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A Sourcebook for the Worldwide Discovery of a Creative Organic Universe
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Recent Additions: New and Updated Entries in the Past 60 Days
Displaying entries 61 through 75 of 82 found.


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

Quickening Evolution > Recapitulation > Homo Sapiens

Mylopotamitaki, Dorothea, et al. Homo sapiens reached the higher latitudes of Europe by 45,000 years ago.. Nature. 626/341, 2024. We cite this article by some thirty paleontologists mainly based at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology as a current example of the latest abilities, as the quote says, to recover and learn about the prehistoric human-like beings who came before us. But in regard, one is led to wonder whom is the planetary worldwise personsphere that is now conducting these retrospectlves. What manner of reality forms and seems requires its own late self-recognition and maybe select affirmation?

The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in Europe is associated with the regional disappearance of Neanderthals and the spread of Homo sapiens. Late Neanderthals persisted in western Europe for millennia in eastern Europe. Archaeological evidence also indicates the presence of several technocomplexes, complicating the behavioural adaptations with specific hominin groups. Here we present the morphological and proteomic taxonomic identification, mitochondrial DNA analysis and direct radiocarbon dating of human remains at the site Ilsenhöhle in Ranis (Germany), earliest Upper Palaeolithic H. sapiens in Eurasia. Our results strengthen the notion of a patchwork of distinct human populations and technocomplexes in Europe during this transitional period. (Abstract)

Life’s Cerebral Cognizance Becomes More Complex, Smarter, Informed, Proactive, Self-Aware

Earth Life > Individuality

Mitchell, Kevin. Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023. The author, a neuro-geneticist at Trinity College Dublin, studies the many relationships between genes, brains, and minds on both individual and evolutionary levels. Into these 2020s he has prepared the first whole book length treatment for the leading edge content of this Life’s Cerebral Cognizance Becomes More Complex, Smarter, Informed, Proactive, Self-Aware chapter. In so doing, the work describes an oriented encephalization from sensory stirrings to scales of ramified neural complexities all the way to our mosaic neocortex. A central track becomes evident as an increasing adaptive behavior with regard to one’s own life, group and environs. In retrospect, life’s cerebral/cognitive evolutionary course can then be seen to assert a liberated agency of personal choice. The vital message (my take) from brains instead of bones could be that we peoples can rise from sinners to winners, avoid nuclear war, and proceed to select ourselves as a unified Earthropocene success.

Scientists are finding how brain activity controls behavior and neural circuits effect actions. But many still conclude that agency—or free will—is an illusion. Free Agents presents a wealth of evidence to the contrary, arguing that we are not mere machines but distinct selves empowered with purpose. Across Earth’s long evolution, Mitchell describes how living beings capable of choice arose from physical origins. As nervous systems came to be, they gave sentient animals the capacity to model, predict, and simulate. These faculties have reached their peak with our human abilities to imagine, introspect, reason and view possible futures. {Publisher)

A purely reductionist, mechanistic approach to life misses the point. On the contrary, basic laws of physics that deal only with energy and matter and forces cannot explain what life is or its defining property – living organisms do things for reasons, as causal agents, in their own right. They are driven by information whose meaning is embedded in the structure of the system itself, based on its history. In short, there are distinct types of causation at play in living organisms by virtue of their organization. (x-xi)

As we will see in later chapters, meaning and value are the internal currency and action selection that emerged as life continued to evolve. From the rocks and sea of our early world, life arose as organisms that maintained theor internal states and sustain a degree of causal autonomy from the world around them. The next step in the evolution of agency is the ability of these autonomous organisms to back upon the world, to become causes in their own right. (43)

In humans, the expansion of our neural resources and recursive architecture of our cognitive systems gave us the ability to think about thoughts. Our minds were set free. We are capable of open-ended truly creative imaginations and hypothetical futures, of creating art, music, science, abstract reasoning that has revealed the deepest laws and principles of the universe. (294)

And we do not do this alone: the true power of human thought comes through collective interactions and cumulative culture. We have as individuals and as a species the power to transcend the immediacies of our own biology. And, though the prospects seem gloomy, we have within our reach the possibility of wisdom, of making optimal decisions for the long-term survival of our planet if we choose to exercise it. (294)

Our Earthuman Ascent: A Major Evolutionary Transition in Individuality

wumanomics > Integral Persons > Somatic

Pierre-Yves Oudeyer. www.pyoudeyer.com.. . The French computational psychologist (search) is the director of the Flowers project-team at the Inria Center of University of Bordeaux. Current (March 2024) projects are now much involved with chatty AI features guided by insights gained from studies with children. A recent talk is Developmental AI: machines that learn like children and help children learn better. As the quotes say, another senior scholar finds evidence that both youngsters and large language modes use trail/error iterate methods in similar ways. See also Open-ended learning and development in machines and humans on the flowers.inria.fr. site.

Together with a great team, I study lifelong autonomous learning, and the self-organization of behavioural, cognitive and language structures at the frontiers of artificial intelligence and cognitive sciences. I use machines as tools to understand better how children learn and develop, and I study how one can build machines that learn autonomously like children, as well as integrate within human cultures, within the new field of developmental artificial intelligence. (P-Y O)

The Flowers project-team, at the University of Bordeaux and at Ensta ParisTech, studies versions of hoistic individual development. These models can help us better understand how children learn, as well as to build machines that gain knowledge as children do, aka developmental artificial intelligence, with applications in educational technologies, automated discovery, robotics and human-computer interaction.

wumanomics > Integral Persons > Cerebral Form

Lindsay, Grace. Models of the Mind: How Physics, Engineering and Mathematics Have Shaped Our Understanding of the Brain.. London: Bloomsbury Sigma, 2021. An Assistant Professor of Psychology and Data Science at New York University begins her book with a review of mathematic and physical principles so they can be applied to cognitive functions such as memories, vision, decision making, excitation/inhibition. With this currency in place, some Grand Unified Theories are surveyed such as Karl Friston’s free energy, Jeff Hawkins’ Thousand Brains project, and Giulio Tononi’s integrated information model. And one wonders whomever is this late planetary faculty as it proceeds to learns on its own. What manner of multiuniverse needs to form a midway self-representation, realization and participatory affirmation?

In Models of the Mind, computational neuroscientist Grace Lindsay explains how mathematical models have allowed researchers to understand and describe many of the brain's processes such as decision-making, sensory processing, stored memory, and more. Each chapter focuses on mathematical tools that have been applied from the individual neuron to their many interactions, whole brain areas and the consequent behaviours. In addition, Grace examines the history of the field from the eighteenth century and to the large models of neural networks that form the basis of modern artificial intelligence.

wumanomics > Integral Persons > Complementary Brain

Ryali, Srikanth, et al. Deep learning models reveal replicable, generalizable, and behaviorally relevant sex differences in human functional brain organization. PNAS. 121, 2024. Into this year, Stanford University psychologists including Vinod Menon make a strong empirical case that there are significant distinctions between the bilateral brains and consequent behaviors of women and men. Using the latest explainable neural net methods (XAI), the team were consistently able to quantify an array of typical masculine and feminine characteristics. Google the title for many reviews of this major work (which of course we knew all along).

Sex is an important biological factor that influences human behavior, impacting cognitive capacity and the manifestation of psychiatric and neurological disorders. However, previous research on how brain organization differs between males and females remain mostly inconclusive. Leveraging recent advances in artificial intelligence and large multicohort functional MRI datasets, we identify replicable, generalizable, and behaviorally relevant sex differences in human neural architecture localized to the default mode network, striatum, and limbic network. (Excerpt)

wumanomics > Integral Persons > Complementary Brain

Varley, Thomas and Jousha Bongard. Evolving higher-order synergies reveals a trade-off between stability and information integration capacity in complex systems. . . University of Vermont system theorists describe new research findings about a further dichotomous situation in cerebral cognizance, as the title says, between more or less capabilities to process information content. See also Partial entropy decomposition reveals higher-order information structures in human brain activity by T. Varley, et al in PNAS (120/30, 2023) and Synergistic information supports modality integration and flexible learning in neural networks by Alexandra Proca, et al arXiv:2210.02996, for more context.

There has recently been much interest in how "higher-order" structures occur in complex systems. This "emergent" organization is found in many natural and artificial systems, although we lack a unified understanding. Here, we use evolutionary optimization by Boolean networks with redundancies or statistical complexity. We find that high-synergy systems are more chaotic, but with a capacity to integrate information. In contrast, evolved redundant modes are stable, but with little ability to integrate information. Finally, the complex systems that balance integration and segregation show both chaosticity and stability, with a greater capacity to integrate information while being more stable. (Excerpt)

wumanomics > Phenomenon > Human Societies

Nichols, Ryan. Cultural evolution: A review of theoretical challenges. Evolutionary Human Sciences. Volume 6, February, 2024. In this Cambridge Press journal edited by Oxford anthropologist Ruth Mace, eleven sociality scientists with postings in the USA, Morocco, Denmark, Germany, France and Spain including Mathieu Charbonneau, Miriam Haidle and Jose Segovia-Martin address a real concern that this academic field which should follow from biological sources remains ill defined, parcellated, debated to an extent that inhibits clarity and integrity. After a broad review of these issues, several pathways toward consiience are laid out.

wumanomics > Phenomenon > Human Societies

Perez, Jermey, et al. Perez, Jeremy, et al. Cultural evolution in populations of Large Language Models. arXiv:2403.08882. Flowers Team, INRIA, Bordeaux, France scholars including Pierre-Yves Oudeyer (search) advance insightful approaches to provide better, more humane, realistic editorial guidance for these vicarious textual corpora. By March 2024, as the Earthificial section above reports, it has been noticed that these spontaneous cognitive venues actually seem to train themselves akin to how children persistently learn to speak and discover.

Over the past decades, the cultural evolution field has generated an important body of knowledge using experimental, historical, and computational methods. While these approaches have generated testable hypotheses, many phenomena are too complex for agent-based models. Here we propose that an employ of Large Language Models (LLMs) can be a novel way to represent human behavior. We simulate cultural evolution in populations of LLMs by variables such as network structure, personality, and social information. The software for conducting these simulations is open-source and features a user-interface to build bridges between the fields of cultural evolution and generative artificial intelligence.

The Flowers project-team, at the University of Bordeaux and at Ensta ParisTech, studies versions of hoistic individual development. These models can help us better understand how children learn, as well as to build machines that gain knowledge as children do, aka developmental artificial intelligence, with applications in educational technologies, automated discovery, robotics and human-computer interaction.

wumanomics > Phenomenon > Physiology

Brglez, Kristijan et al. The complexity and interconnectedness of circular cities and the circular economy for sustainability. Sustainable Development. September 2023.. Sustainable Development.. September, 2023. University of Maribor, Slovenia systems logicians including Matjaz Perc provide further scientific and philosophic guidance for this European green agenda to achieve a relatively closed metabolic abidance and considerate cognizance.


In our study, we are evaluate the interplay between circular cities and the circular economy shaped by new research insights using the Web of Science database. Research trends such as urban metabolism, governance models, the built environment, sustainability benchmarks, and value chain management are aimed at integral implementation. An historic shift from traditional economic and environmental issues towards holistic neighborhoods that advance social integration, communal well-being, and the dynamics of the social economy are becoming evident. We offer novel insights that enhance our understanding of the intricate symbiosis between circular cities and the circular economy. (Abstract)

Conclusion The integration of circular economy principles and circular citieswide concepts highlights a concerted effort to address and attain the Sustainable Cities and Communities goal. Other crucial SDGs aims are1 (No Poverty), 3 (Good Health and Well-being), 4 (Quality Education), and 5 (Gender Equality).. This convergence of circularity and sustainable objectives bears substantial potential for fostering a more resilient and equitable future for humanity.

Cities and the Circular Economy The launch of the European Green Deal puts the concept of circular economy at the centre of efforts to transform the European Union into a fair and prosperous society. In light the current crises, the road to recovery is an opportunity to rethink how we do things so to ensure a more resilient future. A systemic shift to a regenerative economic model is vital to achieve climate neutrality and keep resource consumption within planetary boundaries. However, it requires a citizen behaviour advocacy and multilevel governance.

wumanomics > Phenomenon > Civilizations

Friedman, Thomas. A Titanic Geopolitical Struggle Is Underway. New York Times. January 24, 2024. In his weekly column, the veteran commentator, author and interviewer came to a perception of middle east internecine violence as a battle between two polarities. As the quote says, one is trying to hold onto power while the other sees how flawed this is and seeks a beneficial tolerance. Here is the old clash of civilizations that needs to be realized as actual complements of each other, as this section tries to document. As a note, at the Davos Economic Summit this month, capitalism was often pitted against socialism.

On one side is the Resistance Network, dedicated to preserving closed, autocratic systems where the past buries the future. On the other side is the Inclusion Network, trying to forge more open, connected, pluralizing systems where the future buries the past. Who wins the struggles between these two networks will determine a lot about the dominant character of this post-post-Cold War epoch.

wumanomics > Phenomenon > Macrohistory

Villmoare, Brian. The Evolution of Everything. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022. A paleontologist contributes a latest whole scale synthesis of cosmic, Earthly, and life’s evolutionary course to our present auspicious presence.

Big History seeks to retell the human story in light of scientific advances by such methods as radiocarbon dating and genetic analysis. This book provides a deep, causal view of the forces that have shaped the universe, the earth, and humanity. Starting with the Big Bang it traces the evolutionary history of the world and explores the many natural forces shaping humanity. Moving through time, the causes of agriculture, complex societies, industry, the modern enlightenment, and more are placed in a demography, learning, and social context.

Brian Villmoare is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas who has been working in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia since 2002. In 2013 he was part of the team that discovered the oldest fossil specimen of our genus, Homo.

Earth Earns: An Open Participatory Earthropocene to Astropocene CoCreative Future

Ecosmo Sapiens > Old World

Overbye, Dennis. The Doomsday Clock Keeps Ticking. New York Times. FebruarY 12, 2024. (Are humans the only beings in the universe confronting global self-destruction? Or just the last ones standing?) As if on cue, the veteran science writer notes that the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists journal has moved their Doomsday Clock closer than ever at 1.5 minutes, 90 seconds, from midnight because of internecine wars, barbaric warlords, nuclear threats, climate extremes, the list goes on. Overbye scans present opinion upon the possibility of ET civilizations which lately tends to their absence as life struggles to get beyond microbial stages. JWST images at the edges of space and time add more evidence. He then invokes the Great Filter icon of some ultimate event that all techno-civilizations have to safely pass through to survive. See also Observational Constraints on the Great Filter at arXiv:2002.08776.

Yet there is no evidence that Earth has been visited, or even by an interstellar radio signal — the Great Silence, radio astronomers call it. One answer is that other civilizations are too sparse in space and time. Or we truly are alone, despite images from the James Webb Space Telescope of galaxies scattered like sand in the winds of time. Life arose on Earth within half a billion years of its formation, which suggests that generating at least a microbial form is easy. Maybe intelligence is the hard part.

Ecosmo Sapiens > Old World > anthropocene

Rockstrom, John, et al. The planetary commons: A new paradigm for safeguarding Earth-regulating systems in the Anthropocene. PNAS. 121/5, 2024. 22 coauthors including Will Steffen and Timothy Lenton with a main base at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research propose an expansive perception of our finite world beyond global with its more human emphasis to a whole Earth-planet lifesphere concept. In regard we refer to an a organic, protocellular Earthropocene vista is advanced on this cite.

The Anthropocene signifies a trajectory of the Earth system that is far from the Holocene now fraught with rising risks of irreversible and unmanageable shifts in ecological functioning. We urgently need a new global approach to safeguard critical Earth system regulations more effectively. The global commons scenario is existing guide to governing biophysical systems. In the light of our Anthropocene age, this requires a focus beyond national borders. We propose a new planetary commons modelwhich can include shared geographic regions and environmental vitalities. The new planetary ecosphere view should have integral stewardship obligations aimed at restoring and strengthening planetary resilience and justice. (Abstract)

Ecosmo Sapiens > New Earth > Mind Over Matter

Chiesa, Luisa. Guest Editorial.. IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. 34/2, 2024. A Tufts University mechanical engineering professor introduces this progress report for the latest achievements of this American fusion energy endeavor. See also the www.iter.org website all about the major European project.

This Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity is a collection of six papers focusing on the SPARC Toroidal Field Model Coil Program (TFMC), a collaboration between the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, and Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a company with the objective of developing fusion as an energy source. This three-year effort between 2018 and 2021 had the goal of designing, building, and testing a first-in-class, superconducting toroidal field coil made with the high-temperature Rare Earth Barium Copper Oxide. The TFMC was a prototype now being integrated into the toroidal field magnet of the SPARC tokamak, a net-energy magnetic fusion device currently under construction.

ITER ("The Way" in Latin) is one of the most ambitious energy projects in the world today. In southern France, 35 nations are collaborating to build the world's largest tokamak, a magnetic fusion device that has been designed to prove the feasibility of fusion as a large-scale and carbon-free source of energy based on the same principle that powers our Sun and stars.

Ecosmo Sapiens > New Earth > second genesis

Buehler, Markus. Unsupervised cross-domain translation via deep learning and adversarial attention neural networks and applicaural networks and application to music-inspired protein desig. Patterns. 4/3, 2024. In a new Cell journal, a MIT materials engineer finds and employs a deep learning affinity between melodious metre, beat, rhythm, with metabolic biomolecules. Life is ever a song and dance performance rather than made of isolate, lumpen things. See the author’s website for more.

Human creativity has advanced the way we understand the world, through scientific and artistic modalities. However until now, the convergent use of these disparate modes has remained elusive. Here we propose to achieve translations using deep learning, whereby relationships occur but by bio-inspiration. The method is illustrated by musical data based on Bach’s Goldberg Variations to protein sequences. The general view has applications for engineering, scientific, cultural, artistic, environmental areas, and computational studies. (Big picture)

In this paper we report a method that allows us to discover how patterns in domains can be viewed using a computational approach, the AttentionCrossTranslation model. The algorithm finds cyclic- and self-consistent relations via a bidirectional translation of information and knowledge. The approach is validated by musical note sequences and protein sequence data. The protein folding algorithms generates 3D sequences using solvent molecular dynamics. In turn, musical scores from protein sequences can be turned into audible sound. (Summary)

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