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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Dear Lou, Krassimir, et al,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">I must say, this is my kind of rollicking discussion – thank you. Lou, let me take your excellent questions in order.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<ol style="margin-top:0in" start="1" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">First, concerning Ian McGilchrist. He is perhaps the leading expert on functional lateralization of the right and left hemispheres of the brain. I’ve
appended a ChatGPT synopsis of his major works below. <br>
Second, my allusion to his work relates to quantum biology, and the oft-muddled word “perception”. To liberate us from Cartesian habits, I offer an “agent in the machine” metaphor to functionally distinguish the “hardwired” (deterministic, machine-like) from
the “soft-wired” biophysical processes of the embodied organism. The agentic software (also fully embodied) includes subjective observation, computation, intelligence, perception, personal memory and history). Your term “registration” (and my term “sentience”)
would be classified as a hardwired response to a physical stimulus – they are part of “the machine”. Both “Information” and direct emotional experience straddle both domains. I suspect that math models that include iteration, self-reference, geometric structures,
network assemblies, and transformational dynamics (topical and otherwise) are on the right track to model. I also suspect that fruitful explanations will depend upon Gödellian incompleteness and the unique features of the quantum world, including quantum indeterminacy
(randomness), contextuality, complementarity, and observer dependance which all imply a direct role for the sentience agent – however small and deterministically constrained. In my Tao Story, the deterministic hardware, both quantum and classical processes
(although happening always across all timescales) are represented by an ongoing flow between Domains 0 and 1, each cycle yielding a Whiteheadian actualization of specific potential events, a locally bounded actualization of self in classical space, and an
experiential tick in the perception of time. The lateral functionalization of hemispheres in the prefrontal cortex is perhaps an example of how the most complex organism mediates and responds to information from both realms.
<o:p></o:p></span></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<ol style="margin-top:0in" start="2" type="1">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Yes! By all means let’s reframe “probability” – which in this context would be the catch-all term for the informational structures and patterning
processes (the deterministic machinery in the quantum realm). What are we counting? We are counting, sorting and resorting possibilities into both relational and “adjacent” probabilistic trajectories. So, let’s reframe quantum randomness, statistical “probability”
distributions, and Bayesian computational processes as part of the agentic software. (That’s what the AI designers are already doing, with Deep Neural Network learning models! Krassimir’s points are highly relevant to the differences between AI approaches
and what the organism is hardwired to do). And by all means, let’s use frequency and phase relations to ground both sentience and relational connectivity in harmonics as well!<br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Yes, “unconscious” processing affects perception. Because the embodied hardware (your registration, my sensory-motor stimulus-response) came first
and remains the primary informational foundation for the agentic software. In my model the agentic software begins with a 4-step cybernetic loop that delivers hedonic qualia as both feedback signal and self-correcting behavior, builds feed-forward motivation
(and prediction), therefore enacting and developing the autopoietic “mind”. Hedonic qualia informs and drives this loop, yielding Pavlovian conditioning - building semantic memory models via primal categories of what was “good for me” (pleasurable, rewarding)
or “bad for me” (painful innately punitive). AI models don’t do this, and suffer the frame problem.) The emotional sentience provided by even the simplest living embodiment provides, self-relevant information, communicating the non-negotiable requirements
of the embodiment in light of the immediate environmental circumstances. Without this semantic foundation, higher symbolic, syntactic, language systems would be devoid of any deeper biological meaning. Creatures evolved for eons with just this singular flow
of information – embodied affective computations. They carry binary logic with evaluations that reflect the criteria for natural selection, and an even deeper quantum logic of identity, wherein each autonomous agent is ALSO a part of a larger collective, both
a part and a whole. So yes! I do suspect that “awareness” is related to emotions, because it involved sensory stimulus that calls our attention – as agents - to non-negotiable foundational “self-regulatory” information born of our universal machinery. No one
likes pain, no one likes “when shit happens”, but painful feelings offer messages about the deterministic aspects of physical reality that we must agentically attend or be selected against. Pain serves as a reality sandwich as it concerns self-preservation
of form, while pleasure entices self-development of mental growth and collective creation of culture. (Not sure who “GSB” is but if he associates each distinction with an intrinsic motive” he’s all right in my book! Behavioral motivation is all about the hardwired
binary feels!) <br>
<br>
<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">In terms of Peirce, I’m no expert. But with the help of ChatGPT, I can offer a translation of his terms in the above framework.<br>
<br>
<b><i>ChatGPT said:</i></b><o:p></o:p></span></li></ol>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">In Peirce's semiotic theory, a
<b>sign</b> is anything that communicates meaning, and it always involves a <b>relationship</b> between the sign (the representamen), the
<b>object</b> (the thing the sign refers to, and the <b>interpretant. </b></span></i><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">KPK:
</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">In this triad, the foundational sign is binary
<b>emotional qualia</b>, signifying the <b>immediate spatiotemporal relationship</b> between the object –
<b>the embodiment in its local environment</b> - and its interpretant, the <b>subjective agentic self</b>. As Krassimir mentioned, the role of the environment is key, but often neglected. We need to think of that relationship in terms of
<b>boundaries</b> between system and environment in terms of biologically relative, dynamic and partially agentic distinctions. Likewise, given quantum contextuality, both the observer and measuring system form an indivisible complementary whole. This is reflected
in daily experience in Jakob Von Uexküll’s concept of “Umwelt”, and James Gibson’s concept of “affordances” both of which meld physical objects in the external environment with the subjective conceptual models of them in embodied agents. In short, the Umwelt
is the “relationship” between object and interpretant.<br>
<br>
<b><i>ChatGPT said:</i></b> <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">C.S. Peirce's concept of a "sign for itself" refers to a sign that operates independently of the interpretive context or the need for an external reference</span></i><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">.
<i>The "sign for itself" essentially functions as a self-contained sign. </i><b>KPK:</b> To my mind, the only sign that qualifies under these conditions is what Federico Faggin describes as state of “pure quantum information”, a state that can never be copied
exactly in a classical sense, but one that in-forms the external world. He associates it with a unified Field of nonlocal consciousness he calls The One, within and from which all other local identities are distinguished. In my Tao story, I’d associated the
“sign for itself” with the pattern-forming processes in Res Potentia, Domain 0.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Sorry for the long missive. I look forward to your talk on Friday.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Kate Kauffman<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Oh, and here is McGilchrist…<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><br>
CHAT GPT: Ian McGilchrist’s core thesis</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""> across both works is that the human brain’s two hemispheres offer distinct yet complementary ways of attending to the world, but modern culture has become
perilously unbalanced by favoring the left hemisphere’s narrow, abstract approach over the right hemisphere’s broader, context-sensitive mode.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">
<hr size="1" width="100%" align="center">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">The Master and His Emissary (2009)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Divided Brain, Divided Modes of Attention</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><br>
McGilchrist examines the contrasting perspectives of the brain’s hemispheres, demonstrating that the <b>right hemisphere</b> is attuned to the “big picture” (holistic, contextual, relational), while the <b>left hemisphere</b> specializes in detail-oriented,
analytic, and decontextualized thinking.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Historical and Cultural Analysis</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><br>
Tracing Western history from the ancient Greeks to modernity, he argues that <b>left-hemisphere thinking has gradually overshadowed</b> the more integrative right-hemisphere outlook, fueling an overly mechanistic, fragmented worldview.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l1 level1 lfo2"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Consequences of Left-Hemisphere Dominance</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><br>
This imbalance, McGilchrist contends, diminishes our capacity for empathy, meaning, and genuine creativity. He maintains we must restore the <b>right hemisphere</b> to its guiding role (the “master”), lest we remain trapped in a reductive interpretation of
reality.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<div class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">
<hr size="1" width="100%" align="center">
</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">The Matter with Things (2021)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<ul style="margin-top:0in" type="disc">
<li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l2 level1 lfo3"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Extending the Argument</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><br>
In this two-volume work, McGilchrist <b>expands on his earlier thesis</b>, delving deeper into how left-hemisphere overreach distorts our understanding of <b>consciousness, truth, and value</b>—leading us to embrace illusions about the nature of mind and matter.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l2 level1 lfo3"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">A More Holistic Epistemology</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><br>
He challenges the supremacy of narrowly defined “reason” and reductive science, proposing a <b>broader, more integrated approach</b> that recognizes intuition, embodied experience, and the living, ever-unfolding context as crucial for genuine knowledge.<o:p></o:p></span></li><li class="MsoNormal" style="mso-list:l2 level1 lfo3"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book"">Rebalancing Our Relationship with Reality</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><br>
By weaving in philosophy, neuroscience, and cultural analysis, McGilchrist shows how <b>correcting this hemispheric imbalance</b> can open the door to deeper insight, richer meaning, and a renewed sense of wholeness in how we engage with the world.<o:p></o:p></span></li></ul>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Avenir Book""><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt">>> <br>
>>> On Jan 14, 2025, at 3:58 AM, Louis Kauffman <loukau@gmail.com <<a href="mailto:loukau@gmail.com">mailto:loukau@gmail.com</a>>> wrote:<br>
>>> <br>
>>> ?Dear Kate,<br>
>>> I have questions and comments.<br>
>>> 1. While the notions of right and left hemispheres are useful to summarize certain aspects, I actually do not know what is really meant when people use those words.<br>
>>> So it would be better in communicating with me, a mathematician who needs definitions whenever possible, to rewrite statements without those metaphors.<br>
>>> 2. I do not want the word probability unless you can tell me what you are counting. If you cannot tell, then please speak of frequencies. Same for so called probability in QM.<br>
>>> 3. Perception does not include unconscious processing, but unconcious processing can affect perception. Perception is accompanied by awareness, often by consciousness.<br>
>>> This is how I use the word perception. My camera does not perceive the sunset. I perceive the photo produced by the camera and I am involved in the taking of photos by the camera.<br>
>>> Of course, I can set the camera to taking photos automatically. No perception occurs until I see them or you see them. But registration does occur. These issues are related to QM as well.<br>
>>> The cat registers and is dead or alive at the end of the hour. I find out. But the potentia have come to rest before I find out because the cat is corporeal.<br>
>>> 4. Do you feel that all awareness is related to emotions? GSB says every distinction is associated with motive. So maybe. Feeling is more general then emotion in my ways of speaking.<br>
>>> Feeling has to do with going outside given language and meaning to a wider and not defined domain from which we return with possibly new ways of speaking. This is for me what Wittgenstein is speaking
<br>
>>> about when he says ?Whereof one cannot speak one must be silent.?, and then new speaking can emerge, but NOT from a ?hierarchy of languages? as Russell said in his introduction to W?s Tractatus, but by going beneath language to
<br>
>>> Its source.<br>
>>> 5. In relation to 4. C.S.Peirce had the idea of a ?sign for itself? that emerged from the ever expanding hierarchy of a person?s language. There is a truth in that. One can also see an icon, such as O, as a sign for itself when seen as both a distinction
and a sign for a distinction. But then the sign O is enveloped in the interpretant that would see it that way. And we only understand the interpretant in terms of the ever expanding hierarchy of our language. The O is like a ?quantum particle?. It takes the
whole universe of <br>
>>> discourse to disclose its meaning. All of language collapses into the meaning of a single word or sign.<br>
>>> Best,<br>
>>> Lou<br>
>>> <br>
>>>> On Jan 13, 2025, at 3:57 PM, Katherine Peil <ktpeil@outlook.com <<a href="mailto:ktpeil@outlook.com">mailto:ktpeil@outlook.com</a>>> wrote:<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Thank you so much Lou.<br>
>>>> Self-reference is something very deep indeed, perhaps fundamentally located at the nexus of subject~object itself (in terms of geometry and association with quantum physics). The step from the Peircian triangle to George Spencer-Brown?s observer intervention
and wavefunction collapse seems to be in this territory. Self-reference as being the perfect circle, representing the emergence from a sea of possibilities the probabilistic manifestation of percept and concept in one lovely unit.<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> From a psychological perspective, however, perception is a different can of worms, distinct from (but related to physical sensory stimulus) and the embodied response. Behaviorism noted the stimulus-response coupling (and its essential role in learning),
but remained intentionally blind to any internal cognitive processing inside the proverbial Black Box. Perception can be defined as everything happening inside that Black Box, everything between that stimulus and response, and the more neurally endowed the
creature, the more the perceptual processing involved. Unlike the perfect zero, it can be reasonably accurate or riddled with error. This is why some self-referential feedback is required in the stimulus itself.<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> This marks the distinction between affective computations and cognitive computations. Affective computations specifically concern the self, they feel either good or bad, offering evaluative feedback about the self within its local physical environment
and they trigger direct stimulus-response behavior. The stream of emotional information came first and still provides primary behavioral motivation. No observation no qualia? I agree but add no sensory stimulus, no percept!
<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Ian McGlichest?s work in the dual yet interacting functions of the left and right brain hemispheres is instructive here as well. Music, maths, non-verbal wholism, creative ?unconscious?, intuitive capacities and all imaginable possibilities?? and emotion?collectively
dwell in the right hemisphere ? the Master to the left-brain emissary where complex linguistic perceptual processing occurs.<br>
>>>> Kate Kauffman<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> On 1/12/25, 9:39 PM, "Stuart Kauffman" <stukauffman@gmail.com <<a href="mailto:stukauffman@gmail.com">mailto:stukauffman@gmail.com</a>>> wrote: Katherine Peil Kauffman<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Thank you both,<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Stu<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> On Jan 12, 2025, at 8:52?PM, Louis Kauffman <loukau@gmail.com <<a href="mailto:loukau@gmail.com">mailto:loukau@gmail.com</a>>> wrote:<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Dear Katherine<br>
>>>> I do not yet take the step to ?explain? how to go from percept to concept.<br>
>>>> The point I inhabit is prior to that.<br>
>>>> In every situation where you have percept you also have concept.<br>
>>>> They arise together for you.<br>
>>>> Possibly not with the good concept you are searching for.<br>
>>>> For example, consider the way the perception of Saturn?s rings first appeared as lune-like patterns on the orb of the planet.<br>
>>>> The better concept of rings took some time.<br>
>>>> But every time there is a perception there is at the very least some concept, some description and it is from this place of percept/concept together that we proceed.<br>
>>>> From there you may or may not conclude that there is no way to reduce percept to concept and there is no way to reduce concept to percept.<br>
>>>> That is my position as a working position.<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Experience provides evidence that there is much more to the concurrence. In typing I can accomplish the task without looking at the keys.<br>
>>>> I have no training in this. I found that eventually I did it. I do not know how it works or why it is reliable. If you asked me which fingers make which letters, I could not answer.<br>
>>>> The same goes for improvisation on my clarinet, but there I do keep conscious track of the key and some other contextual information. Then my ?fingers? do the rest in feedback with ear and brain.<br>
>>>> LeDoux has an important point and I would like to know how he links the Cognitive Computations with the Affective Computations. In music practice we do this very deliberately, but in performance
<br>
>>>> (also part of practice) we let it happen. Music seems to begin with the affective. Doing mathematics seems to often begin in the cognitive, but achieves new creation at the nexus of cognitive and affective levels.<br>
>>>> This is why many people gravitate to geometry. And the Pythagoreans knew that music and geometry were one.<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Steiner in his early work focused on the self-reference of "thought thinking thought? which I take to be at the nexus of concept and percept.
<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> In logical and pre logical work it helps to use signs iconically.<br>
>>>> Thus a circle such as O can stand for a distinction and we can ?see? that the circle itself makes a distinction in the plane.<br>
>>>> Thus the circle O is seen to refer to itself.<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> In this self-reference the Peircian Triangle<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Interpretant<br>
>>>> Signifier Signified<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Collapses to. <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Interpretant<br>
>>>> O<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> The O does not have a separate meaning from its interpretant.<br>
>>>> This leads George Spencer-Brown to declaim:<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> <GSBMarkObserverQuote.png><br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> I suggest that this situation is imaged in the orthodox form of quantum measurement where the smooth and determinate evolution of the wave function is<br>
>>>> Interrupted by the mark of observation. Without an observer there is no distinction and the world unseen evolves in potentia. With an observer comes<br>
>>>> percept and concept and all the rest. When I was 16 I called the potentia the ?guarded source of the discrete?. Can?t do any better yet.<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Best,<br>
>>>> Lou<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> On Jan 12, 2025, at 5:21 PM, Katherine Peil <ktpeil@outlook.com <<a href="mailto:ktpeil@outlook.com">mailto:ktpeil@outlook.com</a>>> wrote:<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Thanks Pedro ? great to hear from you. A quick comment on:<br>
>>>> ?. I see a problem going from "percepts to concepts" as Lou claims <br>
>>>> below. Neuroscience has nowadays a rare consensus on not dissociating <br>
>>>> PERCEPTION and ACTION. The "Action Perception Cycle"?<br>
>>>> From the view of emotion science, this reflects a neurocentric problem wherein ?cognition? (perceptual processing) confounds sensations that lead to actions ? embodied emotional sensations that came on the evolutionary stage well before nerve nets or brains.
It is emotion that is central to action, behavior and motivation.<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Neuroscientist Jospeh LeDoux made this key distinction:<br>
>>>> Cognitive computations: Reflective, conscious, goal-directed thought, often linked to areas of the brain involved in higher cognitive functions.<br>
>>>> Affective computations: Automatic, unconscious, emotional processing, often linked to areas of the brain involved in emotional regulation and survival mechanisms. They always concern ?the self? and the lead to actions.<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> I can paraphrase his example?? there is a huge experiential difference between the thought that a snake is a reptile, that its skin can be made into belts and shoes, and the thought that a snake is likely to be dangerous.?<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Recall my claim that emotion in its simplest binary form ? akin to pleasure or pain - carries the foundational semantic information bit that undergirds all learning systems, but emerges from the dynamics and logic of genetic, epigenetic and immune regulation.
The Perception-Action-Cycle relies on the emotional component, so IMHO Lou is still on safe and important new ground.<br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> Kate Kauffman<br>
>>>> <br>
>>><br>
>>>> <br>
>>>> On 1/12/25, 2:59 PM, "Fis" <fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es <<a href="mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es">mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es</a>>> wrote: Katherine Peil Kauffman<br>
>>>> <br>
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