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Displaying entries 1 through 15 of 76 found.

Nettuno, Beatrice, et al. The role of mobility in epidemics near criticality. arXiv:2402.06505. Four years into the pandemic, a team of biophysicists at Ludwig-Maximilians-University including Erwin Frey achieve a host sophisticated mathematical formulation which draws upon and widely applies both physical principles and complexity science. Renormalization group theory and self-organized phase transitions are found to independently underline and channel this dynamic public malady wherever it occurs.

The general epidemic process (GEP) describes its spread within a population of susceptible individuals. We investigate the impact of mobility on disease spreading threshold by two generalizations of GEP, where the mobility of susceptible and recovered individuals is examined independently. The critical dynamics are studied through a perturbative renormalization group approach and large-scale stochastic simulations. This analysis predicts that both models belong to the same universality class which describe the critical epidemic dynamics. At the associated renormalization group fixed point, the immobile species decouples from the dynamics of the infected species due to coupling with the diffusive species.. Numerical simulations in two dimensions affirm our renormalization group results by identifying the same set of critical exponents for both models. (Excerpt)

Okur, Zeynep, et al. Control of neuronal excitation–inhibition balance by BMP–SMAD1 signalling. Nature. April 17, 2024. University of Basel, Basel and Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Basel neuro-researchers describe further findings that constant cerebral processes do indeed reside at a best dynamic balance of less or more stimulation. Once again, in every phenomenal way it seems, nature seeks and prefers this optimum reciprocity.

Throughout life, neuronal networks in the mammalian neocortex maintain a balance of excitation and inhibition states that are essential for neuronal computation. To maintain this poise, microcircuits composed of excitatory and inhibitory neurons adjust their connectivity and function. Here we study a signal pathway in the adult mouse neocortex where overactive neurons are sent to the network by higher levels of BMP2, a growth factor. Ultimately, this impairment of the functional recruitment of PV interneurons disrupts the cortical excitation–inhibition balance, with mice exhibiting seizures. Our findings suggest that developmental morphogen signalling is repurposed to stabilize cortical networks in the adult mammalian brain.
Despite a wide range of sensory stimulus, cortical circuits exhibit stable activity patterns that enable optimal information coding by the network. These adaptations happen from near instantaneous adjustments of excitation and inhibition during sensory processing, to slower modifications of synaptic connectivity. Thus, both rapid cell-intrinsic and long-lasting transcellular signalling processes have evolved to ensure the function and stability of the cortical network. (6)

Our Planatural Edition: A 21st Century PhiloSophia, Earthropo Ecosmic PediaVersion

Del Santo, Flavio and Nicolas Gisin. Creative and geometric times in physics, mathematics, logic, and philosophy. arXiv:2404.06566. University of Geneva natural scholars offer an insightful way so as to appreciate something constructive going on by itself. The phrase “creative time” is drawn from Henri Bergson a century earlier.

We propose a distinction between two concepts of time that play a role in physics: geometric and creative. The former is the time of deterministic physics and merely parametrizes a given evolution. The latter is characterized by real change, i.e. novel formation when a non-necessary event becomes occurs in an indeterministic physics. This allows us to cite a naturalistic presence as the moment that separates the potential future from the determined past. We discuss how these two concepts find applications in classical and intuitionistic mathematics and in classical and multivalued tensed logic. (Abstract).

There is almost nothing that we perceive so ubiquitously than the passage of time. And yet our most successful physical theories still struggle to make sense of this concept in an unequivocal way. Actually, modern physics has relegated time to play a less and less special role [1]. However, in the words of Ilya Prigogine, “no formulation of the laws of nature that does not take into account this constructive role of time can ever be satisfactory.” (1)

Ellis, John, et al. Ellis, John, et al. Do we Owe our Existence to Gravitational Waves?. arXiv:2402.03593. John Ellis, Kings College London, Brian Fields, Center for Advanced Studies of the Universe, University of Illinois, and Rebecca Surman, University of Notre Dame engage a novel imagination, akin to Simon Conway Morris, which is not constrained by the vested verdict that no other reality exists on its own. Rather by way of an integral vista, certain celestial elements and conditions can be seen to have a necessary relation to our considerate presence, This is not “anthropic” as much as an ability to perceive independent phenomena without which human beings could not be here. Our point is that just a mindfulness to allow the very possibility, which has been excluded for the past male century, can reveal an innately animate genesis.

Two heavy elements essential to human biology are thought to have been produced by the astrophysical r-process, which occurs in neutron-rich environments: iodine is a constituent of thyroid hormones that affect many physiological processes, and bromine is essential for tissue development. Collisions of neutron stars (kilonovae) have been identified as sources of r-process elements including tellurium, which is adjacent to iodine in the periodic table, and the lanthanides. Neutron-star collisions arise from energy loss due to gravitational-wave emission, leading us to suggest that they have played a key role in enabling human life by producing these certain elements. (Abstract)

In nuclear astrophysics, the rapid neutron-capture process, also known as the r-process, is a set of nuclear reactions that is responsible for the creation of approximately half of the atomic nuclei heavier than iron, the "heavy elements"

I am fascinated by the "inner space/outer space" connections that link the science at the smallest and largest scales. My research focusses on highest-energy sites in such as the big bang, exploding stars (supernovae), and particles in space (cosmic rays). Understanding these processes and their interplay allows us to trace the history of matter over a temporal expanse. (Brian Fields)

gontier, Nathalie, et al, eds.. Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024. The volume editors are NG, University of Lisbon, Andy Lock, Massey University, Australia and Chris Sinha, University of East Anglia, UK. The quotes next provide a good gist of this expansive scholastic collection as it has become newly enhanced by diverse global collaborations. Typical authoritative entries could be A Timeline for the Acquisition of Symbolic Cognition in the Human Lineage by Ian Tattersall, The Aboutness of Language and the Evolution of the Construction-ready Brain by Michael Arbib, The Evolution of Language and Speech by Antonio Benítez-Burraco and Dan Dediu, Animal Signals and Symbolism by Ulrike Griebel and D. Kimbrough Oller and Archewriting: The Symbolic Evolution of Script and Narrative by Rukmini Bhaya Nair. But from our late 2020s vantage, this historic collective cognitive sapience by which to accumulate a worldwise knowledge repository could be seen, in retrospect, as a intended descriptive re-presentation of a self-making participatory genesis to itself.

The capacity to symbolize and the use of symbols concern every aspect of human life. This dedicated volume investigates how such a capability arose in human development and is expressed in many areas of societal life. Thirty-nine topical chapters grouped into six themes that focus on epistemological, psychological, anthropological, ethological, linguistic, and social-technological dimensions. The handbook presents an in-depth, interdisciplinary, and comprehensive overview of the state of the art and science of this premier distinction of our individual and collective Earthumanity. (Publisher)

The Evolution of the Biological Sciences This chapter introduces the main research schools along which the field of evolutionary biology has proceeded. It was for some time as n the paradigm that combines traditional (Neo) Darwinism with those of the genomic Modern Synthesis. This 20th century view has since diversified into the Micro-, Meso-, and Macro-evolutionary schools which altogether compose an Ecological Evolutionary Developmental Biology (Eco-Evo-Devo). A 21st century version studies Reticulate Evolution (see NG) by means of symbiosis, lateral gene transfer, infective heredity, and hybridization. My second chapter examines how these different aspects are implemented into the symbolic sciences such as psychology, linguistics, anthropology, archaeology, sociology, and economics. (Chap. 1, N. Gontier)

heylighen, Francis, et al. Heylighen, Francis, et al.The Third Story of the Universe: an evolutionary worldview for the noosphere.. cris.vub.be/ws/portalfiles/portal/110058395/Third_Story_working_paper.pdf. Center Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel polyscholars FH, Shima Beigi and Clement Vidal achieve a March 2024 working paper synopsis to date of this unfolding worldwise 21st century life-centered revolution. A main guide is the visionary writings of the Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin about complexity, consciousness and the imminent collective noosphere. A presentation was made at The Noosphere at 100 conference, see Earth Learns for more.

This report is a first survey of a new, evolutionary narrative, called the Third Story, intended to replace and complement the earlier religious (First) and mechanistic (Second) worldviews. We contend that confusions due to a world that is ever more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) have eroded people’s sense of the world as comprehensible and manageable. The First Story provides meaning and values, but they no longer provide an accurate guidance. The Second Story sees the universe as a clockwork mechanism governed by the laws that allow us to build technologies but without any basis. Our Third Story version views nature as organizing itself towards increasing complexity and consciousness so as to produce matter, life, mind and society. Its implicit value is to invite individuals to work towards a global integration of the noosphere as an Earthuman superorganic ecosystem.

The Third Story is the newly emerging scientific worldview which sees the universe as self-organizing and evolving towards greater complexity and consciousness. It retains the understanding, prediction and technology provided by the Second Story, but adds that we are free in making informed decisions. It further gives a sense of wholeness and coherence by seeing individuals as part of the global superorganism or noosphere. Thus the Third Story appears to combine the benefits of First and Second Stories without their limitations, while offering a comprehensive, science-based worldview that includes a concrete sense of purpose, ethics and values. (22)

Hidalgo, Carlos, editor-in-chief.. EPS Grand Challenges: Physics for Society in the Horizon 2050.. Europe: IOP Science., 2024. The European Physics Society publishes a series of leading edge volumes as this, Google terms. This is an 800 page edition with over 100 senior authors such as Sara Seager, Jurgen Kurths, Frances Westall, Jacob Biamonte, Marc Barthelemy and Thiery Mora. Its relevance is evident by two main parts: Physics as global human enterprise for understanding Nature and Physics developments to tackling major issues affecting the lives of citizens. While a collection of disparate subjects, altogether as it looks ahead, one gets a sense of current advances and adventures by way of myriad planetary collaborations.

There are many images of science and of scientists. Some would imply that science will eventually reach the limits of knowledge while others create an expectation of endless horizons. In this book, we will look at all these aspects, going from particles, to atoms, cells, organisms, stars, galaxies and our own place in the universe. We explore what makes us, human beings, unique by an ability to imagine and shape the future through the scientific method. The book is an EPS action designed to address the social dimension of science and the grand challenges in physics so to benefit developed societies, raise standards of living at the global scale, and provide basic understanding of nature on the 2050 horizon.

Physics bridging the infinities. Chapter 2 presents an introduction and sections on: particle physics: physics beyond the Standard Model; the origin of visible matter; quantum gravity—an unfinished revolution; what is the Universe made of? Searching for dark energy/matter; a gravitational universe: black holes and gravitation waves; stars, the Sun, and planetary systems as physics laboratories; physics of the Earth's interior.

Physics for understanding life. Chapter 4 presents an introduction and sections on: searching for life in the Universe: our place in the Universe; artificial intelligence: powering the fourth industrial revolution; artificial life: sustainable self-replicating systems; toward a quantitative understanding of life; the emergence of life: the Sun–Earth connection.

Physics for secure and efficient societies. Chapter 7 presents an introduction and sections on: second quantum revolution: quantum computing and cybersecurity; sensors and their applications; the space sector: current and future prospects; large-scale complex sociotechnical systems and their interactions.

Hooft, Gerard t. et al.. The sounds of science a symphony for many instruments and voices.. Physica Scripta. 99/052501, 2024. As the abstract says, this 54 page edition is a second endeavor to gather diverse, select authorities including Nobel laureates to survey these conceptual frontiers. A first 2020 edition with this title appeared in this journal (95/6) edited by Gerianne Alexander. Typical entries are What characterises topological effects in physics? by Gerard ’t Hooft, Towards a machine that works like the brain: the neuromorphic computer by Ivan Schuller, et al, What can we say about the ‘Value of information’ in Biophysics? by Lázaro Castanedo, et al, What philosophers should really be thinking about by Roland Allen and Suzy Lidström and How much of physics have we found so far? By Anton Zeilinger. But again some 20 men and 3 women contribute essays with a specific focus sans any common theme. While disparate approaches within an intelligible cosmos are pursued, there is rarely a sense of closing on a real discovery. (see also at arXiv:2404.11724.)

Despite its amazing quantitative successes and contributions to revolutionary technologies, physics currently faces many unsolved mysteries ranging from the meaning of quantum mechanics to the nature of the dark energy and the future of the Universe. It is clearly prohibitive for the general reader, and even the best informed physicists, to follow the vast number of technical papers published in the thousands of specialized journals. For this reason, we have asked the leading experts across many of the most important areas of physics to summarise their global assessment of some of the most important issues. In lieu of an extremely long abstract summarising the contents, we invite the reader to look at the section headings and their authors, and then to indulge in a feast of stimulating topics spanning the current frontiers of fundamental physics from The Future of Physics by William D Phillips and What characterises topological effects in physics? by Gerard t Hooft through the contributions of the widest imaginable range of world leaders in their respective areas.

Pedia Sapiens: A Planetary Progeny Comes to Her/His Own Actual Factual Knowledge

The Noosphere at 100: The Future of Human Collective Consciousness.. https://event.fourwaves.com/n2conference/pages.. A home page for a gathering all about the 100th anniversary of the prescient conception of a global brain-like formation foreseen by Pierre Teilhard, Vladimir Vernadsky and Pierre Leroy in Paris in the early 1920s. A century later a prime rationale is the major evolutionary transitions scale which well bodes for its a consummate fulfillment, see next quotes. The meeting was arranged by the Human Energy initiative, see below, founded and led by David Sloan Wilson. The whole show achieves treads an innovative frontier by way of especial concerned voices and visions. A full list of speaker bios and paper abstracts are available on the site. In regard, see The Third Story of the Universe: an evolutionary worldview for the noosphere by Francis Heylighen, et al (search herein) about a 21st century revolution.

From the earliest forms of symbolic communication to the development of language, the printing press, and eventually the internet and AI, the activity and content of human knowing has been evolving. Becoming more and more complex, it has increasingly moved beyond the individual mind and into a shared space of interconnected thought. In 1923, Jesuit paleontologist and philosopher Teilhard de Chardin, in conversation with other early evolutionary scientists, coined the term “noosphere,” from the Greek term noos (mind) to name this newly conceived reality. A newer, “thinking layer” of the earth, the noosphere has evolved beyond the geosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere on which it depends and is the network into which all human thought taps and contributes.

The N2 Conference is sponsored by Human Energy, a research, media, and educational organization to introduce the noosphere as a Third Story of the universe that can provide a source of meaning and hope for future generations. The 3-day conference over November 17 – 19, 2023 at University of California, Berkeley, features thought leaders, scholars across fields, and eminent scientists, including, Johan Bollen, Anne Clin, Terrence Deacon, Ilia Delio, Ben Goertzel, Francis Heylighen, Robert Lawrence Kuhn, Raphael Liogier, Louis Savary, Gregory Stock, Brian Thomas Swimme, David Sloan Wilson, and others.

On Being a Noospheric Species Teilhard argued that the human evolutionary process does not exhibit the diversification and specialization pattern of biological evolution in general. Rather it has a convergent character. Today this has parallels with the recognition of major transitions that involved the coming together of autonomous organisms to form higher orders such as multicellular organisms like us. Symbolic communication (e.g. language) contributes to this unification because it enables thoughts to be shared and cognition to be collaborative. In this respect, humans have long been part of a collaborative mental process, a noosphere. (Terrence Deacon)

Human Energy’s team of scholars, scientists, philosophers, educators, and professionals are at the forefront of new research into the future of human collective consciousness. Our contributors bring together insights from neuroscience, anthropology, psychology, astrophysics, technology, data science, humanistic management, social entrepreneurship, environmental design, communication, education, sustainability, spirituality, and world affairs. Evolution is progressing towards a greater collective potential. Deeper understanding of this paradigm shift will enable humanity to tap into our full potential and ensure the flourishing of our species and our planet. At Human Energy, we find hope in the potential of humanity’s collective intelligence. (www.humanenergy.io/about)

Helighen, Francis, et al. The Third Story of the Universe: an evolutionary worldview for the noosphere. cris.vub.be/ws/portalfiles/portal/110058395/Third_Story_working_paper.pdf. Center Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel polyscholars FH, Shima Beigi and Clement Vidal achieve a March 2024 working paper synopsis to date of this unfolding worldwise 21st century life-centered revolution. A main guide is the visionary writings of the Jesuit scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin about complexity, consciousness and the imminent collective noosphere. A presentation was made at The Noosphere at 100 conference, see Earth Learns or more.

This report is a first survey of a new, evolutionary narrative, called the Third Story, intended to replace and complement the earlier religious (First) and mechanistic (Second) worldviews. We contend that confusions due to a world that is ever more volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) have eroded people’s sense of the world as comprehensible and manageable. The First Story provides meaning and values, but they no longer provide an accurate guidance. The Second Story sees the universe as a clockwork mechanism governed by the laws that allow us to build technologies but without any basis. Our Third Story version views nature as organizing itself towards increasing complexity and consciousness so as to produce matter, life, mind and society. Its implicit value is to invite individuals to work towards a global integration of the noosphere as an Earthuman superorganic ecosystem.

The Third Story is the newly emerging scientific worldview which sees the universe as self-organizing and evolving towards greater complexity and consciousness. It retains the understanding, prediction and technology provided by the Second Story, but adds that we are free in making informed decisions. It further gives a sense of wholeness and coherence by seeing individuals as part of the global superorganism or noosphere. Thus the Third Story appears to combine the benefits of First and Second Stories without their limitations, while offering a comprehensive, science-based worldview that includes a concrete sense of purpose, ethics and values. (22)

Pierre-Yves Oudeyer. www.pyoudeyer.com.. . The French computational psychologist (search) is the director of the Flowers project-team at the Inria Center of University of Bordeaux. Current (March 2024) projects are now much involved with chatty AI features guided by insights gained from studies with children. A recent talk is Developmental AI: machines that learn like children and help children learn better. As the quotes say, another senior scholar finds evidence that both youngsters and large language modes use trail/error iterate methods in similar ways. See also Open-ended learning and development in machines and humans on the flowers.inria.fr. site.

Together with a great team, I study lifelong autonomous learning, and the self-organization of behavioural, cognitive and language structures at the frontiers of artificial intelligence and cognitive sciences. I use machines as tools to understand better how children learn and develop, and I study how one can build machines that learn autonomously like children, as well as integrate within human cultures, within the new field of developmental artificial intelligence. (P-Y O)

The Flowers project-team, at the University of Bordeaux and at Ensta ParisTech, studies versions of holistic individual development. These models can help us better understand how children learn, as well as to build machines that gain knowledge as children do, aka developmental artificial intelligence, with applications in educational technologies, automated discovery, robotics and human-computer interaction.

Farisco, Michele, et al. Is artificial consciousness achievable? Lessons from the human brain. arXiv:2405.04540. We cite these neuroscience considerations of a potential AI sentience by MF, Uppsala University, Kathinka Evers, Biology and Molecular Genetics Institute, Italy and Jean-Pierre Changeux, Institut Pasteur, Paris for themselves and because the third author is a renowned octogenarian authority (search).

We consider the question of developing artificial consciousness from an evolutionary perspective, taking the sentient human brain as a reference. Several structural and functional features that appear to reach human-like complex awareness are identified which AI research needs to take into account. Even if AI is limited in its ability to emulate human consciousness for both intrinsic (structural and architectural) and extrinsic (scientific and technological knowledge) reasons, taking inspiration from cerebral attributes is a strategy towards perceptive AI. Therefore, we recommend neuroscience-inspired caution in talking about artificial consciousness. In regard, we propose to specify what is common and what differs in AI conscious processing from our full human experience. (Abstract)

Wang, Yu, et al.. Can AI Understand Our Universe? Test of Fine-Tuning GPT by Astrophysical Data. arXiv:2404.10019. Eight computational astroscientists posted Italy, Armenia, China and Iran evaluate and compare guided applications of these current AI frontiers to data-intensive celestial studies. In their careful procedure they do find a valuable enhancement to an extent to define a new spiral phase of planetary human-computer teamwork.

As astro-researchers, we are curious about if scientific data can be correctly analyzed by large language models (LLMs) and yield accurate physics. In this article, we fine-tune the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) model from the observations of galaxies, quasars, stars, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), and the black holes (BHs), whereby the our model is able to classify astrophysical phenomena, distinguish between two types of GRBs, deduce the redshift of quasars, and estimate BH parameters. With the volume of multidisciplinary data and the advancement of AI technology, we look forward to a deeper comprehensive understanding of our universe. This article also shares some interesting thoughts on data collection and AI design. Using the approach of understanding the universe as a guideline, we propose a method of series expansion for AI, suggesting ways to train and control AI that is smarter than humans. (Abstract)

McMillen, Patrick and Michael Levin. Collective intelligence: A unifying concept for integrating biology across scales and substrates. Communications Biology. 7/378, 2024. Tufts University social scholars (search ML) begin by noting that a robust propensity across life’s widely stratified evolution to form recurrent viable creaturely groupings with their own cognitive capabilities has by now been well verified. A conclusion is then stated that a natural universality of nested collaborative assemblies at every level and phase of fauna and fauna has been established. See also How Is Flocking Like Computing? By Stephen Strogatz and Iain Cousin in Quanta. (March 29, 2024) for another thorough affirmation. As these studies converge and reinforce they presage a real discovery of an independent, me + We = US, family-like universality. With this in place, the authors propose that this iconic finding can serve as a guide for novel intentional and synthetic coherences.

A defining feature of biology is the use of a multiscale architecture ranging from molecular networks to cells, tissues, organs, whole bodies, and swarms. However, biology is not only nested structurally, but also functionally such as physiological, morphological, and behavioral state spaces. Percolating from one level to a higher organization requires multiple components to work together. Here we survey scales to show the ability of cellular material to make decisions that implement homeodynamic cooperation with collective intelligence at the cell, tissue, and whole-organism levels. We then briefly outline the implications of this approach for regenerative medicine and synthetic bioengineering. (Excerpt)
.Alan Turing was prescient in studying both intelligence and the chemical basis of self-organization for they have much in common with a non-neural collective intelligence of morphogenesis. Neuroscience can benefit from a glimpse into e the evolutionary past of the brain’s remarkable capabilities, while developmental biology and bioengineering can borrow the practical and conceptual tools of neuroscience which is likely to be about much more basic principlesthan the function of classical neurons. Taken together, collective intelligence is an extremely exciting and interdisciplinary emerging field that spans from the most fundamental philosophical problems of the parts-whole relationship to advancing fundamental and applied discovery in a number of important subfields. (12)

Ecosmos: A Revolutionary Fertile, Habitable, Solar-Bioplanet, Incubator Lifescape

Meng, Xiangyi, et al.. Percolation Theories for Quantum Networks.. arXiv:2310.18420. We enter this item by Northeastern, Jiangsu, Stockholm, Oxford and Bar-Ilan University (Shlomo Havlin) system scientists as a current case of how nature’s ubiquitous cellular network complexities are even being found and finessed even in these deepest realms as they become neoclassical in similar kind.

Quantum networks have advanced in both theoretical and experimental domains over the last decade. There is now a need to understand their large-scale features by way of statistical physics. Here we discuss how entanglement can be effectively distributed between distant nodes in a quantum network which is partially entangled. We draw on mappings to percolation theory, a branch of statistical physics for network connectivity. Our approach leads to a “concurrence percolation'' which uncovers a quantum advantage. This suggests that quantum networks are more resilient within classical percolation contexts, which offers insights into future network design. (Abstract)

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