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<span style="font-family: Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hi all,</span></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">I think pondering what we mean by such identity components as </font><font face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">“</font><font face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">spirit”
and “soul” is a useful exercise. I like to start with the simple dictionary definitions, where both terms have long been associated with an “<span></span>animating and guiding principle” in living systems. In terms of sentience in complex adaptive systems,
both of these are associated with the chemistry of sensorimotor control, self-regulatory cell signaling, and the experience of binary emotional qualia. I agree with John Torday that Gravity is a likely source for deeper sensory stimulus and would add that
so is Electromagnetism, and that wave resonance may be the mechanism for the “first feels” of experience.<span></span></font></div>
<div dir="ltr"><font face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">I also suspect that a scientific inquiry into “identity” - how it is dynamic, relational and bounded mechanically, how it is distinguished and ordered mathematically, how it is “closed”
informationally and thermodynamically, how it is nested physiologically and mediated biologically, how it is constructed autopoietically, and how it is experienced directly - in all its complexity and nuance - will be fruitful paths.</font></div>
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<font face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">Just my two farthings,</font></div>
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<font face="Avenir, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="3">Kate Kauffman</font></div>
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