<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Dear Kate,<div class="">Thank you. That clarifies the matter.</div><div class="">I suspect that whenever we have a sharp distinction there is a context that supports it.</div><div class="">This is more general than a boundary. Often there is no discernible boundary.</div><div class="">Best,</div><div class="">Lou</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 20, 2025, at 5:46 PM, Katherine Peil <<a href="mailto:ktpeil@outlook.com" class="">ktpeil@outlook.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><meta charset="UTF-8" class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class="">Dear Lou (et al),<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class="">Sorry for the delay. (I was in dutch with Pedro for too many posts). Apologies all around for that. I had only a narrow window of time to participate, and my enthusiasm can get the better of me – particularly for math models that might address autopoiesis! But to wrap up:<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class="">What do I mean by binary?</span></b><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>My concept of binary begins with the dualities we experience through our embodiment, which I see as a feature (of time and space) rather than a bug. Instead of some flaw in our perceptual systems, it has to do with course graining of information required for the here and now relationship between a distinct system and its immediate environment. (Your distinctions as boundaries?) This leads into your post-Leibniz concept that encompasses formal logic and computers, the coding language or 0s and 1s. Given the incremental nature of time, at each iterative tick in any process, there are<b class="">either~or</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>choices to be made, which I associate with<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">digital information</b>. Binaries – complementary opposites - are everywhere in nature, represented by<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">Yin~Yang<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>in my<b class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Tao Story</b>. Ultimately, they relate to the distinctive self-referential dance between parts and wholes. (What Dr. Thomas says about infinite sets is most intriguing here.)<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class="">In terms of my emotion science, while we can experience “mixed emotions” in terms of our complex human feelings and cognitive imaginings, raw pleasure and pain are binary categories. Any personally self-relevant event emerges in our experience as either painful or pleasurable, they enter our consciousness as either~or valanced surprises. As Martha Nussbaum put it, they are “eruptions in consciousness”, course-grained from the unconscious regulatory processes of the body (opponent processes, chemical signaling etc.) But in terms of their physical substrates and biological function, pleasure and pain operate together as a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">Both~And</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>complementary pair. One cannot be understood outside the holistic context of its binary counterpart, like conjugate variables. They both subserve the ancient function of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">self-regulation</b>, mediating the paradoxical balance between<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">stability and change</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>over time, or from the perspective of<b class=""><i class="">the self</i></b><i class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>– the sentient subject –<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b class="">self-preservation<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>(mediated by pain)<b class=""><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>and self-development</b>(mediated by pleasure).</i><o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class="">In terms of the word<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">perception<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>(as opposed to sensation), I would agree that the distinguishing feature is<i class="">prediction – a feedforward cybernetic process<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></i>that concerns the future (while sensation is more a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">feedback process</i><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>about the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><i class="">immediate present)</i>. As sensory signals that serve as the Pavlovian “unconditioned stimulus-response pair” and the mode for conditioned learning categories, hedonic emotional qualia do both jobs. They provide the fundamental semantic information bit required for autopoiesis, all learning systems, and they undergird human values. I remain hungry for math models that can root them in quantum information. Both Federico Faggin and our own Dr. Thomas resonate here.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class="">Thank you so much sharing your deep wisdom.<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class="">Over and out,<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-family: "Avenir Book";" class="">Kate Kauffman<o:p class=""></o:p></span></div><div style="margin: 0in; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif;" class=""><o:p class=""> </o:p></div></div><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; 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font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;" class=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">Ud. recibe este correo por pertenecer a una lista de correo gestionada por la Universidad de Zaragoza.</span><br style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); 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