Information and the Nature of Reality: From Physics to Metaphysics
Abstract
Many scientists regard mass and energy as the primary currency of nature. In recent years, however, the concept of information has gained importance. Why? In this book, eminent scientists, philosophers and theologians chart various aspects of information, from quantum information to biological and digital information, in order to understand how nature works. Beginning with a historical treatment of the topic, the book also examines physical and biological approaches to information, and its philosophical, theological and ethical implications.
... Exactly how information interrelates to matter and energy remains highly debated, although some have insisted that they are all interconvertible [4]. Though many physicists believe that matter and energy are primary and information is merely derivative, others assert that information has its own ontological character since only information makes a "causal difference to our world" ( [5] p. 8). Furthermore, that causal information is relevant even in the quantum realm as a quantum wave function represents all that is known about a quantum system. ...
... Furthermore, that causal information is relevant even in the quantum realm as a quantum wave function represents all that is known about a quantum system. When an observation collapses the wave function, the trajectory of the subsequent evolution of the quantum system is affected as a difference [5]. ...
Cellular measurement is a crucial faculty in living systems, and exaptations are acknowledged as a significant source of evolutionary innovation. However, the possibility that the origin of biological order is predicated on an exaptation of the measurement of information from the abiotic realm has not been previously explored. To support this hypothesis, the existence of a universal holographic relational information space-time matrix is proposed as a scale-free unification of abiotic and biotic information systems. In this framework, information is a universal property representing the interactions between matter and energy that can be subject to observation. Since observers are also universally distributed, information can be deemed the fundamental fabric of the universe. The novel concept of compartmentalizing this universal N-space information matrix into separate N-space partitions as nodes of informational density defined by Markov blankets and boundaries is introduced, permitting their applicability to both abiotic and biotic systems. Based on these N-space partitions, abiotic systems can derive meaningful information from the conditional settlement of quantum entanglement asymmetries and coherences between separately bounded quantum informational reference frames sufficient to be construed as a form of measurement. These conditional relationships are the precursor of the reiterating nested architecture of the N-space-derived information fields that characterize life and account for biological order. Accordingly, biotic measurement and biological N-space partitioning are exaptations of preexisting information processes within abiotic systems. Abiotic and biotic states thereby reconcile as differing forms of measurement of fundamental universal information. The essential difference between abiotic and biotic states lies within the attributes of the specific observer/detectors, thereby clarifying several contentious aspects of self-referential consciousness.
... The theory is grounded on the information-processing approach to studying the human mind. This approach posits that information serves as the fundamental basis for constructing physical reality, hence facilitating the exploration of intricate phenomena that need a multidisciplinary understanding (Davies and Gregersen 2014). Numerous studies have employed the theory as a foundational framework to explore socio-psychological phenomena, encompassing the domains of environmental and conservation psychology (Nguyen and Jones 2022a, b, Asamoah et al. 2023, Cheng et al. 2023, Kumar et al. 2022, Tanemura et al. 2022, Jiang et al. 2022, Santirocchi et al. 2023. ...
Aesthetics is a crucial ecosystem service provided by biodiversity, which is believed to help improve humans’ quality of life and is linked to environmental consciousness and pro-environmental behaviors. However, how aesthetic experience induced by plants/animals influences the belief in the occurrence and significance of biodiversity loss among urban residents remains understudied. Thus, the current study aimed to examine how the diversity of pets and in-house plants affect urban residents’ belief in biodiversity loss in different scenarios of aesthetic experiences (positive and negative aesthetic experiences at home due to plants/animals). Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 535 Vietnamese urban residents, we found that the people’s aesthetic feeling about their house induced by plants/animals positively affects their belief in the occurrence and significance of biodiversity loss. The diversity of plants and pets also positively influences the level of biodiversity loss belief, but the effect is conditional on the aesthetic experience of the urban residents. Specifically, the positive impact of species diversity on the belief only exists when urban residents feel that their houses’ aesthetics are negatively affected by plants/animals. Moreover, the effect of pet diversity on biodiversity loss belief is less significant and reliable than that of plant diversity. These findings suggest that raising the houses’ aesthetics through in-house planting or pet ownership can potentially enhance biodiversity loss belief and subsequently build an eco-surplus culture among urban residents.
... The theory is based on the approach of information processing to studying human minds. The approach considers information as the foundation upon which physical reality is built, enabling the investigation of complex phenomena that need multidisciplinary knowledge [34]. Various studies have used the theory as the theoretical underpinning for investigating sociopsychological phenomena, including environmental and conservation psychology [35][36][37][38][39][40][41]. ...
Stakeholders’ support is essential for the effective and successful implementation of policies that prioritize enhancing and preserving ocean and coastal ecosystems. However, cross-national studies examining factors influencing stakeholders’ policy support are still lacking. The current study aimed to provide preliminary evidence on factors (e.g., socio-demographic factors, country income levels, and perceived impacts of marine and coastal ecosystems) that affect stakeholders’ endorsement of a policy centered on preserving marine and coastal ecosystems. To conduct the study, we applied the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) to a dataset of 709 stakeholders from 42 countries generated by MaCoBioS—a research project funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020. The BMF allowed us to adopt a distinctive and innovative approach to analyzing the data and drawing valuable policy development and implementation insights. The results show no differences in policy endorsement levels across stakeholders with different ages, education, and country income levels. However, female stakeholders tended to support the policy prioritizing ocean protection more than their male counterparts. Stakeholders perceiving the impacts of marine and coastal ecosystem preservation on human wellbeing, climate and weather, and climate change reduction also tended to support the policy more strongly. Meanwhile, the perceived impacts of ocean and coastal ecosystems on global and local economies had an ambiguous effect on stakeholders’ policy support. Based on these findings, we suggest that raising the awareness and knowledge of stakeholders can help improve their support for ocean and coastal preservation policies. Moreover, it is necessary to concentrate more on communicating the adverse consequences induced by the ocean and coastal ecosystems’ loss (e.g., climate change and health) and less on the economic aspects. The study underscores the significance of environmental education and awareness-raising campaigns in disseminating environmental information and cultivating an eco-surplus culture. This culture inspires stakeholders to actively participate in environmental conservation efforts, going beyond mere sustainability and aiming to create positive environmental impacts.
... Information is created and stored in the ecosystem, in physiological systems, in the brain, and in the genome. That such disparate but fundamental biological systems are united by information underscores the importance of acquiring, processing, and using information for living systems [9,10]. Information shares many features with traditional resources (such as food [11] and mating partners [12]) in that it can be costly to obtain, and once obtained it can be hoarded [13] or shared [14]. ...
... The theory bases on the informationprocessing approach to study human minds. The approach considers information the foundation upon which physical reality is built, allowing for investigating complex phenomena that need multidisciplinary knowledge (Davies & Gregersen, 2014). Various studies have used the theory as the theoretical underpinning for investigating sociopsychological phenomena, including environmental and conservation psychology Nguyen & Jones, 2022b;Nguyen et al., 2023;Vuong et al., 2023;Vuong, Le et al., 2022). ...
Stakeholders’ support is essential for the effective and successful implementation of policies that prioritize enhancing and preserving ocean and coastal ecosystems. However, cross-national studies examining factors influencing the stakeholders’ policy support are still lacking. The current study aimed to provide preliminary evidence on factors (e.g., socio-demographic factors, country income level, and perceived impacts of marine and coastal ecosystems) that affect stakeholders’ endorsement of a policy centered on preserving marine and coastal ecosystems. To conduct the study, we applied the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) on a dataset of 709 stakeholders from 42 countries generated by MaCoBioS – a research project funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020. The results showed no differences in policy endorsement levels across stakeholders with different ages, education, and country income level. However, female stakeholders tended to support the policy prioritizing ocean protection stronger than their male counterparts. Stakeholders perceiving the impacts of marine and coastal ecosystem preservation on human well-being, climate and weather, and climate change reduction also tended to support the policy more strongly. Meanwhile, the perceived impacts of ocean and coastal ecosystems on global and local economies had an ambiguous effect on stakeholders’ policy support. Based on these findings, we suggest that raising awareness and knowledge of stakeholders can help improve their support for ocean and coastal preservation policies. Moreover, it is necessary to concentrate more on communicating the adverse consequences induced by the ocean and coastal ecosystems’ loss (e.g., climate change and health) and concentrate less on the economic aspects.
... Moreover, as fear is a complex emotional response of humans, caused by a wide range of stimuli and regulated by multiple factors, we adopted the Mindsponge Theory to design the questionnaire (Vuong, 2023). The theory is founded on the information-processing perspective, which springs from the metaphysical notion that our world (or physical reality) is composed of information (Davies & Gregersen, 2014). Hence, it enables the study of complex phenomena involving knowledge from social sciences, evolutionary biology, and brain sciences. ...
Emotions are fundamental elements driving humans’ decision-making and information processing. Fear is one of the most common emotions influencing investors’ behaviors in the stock market. Although many studies have been conducted to explore the impacts of fear on investors’ investment performance and trading behaviors, little is known about factors contributing to and alleviating investors’ fear during the market crash (or extremely volatile periods) and their fear regulation after the crisis. Thus, the current data descriptor provides details of a dataset of 1526 Chinese and Vietnamese investors, a potential resource for researchers to fill in the gap. The dataset was designed and structured based on the information-processing perspective of the Mindsponge Theory and existing evidence in life sciences. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics validated the data. Insights generated from the dataset are expected to help researchers expand the existing literature on behavioral finance and the psychology of fear, improve the investment effectiveness among investors, and inform policymakers on strategies to mitigate the negative impacts of market crashes on the stock market.
... Later, the mindsponge mechanism was expanded into a theory of how the mind processes information based on the newest evidence from brain and life sciences (31). Being inspired by the meta-physics assumption that our world is constructed from information so that anything can be examined in terms of information (44)(45)(46), the theory is also constructed through the information-processing perspective. According to the mindsponge theory, the mind is a collection-cum-processor of information that incorporates biological and social systems of varying degrees of complexity and has the following characteristics: ...
The digital era brings various benefits to adolescents. However, operating on the digital environment without sufficient knowledge and skills will expose them to multiple types of risks, especially in the country with low digital safety education rate like Vietnam. The current study examines factors that can contribute to cultivating adolescents’ digital resilience using the information-processing reasoning of the Mindsponge Theory. A UNESCO dataset of 1061 Vietnamese high school students was analyzed using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics. It is found that adolescents’ daily Internet usage frequency, parents’ Internet safety guidance, and teachers’ safety guidance are positively associated with digital resilience. However, the effects of parents’ and teachers’ Internet safety guidance on digital resilience are conditional on the daily Internet usage frequency. Parents’ guidance only enhances adolescents’ digital resilience if they use the Internet less than four hours per day. In contrast, the positive effect of teachers’ guidance on adolescents’ digital resilience becomes stronger when the students spend more time on the Internet (more than 1 hour). Based on these findings, we suggest that adolescents can learn to minimize risks and protect themselves by exposing more to the digital environment. Parents’ and teachers’ supports are important in enhancing adolescents’ capability to deal with digital threats, but types of supports need to be carefully considered to avoid reverse impacts on adolescents’ resilience.
... It is important to set the boundary for the concept of "information" used throughout our arguments. We use the metaphysical perspective positing that everything in the universe is information [29][30][31]. A human is a component of the Earth's ecosphere, a very large-scale natural information processing system. ...
Modern society faces major environmental problems, but there are many difficulties in studying the nature–human relationship from an integral psychosocial perspective. We propose the ecomindsponge conceptual framework, based on the mindsponge theory of information processing. We present a systematic method to examine the nature–human relationship with conceptual frameworks of system boundaries, selective exchange, and adaptive optimization. The theoretical mechanisms were constructed based on principles and new evidence in natural sciences. The core mechanism of ecomindsponge is the subjective sphere of influence, which is the limited mental representation of information received from and processed based on the objective sphere of influence–actual interactions in reality. The subjective sphere is the sum of two sub-spheres: influencing (proactive) and being influenced (reactive). Maladaptation in thinking and behavior of the mind as an information collection-cum-processor results from the deviation of the subjective sphere from reality, which includes two main types: “stupidity” and “delusion”. Using Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 535 urban residents, we provide consistent statistical evidence on the proposed properties of subjective spheres. The dynamic framework of ecomindsponge can be used flexibly and practically for environmental research as well as other psychosocial fields.
... It is important to set the boundary for the concept of "information" used throughout our arguments. We use the metaphysical perspective positing that everything in the universe is information (Adriaans, 2020;Davies & Gregersen, 2014;Dyson, 1999). A human is a component of the Earth's ecospherea very large-scale natural informationprocessing system. ...
Modern society is facing major environmental problems, but there are many difficulties in studying deeper the human-nature relationship from an integral psychosocial perspective. We propose the ecomindsponge theory, based on the mindsponge mechanism of information processing, to provide a more dynamic framework to be used flexibly and practically in environmental social sciences. The core mechanism of ecomindsponge is the subjective sphere of influence, which is the limited mental representation of information received from and processed based on the objective sphere of influence – actual interactions in reality. The subjective sphere is the sum of two sub-spheres: influencing (proactive) and being influenced (reactive). Maladaptation in thinking and behavior of the mind as an information collection-cum-processor results from the deviation of the subjective sphere from reality, which include two main types: “stupidity” and “delusion”. Using Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 535 urban residents, we provide statistical evidence about the consistent patterns of the subjective spheres. Ecomindsponge can be a useful tool for building an eco-surplus culture – a more pro-environmental infosphere of society.
... In his terms, any discontinuity in reality is "data", and the way data affect other entities is "information". Several authors are now considering information as a most fundamental entity, even prior to energy and matter: indeed, matter could come from information-"it from bit", in John Wheeler's words-rather than the other way around (Davies & Gregersen, 2014). This perspective suggests that we should consider real entities in a most general way as systems exchanging information. ...
Emergence can be described as a relationship between entities at different levels of organization, that looks especially puzzling at the transitions between the major levels of matter, life, cognition and culture. Indeed, each major level is dependent on the lower one not just for its constituents, but in some more formal way. A passage by François Jacob suggests that all such evolutionary transitions are associated with the appearance of some form of memory–genetic, neural or linguistic respectively. This implies that they have an informational nature. Based on this idea, we propose a general model of informational systems understood as combinations of modules taken from a limited inventory. Some informational systems are “semantic” models, that is reproduce features of their environment. Among these, some are also “informed”, that is have a pattern derived from a memory subsystem. The levels and components of informed systems can be listed to provide a general framework for knowledge organization, of relevance in both philosophical ontology and applied information services.
... From a metaphysical perspective, everything within and beyond human minds can be examined in terms of information (Davies and Gregersen 2014;Adriaans 2020;Graziano 2022). Therefore, an information-based approach will provide greater versatility in explaining and reasoning how financial literacy can improve financial resilience and how it can be improved through access to financial information. ...
The COVID-19 crisis was remarkable because no global recession model could predict or provide early notice of when the coronavirus pandemic would happen and damage the global economy. Resilience to financial shocks is crucial for households as future crises like COVID-19 are inevitable. Therefore, the current study aims to examine the effects of financial literacy and accessibility to financial information on the financial resilience of Vietnamese households through the lens of an information-processing perspective. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was employed on a dataset of 839 samples for the investigation. We found that households of respondents with better financial knowledge and investment skills are less likely to be financially affected during the peak of the COVID-19 crisis, but the effect of investment skills is weakly reliable. Accessibility to financial information through informal sources (having a household member working in the financial sector) and formal sources (participating in a financial course) is positively associated with the respondents’ financial knowledge and investment skills. This finding suggests that the spillover effect of financial knowledge and skills among residents exists, leading to better resilience toward financial shocks. However, if the financial information is inaccurate, it might lead to misinformation, false beliefs, and poor economic decisions on a large scale.
... A person's resilience can be deemed as the capacity to maintain homeostasis when exposed to harmful information (including old and new information) in the external environment. With this informationprocessing-based definition, researchers may be able to reduce the complexity and variance induced by different social beliefs about resilience [4][5][6]. ...
Exposure to stress is unavoidable in our daily lives. Most people might be subjected to at least one extreme stress (e.g., potentially life-threatening traumatic situations) that can cause serious adverse effects on their mental health [1]. For that reason, resilience has become a topical research issue among researchers in the fields of medicine, mental health, and science to help people improve their capability to withstand stress. One of the most crucial steps to effectively studying resilience is giving it an appropriate definition.
... Moreover, the mindsponge mechanism is an information-processing framework. From a metaphysical standpoint, anything can be examined in terms of information [70] . We make sense of the world based on the information we receive, and all science disciplines need to work with information [71] , including human consciousness [72] . ...
Academia is a competitive environment. Early Career Researchers (ECRs) are limited in experience and resources and especially need achievements to secure and expand their careers. To help with these issues, this book offers a new approach for conducting research using the combination of mindsponge innovative thinking and Bayesian analytics.This is not just another analytics book.1. A new perspective on psychological processes: Mindsponge is a novel approach for examining the human mind’s information processing mechanism. This conceptual framework is used to construct models in studies. The framework is highly flexible and widely applicable for many different types of information processes. The mindsponge approach can help researchers discover interesting ideas or even formulate their very own theories when investigating psychosocial phenomena. This approach brings a fresh wind to the current landscape of social sciences and humanities (SSH).2. Easy-to-follow analysis protocol: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF analytics) is useful in terms of computing and visualizing power but also easy to learn and apply. Contrary to being intimidating, the Bayesian analytics section of this book is presented in a reader-friendly manner with a detailed yet clear step-by-step procedure. Examples are from published BMF articles, allowing readers to immediately practice the method and quickly create their own applications. With educational purposes in mind, the book is very suitable for ECRs who are looking to innovate their research methods.3. Advocating for low-cost, high-quality research: Doing science can be very costly. Mindsponge innovative thinking and BMF analytics help produce impactful studies using openly available data on online repositories. This is based on the authors’ previous works and experiences. The book presents examples of employing the open R package bayesvl on secondary data from different sources. With less financial constraints, researchers can have more freedom of thought to pursue their curiosity and creativity. ECRs in low- and middle-income countries may find this aspect crucial in their careers.4. Support and collaboration: The authors share their insights from experiences in the academic publishing system to help readers get through the processes of manuscript writing and peer-reviewing more easily. The authors are also ready to support other researchers with further inquiries and collaboration opportunities at the following website, mindsponge[dot]info.This book is for: a) ECRs whose only abundant resources are their innovation capacity and strength of will; b) Researchers in SSH who want to explore a novel approach to thinking and study conducting; c) Low- and middle-income countries’ researchers looking for a cost-effective research protocol; and, d) Innovative thinkers who want to turn their interesting thoughts into good publications.
... Moreover, the mindsponge mechanism is an information-processing framework. From a metaphysical standpoint, anything can be examined in terms of information [70] . We make sense of the world based on the information we receive, and all science disciplines need to work with information [71] , including human consciousness [72] . ...
Nguyen MH, La VP, Le TT, Vuong QH. (2022). Bayesian Mindsponge Framework analytics: a novel methodological approach for social sciences and humanities. In: QH Vuong, MH Nguyen, VP La. (Ed.) The mindsponge and BMF analytics for innovative thinking in social sciences and humanities (pp. 87-116). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. ISBN (PDF): 978-83-67405-11-9; ISBN (paperback): 978-83-67405-10-2. doi:10.2478/9788367405119
... Resource triangle of matter, energy, and information modified from Somma, 2009) It is believed that the GIScience theories built upon information science will become more and more important as information itself will become more and more important. Indeed, a growing number of researchers (Wheeler, 1990, Seife, 2007, Vedral, 2012, Becker, 2020, Davies & Gregersen, 2014 have been wondering whether information may be primary, or more fundamental than matter and energy. For example, Wheeler (1990) advocated the "physical world as mode of information, with energy and matter as incidental". ...
Land teleconnections refer to the supply–demand relationship of land between distant countries/regions and its socio-environmental impacts. Modeling land teleconnections is critical for understanding the environmental and social consequences arising from land use and consumption. In this chapter, we first explain a widely used analytical tool for the quantification of land teleconnections, and briefly describe several data sources of global/national trade. We then discuss three potential research themes of land teleconnections for future work, such as identifying the functional characteristics of land use, evaluating the land-related impacts of changing consumption patterns, and associating land teleconnections with sustainability.KeywordsLand teleconnectionsMRIO modelLand use changeSustainability
... Moreover, the mindsponge mechanism is an information-processing framework. From a metaphysical standpoint, anything can be examined in terms of information [70] . We make sense of the world based on the information we receive, and all science disciplines need to work with information [71] , including human consciousness [72] . ...
The paper introduces Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics, a new analytical for investigating socio, psychological, and behavioral phenomena. The strengths of this method derive from the combination of the mindsponge mechanism's conceptual formulation power and Bayesian analysis's inferential advantages. The BMF-based research procedure includes six main steps, in which the mindsponge-based conceptualization and model construction is the key step that makes the method unique. Therefore, we elaborate on the fundamental components and functions of the mindsponge mechanism and summarize them into five memorable principles so that other researchers can capitalize directly. An exemplary analysis was performed using a dataset of 3,071 Vietnamese entrepreneurs’ decisiveness and perceptions of the likelihood of success/continuity to validate the method.
•The paper provides five strong points of BMF analytics, originating from the good match between the mindsponge mechanism and Bayesian inference.
•The paper also provides a step-by-step procedure for conducting BMF-based research.
•The mindsponge mechanism's basic components and functions are elaborated and summarized into five core principles that can be applied directly for research conceptualization and model construction.
... Resource triangle of matter, energy, and information modified from Somma, 2009) It is believed that the GIScience theories built upon information science will become more and more important as information itself will become more and more important. Indeed, a growing number of researchers (Wheeler, 1990, Seife, 2007, Vedral, 2012, Becker, 2020, Davies & Gregersen, 2014 have been wondering whether information may be primary, or more fundamental than matter and energy. For example, Wheeler (1990) advocated the "physical world as mode of information, with energy and matter as incidental". ...
The three-dimensional (3D) structure of forests has long been recognized
to have profound effects on forest ecosystems. However, the use of spectral and radar
remotely sensed data for forest structure quantification is insensitive to changes in
forest vertical structure. LiDAR has emerged as a robust means to measure forest
structures. Numerous studies have been devoted to accurately quantifying forest
structures from LiDAR data at various scales (from tree branches level to global
level) and revolutionized the way we consider forest structure in ecosystem studies. In this chapter, we outline how LiDAR sheds light on forest ecosystem studies and
discuss current challenges and perspectives of LiDAR applications.
... Resource triangle of matter, energy, and information modified from Somma, 2009) It is believed that the GIScience theories built upon information science will become more and more important as information itself will become more and more important. Indeed, a growing number of researchers (Wheeler, 1990, Seife, 2007, Vedral, 2012, Becker, 2020, Davies & Gregersen, 2014 have been wondering whether information may be primary, or more fundamental than matter and energy. For example, Wheeler (1990) advocated the "physical world as mode of information, with energy and matter as incidental". ...
The term "Geographical Information Science" (GIScience) was formally introduced in 1992, after 30-year development of Geographical Information Systems (GIS). The authors believe that it is the appropriate time to reexamine what GIScience should actually be, as it has reached an age of 30 years. In this article, it is noted that GIScience at its current content is focused on the "G" aspect and deals with the theoretical aspect of spatial data handling. However, it is argued that GIScience should also be a type of specialized information science (or a branch of information science) as geographical information is a special type of information. Then, it is pointed out that the foundation of developing GIScience as a branch of information science has been laid down already and it is time to develop theories behind such a science. This article provides an insight into the future development of GIScience.
... It is very difficult to talk about the 'biodigital' without acknowledging significant gaps in our understanding of biology [see for example, Noble (2008), Ulanowicz (2009), Kauffman (2002 or Torday (2013)], alongside huge assumptions about the nature of digital phenomena, information and particularly networks, as they relate to bio-psychosocial organization (Davies 2014;Hui 2016Hui , 2019Simondon 2017;Kittler 2009). Simply put, there is a 'biological' problem and a 'digital' problem. ...
New technological ability is leading postdigital science, where biology as digital information, and digital information as biology, are now dialectically interconnected. In this chapter we firstly explore a philosophy of biodigitalism as a new paradigm closely linked to bioinformationalism. Both involve the mutual interaction and integration of information and biology, which leads us into discussion of biodigital convergence. As a unified ecosystem, this allows us to resolve problems that isolated disciplinary capabilities cannot, creating new knowledge ecologies within a constellation of technoscience. To illustrate our arrival at this historical flash point via several major epistemological shifts in the post-war period, we venture a tentative typology. The convergence between biology and information reconfigures all levels of theory and practice, and even critical reason itself now requires a biodigital interpretation oriented towards ecosystems and coordinated Earth systems. In this understanding, neither the digital humanities, the biohumanities, nor the posthumanities sit outside of biodigitalism. Instead, posthumanism is but one form of biodigitalism that mediates the biohumanities and the digital humanities, no longer preoccupied with the tradition of the subject, but with the constellation of forces shaping the future of human ontologies. This heralds a new biopolitics which brings the philosophy of race, class, gender, and intelligence, into a compelling dialog with genomics and information.KeywordsBiodigitalismBioinformationalismBiopoliticsPostdigitalConvergenceKnowledge ecologyTechnoscienceDigital humanitiesBiohumanitiesPosthumanismPhilosophyEpistemologyOntology
... It is very difficult to talk about the 'biodigital' without acknowledging significant gaps in our understanding of biology [see for example, Noble (2008), Ulanowicz (2009), Kauffman (2002 or Torday (2013)], alongside huge assumptions about the nature of digital phenomena, information and particularly networks, as they relate to bio-psychosocial organization (Davies 2014;Hui 2016Hui , 2019Simondon 2017;Kittler 2009). Simply put, there is a 'biological' problem and a 'digital' problem. ...
This chapter explores the connections between the bio and the digital in the construction of ‘bioinformation’ and ‘biodigital convergence’. The site of examination of these connections is medical understandings of the body. Its focus is the notion of ontology in two related senses, philosophical and technical. The chapter considers the connections between, on the one hand, the immaterial understanding reflected in medical knowledge—in philosophical terms ‘the ideal’ or ideational—and on the other, the material, biological realities of bodies. In a technical sense, the chapter discusses medical ontologies in a computer science frame of reference, and the emergence in recent years of ‘knowledge graphs’ for their representation. On these philosophical and technical bases, the chapter goes on to discuss a research and development project in which the authors have been engaged, to develop a web-based knowledge graphing environment, with a wide range of potential sites of applications, one to support medical students in clinical case analysis, and the other to build medical logic visualizations to supplement electronic health records.KeywordsKnowledge graphsOntologiesMedical informaticsMedical educationElectronic health records
... It is very difficult to talk about the 'biodigital' without acknowledging significant gaps in our understanding of biology [see for example, Noble (2008), Ulanowicz (2009), Kauffman (2002 or Torday (2013)], alongside huge assumptions about the nature of digital phenomena, information and particularly networks, as they relate to bio-psychosocial organization (Davies 2014;Hui 2016Hui , 2019Simondon 2017;Kittler 2009). Simply put, there is a 'biological' problem and a 'digital' problem. ...
This dialogue (trilogue) is an attempt to critically discuss the technoscientific convergence that is taking place with biodigital technologies in the postdigital condition. In this discussion, Sarah Hayes, Petar Jandrić and Michael A. Peters examine the nature of the convergences, their applications for bioeconomic sustainability and associated ecopedagogies. The dialogue chapter raises issues of definition and places the technological convergence (‘nano-bio-info-cogno’) – of new systems biology and digital technologies at the nano level – in an evolutionary context to speculate, on the basis of the latest research, future possibilities. The chapter also reviews these developments within familiar landscapes of posthumanism and postmodernism, raises the question of political bioeconomy and the role of postdigital education within it.KeywordsPostdigitalBiodigitalismBioinformationalismBiopoliticsBioeconomyConvergenceKnowledge ecologyTechnoscience
... En la descripción energía, materia y forma se consideran elementos primarios y básicos que comprenden la realidad (Davies y Gregersen 2014;Meijer 2015, 57-78). Hay un cuarto concepto, la información, elemento que construye esta realidad de manera armónica, y que codificada puede ser interpretada por el receptor. ...
El bienestar es un tema de gran relevancia por ser un asunto humano de importancia central para la calidad de vida de las personas. Abarca muy diversas dimensiones de la vida humana que, sumadas, logran brindar bienestar integral a todo individuo; entre ellas podemos ubicar la dimensión afectiva que, es posible considerarla incluida en diversos conceptos acuñados desde diferentes ámbitos de estudio –como el denominado “bienestar mental” (ámbito de la medicina), el “bienestar subjetivo” (ámbito de la sociología) o el “bienestar psicológico” (ámbito de la psicología).
La afectividad conjunta emociones, sentimientos y pasiones de una persona. Se trata de constructos que pertenecen a la naturaleza innata del ser humano, que son fundamentales; al ser parte necesaria e inseparable de la cognición que influye en la percepción, en el aprendizaje, la salud, la comunicación y aun en la toma de decisiones –de forma racional–. Sin embargo, por mucho tiempo y todavía en la actualidad, no se le ha dado toda la importancia que tiene. En nuestro mundo contemporáneo, solamente hasta poco antes del final del siglo XX, al fin se ha empezado a tomar conciencia de que nuestro estado emocional determina cómo vivimos y, por lo tanto, nuestro bienestar.
En este marco, nace este libro con el objetivo de plantear la presencia y relevancia de la dimensión afectiva para fomentar bienestar integral en las personas a través del diseño. El texto surge del trabajo permanente de reflexión y discusión de la Red Académica de Diseño y Emociones (RADE) integrada por académicos que, desde diversas instituciones a nivel superior ubicadas alrededor del mundo, desarrollamos nuestra labor de investigación precisamente en relación con el tema “diseño y emoción”.
El presente libro representa el tercer texto de la RADE, convocado en esta ocasión por la inquietud académica de llevar a cabo una exploración-reflexión sobre cuáles pueden ser las aportaciones de la perspectiva emocional del diseño para fomentar y contribuir al bienestar de las personas a largo plazo, y de manera significativa para los individuos y la sociedad. Así, se pretende aportar a la discusión teórica que guía la actividad proyectual en la disciplina del Diseño.
... As Bawden and Robinson write, "whenever we find information, we find it inscribed or encoded somehow in a physical medium of whatever kind" [1]. This situation brought many researchers to the conclusion that information is physical (cf., for example, [2][3][4][5][6][7]). Moreover, in the same venue, Deutsch and Marletto write, "Despite being physical, information also has a counterfactual character . . . ...
Many researchers believe that information is physical. The goal of this paper is to show thatthis is only a grand illusion while in reality information in the strict sense belongs to the World of Structures, which is the scientific interpretation of the World of Plato Ideas or Forms. In addition, it is studied how the ideal information acquires a physical representation and is embedded in a physical carrier in the process of materialization. The process of idealization, which is inverse to materialization and in which information is extracted from its physical carrier as an ideal essence, is also discussed. People do not often make a distinction between abstract and ideal objects. That is why, herein, it is explicitly defined what an abstract object is and how an ideal object comes into being elucidating the difference between these entities.
... The creative role of agents in the interpretation of signs is expressed even stronger in Hoffmeyer's notion of semiotic freedom which has been elaborated through a series of publications (Hoffmeyer, , 2014. Hoffmeyer assumes that semiotic freedom is incompatible with physical determinism, and extends beyond quantitative mechanistic relations. ...
This book invites readers to embark on a journey into the world of agency encompassing humans, other organisms, cells, intracellular molecular agents, colonies, populations, ecological systems, and artificial autonomous systems. We combine mechanistic and non-mechanistic approaches in the analysis of the function and evolution of organisms, their subagents, and multi-organism systems, and in this way offer a theoretical platform for integrating biosemiotics with both natural science and the humanities/social sciences. Agents are autonomous systems that incorporate knowledge on how to make sense of their environment and use it to achieve their goals. The functions of all agents are supported by mechanisms at the lowest level; however, the explanatory power of mechanistic analysis is not sufficient for complex agents. Non-mechanistic methods rely on the goal-directedness of agents whose dynamics follow self-stabilized dynamic attractors. The properties of attractors depend on stable or slowly changing factors, and such dependencies can be interpreted as sign relations if they are adaptive in nature. Agents can replace or redirect mechanisms on demand in order to preserve their functions; for performing higher-level semiotic functions, mechanisms are thus only means. We assume that mechanism and semiosis are not mutually exclusive, and that simple agents can interpret signs mechanistically. This assumption allows us to extend semiotic analysis to all agents, including ribosomes in cells, computers, and robots. This book challenges established traditions in natural science and the humanities/social sciences: semiotics no longer appears as restricted to humans and rational thinking, and biology is no longer limited to rely exclusively on mechanistic reasoning.
... The creative role of agents in the interpretation of signs is expressed even stronger in Hoffmeyer's notion of semiotic freedom which has been elaborated through a series of publications (Hoffmeyer 1992(Hoffmeyer , 1996(Hoffmeyer , 2014. Hoffmeyer assumes that semiotic freedom is incompatible with physical determinism, and extends beyond quantitative mechanistic relations. ...
Semiogenesis is the emergence
of new or modified sign relations in agents. New sign relations
emerge by way of the interpretive activities of agents and subagents in adaptive evolution, development
, physiology, and behavior
. The gene-centric concept of evolution needs to be replaced by an agency-centric concept
. The genome may change passively and randomly, but agents’ interpretation
of the genome is active and guided by the logic of agent
functions. Natural selection can facilitate semiogenesis in evolution indirectly by increasing the share of organisms with strong semiogenic potential in lineages, as well as by genetic accommodation. Developmental and physiological adaptations emerge via adjustment of living functions of individual
organisms and their parts. Examples include the plasticity of the immune system, muscles, and other organs. Behavioral adaptations have reached high levels of semiotic freedom in animals with cognitive capacities, such as associative learning, representational memory, anticipation
, and emotion
. Advanced levels of cognition are characterized by unlimited associative learning, use of symbols, and rational thinking supported by intentionality, which represents a belief-desire coupling. Each new level of semiogenesis brings along qualitative changes that elevate the historical rate of increase of the overall semiotic complexity of agents.
... Esta visão é corroborada por Brookes (1980, p. 132) ao afirmar: "I use the perceptron only to emphasise that potential information is everywhere". Além do que dizem os autores da CI, segundo outros autores, fora deste escopo, informação é um conceito muito genérico, de escopo muito amplo, que interesse a várias disciplinas científicas além da CI, (DAVIES; GREGERSEN, 2010;MAARTENS, 2007). Naturalmente que, dado este escopo tão amplo, é natural que a CI, com seu foco voltado à informação enquanto documento, registros etc., não tenha conseguido formular um conceito amplo e unificado de informação. ...
A evolução dos Sistemas de Organização do Conhecimento (SOC) tem sido balizada pelos problemas que a Ciência da Informação/Organização do Conhecimento (CI/OC) se propõe a resolver. Quando a CI surge nos anos 1950-60 o problema era a “explosão da informação”, a proliferação desordenada da literatura científica, endereçado pelos primeiros Sistemas de Recuperação de Informações (SRI) e tesauros voltados para controlar os vocabulários usados para consultar estes sistemas. O problema atual, mais abrangente afetando a sociedade atual como um todo, vem sendo chamado de Big Data. Questão: a CI/OC dispõe de teorias, fundamentos, metodologias e tecnologias para desenvolver SOC a altura dos desafios colocados pela sociedade com a emergência do Big Data e da Web Semântica? Que mudanças, impactos teóricos e práticos a emergência destas questões trará? A OC hoje vem sendo chamada a construir modelos de diferentes domínios, os vocabulários semânticos. Que coisas existem em um domínio, como representá-las? Estas são perguntas da Ontologia e da Semiótica. Objetivos: Este trabalho sugere que teorias abrangentes do que sejam Informação e Conhecimento, objetos das CI/OC, não podem ser obtidos pelas CI/OC com suas próprias bases teóricas desenvolvidas até agora. Metodologia: autores fundacionais de CI/OC são revistos em relação aos fundamentos, teorias e objetos das CI/OC. Suas colocações são cotejadas com teorias gerais de alto nível como a Semiótica e a Ontologia. Conclusões: é sugerido que a Semiótica de Peirce, com suas categorias de percepção e consequente Epistemologia, e a Metafísica, em especial a Ontologia enquanto teoria dos tipos de coisas que existem, incluindo aí a realidade social criada pela cultura humana, podem ser estas teorias.
... If we wish to know how cultural forms emerged in the first 23 Cassirer built upon von Uexküll's notion of the Umwelt according to which each living organism constructs, as it were, its own world. But the conspicuous emergence of high-level symbolism as a constitutive part of human evolution marks a radical step in complexifying and multiplying these worlds because of the degree of semiotic freedom (relative autonomy from organic determination) afforded by the symbolic domain (Hoffmeyer, 2010;Von Bertalanffy, 1950). This has long been recognised by critical psychologists (Stainton Rogers, Stenner, Gleeson and Stainton Rogers, 1995), and was a core aspect of Mead's theory, presumably unknown by Cassirer, despite the shared concern with symbolism: 'The organism, then, is in a sense responsible for its environment … the social environment is endowed with meanings in terms of the process of social activity' (Mead, 2015: 130). ...
When bodies and minds cease to function in silence, everyday lives get disrupted and self-understandings unsettled. We wonder whether we are ill, what ails us, and how it will affect the immediate or long-term future. Through the theoretical lens of liminality, experiences of illness have been described in terms of uncertainty and affective destabilization. In the context of healthcare, liminality is countered by a search for causal explanations, diagnoses, and effective treatment. Little attention has been directed towards how the liminality of illness/disease is managed as patients and medical professionals interact.
... If we wish to know how cultural forms emerged in the first 23 Cassirer built upon von Uexküll's notion of the Umwelt according to which each living organism constructs, as it were, its own world. But the conspicuous emergence of high-level symbolism as a constitutive part of human evolution marks a radical step in complexifying and multiplying these worlds because of the degree of semiotic freedom (relative autonomy from organic determination) afforded by the symbolic domain (Hoffmeyer, 2010;Von Bertalanffy, 1950). This has long been recognised by critical psychologists (Stainton Rogers, Stenner, Gleeson and Stainton Rogers, 1995), and was a core aspect of Mead's theory, presumably unknown by Cassirer, despite the shared concern with symbolism: 'The organism, then, is in a sense responsible for its environment … the social environment is endowed with meanings in terms of the process of social activity' (Mead, 2015: 130). ...
Paul Stenner offers a refreshingly new vision of liminality power by deep empiricism and decoupled from rites of passage that which makes it responsive to the spontaneous precariousness of the present day. Taking up Stenner’s call to apply his concept of liminality to empirical research, this chapter draws on three specific case studies drawn from a year of longitudinal narrative interviews and observations with 17 older couples grappling with terminal illness. The first section of this chapter considers the ways “uh oh” moments can be triggered by seemingly mundane moments which catalyse older spouses’ reinterpretation of their situation and self. We will argue that such moments of disappointed expectations are inseparable from the wider “uh oh” moment of the biopolitical order itself. The second section compares and contrasts older caregiving spouses’ use of what Stenner coins “affective liminal technologies” to pursue—albeit not always successfully—“ah ha” moments that complete liminal passages. We will draw on intersectional theory to further illuminate how people’s specific social location can explain why some carers remain stuck in the liminal. The concluding remarks will offer a critical reflection of the utility and indeed possible expansion of his concept for the social sciences.
... At the root of all physical reality is not 'primary matter' or little atoms of 'stuff'." [14] All considered, the visible physical realm might just be the tip of the iceberg of existence, with a rich invisible ontology concealed lurking underneath. The physical and nonphysical realms are intertwined, and they influence or interact with each other. ...
... The problem lies in the uncertainty about the concepts of data and information, the way they are used in the sonification community, whether their distinction actually matters, and whether sonification should concern itself with one or the other [4]. The study of information becomes an academic trend ( [5,6,7]). Scientists do not treat information as a slippery concept, but rather explore its physical nature and relate its use in different disciplines leading to an organized theory. Information is not only the outcome of the examination of a phenomenon but also a physical quantity [8] that creates organized structures [9]. ...
This paper illustrates the significance of the concept of information as a tool to expound sonification design. Previous works approached the concept of information systematically. However, its structural characteristics during the process of sonification have not been thoroughly discussed. In order to address the above, this paper presents a framework based on the definition of information from the fields of physics, communication engineering, cybernetics , and systems theory. According to this framework, the representation of a phenomenon into organized sound becomes possible by the propagation of organization within the components of the sonification communication model. Moreover, a distinction between the terms data and information is proposed and related to well-established sonification techniques (Audification, PMSon, MBS). The structural characteristics of the phenomenon (described in terms of entropy) are linked with sonification functions leading to new perspectives of sonification design.
... Codes are not generated by chance or by necessity; they are generated by choice (Davies and Gregersen, 2014). Choice, defined here as a decision made by a cognitive agent, could perhaps be an emergent property of chance and necessity, but at present this is speculation. ...
Cognition-sensing and responding to the environment-is the unifying principle behind the genetic code, origin of life, evolution, consciousness, artificial intelligence, and cancer. However, the conventional model of biology seems to mistake cause and effect. According to the reductionist view, the causal chain in biology is chemicals → code → cognition. Despite this prevailing view, there are no examples in the literature to show that the laws of physics and chemistry can produce codes, or that codes produce cognition. Chemicals are just the physical layer of any information system. In contrast, although examples of cognition generating codes and codes controlling chemicals are ubiquitous in biology and technology, cognition remains a mystery. Thus, the central question in biology is: What is the nature and origin of cognition? In order to elucidate this pivotal question, we must cultivate a deeper understanding of information flows. Through this lens, we see that biological cognition is volitional (i.e., deliberate, intentional, or knowing), and while technology is constrained by deductive logic, living things make choices and generate novel information using inductive logic. Information has been called "the hard problem of life' and cannot be fully explained by known physical principles (Walker et al., 2017). The present paper uses information theory (the mathematical foundation of our digital age) and Turing machines (computers) to highlight inaccuracies in prevailing reductionist models of biology, and proposes that the correct causation sequence is cognition → code → chemicals.
... Quizás el mejor estudio, al mismo tiempo introductorio, general y de exposición acerca de la información es Gleick (2012). Dos textos de alta calidad para introducirse en el tema son los de Roederer (2005), y Davies and Gregersen (2011). ...
México ha representado un capítulo relevante en la historia de los pueblos y naciones hispanohablantes, sin embargo, la suya es una historia de contrastes, de tonalidades encontradas, en fin, de fluctuaciones, cuando se la mira en una perspectiva de largo alcance. Hoy por hoy, el enorme reto es la revaloración histórica y la lucha contra la corrupción. Pero está la cara negativa del tema. El desafío que emerge es el de comprender y explicar su complejidad desde las culturas originarias, afromexicanas y españolas. Por otra parte, Colombia representa la contracara, pues nunca ha estado integrada en América Latina, ciertamente no, si se le ve desde la “historia oficial”, la del Estado y sus gobiernos y gobernantes, quienes siempre han mirado del otro lado del Atlántico incluso pasando por encima del Caribe. El futuro inmediato ha sido llamado como la sociedad del conocimiento, la tercera revolución científica y la cuarta revolución industrial. Al mismo tiempo, se presenta la crisis y caída libre de Occidente y la emergencia de una nueva civilización. Se trata, como se aprecia sin dificultad, de la complejidad en su expresión máxima. Este libro estudia la complejidad en los entornos de México y Colombia tomando como hilo conductor la cuarta revolución industrial en marcha. Hoy por hoy, liderados en un caso por el mejor presidente de América Latina, en México, el segundo mejor después de Lázaro Cárdenas. Y en el otro caso, por el presidente más cuestionado en la historia de Colombia, por sus antecedentes y sus consecuencias e implicaciones. Las cosas no son nunca llanas y manifiestamente nada es lo que parece. Antes que escepticismo, se trata de un motivo sensible para el llamado a buena información, buena ciencia, buena investigación, mucha crítica y reflexión. Tal es la invitación de este libro.
... In 1991 Rolf Landauer declared that "information is physical" 24 . Since then, information has come to be seen by many physicists as a fundamental component of the physical world [27][28][29][30] . In deterministic equilibrium thermodynamics we could also have negative entropy production. ...
The second law of classical equilibrium thermodynamics, based on the positivity of entropy production, asserts that any process occurs only in a direction that some information may be lost (flow out of the system) due to the irreversibility inside the system. However, any thermodynamic system can exhibit fluctuations in which negative entropy production may be observed. In particular, in stochastic quantum processes due to quantum correlations and also memory effects we may see the reversal energy flow (heat flow from the cold system to the hot system) and the backflow of information into the system that leads to the negativity of the entropy production which is an apparent violation of the Second Law. In order to resolve this apparent violation, we will try to properly extend the Second Law to quantum processes by incorporating information explicitly into the Second Law. We will also provide a thermodynamic operational meaning for the flow and backflow of information. Finally, it is shown that negative and positive entropy production can be described by a quantum thermodynamic force.
Book of Abstracts for IRAPS 2023.
We discuss the torsion geometries as the universal dynamical setting for the five-fold symmetry and its relation to nonorientable surfaces of selfreference embodying a supradual logophysics, rooted in the Möbius strip and Klein Bottle. We frame the discussion in terms of image-schemas in cognitive semantics and their disruption stemming from supraduality and nonorientability. We present the relation with anholonomic phases, chaos and the brain-mind as an integrated dynamical system. We discuss nonorientability as the characteristic transcendental metapattern of resonant connection, pattern formation and recognition. We present the torsion geometry and nonorientability in psychophysics and the neurosciences. We discuss the homology of the torsion geometry of physical space or spacetime with that of the unconscious modelization by the brain-mind of the kinematics of objects in physical space and in the perception of music, elaborating on the Principle of Complementarity of cognitive psychology due to Shepard. We elaborate on the phenomenological construal of experience, the world as experience. We discuss the supraduality of the liminal states of consciousness and the basis of awareness in memory. We introduce the cognitive psychology foundations of memory on nonorientability and its relations to the short-memory space and its quantumlike nature, and the hyperbolicity of the psychophysics of vision. We discuss the chaotic behaviour of dynamical systems as a manifestation of supraduality as their nonorientability. We propose a basis for the source of consciousness, the Hard Problem, given by the principles of selfreference and hetero-reference which generate the Klein Bottle supradual logophysics. We present the supradual logophysics of neuron cytoskeletal structures, its relation to torsion, resonances, topological and geometrical phases and the microtubule dynamics in terms of nonlinear buckling patterns and nonorientability, and still the torsion geometry of the irreversible thermodynamical processes supporting interactions-at-a-distance. We discuss the primal relation of torsion, nonorientability and memory, particularly arising in the buckling of microtubules. We discuss the primal morphogenesis of the cell as a tensegrity structure, torsion and the indiscernibility of elastodynamics, electromagnetic and gravitational wavefronts as morphogenetic fields. We discuss nonorientability as the metaform pattern of connection and resonance, particularly of interaction-at-a-distance. We apply it to a topological allosteric effect mediated by electromagnetic fields. We discuss the topological chemistry paradigm, particularly of organic chemistry where conformation superposition is crucial, its relation to anaesthetics and its application to the ORC OR theory of Penrose and Hameroff for consciousness as arising from the collapse of the wave function which we relate to the multiconformation in the topological chemistry paradigm. We propose a model of continuous signal processing in digital terms which allows an optimal reconstruction -from digital to continuous-in terms of the Nyquist-Shannon theorem whose constraints on frequencies and bandwidths is naturally interpreted in the terms of the 2:1 harmonics of nonorientability in the Möbius strip or Klein Bottle. We discuss the non-dual logic of the tubulin code and the resonator nature of the neuronal cytoskeleton. We propose that the topological phases appearing in the cytoskeleton may correspond to the topological anholonomity, namely, nonorientability, as was elicited empirically by the Bandyopadhyay group, the existence of anholonomity corresponding to the 360° rotation characteristic of the topological anholonomity, Möbius strip. We propose the Matrix Logic representation of the Klein Bottle logic as the basis for microtubule computations, and discuss the relation to quantum computation, topological entanglement and the topological coherence/decoherence Klein Bottle cycle. We also relate it to holography, the brain’s integration and Velmans’ Reflexive Monism extended by Rapoport. We discuss the multiconformation orientable and nonorientable resonators electronic devices and antennas as classical-quantum realisations of microtubule coherent behaviour. We discuss the relation of life and consciousness and the topological nonorientable embodiment of memory. We introduce the dynamical reduction program for the collapse of the quantum state in terms of the torsion stochastic differential geometry of the quantum geometry of Quantum Mechanics as projective space, and particularly the stochastic extension of the Schroedinger equation to account for the coupling of quantum system and environment, say a measurement apparatus. Thus we identify a realisation of the dynamical reduction program which is based on the torsion geometry, yet supports an agent-free collapse of the quantum state, as an objective albeit random process due to quantum fluctuations. We shall discuss the present supradual logophysics in several aspects such as 1) microtubule structure and dynamics, 2) the orientable and nonorientable conformations of organic molecules, 3) the relation with anaesthetics and the altered states of consciousness and 4) confront them with the tenets of Penrose & Hameroff ORC OR theory for the origin of consciousness, not only the topological chemistry but their choice of a superposition of null torsion as in General Relativity, which renders a trivial selfreferentiality, with the topological chemistry multiconformations which requires non-null torsion. The nontrivial selfreferentiality is both proper to the mind and the torsion geometry, be that on the physical, chemical, perceptual or cognitive domains. All in all, we propose that consciousness is neither based on panpsychism nor the collapse of quantum states, nor exclusively on the control of superposition of conformations of organic chemistry, but rather on the torsion-nonorientable geometry-topology based on the principles of selfreference and hetero-reference, operating in all domains: that of meaning, the mental-anatomical-physiological domain, structural processes of matter energy and in-formation, be that physical, chemical, biological, cognitive and perception. We present a remarkable connection between them. Our approach rather than multidisciplinary will be transdisciplinary, a possibility supported on supraduality - transcending the dual-logic based logophysics-from which the theory will follow in a rather smooth way.
The healing response is not a linear regression to balance. The human organism is an autopoietic system that recreates its balance in forward–backward and multimodal processes. The difference between actual and anticipated bodies generates free-energy, and meaning-making processes emerge to integrate it into the organism’s functional closure. The sign systems which form the body and regulate its energy are multimodal, interactive interpretations from the molecular to the intersubjective levels. The body needs to predict and control energy to keep itself far from entropy. The interoceptive prediction after proprioceptive drift towards an anticipated bodily state is the key to the transtemporal bodily experiences. Many experiments like rubber hand illusion and embodied virtual reality reveal the projective nature of the body and how we can experience other’s bodies and other potential bodies. All active or inert treatments have symbolic aspects that figurate a feeling of a relieved body. This essay is about how healing expectation leads to a multimodal image and transient homeostatic interoceptive feelings. We also explore how repetitive experiences of a potential body induce epigenetic changes and form new attractors in the actual body. A nonlocal, semiotic body may integrate our medical knowledge more effectively and unfold new gates to health and happiness.
As humans, we use the power of thinking to make scientific discoveries, develop technologies, manage social interactions, and transmit knowledge to the next generations. With the ability to think, we can trace back and discover the origin of the universe, the natural world, and ourselves. The content of this book, Mindsponge Theory, is part of that discovery process.This document is an excerpt from the book titled Mindsponge Theory, offering a sneak peek into this emerging theoretical development of the humanities and social sciences research realm.
© 2022 by Quan-Hoang Vuong
All Rights Reserved
Title: Mindsponge Theory
Book manuscript version 13
Date of this version: September 2, 2022
En 1985 Ian Bowater escribía que para el año 2000 la disciplina que en inglés se designa drama podría desaparecer del currículo, por no haber sabido sus practicantes y defensores mostrar su valor, su alcance educativo verdadero. Infelizmente, el pronóstico se cumplió en parte, porque, al mismo tiempo, como señalaba Eisner, tampoco se ha comprendido la función de la educación artística en el desarrollo humano. No obstante, se ha de admitir que a la hora de defender el valor curricular y educativo del drama se han recitado demasiados tópicos y lugares comunes, sin acertar a explicar aquello que pueda tener de substantivo y diferencial, lo que ninguna otra área puede ofrecer. Con este artículo, escrito tras una amplia revisión de literatura en campos diversos, analizamos la cuestión del valor, lo que nos obliga a proponer una mirada nueva al campo de las prácticas educativas generado en el encuentro entre educación y teatro, destacando como conclusión la transcendencia de la educación dramática, cuya finalidad es fomentar y desarrollar un tipo de inteligencia fundamental en el proceso de construcción de la persona y en la conformación del sujeto como actor social: la inteligencia dramática.
A transdisciplinary exploration has allowed the author to combine art, hematology, computer science, and geography to attempt the visual translation of physical pain. Research subjects are stray animals that have experienced traumatic events (such as shooting) which have a lasting impact on their lives or, at times, prove to be fatal. By applying different computational geometry methods, the author creates geographic maps, which reveal the scale of the damage to the body. Thus, the application of transdisciplinarity allows a deeper understanding of complex events.
The concept of the postdigital and current conceptions of the biodigital stem from an understanding of computer networks which itself has a history deriving from biology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This chapter traces the historical development of modern conceptions of ‘network’ from Rashevsky, to McCulloch and Pitts, through to the creation of the Internet, and current thinking about neural networks and machine learning. In tracing this history, we question the soundness of some of the assumptions made about networked digital phenomena and their relation to biological and phenomenological processes. In contrast to the topological node-arc model of networks, we argue that networks arise from evolutionary biological processes which are fundamentally oriented around boundary preservation rather than ‘connection’. Cellular connections observed as networks can be seen as epiphenomena of these underlying processes, where for example, a cell will establish ‘connection’ as a means of maintaining its viability in an uncertain environment. Taking a boundary-preservation viewpoint allows for a homological analysis of similar processes from cells to selves. We illustrate two areas where this viewpoint might be operationalised: in communication dynamics and in institutional organisation. We argue this is a richer way of investigating biodigital phenomena, and opens the door to new technological experiments and alternative visions of a technological society.KeywordsCellular evolutionEvolutionary biologyNetworksNiche constructionCyberneticsHomeostasisPostdigitalBiodigital
In this chapter we discuss the phenomenological tradition within philosophy with emphasis on representative phenomenological positions on subjectivity, sentience, consciousness
and self-consciousness, and make the argument that giving phenomenology
a biosemiotic
grounding will make it more comprehensive. Even though both Husserl and Heidegger, two classics of phenomenology
, acknowledged that animals have subjective lifeworlds, their respective phenomenologies were clearly anthropocentric. The same goes for most mainstream versions of contemporary phenomenology
. Heidegger states this anthropocentric bias plainly when, after referring to the Umwelt theory of Jakob von Uexküll, he claims that animals are “poor in world”. The Umwelt theory offers an alternative, more pluralistic framework for phenomenology
– a phenomenology
beyond the human, with a biosemiotic
basis. Von Uexküll’s Umwelt theory was discussed by Merleau-Ponty and has further inspired several contemporary philosophers within and beyond phenomenology
. In the chapter we also discuss the relation between semiotics and phenomenology
, including Peirce’s ideas and recent calls for a naturalized phenomenology. While modern phenomenology
was from its inception programmatically presented as anti-naturalism, leading contemporary phenomenologists favour realignment between phenomenology
and naturalism. With its roots in sign theory and biology, biosemiotics can contribute further to this endeavour, and be an important piece in the puzzle when realigning phenomenological studies of subjective experience
and behaviour with natural science.
We submit a generalized interpretation of quantum physics on the basis of resolution of quantum indeterminacy, emerging from an integral and simultaneous change of physical relationships at the Planck scale. This model postulates "space-time instants of now" framed by us as "blinks of change" in the physical world. These "instants of now" can only be conceived as permanent conscious moments if they attain sufficient novelty and are regarded by us to be the basic building blocks of scale-invariant consciousness and the fabric of reality. We postulate that a transactional wave interaction of local and nonlocal information occurs within a discrete timeframe between each prior and subsequent "instant of now". The "Standard Reference Frame", created according to our premise, generates a general aspect of quantum entanglement in the universe, thereby providing nonlocal relations that affect all physical change. The proposed quantum physical model not only provides a basis for resolution of quantum uncertainty by causal self-observation of the universe, it also explains the existence of universal consciousness and puts the very nature of time and cause-effect relationships in a new perspective. The concept is conceived as a basic ontology for our cosmos, from which many of the current physical theories for mind/matter reality can be directly derived. It thereby offers insight into the well-known "implicate and explicate order" interpretation of David Bohm as well as the concept of "actual occasions" of Alfred North Whitehead. Our concept bears some similarities with Cramer's Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Physics, but partially differs from a recent hypothesis postulated by Lee Smolin on the nature of Qualia. Importantly, our concept requires a recurrent wave modality that returns to itself that generates an intrinsic aspect of entanglement. This ensures a self-referential information flux that can be fully accommodated by toroidal geometry and intrinsically integrates the aspect of universal consciousness. The toroidal geometry that is implied, allows the access to a 4 th spatial dimension that may reflect a sub-Planckian domain of mathematical relations and geometric forms (phase space), functioning as an implicate order. We believe that the present novel interpretation of quantum physics invites relevant views on individual consciousness of living organisms and their interconnection via cosmic musical master-code.
This chapter answers the question of what is special about the acts of problematization pursued by philosophers. The chapter relies on various metaphilosophical ideas formulated by Bertrand Russell, Edmund Husserl, Rudolf Carnap and Ludwig Wittgenstein, but it does not start with a ready-made list of utterances that are usually assumed to express a philosophical puzzle or belief. Instead, the chapter points out what actually distinguishes a philosophical act of problematizing from other such acts, independently of how this act is subsequently articulated and of whether the act is pursued by a professional philosopher. Namely, what makes philosophical problematizations specific is as an act referred to as the recognition of one’s epistemic position. The latter is articulated in the form of boundary concepts and boundary questions.
We present a comprehensive concept for the fabric of reality and the creation of life through the generation and integration of information, modelled through toroidal processing of wave energy. We submit that human consciousness cannot be understood in a reductionist context, but that it is rather an expression of a cosmic modality or a universal consciousness. We therefore introduce a mental attribute of the entire cosmos that for our world, requires a wave-like holonomic description, implying non-material physicalism in a cosmopsychism context. It is postulated that the generation of life in the cosmos requires a symmetry breaking from a 4 th spatial dimension (5-D spacetime) involving a Sub-Quantum domain, that contains information conceptualized as a pro-active ontological essence. Thereby, a multi-layered fractal reality is conceived integrated by a universal toroidal/möbius-ring type of connection. This is described at the level of a sub-Planckian scale, and is instrumental in past/future transactional information processing and pilot-wave guiding. In this framework, the Zero-point Energy Field is seen as a transition zone from the Sub-Quantum domain to our quantum world. In concert they provide an all-pervading superfluid quantum field that enables soliton (electron-phonon quasi-particle)-mediated interaction with non-neural brain compartments, in which hydro-ionic (hydronium ions and Ca2+-ions) are instrumental. In this process, freely moving protons form wave-antennas in the water matrices of the brain that can receive active life-information as the building blocks for conscious moments. Toroidal geometry is also involved in the functional organisation of wave-coherence and interference in brain, to assure a personal memory. In addition, we postulate a global memory workspace, associated with, but not reducible to the brain. This field-sensitive holographic workspace, that exhibits an event horizon information projection, is seen to be involved in predictive coding and quality control of awareness and can be conceived as personal double. The imprinting of life conditions in inanimate (pre-biotic) structures in biological evolution is conceived as a toroidal processing of energy-consciousness providing a non-dual recursive creation of reality. The unfolding of pre-mordial information into the future is described in geometric terms and defined in a "Beyond Fibonacci" type of spiral mathematics that also includes an extra 4 th spatial dimension. Recent studies of others indeed have shown that the creation of life can be conceived as a symmetry breaking of condensed bosons from a 5-D informational phase-space, supposedly through formation of magnetic monopoles in a Hicks setting, again using an essential toric information code. The monopoles, produced in this process, interact with DNA/RNA on the basis of the molecular entities of life such as H2O, carbon and nitrogen-bases, and this supports recent work on the role of oscillatory DNA wave resonance in cellular communication, being crucial for problem solving of life cells for survival in their environment. Boson-mediated symmetry breaking, modelled by toroidal spinor geometry was also described in a bifurcative self-interaction model that assumes supervenience of mental on physical states. It is finally concluded that scale invariant information, being expressed on the holographic event horizons of each individual cosmic entity, provides a unified connective principle that reveals an intrinsic mental aspect of the cosmos.
The leading approaches in Machine Learning are notoriously data-hungry. Unfortunately, many application domains do not have access to big data because acquiring data involves a process that is expensive or time-consuming. This has triggered a serious debate in both the industrial and academic communities calling for more data-efficient models that harness the power of artificial learners while achieving good results with less training data and in particular less human supervision. In light of this debate, this work investigates the issue of algorithms’ data hungriness. First, it surveys the issue from different perspectives. Then, it presents a comprehensive review of existing data-efficient methods and systematizes them into four categories. Specifically, the survey covers solution strategies that handle data-efficiency by (i) using non-supervised algorithms that are, by nature, more data-efficient, by (ii) creating artificially more data, by (iii) transferring knowledge from rich-data domains into poor-data domains, or by (iv) altering data-hungry algorithms to reduce their dependency upon the amount of samples, in a way they can perform well in small samples regime. Each strategy is extensively reviewed and discussed. In addition, the emphasis is put on how the four strategies interplay with each other in order to motivate exploration of more robust and data-efficient algorithms. Finally, the survey delineates the limitations, discusses research challenges, and suggests future opportunities to advance the research on data-efficiency in machine learning.
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