<div dir="ltr"><div><font size="4">To Pedro, Michael, Bill, Lou and fis, regarding whether living organisms are machines, my laboratory and two others have shown that in the absence of the force of gravity, cells lose their phenotypes within 8-12 hours, recovering them in earth's gravity within 24 hours, i.e. they devolve, but can subsequently evolve in the presence of gravity (<span style="background-image:initial;background-position:initial;background-size:initial;background-repeat:initial;background-origin:initial;background-clip:initial;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:rgb(33,33,33)">Torday, J.S.,
2003. Parathyroid hormone-related protein is a gravisensor in lung and
bone cell biology. Adv. Space Res. 32, 1569-1576). This experiment demonstrates the interrelationship between life and non-life. In my opinion, these observations speak to life being <b>'greater than the sum of its parts'</b> or a <b>'holism'</b>, unlike a machine, which is the literal sum of its parts. The missing feature that we refer to as soul or spirit is the product of the interaction of the organism with the force of gravity, or Newton's Third Law of Motion. And as for Bill's comments about 'information', speaking as a developmental cell-molecular physiologist, when a fertilized egg develops into the offspring the intermediate steps are all mediated by soluble growth factors and their cognate receptors, bearing in mind that <b>the growth factors are not information</b>. The 'information' is present within each successive state of the organism, but the intermediates are not information, they are high energy phosphate exchanges (cyclic AMP and inositol phosphates 1-4), which are not 'information', they release information at each successive stage of embryogenesis, like a Fibonacci sequence, 1 + 2 =3, etc, etc, and beyond, to the formation of physiology. So in my opinion, the processes of development and physiologic homeostasis are not information, i.e. matter, they are the energy for maintaining and perpetuating homeostatic control of the organism. Energy is not information, it is the capacity for maintaining 'self' in an ever-changing environment, due to an expanding Cosmos. The primary purpose of the organism is to detect meaningful change (for itself), and either adapt or become extinct.</span></font></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><br></div><div>John Torday</div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Tue, May 13, 2025 at 9:30 AM Pedro C. Marijuán <<a href="mailto:pedroc.marijuan@gmail.com">pedroc.marijuan@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><u></u>
<div>
<p><font size="5">Mind, Life & Machines</font></p>
<p><b><font size="4">From Mike Levin: Living Things Are Not Machines
(Also, They<br>
Totally Are)</font></b><br>
</p>
<p>To start with, different contexts require us to adopt diverse
perspectives as to<br>
how much mind, or mechanism, is before us. The continuing battle
over whether<br>
living beings are or are not machines is based on two mistaken but
pervasive<br>
beliefs. First, the belief that we can objectively and uniquely
nail down what<br>
something is. And second, that our formal models of life,
computers or materials<br>
tell the entire story of their capabilities and limitations.<br>
</p>
<p>Despite the continued expansion and mainstream prominence of
molecular<br>
biology, and its reductionist machine metaphors, or likely because
of it, there has<br>
been an increasing upsurge of papers and science social media
posts arguing that<br>
“living things are not machines” (LTNM). There are thoughtful,
informative,<br>
nuanced pieces exploring this direction, such as this exploration
of “new post-<br>
genomic biology” and others, masterfully reviewed and analyzed by
cognitive<br>
scientist and historian Ann-Sophie Barwich and historian Matthew
James<br>
Rodriguez at Indiana University Bloomington. (A non-exhaustive
list includes<br>
engineer Perry Marshall’s look at how biology transcends the
limits of<br>
computation, computer scientist Alexander Ororbia’s discussion of
“mortal<br>
computation,” biologist Stuart Kauffman and computer scientist
Andrea Roli’s<br>
look at the evolution of the biosphere, and the works of
philosophers like Daniel<br>
Nicholson, George Kampis and Günther Witzani.)</p>
<p>Many others, however, use the siren song of biological
exceptionalism and<br>
outdated or poorly defined notions of “machines” to push a view
that misleads lay<br>
readers and stalls progress in fields such as evolution, cell
biology, biomedicine,<br>
cognitive science (and basal cognition), computer science,
bioengineering,<br>
philosophy and more. All of these fields are held back by hidden
assumptions<br>
within the LTNM-lens that are better shed in favor of a more
fundamental framework.</p>
In arguing against LTNM, I use cognitive science-based <br>
approaches to understand and manipulate biological substrates.<br>
I have claimed that cognition goes all the way down to the molecular
level; after all,<br>
we find memory and learning in small networks of mutually
interacting<br>
chemicals, and studies show that molecular circuits can act as
agential materials.<br>
I take the existence of goals, preferences, problem-solving skills,
attention,<br>
memories, etc., in biological substrates such as cells and tissues
so seriously that<br>
I’ve staked my entire laboratory career on this approach.<br>
<br>
Some molecular biology colleagues consider my views — that bottom-up<br>
molecular approaches simply won’t suffice, and must be augmented
with the tools<br>
and concepts of cognitive science — to be an extreme form of
animism. Thus, my<br>
quarrel with LTNM is not coming from a place of sympathy with
molecular<br>
reductionism; I consider myself squarely within the organicist
tradition of<br>
theoretical biologists like Denis Noble, Brian Goodwin, Robert
Rosen, Francisco<br>
Varela and Humberto Maturana, whose works all focus on the
irreducible,<br>
creative, agential quality of life; however, I want to push this
view further than<br>
many of its adherents might.<br>
<br>
LTNM must go, but we should not replace this concept with its
opposite, <br>
the dreaded presumption that living things are machines;<br>
that is equally wrong and also holds back progress.<br>
Still, it is easy to see why the LTNM-lens persists. The LTNM
framing gives the<br>
feeling that one has said something powerful — cut nature at its
joints with<br>
respect to the most important thing there is, life and mind, by
establishing a<br>
fundamental category that separates life from the rest of the cold,
inanimate<br>
universe. It feels as if it forestalls the constant, pernicious
efforts to reduce the<br>
majesty of life to predictable mechanisms with no ability to drive
consideration or<br>
the first-person experiences that make life worth living.<br>
“Many use the siren song of biological exceptionalism and outdated<br>
or poorly defined notions of ‘machines’ to push a view that misleads<br>
lay readers and stalls progress.”<br>
<br>
But this is all smoke and mirrors, from an idea that took hold as a
bulwark against<br>
reductionism and mechanism; it refuses to go away even though we
have<br>
outgrown it. The approach I am advocating for is anchored by the
principles of<br>
pluralism and pragmatism: no system definitively is our formal model
of it, but if<br>
we move beyond expecting everything to be a nail for one particular
favorite<br>
hammer, we are freed up to do the important work of actually
characterizing the<br>
sets of tools that may open new frontiers.<br>
<br>
As scientists and philosophers, we owe everyone realistic stories of
scaling and<br>
gradual metamorphosis along a continuum — not of magical and sharp<br>
transitions — and a description of the tools we propose to use to
interact with a<br>
wide range of systems, along with a commitment to empirical
evaluation of those<br>
tools. We must battle our innate mind-blindness with new theories in
the field of<br>
Diverse Intelligence and the facilitating technology it enables,
much as a theory<br>
and apparatus for electromagnetism enabled access to an enormous,
unifying<br>
spectrum of phenomena of which we had previously had only narrow,
disparate-<br>
seeming glimpses. We must resist the urge to see the limits of
reality in the limits<br>
of our formal models. Everything, even things that look simple to
us, are a lot<br>
more than we think they are because we, too, are finite observers —
wondrous<br>
embodied minds with limited perspectives but massive potential and
the moral<br>
responsibility to get this (at least somewhat) right.<br>
<i><br>
</i><br>
<i>See an enlarged version of this text at: </i><br>
<p><i><span style="font-family:serif" role="presentation" dir="ltr"><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.noemamag.com/living-things-are-not-machines-also-they-totally-are/__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!TuRf27kMqxXb6vn61GDuY5SQFOpW-2bJsv9g_xjpV95LAvd4KXEvjSvlYJyKOCwm5VRzNhHx_qeJdN1pix7IJbKTwFLX$" target="_blank">https://www.noemamag.com/living-things-are-not-machines-also-they-totally-are/</a></span></i></p>
<p><i><span style="font-family:serif" role="presentation" dir="ltr">-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
</span><span style="font-family:serif" role="presentation" dir="ltr"> </span></i></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US"><font size="4"><b> From William B. Miller, Jr. : </b></font></span><font size="4"><b><span lang="EN-US">Information in a cellular
framework</span></b><span lang="EN-US"> –
abstract for discussion</span></font></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><font size="4"><span lang="EN-US">See in the accompanying attached
file (for technical reasons)<br>
</span></font></p>
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<blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><font size="5"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></font></p>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify"><span lang="EN-US"> </span></p>
<span style="font-family:serif" role="presentation" dir="ltr"> </span>
</div>
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