IV. Ecosmomics: Independent Complex Network Systems, Computational Programs, Genetic Ecode Scripts

4. Universality Affirmations: A Critical Complementarity

Blythe, Richard. Symmetry and Universality in Language Change. arXiv.1508.05297. The University of Edinburgh physicist offers one more perception of a common constancy across many levels, which is here noted in its phenomenal human phase. See also Blythe’s paper A Search for General Principles of Nonequilibrium Physics in Physica Scripta (40/421006, 2016).

We investigate mechanisms for language change within a framework where an unconventional signal for a meaning is first innovated, and then subsequently propagated through a speech community to replace the existing convention. We appeal to the notion of universality as it applies to complex interacting systems in the physical sciences and which establishes a link between generic ('universal') patterns at the macroscopic scale and relates them to symmetries at the microscopic scale. By relating the presence and absence of specific symmetries to fundamentally distinct mechanisms for language change at the level of individual speakers and speech acts, we are able to draw conclusions about which of these underlying mechanisms are most likely to be responsible for the changes that actually occur. Since these mechanisms are typically believed to be common to all speakers in all speech communities, this provides a means to relate universals in individual behaviour to language universals. (Abstract)

Braccini, Michele, et al. Online Adaptation in Robots as Biological Development Provides Phenotypic Plasticity. arXiv:2006.02367. MB and Andrea Roli, University of Bologna and Stuart Kauffman, Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle consider how this responsive organismic feature, re the Abstract, could be availed for better android designs. By so doing, a concept, due much to SK decades ago (search), is advanced that this condition is effective because it resides at an active critical poise between conserve and create states. See also Emergence of Organisms by Andrea Roli and Stuart Kauffman in Entropy (22/10, 2020), re third quote, and Self-organization toward Criticality by Synaptic Plasticity by Roxana Zeraati, et al at arXiv:2010.07888.

The ability to respond to environmental stimuli with appropriate actions is a property shared by living organisms, and it is sought in the design of robotic systems. Phenotypic plasticity provides a way for achieving this as it qualifies those organisms that, from one genotype, can express different phenotypes in response to changing environments, without genetic modifications. In this work we study phenotypic plasticity in robots that are equipped with online sensor adaptation. We also show that the dynamical regime necessary for the best performance is the critical one, bringing further evidence that natural and artificial systems capable of optimally balancing robustness and adaptivity are in a critical state. (Abstract excerpt)

We start from known and relevant properties of organisms and check whether they can provide general principles that can explain their phenotypic plasticity and can then bring us to link development and evolution. We believe that one of these principles can be found in criticality. A long-standing conjecture in complex system science — the criticality hypothesis — emphasizes the optimal balance between robustness and adaptiveness of those systems in a dynamical regime between order and chaos. (3)

Criticality: The organisms in the evolving biosphere are very likely to be critical, i.e., their dynamical regime is at the boundary between order and disorder. This conjecture has found strong support in biology, neuroscience, as well as computer science, and it can be expressed by these statements: (1) critical systems are more evolvable than systems in other dynamical conditions as they attain an optimal trade-off between mutational robustness and phenotypic innovation and (2) critical systems have advantages over ordered or disordered ones, because they optimally balance information storage, modification and transfer. (Entropy paper, 3)

Brito, Samurai, et al. Role of Dimensionality in Complex Networks. Nature Scientific Reports. 6/27992, 2016. In these times of transdisciplinary syntheses, Brito, and L. R. de Silva, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, and Constantio Tsallis, Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas, Brazil post a technical study of how Tsallis’ theories (search) of nonextensive statistical mechanics and thermodynamics have an innate affinity to scale-free networks as they array across natural and social systems. In this regard, “basic universality relations” can be quantified and affirmed. For some context, see a 2005 Nonextensive Statistical Mechanics and Complex Scale-Free Networks paper by Stefan Thurner (search) in a special issue of Europhysics News (36/6) on Tsallis’ work.

Buendia, Victor, et al. Feedback Mechanisms for Self-Organization to the Edge of a Phase Transition. arXiv:2006.03020. University of Granada, Columbia University, and Rutgers University bioscientists including Migeul Munoz continue to explore and finesse the various ways that nature’s newly found propensity to seek and attain an optimum dynamic balance between reciprocal modes or stages can be seen to take and express.

Scale-free outbursts of activity are commonly observed in physical, geological, and biological systems. The idea of self-organized criticality (SOC) suggests that natural systems can self-tune to a critical state with its concomitant power-laws and scaling. Theoretical progress now explains SOC by relating its critical properties to those of a non-equilibrium phase transition that separates an active state in which dynamical activity reverberates indefinitely, from an absorbing or quiescent state where activity eventually ceases. Here, we consider a related concept: self-organized bistability (SOB). We review similarities and differences between SOC and SOB under a common theoretical framework, and discuss "self-organized quasi-criticality" and "self-organized collective oscillations", with the aim of providing feedback mechanisms for self-organization to the edge of a phase transition. (Abstract excerpt)

In summary, we have reviewed within a common and unified framework different types of mechanisms for the self-organization to the vicinity of phase transitions. We hope that this work help clarify the literature on the subject, and contribute to new and exciting developments in physics and other disciplines. This could be especially important in biology, where the idea that living systems can obtain important functional advantages by operating at the edge of two alternative/complementary types of phases/state has attracted a great deal of attention and excitement. (21)

Burgess, Mark. On the Scaling of Functional Spaces, From Smart Cities to Cloud Computing. arXiv:1602.06091. Burgess has a doctorate in theoretical physics from the University of Newcastle, and has since become a computer scientist with accomplishments such as Promise Theory, (Google this, also about MB) and more. His latest book is In Search of Certainty: The Science of Our Information Infrastructure (2015). This paper considers how the work of Luis Bettencourt, Geoffrey West, and colleagues about consistent, nested repetitions of complex network systems in all manner of cities and organisms can inform the presence of a true, innate universality. As these findings grow in breadth, depth and veracity, they imply a constant natural recurrence that can be applied in kind to other areas, so as bring needed understandings and improvements going forward. See also his Spacetimes with Semantics postings at arXiv:1411.5563, and 1506.01461.

Universality and scaling are powerful notions in science. Having data about the scaling of functional processes, at large and small N, offers an invaluable insight into what we can expect of technological systems at scale, and their increasing intrusion into human society. Understanding social sciences in terms of laws, analogous to physical law, is an area where progress has been made over the past century. Universality reveals emergent laws, on broad scales. However, a fuller understand of systems, whether human cities, smart cities, computers, or any other human structure, is only achieved by describing both dynamics and semantics at micro- and mesoscopic scales. Just as we cannot understand medicine without understanding the functional roles of structures inside organisms, so the functional organs in a city are key to what it does. The universal scaling arguments for urban areas, in, are exciting discoveries. (36)

Caetano-Anolles, Derek, et al. Evolution of Macromolecular Structure: A ‘Double Tale’ of Biological Accretion.. arXiv:1805.06487. Reviewed more in Common Code, a father, son, and daughter team achieve point out a similar formation process from planets to life's development to urban structures.

Cai, Chao-Ran, et al. Epidemic criticality in temporal networks. Physics Reviews Research. 6/L022017 April, 2024. Northwest University, China, Shaanxi Key Laboratory for Physics Frontiers, Xi’an, China and Aalto University, Espoo, Finland (Petter Holme) theorists discern the deep presence of self-organized critical transitions even in public phenomena such as disease vectors amongst diverse, many body populations.

Analytical studies of network epidemiology often focus on the extreme situations where the timescales of network dynamics are well separated (longer or shorter) from that of propagation. In realistic scenarios, however, these timescales could be similar, which has profound implications for modeling. Combining Monte Carlo simulations and mean-field theory, we analyze the behavior of susceptible-infected epidemics in the vicinity of the critical threshold of temporal networks. Dynamic correlations from being close to infected nodes increases the likelihood of infection and drive the state in the opposite direction. (Excerpt)

Calim, Ali, et al. Chimera States in Hybrid Coupled Neuron Populations. arXiv:2003.01854. Zonguldak Bulent Ecevit University, Turkey, Istanbul Technical University, and University of Granada, Spain biomedical engineers report a sophisticated technical finesse of this common preference for an optimum dual dance in our cerebral cognition.

Chimera state is a recently discovered dynamical system behavior which has attracted an increasing interest, and which is characterized by the coexistence of synchronization and desynchronization within a population of identical dynamical elements. This interesting phenomenon has been studied in a wide range of natural and artificial systems, as well as in neuron populations. (15)

Carra, Giulia and Marc Barthelemy. The Fundamental Diagram of Urbanization. arXiv:1609.06982. By way of our 2016 global vista, French CNRS mathematicians are able to visualize the growth of whole cities to discern universally recurrent patterns. And once again, an independent, prescriptive source is implied.

The recent availability of geolocalized historical data allows to address quantitatively spatial features of the time evolution of urban areas. Here, we discuss how the number of buildings evolves with population and we show on different datasets (Chicago, 1930−2010; London, 1900−2015; New York City, 1790−2013; Paris, 1861−2011) that this curve evolves in a 'universal' way with three distinct phases. After an initial pre-urbanization phase, the first phase is a rapid growth of the number of buildings versus population. In a second regime, where residences are converted into offices and stores, the population decreases while the number of buildings stays approximatively constant. In another subsequent -- modern -- phase, the number of buildings and the population grow again and correspond to a re-densification of cities. (Abstract excerpt)

Castellani, Elena and Sebastian De Haro. Duality, Fundamentality, and Emergence. arXiv:1803.09443. University of Florence and University of Amsterdam philosophers of science work toward a clarified resolve and integration of these conceptual qualities, which as usual requires a better definition of terms.

We argue that dualities offer new possibilities for relating fundamentality, levels, and emergence. Namely, dualities often relate two theories whose hierarchies of levels are inverted relative to each other, and so allow for new fundamentality relations, as well as for epistemic emergence. We find that the direction of emergence typically found in these cases is opposite to the direction followed in the standard accounts. Namely, the standard emergence is that of decreasing fundamentality. But in cases of duality, a more fundamental entity can emerge out of a less fundamental one. This possibility can be traced back to the existence of different classical limits in quantum field theories and string theories. (Abstract)

Castellini, Elena and Dean Rickles. Introduction to Special Issue on Dualities. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics. 59/1, 2017. University of Florence and University of Sydney philosophers of science survey some dozen papers about nature’s apparent propensity to array into double phases and their altogether trinity. We note Complementarity, Wave-Particle Duality and Applicability by Peter Bokulich, Dualities and Emergent Gravity by Sebastian de Haro, and Duality as a Category-Theoretic Concept by David Corfield. The entry opens with a Yin/Yang Tao image, the ancient icon for this native quality. It is said herein the twoness is a general “elemental/composite” correspondence which forms a third whole. See also a later entry Duality, Fundamentality and Emergence by E. Castellini and S. de Haro above and at arXiv:1803.09443.

Chialvo, Dante. Life at the Edge: Complexity and Criticality in Biological Function. arXiv:1810.11737. The Center for Complex Systems & Brain Sciences, National University of San Martin, Buenos Aires polyphysicist posts his tutorial lecture from June at Jagellonian University, Poland, in cooperation with UNSAM, Argentina. As the Abstract cites, Chialvo (search) has been a leading researcher for two decades of self-organized critical phenomena across nature, especially in cerebral form and function. (I heard Per Bak speak in 2000.) But in this 2018 entry, a deep and wide veracity and synthesis can now be reported. In addition to neural activity, an innate tendency for natural systems such as proteins, microbes and groupings to seek and reach an optimum poise of more or less orderly states is strongly evident. A dynamic duality of conserve/create, control/liberate, segmented/integrated, me entity and We empathy, and ever more, from which complexity, phase transitions and consciousness arise, is found to be a common preference. Yet as I edit this on the day after the US elections, however can it dawn, as it must, that so many 50 – 50 splits are an epitome of this cosmic complementarity?

By virtue of these findings, DC proposes that integrated information theory (Tononi) also resides in a critical balance by which foster consciousness. Now in the worldwise context of this website, a once and future confirmation of universal yang/ying (bigender) principles in a whole Taome is being achieved. See also, for example, Homeostatic Plasticity and Emergence of Functional Networks in a Whole-Brain Model at Criticality Nature Scientific Reports (8/15682) and Growing Critical: Self-Organized Criticality in a Developing Neural Brain at (1811.02861). But in the later 2010s, bereft of any integral reality, political dichotomies remain locked in destructive battle.

Why life is complex and importantly what is the origin of the over abundance of complexity in nature? This is a fundamental scientific question which, paraphrasing the late Per Bak (1946-2002), "is screaming to be answered but seldom is even being asked". In these lectures we review recent attempts across several scales to understand the origins of complex biological problems from the perspective of critical phenomena. To illustrate the approach three cases are discussed, namely the large scale brain dynamics, the characterisation of spontaneous fluctuations of proteins and the physiological complexity of the cell mitochondria network. (Abstract)

The next sections will progressively introduce the problem of complexity and how its origin can be related to critical phenomena. The examples were chosen with the intention to persuade the reader that the same simple laws apply exactly to very different complex phenomena, a notion known in physics as universality. (1) Phase transitions occur in all the matter that surrounds us, and its study has been systematised recently in a great variety of collective phenomena that occur whenever a large number of non-linear elements interact. It is known, for example, that the correlations between the parts that make up a system obey statistically identical rules, regardless of whether the constituent elements are neurons, ants, grains of sand or water molecules. In all cases, the same theory explains how the system is ordered or disordered, what types of collective behavior
can be expected, how stable or unstable they will be, how it can be disturbed etc. The fact that all these disparate phenomena obey the same laws is what is known in physics as universality. (3)

The universality discussed here suggests that the way in which complexity emerges in the example of the magnetization can be seen generically in phase transitions at systems very different from one another. Indeed many examples can be found in the recent literature such as bird flocks, large groups of neurons, stockbrokers, etc. We will discuss three examples including important aspect of cerebral dynamics, as well as proteins and mitochondrial dynamics, all governed by common universal principles. (4) Complexity is Always Critical: The preceding paragraphs summarize one of the lessons of statistical physics: complexity and criticality are almost synonymous: what makes a system complex are exactly the same properties exhibited by a system when it approaches the critical point of an order-disorder phase transition. (4)

It is remarkable how universality allows us to use the exact same framework to study complex phenomena of very different nature and scales, from a culture of few thousand neurons to the entire brain, from a small protein molecule to a network spanning the entire cell. (11)

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