (“a terrifying book…the best book I’ve read on Islam,” David Swindle, PJ
Media).<BR>Former Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute; Former Visiting
Scholar—Graduate Psychology Department, NewYork University<BR>Founder:
International PaleopsychologyProject; founder and chair, Space Development
Steering Committee; Founding Board Member: Epic of Evolution Society; Founding
Board Member, The Darwin Project; Board Of Governors, National Space Society;
Founder: The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of
Sciences, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American
Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and
Evolution Society, International Society for Human Ethology, Scientific
Advisory Board Member, Lifeboat
Foundation.</FONT><BR></FONT></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>