|
In this page we:
- Introduce some current
problems of complexity for humanity
- Explain how to use
the site.
There are two main starting points:
- The example systems
frame and
- The presentation
frame.
- And then there is how
we use the site.
The site uses lots of click through. That's so that you
can see the underlying principles that are contributing to the
system being discussed. We hope that as you internalize
and reflect on the principles the system should appear in a new
light. At this site clicking is good!
Opportunities frame |
This web page reviews persistent business challenges with
complex adaptive system (CAS)
theory.
Exploring opportunities |
Dark webs can enhance
individual creativity, local operational autonomy, enterprise
strategic alignment and organizational learning. In this
page we summarize the opportunity.
Dark webs |
The productivity of
complex adaptive system (CAS) is reviewed highlighting the most
significant variables: access to raw
materials, agency based leverage of additional wage
laborers/consumers to build a SuperOrganism during
cliodynamic up-cycles, wealth
amplifying infrastructure build-out,
trading
network time capture offset by instability of amplifier
driven bubbles requiring strategic management and extended
phenotypic alignment and disruption; when they expand markets
for goods & services. The CAS and classical economic
approaches are compared.
Important CAS aspects are highlighted:
- CAS reflect the history of
all the events of the network of agents and their environment
- The relevant economic
history is reviewed demonstrating the contribution of
power, politics, war...
- Chemical
structures capture and preserve important recipes that
allow agents to increase search/operational effectiveness
and wealth & the
system to be robust
- Environment matched
to system strategy: Superorganism
and beetle
- Cliodynamic models of historical agent networks allows a
realistic assessment
of productivity over a full network cycle
- The models must be matched
to the proximate environment
- Internal failures
of the agent network
- Existential
threats to the agent network
Human agents must dedicate: focus, time,
coherence and skills; to productively generate wealth. And they could
do much more - learning to develop
and use formal schematic plans
during their education, and using the skill when participating
in a superorganism.
CAS level
productivity improvements are due to:
- Collective solidarity ensures evolved amplifiers are fully
expressed
- Valuable schematically defined, emergent actions must be
accessible to resource controlling and allocating schemata
and their agents
- Meta ideas that can be reused and recombined
- Distribution of these ideas allow parallel searching
- Trading to gain time
- Isolated agents can be integrated into the current network
during each growth phase, but cliodynamic assessments show
agents are dropped again from the network during the decline
phase of the cycle
- Network
effects and leverage of power drive productivity
improvements.
Human agent level productivity
- Agent level productivity
improvements of significance
- More time: Increased light,
reduced moving & travelling, quicker & better
eating, reduced rework, motivated & effective
- Broader utilization with adoption of standards &
undermining of monopoly
constraints
- Weapons & armor
- Power available: Driving
flows &
actions in required direction
- Iterative theory & practice
- Infrastructure & tools: catalytic
reduction in cost of repeated operations
- Agent level productivity improvements of
limited effect
Productivity of CAS |
Representative democracy's robustness is dependent on emotional
and cultural
aspects of humanity. The impact of YouTube's
recommendation engine on the adolescent mind has
undermined the genetic
operators provided by culture. Typical parental constraints on
the associations allowed to adolescents are undermined and
emotional links are built to the most emotive ideas, based
simply on their capacity to sustain attention to YouTube.
An outline
mechanism is described that reintroduces 'parental'
constraints. Legislative enforcement of the capability is
required.
Details of the theoretical complex adaptive system (CAS)
requirements of genetic operations are introduced. The
minds implementation of the schematic operators is
explained. Traditional cultural constraints limiting large
changes in the schema base are outlined.
Aligning YouTube & democracy |
Organizations can benefit from understanding and leveraging
creativity. In this page we review what creativity is,
highlight the
opportunity - including when it is
appropriate to apply, how to do
that organizationally, and when it might
be avoided, and the challenges with
enabling it when it is desirable.
We introduce the aspects of the creative process.
Leveraging creativity |
In Gray Matter Michael Graziano asks Are we Really
Conscious? He argues that we build inaccurate models of
reality and then develop intuitions based on these problematic
models. He concludes we can't use intuitions to understand
consciousness. Instead he promotes 'brain science' as more
accurate and argues it suggests we are not conscious. In
this page we summarize his article and then use complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory to review his
arguments. Constrained by CAS theory and mechanisms of
emergence we see a requirement for consciousness.
Graziano's consciousness |
On the nature of conscious things |
John Searle's influential thought experiment implied to him that
computers cannot understand. Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory indicates that this is
not the case.
Understanding the Chinese room |
In his talk 'The Science of Ending Aging' Aubrey de Grey argues
we should invest more in maintenance of our bodies. In
this page we summarize his video comments and then use complex
adaptive system (CAS) theory to
review his arguments. Focusing the lens of CAS theory and
mechanisms of emergence on the system we highlight the pros and
cons of ending aging.
Ending aging |
The essence of
a library complex adaptive system (CAS) is defined.
Implications
for the future development of contemporary libraries
are reviewed.
Libraries evolving |
This web page reviews opportunities to benefit from modeling
agent based flows using complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Agent based flows |
This web page reviews opportunities to find and capture new
niches, based on studying fitness landscapes using complex
adaptive system (CAS) theory.
CAS SuperOrganisms are
able to capture rich niches. A variety of CAS are
included: chess, prokaryotes,
nation states, businesses, economies; along
with change mechanisms: evolution
and artificial
intelligence; agency
effects and environmental impacts.
Genetic algorithms supported by fitness functions are compared to
genetic operators.
Early evolution
of life and its inbuilt constraints are discussed.
Strategic clustering, goals, flexibility and representation of
state are considered.
Fitness landscapes |
This web page reviews opportunities to enhance computing theory
and practice by using biological mechanisms and complex adaptive
system (CAS) theory.
Biologically inspired computing |
|
|
On the nature of conscious things
Summary
Consciousness is no longer mysterious. In this page we use
complex adaptive system ( This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS)
theory to describe the high-level
architecture of consciousness, linking sensory networks,
low level feelings are subjective models: sad, glad, mad, scared, surprised, and compassionate; of the organism and its proximate environment, including ratings of situations signalled by broadly distributed chemicals and neural circuits. These feelings become highly salient inputs, evolutionarily associated, to higher level emotions encoded in neural circuits: amygdala, and insula. Deacon shows James' conception of feeling can build sentience. Damasio, similarly, asserts feelings reveal to the conscious mind the subjective status of life: good, bad, in between; within a higher organism. They especially indicate the affective situation within the old interior world of the viscera located in the abdomen, thorax and thick of the skin - so smiling makes one feel happy; but augmented with the reports from the situation of the new interior world of voluntary muscles. Repeated experiences build intermediate narratives, in the mind, which reduce the salience. Damasio concludes feelings relate closely and consistently with homeostasis, acting as its mental deputies once organisms developed 'nervous systems' about 600 million years ago, and building on the precursor regulatory devices supplied by evolution to social insects and prokaryotes and leveraging analogous dynamic constraints. Damasio suggests feelings contribute to the development of culture: - As motives for intellectual creation: prompting detection and diagnosis of homeostatic deficiencies, identifying desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments required by the cultural process over time
and
genetically conserved and deployed neural structures into a high
level scheduler. Consciousness is This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolution's
solution to the complex problems of effective, emergent,
multi-cellular perception based This page looks at schematic structures
and their uses. It discusses a number of examples:
- Schematic ideas are recombined in creativity.
- Similarly designers take ideas and
rules about materials and components and combine them.
- Schematic Recipes help to standardize operations.
- Modular components are combined into strategies
for use in business plans and business models.
As a working example it presents part of the contents and schematic
details from the Adaptive Web Framework (AWF)'s
operational plan.
Finally it includes a section presenting our formal
representation of schematic goals.
Each goal has a series of associated complex adaptive system (CAS) strategy strings.
These goals plus strings are detailed for various chess and business
examples.
strategy.
Constrained by This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
emergence and needing
to avoid the epistemological
problem of starting with a blank slate with every birth,
evolution was limited in its options.
We explain how survival value allows evolution to leverage
available tools: Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information
model. Signals can indicate decision
summaries and level of uncertainty.
sensors, Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agent relative position, The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models, This page discusses the interdependence of perception and
representation in a complex adaptive system (CAS). Hofstadter
and Mitchell's research with Copycat is
reviewed. The bridging of a node from a network of 'well
known' percepts to a new representational instance is discussed
as it occurs in biochemistry, in consciousness and
abstractly.
perception
& representation; to solve the problem of mobile
agents responding effectively to their own state and This page discusses the potential of the vast state space which
supports the emergence of complex
adaptive systems (CAS). Kauffman describes the mechanism
by which the system expands across the space.
proximate environment.
Evolution did this by providing a Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
genetically
Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
constructed framework that can
develop into a conscious CAS.
And we discuss the implications with regard to artificial
intelligence, sentient robots,
augmented intelligence, and
aspects of philosophy.
Introduction
Damasio
outlines the
characteristics of consciousness:
- Present when we
are awake and alert sustains wakefulness. It extends from the brain stem through the midbrain to the thalamus and cortex. It relays sensory stimuli from the sensory systems and distributes them diffusely to the cerebral cortex. It includes von Economo's wakefulness center in the upper brain stem, without which coma results.
, allowing us to summon prior and
present knowledge of the world.
- Perceptions of our proximate environment are observed from
our perspective, and we are the subject.
These experiences are integrated
into a multi-dimensional view oriented in
Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
time and space. The objects is a collection of: happenings, occurrences and processes; including emergent entities, as required by relativity, explains Rovelli. But natural selection has improved our fitness by representing this perception, in our minds, as an unchanging thing, as explained by Pinker. Dehaene explains the object modeling and construction process within the unconscious and conscious brain. Mathematicians view anything that can be defined and used in deductive reasoning and mathematical proofs as an object. These mathematical objects can be values of variables, allowing them to be used in formulas. appear properly formed, clear,
and inspectable. And there is no homunculus needed.
- As adults, we
assume of mind is the capability of adults, and even young children, to see that others think and perceive the world differently to them. It typically develops around age three to four. It supports the child's development of empathy. It is associated with the DMPFC, precuneus, superior temporal sulcus & temporoparietal junction. Subsequently more capabilities appear including: Understanding a second person's theory of mind about a third person, Perspectives and Irony.
others will perceive from their
perspective.
- We experience aspects of our own
This page reviews the implications of reproduction initially
generating a single initialized child cell. For
multi-cellular organisms this 'cell' must contain all the germ-line schematic
structures including for organelles and multi-generational epi-genetic
state. Any microbiome
is subsequently integrated during the innovative deployment of
this creative event. Organisms with skeletal
infrastructure cannot complete the process of creation of an
associated adult mind, until the proximate environment has been
sampled during development.
The mechanism and resulting strategic options are
discussed.
organism:
feelings are subjective models: sad, glad, mad, scared, surprised, and compassionate; of the organism and its proximate environment, including ratings of situations signalled by broadly distributed chemicals and neural circuits. These feelings become highly salient inputs, evolutionarily associated, to higher level emotions encoded in neural circuits: amygdala, and insula. Deacon shows James' conception of feeling can build sentience. Damasio, similarly, asserts feelings reveal to the conscious mind the subjective status of life: good, bad, in between; within a higher organism. They especially indicate the affective situation within the old interior world of the viscera located in the abdomen, thorax and thick of the skin - so smiling makes one feel happy; but augmented with the reports from the situation of the new interior world of voluntary muscles. Repeated experiences build intermediate narratives, in the mind, which reduce the salience. Damasio concludes feelings relate closely and consistently with homeostasis, acting as its mental deputies once organisms developed 'nervous systems' about 600 million years ago, and building on the precursor regulatory devices supplied by evolution to social insects and prokaryotes and leveraging analogous dynamic constraints. Damasio suggests feelings contribute to the development of culture: - As motives for intellectual creation: prompting detection and diagnosis of homeostatic deficiencies, identifying desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments required by the cultural process over time
bring in affect including qualia are the direct qualities of percepts according to Haikonen. He argues they do not require interpretation or any evocation of meaning. Colors are colors and pain is pain. The human visual hierarchy seems at odds with this interpretation with meaning being associated with letters by signalling from the letterbox to the frontal lobes and used in the feedback flows that identify and prime morphemes. Damasio suggests qualia are a type of provoked feeling, triggered by stimuli like taste or vision, which results in an emotive response. and body relative
emotions are low level fast unconscious agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The cerebellum and basal ganglia support the integration of emotion and motor functions, rewarding rhythmic movement. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this, base emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Pinker notes a set of group selected emotions which he classes as: other-condemning, other-praising, other-suffering and self-conscious emotions. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Contempt, Disgust, Embarrassment, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Moral awe, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. .
Advances in how we research and model biological systems and
build engineered systems have helped reveal significant aspects
of what it means to be a conscious individual. We can now
combine these discoveries with our understanding of This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS to understand:
Firstly This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolution was able to avoid
the epistemological problem of starting each new moving This page reviews the implications of reproduction initially
generating a single initialized child cell. For
multi-cellular organisms this 'cell' must contain all the germ-line schematic
structures including for organelles and multi-generational epi-genetic
state. Any microbiome
is subsequently integrated during the innovative deployment of
this creative event. Organisms with skeletal
infrastructure cannot complete the process of creation of an
associated adult mind, until the proximate environment has been
sampled during development.
The mechanism and resulting strategic options are
discussed.
organism with an uncompetitive
understanding of its local This page discusses the potential of the vast state space which
supports the emergence of complex
adaptive systems (CAS). Kauffman describes the mechanism
by which the system expands across the space.
environment.
A problem often referred to as the Blank Slate.
The
problem of learning about ourselves and our local environment
Starting off simply, Prokaryotes, a single cell system with two main types: (1) Archaea, and (2) Eubacteria. Prokaryotes have their own DNA and infrastructure within a single enclosure. They are biochemically very versatile: Photosynthesis -> Electron transport & phosphorylation, Enzymatic regulation and catalysis of chemical reactions, Catabolize -> phosphate bond energy, ATP cycle, glycolysis, TCA cycle, Electron transports, oxidative phosphorylation, oxidation of fatty acids, oxidative degradation of amino acids; Biosynthesis & utilization of phosphate bond energy -> carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, nucleotides, muscle & motile structures; membrane barriers & active transports, hormones; Replication, Transcription, Translation, Regulation of gene expression; self-assembly; They utilize cell membrane receptors and signalling to support symbiotic cooperation with other cellular entities, including: in the microbiome, and as chloroplasts and mitochondria within eukaryotic cells.
with membrane, formed from a lipid (fat) bilayer which creates a barrier between aqueous (water soluble) media. In AWF a key property of membranes - their providing a catalytic environment and supporting the suspension of enzymatically active proteins within the membrane; is simulated with a Workspace list where 'active' structures can be inserted and codelets can detect and act on the structure's active promise configured as an association in the Slipnet. associated
flagella, a set of whip shaped structures (flagellum) which can be actively moved. can move around
to find food, and avoid toxins. They have to be able to
cope with a changing external environment. And due to
sharing of plasmids
and R-factors provide bacteria with a way to transfer parts of their DNA complement with one another. The effect is to ensure that useful mutations can become rapidly distributed within a population of bacteria. Because the plasmid reproduces asexually beneficial mutations will result in competition between hosts containing different plasmid variants through clonal interference. they can develop differently over Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
time. So they have the need to
understand their current This page discusses the potential of the vast state space which
supports the emergence of complex
adaptive systems (CAS). Kauffman describes the mechanism
by which the system expands across the space.
internal and
external situation. And This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolution
requires that each discovery be based on details built by
chemical Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents from Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
genomic information based on chance Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
mutations. Hence the prokaryotes
understanding of their proximate environment can only be based
on Rather than oppose the direct thrust of some environmental flow agents
can improve their effectiveness with indirect responses.
This page explains how agents are architected to do this and
discusses some examples of how it can be done.
indirect The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models
represented in the evolved Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic
structures that make the Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents
adapt.
An example is how the prokaryote seeks out food. Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information
model. Signals can indicate decision
summaries and level of uncertainty.
Sensors detecting an increasing food
gradient can signal the flagella to drive the prokaryote
forward. Otherwise the flagella can be reversed to tumble
the bacteria to randomly select a new direction to try.
The point is that the benefit of finding food has been encoded
into the genes through the success of Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
mutations
that enabled Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agency to both model
its environment and then consequently to move the prokaryote
towards food. Evolution leverages long timespans and
competition to Richard Dawkin's explores how nature has created implementations
of designs, without any need for planning or design, through the
accumulation of small advantageous changes.
capture a grab bag of
useful tools that can be deployed. But to select the
right tool at the right time requires The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
modeling,
learning and This page describes the specialized codelets that provide
life-cycle and checkpoint capabilities for Smiley applications.
The codelets implement
a Shewhart cycle.
The structural schematic nature of the cycle is described.
Transcription factor
codelets operate the phase change controls.
How inhibitory agents are integrated into the cycle is described.
An application agent with management
and operational roles emerges.
The codelets and supporting functions are
included.
managing.
The genes can depend on evolution to provide learning about
situations that are repeatedly experienced over generations and
demand deployment of particular tools. But perceiving and
representing the current situation works best with more
immediate representations used in This page describes the specialized codelets that provide
life-cycle and checkpoint capabilities for Smiley applications.
The codelets implement
a Shewhart cycle.
The structural schematic nature of the cycle is described.
Transcription factor
codelets operate the phase change controls.
How inhibitory agents are integrated into the cycle is described.
An application agent with management
and operational roles emerges.
The codelets and supporting functions are
included.
managing.
And since that provides evolutionary benefit and can be built
with the available tools it is also provided.
Multi-cell eukaryotes is a relatively large multi-component cell type. It initially emerged from prokaryotic archaea subsuming eubacteria, from which single and multi-celled plants, multi celled fungi, including single-cell variant yeast, drips, protozoa and metazoa, including humans, are constructed. A eukaryotic cell contains modules including a nucleus and production functions such as chloroplasts and mitochondria.
can utilize the same tricks that evolution captured with single
cell progenitors. But the details about themselves and how
different cells in the organism interact with the external
environment demand additional mechanisms. As mutations
create these beneficial mechanisms the genes will indirectly
provide details of the use of the new tools including models of
the appropriate situations for their use and how the tools were
deployed.
Damasio
Antonio Damasio argues
that ancient
& fundamental homeostatic processes,
built into
behaviors and updated by evolution
have resulted in the emergence
of nervous systems and feelings. These
feelings, representing the state of the viscera, and represented with general
systems supporting enteric
operation, are later ubiquitously
integrated into the 'images'
built by the minds of higher animals
including humans.
Damasio highlights the separate
development of the body frame in the building of
minds.
Damasio explains that this integration of feelings by minds
supports the development of subjectivity and consciousness. His chain of
emergence suggests the 'order of things.' He stresses the
end-to-end
integration of the organism which undermines dualism. And he reviews Chalmers
hard problem of consciousness.
Damasio reviews the emergence of cultures
and sees feelings, integrated with reason, as the judges of the
cultural creative process, linking culture to
homeostasis. He sees cultures as supporting the
development of tools
to improve our lives. But the results of the
creative process have added
stresses to our lives.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Each of the [super]organisms
discussed is a CAS reflecting the theory of such systems:
- Damasio's proposals about homeostasis routed signalling, aligns
well with CAS theory.
- Damasio's ideas on cultural stresses are elaborated by CAS
examples.
argues that homeostasis is, according to Damasio, the fundamental set of operations at the core of life, from the earliest and long-vanished point of its beginning in early biochemistry to the present. It is the powerful, unthought, unspoken imperative, whose discharge implies, for every living organism, small or large, nothing less than enduring and prevailing. Damasio stresses that the operations that ensure prevailing ensure life is regulated within a range that is not just compatible with survival but also conducive to flourishing, to protection of life into the future of an organism or a species. Prevailing implies mechanisms for monitoring and modeling the state of the organism, controlling and constraining the flows of energy and resources through schematic agency, and to facilitate exploring the environment and acting on signals of modeled opportunities and threats. Global homeostasis of multi-organ animals requires endocrine, immune, circulatory and nervous 'systems' and results in the emergence of minds, feelings, consciousness, machinery of affect and complex movements. The emergence of feelings allowed the homeostatic process to become enhanced by a subjective representation of the organism's state and proximate environment within the mind. Feelings operating in minds allowed conscious decisions to extend homeostasis to the sociocultural domain. ,
represented by feelings are subjective models: sad, glad, mad, scared, surprised, and compassionate; of the organism and its proximate environment, including ratings of situations signalled by broadly distributed chemicals and neural circuits. These feelings become highly salient inputs, evolutionarily associated, to higher level emotions encoded in neural circuits: amygdala, and insula. Deacon shows James' conception of feeling can build sentience. Damasio, similarly, asserts feelings reveal to the conscious mind the subjective status of life: good, bad, in between; within a higher organism. They especially indicate the affective situation within the old interior world of the viscera located in the abdomen, thorax and thick of the skin - so smiling makes one feel happy; but augmented with the reports from the situation of the new interior world of voluntary muscles. Repeated experiences build intermediate narratives, in the mind, which reduce the salience. Damasio concludes feelings relate closely and consistently with homeostasis, acting as its mental deputies once organisms developed 'nervous systems' about 600 million years ago, and building on the precursor regulatory devices supplied by evolution to social insects and prokaryotes and leveraging analogous dynamic constraints. Damasio suggests feelings contribute to the development of culture: - As motives for intellectual creation: prompting detection and diagnosis of homeostatic deficiencies, identifying desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments required by the cultural process over time
in higher animals, is deeply associated with metabolism which is
focused through the gut
of multi-cellular animals, and provides the salience, Douglas Hofstadter controlled the amount of attention a Workspace object in Copycat would receive from codelets via its salience. The more descriptions, analogous to geons, an object has and the more highly activated the nodes involved therein, the more important the object is. Modulating this tendency is any relative lack of connections from the object to the rest of the objects in the Workspace. Salience is a dynamic number that takes into account both these factors. In Smiley the instantaneous salience of a Workspace's objects is calculated by itsalience. In the brain salience is modeled by the salience networks. needed to focus
on significant shifts in body or environmental state.
Reproduction
of mammals uses positional Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information
model. Signals can indicate decision
summaries and level of uncertainty.
signals
from the placenta to add asymmetry to the initial dividing This page reviews the implications of reproduction initially
generating a single initialized child cell. For
multi-cellular organisms this 'cell' must contain all the germ-line schematic
structures including for organelles and multi-generational epi-genetic
state. Any microbiome
is subsequently integrated during the innovative deployment of
this creative event. Organisms with skeletal
infrastructure cannot complete the process of creation of an
associated adult mind, until the proximate environment has been
sampled during development.
The mechanism and resulting strategic options are
discussed.
organism. The Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information
model. Signals can indicate decision
summaries and level of uncertainty.
sensors on the cells' membranes detect
the signal gradients and activate Agents use sensors to detect events in their environment.
This page reviews how these events become signals associated
with beneficial responses in a complex adaptive system (CAS). CAS signals emerge from
the Darwinian information
model. Signals can indicate decision
summaries and level of uncertainty.
signalling
This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
networks which differentially alter
the Flows of different kinds are essential to the operation of
complex adaptive systems (CAS).
Example flows are outlined. Constraints on flows support
the emergence of the systems.
Examples of constraints are discussed.
control structures operating on
and through the Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
genes of the cluster
of cells. Differentiation results from this process and it
will proceed all but identically in the vast majority of cases
of a developing new organism. But it is necessary for the
developing multi-cell organism to build an understanding of its
external environment and how it, and its kin, has This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolved.
A position oriented network
of cellular agents is setup during development is a phase during the operation of a CAS agent. It allows for schematic strategies to be iteratively blended with environmental signals to solve the logistical issues of migrating newly built and transformed sub-agents. That is needed to achieve the adult configuration of the agent and optimize it for the proximate environment. Smiley includes examples of the developmental phase agents required in an emergent CAS. In situations where parents invest in the growth and memetic learning of their offspring the schematic grab bag can support optimizations to develop models, structures and actions to construct an adept adult. In humans, adolescence leverages neural plasticity, elder sibling advice and adult coaching to help prepare the deploying neuronal network and body to successfully compete. using
genetic information which evolution has provided with maps is a patchwork of neurons dedicated to fragments of shape. Keiji Tanaka experimentally identified these invariants within the temporal cortex. Various of these combinatorial codes exist at points in the visual system: V1, V2, TEO; - captured The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models of This page discusses the interdependence of perception and
representation in a complex adaptive system (CAS). Hofstadter
and Mitchell's research with Copycat is
reviewed. The bridging of a node from a network of 'well
known' percepts to a new representational instance is discussed
as it occurs in biochemistry, in consciousness and
abstractly.
percepts
and representations that helped with survival:
- Over
Carlo Rovelli resolves the paradox of time.
Rovelli initially explains that low level physics does not
include time:
- A present that is common throughout the universe does not exist
- Events are only partially ordered. The present is
localized
- The difference between past and future is not foundational.
It occurs because of state that through our blurring appears
particular to us
- Time passes at different speeds dependent on where we are and how fast we travel
- Time's rhythms are due to
the gravitational field
- Our quantized physics shows neither
space nor time, just processes transforming physical
variables.
- Fundamentally there is no time. The basic equations
evolve together with events, not things
Then he
explains how in a physical world without time its perception can
emerge:
- Our familiar time emerges
- Our interaction with the world is partial, blurred,
quantum indeterminate
- The ignorance determines the existence of thermal time
and entropy that quantifies our uncertainty
- Directionality of time is real
but perspectival. The entropy of the world in
relation to us increases with our thermal time. The
growth of entropy distinguishes past from future: resulting in
traces and memories
- Each human is a
unified being because: we reflect the world, we
formed an image of a unified entity by
interacting with our kind, and because of the perspective
of memory
- The variable time: is one
of the variables of the gravitational field.
With our scale we don't
register quantum fluctuations, making space-time
appear determined. At our speed we don't perceive
differences in time of different clocks, so we experience
a single time: universal, uniform, ordered; which is
helpful to our decisions
time evolution can build
into the genes details of a self organized physical network
of cellular agents. This genetic representation is
modeled by Hofstadter
& Mitchell with the Copycat
This page describes the Copycat
Slipnet.
The goal of the Slipnet is reviewed.
Smiley's specialized use of the Slipnet is introduced.
The initial Slipnet network used by the 'Merge
Streams' and 'Virtual Robot' agent-based applications is setup in
initchemistry and is included.
The Slipnet infrastructure and initialization functions are
included.
Slipnet.
- Each time an organism develops its 'Slipnet' will
indirectly encounter signals from the sensory neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a:
- Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals. The axon may be myelinated, focusing the signals through synaptic transmission, or unmyelinated - where crosstalk is leveraged.
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
associated with
its network. The position of these signal flows will
indicate the types of percepts are internal appearences of the external world and the body according to Haikonen. RSS views them as evolved models that are: - Associated schematically with the signals generated in response to epi-phenomena detected by sensory receptors and
- Acted on by emergent agents.
and will allow the organism to tailor a ' This page describes the Copycat
Workspace.
The specialized use of the Workspace by the adaptive web
framework's (AWF) Smiley is discussed.
How text and XML are imported into the Smiley Workspace is described.
Telomeric aging of schematic structures is introduced.
The internal data structure used to represent the state of each
workspace object is included.
The Workspace infrastructure functions are
included.
Workspace' that represents its
model of the local environment -- representations of its
self-perceptions and its external environment.
- The process will occur with massive parallelization by adaptation in evolutionary biology is a trait that increased the number of surviving offspring in an organism's ancestral lineage. Holland argues: complex adaptive systems (CAS) adapt due to the influence of schematic strings on agents. Evolution indicates fitness when an organism survives and reproduces. For his genetic algorithm, Holland separated the adaptive process into credit assignment and rule discovery. He assigned a strength to each of the rules (alternate hypothesis) used by his artificial agents, by credit assignment - each accepted message being paid for by the recipient, increasing the sender agent's rule's strength (implicit modeling) and reducing the recipient's. When an agent achieved an explicit goal they obtained a final reward. Rule discovery used the genetic algorithm to select strong rule schemas from a pair of agents to be included in the next generation, with crossing over and mutation applied, and the resulting schematic strategies used to replace weaker schemas. The crossing over genetic operator is unlikely to break up a short schematic sequence that provides a building block retained because of its 'fitness'; In Deacon's conception of evolution, an adaptation is the realization of a set of constraints on candidate mechanisms, and so long as these constraints are maintained, other features are arbitrary.
of the
cells of the organism based on the signals they have sent
and received. Neurons that do not build strong
feedback networks will kill themselves as part of this
developmental process, helping limit combinatorial
interference and regain resources. Other neurons that
are associated with signals that are rich in this
environment will remain and build models of the proximate
situation. Hofstadter & Mitchell's simplified
equivalent of the cellular agent infrastructure is the This page describes the Copycat
Coderack.
The details of the codelet architecture are described.
The specialized use of the Coderack by the adaptive web
framework's (AWF) Smiley is discussed.
The codelet scheduling mechanism is discussed.
A variety of Smiley extensions to the Coderack are reviewed.
The Coderack infrastructure functions are
included.
Coderack which RSS has extended to
support Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
operations.
This is an evolved process that has been coopted to Reading and writing present a conundrum. The reader's
brain contains neural networks tuned to reading. With
imaging a written word can be followed as it progresses from the
retina through a functional chain that asks: Are these letters?
What do they look like? Are they a word? What does it sound
like? How is it pronounced? What does it mean? Dehaene
explains the importance of
education in tuning the brain's networks for reading as
well as good strategies for teaching reading and countering dyslexia. But
he notes the reading
networks developed far too recently to have directly evolved.
And Dehaene asks why humans are unique in developing
reading and culture.
He explains the cultural
engineering that shaped writing to human vision and the exaptations and neuronal structures that
enable and constrain reading and culture.
Dehaene's arguments show how cellular, whole animal and cultural
complex adaptive system (CAS) are
related. We review his explanations in CAS terms and use
his insights to link cultural CAS that emerged based on reading
and writing with other levels of CAS from which they emerge.
allow us to read which has been well
studied.
Modeling in the
visual system
The sensory neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals. The axon may be myelinated, focusing the signals through synaptic transmission, or unmyelinated - where crosstalk is leveraged.
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
in
the eyes are major sensors in primates, based on opsins deployed in the retina & especially fovea, signalling the visual system: Superior colliculi, Thalamus (LGN), Primary visual cortex; and indirectly the amygdala. They also signal [social] emotional state to other people. And they have implicit censorious power with pictures of eyes encouraging people within their view to act more honorably. Eyes are poor scanners and use a saccade to present detail slowly to the fovea. The eye's optical structures and retina are supported by RPE. Eyes do not connect to the brain through the brain stem and so still operate in locked-in syndrome. Evo-devo shows eyes have deep homology. High pressure within the eye can result in glaucoma. Genetic inheritance can result in retinoblastoma. Age is associated with AMD. provide us with a
jigsaw like set of sense data. The brain then uses an iterative assembly like
process to model the situation. The process selects
a base map object is a collection of: happenings, occurrences and processes; including emergent entities, as required by relativity, explains Rovelli. But natural selection has improved our fitness by representing this perception, in our minds, as an unchanging thing, as explained by Pinker. Dehaene explains the object modeling and construction process within the unconscious and conscious brain. Mathematicians view anything that can be defined and used in deductive reasoning and mathematical proofs as an object. These mathematical objects can be values of variables, allowing them to be used in formulas. , from a
set specified genetically, such as
a cartoon like face, and then associates additional
attributes to the base object, in an iterative review of the
associative match between the input pieces and mapped
signals. The result is to reach agreement on a best fit
between the models and the data. The resulting ' This page describes the Copycat
Workspace.
The specialized use of the Workspace by the adaptive web
framework's (AWF) Smiley is discussed.
How text and XML are imported into the Smiley Workspace is described.
Telomeric aging of schematic structures is introduced.
The internal data structure used to represent the state of each
workspace object is included.
The Workspace infrastructure functions are
included.
Workspace' structures maintain a subjective
frame of reference.
The associations are positional, and depend on the sensory
inputs being mapped to various positional regions consistently
by the mapping process. The result is the ability to
rapidly build a best fit representation of an object, such as
President Bill Clinton's face, from associations:
- Made with evolved neural structures that individually know
only about representing some limited aspect of the object,
such as a line segment. The use of real world
constraints, captured by natural selection, within the
The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
modeling infrastructure and the potential
for combinatorial explosion when multiple sensory streams
are integrated and constrained keeps the unconscious
sensory pathways separated until attention is the mutli-faceted capability allowing access to consciousness. It includes selective attention, vigilance, allocating attention, goal focus, and meta-awareness. allows a
small relevant subset to become the current focus.
- Between their own position and the inputs they have
received during the iterative process leading to
Consciousness has confounded philosophers and scientists for
centuries. Now it is finally being characterized
scientifically. That required a transformation of
approach.
Realizing that consciousness was ill-defined neuroscientist
Stanislas Dehaene and others characterized and focused on conscious access.
In the book he outlines the limitations of previous
psychological dogma. Instead his use of subjective
assessments opened the
window to contrast totally unconscious
brain activity with those
including consciousness.
He describes the research methods. He explains the
contribution of new sensors and probes that allowed the
psychological findings to be correlated, and causally related to
specific neural activity.
He describes the theory of the brain he uses, the 'global neuronal
workspace' to position all the experimental details into a
whole.
He reviews how both theory and practice support diagnosis and
treatment of real world mental illnesses.
The implications of Dehaene's findings for subsequent
consciousness research are outlined.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the brain's development and
operation introduce constraints which are discussed.
conscious access. At this point the
well-known ' This page describes the Copycat
Slipnet.
The goal of the Slipnet is reviewed.
Smiley's specialized use of the Slipnet is introduced.
The initial Slipnet network used by the 'Merge
Streams' and 'Virtual Robot' agent-based applications is setup in
initchemistry and is included.
The Slipnet infrastructure and initialization functions are
included.
Slipnet' structure,
the significant emotional are low level fast unconscious agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The cerebellum and basal ganglia support the integration of emotion and motor functions, rewarding rhythmic movement. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this, base emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Pinker notes a set of group selected emotions which he classes as: other-condemning, other-praising, other-suffering and self-conscious emotions. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Contempt, Disgust, Embarrassment, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Moral awe, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. ,
or logical, entity, such as the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust, heart rate, and suffering from the insula cortex, allowing it to orchestrate emotion. It connects strongly to attention focusing networks. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. It directly signals area 25. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli, focusing our attention on these. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety and makes us distracted. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Sees suffering of others as increasingly salient with loving-kindness meditation practice, Goleman & Davidson explain.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
for fear is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amygdala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala. Tara Brach notes we experience fear as a painfully constricted throat, chest and belly, and racing heart. The mind can build stories of the future which include fearful situations making us anxious about current ideas and actions that we associate with the potential future scenario. And it can associate traumatic events from early childhood with our being at fault. Consequent assumptions of our being unworthy can result in shame and fear of losing friendships. The mechanism for human fear was significantly evolved to protect us in the African savanna. This does not align perfectly with our needs in current environments: U.S. Grant was unusually un-afraid of the noise or risk of guns and trusted his horses' judgment, which mostly benefited his agency as a modern soldier. , is associated as the
observer and 'we' can consciously view the subjective
'image'.
- Initially observing Bill Clinton allows newly generated
neurons in the hippocampus is a part of the medial temporal lobe of the brain involved in the temporary storage or coding of long-term episodic memory. It includes the dentate gyrus. Memory formation in the cells of the hippocampus uses the MAP kinase signalling network which is impacted by sleep deprivation. The hippocampus dependent memory system is directly affected by cholinergic changes throughout the wake-sleep cycle. Increased acetylcholine during REM sleep promotes information attained during wakefulness to be stored in the hippocampus by suppressing previous excitatory connections while facilitating encoding without interference from previously stored information. During slow-wave sleep low levels of acetylcholine cause the release of the suppression and allow for spontaneous recovery of hippocampal neurons resulting in memory consolidation. It was initially associated with memory formation by McGill University's Dr. Brenda Milner, via studies of 'HM' Henry Molaison, whose medial temporal lobes had been surgically destroyed leaving him unable to create new explicit memories. The size of neurons' dendritic trees expands and contracts over a female rat's ovulatory cycle, with the peak in size and cognitive skills at the estrogen high point. Adult neurogenesis occurs in the hippocampus (3% of neurons are replaced each month) where the new neurons integrate into preexisting circuits. It is enhanced by learning, exercise, estrogen, antidepressants, environmental enrichment, and brain injury and inhibited by various stressors explains Sapolsky. Prolonged stress makes the hippocampus atrophy. He notes the new neurons are essential for integrating new information into preexisting schemas -- learning that two things you thought were the same are actually different. Specific cells within the hippocampus and its gateway, the entorhinal cortex, are compromised by Alzheimer's disease. It directly signals area 25.
to be associated by position with axons, a long extension of a neuron which has a membrane constructed to support the uni-directional flow of action potential from the dendritic tree and cell body to the synaptic terminals. from This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
networks across the brain that are
interested in aspects that apply to the ex-President.
The visual network supports processing of visual data into what and how. To do this it has two distinct paths: The ventral path and the dorsal path.
has already transformed the low level aspects detected in
the retina into activity in neural Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents
representing objects: Faces is a region of the brain which supports advanced mechanisms of shape recognition and implements the early stages of reading. Subliminal priming with words did not depend on the shape of the word. The fusiform gyrus was able to process the abstract identity of a word without caring if it was upper or lower case. While high up in the cortex it can operate below the level of conscious experience. It contributes to social emotions with: - Its face area being more activated by faces with in-group skin color.
- It activating when shown pictures of cars in automobile aficionados.
- It activating when shown pictures of birds in birdwatchers; since it really recognizes examples of items from an individual's emotionally salient categories.
; & emotions are low level fast unconscious agents distributed across the brain and body which associate, via the amygdala and rich club hubs, important environmental signals with encoded high speed sensors, and distributed programs of action to model: predict, prioritize guidance signals, select and respond effectively, coherently and rapidly to the initial signal. The majority of emotion centered brain regions interface to the midbrain through the hypothalamus. The cerebellum and basal ganglia support the integration of emotion and motor functions, rewarding rhythmic movement. The most accessible signs of emotions are the hard to control and universal facial expressions. Emotions provide prioritization for conscious access given that an animal has only one body, but possibly many cells, with which to achieve its highest level goals. Because of this, base emotions clash with group goals and are disparaged by the powerful. Pinker notes a set of group selected emotions which he classes as: other-condemning, other-praising, other-suffering and self-conscious emotions. Evolutionary psychology argues evolution shaped human emotions during the long period of hunter-gatherer existence in the African savanna. Human emotions are universal and include: Anger, Appreciation of natural beauty, Contempt, Disgust, Embarrassment, Fear, Gratitude, Grief, Guilt, Happiness, Honor, Jealousy, Liking, Love, Moral awe, Rage, Romantic love, Lust for revenge, Passion, Sadness, Self-control, Shame, Sympathy, Surprise; and the sham emotions and distrust induced by reciprocal altruism. : happiness is an emotion which functions to mobilize the mind to seek capabilities and resources that support Darwinian fitness. Today happiness is associated with Epicurean ideas that were rediscovered during the renaissance and promoted by Thomas Jefferson. But natural selection has 'designed' happiness to support hunter-gatherer fitness in the African savanna. It is assessed: Relative to other's situations, Based on small gains or losses relative to one's current situation; and so what makes us [un-]happy and our responses can seem a counter-productive treadmill. For Pleistocene hunter-gatherers in the savanna there were many ways for losses to undermine fitness and so losses still make us very unhappy. Smoking, drinking and excessive eating were not significant and so don't make us unhappy even though they impact longevity. with winning in
the accumbens is a region of the basal forebrain (striatum) rostral to the preoptic area and immediately adjacent to the septum. The nucleus accumbens was closely associated with the limbic system, mediates the impact of emotion and plays an important role in reinforcement. If a rodent wins a fight on his home territory, there are long-lasting increases in levels of testosterone receptors enhancing pleasurable effects. When prairie voles first mate, epi-genetic state changes are induced in the accumbens to support pair-bonding. The accumbens projects to brain regions associated with movement. The major pathways of dopaminergic neurons begin in the substantia nigra and the ventral tegmental area. The amygdala projects back to the accumbens. The tegmentostriatal system begins in the ventral tegmental area and projects to the nucleus accumbens. The nucleus accumbens includes high levels of D1, D2 and D3 dopamine receptors located on the spine & shafts of dendrites of excitatory cells reduce the transfer of excitation from the dendrites to the cell bodies, so only especially strong excitatory inputs get through to the cell body to elicit excitation. It also has D4 dopamine receptors which are highly variable. The accumbens responds differently to rewards depending on maturity: In juveniles all reward levels result in the same response activity level, During adolescence the accumbens responds to small rewards negatively, and large rewards hugely, In adults the rewards result in measured scaled positive responses. Chronic stress depletes dopamine from the nucleus accumbens biasing humans towards depression. ,
passion is a doomsday machine emotion, providing the participant in a strategic conflict with a constraint on rational arguments. , disgust is a universal human emotion. Pinker notes it has its own facial expression and is codified in food taboos. The mind must be associated with the proximate environment and parents minimize the risk for their omnivorous children by teaching them what foods to eat and what to avoid. The children's minds are initially receptive to trying all foods but their brains subsequently lock in on the foods they have experienced. These parental choices are affected by schematic influence on what has been beneficial. Adolescent's brain developments undermine these constraints enabling intergroup transfers. Disgust is modulated by the insula cortex which projects signals to the amygdala. Adult humans merge moral and physical disgust enabling metaphorical out grouping. in the insula is part of the cerebral cortex folded deep within the lateral sulcus. It includes: anterior, posterior insula; and is overlaid by the operculum. Kandel notes the anterior insula is where feelings are calibrated by evaluating and integrating the importance of the stimuli. It directly signals area 25. LeDoux showed there are two routes for signals of feelings and emotions to the amygdala: a fast unconscious one and a slow one that involves the anterior insula. So the insula is assumed to participate in consciousness where it has been linked to emotion, salience & body homeostasis functions: - Perception,
- Motor control: Hand-&-eye motor movement, Swallowing, Gastric motility, Speech articulation;
- Self-awareness,
- Inter-personal experiences: Disgust at smells, contamination & mutilation which generate visceral responses, that are projected to the amygdala; binding physical and moral aspects of purity (Macbeth effect)
- Suffering of others can be projected by the insula to the amygdala and made increasingly salient with loving-kindness meditation practice, Goleman & Davidson explain.
- Homeostatic regulation of the sympathetic network, parasympathetic network, and immune system. Heart rate and sweat gland activity are monitored. When the amygdala signals concern, the insula prepares the body for action, increasing blood flow to the muscles etc.
, fear is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amygdala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala. Tara Brach notes we experience fear as a painfully constricted throat, chest and belly, and racing heart. The mind can build stories of the future which include fearful situations making us anxious about current ideas and actions that we associate with the potential future scenario. And it can associate traumatic events from early childhood with our being at fault. Consequent assumptions of our being unworthy can result in shame and fear of losing friendships. The mechanism for human fear was significantly evolved to protect us in the African savanna. This does not align perfectly with our needs in current environments: U.S. Grant was unusually un-afraid of the noise or risk of guns and trusted his horses' judgment, which mostly benefited his agency as a modern soldier. in the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust, heart rate, and suffering from the insula cortex, allowing it to orchestrate emotion. It connects strongly to attention focusing networks. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. It directly signals area 25. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli, focusing our attention on these. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety and makes us distracted. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Sees suffering of others as increasingly salient with loving-kindness meditation practice, Goleman & Davidson explain.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
, romantic love is a passionate emotion reflecting the risky agreement to commit resources to the long term activity of raising children. The genes ensure that once a person has chosen, the critical-thinking pathways shut down. That is especially necessary for women to ignore the uncertainty - they become more passionately in love than men. For both partners initial separations remove the oxytocin (and vasopressin in men) and dopamine rewards from touching & hugging, generating withdrawal driving the couple closer. The same circuits, driven again by oxytocin signalling, encourage a mother to fall in love with her newborn baby. (pairing is an increase in the strength of relationship between parents and parents and children in some species: prairie voles, bonobos - not monogamous, and humans. NIMH's Thomas Insel, Emory's Larry Young & Illinois's Sue Carter's research highlighted prairie voles, where pair-bonding is enabled by a genetic difference from montane voles in the operon controlling generation of the vasopressin receptor. Oxytocin is associated with pair bonding. There are: Higher levels of receptors in males (vasopressin) having lots of sex and in females (oxytocin) performing grooming & physical contact, Sex releases oxytocin in the nucleus accumbens of female prairie voles. Such pair-bonded males are less interested in other females. Insel, Young & Carter engineered: (1) Male mice brains to express the prairie vole version of the vasopressin receptor in their brains resulting in grooming and huddling with familiar females. (2) Male montane vole brains to add vasopressin receptors to the nucleus accumbens resulting in their being more socially affiliative with individual females. E.O. Wilson notes in humans the need to extend the bond out to support the long and costly development of their children has resulted in adjustments in genitalia and brains to encourage continued sexual activity to support and maintain pair-bonding. ) in the
accumbens; if they are evoked for this specific individual
by what they 'see'.
It seems likely that other sensory modes operate
similarly.
Why do we 'see' the assembled model? Because using the
model in this way provided a competitive advantage and was
analogous to prior simpler Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents
performing sensory processing: touch, smell; the visual agent
network has been retained and elaborated over evolutionary
time. Montague Read Montague explores how brains make decisions. In
particular he explains how:
- Evolution can create indirect abstract models, such as the dopamine system, that
allow
- Life changing real-time
decisions to be made, and how
- Schematic structures provide
encodings of computable control
structures which operate through and on incomputable,
schematically encoded, physically active structures and
operationally associated production
functions.
illustrates how
a model, such as the
dopamine network, can support integration and modulation
of a myriad of sensory and control signals, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. to 'head'
towards a real world goal.
He notes that these systems use abstract critic signals and
depend on context to provide meaning. So modeling
experience has value. Why present the model
experientially? The qualia are the direct qualities of percepts according to Haikonen. He argues they do not require interpretation or any evocation of meaning. Colors are colors and pain is pain. The human visual hierarchy seems at odds with this interpretation with meaning being associated with letters by signalling from the letterbox to the frontal lobes and used in the feedback flows that identify and prime morphemes. Damasio suggests qualia are a type of provoked feeling, triggered by stimuli like taste or vision, which results in an emotive response.
are all present and an experiential model can leverage these since it
presents itself as reality. Any other solution would
be much more problematic to keep consistent and valuable.
Where do we see it? This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
Emergent This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS capabilities of this sort are
positional, networked and distributed and depend on cooperative
signalling, is an emergent capability which is used by cooperating agents to support coordination & rival agents to support control and dominance. In eukaryotic cells signalling is used extensively. A signal interacts with the exposed region of a receptor molecule inducing it to change shape to an activated form. Chains of enzymes interact with the activated receptor relaying, amplifying and responding to the signal to change the state of the cell. Many of the signalling pathways pass through the nuclear membrane and interact with the DNA to change its state. Enzymes sensitive to the changes induced in the DNA then start to operate generating actions including sending further signals. Cell signalling is reviewed by Helmreich. Signalling is a fundamental aspect of CAS theory and is discussed from the abstract CAS perspective in signals and sensors. In AWF the eukaryotic signalling architecture has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation. To be credible signals must be hard to fake. To be effective they must be easily detected by the target recipient. To be efficient they are low cost to produce and destroy. to
coordinate the positional agents into a coherent emerged
consciousness. The key is that the brain provides
well known positions where new neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals. The axon may be myelinated, focusing the signals through synaptic transmission, or unmyelinated - where crosstalk is leveraged.
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
are deployed: hippocampus is a part of the medial temporal lobe of the brain involved in the temporary storage or coding of long-term episodic memory. It includes the dentate gyrus. Memory formation in the cells of the hippocampus uses the MAP kinase signalling network which is impacted by sleep deprivation. The hippocampus dependent memory system is directly affected by cholinergic changes throughout the wake-sleep cycle. Increased acetylcholine during REM sleep promotes information attained during wakefulness to be stored in the hippocampus by suppressing previous excitatory connections while facilitating encoding without interference from previously stored information. During slow-wave sleep low levels of acetylcholine cause the release of the suppression and allow for spontaneous recovery of hippocampal neurons resulting in memory consolidation. It was initially associated with memory formation by McGill University's Dr. Brenda Milner, via studies of 'HM' Henry Molaison, whose medial temporal lobes had been surgically destroyed leaving him unable to create new explicit memories. The size of neurons' dendritic trees expands and contracts over a female rat's ovulatory cycle, with the peak in size and cognitive skills at the estrogen high point. Adult neurogenesis occurs in the hippocampus (3% of neurons are replaced each month) where the new neurons integrate into preexisting circuits. It is enhanced by learning, exercise, estrogen, antidepressants, environmental enrichment, and brain injury and inhibited by various stressors explains Sapolsky. Prolonged stress makes the hippocampus atrophy. He notes the new neurons are essential for integrating new information into preexisting schemas -- learning that two things you thought were the same are actually different. Specific cells within the hippocampus and its gateway, the entorhinal cortex, are compromised by Alzheimer's disease. It directly signals area 25. &
olfactory bulb; so unconscious activated neural circuits, a network of interconnected neurons which perform signalling, modeling and control functions. In Cajal's basic neural circuits the signalling is unidirectional. He identified three classes of neurons in the circuits: - Sensory, Interneurons, Motor; which are biochemically distinct and suffer different disease states.
,
allowed Consciousness has confounded philosophers and scientists for
centuries. Now it is finally being characterized
scientifically. That required a transformation of
approach.
Realizing that consciousness was ill-defined neuroscientist
Stanislas Dehaene and others characterized and focused on conscious access.
In the book he outlines the limitations of previous
psychological dogma. Instead his use of subjective
assessments opened the
window to contrast totally unconscious
brain activity with those
including consciousness.
He describes the research methods. He explains the
contribution of new sensors and probes that allowed the
psychological findings to be correlated, and causally related to
specific neural activity.
He describes the theory of the brain he uses, the 'global neuronal
workspace' to position all the experimental details into a
whole.
He reviews how both theory and practice support diagnosis and
treatment of real world mental illnesses.
The implications of Dehaene's findings for subsequent
consciousness research are outlined.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the brain's development and
operation introduce constraints which are discussed.
conscious access, can build
synaptic associations, a bridge between the This page describes the Copycat
Workspace.
The specialized use of the Workspace by the adaptive web
framework's (AWF) Smiley is discussed.
How text and XML are imported into the Smiley Workspace is described.
Telomeric aging of schematic structures is introduced.
The internal data structure used to represent the state of each
workspace object is included.
The Workspace infrastructure functions are
included.
Workspace This page discusses the interdependence of perception and
representation in a complex adaptive system (CAS). Hofstadter
and Mitchell's research with Copycat is
reviewed. The bridging of a node from a network of 'well
known' percepts to a new representational instance is discussed
as it occurs in biochemistry, in consciousness and
abstractly.
percept
and the This page describes the Copycat
Slipnet.
The goal of the Slipnet is reviewed.
Smiley's specialized use of the Slipnet is introduced.
The initial Slipnet network used by the 'Merge
Streams' and 'Virtual Robot' agent-based applications is setup in
initchemistry and is included.
The Slipnet infrastructure and initialization functions are
included.
Slipnet viewer, with the new
cell representing a significant
visual, auditory or olfactory aggregate of the conscious event.
Damasio
asserts
the 'image' aggregate has associations that provide the subjective
frame of reference.
CAS robustness strategies use parallelism. Low level retinal signals
are integrated into combinations by the chain of agents: LGN is lateral geniculate nucleus. It is a contradiction: - It looks like a relay and nothing more. Both anatomically and physiologically it seems to be a relay. The principal cells receive inputs from the retina and send outputs, seen radiating out to the visual cortex, to the first visual area (V1) of the neocortex (in primates - in cats they go to a number of visual areas). These axons have very few collateral branches to other principal cells or to other parts of the LGN. There is a direct map from retinal area to primary visual cortex area. But Francis Crick argued in contradiction to this
- It is probably doing something a lot more complicated which we do not yet fully understand! The macaque LGN has six layers. The inputs from two eyes and M & P cells within them are all kept separate within the LGN.
- Two of these layers have large cells (magnocellular). One of them gets its inputs from the right eye, the other from the left eye. There is little interaction between the layers. Their input is mainly from the M cells of the retina. These two layers specialize in detecting movement and flicker.
- Four of the layers are smaller (parvocellular). They receive input from the P cells of the retina. They seem to carry signals relating to color, texture, shape & steropsis.
- The LGN neurons also get input coming back from the first visual area of the cortex. There are many more axons coming back than go to the neocortex from the LGN. However, they tend to synapse onto those parts of the dendrites rather distant from the cell bodies so their effects are probably subdued.
- There are also inputs from the brain stem that modulate the behavior of the thalamus and especially its reticular nucleus. This means that the LGN freely transmits visual information in the awake higher animal but blocks this transmission somewhat when the animal is in slow wave sleep.
- Dehaene identifies the LGN as at the base of a hierarchy of reading neurons signalling local contrasts and oriented bars. The signals reach
- V1 which associates them with oriented bars,
- V2 - letter fragments,
- V4 Letter shapes,
- V8 abstract letters,
- Left occipital temporal sulcus - bigrams,
- Left occipital temporal sulcus - small words, frequent substrings and morphemes.
, V1 is primary visual area (V1). It mainly responds to LGN's signals for thin lines and object contours. It is located in the occipital lobe. , V2 is visual area (V2). It responds to combinations of lines with curves and inclines from V1's signals. ; etc. resulting in signals
that interest concept oriented agents in the occipital of the cerebral cortex includes the primary visual cortex area V1. It performs early stages of visual analysis supporting recognition of shapes, colors and objects. -temporal of the cerebral cortex is involved in associating sensory input with comprehending language (TEO), storing new memories in the medial area (hippocampus), visual memory, emotion and deriving meaning. The temporal lobe is located bellow the parietal lobe, and between the frontal lobe and occipital lobe.
region. If a gun shape is assembled and identified, and
has previously been associated with anxiety is manifested in the amygdala mediating inhibition of dopamine rewards. Anxiety disorders are now seen as a related cluster, including PTSD, panic attacks, and phobias. Major anxiety, is typically episodic, correlated with increased activity in the amygdala, results in elevated glucocorticoids and reduces hippocampal dendrite & spine density. Some estrogen receptor variants are associated with anxiety in women. Women are four times more likely to suffer from anxiety. Louann Brizendine concludes this helps prepare mothers, so they are ready to protect their children. Michael Pollan concludes anxiety is fear of the future. Sufferers of mild autism often develop anxiety disorders. Treatments for anxiety differ. 50 to 70% of people with generalized anxiety respond to drugs increasing serotonin concentrations, where there is relief from symptoms: worry, guilt; linked to depression, which are treated with SSRIs (Prozac). Cognitive anxiety (extreme for worries and anxious thoughts) is also helped by yoga. But many fear-related disorders respond better to psychotherapy: psychoanalysis, and intensive CBT. Tara Brach notes that genuine freedom from fear is enabled by taking refuge. and fear is an emotion which prepares the body for time sensitive action: Blood is sent to the muscles from the gut and skin, Adrenalin is released stimulating: Fuel to be released from the liver, Blood is encouraged to clot, and Face is wide-eyed and fearful. The short-term high priority goal, experienced as a sense of urgency, is to flee, fight or deflect the danger. There are both 'innate' - really high priority learning - which are mediated by the central amygdala and learned fears which are mediated by the BLA which learns to fear a stimulus and then signals the central amygdala. Tara Brach notes we experience fear as a painfully constricted throat, chest and belly, and racing heart. The mind can build stories of the future which include fearful situations making us anxious about current ideas and actions that we associate with the potential future scenario. And it can associate traumatic events from early childhood with our being at fault. Consequent assumptions of our being unworthy can result in shame and fear of losing friendships. The mechanism for human fear was significantly evolved to protect us in the African savanna. This does not align perfectly with our needs in current environments: U.S. Grant was unusually un-afraid of the noise or risk of guns and trusted his horses' judgment, which mostly benefited his agency as a modern soldier. , the amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust, heart rate, and suffering from the insula cortex, allowing it to orchestrate emotion. It connects strongly to attention focusing networks. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. It directly signals area 25. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli, focusing our attention on these. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety and makes us distracted. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Sees suffering of others as increasingly salient with loving-kindness meditation practice, Goleman & Davidson explain.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
will become the
viewer.
Similarly there is no master ant, bee or termite for the SuperOrganism is a wealthy autonomous entity needing and controlling the richest niches in the proximate environment, that emerges from the bundled cooperation of schematically aligned agents. The term is based on the social insect model, used by: ants, termites, and bees; and identified by Holldobler & E.O. Wilson. These genetically identical insect superorganisms cooperatively limit their reproduction to align with the resources available in the niche. Wilson asserts these insects all developed nests to which they returned to raise their offspring, and when the nest sites were of limited capacity some family members responded by focusing on defending the nest and foraging while their mother became an egg laying queen, enabled by "a single genetic change which silenced the brain's program for dispersal and prevents the mother and her offspring from dispersing to create new nests," Wilson explains. He adds climate control of the nest and disease resistance, just like the human immune system, demand individually focused diversity. So the queen's genome consists of low variety alleles for the extended phenotypic 'robot' worker caste agents and their organization - queen and workers competing as one, with other colonies and individual insects - and other parts which are high where the genome includes significant diversity. For humans it is an evolved cultural strategy used when the environment is supportive, but it is dependent on our imperfect cognitive assessment of kinship as well as group selection driven emotions: other-condemning, other-praising, other-suffering and self-conscious; and group oriented pressures to conform and remain: religions. And the adjacent possible must be recreated and modeled culturally through the emergence of processes such as democracy. It depends on inter-agent signalling. In both insects and humans it allows specialization, and encourages operations and flows that are tightly controlled, limiting waste, leveraging parallel activity, supporting coherence. Superorganisms reflect cliodynamic flows. A superorganism has a development and operational phase. As additional agents are coopted into the superorganism they align, participate in supply and demand activities and so contribute to the evolutionary amplification. Damasio notes that prokaryotes, in rich environments, can similarly operate in a symbiotic fashion expressing cultural behaviors.
colonies general operations. Indeed E. O. Wilson & Bert Holldobler illustrate how bundled cooperative strategies can
take hold. Various social insects have developed
strategies which have allowed them to capture the most valuable
available niches. Like humans they invest in
specialization and cooperate to subdue larger, well equipped
competitors.
insect superorganisms' dependence on
one queen to facilitate reproduction of the colony allows parasites is a long term relationship between the parasite and its host where the resources of the host are utilized by the parasite without reciprocity. Often parasites include schematic adaptations allowing the parasite to use the hosts modeling and control systems to divert resources to them or improve their chance of reproduction: Toxoplasma gondii. This page discusses the strategy of confusing the control system
of a complex adaptive system (CAS).
opportunities to unbalance the leader and
flourish. But having a single queen helps ensure
there is a This page reviews the implications of reproduction initially
generating a single initialized child cell. For
multi-cellular organisms this 'cell' must contain all the germ-line schematic
structures including for organelles and multi-generational epi-genetic
state. Any microbiome
is subsequently integrated during the innovative deployment of
this creative event. Organisms with skeletal
infrastructure cannot complete the process of creation of an
associated adult mind, until the proximate environment has been
sampled during development.
The mechanism and resulting strategic options are
discussed.
single individual
developmental bottleneck to define the next
superorganism.
In contrast, deep-learning
networks are representational models that achieve high performance on difficult pattern recognition problems in vision and speech. But they need specialized training methods such as greedy layerwise pre-training or HF optimization. Researchers are gaining access to the participation of the individual 'neurons' using: visualization, attribution, dimensionality reduction, interpretability; (Mar 2018) do not have direct access to genetic
infrastructure. They have sensors built to accept
array-processing algorithms selected by designers to match the
problem they are focused on. And while they simulate the adaptive in evolutionary biology is a trait that increased the number of surviving offspring in an organism's ancestral lineage. Holland argues: complex adaptive systems (CAS) adapt due to the influence of schematic strings on agents. Evolution indicates fitness when an organism survives and reproduces. For his genetic algorithm, Holland separated the adaptive process into credit assignment and rule discovery. He assigned a strength to each of the rules (alternate hypothesis) used by his artificial agents, by credit assignment - each accepted message being paid for by the recipient, increasing the sender agent's rule's strength (implicit modeling) and reducing the recipient's. When an agent achieved an explicit goal they obtained a final reward. Rule discovery used the genetic algorithm to select strong rule schemas from a pair of agents to be included in the next generation, with crossing over and mutation applied, and the resulting schematic strategies used to replace weaker schemas. The crossing over genetic operator is unlikely to break up a short schematic sequence that provides a building block retained because of its 'fitness'; In Deacon's conception of evolution, an adaptation is the realization of a set of constraints on candidate mechanisms, and so long as these constraints are maintained, other features are arbitrary. connections and
weighting mechanisms of neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals. The axon may be myelinated, focusing the signals through synaptic transmission, or unmyelinated - where crosstalk is leveraged.
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
,
the associative hidden layer settings depend on designers to
select appropriate large networks of data to observe. The
result is what Andrew Ng termed "effective,
but brittle." Operational systems like Deepmind's
AlphaGo add a separate The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
Samuel based
competitive learning process.
Similarly
robots have no intrinsic mechanism to evolve and do not include
the vast set of evolved tools collected by evolution. Haikonen juxtaposes the philosophy and psychology of
consciousness with engineering practice to refine the debate on
the hard problem of consciousness. During the journey he
describes the architecture of a robot that highlights the
potential and challenges of associative neural
networks.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory is then used to illustrate the
additional requirements and constraints of self-assembling
evolved conscious animals. It will be seen that
Haikonen's neural
architecture, Smiley's Copycat
architecture and molecular biology's intracellular
architecture leverage the same associative properties.
Haikonen's sentient robot
demonstrates the power of [auto-] associative networks but it
depends on human engineering to 'evolve'.
Perception, fast and
slow
Fast and slow matching of perception and representation must be
present in all moving organisms. For single-cell organisms
the slow representations are mutation based and the fast
structures are built by genes. For multi-cellular
organisms with neuron, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals. The axon may be myelinated, focusing the signals through synaptic transmission, or unmyelinated - where crosstalk is leveraged.
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
This page discusses the effect of the network on the agents participating in a complex
adaptive system (CAS). Small
world and scale free networks are considered.
networks, both genetic and memetic
representations are used:
- The
This page discusses the interdependence of perception and
representation in a complex adaptive system (CAS). Hofstadter
and Mitchell's research with Copycat is
reviewed. The bridging of a node from a network of 'well
known' percepts to a new representational instance is discussed
as it occurs in biochemistry, in consciousness and
abstractly.
perception and representation
mechanism must be able to respond as fast as a competitor
can act. Eukaryotes is a relatively large multi-component cell type. It initially emerged from prokaryotic archaea subsuming eubacteria, from which single and multi-celled plants, multi celled fungi, including single-cell variant yeast, drips, protozoa and metazoa, including humans, are constructed. A eukaryotic cell contains modules including a nucleus and production functions such as chloroplasts and mitochondria.
can support this need for speed through
massive parallelism based on connected networks of neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals. The axon may be myelinated, focusing the signals through synaptic transmission, or unmyelinated - where crosstalk is leveraged.
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
. But it
must also be able to learn about new situations.
Evolution has provided a mechanism which uses repetition --
practice -- to build associations within the fast thinking
areas of the brain
stem includes: medulla, raphe, pons, substantia nigra, ventral tegmental area, pituitary, superior colliculi, cerebellum, thalamus (LGN), basal ganglia including caudate nucleus and striatum; amygdala, hypothalamus, nucleus accumbens; that coordinate muscle operation. And
for muscle related operations that have been evolutionarily
useful Representing state in emergent entities is essential but
difficult. Various structures are used to enhance the rate
and scope of state transitions. Examples are
discussed.
specialized fast circuits have
been added to the tool set.
- The
ability to slowly and repetitively practice allows the
building of associations between the brain stem includes: medulla, raphe, pons, substantia nigra, ventral tegmental area, pituitary, superior colliculi, cerebellum, thalamus (LGN), basal ganglia including caudate nucleus and striatum; amygdala, hypothalamus, nucleus accumbens; and the
high-level representations that must be responded to.
The indirect nature of these associations allows novel
configurations and sequences of details to be associated
with the fast sensor and motor regions. After practice
the slow processes disengage and an additional fast
operation has been added to the memetic toolbox.
- It is unlikely that new low level perceptual neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a:
- Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals. The axon may be myelinated, focusing the signals through synaptic transmission, or unmyelinated - where crosstalk is leveraged.
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
are being
deployed. Indeed consciousness helps avoid a combinatorial
explosion of conjunctions between sensory
streams. But certainly during development is a phase during the operation of a CAS agent. It allows for schematic strategies to be iteratively blended with environmental signals to solve the logistical issues of migrating newly built and transformed sub-agents. That is needed to achieve the adult configuration of the agent and optimize it for the proximate environment. Smiley includes examples of the developmental phase agents required in an emergent CAS. In situations where parents invest in the growth and memetic learning of their offspring the schematic grab bag can support optimizations to develop models, structures and actions to construct an adept adult. In humans, adolescence leverages neural plasticity, elder sibling advice and adult coaching to help prepare the deploying neuronal network and body to successfully compete. it is
possible for neuronal
recycling is Stanislas Dehaene's hypothesis that human brain architecture obeys strong genetic constraints, but some circuits have evolved to tolerate some variability. Part of the visual system is not hardwired, but remains open to changes in the environment. A range of brain circuits, defined by genes, provides "pre-representations" that our brains can compare to future developments in its environment. During brain development, learning mechanisms select which pre-representations are best adapted to a given situation. Within an otherwise well-structured brain, visual plasticity gave the ancient scribes the opportunity to invent reading. to be used to leverage current genetically
built puzzle pieces in novel ways. In humans adolescence in humans supports the transition from a juvenile configuration, dependent on parents and structured to learn & logistically transform, to adult optimized to the proximate environment. And it is staged, encouraging male adolescents to escape the hierarchy they grew up in and enter other groups where they may bring in: fresh ideas, risk taking; and alter the existing hierarchy: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates & Paul Allen; while females become highly focused on friendships and communications. It marks the beginning of Piaget's formal operational stage of cognitive development. The limbic, autonomic and hormone networks are already deployed and functioning effectively. The frontal cortex has to be pruned: winning neurons move to their final highly connected positions, and are myelinated over time. The rest dissolve. So the frontal lobe does not obtain its adult configuration and networked integration until the mid-twenties when prefrontal cortex control becomes optimal. The evolutionarily oldest areas of the frontal cortex mature first. The PFC must be iteratively customized by experience to do the right thing as an adult. Adolescents: - Don't detect irony effectively. They depend on the DMPFC to do this, unlike adults who leverage the fusiform face area.
- Regulate emotions with the ventral striatum while the prefrontal cortex is still being setup. Dopamine projection density and signalling increase from the ventral tegmentum catalyzing increased interest in dopamine based rewards. Novelty seeking allows for creative exploration which was necessary to move beyond the familial pack. Criticisms do not get incorporated into learning models by adolescents leaving their risk assessments very poor. The target of the dopamine networks, the adolescent accumbens, responds to rewards like a gyrating top - hugely to large rewards, and negatively to small rewards. Eventually as the frontal regions increase in contribution there are steady improvements in: working memory, flexible rule use, executive organization and task shifting. And adolescents start to see other people's perspective.
- Drive the cellular transformations with post-pubescent high levels of testosterone in males, and high but fluctuating estrogen & progesterone levels in females. Blood flow to the frontal cortex is also diverted on occasion to the groin.
- Peer pressure is exceptionally influential in adolescents. Admired peer comments reduce vmPFC activity and enhance ventral striatal activity. Adults modulate the mental impact of socially mean treatment: the initial activation of the PAG, anterior cingulate, amygdala, insula cortex; which generate feelings of pain, anger, and disgust, with the VLPFC but that does not occur in adolescents.
- Feel empathy intensely, supported by their rampant emotions, interest in novelty, ego. But feeling the pain of others can induce self-oriented avoidance of the situations.
allows
social regrouping to occur.
- Cats
constrained during their neuron, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a:
- Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals. The axon may be myelinated, focusing the signals through synaptic transmission, or unmyelinated - where crosstalk is leveraged.
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
network's development is a phase during the operation of a CAS agent. It allows for schematic strategies to be iteratively blended with environmental signals to solve the logistical issues of migrating newly built and transformed sub-agents. That is needed to achieve the adult configuration of the agent and optimize it for the proximate environment. Smiley includes examples of the developmental phase agents required in an emergent CAS. In situations where parents invest in the growth and memetic learning of their offspring the schematic grab bag can support optimizations to develop models, structures and actions to construct an adept adult. In humans, adolescence leverages neural plasticity, elder sibling advice and adult coaching to help prepare the deploying neuronal network and body to successfully compete.
phase from ever seeing horizontal lines cannot represent
them when they are perceived later in life.
Qualia are the direct qualities of percepts according to Haikonen. He argues they do not require interpretation or any evocation of meaning. Colors are colors and pain is pain. The human visual hierarchy seems at odds with this interpretation with meaning being associated with letters by signalling from the letterbox to the frontal lobes and used in the feedback flows that identify and prime morphemes. Damasio suggests qualia are a type of provoked feeling, triggered by stimuli like taste or vision, which results in an emotive response. can be seen to
represent both the jigsaw of genetically defined sensory signals
in visual processing and the unconsciously position-associated
networks of genetically encoded neurons, specialized eukaryotic cells include channels which control flows of sodium and potassium ions across the massively extended cell membrane supporting an electro-chemical wave which is then converted into an outgoing chemical signal transmission from synapses which target nearby neuron or muscle cell receptors. Neurons are supported by glial cells. Neurons include a: - Receptive element - dendrites
- Transmitting element - axon and synaptic terminals. The axon may be myelinated, focusing the signals through synaptic transmission, or unmyelinated - where crosstalk is leveraged.
- Highly variable DNA schema using transposons.
which both recognize and can replace
the sensory signals in the modeling process that performs
This page discusses the interdependence of perception and
representation in a complex adaptive system (CAS). Hofstadter
and Mitchell's research with Copycat is
reviewed. The bridging of a node from a network of 'well
known' percepts to a new representational instance is discussed
as it occurs in biochemistry, in consciousness and
abstractly.
perception and representation.
Additionally it has been evolutionarily valuable to think
strategically about certain problems. Relatively slow, but
abstract mechanisms are included in evolution's tool box:
- Modulatory neurons allow for plan-ahead.
- Memory neurons is a part of the medial temporal lobe of the brain involved in the temporary storage or coding of long-term episodic memory. It includes the dentate gyrus. Memory formation in the cells of the hippocampus uses the MAP kinase signalling network which is impacted by sleep deprivation. The hippocampus dependent memory system is directly affected by cholinergic changes throughout the wake-sleep cycle. Increased acetylcholine during REM sleep promotes information attained during wakefulness to be stored in the hippocampus by suppressing previous excitatory connections while facilitating encoding without interference from previously stored information. During slow-wave sleep low levels of acetylcholine cause the release of the suppression and allow for spontaneous recovery of hippocampal neurons resulting in memory consolidation. It was initially associated with memory formation by McGill University's Dr. Brenda Milner, via studies of 'HM' Henry Molaison, whose medial temporal lobes had been surgically destroyed leaving him unable to create new explicit memories. The size of neurons' dendritic trees expands and contracts over a female rat's ovulatory cycle, with the peak in size and cognitive skills at the estrogen high point. Adult neurogenesis occurs in the hippocampus (3% of neurons are replaced each month) where the new neurons integrate into preexisting circuits. It is enhanced by learning, exercise, estrogen, antidepressants, environmental enrichment, and brain injury and inhibited by various stressors explains Sapolsky. Prolonged stress makes the hippocampus atrophy. He notes the new neurons are essential for integrating new information into preexisting schemas -- learning that two things you thought were the same are actually different. Specific cells within the hippocampus and its gateway, the entorhinal cortex, are compromised by Alzheimer's disease. It directly signals area 25.
allow for Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
memetic structures to
be encoded by the neuron network which can be used as Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic state analogously to epigenetic
updates represent state surfaces within cells and eggs which can be operationally modified so as to provide a heritable structure. DNA, histones and other stable structures provide surfaces where these states may be setup. Egg carriers are in a particularly powerful position to induce epi-genetic changes. Sapolsky notes [childhood] events which persistently alter brain structure and behavior via epi-genetic mechanisms including: pair-bonding in prairie voles, as they first mate, is supported by changes in oxytocin & vasopressin receptor gene regulation in the nucleus accumbens. to the histones, in the eukaryotic cell are enzymes which bind to the DNA polymers supporting them and controlling their interactions with other enzymes. In particular sets of DNA operons can be enabled or disabled by histone induced changes in the DNA polymers shape. In AWF the histone control of DNA has been abstracted in a codelet based implementation of operon controlled programmed case control.
and DNA (DNA), a polymer composed of a chain of deoxy ribose sugars with purine or pyrimidine side chains. DNA naturally forms into helical pairs with the side chains stacked in the center of the helix. It is a natural form of schematic string. The purines and pyrimidines couple so that AT and GC pairs make up the stackable items. A code of triplets of base pairs (enabling 64 separate items to be named) has evolved which now redundantly represents each of the 20 amino-acids that are deployed into proteins, along with triplets representing the termination sequence. Chemical modifications and histone binding (chromatin) allow cells to represent state directly on the DNA schema. To cope with inconsistencies in the cell wide state second messenger and evolved amplification strategies are used. . But
instead of proteins being generated as the active aspect of
genetic agency, deployment of practiced episodic strategies
into unconscious structures associated with the cerebellum is involved with the efficiency of fine movement. It modulates the force and range of motion and is involved in motor coordination and the learning of motor skills. Damage to the cerebellum impairs standing, walking, or performance of coordinated movements. A virtuoso pianist or other performing musician depends on their cerebellum. The cerebellum receives visual, auditory, vestibular, and somatosensory information. It also receives information about individual muscular movements being directed by the brain. The cerebellum integrates this information and modifies the motor outflow, exerting a coordinating and smoothing effect on the movements. However, patients born without a cerebellum have survived reasonably well. The cerebellum is part of the implicit learning mechanism. It is required for the rabbit eye-blink to be classically conditioned to respond to a sound, and puff of air (threat to eye). It integrates the sound and puff and outputs the response to the motor area (blink). Levitin has shown the cerebellum participates in aspects of emotion and auditory processing. He found the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout a session listening to music, modeling the beat, rewarding a match between the internal and external rhythm and integrating movement. And he notes the cerebellum providing Williams syndrome sufferers with their capability to play music. , spine
and muscle groups occurs where fast activity can be
leveraged.
- Existence of persistent memetic structures allows
evolution to act. Teaching of aural and written
records both supports this capability.
Slow conscious
processes
As Haikonen juxtaposes the philosophy and psychology of
consciousness with engineering practice to refine the debate on
the hard problem of consciousness. During the journey he
describes the architecture of a robot that highlights the
potential and challenges of associative neural
networks.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory is then used to illustrate the
additional requirements and constraints of self-assembling
evolved conscious animals. It will be seen that
Haikonen's neural
architecture, Smiley's Copycat
architecture and molecular biology's intracellular
architecture leverage the same associative properties.
Haikonen & Pinker
note, combinatorial explosion can be a problem for associative
networks. Various
mechanisms can be used to constrain this including modulatory
networks and Consciousness has confounded philosophers and scientists for
centuries. Now it is finally being characterized
scientifically. That required a transformation of
approach.
Realizing that consciousness was ill-defined neuroscientist
Stanislas Dehaene and others characterized and focused on conscious access.
In the book he outlines the limitations of previous
psychological dogma. Instead his use of subjective
assessments opened the
window to contrast totally unconscious
brain activity with those
including consciousness.
He describes the research methods. He explains the
contribution of new sensors and probes that allowed the
psychological findings to be correlated, and causally related to
specific neural activity.
He describes the theory of the brain he uses, the 'global neuronal
workspace' to position all the experimental details into a
whole.
He reviews how both theory and practice support diagnosis and
treatment of real world mental illnesses.
The implications of Dehaene's findings for subsequent
consciousness research are outlined.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the brain's development and
operation introduce constraints which are discussed.
conscious access.
Once a map object is a collection of: happenings, occurrences and processes; including emergent entities, as required by relativity, explains Rovelli. But natural selection has improved our fitness by representing this perception, in our minds, as an unchanging thing, as explained by Pinker. Dehaene explains the object modeling and construction process within the unconscious and conscious brain. Mathematicians view anything that can be defined and used in deductive reasoning and mathematical proofs as an object. These mathematical objects can be values of variables, allowing them to be used in formulas. and its
associations have been selected for access to consciousness then
other alternative representations are suppressed allowing the
prime choice to be amplified and associated with additional
infrastructure that provides focus, appropriate orientation of
sensors, or an emotional shift.
If the percepts are internal appearences of the external world and the body according to Haikonen. RSS views them as evolved models that are: - Associated schematically with the signals generated in response to epi-phenomena detected by sensory receptors and
- Acted on by emergent agents.
enabling
access to consciousness stop then attention is the mutli-faceted capability allowing access to consciousness. It includes selective attention, vigilance, allocating attention, goal focus, and meta-awareness. will shift and
no further reinforcement will occur. The amygdala contains > 12 distinct areas: Central, Lateral. It receives simple signals from the lower parts of the brain: pain from the PAG; and abstract complex information from the highest areas: Disgust, heart rate, and suffering from the insula cortex, allowing it to orchestrate emotion. It connects strongly to attention focusing networks. It sends signals to almost every other part of the brain, including to the decision making circuitry of the frontal lobes. It has high levels of D(1) dopamine receptors. During extreme fear the amygdala drives the hippocampus into fear learning. It outputs directly to subcortical reflexive motor pathways when speed is required. Its central nucleus projects to the BNST. It signals the locus ceruleus. It directly signals area 25. The amygdala: - Promotes aggression. Stimulating the amygdala promotes rage. It converts anger into aggression and when impaired it impacts the ability to detect angry facial expressions.
- Participates in disgust
- Perceives fear promoting stimuli, focusing our attention on these. In PTSD sufferers the Amygdala overreacts to mildly fearful stimuli and is slow to calm down and the amygdala expands in size over a period of months. Fear is processed by the lateral nucleus which serves as the input from various senses, and the central nucleus which outputs to the brain stem (central grey - freezing, lateral hypothalamus - blood pressure, activates paraventricular hypothalamus => crf -> hormone adjustments).
- Has lots of receptors for and is highly sensitive to glucocorticoids. Stress inhibits the GABA interneurons in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) allowing the excitatory glutamate releasing neurons to excite more.
- Is sensitive to unsettling/uncertain social situations where it promotes anxiety and makes us distracted. It is also interested in uncertain but potentially painful situations. The amygdala contributes to social and emotional decision making where the BLA supports rejecting an unacceptable offer, as allowed in the Ultimatum Game, by injecting implicit mistrust and vigilance, generating an anger driven rejection that is used as punishment. The amygdala is very rapidly excited by subliminal signals from the thalamus of outgroup skin color. The amygdala subsequently tips social emotions against outgroups unless restrained by the frontal lobe or influenced by subliminal priming to prioritize inclusion. The fast path from the thalamus rapidly but inaccurately signals its identified a weapon.
- Sees suffering of others as increasingly salient with loving-kindness meditation practice, Goleman & Davidson explain.
- Promotes male, but not female, sexual motivation when it is an uncertain potential pleasure.
- Responds to the longing for uncertain potential pleasures and fear that the reward will not be worth it if it happens. The amygdala turns off during orgasm.
- Uses but is not directly involved in vision.
, needing to
respond quickly to potential dangers, can grab control of the
attention orienting process. This becomes a problem when
trauma fixates attention in PTSD is post-traumatic stress disorder, an induced level of stress that is so troubling to the brain that it avoids processing it, change that is necessary if the stress is to be dissipated by the normal brain processes. The hippocampus loses volume. The damage to the hippocampus results in: flashbacks, becoming emotionally numb and withdrawn from other people, irritability, jumpiness, being more aggressive, having trouble sleeping and avoidance of the sensory experiences associated with the initial event. The amygdala responds to overwhelming trauma by repeatedly grabbing attention to encourage response to the emergency, increases in volume and is hyperactive and anxious. As a result it remains in a heightened state, resulting in fear of recall and further stress. PTSD is often accompanied by depression and substance abuse. It is now being realized that PTSD can be introduced into patients by traumatic treatment regimens such as ICU procedures. Traumatic head injuries, seen in athletes and soldiers can be reflected in PTSD and can subsequently become associated with prion based dementia. Some people are genetically predisposed to PTSD, with identical twins responding similarly. Another risk factor for PTSD is childhood trauma which can induce epi-genetic changes to stress processing. PTSD can be managed with CBT, and it also responds to propranolol while recalling the traumatic event, where the drug undermines the memory reconsolidation process. .
When no external percepts are detected the default mode
network in Buckner's fMRI based analysis, supports using past experiences to plan for the future, navigate social interactions and maximize the utility of moments when attention is not focused on external events. It includes the: Medial prefrontal cortex, Medial temporal cortex, Posterior cingulate cortex. It is disrupted in autism, schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease. It becomes quiet under the influence of psychedelics that bind to the serotonin receptor. allows conscious review of past events and
modeling of the future. This may be strategically
beneficial or allow us to fixate on
unworthiness.
Sleep facilitates salient memory formation and removal of non-salient memories. The five different stages of the nightly sleep cycles support different aspects of memory formation. The sleep stages follow Pre-sleep and include: Stage one characterized by light sleep and lasting 10 minutes, Stage two where theta waves and sleep spindles occur, Stage three and Stage four together represent deep slow-wave sleep (SWS) with delta waves, Stage five is REM sleep; sleep cycles last between 90-110 minutes each and as the night progresses SWS times reduce and REM times increase. Sleep includes the operation of synapse synthesis and maintenance through DNA based activity including membrane trafficking, synaptic vesicle recycling, myelin structural protein formation and cholesterol and protein synthesis. Sleep also controls inflammation (Jan 2019) Sleep deprivation undermines the thalamus & nucleus accumbens management of pain. allows the analysis,
destruction and garbage collection of Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
memetic
details which are not found significant enough to be
retained long term.
No explanatory gap
found
With perceptions being based on Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
genetic
and memetic Plans are interpreted and implemented by agents. This page
discusses the properties of agents in a complex adaptive system
(CAS).
It then presents examples of agents in different CAS. The
examples include a computer program where modeling and actions
are performed by software agents. These software agents
are aggregates.
The participation of agents in flows is introduced and some
implications of this are outlined.
agents responding
to signals and state inputs by The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
modeling
and performing actions there is no explanatory
gap (Chalmers hard problem of consciousness). This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
Evolution has been able to make the
models an effective
representation of reality, removing the epistemological
gap, but is not required to achieve an exact match as is
illustrated powerfully by the existence of illusions.
Distributed agents signalled by the modeling agents are aware
enough to respond even at the prokaryotic, a single cell system with two main types: (1) Archaea, and (2) Eubacteria. Prokaryotes have their own DNA and infrastructure within a single enclosure. They are biochemically very versatile: Photosynthesis -> Electron transport & phosphorylation, Enzymatic regulation and catalysis of chemical reactions, Catabolize -> phosphate bond energy, ATP cycle, glycolysis, TCA cycle, Electron transports, oxidative phosphorylation, oxidation of fatty acids, oxidative degradation of amino acids; Biosynthesis & utilization of phosphate bond energy -> carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, nucleotides, muscle & motile structures; membrane barriers & active transports, hormones; Replication, Transcription, Translation, Regulation of gene expression; self-assembly; They utilize cell membrane receptors and signalling to support symbiotic cooperation with other cellular entities, including: in the microbiome, and as chloroplasts and mitochondria within eukaryotic cells. enzymatic, a protein with a structure which allows it to operate as a chemical catalyst and a control switch.
level.
As a slow, conscious activity This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
emerged
within the networked, distributed set of eukaryotic is a relatively large multi-component cell type. It initially emerged from prokaryotic archaea subsuming eubacteria, from which single and multi-celled plants, multi celled fungi, including single-cell variant yeast, drips, protozoa and metazoa, including humans, are constructed. A eukaryotic cell contains modules including a nucleus and production functions such as chloroplasts and mitochondria. multi-cellular
agents to support practice and strategic modeling, having
continued awareness of the models provided survival value.
Damasio
reviews Chalmers
hard problem of consciousness: why and how the mental
activities, by which brains construct images, become conscious?
and why experience is accompanied by feelings are subjective models: sad, glad, mad, scared, surprised, and compassionate; of the organism and its proximate environment, including ratings of situations signalled by broadly distributed chemicals and neural circuits. These feelings become highly salient inputs, evolutionarily associated, to higher level emotions encoded in neural circuits: amygdala, and insula. Deacon shows James' conception of feeling can build sentience. Damasio, similarly, asserts feelings reveal to the conscious mind the subjective status of life: good, bad, in between; within a higher organism. They especially indicate the affective situation within the old interior world of the viscera located in the abdomen, thorax and thick of the skin - so smiling makes one feel happy; but augmented with the reports from the situation of the new interior world of voluntary muscles. Repeated experiences build intermediate narratives, in the mind, which reduce the salience. Damasio concludes feelings relate closely and consistently with homeostasis, acting as its mental deputies once organisms developed 'nervous systems' about 600 million years ago, and building on the precursor regulatory devices supplied by evolution to social insects and prokaryotes and leveraging analogous dynamic constraints. Damasio suggests feelings contribute to the development of culture: - As motives for intellectual creation: prompting detection and diagnosis of homeostatic deficiencies, identifying desirable states worthy of creative effort.
- As monitors of the success and failure of cultural instruments and practices
- As participants in the negotiation of adjustments required by the cultural process over time
. Damasio
notes that in his homeostatic is, according to Damasio, the fundamental set of operations at the core of life, from the earliest and long-vanished point of its beginning in early biochemistry to the present. It is the powerful, unthought, unspoken imperative, whose discharge implies, for every living organism, small or large, nothing less than enduring and prevailing. Damasio stresses that the operations that ensure prevailing ensure life is regulated within a range that is not just compatible with survival but also conducive to flourishing, to protection of life into the future of an organism or a species. Prevailing implies mechanisms for monitoring and modeling the state of the organism, controlling and constraining the flows of energy and resources through schematic agency, and to facilitate exploring the environment and acting on signals of modeled opportunities and threats. Global homeostasis of multi-organ animals requires endocrine, immune, circulatory and nervous 'systems' and results in the emergence of minds, feelings, consciousness, machinery of affect and complex movements. The emergence of feelings allowed the homeostatic process to become enhanced by a subjective representation of the organism's state and proximate environment within the mind. Feelings operating in minds allowed conscious decisions to extend homeostasis to the sociocultural domain.
driven framework of mind
feelings
are part of experiences giving these This page reviews the implications of reproduction initially
generating a single initialized child cell. For
multi-cellular organisms this 'cell' must contain all the germ-line schematic
structures including for organelles and multi-generational epi-genetic
state. Any microbiome
is subsequently integrated during the innovative deployment of
this creative event. Organisms with skeletal
infrastructure cannot complete the process of creation of an
associated adult mind, until the proximate environment has been
sampled during development.
The mechanism and resulting strategic options are
discussed.
organisms an This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
evolutionary
advantage. And with additional advantages accrued from subjectivity
Damasio is able to show why and how 'felt' mental states are
produced.
This critical dependence on evolution to collect the models that
support consciousness is our criticism of John Searle's influential thought experiment implied to him that
computers cannot understand. Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory indicates that this is
not the case.
Searle's logic about his Chinese Room.
Kurzweil's singularity
assumes that exponential increases in computing power and
leverage of redundancy in our brains will allow for the
uploading of a specific brain with all the mental processes
intact. At a minimum that suggests accurate
representations of the:
The theory of This page discusses the mechanisms and effects of emergence
underpinning any complex adaptive system (CAS). Physical forces and
constraints follow the rules of complexity. They generate
phenomena and support the indirect emergence of epiphenomena.
Flows of epiphenomena interact in events which support the
emergence of equilibrium and autonomous
entities. Autonomous entities enable evolution
to operate broadening the adjacent possible.
Key research is reviewed.
emergence suggests
the models that Kurzweil depends on will struggle to
effectively represent these aspects of the complete CAS of
which the brain is a part.
RSS is Rob's Strategy Studio places more faith in the
transformative power of Plans change in complex adaptive systems (CAS) due to the action of genetic
operations such as mutation, splitting and recombination.
The nature of the operations is described.
operators on
Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
schematic structures such as An epistatic meme suppressed for a thousand years reemerges
during the enlightenment.
It was a poem
encapsulating the ideas of Epicurus rediscovered by a
humanist book hunter.
Greenblatt describes the process of suppression and
reemergence. He argues that the rediscovery was the
foundation of the modern world.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the memetic mechanisms
are discussed.
On The Nature of Things.
Amazon advancing
Amazon.com provides an interesting example of augmented
intelligence. Its organization supports:
- A physical supply process with human operations, and or
robots. This is integrated with
- Adaptive in evolutionary biology is a trait that increased the number of surviving offspring in an organism's ancestral lineage. Holland argues: complex adaptive systems (CAS) adapt due to the influence of schematic strings on agents. Evolution indicates fitness when an organism survives and reproduces. For his genetic algorithm, Holland separated the adaptive process into credit assignment and rule discovery. He assigned a strength to each of the rules (alternate hypothesis) used by his artificial agents, by credit assignment - each accepted message being paid for by the recipient, increasing the sender agent's rule's strength (implicit modeling) and reducing the recipient's. When an agent achieved an explicit goal they obtained a final reward. Rule discovery used the genetic algorithm to select strong rule schemas from a pair of agents to be included in the next generation, with crossing over and mutation applied, and the resulting schematic strategies used to replace weaker schemas. The crossing over genetic operator is unlikely to break up a short schematic sequence that provides a building block retained because of its 'fitness'; In Deacon's conception of evolution, an adaptation is the realization of a set of constraints on candidate mechanisms, and so long as these constraints are maintained, other features are arbitrary.
The agents in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) must model their
environment to respond effectively to it. Evolution's
schematic operators and Samuel
modeling together support the indirect recording of past
successes and their strategic use by the current agent to learn
how to succeed in the proximate environment.
models about what customers' desire and
are purchasing. They use these computer based models
to generate personal
- Signal based offers to their customers. They also
have
- Echo inside their customers' homes providing additional
feedback and encouraging voice based enhanced intelligence
services that can run as
- Amazon web services.
- A platform is agent generated infrastructure that supports emergence of an entity through: leverage of an abundant energy source, reusable resources; attracting a phenotypically aligned network of agents.
enabling a powerful market share based business model.
Like the A government sanctioned monopoly
supported the construction of a superorganism
American Telephone and
Telegraph
(AT&T). Within this Bell Labs was at the center of
three networks:
- The evolving global scientific
network.
- The Bell telephone network. And
- The military
industrial network deploying 'fire and missile
control' systems.
Bell Labs strategically leveraged each network to create an innovation
engine.
They monitored the opportunities to leverage the developing
ideas, reorganizing to replace incumbent
opposition and enable the creation and growth of new
ideas.
Once the monopoly was
dismantled, AT&T disrupted.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the innovation mechanisms are
discussed.
20th century AT&T
Amazon's network provides value and presents real-world problems
that Amazon can focus its research and development skills upon a
highly intelligent This page introduces the complex adaptive system (CAS) theory
frame. The theory provides an organizing framework that is
used by 'life.' It can be used to evaluate and rank models
that claim to describe our perceived reality. It catalogs
the laws and strategies which underpin the operation of systems
that are based on the interaction of emergent
agents. It highlights the
constraints that shape CAS and so predicts their form. A
proposal that does not conform is wrong.
John Holland's framework for representing complexity is
outlined. Links to other key aspects of CAS theory
discussed at the site are presented.
CAS.
Businesses like Amazon can use W.
Brian Arthur's combinational
evolution. In contrast human evolution is
constrained to use This page reviews the implications of selection, variation and
heredity in a complex adaptive system (CAS).
The mechanism and its emergence are
discussed.
Darwinian mechanisms.
Although we see similar CAS Terrence Deacon explores how constraints on dynamic flows can
induce emergent phenomena
which can do real work. He shows how these phenomena are
sustained. The mechanism enables
the development of Darwinian competition.
constraints
acting on
both of these evolutionary mechanisms Striedter's
analogy between business and brain evolution seems to
mistakenly converge the two mechanisms which is not possible
since there is:
- No mutation capture mechanism associated with business
style reorganization and
- No designer or strategist involved in the cellular
processes.
This page reviews the inhibiting effect of the value delivery system on the
expression of new phenotypic
effects within an agent.
Extended phenotypic
alignment can act on societal Plans emerge in complex adaptive
systems (CAS) to provide the
instructions that agents use to
perform actions. The component architecture and structure
of the plans is reviewed.
memetic
structures that alter the chance of survival within
the human gene pool. But the phenotypic expression of
genes as neural
circuits, a network of interconnected neurons which perform signalling, modeling and control functions. In Cajal's basic neural circuits the signalling is unidirectional. He identified three classes of neurons in the circuits: - Sensory, Interneurons, Motor; which are biochemically distinct and suffer different disease states.
is still directly governed by Desmond & Moore paint a picture of Charles Darwin's life,
expanded from his own highlights:
- His naughty
childhood,
- Wasted
schooldays,
- Apprenticeship with Grant,
- His extramural
activities at Cambridge, walks with Henslow,
life with FitzRoy on the
Beagle,
- His growing
love for science,
- London: geology, journal and Lyell.
- Moving from
Gower Street to Down and writing Origin and other
books.
- He reviewed his position on
religion: the long
dispute with Emma, his
slow collapse of belief
- damnation for unbelievers like his father and brother, inward conviction
being evolved and unreliable, regretting he had ignored his father's
advice; while describing Emma's side of the
argument. He felt happy with his decision to dedicate
his life to science. He closed by asserting after Self &
Cross-fertilization his strength will be
exhausted.
Following our summary of their main points, RSS frames the details from the
perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory. Darwin placed
evolution within a CAS framework, and built a network of supporters whose
complementary skills helped drive the innovation.
Darwinian evolution.
Some acknowledgements
Many thanks go to Joffre
Baker and John Corallo. And special thanks to Marta
for supporting the development of RSS. The failures in the
forgoing analysis are mine but any insights were built with
their help. John introduced me to the Antonio Damasio argues
that ancient
& fundamental homeostatic processes,
built into
behaviors and updated by evolution
have resulted in the emergence
of nervous systems and feelings. These
feelings, representing the state of the viscera, and represented with general
systems supporting enteric
operation, are later ubiquitously
integrated into the 'images'
built by the minds of higher animals
including humans.
Damasio highlights the separate
development of the body frame in the building of
minds.
Damasio explains that this integration of feelings by minds
supports the development of subjectivity and consciousness. His chain of
emergence suggests the 'order of things.' He stresses the
end-to-end
integration of the organism which undermines dualism. And he reviews Chalmers
hard problem of consciousness.
Damasio reviews the emergence of cultures
and sees feelings, integrated with reason, as the judges of the
cultural creative process, linking culture to
homeostasis. He sees cultures as supporting the
development of tools
to improve our lives. But the results of the
creative process have added
stresses to our lives.
Following our summary of his arguments RSS frames his arguments from
the perspective of complex adaptive system (CAS) theory.
Each of the [super]organisms
discussed is a CAS reflecting the theory of such systems:
- Damasio's proposals about homeostasis routed signalling, aligns
well with CAS theory.
- Damasio's ideas on cultural stresses are elaborated by CAS
examples.
work of Damasio. Joff
introduced me to Consciousness has confounded philosophers and scientists for
centuries. Now it is finally being characterized
scientifically. That required a transformation of
approach.
Realizing that consciousness was ill-defined neuroscientist
Stanislas Dehaene and others characterized and focused on conscious access.
In the book he outlines the limitations of previous
psychological dogma. Instead his use of subjective
assessments opened the
window to contrast totally unconscious
brain activity with those
including consciousness.
He describes the research methods. He explains the
contribution of new sensors and probes that allowed the
psychological findings to be correlated, and causally related to
specific neural activity.
He describes the theory of the brain he uses, the 'global neuronal
workspace' to position all the experimental details into a
whole.
He reviews how both theory and practice support diagnosis and
treatment of real world mental illnesses.
The implications of Dehaene's findings for subsequent
consciousness research are outlined.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) models of the brain's development and
operation introduce constraints which are discussed.
Dehaene and Haikonen juxtaposes the philosophy and psychology of
consciousness with engineering practice to refine the debate on
the hard problem of consciousness. During the journey he
describes the architecture of a robot that highlights the
potential and challenges of associative neural
networks.
Complex adaptive system (CAS) theory is then used to illustrate the
additional requirements and constraints of self-assembling
evolved conscious animals. It will be seen that
Haikonen's neural
architecture, Smiley's Copycat
architecture and molecular biology's intracellular
architecture leverage the same associative properties.
Haikonen's work on consciousness and
shared his views about the subject. Both Joff and John
have reviewed my CAS based ideas.
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