If, as we have argued, consciousness is an evolutionary invention—akin to wings or lungs—that is useful to us, it is most likely useful to other organisms with traits deeply homologous to ours. They share with us the difficulties of moving, probing the environment, remembering, predicting the future, and coping with unforeseen challenges. If the same behavioral and cognitive criteria are applied as to much larger-brained vertebrates, then some insects qualify as conscious agents, with no less certainty than dogs or cats. (369)

Palyi, Gyula, et al, eds. Advances in Asymmetric Autocatalysis. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press, 2017. University of Modena, Italy and University of Pannonia, Hungary editors gather chapters about life’s deep propensity to catalyze, activate, organize itself by way of intrinsic, recurrent drives, structures and processes all the way from universe to us. A typical chapter is The Importance of Parachirality in Life Science by Noriko Fujii, et al.

Asymmetric autocatalysis is a chemical reaction which leads from achiral starting materials to chiral products, and in which the product accelerates its own formation reaction (conventional catalysis) and promotes the prevalence of its own chiral configuration (asymmetric induction). The book contains expert-contributed chapters that describe the most exciting recent developments in the field of the Soai reaction and in related topics, ranging from mechanistic studies and theoretical research, to practical problems in chiral syntheses and products.

Preiner, Martina, et al. Catalysts, Autocatalysis and the Origin of Metabolism. Interface Focus. October, 2019. In an 80th birthday festschrift for the NASA astrobiologist Michael Russell, Heinrich Heine University, Dusseldorf and University College London bioscientists including John F. Allen describe the presence and contribution of these innate self-activating, combining, and emergent processes as they bring life to conducive matter. Circa autumn 2019, one could surmise that an animate ecosmos is engaged in some manner of auto-creative, autopoietic, self-making enterprise. How then might we sapient beings aspire to be the selves, aka cosmic catalysts, to take up and continue?

If life on Earth started out in geochemical environments like hydrothermal vents, then it started from gases like CO2, N2 and H2. Anaerobic autotrophs still live from these gases today, and inhabit the Earth's crust. In the search for connections between abiotic processes in ancient geological systems and in biotic systems, it becomes evident that chemical activation (catalysis) of these gasses and a constant source of energy are key aspects. The H2–CO2 redox reaction provides a constant source of energy and anabolic inputs, because the equilibrium lies on the side of reduced carbon compounds. Identifying geochemical catalysts that en route to nitrogenous organic compounds and autocatalytic networks will be an important step towards understanding prebiotic chemistry. (Abstract)

Weller-Davies, Oliver, et al. Combinatorial Results for Network-Based Models of Metabolic Origins. arXiv:1910.09051. Oxford University and University of Canterbury New Zealand (Mike Steel) researchers advance the case that autocatalytic phenomena, broadly conceived, played an important role as sustainable, complex living systems proceeded to boot themselves up and running.

Wolchover, Natalie. Cosmic Triangles Open a Window to the Origin of Time. Quanta. October 29, 2019. In this posting about the bootstrap universe revival, the physics journalist continues her report begun in Physicists Uncover Geometric “Theory Space” by NW in Quanta (February 23, 2017) and herein. This review covers new work by Nima Arkani-Hamed based on The Cosmological Bootstrap: Inflationary Correlators from Symmetries and Singularities at arXiv:1811.00024, A trio of young physicists David Baumann, Gui Pimentel, and Hayden Lee (search arXiv) are profiled next. See also The Hidden Pattern by Gabriel Popkin in New Scientist for February 18, 2017, and The Bootstrap: Building Nature from the Bottom Up by Lauren Greenspan (Google title, name).

The physicists employed a strategy known as the bootstrap, a term derived from the phrase “pick yourself up by your own bootstraps” (instead of pushing off of the ground). The approach infers the laws of nature by considering only the mathematical logic and self-consistency of the laws themselves, instead of building on empirical evidence. Using the bootstrap philosophy, the researchers derived and solved a concise mathematical equation that dictates the possible patterns of correlations in the sky that result from different primordial ingredients. (2)

Wolchover, Natalie. Physicists Uncover Geometric “Theory Space.”. Quanta. February 23, 2017. The science writer reviews the “bootstrap” concept, which was first proposed by Geoffrey Chew in the 1960s as a theory of a self-creative cosmic emergence. While respected, it was tabled until a 2010s burst of interest gave it a new currency. This entry is well paired with a 2019 update Cosmic Triangles Open a Window to the Origin of Time by NW (Quanta, October 29), also reviewed herein. An initial entry could be The Conformal Bootstrap by David Poland and David Simmons-Duffin in Nature Physics (12/535, 2016) about its latest insightful technicalities. The luminous work of Alexander Polyakov and Nima Arkani-Hamed, both now at IAS Princeton, is profiled next, again the unfolding advance is well posted on arXiv.

In the 1960s, the charismatic physicist Geoffrey Chew espoused a radical vision of the universe, and with it, a new way of doing physics. Theorists of the era were struggling to find order in an unruly zoo of newfound particles. They wanted to know which ones were the fundamental building blocks of nature and which were composites. But Chew, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, argued against such a distinction. “Nature is as it is because this is the only possible nature consistent with itself,” he wrote at the time. He believed he could deduce nature’s laws solely from the demand that they be self-consistent. Particles, Chew said, “pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.” (1)

As the new generation of bootstrappers explores this abstract theory space, they seem to be verifying the vision that Chew, now 92 and long retired, laid out half a century ago — but they’re doing it in an unexpected way. Their findings indicate that the set of all quantum field theories forms a unique mathematical structure, one that does indeed pull itself up by its own bootstraps, which means it can be understood on its own terms. (2) As physicists use the bootstrap to explore the geometry of this theory space, they are pinpointing the roots of “universality,” a remarkable phenomenon in which identical behaviors emerge in materials as different as magnets and water. (2)

It’s far from clear whether our own universe holographically emerges from a conformal field theory in the way that AdS universes do, or if this is even the right way to think about it. The hope is that, by bootstrapping their way around the unifying geometric structure of possible physical realities, physicists will get a better sense of where our universe fits in the grand scheme of things — and what that grand scheme is. (5)

Liang, L., et al. Self-Similarities and Power-laws in the Time-resolved Spectra of GRB 190114C, 130427A, 160509A, and 160625B. arXiv:1910.12615. In an entry to appear in Astronomy & Astrophysics, five scientists at the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network, Pescara, Italy report upon the title Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) phenomena as it exemplifies a natural fractal display.

Conclusion: The most far reaching discovery of self-similarities and power-laws are extensively confirmed, thanks also to the conclusions presented in the companion papers, which leads to the existence of a discrete quantized repetitive polarized emission on a timescale as short as 10−14s. These results open new paths in the discovery of fundamental physical laws.

Cridland, Alex, et al. Connecting Planet Formation and Astrochemistry: A Main Sequence for C/O in Hot-Exoplanetary Atmospheres. arXiv:1910.13071. Leiden Observatory and McMaster University scientists including Ewine van Dishoeck and Ralph Pudritz post an extensive quantification of global, oxygen to carbon gaseous mixtures and interactions as they may evolve due to migrating large and small solar system objects.

Rodet, Laetita, et al. ODEA: Orbital Dynamics in a Complex Evolving Architecture. arXiv:1909.04536. We cite this entry by University of Grenoble, Stanford University and UC Berkeley researchers as an example of analytic methods such as symplectic integrators being applied even to exoplanetary solar systems. ODEA stands for an algorithm they developed for this purpose. In regard, a take away may be that even heavenly spheres do indeed dance and move to a mathematical score.

Cosmomics: A Genomic Source Code in Procreative Effect

Nichol, Daniel, et al. Model Genotype-Phenotype Mappings and the Algorithmic Structure of Evolution. Journal of the Royal Society Interface. 16/20190332, 2019. Oxford University and H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, FL computer scientists and mathematical oncologists including Peter Jeavons describe an advanced complex systems biology method which joins cellular components into a dynamic synthesis from genes to metabolism. Then a novel program-like factor is brought into play to better quantify and express the metastasis invasions. To so reflect, from our late vantage Earth life’s contingent evolution seems yet to reach a global cumulative knowledge which can be fed back to contain, heal and prevent. We are given to perceive some manner of palliative, self-medicating procreation, which seems meant to pass on to our intentional continuance. What an incredible scenario is being revealed to us.

Cancers are complex dynamic systems that undergo evolution and selection. Personalized medicine in the clinic increasingly relies on predictions of tumour response to one or more therapies, which are complicated by the phenotypic evolution of the tumour. The emergence of resistant phenotypes is not predicted from genomic data, since the relationship between genotypes and phenotypes, termed genotype–phenotype (GP) mapping, is neither injective nor functional. We review mapping models within a generalized evolutionary framework that relates genotype, phenotype, environment and fitness. The GP-mapping provides a pathway for understanding the potential routes of evolution taken by cancers, which will be necessary knowledge for improving personalized therapies. (Abstract excerpt)

Lee, UnCheol and George Mashour. Role of Network Science in the Study of Anesthetic State Transitions. Anesthesiology. 129/1029, 2018. University of Michigan Medical School neuroscientists, who are involved with consciousness studies at UMMS (search each author), illustrate how the common multiplex networks found everywhere also provide functional structures as brains pass into and out of relatively unconscious states. It is then affirmed that as these conditions exhibit a self-organized criticality with scale-free power laws, this phenomena appears to manifestly arise from universal, lawful principles. Within this approach, the array of nodes, links, hubs, and dynamic topologies are cited as a major determinant of global information processing.

University of Michigan Medical School neuroscientists, who are involved with consciousness studies at UMMS (search each author), illustrate how the common multiplex networks found everywhere also provide functional structures as brains pass into and out of relatively unconscious states. It is then affirmed that as these conditions exhibit a self-organized criticality with scale-free power laws, this phenomena appears to manifestly arise from universal, lawful principles. Within this approach, the array of nodes, links, hubs, and dynamic topologies are cited as a major determinant of global information processing.

Perc, Matjaz. Diffusion Dynamics and Information Spreading in Multilayer Networks: An Overview. European Physical Journal Special Topics. 228/2351, 2019. The University of Maribor, Slovenia theorist (search) emphasizes how nature’s multiplex networks not only engender neural, physiological, and social structures but also, by their title features, serve life’s vital communicative conveyance. It is then said that a better working knowledge of network phenomena can help avoid problems with power grids, traffic flow, and so on.

Porter, Mason. Nonlinearity + Networks: A 2020 Vision. arXiv:1911.03805. The UCLA systems mathematician (search) broadly reviews and previews to date this expansive webwork field. Sections include Centrality, Clustering and Large-Scale Structures and Time-Dependence. And whenever might it dawn that all these lively phenomena and their studies are actually quantifying a natural anatomy and physiology?

I will briefly survey several fascinating topics, methods and ideas in networks and nonlinearity, which I anticipate to be important during the next several years. These include temporal networks (in which the entities and/or their interactions change in time), stochastic and deterministic dynamical processes on networks, adaptive networks (in which a dynamical process on a network is coupled to the network structure), and "higher-order" interactions (which involve three or more entities in a network). I draw examples from a variety of scenarios such as contagion dynamics, opinion models, waves, and coupled oscillators. (Abstract)

Systems Evolution: A 21st Century Genesis Synthesis

Duclos, Kevin, et al. Investigating the Evolution and Development of Biological Complexity under the Framework of Epigenetics. Evolution & Development. 21/5, 2019. University of Calgary biologists KD, Jesse Hendrikse and Heather Jamniczky first note an impasse with regard to explanations of life’s intricate emergence by the nucleotide code alone. It is here proposed that recently understood epigenetic influences might offer a promising broadening of these studies.

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