<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr">Dear Bill, Mike and John<div><br></div><div>First of all thank you to Bill and Mike for continuing the very stimulating discussion that began in the video call a few weeks ago. </div><div><br></div><div>There are, as is often the case on FIS, a number of ontological assertions flying around which make navigating this space rather difficult. Mike does his best to address this head-on in his identification of two fundamental problems: "First, the belief that we can objectively and uniquely nail down what something is. And second, that our formal models of life, computers or materials tell the entire story of their capabilities and limitations."</div><div><br></div><div>Channelling Warren McCulloch, and perhaps in response to those who ask "what is a machine?", I would like to ask "What is a machine that we might know it, and what are we that we might know a machine?"</div><div><br></div><div>What follows from the formulation such a question (whether you ask about number, distinction, etc), is that any determination of "what a machine is" - the "it" of a machine - is both contingent and necessary. It is contingent because it must depend on the determination by the observer (Maturana). It is necessary because without any determination of what a machine is, we would have no machines, no science, no institutions, no coordination - the world would not be like the world we experience. </div><div><br></div><div>Our arguments about ontology are an expression of the contingency of definition. The fact that we keep on going at it is indicative of the necessity of definition. We perhaps should be mindful that alongside contingency, is paraconsistency in definition: it is not x OR y, information OR energy. It is probably x AND y. </div><div><br></div><div>This gives rise to something that doesn't often come up on this list, which I have been reflecting on, which is dialectic. If you take necessity and contingency together, you get a dialectical process. This is political. I know (I'm sure he won't mind me saying this) that behind John's passionate emphasis on energy is a personal story about the pathology of humankind, and a fear that misapprehending the underlying mechanism of evolutionary development will lead to the kind of terrible consequences we saw in the middle of the last century. Personally, I very swayed by his arguments - they run very deep. </div><div><br></div><div>Indeed, behind much of the anxiety of AI are political feelings, which are not properly inspected. As scientists, we are often rather too buttoned-up, pretending this is all completely rational. Well, we know it isn't. There are feasible dystopias and infeasible dystopias, and equally infeasible utopias. </div><div><br></div><div>The politics comes from the dialectics which comes from the contingency and necessity of definition of what a machine is. This is not to say that there cannot be coordinated stability through science. But it fundamentally requires trust and humility, and acceptance of contingency and paraconsistency. As Von Foerster pointed out many years ago, the word "truth" has the same root as the word "trust" (see <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://youtu.be/Mc6YFUoPWSI?feature=shared__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!SOPq9poc-3vl-7SlVOj3yLI-dqYIjO9xvO16b4Q48lrtaRtB6K2fa2Uhx7dQtpM-i1tLaT5hg8TRQv5nhrKJK3Q$">https://youtu.be/Mc6YFUoPWSI?feature=shared</a>)</div><div><br></div><div>Trust appears to be some kind of physiological process. Do machines help us to trust each other? Well, what do you think? You're in a machine right now. Do you trust me? If this wasn't email, what might we do to engender trust between us better? Could a machine help? How?</div><div><br></div><div>Best wishes,</div><div><br></div><div>Mark</div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, 14 May 2025 at 22:02, JOHN TORDAY <<a href="mailto:jtorday@ucla.edu">jtorday@ucla.edu</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"><div dir="ltr"><div><font size="4">Dear Pedro, Bill and fis,with all due respect, I have attached my replies to Bill's </font><b><font size="4">Information in a cellular framework – abstract for discussion</font></b></div><b><font size="4">William B. Miller, Jr.</font></b><div><font size="4"><b><br></b></font><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div>John S. Torday</div><div dir="ltr">Professor of Pediatrics<div>Obstetrics and Gynecology</div><div>Evolutionary Medicine</div><div>UCLA</div><div><br></div><div><i>Fellow, The European Academy of Science and Arts</i></div></div></div></div></div></div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">---------- Forwarded message ---------<br>From: <strong class="gmail_sendername" dir="auto">JOHN TORDAY</strong> <span dir="auto"><<a href="mailto:jtorday@ucla.edu" target="_blank">jtorday@ucla.edu</a>></span><br>Date: Wed, May 14, 2025 at 4:56 PM<br>Subject: Re: [Fis] Bill Miller's contribution<br>To: Pedro C. Marijuán <<a href="mailto:pedroc.marijuan@gmail.com" target="_blank">pedroc.marijuan@gmail.com</a>><br></div><br><br><div dir="ltr"><div>Dear Pedro and Bill and fis, I have attached my responses to Bill's "Information in a Cellular Framework"..... </div><div><br></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div>John S. Torday</div><div dir="ltr">Professor of Pediatrics<div>Obstetrics and Gynecology</div><div>Evolutionary Medicine</div><div>UCLA</div><div><br></div><div><i>Fellow, The European Academy of Science and Arts</i></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, May 14, 2025 at 3:45 PM Pedro C. Marijuán <<a href="mailto:pedroc.marijuan@gmail.com" target="_blank">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>
Given the archive difficulties with attached files, systematically
scrubbed by the server, I am posting Bill's text as a regular
message (today I finally could do that!).<br>
It is an angle pretty different from the mechanism/non mechanism
one... Regards --Pedro<br>
-------------------------------------------------
<p><b><font size="4">Information in a cellular framework – abstract
for discussion<br>
William B. Miller, Jr.</font></b><br>
</p>
<p>A long-standing presumption among many physicists and
mathematicians is<br>
that biology is a descriptive endeavor and any deep understanding
of the<br>
living frame must issue from their more rigorous disciplines.
Nonetheless,<br>
neither physics nor mathematics has explained the non-equilibrium
living<br>
state in which intelligent self-referential cells deploy
problem-solving<br>
competencies to sustain themselves across living scales.
Consequently, some<br>
scientists argue that the reverse may be correct: biology might
productively<br>
inform physics and mathematics, offering insights into how natural
laws<br>
might extend beyond known physical and mathematical principles.<br>
In the same spirit, examining the specific attributes of
biological<br>
information processing and living information management as
specifically<br>
exemplified by cells might provide a productive further thrust to
the<br>
fundamental action-logic of those theoretical information systems
formulated<br>
by visionary information theorists.</p>
<p>To stimulate that initiative, it is proposed that information
theorists might<br>
direct their attention to the specific informational
characteristics of intelligent,<br>
measuring cells, which represent the basal strata of our living
planetary<br>
system.<br>
</p>
<p>Several specific attributes of biological information have been<br>
empirically verified at the cellular level, thereby defining the
informational<br>
conditions of our living system:</p>
<p>--All cells are cognitive, problem-solving agents.</p>
<p>--Their living context is the ambiguity of information.</p>
<p>--The uncertain validity of environmental stimuli governs the
cellular<br>
reception, analysis, and deployment of all cellular resources.</p>
<p>--Imperfect information requires cells to internally measure
their<br>
received information.</p>
<p>--Accordingly, all cellular information is a product of
infoautopoiesis,<br>
entailing that all the information that any cell has about its
external<br>
environment is exclusive, self-referential, and self-produced.</p>
<p>--Cellular infoautopiesis drives an obligatory and little
appreciated<br>
derivative: each cell, and then we as cellular beings, create our<br>
exclusive self-referential representations of reality and act upon
that<br>
self-generated purview.</p>
<p>--Obliged informational uncertainties stimulate the collective
cellular<br>
analysis of self-generated cellular information, driving
ubiquitous<br>
planetary multicellularity as a cellular expression of the
familiar<br>
'wisdom of crowds'.</p>
<p>--Cellular information processing directs toward narrowing
distinctions<br>
on the adjacents to diminish their obligatory uncertainty gap,
yielding<br>
the effective minimization of surprisal in conformity with the
Free<br>
Energy Principle.</p>
<p>--Every cell does work to sustain its self-directed state of
homeorhetic<br>
preferential flux.</p>
<p>--Narrowing the distinctions on the adjacents as the effective<br>
minimization of surprisal enables cellular predictions and<br>
anticipations.</p>
<p>--Self-referential cellular states of homeorhetic preference
drive<br>
multicellular eukaryotic macroorganic behaviors and emotions.<br>
</p>
<p><b>SOME BASIC QUESTIONS (for the discussion)</b></p>
<p>Information in the living frame has been commonly defined
according to<br>
Bateson’s familiar definition as a 'difference that makes a
difference over<br>
time.' How might that definition explain internal self reference
that governs<br>
our lives, enabling living information management? Might other
definitions<br>
serve better?<br>
</p>
<p>How can previously formulated information theories illuminate the
cellular<br>
living process within its obligatory context of informational
ambiguity?<br>
How do current information theories explain the presence of
inference,<br>
prediction, and anticipation.<br>
</p>
<p>Why do these informational cues, which must first manifest at the
level of<br>
cells as exclusive states of self-referential homeorhetic
preference, exert in<br>
multicellularity as nuanced multicellular behaviors and emotions?<br>
Recent research confirms the remarkable competencies of diverse<br>
intelligences across living scales. How might applying information
systems<br>
theory contribute to our debate about any categorical distinctions
between the<br>
living frame and the abiotic realm? If a fluid continuum is
asserted, how<br>
might that be rationalized?<br>
</p>
<p>Is our understanding of biological systems improved by asserting
an<br>
immaterial Platonic informational platform permitting cells to
interrogate a<br>
constrained portion of universal informational space-time (? phase
space<br>
partition) as part of a universal informational fabric?<br>
</p>
<p>Given the extraordinary competencies of current AI systems and
projected<br>
future abilities, how might information theory inform constructive
responses<br>
to inevitable social, economic, and cultural pressures?</p>
What should govern our ethical responses to the still-developing
organic constructs<br>
which will include synthetic combinations of digital competencies
and living cells?<br>
If 'consciousness' is determined to be a litmus of our ethical
stance toward<br>
other living entities, what practical informational threshold
exists, if any?<br>
<p>------------------------------------------------------------------<br>
</p>
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</blockquote></div><div><br clear="all"></div><div><br></div><span class="gmail_signature_prefix">-- </span><br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Dr. Mark William Johnson<br><div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health</div><div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">University of Manchester</div><div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Department of Science Education</div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">University of Copenhagen</div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br></div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">Department of Eye and Vision Science (honorary)</div><div style="color:rgb(34,34,34)">University of Liverpool</div>Phone: 07786 064505<br>Email: <a href="mailto:johnsonmwj1@gmail.com" target="_blank">johnsonmwj1@gmail.com</a><br>Blog: <a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!SOPq9poc-3vl-7SlVOj3yLI-dqYIjO9xvO16b4Q48lrtaRtB6K2fa2Uhx7dQtpM-i1tLaT5hg8TRQv5ngd1tt6A$" target="_blank">http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com</a></div></div></div></div></div>