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

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

Teuscher, Christof. Revisiting the Edge of Chaos: Again?.. Biosystems. May, 2022. The veteran Portland State University systems theorist looks back over the course of this perception all the way to Stuart Kauffman’s autocatalysis whereof life prefers to seek and reside at an active poise between more or less order. Albeit along the way there were doubts, problems and variations, but it can indeed once more be affirmed that this optimum balance does seem to be in prevalent effect across much natural and social phenomena. Which into 2022, with L. da Costa and myriad other confirmations, would constitute an epochal, salutary discovery.

Does biological computation happen at some sort of “edge of chaos”, a dynamical regime somewhere between order and chaos? And if so, is this a fundamental principle that underlies self-organization, evolution, and complex natural and artificial systems that are subjected to adaptation? In this article, we will review the literature on the fundamental principles of computation in natural and artificial systems at the “edge of chaos”. The term was coined by Norman Packard in the late 1980s. Since then, the concept of “adaptation to the edge of chaos” was demonstrated and investigated in many fields where both simple and complex systems receive some sort of feedback. Besides reviewing both historic and recent literature, we will also review critical voices of the concept. (Excerpt)

Tononi, Giulio, et al.. Only What Exists can Cause: An Intrinsic View of Free Will. arXiv:2206.02069. premier team of GT, Larissa Albantakis, Chiara Cirelli, and Melanie Boly, University of Wisconsin, along with Christof Koch, Allen Institute for Brain Science continue to advance this Integrated Information Theory view as it gains a popular validity. In regard, a table of Axioms: the essential properties of phenomenal existence by way of Intrinsicality, Composition, Information, and Exclusion is entered. A table of Postulates: physical existence then shows how the same qualities can be traced to a deep natural basis. As this section reports, since circa 2008 these developments seem to well define a parallel ascent of informed complexity and knowing consciousness.

This essay addresses the implications of integrated information theory (IIT) for free will. IIT is about what consciousness is and how it occurs. According to IIT, the presence of aware sentience is accounted for by a maximum of cause-effect power in the brain. Thus the way specific experiences feel is due to how that cause-effect power is structured. If IIT is right, we do have free will in the fundamental sense: we have real alternatives, we make decisions, and we - not our neurons or atoms - are the cause of willed actions responsibilities. IIT's claim of true free will is based on the proper understanding of consciousness drawn from its intrinsic powers ontology: what truly exists, in physical terms, are intrinsic entities. (Abstract)

Udrescu, Silviu-Marian, et al. AI Feynman 2.0: Pareto Optimal Symbolic Regression Exploiting Graph Modularity. arXiv:2006,10762. MIT and Stanford physicists including Max Tegmark conceive and employ further effective techniques that can inform and serve this global computational ascent.

We present an improved method for symbolic regression that seeks to fit data to formulas that are Pareto-optimal and have the best accuracy for a given complexity. We develop a method for discovering generalized symmetries (arbitrary modularity in the computational graph of a formula) from gradient properties of a neural network fit. We use normalizing flows to generalize and aid probability distributions for which we only have samples, along with statistical hypothesis testing. (Excerpt)

Van der Kolk,, Jasper, et al. Emergence of Geometric Turing Patterns in Complex Networks. arXiv:2211.11311. In November 2022, five Spanish systems theorists including Angeles Serrano and Marian Boguna post an extensive study about how various spatial topologies and shape-shiftings can lead to a wide array of morphogenetic effects across physical, biological and neural phenomena. A further deep affirmation of nature’s invariant, connective vitalities is evidently achieved, once more to prove the independent, ubiquitous presence in kind of these genotype-like mathematics. See also Network Geometry at (2001.03241) and Network Cosmology (1310.6272) by this collegial group.

The Turing instability due competing species of diffusive particles is an important framework for describing non-equilibrium self-organization across chemical and biological systems. These patterns have recently been observed in large complex networks with scale-free degree distributions and the small world property. In this work we study geometric random graph models, where the network topology arises from the fact that nodes live in an underlying similarity space. These results indicate that there is a profound connection between network functions and its hidden reaction-diffusion processes. (Excerpt)

Vujovic, Filip, et al. Cellular Self-Organization: An Overdrive in Cambrian Diversity? BioEssays. July, 2022. University of Sydney system biophysicians contribute another frontier perception of life’s evolutionary motive occasion as more primarily due to these mathematic procreative agencies, rather than post-selection alone. Their certain subject area is this profuse emergence some 540 mys ago. Some sections are Self-Organization: A Decentralized Algorithm to Transform Chaos into Predictability, Self-Organization and Emergence of Morphological Patterns and Emergence of Form and Function in Cellular Self-Organization. Along with 135 references, graphic displays show how this deep drive (natural genesis) provides a formative, organismic effect prior to selection.

See also The Phanerozoic Aftermath of the Cambrian Information Revolution by Shannon Hsieh, et al in Paleobiology, (48/3, 2022) about a concurrent cerebral and cognitive florescence within this expansive era and Self-Organization as a New Paradigm in Evolutionary Biology, Anne Malasse, ed., for a 2022 book-length report of life’s innate creative source. (See V. Evolution for more.)

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.

wood, Charlie. Starfish Whisperer Develops a Physical Language of Life. Quanta. January 11, 2023. A science writer provides a cogent profile of Nikta Fakhri, an award-winning Iranian-American MIT biophysicist, as she adapts and extends a conceptual physics basis as a deeper rooting to better describe how tiny active biological components proceed to give rise to living organisms. A MIT press release notes that her findings reveal “’Starfish embryos to swim in formation like a “living crystal.” Some collegial papers by Fakhri are A Hierarchy of Protein Patterns Robustly Decodes Cell Shape Information by Manon Wigbers, et al in Nature Physics (17/578, 2021) and Odd Dynamics of Living Chiral Crystals by Tan, Tzer Han Tan, et al in Nature (607/287, 2022).

In her work to learn how biological phenomena produces the hugely complex business of living, Fakhri turned to physics — a field that’s adept at linking microscopic and macroscopic phases. Physicists have learned that temperature emerges from the motions of molecules, magnetism from the orientations of atoms, and superconductivity from paired electrons. Perhaps life, too, can be elegantly described as a property that can emerge under the right circumstances. From starfish embryos, she notes that, like other states of matter, life “breaks symmetry” — the growth of an embryo from its past to its future.

Biology is a field that’s much defined by its molecules. Physics takes a somewhat different view and tries to explain things across various scales, from the very small to the very large, using a sort of universal language. In the case of life, we would like to know: How do you go from energy dissipation at a single-particle level all the way up to a flock of birds? In the past, physics has shown that this approach of trying to understand a unit as more than the sum of its parts is at the heart of many complex phenomena. I am optimistic that physical rules may allow us to understand what might be the ultimate complexity in the world.

Wuppuluri, Shyam and Ian Stewart, eds. Electrons to Elephants to Elections. International: Springer Frontiers, 2022. An Indian editorial philosopher and and the British mathematician and author here gather and arrange some 45 chapters so as to illustrate and flesh out that from our late vantage nature’s evident course from universe to human can be as some manner of emergence. This broad theme unites essays from physical and biological to personal and social phases. whereby we need take leave of a bottomed-out reduction method. The entries variously agree on a scalar, recurrent hierarchy which frames an oriented ascent from quantum realms through life’s long, sentient evolution onto cultural behaviors. By this view, some manner of self-similar recurrence in sequential kind can be perceived. A paper which richly evinced was Shared Mathematical Content in the Context of Complex Systems by the Jacobs University physicist Hildegard Meyer-Ortmanns (search), whose Abstract is next. Overall, these intellectual endeavors do seem closer to an encoded natural genesis of complexity, awareness and persons.

We pursue reduction to mathematics rather than materiality which seems more likely to underlie universal phenomena in different contexts. We illustrate with examples of increasing complexity. Firstly, by way of a set of differential equations which apply to pattern formation in biology and to classical mechanics. We then refer to the asymptotics of singular behavior at criticality between various substances. Thirdly, a set of stochastic reactions gives rise to emergent ecological phenomena which corresponds to a transition from species coexistence to extinction.. The fourth case is about Tracy-Widom probability distributions which observes universality classes in wide occurrence. (H. Meyer-Ortmanns excerpt)

Yang, Vicky Chuqiao, et al. Scaling and the Universality of Function Diversity across Human Organizations. arXiv:2208.06487. Senior system theorists VCY, MIT, Christopher Kempes, Geoffrey West, Sidney Redner, Santa Fe Institute and Hyejin Youn, Northwestern University (search each) continue to study and quantify our diverse array of social modern institutions from companies to colleges so as here to make a strong case for a commonly recurrent patterns and processes, an urban universality. A constant theme is that these diverse groupings can have cognitive abilities and achievements beyond individual members. In regard, the basic Natural Genesis premise from its early 2000s origins is that a emergent personsphere transition has become able to learn, think and gain revolutionary knowledge on her/his own. See also Worldwide Scaling of Waste Generation in Urban Systems by this team at 2208.07917.

Function diversity, namely the range of tasks individuals can perform, is essential to productive organizations. This concept has often been studied, but general patterns and mechanisms remain unclear. Here, we analyze over five thousand organizations such as US federal agencies, Norwegian companies, and US universities, and find that the number of distinct functions scales with their size as a power law with an exponent of 1/2. Further, we find common patterns in the distribution of function abundance within organizations. Thus we can observe and report an evident universality whereby human organizations share common features. for creating specializations. (Excerpt)

Human organizations allow a group of individuals to accomplish what disconnected individuals cannot. Function diversity reflects the skills and abilities that are brought together in these groups. Our finding suggests that for top-down organizations, often governed by specified goals and objectives, such as government agencies, companies, and universities, there is a common scaling relationship between the function diversity and organization size, namely, a power law with exponent close to 1/2. This empirical observation implies that a critical size is required to sustain a given level of function diversity in an organization. (9)

Zanin, Massimiliano and Johann Martinez. Analysing International Events through the Lens of Statistical Physics: The Case of Ukraine. arXiv:2203.07403. IFISC Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Physics and Complex Systems, University of the Balearic Islands, Spain theorists provide a timely and insightful application of 21st century complex network science advances, as these natural mathematics gain deeper roots in conducive physical phenomena. (Search Neil Johnson, Pedro Manrique, for more findings of how an independent dynamics can even underlie violent conflicts.) The paper was written before the invasion, but can convey a vital illumination. As our 2020s postings now confirm (A Naturome Code, Earthuman Integrations), an actual organic genesis is found to be animated and constrained by an independent source script in exemplary, genetic-like effect for each and every instance. So into this real March madness, maybe concurrent Earthwise Learnings can dispense such edifications we so need.

During the last years, statistical physics has received an increasing attention as a framework for the analysis of real complex systems. However, this is less clear in the case of international political events, partly due to a difficulty in securing relevant quantitative evidence. Here we consider a detailed data set of violent events that took place in Ukraine since January 2021, and analyse their temporal and spatial correlations through entropy and complexity metrics, and functional networks. Results depict an unstable scenario, with events occurring in a non-random fashion, but with eastern-most regions functionally disconnected from the remainder of the country. (Abstract)

During the last decades, statistical physics concepts and tools have ceased being exclusive of this scientific field, for becoming standard approaches used in the analysis of numerous and heterogeneous real-world problems. To illustrate but a few examples, complex networks have become an essential asset in epidemics spreading models, neuroscience, and climate; along with biomedical systems from brain to heart dynamic. The reason for such success is possibly rooted in statistical physics' ability for decoupling the dynamical and observational scales; while a system may only be observable at the macro-scale, conclusions about the underlying micro-scale source can still be drawn. (1)

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