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Life's Corporeal Evolution Encodes and Organizes Itself: An EarthWinian Genesis Synthesis

Davison, Dinah and Richard Michod. Steps to Individuality in Biology and Culture. Royal Society Philosophical Transactions B.. January, 2023. In this special issue, University of Arizona ecological biologists draw on several years of empirical, field and theoretic work (search RM) to offer their findings and views as they may apply to, inform and enlighten life’s latest emergent, composite, personal Earthuman closure.

Did human culture arise through an evolutionary transition in individuality (ETI)? To address, we examine the steps of biological ETIs to see how they could apply to human culture. To do so, we illustrate ETI stages drawing on our work (search RM) on multicellularity in the volvocine algae. We consider how those stages could apply to a transition event involving integrated groups of cultural traditions and the hominins that create and transmit them. We focus primarily on the early Pleistocene and the change from Oldowan to Acheulean technology. Our analysis supports the hypothesis that human culture has undergone an ETI from a Pan-like ancestor during the Pleistocene that is just now culminating in our modern human stage. (Excerpt)

Lamm, Ehud, et al. Human Major Transitions from the Perspective of Distributed Adaptations. Royal Society Philosophical Transactions B. February, 2023. In this special issue, biophilosophers EL and Meir Finkel, TelAviv University and Oren Kolodny, Hebrew University of Jerusalem clarify that these sequential, ascendant stages are no longer informed and influenced by heredity or neural realms, but by an emergent phase that accrues and advances in relative, constructive individual and communal knowledge.

Distributed adaptations are cases in which adaptation is dependent on the whole population so that it is conferred by a structural or compositional aspect. In regard, the relevant information cannot be reduced to that possessed by a single individual. Several kinds of human-distributed occasions are presented, and their evolutionary implications are highlighted. We discuss the consequences that they may have for human collective action and their role in colonization of new areas and niches, seasonal migration, and in setting constraints for minimal inter-population connectivity. (Excerpt)

We conclude with a bold conjecture: major changes in the course of human evolution involved changes in the distribution of adaptive cultural information, in the broad sense of the word used throughout our discussion. In this paper, we have outlined some of the considerations and qualifications needed to develop this conjecture into a productive research programme and have illustrated the multiple kinds of Das found in human culture, their multiple uses, and how DA may have affected cultural macro-evolution. We believe this thought paradigm will serve as a useful perspective in the study of major transitions in human evolution. (9)

Sumner, Seirian, et al. Molecular Patterns and Processes in Evolving Sociality: Lessons from Insects. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. February, 2023. In a special issue on Collective Behavior through Time, University College London, Iowa State University and York University, Toronto biobehaviorists proceed to trace life’s recurrent propensity to come together in viable assemblies for better evolutionary survival on to this early invertebrate level

Social insects have provided some clearest insights into the origins and evolution of collective behaviour. Over 20 years ago, Maynard Smith and Szathmáry situated complex insect behavior among the major transitions in evolution. However, the processes that underlie the rise from solitary life to a superorganism remain elusive. We present a framework to see if nonlinear step-wise evolution) or linear (incremental evolution) changes in molecular mechanisms are involved. We assess the evidence for these two modes how this framework can be used to test the generality of molecular patterns and processes across other major transitions. (Abstract excerpt)

Townsend, Cathryn, et al. Human Cooperation and Evolutionary Transitions. Royal Society Philosophical Transactions B. February, 2023. Baylor University anthropologists and psychologists offer their retrospect of how earlier human social, economic, political and national occasions can be viewed in this light as “egalitarian organisms” with mutual private property and shared resources. In regard, a global phase may at last be able altogether to recognize how it came to appear, coalesce, and succeed whereby an ETI perspective can provide a viable explanation.

A major evolutionary transition in individuality involves the formation of a cooperative group as it becomes a relative personal entity. Human cooperation then shares principles with multicellular organisms that have undergone an emergence. transitions such as division of labour, communication, and fitness interdependence. A hominins adapted to terrestrial niches, we posit that it set in motion a positive feedback pressure for cooperative sociality, communication, brains, cognition, kin relations and technology. As a result, egalitarian societies with cultural mores were formed. Fast forward, the pace of information, innovation and transmission enabled a homo sapiens population growth with growing abilities to cooperate and compete. Alas, socioeconomic inequality, persistent conflict and much more still subverts potential transition of human groups into evolutionary entities. (Excerpt)

Svorcova, Jana and Anton Markos. Closures as a Precondition of Life, Agency and Semiosis. Biosemiotics. February, 2023. Charles University, Prague philosophers (search) provide some latest insights about how a communicative facility ought to be given more significance as live evolves, develops, and talks to itself.

In this paper, we seek to orient and explain the evolution of life by way of cellular and supra-cellular closures as distinct boundary against the surroundings. Such compartments are a precondition of organisation, semiosis, and agency. We contend that dynamic, second-order closures (cell communities) also exist. These second-order closures further organise and form the core bonds that hold the biosphere together. We provide examples of many relationships and point to an elaborate network connecting all denizens of Earth’s living, well informed systems.

Macktoobian, Matin. Self-Organizing Nest Migration Dynamics Synthesis for Ant Colony Systems. arXiv:2210.03975. A University of Alberta, Canada computer scientist describes how even social insect movements like this can be found to express and exemplify nature’s universal mathematic generative source program by way of common, multiplex, entity/edge network topologies.

In this study, we synthesize a novel dynamical approach for ant colonies enabling them to migrate to new nest sites in a self-organizing fashion. In other words, we realize ant colony migration as a self-organizing phenotype-level collective behavior. The proposed theoretic and empirical mechanism effectively shows that an ant colony can migrate to the vicinity of a new nest site in a self-organizing manner without any external supervision.

Macktoobian, Matin. Self-Organizing Nest Migration Dynamics Synthesis for Ant Colony Systems. arXiv:2210.03975. A University of Alberta, Canada computer scientist describes how even social insect movements like this can be found to express and exemplify nature’s universal mathematic generative source program by way of common, multiplex, entity/edge network topologies. Once again, as everywhere, here is an archetypal instance.

In this study, we synthesize a novel dynamical approach for ant colonies enabling them to migrate to new nest sites in a self-organizing fashion. In other words, we realize ant colony migration as a self-organizing phenotype-level collective behavior. The proposed theoretic and empirical mechanism effectively shows that an ant colony can migrate to the vicinity of a new nest site in a self-organizing manner without any external supervision.

Ioannou, Christos and Kate Laskowski. A Multi-scale Review of the Dynamics of Collective Behavior: From Rapid Responses to Ontogeny to Evolution. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. February, 2023. University of Bristol and UC, Davis bioecologists introduce and survey a special collection from a 2022 Royal Society topical meeting. An overall view then describes a recurrent self-organization process in unifying effect. As the select papers below note, once more into these 2020s another take on a steady evolutionary propensity to move toward, gain and avail a group-wide, beneficial social intelligence is persistently evident.

See for example Ontogeny of Collective Behavior by Isabella Muratore and Simon Garnier; A Study of Transfer of Information in Animal Collectives using Deep Learning Tools by Francisco Romero-Ferrero, et al.; Molecular Patterns and Processes in Evolving Sociality: Lessons from Insects by Seirian Sumner, et al.; The Evolution of Intergroup Cooperation by Antonio Rodigues; and Inferring Social Influence in Animal Groups across Multiple Timescales by Vivek Sridhar, et al.

Collective behaviours, such as flocking in birds or decision making by bee colonies, exhibit intriguing behavioural phenomena in the animal kingdom. Their study often focuses on interactions between individuals within groups which occur over close ranges and short timescales. A further aspect is how they drive larger scale properties such as group size, information transfer and group-level decision making. Here, we view collective behaviour from short to longer frames so to gain better understandings all the way to developmental and evolutionary biology. (Ioannou Excerpt)

Martinez-Garcia, Ricardo, et al.. Spatial Patterns in Ecological Systems: From Microbial Colonies to Landscapes. Emerging Topics in Life Sciences. 6/3, 2022. Instituto de Física Teórica UNESP, Brazil, Princeton University (Cornia Tarnita) and Rutgers University ecotheorists describe their current findings that Quite fulfill our 21st century survey and expectation from only patchy, spurious instances to this well grounded evident presence of whole scale as a robust confirmation as this across every everion and bioregion. See also Phase-separation Physics Underlies New Theory for the Resilience of Patchy Ecosystems by Koen Siteur, et al in PNAS (120/2, 2023.)

Self-organized spatial patterns are ubiquitous in ecological systems and allow them to adopt non-trivial spatial distributions from disordered configurations. These patterns form due to diverse nonlinear interactions among organisms and their environment which lead to the emergence of new properties unique to self-organized systems. Here, we establish two categories depending on whether the self-organization is driven by nonlinear density-dependent demographic rates or movements from microbial colonies to whole environments. (Abstract)

Life’s Cerebral Faculties Become More Complex, Smarter, Informed, Proactive, Self-Aware

Webb, Richard, ed. Consciousness. New Scientist Essential Guide. Volume 12, 2022. The British science writer achieves a wide-ranging, update survey and synthesis as an Earthuman acumen presently traces and fills in a long continuity from an ecosmic realm to our nascent awakenings. Six sections - What is Consciousness, Conscious Minds, Your Conscious Self, Sleep and Dreaming, Altered States, and Consciousness and Reality – span vital aspects that they involve. A deeply physical rooting for knowing sentience is braced by vignettes of and essays by leading players such as David Chalmers, Christof Koch, Anil Seth, David Bor (Consciousness is About Combining Information) and others.

Throughout my quest (Christof Koch) to understand consciousness, have never lost sense of living in a magical universe. I do believe that some deep and organizing principle created the universe and set it in motion with a purpose. A pioneering generation of stars had to die in a spectacular supernova to seed space with the heavier elements needed for the rise of self-replicating chemicals on a rocky planet orbiting a young star at just the right distance. The competitive pressures of natural selection led to the accession of creatures with nervous systems. As their complexity grew to huge proportions, some of the entities evolved the ability to reflect on themselves, and to contemplate their beautiful but cruel world. But I do believe that the laws of physics favored the emergence of consciousness, and that these laws will lead us to a complete knowledge of it.

Anthes, Emily. Why Did the Chicken Cross the Barn? To Sign Up for Scientific Study. New Yortk times. November 22, 2022. And a growing body of research suggests that domestic species are brainy beings: Chickens can anticipate the future, goats appear to solicit help from humans, and pigs may pick up on one another’s emotions. Farm Sanctuary, which was founded in 1986, has always held that farm animals are sentient beings, even referring to its feathered and four-legged residents as “people.” “They have their own desires, and their own wants and preferences and needs, and their own inner lives — the same way that human people do,” said Lauri Torgerson-White, the sanctuary’s director of research.

Scott-Phillips, Thomas and Christophe Heintz. Animal Communication in Linguistic and Cognitive Perspective. Annual Review of Linguistics. Volume 9, 2022. University of the Basque and Central European University senior scholars (see websites) gather many research studies into a retrospective synopsis which can begin to reveal a long processive evolution of all manner of grunts to gestures on the way clearer content and our alphabetic linguistics. A conclusion is then reached that our human transition (see Abstract) has a unique, advanced capability. See also Expression Unleashed: The Evolutionary and Cognitive Foundations of Human Communication by C. Heintz and Thom Scott-Phillips in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (January 2022) for another version.

Detailed comparative studies have revealed many surface similarities between human linguistic communication and nonhumans. We review the literature with a specific focus on analogy (similar function but not shared ancestry) and homology (shared ancestry) and conclude that combinatorial features of animal communication are analogous but not homologous to natural language. Homologies are found instead in cognitive capacities of attention manipulation, which are enriched in humans, making possible many distinctive forms such as language use. (Excerpt)

Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Individuality

Doerig, Adrian, et al. The Neuroconnectionist Research Programme. arXiv:2209.03718. Some four decades after its 1980s origins, eleven senior scientists with postings in the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and the USA including Jeann Ismael and Konrad Kording seek to advance this broad program into the 2020s as a proven method to explain the emergence of cognitive phenomena, behavior and neural data from bio-inspired, yet simple distributed coding principles. Over the years it has served beneficial usage in vision, audition, semantics, language, reading studies and brain coding principles. Our “planatural philosophia” is to appreciate its ascent to a global facility which has commenced to learn on her/his own, as newly sourced in a PedpaPedia Earthica edition.

Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) inspired by biology are now widely used to model behavioral and neural data, an approach we identify as neuroconnectionism. ANNs are good tor information process studies in the brain, but less so for cognitive functions. Here we take a philosophy of science view of a cohesive ANN research programme with a computational language for falsifiable theories about brain computation. By some timeline, we review past and present projects to conclude the neuroconnectionist approach is highly progressive, and can generate novel insights into our cerebral endeavors. (Abstract excerpt)

Wang, Yujiang et al. Neuro-evolutionary Evidence for a Universal Fractal Primate Brain Shape. . Eight neuro-researchers from Newcastle University, UK, University of Iowa, and University of Nottingham including Bruno Mota describe a frontier, multi-species study of cortex anatomies whose empirical sophistication are now found to be distinguished by a deep self-similar invariance. We then turn to a planatural philoSophia view to observe how a global brain faculty, as it continues these personal topologies and abilities, can be seen to reconstruct the hominid and animal brains that it altogether arose from.

The primate cerebral cortex can take on a wide diversity of shapes and sizes within species, whilst maintaining common qualities that make it a "brain". Here we present a new way to express the cortical shape as a structural hierarchy across spatial scales. In computational studies, as one removes sulci and gyri smaller than a specified scale, the cortices of 11 primate species are coarse-grained into less folded modes. As a result these cortices take on an archetypal fractal frame which implies a single universal gyrification on all folds. (Abstract)

Ultimately, we hope this new framework for expressing and analyzing cortical morphology, besides revealing a hitherto hidden regularity of nature, can become a powerful tool to characterize and compare cortices of different species and individuals, across development and aging, and across health and disease. (18)

Models of Consciousness 2022. amcs-community.org/events/moc-3-2022.. This conference hosted by the Association for Mathematical Consciousness Science was held at Stanford University in September. The Program booklet contains abstracts for some 47 talks such as by Ian Durham, Giulio Tononi, Carlotta Langer, Tudor Baetu, and Peter Grinrod. The main persuasion is an historic, 2020s capacity, not accessible earlier, to fully admit our knowable sentience as a natural subject which is no longer ephemeral or spurious. With this cast in place many papers then refer to the Integrated Information Theory IIT as a good working guide.

WELCOME to the third Models of Consciousness conference series (MoC3-2022). As we push further into the third decade of the 21st century, mathematical approaches in the scientific study of consciousness are bringing a novel frontiers for revolutionary acceptance and advancement. The introduction of a mathematical basis into the research program allows established methodologies from theoretical physics and computer science to be applicable.

The Association for Mathematical Consciousness Science (AMCS) is an international group of scientists and philosophers devoted to mathematical topics in the scientific study of consciousness. It’s significance arises from an expectation among a growing number of researchers that mainstream scientific methods can be rightly applied to studies a real aware cognizance. We also have set up journal special issues such as Entropy – Integrated Information Theory and Models of Consciousness, and Frontiers in Applied Mathematics and Statistics – Mathematical and Empirical Foundations of Models of Consciousness).

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