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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear Aaron,</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Many thanks for your scholarly
contribution (excuse the delay, but at fis we are not always very
punctual in our responses).</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">The origins of nervous systems
attracted my attention for a long time. So, your paragraph below
strongly resonates to me:
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202404071044.437Ai3AJ024439@cca-151308.cs.bham.ac.uk">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap=""><font size="+1">Inspired by those ideas (and others, including Kant's comments on limitations of
David Hume's theories) my own work, begun over half a century ago, has recently
taken a new turn leading to a conjecture that the earliest ancestors of animals
with brains were single-celled organisms that were ancestors of current
synapses, which began to engage in various forms of collaboration, producing
increasingly complex organisms in which nervous systems evolved to enable
communication and coordination between subsystems, initially linking synapse
ancestors, then later providing connections to increasingly remote and
increasingly complex body parts, e.g. digestive systems, circulatory systems,
breathingn systems, movable limbs or wings, etc.</font></pre>
</blockquote>
If I am not wrong, sex is an almost universal characteristic of
eukaryotes, from the very beginning, including unicellular ones.<br>
Then, for the sexual intercourse a mutual link has to be created
where species identity, sex type, cycle phase, metabolic status, and
other trophic determinants closer to the future immune system have
to be examined.<br>
<p>This is the ancestral eukaryotic synapse, which will evolve from
sex background towards mainly the immunological function first,
and later towards the bioelectricity function in multicellulars
(with several steps covering motility, sensibility, organ
coordination, etc., as you mention). <br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202404071044.437Ai3AJ024439@cca-151308.cs.bham.ac.uk">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap=""><font size="+1">I now think that those ancient biochemical mechanisms in synapses can provide
answers to questions about ancient forms of human intelligence leading to
discoveries in geometry and topology, such as Pythagoras' theorem, centuries
before Pythagoras was born, using mechanisms that are related to forms of
intelligence in other species e.g. nest-building birds, apes, elephants, aquatic
mammals, etc. Octopuses are an amazing special case that I don't pretend to
understand!</font>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>The immune-neural link keeps a close functional interrelation, as
Kate comments, related to behavioral options and their outcomes;
but also in a crucial aspect of identity surveillance for the sake
of the whole organism. This involves playing fascinating formal
games, a la Godelian, as Sheri Markose has discussed in this list.
And also Lou Kauffman. See <a
href="http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/2022-October/003184.html">Godelian
Self-referential Genomes</a>: Sheri Markose. October 25, 2022,
in <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TZV0WHGiHDAU6VynaKc_L1w8YD8Nrq4kdo3TOC0mSQ5jMezo1smigYZ5isrmzZozEu7G4TT5SIkjcS8UKX24i3xnYFUs$">https://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/</a> (By the way,
The fis list has a pretty long history, as you can see there, of
more than 25 years of discussion sessions. It would be great if
you could chair one of the coming sessions). I remember that in
one of my past messages I mentioned to Sheri (or to someone else?)
that emotions become the guardians of our behavioral integrity,
projecting in an extended temporal framework the instant now, so
that it accommodates to the whole fitness maintenance. So i think
emotions, and their progressive complexification, may respond to
formal games too (far beyond conventional game theory)...</p>
<p>It could be great if we can throw more explanatory light to
social emotions, that so many troubles have created in the past
and continue to create. I think this dovetails with Aaron views:</p>
<p> </p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202404071044.437Ai3AJ024439@cca-151308.cs.bham.ac.uk">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap=""><font size="+1">I don't think current popular concepts of 'emotion' are rich enough to support
these theories.</font>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p> </p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:202404071044.437Ai3AJ024439@cca-151308.cs.bham.ac.uk">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
<font size="+1">I have recently been working on an online document about all this (still work in
progress) including references to a huge, varied, and still growing collection
of evidence, along with my own new speculations about synapses (still under
development) available here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/metamorphosis.html__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!STfKJ-tvmFDeSUubIX6C43WsVpLlshOlBrc-ytpa_EUAIW_NYRotcvQvUrVaXd_OtJZ7PNnrJgSZaseQizhhFzg$">https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cs.bham.ac.uk/research/projects/cogaff/misc/metamorphosis.html__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!STfKJ-tvmFDeSUubIX6C43WsVpLlshOlBrc-ytpa_EUAIW_NYRotcvQvUrVaXd_OtJZ7PNnrJgSZaseQizhhFzg$</a>
It is about much more than metamorphosis, discussing the amazing forms of
control that transform a previously crawling insect into a flying animal with
entirely new behaviours (e.g. flying to plants and feeding on nectar) inside a
cocoon or chrysalis, where the transformations require forms of remote control
that I don't think can be explained using any currentlyh available theories, and
which may require changes in fundamental physical theories (which I have been
discussing with a colleague, an old friend from our student days, awarded a
Nobel-prize in theoretical physics).
I hope that mades some sense, despite my 87 year old downhill-sliding dementia-damaged
brain.</font></pre>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, it is great stuff. Some fis colleagues are also working in
"artificial genomes" and biomorphologies. We could also discuss
whether the new AI might contribute to adumbrate those "remote
control" transformations unexplainable currently, as you say. If
you can have the patience to endure our many tangents and
digressions, we can have an exciting discussion time!</p>
<p>All the best,</p>
<p>--Pedro<br>
</p>
<br>
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