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

C. An Earthumanity Era: A 2020s Global Cognizance Achieves a Knowsphere by Her/His Bicameral Self

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)

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)

Musser, George. Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation: Why Physicists are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe.. London: Macmillan, 2023. We first note this November volume by the Scientific American contributor which seems in this year on the verge of a grand synthesis. See also An AI Mystery in the SA and The Biologist Blowing Our Mind in Nautilus (June 18, 2023) about Michael Levin's work (search) on life’s constant poise between defect or cooperate.

For centuries, physicists believed that our notices were faithful representations of what is out there. But when they began to study the subatomic realm, along with cosmology, our view of the universe is became distorted by observation bias. And so today theorists must first explain consciousness.

Neuroscientists have built up an understanding of the structure of the brain. Could this help physicists understand the levels of self-organization they observe in other systems? Exploring these questions and more, George Musser tackles these deep interconnections between quantum mechanics, cosmology, and human consciousness. By way of portraits of frontier thinkers, the work shows how theories of everything depend on theories of mind—and how they might be one and the same.

Nonacs, Peter, et al. Social Evolution and the Major Evolutionary Transition in the History of Life. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. December, 2021. The editors for this special section are Peter Nonacs UCLA (Center for Behavior, Evolution & Culture,) Karen Kapheim, Utah State University (comparative genomics) and Heikki Helantera, University of Helsinki, (evolutionary ecology) are deeply engaged in field and conceptual studies which could be well served by an endemic structural arrangement and emergent orientation (Brief capsules in their own words below.) As an observation, just as a teleologic course could no longer be ignored (section herein), so this nested scale from 1995 is now similarly gaining a full, revelant acceptance. Its inclusion then describes a revolutionary (EarthWin) appreciation of life’s true developmental gestation. A further merit is a strongest case to date for an ascendant personsphere sapience learning on her/his own.

Among the ten entries are an overview survey: Major Evolutionary Transitions and the Roles of Facilitation and Information in Ecosystem Transformations by Amanda Robin, et al, What Do We Mean by Multicellularity? The Evolutionary Transitions Framework Provides Answers by Caroline Rose and Katrin Hammerschmidt, The Evolution of Microbial Facilitation: Sociogenesis, Symbiogenesis, and Transition in Individuality by Istvan Zachar, Gergely Boza The Major Transitions in Evolution: A Philosophy of Science Perspective by Samir Okasha and notably Design for an Individual: Connectionist Approaches to the Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality by Richard, Watson, et al (search)

In their classic 1995 book, John Maynard Smith and Eors Szathmáry sketched the evident presence of eight major evolutionary transitions (METs) in the long history of life on earth. But 27 years since, optional views, and detail debates about defining features and qualities still persist. Attempts to find deep, constant patterns and processes also go on, but have not yet integrated this entire sweep of evolution and ecology from replicating molecules to loquacious humans. It seemed appropriate to post a topical issue which could gather, assimilate and enjoin these many aspects, air specific issues and consider a common, nested sequence. To wit, METs are seen to occur as fusions of independent individuals into a higher order entity, along with a novel way that information is stored and transmitted. In addition, the ecological context where this ascendant course goes on is rarely considered. Into these 2020s, new findings and novel ideas about life’s developmental stirrings, genetic bases and consequent course to our consummate global retrospective could provide a salutary synthesis. (Nonacs, et al, Introduction excerpt)

I view my research program as the intersection of Evolutionary and Behavioral Ecology explores why questions and how issues. My students and I use several approaches from mathematical theories to empirical methods and field work in Panama. Although most of my work is with social insects, we are open to any system or species depending on how well suited they are to learn about vital evolutionary phenomena. (P. Nonacs)

I began my scientific life in Kay Holekamp's lab as at Michigan State University. After a stint as a zookeeper, I went to grad school at UCLA where my PhD was co-advised by Peter Nonacs and Bob Wayne as a shift from carnivores to bees. A post-doc followed in Gene Robinson's lab at UIUC, where I got into genomic aspects. I started my own lab at Utah State University in 2014. (K. Kapheim)

I see sociality, cooperation, conflict and communication everywhere. I work on genomics and transcriptomics, behaviour, chemical ecology and conceptual approaches to evolution. Beyond social insects, another necessary topic I study is the major transitions in evolution. In regard, I carry out theoretical and empirical analyses on similarities and differences between in complex multicellularity and superorganisms. (H. Helantera)

Ourllette, Nicholas. A Physics Perspective on Collective Animal Behavior. Physical Biology. 19.2, 2022. The Stanford University systems physicist (search) has become a leading authority for the study of dynamic group-wide activities, and the derivation of common features across all manner of species. His subject choice has been midge insects suitable for laboratory tests. (I heard Nicholas speak at UMass Amherst around 2010 when he was at Yale. A view even back then was that it didn’t matter which critter one chose, they all behave the same.) Into 2022, this timely review with 160 references can now cite a robust confirmation of this natural invariance. Premier research has investigated avian flocking, fish pods, wildebeest herds and all the way to invertebrate molds. (That is, except people because individual me yet opposes social We.) Akin to Self-Organization in Stellar Evolution (Georigiev, 2022), our EarthWise endeavors seem to be entering a new convergent stage of universal confirmations. Stars and starlings array and move to the same independent, genotype-like score and script. We may begin to glimpse an actual 2020s discovery that our participatory bioplanet is meant to achieve.

The dynamic patterns and coordinated motion displayed by groups of social animals are a beautiful example of self-organization in natural far-from-equilibrium systems. Recent advances in active-matter physics have enticed physicists to consider how their results can be extended from microscale physical systems to groups of real, macroscopic animals. At the same time, better measurement technologies have achieved high-quality empirical data for animal groups both in the laboratory and the wild. In this review, I describe how physicists have approached synthesizing, modeling, and interpreting this information, both at the level of individual animals and the group scale. I focus on the kinds of analogies that physicists have made between animal groups and more traditional areas of physics. (Abstract)

Plotnitsky, Arkady and Emmanuel Haven, eds. The Quantum-Like Revolution: A Festschrift for Andrei Khrennikov. Online: Springer, 2023. A Purdue University physicist and a Memorial University, Canada economist gather a steady flow of frontier, innovative papers by the Russian polyscientist presently at the International Center for Mathematical Modeling in Physics and Cognitive Sciences, Linnaeus University, Sweden. Search AK on the arXiv.org eprint site for some 321 results. A main theme of his expansive thought is to explain how quantum phenomena is similarly evident in many seemingly far-removed areas. For a latest paper see Open Systems, Quantum Probability, and Logic for Quantum-like Modeling in Biology, Cognition, and Decision-Making in Entropy (25/6, 2023, also 2306.08599)

Over the last ten years, the malleable formalism of quantum-like models are broadly applied in areas such as psychology, cognition, economics, political science, and molecular biology. This Festschrift honors a key figure in this field: Andrei Khrennikov, who made momentous contributions to both quantum foundations and these expansions. But the volume orients its reader more toward the future. Khrennikov’s luminous, frontier advances have well established the great promise of quantum and quantum-like thinking across an interdisciplinary 21st century synthesis of classical phases and the physical foundations that they manifestly arise from and exemplify. (Book)

The aim of this review is to highlight the possibility of applying the mathematical formalism and methodology of quantum theory to model behavior of complex biosystems, from genomes and proteins to animals, humans, and ecological and social systems. Such models are known as quantumlike, and they should be distinguished from genuine quantum physical modeling of biological phenomena. One of the distinguishing features of quantum-like models is their applicability to macroscopic biosystems or, to be more precise, to information processing in them. (AK article)

Ravn, Ib. Beyond Chaos and Rigidity, Flexstability. New Ideas in Psychology. August, 2022. As peoples and cultures world over become so polarized between such dual archetypal opposites, persuasions or fixations, a senior Aarhus University, Danish School of Education psychologist proposes an evident (once and future) middle way integrative unity. See also similar suggestions such as tradition and innovation by Jagiello, Heyes and Whitehouse, and participants and socialism by Thomas Piketty. In our regard, an active balance of conserve/create, regress/progress, particle/wave, war/peace, me individual/We society on every scale and instance can viably ensue. mitigate and resolve.

But in the USA, a new phase of violent conflict now looms. On a global scale, nuclear weapons are rattled between America (individualist) and Russia/China (communal). Yet it boggles that no one can see the fierce split is obviously between nature’s ecsomic, gender-like complements. The US senate vote on the climate bill was 50/50 as Republicans to a man went against. The South Korea flag is graced with a yin/yang Tao symbol as war games go on against the North. We are cutting it too close, how can this perennial family image ever be realized.

Chaos and rigidity are often used to describe problematic psychological states. If they are to be avoided, how does one conceive of a normative alternative? This paper proposes that underlying chaos and rigidity are two dimensions of healthy human experience, those of stability (focus, routine, unity) and flexibility (exploration, novelty, diversity). This essay proposes an optimal, unified state of “flexstability” in which individuals experience both flexibility and stability at the same moment. Chaos can be now understood as flexibility without stability, and rigidity as stability without flexibility. We apply this option to seven research areas in psychology: parenting styles, identity formation, development of mind, flow, creativity, emotional regulation and self-determination. (Abstract)

The main contribution offered here is the point that chaos and rigidity may be seen as expressions of a deeper dynamic, that of forms guiding human activity in ways more or less flexible and stable, producing more or less chaos and rigidity. The alternative that suggests itself, the state of flexstability, is proposed as a way of characterizing and envisioning a more appropriate alternative than any half-way house between rigidity and chaos. Viable human development efforts should not succumb to the logics of either-or or more-or-less when a logic of both-and is so readily available. (8)

Safron, Adam, et al. Making and Breaking Symmetries in Mind and Life. Interface Focus. April, 2023. Johns Hopkins University, SUNY Stony Brook, McGill University, Monash University and Tufts University (Michael Levin) introduce and edit an eclectic collection as a thematic essence that mindful behaviors provide a heretofore undervalued formative force. A broad sample of entries include Reflections on the Asymmetry of Causation by Jenann Ismael; On Bayesian Mechanics: A Physics of and by Beliefs by Maxwell Ramstead, et al; Embodied cognitive morphogenesis as a route to intelligent systems by Bradley Alicea, et al, As Without, So Within: How the Brain’s Temporal-Spatial Alignment Shapes Consciousness by Georg Northoff, et al; Emergence of common concepts, symmetries and conformity in agent groups by Marco Moller and Daniel Polani.

Symmetries appear throughout the natural world, making them important in our quest to understand the world around us.. The study of symmetries is so fundamental to mathematics and physics that one might ask where else it proves useful. This theme issue poses the question: what does the study of symmetry, and symmetry breaking, have to offer for the study of life and the mind? (Excerpt)

Sagan, Dorion. From Empedocles to Symbiogenesis: Lynn Margulis’s Revolutionary Influence on Evolutionary Biology. Biosystems. June, 2021. We cite this latest essay as a succinct record of her valiant endeavor to break out of old male fixation into a vital sense of an animate procreation graced by a universal principle of positive, reciprocal conciliations between all phases of organic entities. Yet we have a world tearing itself apart due to violent oppositions, which is in desperate need for such a unifying scientific vision. I have heard and met Lynn in Amherst, in my opinion she could merit being the one woman who could rise to the status of a Newton or Darwin.

As a primary expositor of the work of Lynn Margulis collaborating with her over thirty years on over thirty books and forty articles, scientific and popular, I attempt here to summarize her unique and lasting influence on evolutionary biology. Describing life on Earth as the multi-billion-year evolution of microbial communities, from prokaryotes maintaining Earth's atmosphere away from thermodynamic equilibrium to all eukaryotes as polygenomic beings, Margulis's interdisciplinary work has deeply influenced multiple fields including systematics, theories of the evolution of metabolism, paleobiology, and biogeochemistry. Overturning the neo-Darwinist narrative that speciation almost always occurs by the gradual accumulation of random mutations, Margulis's work revives a discarded philosophical speculation of the pre-Socratic Empedocles, who suggested that Earth's early beings both merged and differentially reproduced. Margulis's curiosity-driven science, collaborative work ethic, status as a woman, embrace of novelty, philosophical stance, current status of her theories, and the proposal for a new science of symbiogenetics are among the topics examined. (Abstract excerpt)

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