“Whereas we think we are talking to each other, we are all simply connecting our bodies into a massive network, creating a massive DNA calculator, with hosts and endpoints consisting of carbon and flesh. The human species in the post-information society is a Turing state- machine capable of either turning on or off the screen. Communication on the macro scale becomes the number of screens transmitting light at any given time. It is a modality of code consisting of blinking UV and visible light emanating from the surface of terrestrial earth.

The input data either stimulates the cortical nervous action of turning on a screen or not. The earth pulses at varied rates, possibly radiating at some strange cosmic level a gaia morse-code linking schuman resonance to galactic exchange between Urantia/Earth and her surrounding celestial spheres. Humanity as a whole becomes a massive empirical experiement in systems analysis, an Einthoven fantasy. What ideas, images, and events trigger the most ebullient patterns of UV splashing emitted from the surface of earth outwards towards the cosmos? Thus the shortening and dampening of words and phrases towards being images and signs analytically flashed across millions of screens occurs as a facilitator, easing and enabling more flashing of screens as the earth uses humanity as path towards cosmic connectivity.

Post-information society wages an imperial war against the present, for the psychological focus attuned through focusing attention to the present moment, what is to be observed through hearing and sight clears the cognitive space relished by multinational market interests craving to insert their laboratory-designed mass produced branded self sculptures. Without time, there is no need for accumulation. Accumulation is a temporal-anxiety effect, and hence the endgame technology, the death of event and time is the destruction of the system from which its myth unfolded from”  http://www.chadscoville.com/post/450781965/3-15-10-tetralocks

Related posts:

1. Notes from TED
2. Convergence

Ironically I chose finance after beating my head at math a little too eagerly in college.  The incentives told me to do it. :)  Guns don’t kill people, right?  (Pardon the darkness, but the displacement of accountability is an unintended consequence of all external incentives.  Not that we’ve figured out a better way yet, but let’s not hide from it.  Running from it won’t help us understand it.  I’m sharing my personal experience to show that I’m not just an artsy guy talking smack.)

Rafe’s model of Science 2.0 attempts to place the spotlight back on the creative aspect of discovery.  But what are the rules of the game?  If numbers are necessary, but not sufficient, then what else is more important?

Enter the Incommensurability of Scientific Theories, which convincingly argues that ontology and language are a necessary centerpiece of rational comparison of theories and thus any and all science.  Science 2.0 framework has to be built around rational language reconciliation.  The link is a bit long (but quite worth it and ought to be required reading for all “scientists”), so here are the highlights:

“In order to understand the meanings that scientists ascribe to their own statements, it is necessary to understand the theories that they use in order to interpret what they observe.

Because older ideas are misunderstood, as a result of taking them out of their theoretical context, proponents of incommensurable scientific theories misunderstand each other, both claiming to have the facts on their side. Kuhn and Feyerabend both claimed that in such a situation, even empirical arguments can become circular (Feyerabend 1965b, 152; Kuhn 1970 [1962], 94)

Feyerabend suggested that the insolubility is due to the unwillingness of philosophers of different persuasions to change the deeply entrenched meanings of their terms, and that in this case, the mental should be reinterpreted so that it is compatible with materialism (Feyerabend 1963b).

Different epistemic values, such as universality, accuracy, simplicity, fruitfulness may pull in different directions (cf. Hoyningen-Huene 1992, 492–496; 1993, 150–154; Feyerabend 1981a 16, 1981c, 238) allowing for the possibility of rational disagreement.

With the notion of incommensurability, Kuhn was not so much challenging the rationality of theory choice, as trying to make room for the possibility of rational disagreement between proponents of competing paradigms. In fact, according to Kuhn, “incommensurability is far from being the threat to rational evaluation of truth claims that it has frequently seemed. Rather, it’s what is needed, within a developmental perspective, to restore some badly needed bite to the whole notion of cognitive evaluation. It is needed, that is, to defend notions like truth and knowledge from, for example, the excesses of post-modernist movements like the strong program” (2000 [1993], 91).

A far cry from claiming that incommensurable theories cannot be compared, Feyerabend explicitly and repeatedly argued that incommensurable alternatives actually offer a better means of comparing the merits of theories than the mere development of commensurable alternatives (Feyerabend 1962, 66; cf. Oberheim 2006, 235ff.).

Finally, there is one central, substantive point of agreement between Kuhn and Feyerabend. Both see incommensurability as precluding the possibility of interpreting scientific development as an approximation to truth (or as an “increase of verisimilitude”) (Feyerabend, 1965c, 107; 1970, 220, 222, 227–228; 1975, 30, 284; 1978, 68; Kuhn 1970, 206; 1991, 6; 1993, 330; cf. Oberheim 2006, 180ff.; Hoyningen-Huene 1993, 262-264). They reject such characterizations of scientific progress because they recognize and emphasize that scientific revolutions result in changes in ontology. Such changes are not just refinements of, or additions to, the older ontology, such that these developments could be seen as cumulative additions to already established theoretical views. Rather, the new ontology replaces its predecessor. Consequently, neither Kuhn nor Feyerabend can correctly be characterized as scientific realists who believe that science makes progress toward the truth.”

Related posts:

1. Science 2.0
2. The Vanguard of Science: Bonnie Bassler

Proof: our mind sets out to modify our environment in particular ways (i.e. set goals); then we act in ways consistent with that intention; more often than chance, our environment changes in those intended ways (i.e. goals are achieved).

This is a form of entanglement — spooky action at a distance — between our minds and the environment (which includes other minds), but we usually dismiss this as trivial, not very spooky. On the other hand, we know that quantum entanglement exists and it seems spooky to us because we have no mechanism to explain it.

We also observe that there are quantum effects in the basic architecture of the brain (nanotubules) and wonder if these are somehow the “ghost in the machine” of consciousness. But this could be just a red herring. Perhaps quantum effects matter to consciousness, perhaps they don’t. Still quantum effects are part of the human experience in some sense — and so are biological, chemical, social, psychodynamic, etc. Each of these realms involve entanglement of their own variety. Chemically, there are bonds. Biologically there is autopoiesis and function. Psychodynamically, there is empathy. Socially, there is community. And so on.

In our quest to limit explanations to single realms, perhaps we are ignoring Einstein’s advice about simplifying as much as possible, but no simpler.  What if more than one — maybe even all? — realms (levels) of a system are required to fully explain the phenomena we wonder about….

Related posts:

1. The Process
2. The Conflict Between Complex Systems and Reductionism
3. Teaching Metacognition to 7th Graders

First off, I know that this may not make sense to most people.  The relationships implied by proximity, color, dimension, etc are not totally accurate.  The problem is, I’ve reached the limit of my personal ability to create a good visualization.  So I’m throwing this out there half-baked hoping that the crowd (that’s you) will help bring this together in a more coherent way.

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who have great design skills.  If you don’t, then at the least you can ask probing questions to suss out the sources of confusion, which will then feed into the redesign process.

A more detailed explication of these concepts can be found by drilling down through this roadmap.

Relatedly, I have been creating a taxonomy of “emergent network properties” that is definitely half-baked but has been useful for organizing my own thoughts:

The spreadsheet is editable here if you want to extend or refine it.  I’m open to any and all interpretations and ideas in these areas, would love to hear your thoughts.

Related posts:

1. Complex Systems Concept Summary
2. Generalized Evolutionary Theory
3. A Theory of Scalability

From The Chaos Point. Reproduced with permission from the author.

In a convergence of a different sort, many of these threads which all come together and interrelate in my own mind, came together in various conversations and talks within the last 15 hours.  And while it’s impossible to explain this all in details, it’s really exciting to find other people who are on the same wavelength and have thought a lot harder on each of the pieces than I have.  Just to give you a taste, here are the human players in this personal convergence and how they relate to the above themes:

Kevin Carpenter: Heard him first talk at LA Idea Project on the concept of Convergence and how it’s critically different than Kurzweilian Singularity and much more similar to Superorganism.  Ran into him again at a party last night and he was excited to have given more cogent shape to his thinking in this area.

Steve Omohundro: I went to check out the H+ Summit this morning and he was speaking matter-of-factly on so many areas of interest and dropping research-backed evidence to support all of this pontification.  While the details aren’t in this slide presentation, you should glance through it anyway, especially if you have been intrigued at all about things that I’ve written about.

Dan Miler: Spoke right after Omohundro on cellular automata and simulation, and the metaphor/paradigm of digital physics.  He highlighted several projects by other people which are shedding light on deep universal structure, including the work of Alex Lamb.  Lamb has built the first (as far as I know) cellular automata system based on irregular latices (i.e. arbitrary network structures).  Just like in Conway’s Game of Life — the most well-known cellular automaton — there emerge persistent dynamic patterns similar to gliders:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are more examples from the Jellyfish system.

What intrigues me most about this is that the brain is a nonregular lattice (by definition all networks are).  Neuronal firing patterns are (that is to say, cognition is) computationally isomorphic to cellular automata on nonregular lattices.  The jellyfish patterns seen in Lamb’s simulations are exactly what I would imagine to exist in the brain.  These would be the semi-autonomous interacting — sometimes cooperating, sometimes conflicting — agents that Omohundro refers to as being the basis of all cognition/intelligence.  It’s exactly what Minsky was referring to in Society of Mind, and what Palombo referred to in The Emergent Ego.  It’s also the basis of crowd wisdom or collective intelligence.

Which leads us back to Convergence.  As we learn more about the nature of cognition, intelligence and thought (both conscious and unconscious), I believe we will recognize ever more clearly how there is new sentience emerging, not alongside human beings (though that is surely happening as well), but rather at the level above human beings and their technological spawn.

Related posts:

1. Superfoo
2. Focusing on "Autonomy"
3. Response to "Superorganism Considered Harmful"

In thinking about these questions, it helps me to remind myself of the difference between evolution and emergence. Evolution happens whenever you have a population of agents with heritable variation and differential reproduction rates. There are at least two types of emergence, both of which can create new types of agents. Various self-reinforcing mechanisms lead to stronger and more stable agency. We may not even recognize the emergence of nascent agents for what they are until said agency (or coherence) becomes strong enough. For instance, many people have a hard time wrapping their head around cultural agency of any form.

Obviously none of us on here have a problem with the concept of non-human agency, but as Alex and Ben collectively point out, cultural agents depend on human agents for their very existence.  Yet as they become more coherent they inevitably come into conflict with human agency (i.e. what’s good for the organization diverges from what’s good for its constituents). This is the fundamental yin-yang dynamic of the creation of new levels of organization and complexity.

It is worthwhile asking what the future holds for humanity. This is what Kevin and I were on about in this whole superorganism and singularity thread:

• Superorganism and Singularity
• Superorganism Considered Harmful
• Response to Superorganism Considered Harmful
• Superorganism as Terminology
• Superfoo
• Focusing on Autonomy
• Going Meta on Autonomy

Summary is:

1. we disagree on whether there will be a single overarching Gaia-esque Super-agent on earth or whether there will just be a rich ecology of many interacting “small s” super-agents with no strong “big S” Super-agent
2. we disagree on how to measure “autonomy” so we can’t come to a consensus on what life will be like for humans
3. we didn’t really dive too deeply into the extent and nature of interaction between human agents and super-agents

This last point is interesting to me since it appears from the evidence that as each new level emerges, several things happen:

• communicative interactions between higher level and lower level agents increases
• level boundaries become less strict so that levels “overlap”
• the amount of co-evolution between the lower-level population and higher-level population — i.e. multilevel evolution — also increases

To make this claim more concrete, compare for instance the difference (in the above regards) between these three dyadic systems:

A) atom –> molecule

B) cellular organism –> multicellular organism

C) human –> corporation

All thoughts, disagreements, questions welcome…

Related posts:

1. Human Cultural Transformation Triggered by Dense Populations
2. Cultural Agency
3. Complex Systems Concept Summary

How can they both be right? I think they are operating at different levels. Yes, individual agents make their particular planning decisions.  In aggregate, these decisions drive monetary variables like interest rates, exchange rates, liquidity demand, etc.  However, these variables then feed back into the next round of planning decisions.  Moreover, at least some of these plans take into account the effect of the agent’s actions on the monetary variables.  So you get classic chaotic/complex behavior with temporarily stable attractors, perturbations, and establishing new regimes. There may even be aspects of synchronized chaos. I think the monetary variables are the key emergent phenomena here.  They are like “meta prices” that provide a shared signal across just about every modern economic endeavor.

Food for thought.  I’m going to keep this in mind when processing future articles on the economy and see if it helps my thinking.

Related posts:

1. Kevin Gets Acknowledged by a Real Economist
2. Brilliant or Crazy? I Really Don't Know.
3. Emergent Causality

One preface I think will help is to understand that genome, karyotype and chromosome refer roughly to the same thing.  Here are several schematics that I will present without explanation that together illustrate how genes relate to genome/karyotype/chromosome structure, and how that in turn relates to the so-called genetic network (loosely equivalent to the “proteome”).  Of course “gene” is an outdated and inaccurate concept, so don’t get too hung up looking for genes here, just understand that they are sub-structural elements of the genome.

From MSU website

From eapbiofield.wikispaces.com

From Heng’s paper titled”The genome-centric concept: resynthesis of evolutionary theory”

Now onto the paper.  I’ll point out that I’ve eliminated the scholarly references in the original text simply for clarity, but I don’t want readers to think that the authors have not properly credited the research that goes into the statements/claims made below.  If you’d like to read the original paper, email Henry Heng whose address is on the abstract above.  Also note that all emphasis in the quotes below is mine.

Somatic Evolution

…cancer progression is an evolutionary process where genome system replacement (rather than a common pathway) is the driving force.

It has become clear that a correct theoretical framework for cancer research is now urgently needed and the concept of somatic evolution represents just such a framework.

The increased NCCA frequencies reflect increased survival advantage while increased CCAs reflect a growth advantage. [NCCAs and CCAs are chromosomal aberrations, like gene mutations but at the genome level]

This last quote is reminiscent of the RNA autocatalysis experiments reported on earlier this year which showed divergent evolution towards two co-existing phenotypes, one that more quickly gobbled up available resources and another that was more efficient at using resources to reproduce quicker.  Perhaps there is a basic principle at work in both systems (autocatalytic RNA populations and somatic cell populations).

Instability / Heterogeneity / Diversity

Clearly, as there is no defined cancer genome (the vast majority of cancer cases display different karyotypes representing different genome systems), there is no defined cancer epigenome either.

…the most common feature in tumors is a high level of genome variation…

Understanding the importance of heterogeneity is the key to understanding the general evolutionary mechanism of cancer.

…the true challenge is to understand the system behavior (stability or instability)…

When closely examining the contribution of various genetic factors, it is clear that many of the genetic loci or events are only significantly linked to tumorigenicity when they contribute to system instability (which is closely linked to genome level heterogeneity).

…it is relatively easy to establish a causative relationship between system heterogeneity and cancer evolution, as heterogeneity is the necessary pre-condition needed for cancer evolution to occur….

…instability imparts heterogeneity, which is acted on by natural selection.

The predictability of cancer can be accomplished by measuring the system heterogeneity that is shared by most patients rather than characterize each of the individual factors that contributes to cancer.

Virtual Stability / Chaotic Synchronization

Heterogeneity provides a greater chance of success that a system can adapt to the environment and survive.

…heterogeneity ‘‘noise’’ represents a key feature of bio-systems providing needed complexity and robustness.

…epigentic alteration is an initial response when the genome system is under stress.

It turns out, lower levels of ‘‘randomness’’ are essential for higher levels of regulation when facing a drastically changed environment.

In a human-centric version of a perfect world, within the multiple levels of homeostasis, environmental stress should be counteracted by epigenetic regulation; disturbances of metabolic status should be recovered; the errors of DNA replication should be repaired; altered cells should be eliminated by cell death mechanisms; abnormal clones should be constrained by the tissue architecture; and the formed cancer cells should be cleared up by the immune-system. In a cancer defined perfect world, in contrast, the break down of homeostasis is the key to success. Unfortunately, continually evolving systems are the way of life and cannot be totally prevented. In a sense, cancer is the price we pay for evolution as an interaction between system heterogeneity and homeostasis….

Facilitated Variation / Baldwin Effect

When changes are selected by the evolutionary process, these changes can be fixed either at a specific gene level or at the genome level (achieving the transition from epigenetic to genetic changes).

This is corroborated by Spencer, et al and Brock, et al, the latter of whom says, “‘pre-selection’ of non-genetic variants would markedly increase the probability of producing a random genetic mutation that may provide the basis for the survival capability of the original non-genetically variant outlier population.”

Path Dependence

…cancer cases are genetic and environmentally contingent. The pattern of specific gene mutations can only be used within a specific population with a similar genome, mutational composition as well as a similar environment.

…the stochastic events referred to here are not completely random but rather are less predictable due to differences in the initial conditions reflected by the multiple levels of genetic and epigenetic alteration.

From a system point of view, significant karyotypic changes represent a ‘‘point of no return’’ in system evolution, even though certain gene mutations and most likely epigenetic changes can influence karyotypic changes.

Upon establishment of a new genome through karyotypic evolution, it is impossible to revert back to a previous state through epigenetic alteration.

As long as the genome does not significantly change, epigenetic reprogramming could work to bring the system to its original status.

Multiple Levels

…the multiple levels of homeostasis are more important than genetic factors in constraining cancer, as alterations of system homeostasis rather than individual genetic alterations are responsible for the majority of cancers. Accordingly, the robustness of a network, the reversible features of epigenetic regulation, tissue architecture, and the immune-system will play a more important role than individual genetic alterations.

…genome level alteration within tumors is a universal feature.

Note that although physically the epigenetic level sits “above” the genome, functionally it’s really below, as indicated in this last figure.  Of course, it helps to remind ourselves that “level” is a convenient but not quite accurate concept, and they are not always clearly distinct and non-overlapping, as in this case.

Current Methodological Weaknesses

It should be noted that these weaknesses stem from an inherent paradigmatic conflict that exists in science as it’s practiced today.  These weaknesses will not be addressed until complex systems thinking pervades science in general.

…methodologies of DNA/RNA isolation and sequencing from mixed cell populations artificially average the molecular profile.

…current methods used to trace genetic loci heterogeneity are not accurate, as the admixture of DNA from different cells will wash away the true high level of heterogeneity and only display the heterogeneity of dominant clonal populations.

There is a need to change our way of thinking by focusing more on monitoring the level of heterogeneity rather than attempting to identify specific patterns in this highly dynamic process.

…the benefit of cancer intervention depends on the phase (stable or unstable) of evolution the somatic cells are in.

The strategies of attempting to reduce heterogeneity to study the mechanisms of cancer represent a flawed approach.  Without heterogeneity, there would be no cancer. That is the reason why many principles discovered using simplified homogenous experimental systems do not apply in the real world of heterogeneity.

…cancer progression is fundamentally different from developmental processes…. The terminology ‘‘cancer development’’ implies an incorrect concept and needs to be changed.

…we recommend focusing on correlation studies rather than search for a specific ‘‘causal relationship’’.

…the understanding of the overall contribution of epigenetic regulation should not focus solely on tumor suppressor genes, but rather focus on system dynamics and evolve-ability.

A true genome project would focus on the way genomic structure and topology form a genetic network and should also include epigenetic features of the genetic network.

Related posts:

1. The Conflict Between Complex Systems and Reductionism
2. Cancer as Evolution — 2008 Summary
3. Cancer as Evolution, part 3

• Society According to Kevin
• I May Have Been Wrong About Macroeconomics
• But I Was Probably Right About Climate Models

It occurred to me as I was reading this Huffington Post article that there is a reverse-emergent dynamic that occurs when countries (often through their leaders) send signals to other countries through word and action. That is, if the actions of a group can be seen as emerging from the sum total of actions of its constituents, then it’s also true that the actions of the constituents are influenced by the information received at the group level.  Obama, speaking for the U.S., says to an Arab nation “we will treat you with dignity and respect if you treat us that way”, and this has an effect on individuals in that nation as to how they will behave individually.

In the past I’ve characterized the downward influence (from level 2 to level 1) as constraining autonomy, to which Kevin objects.  While I’m not sure that we’ve come to consensus on this particular sticky wicket, there’s clearly a connection between the superfoo thread and the macro/micro threads.

Related posts:

1. Micro-lending Is Not a Silver Bullet
2. Response to "Superorganism Considered Harmful"
3. Comments on Human Cultural Transformation

I’ve been trying to reconcile Rafe’s an my views on this topic.  I actually think we agree on the broad themes related to our argument over “autonomy”.  From my perspective, it seems like the only real disagreement is on the implications for humans.

As a higher level agent emerges, it must organize lower level agents.  No argument from me here.  Below the human level, the organizing principles resemble direct control.  However, I assert that this is an artifact of the relatively low levels of complexity.

Atoms, small molecules, large molecules, cells, and plants all respond solely to what I might term “tropisms“: innate, unthinking tendencies. It’s therefore feasible for the higher level agent to employ direct control by simply providing the stimuli to which tropisms respond.  However, I think we need to further generalize this dynamic if we want to apply it to higher levels of complexity.

Essentially, the higher level agent gives lower level agents what they “want” in return for their participation. An animal provides its cells energy and reproduction, which in turn provide them to proteins. Proteins stabilize amino acids, which in turn stabilize atoms.

Similarly, superfoos will likely organize humans by giving them what they want.  But human wants are fairly complex.  They involve a combination of (at least) safety, challenge, status, pleasure, and play. There is a fair degree of heterogeneity among humans in the relative amounts and amplitudes of these ingredients they prefer.  Being free to pursue ones preferred combination is what I think of as autonomy.

So my hypothesis is that superfoos will organize humans by providing them these elements.  A single superfoo will have to provide lots of options to get a wide enough range of humans to participate.  Different superfoos will pursue different meta-mixtures as they fill niches at the higher level of organization. This all seems like a pretty straightforward generalization of past emergence so I reject the assertion that my thinking on this isn’t broad enough. In fact, I would argue that my treatment of superfoo organizing principles is more general than Rafe’s given the history of matter.

From the human perspective, I think all this corresponds to more choice for people, not less.

Related posts:

1. Focusing on "Autonomy"
2. Superfoo
3. Response to "Superorganism Considered Harmful"