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body { font-family: Segoe UI; font-size: 12pt; }</style></head><body><div id="x6fe6914415c2404"><blockquote cite="CAH2XT=-HschvH_WxCemFN6e33n0LES996pWjgSuKw_++nCMdrw@mail.gmail.com" type="cite" class="cite2"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;text-align:justify;text-indent:36pt;line-height:normal;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif">In
summary, these studies represent our preliminary attempt at finding organising
principles of brain function that will help to guide in a more formal sense
<b>inquiry into how consciousness arises from the organization of matter. </b>The
extension of this work that we are now carrying out includes a description of the
evolution equation of brain dynamics using a probabilistic framework incorporating
the probabilities of connections among brain cell networks. But this is a story
for a future talk! In the meantime,
buena suerte for the new year we just started… even though I don’t really
believe in luck but this is another story too, one about determinism and
stochasticity..<i></i></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: normal;"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman"><br /></font></p></div></blockquote><blockquote cite="CAH2XT=-HschvH_WxCemFN6e33n0LES996pWjgSuKw_++nCMdrw@mail.gmail.com" type="cite" class="cite2"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36pt; line-height: normal;"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Dear Jose Luis,</font></p></div></blockquote><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Thank you for the lecture. </font><br /></div><div id="x6fe6914415c2404"><br /></div><div id="x6fe6914415c2404">It seems to me that one has to distinguish between genesis and validity. "How consciousness arises from the organization of matter" is typically a question about the genesis; some would say "morphogenesis" or a next-order systems level. However, the emerging level has a (sub)dynamics of itself which can also function as a control mechanism. Construction is bottom up, but control top-down. Interesting is, in my opinion, the question when the balance tips in favor of the emerging system?</div><div id="x6fe6914415c2404"><br /></div><div id="x6fe6914415c2404">Whereas the genesis is entropy-driven, the control mechanism operates as a feedback and therefore in terms of generating redundancy (as different from entropy); against the arrow of time or, in other words, not in historical time, but in terms of an evolutionary clock. The emergence rewrites the history from which it emerged. One thus has to specify the <i>differentia specifica </i>of the next-order in terms of how it operates as a selection mechanism upon the variation (entropy). This specification cannot be achieved by focusing on the genesis as you advocate. </div><div id="x6fe6914415c2404"><br /></div><div id="x6fe6914415c2404">Hopefully, you find this a fruitful approach and contribution. The historical genesis can be studied objectivistically since it occurs in history. The selection mechanisms first have to be specified on theoretical ground and thus require another design; namely one of hypotheses and hypothesis-testing. Would you agree?</div><div id="x6fe6914415c2404"><br /></div><div id="x6fe6914415c2404">Best,</div><div id="x6fe6914415c2404">Loet</div><div id="x6fe6914415c2404"><div><br /></div><div id="signature_old"><div id="x6a43694a733f4a9"><div id="x775eaf3ae7f6460082dcdda3faf877c6"><div><div id="signature_old"><div id="x920d19d74fc84b0"><div id="x337b22579712426abf55c20f258d0a74">
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:#1F497D">
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<p class="MsoNormal" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D">Loet
Leydesdorff <o:p xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D">Professor emeritus,
University of Amsterdam<br />
Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)<o:p xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span style="color:#44546A"><a href="mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net" title="mailto:loet@leydesdorff.net"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">loet@leydesdorff.net </span></a></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D">; </span><span style="color:#44546A"><a href="http://www.leydesdorff.net/" title="http://www.leydesdorff.net/"><span style="font-size:10.0pt">http://www.leydesdorff.net/</span></a></span><span style="font-size:10.0pt;color:#1F497D"> <br />
</span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Associate Faculty, </span><span style="color:#44546A"><a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/spru/"><span style="font-size:9.0pt">SPRU, </span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">University of Sussex; <o:p xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Guest Professor </span><span style="color:#44546A"><a href="http://www.zju.edu.cn/english/"><span style="font-size:9.0pt">Zhejiang Univ.</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">, Hangzhou; Visiting Professor, </span><span style="color:#44546A"><a href="http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/brief_en.html"><span style="font-size:9.0pt">ISTIC, </span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Beijing;<o:p xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span style="font-size: 9pt;">Visiting Fellow, </span><span style="color:#44546A"><a href="http://www.bbk.ac.uk/"><span style="font-size:
9.0pt">Birkbeck</span></a></span><span style="font-size: 9pt;">,
University of London; <o:p xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"></o:p></span></p>
<span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
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EN-US;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;mso-bidi-language:AR-SA" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"><span style="font-size:9.0pt"><a href="http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en">http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ych9gNYAAAAJ&hl=en</a></span></span></div><div id="x337b22579712426abf55c20f258d0a74"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";mso-fareast-font-family:
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