Bridging the Gap Between Life and Physics

ISBN-13: 9783030090135 / Angielski / Miękka / 2018 / 338 str.

Ron Cottam; Willy Ranson

Spis treści

000 Preface

00 Foreword

0 Contents

1 Setting the Stage

Introduction to the area of work. Specifically addressing briefly, the following:

Universal analysis versus synthesis in conventional science

Determinism and complexity

Logic and rule-based argument

Complementarity and visualizability

Modelling and machines

Raison d’être of the following chapters

2 Opening the Curtains

Setting out the initial conditions for the work. Specifically addressing:

Collections and sets, the difference between them and whether their contents are externally accessible

Logic and rationality, as the terms will be used here: Brenner’s Logic In Reality and its relevance

Systems and their general properties

Probability: classical versus Dempster-Shafer probability

3 Partial Everything

The concept of Universal existence as partially-defined quasi-quantum particles.

Analogue and digital with respect to transfer functions

Complexity and the relevance of Robert Rosen’s description of complexity

Approximation in the analogue and digital domains

The overriding nature of partiality in existence and definition

4 Just In Time

Computation as a descriptive device

‘Just In Time’ reactivity in living systems

Conventional versus chaotic computation

Data versus information

Computational partitioning

Phase spaces and their importance

Mathematics and time in living systems

5 A Fishy Business

Query-reflection computational processing

Development of a multiply-reactive computational model

‘AQUARIUM’ as a query-reflection processor

The inclusion of new data and computational ‘sleep-time’

Query propagation slowdown and the computational barrier

Representation in AQUARIUM of an organism

6 And Yet It Moves

Modelling living systems and previous models directly relevant to this work

Static and dynamic aspects of life

Robert Rosen’s (M,R) systems

One gene, one protein, one level of organization?

Redrawing Robert Rosen’s (M,R) model

Maturana and Varela’s autopoietic systems

James Grier Miller’s book Living Systems

Gerard Jagers op Akkerhuis’s operator hierarchy

Ehresmann & Vanbremeerschs’ memory evolutive neural systems (MENS)

Thomas Sebeok and Thure von Uexkülls’ approach to biosemiotics

Chris Langton’s ‘life at the edge of chaos’

7 Seeing the Wood…

… for the trees

Introduction to the concept of scale

Ivan Havel’s concept of scale

Tree-structures and their problems

Hierarchy in its traditional context

Model hierarchy as the parent of traditional definitions of hierarchy

Emergence and slaving in a model hierarchy

Complex regions of a model hierarchy

Inter-level transit and quantum error correction

8 Two’s Company

Complementarity

Complementary duality

Hierarchical duality

Generalized emergence

Birationality

Birationality in models, paradigms and logic

9 Really Reality

Duality again: in entropy and life

Birationality again and entity-ecosystem modelling

Model hierarchy and Rosen’s (M,R) systems

A modified approach to reality

10 Under the Hood

Abstraction in modelling

Top-down or bottom-up?

Entity-ecosystem rationality pairs

Embodiment of living systems

Using Robert Rosen’s (M,R) systems in a model hierarchy

11 Thinking Things

Hyperscale in living systems

Dual hyperscale in a model hierarchy

Metascale in living systems

Intelligence, sapience and wisdom

12 Making a Difference

Ivan Havel’s categories of reality

Charles Peirce’s categories of experience

The derivation of information

Information in less-than-hierarchical systems

External sources in setting up information

13 Two into One

The neural implications of birational hierarchy

Neural hemispheres and the corpus calossum

Karl Pribram and complementarity in neural processing

Fear-learning as a multiple processing strategy

Sleep and AQUARIUM

14 Mind Matters

Relating together energy, awareness and consciousness

Awareness versus consciousness and David Bohm

From awareness to consciousness

Energy and awareness

Stasis-neglect and habituation

A birational derivation of consciousness

‘Unconscious’ awarenesses?

Coda: dual consciousness after corpus calossum sectioning

15 Bridging the Gap

Bridging the gap between life and physics

Solid state physics as a useful exemplar

Crystal-like appearances in biomolecules

Electron properties in the solid state: the Kronig-Penney model

Electron band structure as a hierarchy of states

Linking life and physics in terms of hierarchy

Cross-modelling between life and physics

Scales versus Brillouin zones

16 Closing the Curtains

Summary of the journey through the book

Conclusions and prospective

References

Acknowledgements

Index

O autorze

Ron Cottam grew up in Cheshire, in the north-west of England. At school he studied mathematics, physics and chemistry, and went on to gain a bachelor’s degree in applied physics and electronics and a PhD in the acoustic physics of II-VI and III-V compounds at the University of Durham, UK. He was invited to the University of Leuven in 1972 to start a new research activity in shape-memory alloy ultrasonics, and in 1976 became responsible for the music-recording facility in HiFi Home, Brugge. He established Sound Stuff – a study bureau in acoustics and music recording facility – in 1979, and worked as an independent in recording-studio design and recorded-music production until he joined the Department of Electronics and Informatics (ETRO) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) in 1983. From 1984 until the 2011 he has been ‘campus medewerker’ for the microelectronics R&D company IMEC vzw in ETRO, working on chemical sensors, integrated optical components, and most recently as leader of the Living Systems Project in the LAMI laboratory of ETRO. He currently continues research work in the Living Systems Project at the VUB as ‘vrijwillige medewerker’. Ron has an impressive publication record (see attached).

Willy Ranson received the Telecommunication Engineer degree in 1975 from the University of Leuven, Belgium. He was Assistant Professor in the Department of Microwaves and Lasers at the University of Leuven until 1983, when he joined the Department of Electronics and Information Processing (ETRO) of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Since 1989 he has been a member of the Inter-university Micro-Electronics Center (IMEC) in the VUB. Willy has participated in projects and contracted research on such diverse topics as planar antenna structures, high frequency wave-guides, chemical sensors, biological applications for breast cancer detection, optical information processing for parallel computation, CO2 laser applications, microelectronic process technology and revolutionary information and revolutionary computation theories. He is currently Senior Researcher in charge of the processing technology lab of LAMI and is a founder member of LIFE (Living Systems). His current research contributions are in the areas of CO2 laser modulation, millimeter imaging systems, micro machines for ultra-rapid DNA screening, fast enforcing technologies for protein engineering and Evolutionary Living Systems, sensing, imaging and modulation functionalities and operating in the electromagnetic spectrum ranging from the microwave range up to the far-infrared, covering the 30 GHz to 30 THz range. Willy is (co)author of more than 140 publications in international refereed journals and conferences (attachment).