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

C. An Earthumanity Era: A 2020s Cerebral Cyberspace Achieves a Worldwise Knowsphere Resource

Kelso, Scott. On the Coordination Dynamics of (animate) Moving Bodies. Journal of Physics: Complexity. 3/3, 2022. The veteran Florida Atlantic University complexity theorist (search) posts a synoptic review of this collegial endeavor from the 1990s to discern and articulate such perceived, natural, intrinsic forces as they give rise to personal and planetary agency. The paper opens with prior inklings to Isaac Newton, James Maxwell, and Erwin Schrodinger to set a conceptual scenario. Into our 2020’s, a novel quantification of these constant synergies (symbioses) can be factored to brace and explain. Kelso then notes prime study areas going forward to further distinguish and empower life’s innate, reciprocating ascendance. See also A Blueprint for the Study of the Brain’s Spatiotemporal Patterns by Emmanuelle Tognoli, Danielia Benites and S. Kelso at arXiv:2106.00637

Coordination comes in many guises and represents one of the most striking, but least understood features of living things. The different forms that coordination takes and how it emerges and changes are of great interest to the social and behavioral sciences, neuroscience, psychology, biology and physics itself. Inspired originally by theories of self-organization in open, nonequilibrium systems, coordination studies seek to understand such patterns at many scales and for multiple functions in living things. Here we review some of the key concepts of along with recent developments and posit ten tenets that may guide further understanding. (Abstract excerpt)

In response to Schrdodinger’s question (What is this “I”?), how recent work on human infants embedded in a specific environment is revealing how spontaneous self-organizing processes give rise to the ‘self’ or the directedness property of complex, biological systems, usually contained in terms like ‘agency’ ‘purpose’ and ‘intention’. We conclude with a summary of the main theoretical tenets of coordination dynamics, a theory of directed self-organization, intended to provide a stimulus for further research. (3)

Tenet Ten: Metastability is an expression of the full complexity of brains and people and gives rise to a plethora of complementary pairs such as individual - collective, competition - cooperation, segregation - integration, etc. Metastable coordination dynamics suggests that a deep principle of complementarity underlies life, brain, mind and society. The message of metastability is that in complex coordinated systems, thinking in terms of sharp dichotomies and contrarieties has to be replaced with far more subtle and sophisticated complementarities. (14)

Kocoglu, Cemile, et al. How Network-based Approaches can Complement Identification Studies in Frontotemporal Dementia. Trends in Genetics. 38/9, 2022. We cite this entry by University of Antwerp neurologists to notably record an integral turn beyond 20th century point gene - malady attributions. In this way medical diagnoses can include all the equally real interinking topologies (maybe GRN-like) as a causal factor for these cerebral deficits. An initial review of this overdue movement is Network Medicine: Complex Systems in Human Disease and Therapeutics by Joseph Loscalso, Albert-Laszlo Baribasi and Edwin Silverman (Harvard UP, 2017) which introduces this vital advance but its content has not been availed for brains until now.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a primary cause of dementia over a broad range of clinical phenotypes and cellular pathologies. Genetic discoveries in FTD have occurred in well-known extended families. In the context of complex diseases, it is hypothesized that mutations with reduced penetrance or a combination of low-effect size variants with environmental factors drive disease. In this review, we examine gene discovery approaches in FTD and introduce network biology concepts as tools to assist gene identification studies in genetically complex disease. (Abstract)

Kukarni, Suman, et al.. Information content of note transitions in the music of J. S. Bach. Physical Reviews Research. 6/013136, 2024. University of Pennsylvania systems scholars including Chris Lynn and Dani Bassett post an innovative appreciation that symphonic and melodious compositions are suffused with and arranged by multiplex networks. The paper reviews of a technical basis which is graphically illustrated. After many centuries the actual presence of natural rhythms is mathematically quantified and published in a Physics journal. See also Unsupervised cross-domain translation via deep learning and application to music-inspired protein designs by Markus Buehler in Patterns. (4/3, 2023) and Cells and sounds by Michael Spitzer in Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology (186, January 2024). If olny we could hear and listen to the song of the cell and of the ecosmos.

Music has a complex structure that expresses emotion and conveys information. Here we study a musical piece by way of networks formed by notes (nodes) and their transitions (edges). Thus we view compositions by J. S. Bach through the lens of network science, information theory, and statistical physics over a wide range of fugues and choral pieces. In turn, we consider human neural networks that enable efficient communication via heterogeneity and clustering. Taken together, our findings shed light on both Bach's work and further studies of complexities, creativity, and more. (Abstract excerpt)’

We hope that our framework inspires more exchanges between physics, cognitive science, and musicology. On a broader scale, our project investigates how information in complex systems is conceptually contained. To conclude, we highlight a number of exciting directions for future inquiry and outline ways in which our approach can be expanded upon and improved. (10) By providing an example of a comprehensive analysis of musical melodies, our version complements the rich study of language, music, and art as dynamic complex multiplex systems. Finally, a quantitative treatment of the patterns and motifs inspire analogies between music and other fields of science such as including understanding protein structures and designing organic materials. (12)

Kuppers, Bernd-Olaf. The Language of Living Matter: How Molecules Acquire Meaning. International: Springer Frontiers, 2022. This latest, significant work by the University of Jena natural philosopher and long colleague of Manfred Eigen (search each) is an opus summary of his lifetime endeavor to articulate a more viable explanation of how life began and developed as an oriented evolution. Into the 2020s a considerable finding is reached that a linguistic, informative ability and content appears to be nature’s most distinctive quality. In regard, a strong affirmation to date of a double occasion with a textual, biomolecular, genetic-like narrative from universe to humanverse is achieved. We include several quotes to convey its contribution.

This book by an eminent philosopher provides strong evidence for the claim that language is a general principle of Nature, rooted deeply in physical and chemical laws. The author’s central concept then leads us to view the essence, origin and evolution of life in a completely new way. To justify this far-reaching idea, the book takes a long and deep look at our scientific thinking, at language as such, and at science’s methods, unity, limits and perspectives. These concerns and resolves are covered in six thematically self-contained chapters, rounded off by an epilogue that introduces the new topic of Nature’s semantics. The range of issues covered is a testimony to how progress in the life sciences is transforming the whole edifice of science, from physics to biology and beyond. (Publisher)

Chap. 1: Language: Gateway to the World Starting from the idea that the world is recognizable to us because it is structured like a language, this chapter develops how this concept courses from its version human to the language of structures. A notable, common feature of linguistic forms is their inherent context-dependence. While apparent in our own speech and script, it also applies to quite different areas such as quantum physics, genetics, Gestalt psychology, sociology and epistemology. (Abstract excerpt)

Truth: The Regulative Principle of Cognition This chapter follows a historical line of philosophical thinking that led to modern linguistic philosophy which brought language to the center of epistemology. By this review we can perceive philosophical thought as a language mechanism generating new figurations by ever recombining and crystallizing a finite set of elementary ideas — just as biomolecular substances originate from a small set of chemical elements. (Excerpt)

Epilog: Nature’s Semantics Animate Nature can be considered figuratively as the book of life. Just as the words of a written text combine to form a meaningful whole, evolutionary beings form a diverse complex network of interactions. In other words, the language of Nature is, as it were, the “hyperlanguage” of living matter. To deal responsibly with Nature, we have to take account of her semantics at the borderlines of construction and destruction, stability and instability, order and chaos. Only in this way can the dynamic order of Nature be maintained in the face of invasive human activity. (Excerpt)

Indeed, the mechanistic view of the world leaves no room for teleological explanations. Yet, the idea that Nature arose from a purpose-oriented Divine rationality has persisted to the present day. This spiritual sense also moves many scientists. For a long time, a picture of Nature as a harmonious order with a textbook-like character to help understand reality. In this way, our human efforts to gain some comprehension often were seen as attempts to read the “Book of Nature.” Thus over the centuries many endeavors sought better interpretations, now into the 21st century. When the human genome was first sequenced in 2001, a Book of Life phrase was used. (11) The German philosopher Hans Blumenberg (1920-1996) often referred to a book metaphor as the “readability of the world.” (11)

The universal language that we are looking for is one of abstract structures. As Galileo famously cited, it is written in a mathematical script. We may even be on the verge of a new “Copernican revolution.” The thesis that the world has the structure of a language could lead to such a revolution in our understanding. (13) However, we shall go one step further and ask whether language is a general principle of Nature that exists independently of ourselves and already becomes manifest in essential living matter. A strong indication of the scope of this working hypothesis is found in the deep parallels between human language and the language-analog structure of genes. (16)

Kverkova, Kristina, et al. The Evolution of Brain Neuron Numbers in Amniotes. PNAS. 119/11, 2022. Charles University, Prague paleo-neuroscientists deftly reconstruct the evolution of brain neuron number across an entire range of Metazoa species and found that after fish and reptiles, birds and mammals have much larger quantities in cerebral areas meant for higher cognition. It is noted that several major changes in neuron brain scaling in the past 300 million years indeed appear to be oriented to an increasing degree of intelligence. The group effort has achieved the strongest evidence to date of how life’s emergent sensory stirrings can be known to have this central edification. The paper has vivid illustrations of relative creaturely advances in body and brain anatomies, which well evince a grand learning experience.

A reconstruction of the evolution of brain information-processing capacity is vital to understandings the rise of complex cognition. Comparative studies long used brain size as a proxy. However, to get a better sense of paths leading to high intelligence, power, we need to compare brains by large datasets of computational neurons. We find Amniote brain evolution to be tracked by four major shifts in neuron–brain scaling. The most dramatic increases in brain neurons occurred independently with the appearance of birds and mammals. The other two rises in neuron numbers happened in core land birds and anthropoid primates, known for their cognitive prowess. (Abstract excerpt)

Amniota, a group of limbed vertebrates that includes reptiles, birds, mammals and their extinct ancestors. The amniotes are the evolutionary branch (clade) of the tetrapods in which the embryo develops within a set of protective extra-embryonic membranes—the amnion, chorion, and allantois

Lewton, Thomas. She Turns Fluids into “Black Holes” and “Inflating Universes.”. Quanta. December 12, 2022. A science writer profiles the British physicist Silke Weinfurtner about her frontier research conceptions that a deep intrinsic similarity distinguishes an infinite affinity across expansive natural and social domains. In specific regard, the same equations that describe flowing water on Earth necessarily hold for cosmic fluid dynamics. The common feature is seen as akin to “analogous gravity” theories of William Unruh from the 1970s, which have now have gained a valid credibility.

In regard, for example see The Next Generation of Analogue Gravity Experiments by Silke Weinfurtner, et al at arXiv:2005.04027 and a later entry Primary Thermalization of the Early Universe from Faraday-wave Scattering on Liquid Intergaces at 2207.02199. For another version see Analogue Gravity and the Hawking Effect by Carla Almeida and Maxime Jacquet at 2218.08838.

For two decades, Silke Weinfurtner, a physicist at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, has been designing “analogue gravity” experiments using fluids that mimic systems like black holes and the early universe. For example, she has detected sound waves in fluids that resemble Hawking radiation — the subtle heat emitted by black holes that holds deep implications for what happens to information in the universe. Another fluid effect she studies mimics how the seeds of cosmic structure were sown in the first moments after the Big Bang.

(Q) So this rests on the idea of universality, that there is common behavior over and above the microscopic details of the system. (A) I’m not interested in probing the microphysics of these fluid systems, I’m interested in the macroscopic emergent behavior. Why are the macroscopic behaviors of two very different systems — field theories on curved space-time and excitations in fluids and superfluids — the same? I don’t know. Physics has this remarkable feature that it repeats itself.

Liu, Jiazhen, et al. The Emergence of Polarization in Coevolving Networks. arXiv:2205.14480. In their latest paper, the University of Miami and George Washington University (Neil Johnson) systems physicist team (search Chaoming) reach a conclusive point when they are able to provide a theoretical explanation for the constant propensity of social groupings to ever bifurcate into opposite persuasions. For the first time, a deeper, independent motive can be seen as responsible these common divisions. But for our human phase, any sense that such polar modes are actually archetypal complements of a whole viable, family-like unity. Instead of destructive conflict the two halves - again as conserve/create, regress/progress, tradition/innovation – they remained locked in mortal combat.

these effects emerge in coevolving networks due to reinforced mechanisms and network evolution. However, a comprehensive theoretical framework capturing generic drives which lead to polar states remains to be done. In this paper, we describe a universal scaling law for opinion distributions in accord with a set of scaling exponents which sort social systems into polarization and depolarization phases. We then find three phases of polarization, partial polarization, and depolarization, and a corresponding phase diagram. In the polarized phase, our theory predicts that a bi-polarized community structure emerges naturally from the coevolving dynamics. (Abstract excerpt)

In conclusion, we discover a universal scaling law for opinion distributions in real-world networks, characterized by a set of scaling exponents. This allows us to quantify different polarizing phases of the social system. We propose a generic framework for polarization dynamics of coevolving networks where opinion dynamics and network evolution are coupled based on two essential ingredients: 1) opinion homogenization and 2) homophily clustering. The proposed framework predicts three different polarizing phases and the corresponding phase diagram for modeling parameters. Moreover, the exact solution of the theory reveals the observed scaling law for opinion distributions, suggesting the model captures the universal patterns of polarization successfully. (10)

Manrique, Pedro, et al. Non-equilibrium physics of multi-species assembly: From inhibition of fibrils in biomolecular condensates to growth of online distrust.. arXiv:2312.08609. George Washington University theorists including Neil Johnson (search PM, NJ) post an innovative, wide correspondence between biomolecules and sociopeople as they/we intersect, crosstalk and come together. See also Multi-Species Cohesion: Humans, machinery, AI and beyond by this group at arXiv:2401.17410. Once again a common affinity is evident across these widest reaches which then implies deeper a physical origin.

Self-assembly is a key process in living systems from the microscopic biological level (e.g. proteins into fibrils in a human cell) to the macroscopic societal level (e.g. humans into common-interest social media). The components in such systems) are highly diverse, and so are the self-assembled structures that they form. But there is no theory of how they arise from a multi-species pool. Here we provide a simple model which trades myriad chemical and human details for a transparent analysis, in good agreement. It reveals a new inhibitory role for biomolecular condensates against dangerous amyloid fibrils, as well as a kinetic reason so much distrust has now beset the internet. The nonlinear dependencies that we uncover suggest real-world control strategies to buffer and better these processes. (Excerpt).

Marshall, Stuart, et al. Formalizing the Pathways to Life using Assembly Spaces. Entropy. 24/7, 2022. As emergent personal and planetary sapience continues apace to retrospectively research, quantify and explain how we peoples came to be, University of Glasgow and Arizona State University biochemical theorists including Leroy Cronin and Sara Walker describe a computational assembly index metric by which to discern an innate orientation toward vital complex dexterity, beyond just happenstance. See also False Positives and the Challenge of Testing the Alien Hypothesis by this extended group at arXiv:2207.00634.

Assembly theory has been developed to explore the extrinsic information required to distinguish a given object from a random ensemble. Our prior work came up with key processes to deconstruct an object into parts so as to evaluate the minimum steps needed to rebuild it. Here we scope out the core mathematical concepts and boundaries on the assembly index. We explore ways to meld mathematical and physical objects to propose that a high assembly index must have been produced using directed biological or technological processes rather than purely random processes, thereby defining a new scale of aliveness. We think this approach can help identify novel physical and chemical laws so to understand what life is by quantifying what life does. (Abstract edited excerpt)

Technological processes are bootstrapped to biological ones, and hence, the production of technosignatures could be traced to a biological origin. Examples of include chemical products produced by molecular systems such as networks of enzymes, complex chemicals made in the laboratory, and the works of Shakespeare. Finding the object in some abundance, or a single object with many repeating features, is required in order to distinguish single random occurrences. For example, a system which produces long random strings will generate some that have a high assembly index. Finding the same long string more than once will tell us that there is a bias in the system towards creating that string; thus, searching for signatures of life should involve looking for an abundant high assembly index. (4, excerpt)

Menichetti, Giulia and Albert-Laszlo Barabasi. Nutrient Concentrations in Food Display Universal Behavior. Nature Food. 3/375, 2022. Northeastern University network theorists focus their studies on the wide-ranging aspects our human sustenance from its production, quality to supplies. Once more, an exemplary presence of nature’s independent, generative complexities becomes well evident even for this global speciesphere instance.

Extensive programmes around the world proceed to measure and catalogue the composition of food. Here we analyse the nutrient content of the full US food supply and show that the concentration of each nutrient follows a universal single-parameter scaling law that accurately captures the eight orders of magnitude in nutrient variability. We show that the universality is rooted in the biochemical constraints obeyed by the metabolic pathways for nutrient modulation. This provides a mathematical rationale for food composition databases and aids a quantitative understanding of food processing on nutrient balance and health effects. (Abstract excerpt)

Milli, Smitha, et al. A Rational Reinterpretation of Dual-Process Theories. Cognition. Vol. 217, October, 2021. This section has sought to gather many findings since the 1970s that human beings, and all creatures, possess a double neural-cognitive faculty whereof each half contributes a vital attribute. Along with bicameral brain studies, a divide into slower, think about it and fast, just do it options has a currency, but with debate. Into 2021, UC Berkeley, MPI Intelligent Systems and Princeton University scholars propose a clarification by way of the same, typical left and right hemisphere modes of separate details and contextual orientation. By so doing, an integral synthesis is achieved as a bigender complementarity. But its presence sets up a deep quandary. While a scientific, psychological, academic literature posts this historic advance, our vital bioplanet remains in a terminal condition because politics, nations, factions, warlords rage with no sense of any greater natural knowledge and guidance.

Highly influential “dual-process” accounts of human cognition postulate the coexistence of a slow accurate system with a fast error-prone system. But why would there be just two systems rather than, say, one or 93? Here, we argue that a two part faculty might reflect a rational tradeoff between the cognitive flexibility afforded by multiple systems and the time and effort required to choose between them. We find that the optimal number of systems depends on the variability of the environment and the difficulty of deciding when which system should be used. We find a plausible range of conditions under which it is better to have a fast approach without any deliberation (“System 1”) and a slower view that is more accurate through considerations (“System 2”). (Abstract)

Our analyses found two minded choice and risky-choice modes as a most suitable way to deal with a range of environments and cognitive costs: a system that performs no deliberation (“System 1”) and another with a fair amount of forethought (“System 2”). This might be why the human mind contains opposite subsystems within itself – one that is fast but fallible and one that is slow but accurate. Our findings thereby suggests that dual-process architectures could be optimal for the human mind. (12)

Montgomery, Beronda. Following the Principles of the Universe: Lessons from Plants on Individual and Communal Thriving. Integrative and Comparative Biology. August, 2023. Beronda L. Montgomery is Professor of Biology, and Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Grinnell College, Iowa follows up her 2021 book with this title by a further survey of natural wisdom teachings as everything get worse. In regard, we note forester Suzanne Simard who warned of Canadian fires in 2016, and Merlin Sheldrake who writes about fungi webworks (search each). Please also refer to the ubuntu Universe section about an African woman’s wisdom.

The means by which planets and exist in and respond to dynamic environments to thrive as individuals and in communities can provide lessons for humans on sustainable and resilient abide. As a follow up to my 2021 book, Lessons from Plants (Harvard UP), I consider how insights gathered from plant physiology, phenotypic plasticity, and plant growth vitalities can help us improve our lives and our society. Plants are even capable of transformative behaviors so aa to boost their chances of survival, while modifying environs in which they abide. These lessons focus on how plants achieve their own purposes by following common lively principles of the natural universe. (Excerpt)

The ways in which organisms sense and respond to environments to tune their physiologies, metabolisms, and behaviors to external cues can be observed across the biological spectrum. Lessons focusing on how plants respond and acclimate to light and nutrients, engage in symbiotic relationships to avail nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and benefit from the perspectives of groundskeepers are examples of the supportive principles of the universe. Humans often opt of such ways of sustainability and reciprocity, which leave us bereft to climate change and species extinction. We would do well to look to other organisms, such as plants, for inspiration to promote our individual and communal successes in our generation and beyond. (Conclusion)

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