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

3. Iteracy: A Rosetta Ecosmos Textuality

Burridge, James. Spatial Evolution of Human Dialects. Physical Review X. 7/031008, 2017. In an extensive technical paper, the Portsmouth University systems mathematician considers ways that widely removed material principles and literary editions could yet be found to have a common affinity. It is noted here as an auspicious cross-fertilization, not conceivable much earlier. We seem on the verge of a discovery that universe and human indeed form a continuous, exemplary radiation, which has a long tradition, by way of innately textual natural creation. In accord, our anthropo/cosmo sapiensphere may thus be appreciated as phenomenal readers, and re-writers. A commentary in the same issue is Language Boundaries Driven by Surface Tension by the linguist Andrew D. M. Smith. See also Statistical Physics of Language Maps in the USA by Burridge at arXiv:1811.08788.

The geographical pattern of human dialects is a result of history. Here, we formulate a simple spatial model of language change which shows that the final result of this historical evolution may, to some extent, be predictable. The model shows that the boundaries of language dialect regions are controlled by a length minimizing effect analogous to surface tension, mediated by variations in population density which can induce curvature, and by the shape of coastline or similar borders. The predictability of dialect regions arises because these effects will drive many complex, randomized early states toward one of a smaller number of stable final configurations. The model is able to reproduce observations and predictions of dialectologists. These include dialect continua, isogloss bundling, fanning, the wavelike spread of dialect features from cities, and the impact of human movement on the number of dialects that an area can support. (Abstract)

We conclude by noting that a major theme of the book War and Peace by Tolstoy is the idea that history is determined not by great individuals but rather by millions of small choices made by the people: “To elicit the laws of history we must leave aside kings, ministers, and generals, and select for study the homogeneous, infinitesimal elements which influence the masses” [98]. As pointed out by Vitány [99], Tolstoy was, in modern terms, advocating the formulation of a statistical mechanics of history. The work we present is an attempt to formulate such a theory for the spatial history of language. Because of its simplicity, dealing only with copying and movement, our model may apply more broadly to other forms of culture. (20)

I (JB) am a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at Portsmouth University. I am currently funded by a Leverhulme Fellowship for the academic year 2016-2017. I started my career studying Physics at the University of Warwick, and then did Maths Part III at the University of Cambridge, followed by a Ph.D. in Statistical Physics also at Cambridge. Before becoming a lecturer, I worked in banking as a Quant in interest rate derivatives for RBS, before becoming a school Mathematics and Physics teacher.

Bynum, Terrell Ward. On the Possibility of Quantum Informational Structural Realism. Minds and Machines. 24/1, 2014. In an issue on Philosophy in the Age of Information, the Southern Connecticut State University scholar and founding editor of Metaphilosophy, proceeds to expand information concepts and studies onto quantum realms. In his seventies, Bynum is at the frontier of realizations that cosmic nature may be most distinguished by a communicative content, via “primordial qubits.” In regard referral is once more made to J. A. Wheeler’s “It from Bit” physics vision that so unites human and universe.

Camps, Jean-Baptiste, et al. Camps, Jean-Baptiste, et al. On the transmission of texts: written cultures as complex systems.. arXiv:2505.19246. Ecole nationale des chartes Paris, University Paris-Saclay and Ben Guerir, Morocco computational philologists provide a 2020s expansion and deepening of this academic pursuit by recasting literature as an exemplary manifestation of nonlinear, creative phenomena. By turns, our human literary corpora can actually be appreciated and parsed as a natural narrative.

Our knowledge of past cultures relies on recovering and parsing written material. While philologists like us reconstruct text phylogenies, the sources of prior genealogies is an open issue. Here we rethink literary transmission through a complexity science approach which integrates stochastic modelling, computer simulations, and data analysis, akin to statistical physics and evolutionary biology. Thus, we design general models that can account for diachrony and other aspects such as the extinction of branches or trees. (Excerpt)

Finally, the commonality of our models makes it applicable not only to medieval texts, but to any type of cultural transmission. Further investigations should include Western Medieval literature along with other time periods and geographical areas. In this sense, our work calls for the emergence of a new research endeavor dedicated to evolutionary modelling of cultural transmission. (15)

Cardenas, Juan, et al. Does Network Complexity Help Organize Babel’s Library?. arXiv:1409.7336. Chilean and Spanish system linguists begin with Jorge Borges’ short story The Library of Babel with an infinite number of books (also known as the universe) but without a catalogue by which to find. In this paper, it is proposed that in addition to all the textual volumes, the same scale-free networks as found everywhere else serve to organize and interconnect words, paragraphs, and content. This perception is then used to parse works such as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Man of La Mancha, so the answer is yes. See also Scaling-Laws in Emotion-Associated Words and Corresponding Network Topology by Takuma Takehara, et al in Cognitive Processing (Online November 2014). So might we appreciate that even our whole written corpus is similarly graced by nature’s complex webworks, which might extend to a literal cosmos, as Borges sought to imply.

In this work, we study properties of texts from the perspective of complex network theory. Words in given texts are linked by co-occurrence and transformed into networks, and we observe that these display topological properties common to other complex systems. However, there are some properties that seem to be exclusive to texts; many of these properties depend on the frequency of words in the text, while others seem to be strictly determined by the grammar. Precisely, these properties allow for a categorization of texts as either with a sense and others encoded or senseless. (Abstract)

Castellini, Alberto, et al. A Dictionary Based Informational Genome Analysis. BMC Genomics. 13/485, 2012. In a typical paper for an online Bioinformatics journal, University of Verona computer scientists proceed to study and parse life’s molecular program by way of literate analogies.

Background. In the post-genomic era several methods of computational genomics are emerging to understand how the whole information is structured within genomes. Literature of last five years accounts for several alignment-free methods, arisen as alternative metrics for dissimilarity of biological sequences. Among the others, recent approaches are based on empirical frequencies of DNA k-mers in whole genomes.

Results. Any set of words (factors) occurring in a genome provides a genomic dictionary. About sixty genomes were analyzed by means of informational indexes based on genomic dictionaries, where a systemic view replaces a local sequence analysis. A software prototype applying a methodology here outlined carried out some computations on genomic data. We computed informational indexes, built the genomic dictionaries with different sizes, along with frequency distributions. The software performed three main tasks: computation of informational indexes, storage of these in a database, index analysis and visualization. The validation was done by investigating genomes of various organisms. A systematic analysis of genomic repeats of several lengths, which is of vivid interest in biology (for example to compute excessively represented functional sequences, such as promoters), was discussed, and suggested a method to define synthetic genetic networks.

Chai, Lucy and Danielle Bassett. Evolution of Semantic Networks in Biomedical Texts. arXiv:1810.10534. Cambridge University and University of Pennsylvania bio/neuro/info engineers post a frontier paper which limns an affinity between complex cerebral and textual domains. With theoretical depth, both brains and books are rooted in, arise from, and well exemplify a fertile natural milieu. A cumulative advance from 2010 rudiments to 2018 sophisticated analyses can now evince computational similarities across a similar scale of “information transmission networks.” As a result, the presence of universal, invariant “fractal hierarchical modular architectures” is clearly evident. The key insight is an organizational connectivity or computational scaling, as the quotes note, which guides both phases. So once more, a window upon nature’s literate essence is opened. See also A Mathematical Theory of Semantic Development in Deep Neural Networks at 1810.10531, and Evidence of Rentian Scaling of Functional Modules in Diverse Biological Networks in Neural Computation (30/8, 2018).

Language is hierarchically organized: words are built into phrases, sentences, and paragraphs to represent complex ideas. Here we ask whether the organization of language in written text displays the fractal hierarchical architecture common in systems optimized for efficient information transmission. We test the hypothesis that the expositional structure of scientific research articles displays Rentian scaling, and that the exponent of the scaling law changes as the article's information transmission capacity changes. Using 32 scientific manuscripts - each containing between three and 26 iterations of revision - we construct semantic networks which display clear Rentian scaling from the first draft to the final revision. This reflects the evolution in semantic network structure over the manuscript revision process, highlighting a balance between network complexity and efficiency. Taken together, our results suggest that semantic networks reflecting the structure of exposition in scientific research articles display striking hierarchical architecture that arbitrates tradeoffs between competing constraints on network organization. (Abstract excerpt)

A modular hierarchical architecture is observed across various real-life networks. Here, we quantify this fractal-like structure in semantic networks composed of introductions of scientific articles, in particular throughout the drafting and revision process of scientific manuscripts. We observe that the Rentian scaling exponent describing hierarchical network structure varies throughout the publication life cycle and clusters into three main trends among our collection of manuscripts. This evolution of the scaling exponent over the manuscript revision process suggests a balance of network complexity and efficiency, a trade-off which similarly governs other natural and man-made networked systems. (18)

Rent's rule pertains to the organization of computing logic, specifically the relationship between the number of external signal connections to a logic block (i.e., the number of "pins") with the number of logic gates in the logic block, and has been applied to circuits ranging from small digital circuits to mainframe computers. (Wikipedia)

Chebanov, S. The Role of Hermeneutics in Biology. Koslowski, Peter, ed. Sociobiology and Bioeconomics. Berlin: Springer. 1999. From Russia an attempt to retrieve an “Hermeneutica Sacra,” the art of interpreting the world as “sacred text,” by applying semiotic principles to modern biological and economic realms.

Chen, Heng, et al. How Does Language Change as a Lexical Network? An Investigation Based on Written Chinese Word Co-occurrence Networks. PLoS One. February 28, 2018. Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University, and School of Foreign Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China scholars turn to complexity and network structures and dynamics to reveal that their own language is quite similarly distinguished by nested scales, modules, communities, and so on. In regard, ever again nature’s independent, mathematic source is universally exemplified in each and every realm, which then well implies an innately textual, genomic milieu.

Language is a complex adaptive system, but how does it change? To investigate this process, four diachronic Chinese word co-occurrence networks have been built based on texts written during the last 2,000 years. By comparing the network indicators associated with the hierarchical features in language networks, we learn that the hierarchy of Chinese lexical networks has evolved over time at three different levels. The connections of words at the micro level are weakening; the number of words in meso-level communities has increased; and the network is expanding at the macro level. This means that more words tend to be connected to medium-central words and form different communities. Understanding this process can help us understand the increasing structural complexity of the language system. (Abstract)

Chen, Hongjia, et al. Scaling Laws and Dynamics of Hashtags on Twitter. arXiv:2004.12707. University of Sydney systems linguists including Eduardo Altmann discern yet another case of nature’s universal mathematic patterns and dynamics at formative presence even is these hyper-active Internet communications.

In this paper we quantify the statistical properties and dynamics of the frequency of hashtag use on Twitter. Hashtags are special words used in social media to attract attention and to organize content. Looking at the collection of hashtags used in a period of time, we identify the scaling laws for their frequency distribution (Zipf's law), the number of unique hashtags as a function of sample size (Heaps' law), and the fluctuations around expected values (Taylor's law). While these scaling laws appear to be universal, their volume and nature depends strongly on time, with bursts at the minute scale, fat-tailed noise, and long-range correlations. Here we view hashtags as memes and quantify emerging properties of their collective interaction including scaling laws and time scales. (Excerpt)

Chrisomalis, Stephen. Numerical Notation: A Comparative History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. A Wayne State University linguistic anthropologist achieves an encyclopedic survey of how homo sapiens came to develop alphabetic and numerical systems as they so distinguish our literate, technical societies. Among other endeavors, the author is involved a MathCorps project at WSU to aid the teaching of mathematics in Detroit middle schools.

This book is a cross-cultural reference volume of all attested numerical notation systems (graphic, non-phonetic systems for representing numbers), encompassing more than 100 such systems used over the past 5,500 years. Using a typology that defies progressive, unilinear evolutionary models of change, Stephen Chrisomalis identifies five basic types of numerical notation systems, using a cultural phylogenetic framework to show relationships between systems and to create a general theory of change in numerical systems. Numerical notation systems are primarily representational systems, not computational technologies. Cognitive factors that help explain how numerical systems change relate to general principles, such as conciseness or avoidance of ambiguity, which apply also to writing systems. The transformation and replacement of numerical notation systems relates to specific social, economic, and technological changes, such as the development of the printing press or the expansion of the global world-system. (Publisher)

Church, George. Rosetta Brain: The Multileveled Complexity of the Brain. Marcus, Gary and Jeremy Freeman, eds. The Future of the Brain. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. Within the cerebral atlas project that this book surveys, the audacious Harvard biologist, with Adam Marblestone and Reza Kullor, propose a Rosetta Stone analog to convey how a neural network anatomy repeats in kind across many nested stages. In regard, it is a “gigantic matrix,” an “annotated connectome,” that can be sequenced like a genome. Its recurrent form, dialogue, and message can then be cross-translated between the levels. Once again, by a good metaphor, our very brain/mind becomes a microcosmic exemplar of macro reality. See also Rosetta Brains: A Strategy for Molecularly-Annotated Connectomics by this extended group at arXiv:1404.5103.

Going deeper, each cell (whether neuron, glial cell, or otherwise,) is composed of a network of self-assembling molecular machines, the dynamics of which is used not only to construct the electrochemical computing elements (neurons) but also to dynamically store and manipulate information within genetic logic circuits and synaptic protein assemblies. On the other hand, the fully functional brain self-organizes from a less-structured precursor during development and learning. (50-51)

To imagine what the dataset would represent, an analogy to a very different field is useful. The Rosetta Stone is a 1,700-pound tablet bearing three inscriptions: a priestly decree in honor of King Ptolemy V in Egyptian hieroglyphics, in Greek script, and in demotic script. Because it presented the exact same statement in three different languages, two of which were know and the third unknown, it provided a key resource for cracking the then-unknown code of the hieroglyphics. Similarly, a Rosetta Brain would convey information about multiple interrelated phenomenological levels of the brain’s biology and allow these levels to be directly compared to one another. (52)

Coecke, Bob. Compositionality as We See it Everywhere Around Us. arXiv:2110.05327.. The Oxford University quantum polymath continues his collegial insights into this neoclassical realm to show how the latest understandings continue to imply an innate natural narrative textuality. See also A Quantum Natural Language Processing Approach to Musical Intelligence by BC and friends at 2111.06741.

There are different meanings of the term "compositionality" within science: what one researcher would call compositional, is not for another researcher. The most established conception is characterised by a bottom-up flow of meanings: the meaning of the whole can be derived from the meanings of the parts, and how they are structured together. Inspired by work on compositionality in quantum theory, and categorical quantum mechanics, we turn to notions of (Erwin) Schrodinger, A. N. Whitehead. Schrodinger compositionality accommodates quantum theory, and also meaning-as-context. All together, our proposal aims to include the fact that compositionality is at its best when it is `real', `non-trivial', and even more when it also is `complete'. (Abstract excerpt)

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