I. Planatural Genesis: A Phenomenal, PhiloSophia, Propaedutic, WumanWise, Participatory Endeavor

C. Our Earthumanity Envisions an Animate, Self-Organizing, Encoded Procreativity

Holford, Mande and Benjamin Normark. Integrating the Life Sciences to Jumpstart the Next Decade of Discover. Integrative & Comparative Biology. 61/6, 2021. Hunter College and UM Amherst biologists introduce this special edition of 29 papers which relate to the new National Science Foundation Big Ideas initiative: Understanding the Rules of Life. As we note, this 2020s span (along with its trauma and tragedy) seems to be a singular moment when many scientific fields from quantum and evolutionary to societal and cosmic have reached an epic phase of convergent synthesis. A strong, steady theme can then be seen to course through these entries. Living systems, in both their Earthly development and organismic function, are found to be distinguished by nested networks which join all their cellular, modular, communal scalar domains. With this overall frame in place, researchers can now go on to discern a common pattern and process which recurs in kind at every spatial and temporal instance.

Other typical entries are The Axes of Life: A Roadmap for Understanding Dynamic Multiscale Systems; Charting a New Frontier Integrating Mathematical Modeling in Complex Biological Systems from Molecules to Ecosystems; From Flatland to Jupiter: Searching for Rules of Interaction Across Biological Scales; Complex Temporal Biology: Towards a Unified Multi-Scale Approach to Predict the Flow of Information; and Deep Learning for Reintegrating Biology. In regard, a Grand Challenge is scoped out that does allude to a vivifying self-similar lawfulness which exists on its independent own. But such an imperative revolutionary admission by our EarthWise scientists remains in abeyance. (As a note, a working “Discovery Decade” title had been in place for our Chap. IX 2022 Summary Edition before I came across this project.)

NSF’S Big Ideas: Understanding the Rules of Life Life on our planet is arranged in levels of organization ranging from the molecular scale through to the biosphere. There exists a remarkable amount of complexity in the interactions within and between these levels of organization and across scales of time and space. The NSF Rules of Life Big Idea seeks to enable discoveries to better understand such interactions and identify causal, predictive relationships across these scales.

Hooft, Gerard t. et al.. The sounds of science a symphony for many instruments and voices.. Physica Scripta. 99/052501, 2024. As the abstract says, this 54 page edition is a second endeavor to gather diverse, select authorities including Nobel laureates to survey these conceptual frontiers. A first 2020 edition with this title appeared in this journal (95/6) edited by Gerianne Alexander. Typical entries are What characterises topological effects in physics? by Gerard ’t Hooft, Towards a machine that works like the brain: the neuromorphic computer by Ivan Schuller, et al, What can we say about the ‘Value of information’ in Biophysics? by Lázaro Castanedo, et al, What philosophers should really be thinking about by Roland Allen and Suzy Lidström and How much of physics have we found so far? By Anton Zeilinger. But again some 20 men and 3 women contribute essays with a specific focus sans any common theme. While disparate approaches within an intelligible cosmos are pursued, there is rarely a sense of closing on a real discovery. (see also at arXiv:2404.11724.)

Despite its amazing quantitative successes and contributions to revolutionary technologies, physics currently faces many unsolved mysteries ranging from the meaning of quantum mechanics to the nature of the dark energy and the future of the Universe. It is clearly prohibitive for the general reader, and even the best informed physicists, to follow the vast number of technical papers published in the thousands of specialized journals. For this reason, we have asked the leading experts across many of the most important areas of physics to summarise their global assessment of some of the most important issues. In lieu of an extremely long abstract summarising the contents, we invite the reader to look at the section headings and their authors, and then to indulge in a feast of stimulating topics spanning the current frontiers of fundamental physics from The Future of Physics by William D Phillips and What characterises topological effects in physics? by Gerard t Hooft through the contributions of the widest imaginable range of world leaders in their respective areas.

Hsieh, Shannon, et al.. The Phanerozoic Aftermath of the Cambrian Information Revolution. Paleobiology. 48/3, 2022. Akin to Cellular Self-Organization: An Overdrive in Cambrian Diversity by Filip Vujovic, et al in BioEssays (July 2022), University of Illinois, Chicago and University of Connecticut paleoecologists including Roy Plotnick achieve a similar perception of rapid, wide-spread cerebral and cognitive advances as organic forms suddenly leapt forward from simpler stages. Many studies from the Burgess Shale to Devonian phases of “nervous system complexities” provided an empirical basis. As a result, a graphic radiation can be sketched from no CNS to ganglia onto a relative brain. In their rare purview, soma and sensory together are seen to constitute life’s radical emergent, quicker transition (on its way to our late planetary reconstruction). (See V. Evolution for more)

Jafari, Sajad, et al. Collective Behavior of Nonlinear Dynamical Oscillators. European Physical Journal Special Topics. December, 2022. Teheran Polytechnic and Changzhou University physicists introduce, survey, and summarize a collection of 35 entries herein and elsewhere about the recently quantified presence of a universal propensity to seek and reside at an optimum dynamic, reciprocal condition. Some technical papers are Complete Synchronization Analysis of a Neocortical Network Model, Impact of Repulsive Coupling in Exhibiting Distinct Collective Dynamical States, and Dynamics and Chimera State in a Neural Network with Memristor Coupling as researchers try to define and express this favored feature. And we also wish to record that while Iran, China along with the USA, Russia and everywhere else is in total chaos, such current findings yet remain unknown, not supposed to exist, cut off and unable to contribute this phenomenal resolve.

Jagiello, Robert, et al. Tradition and Invention: The Bifocal Stance Theory of Cultural Evolution. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. April, 2022. Senior Oxford University anthropologists RJ, Cecilia Heyes and Harvey Whitehouse contribute a uniquely insightful, thorough revision of prior, vested theories of human societal emergence. Their survey of recent quantified research reveals a consistent occasion of dual, distinct, complementary preferences as the actual dynamic form and driver of homo sapiens culture. Their novel model proceeds to broadly identify these archetypal modes as continuity and change, conserve and create, a past or future emphasis, a long typical list ensues. In clever regard, they coin a Bifocal Stance Theory (BST), akin to balanced but bilateral eyesight clarity, which similarly appears in (Earthropological) effect across all manner of humankind habitations.

As a result, a timely contribution appears in April 2022 when it is so vitally needed. As readers know, horrific local and global incendiary, genocidal, conflagrations rage and spread, along with nuclear threats. For a deeper cause, they seem to occur from historic polarizations between these prime alternative options. A vested opposition of authority vs. freedom, right control or left liberal, socialism vs. individual, between these innate, bigender persuasions.. By an EarthWise integral vista, as A Complementary of Civilizations reports, East and West, South and North can actually compose bicameral hemispheres. How tragic then that China and Russia set an authoritarian fixation in violent contrast to a USA, European penchant for free individual license, when both cerebral modes are meant to work in concert. Once again, a sapient Earthuman discovery of a universal, genetic-like, complementarity across every realm of a procreative genesis now exists along side. over and above, such (male) senseless carnage against civilians and cities.

Cultural evolution depends on both innovation (new cultural variants by accident or design) and high-fidelity transmission (which preserves our accumulated knowledge). What is required is an overarching theory encompassing both dimensions? The Bifocal Stance Theory (BST) proposes that the co-existence of innovative change and stable tradition results from an avail of two different motivational stances at once. The BST framework sheds new light on the cognitive underpinnings of cumulative cultural change, selection, and spread within an encompassing evolutionary framework. (Abstract excerpt)

No other species is as dependent on culture as humans. Cultural adaptations resulting from
collectively accumulated bodies of knowledge turned a tropical primate into the ecologically
dominant species on the planet. To explain why, we have argued for the Bifocal Stance Theory of cultural evolution, which proposes that the co-existence of innovation and adherence to tradition results from our ability to adopt different motivational stances and associated copying paradigms attuned to the different functional affordances of the behaviour to be transmitted. (41-42)

Jusup, Marko, et al. Social Physics. arXiv:2110.01866. In a paper to appear in Physics Reports, a 16 member team with postings in Japan, Croatia, China, the USA, Luxembourg, the UK, Singapore, Germany, Russia, Italy, Spain, Austria. Slovenia and Taiwan including Petter Holme, Stefano Boccaletti and Matjaz Perc achieves a thorough survey of this (re)union project from its 18th century inklings (Auguste Comte, et al) to our pewawnr worldwise retrospective observance. Twelve chapters over 358 pages proceed from Urban Dynamics, and Econophysics to Pandemics and Climate Phenomena and topics such as polarization, tipping points, biodiversity, neighborhoods, mobility, deep learning AI, and multiplex connectivities. As we peoples may gain a global vista on an evident course from a substantial universe to our evident witness and participation, how might it at last dawn as grand universe to Earthuman discovery?

Recent years have seen a rise in the use of physics-inspired methods as a way to resolve diverse societal problems. Such an effort is due to physicists venturing beyond their usual field, but also by other scientists who wish to gain a deeper basis. Here, we dub this nascent endeavor as a "social physics." We first review the modern way of living that enables humankind's prosperous existence such as urban development, vehicular traffic, financial markets, civil cooperation, societal networks, and the integration of intelligent machines. We then move on to consider potential threats to like criminal behaviour, massive migrations, contagions, environmental issues, and finally climate change. Their coverage ends with ideas for future resolve. After some 360 pages and 1148 references we conclude that this integrative synthesis across this widest expanse seems quite promising. (Abstract excerpt)

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)

Kogut, Alan, et al. Kogut, Alan, et al. The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE): Mission Design and Science Goals. arXiv:2405.20403. We note this posting by seventeen astroscientists from across the USA, onto the UK, France and beyond led by NASA Goddard which detailed project plans as Earthropo sapiens proceeds apace with the task of astronomic self-quantification. See also The SKA Galactic Centre Survey: A White Paper at arXiv:2406.04022. Along with many similar endeavors, what a grand scenario is altogether revealed whence our unique knowsphere commences on an intrinsic course of (multi)universal self-quantification, representation, and select affirmation.

The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE) mission concept plans to measure the energy spectrum and linear polarization of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). PIXIE opens a broad discovery space for the origin, contents, and evolution of the universe. Measurements of small distortions from a CMB blackbody spectrum provide a robust determination of the mean electron pressure and temperature in the universe while constraining processes including dissipation of primordial density perturbations, black holes, and the decay or annihilation of dark matter. We describe the PIXIE instrument sensitivity, foreground subtraction, and anticipated science return from both the baseline 2-year mission and a potential extended mission. (Excerpt)

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

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