Robert Rosen has proposed several characteristics to distinguish “simple” physical systems (or “mechanisms”) from “complex” systems, such as living systems, which he calls “organisms”. The Memory Evolutive Systems (MES) introduced by the authors in preceding papers are shown to provide a mathematical model, based on category theory, which satisfies his characteristics of organisms, in particular the merger of the Aristotelian causes. Moreover they identify the condition for the emergence of objects and systems of increasing complexity. As an application, the cognitive (...) system of an animal is modeled by the “MES of cat-neurons” obtained by successive complexifications of his neural system, in which the emergence of higher order cognitive processes gives support to Mario Bunge’s “emergentist monism.”. (shrink)

We comment on the preceding reviews of our book “ Memory Evolutive Systems ”, discussing the improvements proposed by some of the reviewers and answering to critics of others, in particular on the use of category theory for modeling living systems.

This paper compares two complementary theories, Simeonov’s Wandering Logic Intelligence and Ehresmann’s & Vanbremeersch’s Memory Evolutive Systems, in view of developing a common framework for the study of multiscale complex systems such as living systems. It begins by a brief summary of WLI and MES, then analyzes their resemblances and differences. Finally, the article provides an outlook for a future research.

Forty-two years ago, Capra published “The Tao of Physics” (Capra, 1975). In this book (page 17) he writes: “The exploration of the atomic and subatomic world in the twentieth century has …. necessitated a radical revision of many of our basic concepts” and that, unlike ‘classical’ physics, the sub-atomic and quantum “modern physics” shows resonances with Eastern thoughts and “leads us to a view of the world which is very similar to the views held by mystics of all ages and (...) traditions.“ This article stresses an analogous situation in biology with respect to a new theoretical approach for studying living systems, Integral Biomathics (IB), which also exhibits some resonances with Eastern thought. Stepping on earlier research in cybernetics1 and theoretical biology,2 IB has been developed since 2011 by over 100 scientists from a number of disciplines who have been exploring a substantial set of theoretical frameworks. From that effort, the need for a robust core model utilizing advanced mathematics and computation adequate for understanding the behavior of organisms as dynamic wholes was identified. At this end, the authors of this article have proposed WLIMES (Ehresmann and Simeonov, 2012), a formal theory for modeling living systems integrating both the Memory Evolutive Systems (Ehresmann and Vanbremeersch, 2007) and the Wandering Logic Intelligence (Simeonov, 2002b). Its principles will be recalled here with respect to their resonances to Eastern thought. (shrink)

The INBIOSA project brings together a group of experts across many disciplines who believe that science requires a revolutionary transformative step in order to address many of the vexing challenges presented by the world. It is INBIOSA’s purpose to enable the focused collaboration of an interdisciplinary community of original thinkers. This paper sets out the case for support for this effort. The focus of the transformative research program proposal is biology-centric. We admit that biology to date has been more fact-oriented (...) and less theoretical than physics. However, the key leverageable idea is that careful extension of the science of living systems can be more effectively applied to some of our most vexing modern problems than the prevailing scheme, derived from abstractions in physics. While these have some universal application and demonstrate computational advantages, they are not theoretically mandated for the living. A new set of mathematical abstractions derived from biology can now be similarly extended. This is made possible by leveraging new formal tools to understand abstraction and enable computability. [The latter has a much expanded meaning in our context from the one known and used in computer science and biology today, that is "by rote algorithmic means", since it is not known if a living system is computable in this sense (Mossio et al., 2009).] Two major challenges constitute the effort. The first challenge is to design an original general system of abstractions within the biological domain. The initial issue is descriptive leading to the explanatory. There has not yet been a serious formal examination of the abstractions of the biological domain. What is used today is an amalgam; much is inherited from physics (via the bridging abstractions of chemistry) and there are many new abstractions from advances in mathematics (incentivized by the need for more capable computational analyses). Interspersed are abstractions, concepts and underlying assumptions “native” to biology and distinct from the mechanical language of physics and computation as we know them. A pressing agenda should be to single out the most concrete and at the same time the most fundamental process-units in biology and to recruit them into the descriptive domain. Therefore, the first challenge is to build a coherent formal system of abstractions and operations that is truly native to living systems. Nothing will be thrown away, but many common methods will be philosophically recast, just as in physics relativity subsumed and reinterpreted Newtonian mechanics. -/- This step is required because we need a comprehensible, formal system to apply in many domains. Emphasis should be placed on the distinction between multi-perspective analysis and synthesis and on what could be the basic terms or tools needed. The second challenge is relatively simple: the actual application of this set of biology-centric ways and means to cross-disciplinary problems. In its early stages, this will seem to be a “new science”. This White Paper sets out the case of continuing support of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for transformative research in biology and information processing centered on paradigm changes in the epistemological, ontological, mathematical and computational bases of the science of living systems. Today, curiously, living systems cannot be said to be anything more than dissipative structures organized internally by genetic information. There is not anything substantially different from abiotic systems other than the empirical nature of their robustness. We believe that there are other new and unique properties and patterns comprehensible at this bio-logical level. The report lays out a fundamental set of approaches to articulate these properties and patterns, and is composed as follows. -/- Sections 1 through 4 (preamble, introduction, motivation and major biomathematical problems) are incipient. Section 5 describes the issues affecting Integral Biomathics and Section 6 -- the aspects of the Grand Challenge we face with this project. Section 7 contemplates the effort to formalize a General Theory of Living Systems (GTLS) from what we have today. The goal is to have a formal system, equivalent to that which exists in the physics community. Here we define how to perceive the role of time in biology. Section 8 describes the initial efforts to apply this general theory of living systems in many domains, with special emphasis on crossdisciplinary problems and multiple domains spanning both “hard” and “soft” sciences. The expected result is a coherent collection of integrated mathematical techniques. Section 9 discusses the first two test cases, project proposals, of our approach. They are designed to demonstrate the ability of our approach to address “wicked problems” which span across physics, chemistry, biology, societies and societal dynamics. The solutions require integrated measurable results at multiple levels known as “grand challenges” to existing methods. Finally, Section 10 adheres to an appeal for action, advocating the necessity for further long-term support of the INBIOSA program. -/- The report is concluded with preliminary non-exclusive list of challenging research themes to address, as well as required administrative actions. The efforts described in the ten sections of this White Paper will proceed concurrently. Collectively, they describe a program that can be managed and measured as it progresses. (shrink)

Perhaps the most distinct question in science throughout the ages has been the one of perceivable reality, treated both in physics and philosophy. Reality is acting upon us, and we, and life in general, are acting upon reality. Potentiality, found both in quantum reality and in the activity of life, plays a key role. In quantum reality observation turns potentiality into reality. Again, life computes possibilities in various ways based on past actions, and acts on the basis of these computations. (...) This book is about a new approach to biology. Its subtitle suggests a perpetual movement and interplay between two elusive aspects of modern science — reality/matter and potentiality/mind, between physics and biology — both captured and triggered by mathematics — to understand and explain emergence, development and life all the way up to consciousness. But what is the real/potential difference between living and non-living matter? How does time in potentiality differ from time in reality? What we need to understand these differences is an integrative approach. This book contemplates how to encircle life to obtain a formal system, equivalent to the ones in physics. Integral Biomathics attempts to explore the interplay between reality and potentiality. (shrink)

In a series of preceding papers, the authors have developed the theory of Memory Evolutive Systems which represents a mathematical model (based on Category theory) for natural open self-organizing systems, such as biological, sociological or neural systems. In these systems, the dynamics is modulated by the cooperative or/and competitive interactions between the global system and a net of internal more or less specialized Centers of Regulation (CR) with a differential access to a central hierarchical Memory. Each CR operates at its (...) own complexity level and time-scale, but their strategies are competitive, whence a 'dialectics between heterogeneous CRs which is at the root of higher order cognition. The problem tackled in the present paper is the emergence of a Semantics in the MES modeling a cognitive system; it relies on the detection of specific invariances by the CRs that leads to classify objects according to their main attributes, and form new formal units representing their invariance classes. The idea is that a (lower) CR, say E, classifies two objects B and C as having 'the same shape' if they activate the same pattern of its actors; however this classification remains implicit for E itself and it can be apprehended only by a higher Ievel CR which may memorize the invariance class by a higher object, called a 'E-concept'. The concepts with respect to the various CRs form the semantic memory which gives more flexibility in the evaluation, selection and memorization of appropriate strategies, as well as in internal or external communications. (shrink)

The different kinds of knowledge which were connected in Natural Philosophy (NP) have been later separated. The real separation came when Physics took its individuality and developed specific mathematical models, such as dynamic systems. These models are not adapted to an integral study of _living systems_, by which we mean evolutionary multi-level, multi-agent, and multi-temporality self-organized systems, such as biological, social, or cognitive systems. For them, the physical models can only be applied to the local dynamic of each co-regulator agent, (...) but not to the global dynamic intertwining these partial dynamics. To ‘revive’ NP, we present the Memory Evolutive Systems (MES) methodology which is based on a ‘dynamic’ Category Theory; it proposes an info-computational model for living systems. Among the main results: (i) a mathematical translation of the part⁻whole problem (using the categorical operation colimit) which shows how the different interpretations of the problem support diverging philosophical positions, from reductionism to emergentism and holism; (ii) an explanation of the emergence, over time, of structures and processes of increasing complexity order, through successive ‘complexification processes’. We conclude that MES provides an emergentist-reductionism model and we discuss the different meanings of the concept of _emergence_ depending on the context and the observer, as well as its relations with anticipation and creativity. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to study anticipation in autonomous adaptive systems, such as biological and social systems, which have a multilevel multi-agent organization and develop a robust though flexible long-term memory. The problem is to find the characteristics allowing the system, through some of its agent, to enhance its comprehension of the nature and role of anticipation calls “Futures Literacy”) and to use this knowledge to search for possible procedures and virtually evaluate their impact on behavior, decision-making, and/or (...) future action. The present study concerns open systems during their ongoing evolution. Thus it is different from Rosen’s anticipatory systems in which anticipation results from the existence of an internal predictive model of the invariant structure of the system.The study is done in the frame of the Memory Evolutive Systems :13–50, 1987; Memory evolutive systems: hierarchy, emergence, cognition. Elsevier, 2007), a mathematical approach to “living” systems, based on a “dynamic” category theory incorporating time. The main characteristic making these systems capable of developing anticipatory processes is identified as a kind of “operational redundancy” called the Multiplicity Principle. MP allows the progressive emergence, in the memory, of multifaceted dynamical records of increasing complexity which are flexible enough to adapt to changes. In social systems, a group of interacting people can develop a shared higher-level hub of the memory of the system, its archetypal pattern, which acts as a motor in the development of anticipatory processes. An application is given to the “Futures Literacy” program of Riel Miller, with a comparison of its three phases with the three types of creativity distinguished by Boden. (shrink)

The theory of Memory Evolutive Systems represents a mathematical model for natural open self-organizing systems, such as biological, sociological or neural systems. In these systems, the dynamics are modulated by the cooperative and/or competitive interactions between the global system and a net of internal Centers of Regulation (CR) wich a differential access to a central heirarchical Memory. The MES proposes a mathematical model for autonomous evolutionary systems and is based on the Category Theory of mathematics. It provides a framework to (...) study and possibly simulate the structre of "living systems" and their dynamic behavior. MES explores what characterizes a complex evolutionary system, what distinguishes it from inanimate physical systems, its functioning and evolution in time, from its birth to its death. The behavior of this type of system depends heavily on its former experiences, and a model representing the system over a period of time, could anticipate later behavior and perhaps even predict some evolutionary alternatives. The role of the MES model will be two-fold: theoretical, for a comprehension of a fundamental nature and practical, for applications in biology, medicine, sociology, ecology, economy, meteorology, and other sciences. Key Features: *Comprehensive and comprehensible coverage of Memory Evolutive System *Written by the developers of the Memory Evolutive Systems *Designed to explore the common language between sciences. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Info-computational Constructivism and Cognition” by Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic. Upshot: I propose a mathematical approach to the framework developed in Dodig-Crnkovic’s target article. It points to an important property of natural computation, called the multiplicity principle (MP), which allows the development of increasingly complex cognitive processes and knowledge. While local dynamics are classically computable, a consequence of the MP is that the global dynamics is not, thus raising the problem of developing more elaborate computations, perhaps with (...) the help of Turing oracles. (shrink)

Notre etude a pour objet l'epistemologie vehiculee dans la premiere partie de l'oeuvre du psychanalyste francais Jacques Lacan. Or, la question du savoir s'y repartit sur deux plans, puisque c'est par le devoilement des structures de la connaissance humaine que Lacan entend etablir la scientificite de la psychanalyse. C'est dire que le statut de cette derniere constitue l'enjeu principal de l'elaboration de sa theorie de la connaissance. Nous proposons une mise en relief de la connexion intime entre ces deux niveaux (...) dans le but de faire ressortir les principes guidant l'auto-justification de la theorie lacanienne. Pour ce faire, nous examinons les textes de l'auteur dans leur litteralite et selon leur evolution chronologique, en accordant une attention particuliere aux diverses influences dont ils temoignent. ;Notre travail couvre la periode s'etendant de 1926 a 1953, c'est-a-dire des debuts de la carriere medicale du jeune psychiatre jusqu'au tournant structuraliste de 1953. C'est une periode interessante en ceci qu'elle nous mene aux sources de la pensee lacanienne, la ou les concepts-cles de la theorie trouvent leur origine. Ainsi notre etude expose-t-elle les detours par lesquels Lacan en est venu a affirmer que l'inconscient est structure comme un langage, ou encore que le symbolique, l'imaginaire et le reel constituent les trois registres essentiels de l'existence humaine. Elle permet egalement de clarifier certains aspects du rapport de Lacan a Freud, en montrant par exemple que l'adhesion du premier a la notion d'inconscient ne se fit pas sans probleme et, qu'au contraire, l'interet qu'il manifesta d'emblee pour la pulsion de mort ne fut jamais dementi. En fait, le rapport de Lacan a la psychanalyse est determine, dans une tres large part, par l'approche generale qu'il privilegie selon le moment: phenomenologique tout d'abord, structuraliste ensuite. Notre travail decrit ce passage de l'une a l'autre en indiquant, a mesure qu'ils entrent en scene, les auteurs et courants de pensee qui jalonnent ce parcours. Pendant la periode phenomenologique, l'imaginaire et la connaissance paranoiaque occupent l'avant-scene; les references et emprunts lacaniens se rapportent alors a des auteurs comme Husserl, Hegel, Heidegger, Kojeve, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty et Wallon. Puis, peu a peu, la pensee de Levi-Strauss imprime sa marque sur celle de Lacan; le symbolique detrone l'imaginaire qui devient subordonne aux considerations sur le langage. Les modeles utilises par Lacan pour penser son epistemologie se modifient donc au fil des ans. On constate par ailleurs que cette evolution, qui consacre le passage du phenomene a la structure, constitue un fidele reflet du milieu intellectuel francais de l'epoque. La thematisation lacanienne de l'experience analytique se situe au coeur de la reflexion sur la question des sciences de l'homme qui s'est developpee au vingtieme siecle. (shrink)

Category theory has been proposed as the ultimate algebraic model for biology. We review the Ehresmann–Vanbremeersch theory in the context of other mathematical approaches.

Call generalism about children’s and adults’ wellbeing the thesis that the same theory of wellbeing applies to both children and adults. Our goal is to examine whether generalism is true. While this question has not received much attention in the past, it has recently been suggested that generalism is likely to be false and that we need to elaborate different theories of children’s and adults’ wellbeing. In this paper, we defend generalism against the main objections it faces and make a (...) positive case for it. (shrink)

With their landmark architectures, exhibitions and museums of science and technology partake in the spatial inscription of science in twentieth century landscapes. Unlike other beacons of progress, exhibitions and museums of science and technology double up, inside, as material arrangements of objects, visuals and texts aiming to confer meaning onto the modern world. They both embody and seek to order the spectacle of modernity while often being deployed with the aim of promoting particular visions of social and material progress. An (...) approach sensitive to the material, spatial, and experiential dimensions of displaying science and technology suggests that exhibitions and museums were in the twentieth century crucial sites for reflecting upon and promoting particular futures. (shrink)

Dance anthropologists and ethnomusicologists are trained to treat the labels ‘dance’ and ‘music’ with caution, because the terms carry preconceptions that may mask significant aspects of the structured movement/sound systems they study. Yet many talk about ‘the body’ – the medium through which these systems come into being – as something given and ‘true’, without investigating its emic conceptualizations or looking into the implications these may have in terms of how music and dance are experienced. The article investigates the dancing (...) bodies of western ballet dancers and of Tiwi dancers of northern Australia. The latter have an extensive vocabulary for body parts, but no word for ‘body’ as a bounded entity, comparable to the ‘body’ conceptualized by ballet dancers. The article argues that for the Tiwi landscape and human bodies are unavoidably tied together and that the dancers incarnate both land and cosmology. While specific parts have a concrete practical existence, the whole body expands into the landscape so that the landscape becomes flesh. Through the aesthetic transformation of dancing, dancers and land become one, and life is sustained and the land revitalized. (shrink)

Museums are safe spaces for the objects they hold and for the persons that visit them, providing environments that can function in therapeutic ways. Within the wide range of objects, there is enough diversity to help guests discover what similarities they have with others as well as what makes them unique as individuals. Within exhibits, individuals can explore themselves through the reactions they have to particular pieces, through the observation of what holds their attention within the environment, and through the (...) awareness and development of their contemplative mind. Museums can introduce transpersonal information, add information to previous transpersonal experiences, and even promote expanded states of awareness. With direction, guests can use museums to learn about themselves, thus optimizing the therapeutic potentials of these institutions. (shrink)

In recent years, many scholars have offered innovative accounts of social categories such as gender, race, and disability. By contrast, comparatively little work has been done on the category of children. The goal of our paper is to offer a new account of what children are. We start by discussing the two main accounts that have been put forward so far in the literature: naturalistic accounts and normative accounts. According to the former, to be a child is a matter of (...) possessing, or lacking, some ‘natural’ and ‘objective’ properties. According to the latter, to be a child is to possess a particular normative status. We argue that both naturalistic and normative accounts are subject to a variety of objections. We then propose our own social constructivist account. According to it, to be a child in any given society is to be regarded by the dominant ideology of that society as the target of a set of broadly paternalistic norms, in virtue of the possession of a cluster of natural properties such that, according to the dominant ideology of that society, it is justified to subject that individual to such norms. We conclude our paper by showing that our account meets the criteria of success for an account of what it is to be a child and by addressing some objections. (shrink)

In this article, we argue that the phenomenon of predation is the source of several problems for Donaldson and Kymlicka's account of our duties towards wild and liminal animals. According to them, humans should adopt a general policy of non-intervention with respect to predatory behaviour involving wild and liminal animals. They justify this recommendation by appealing to the status of those animals as, respectively, members of sovereign communities and denizens of human-animal societies. Our goal is not to question their recommendation, (...) but to challenge the reasons given in its support. On the one hand, we argue that, insofar as wild animal communities are incapable of dealing with massive predation, they do not possess the competence required for sovereignty. Moreover, we argue that, even if we leave the issue of competence aside, attributing sovereignty rights to communities including both predators and preys may not be the best way to protect wild animals’ fundamental interests. On the other hand, we argue that there exist two important disanalogies between human denizens and liminal animals, which render Donaldson and Kymlicka's denizenship framework problematic. We suggest that the ultimate justification for a general policy of non-intervention lies in the significant risk of causing greater harm by acting otherwise, due to our limited knowledge and resources. (shrink)

Andrée-Anne Cormier | : Cet article explore la question des implications de l’exclusion des animaux de la catégorie des sujets de justice dans le cadre du libéralisme politique de John Rawls. Plus spécifiquement, j’examine et critique les lectures de Ruth Abbey et de Robert Garner. Abbey suggère que le libéralisme politique est incompatible avec la thèse selon laquelle nous avons des devoirs moraux universels envers les animaux. Garner, pour sa part, avance que la théorie de Rawls n’autorise pas l’État libéral (...) à adopter des mesures de protection des animaux. Dans cet article, je démontre que ces lectures sont erronées, car elles sont fondées sur des interprétations du libéralisme politique qui ne sont pas plausibles. Je soutiens, d’une part, que le libéralisme politique est neutre eu égard à la question de la nature de nos devoirs moraux envers les animaux et, d’autre part, qu’il permet de justifier une gamme considérable d’interventions étatiques visant la protection des animaux. Je suggère donc que la tension entre le libéralisme politique et l’éthique animale est moins forte que ne l’affirment ces auteurs. Enfin, j’identifie des stratégies possibles, cohérentes avec le cadre théorique rawlsien, pour élargir la sphère des sujets de justice de manière à y intégrer les animaux. | : What are the implications of John Rawls’s Political Liberalism for animal ethics? In this paper, I examine Ruth Abbey’s and Robert Garner’s answers to this question. Abbey claims that Political Liberalism is incompatible with the view that there exist universal moral duties toward animals. Garner contends that Rawls’s theory cannot justify state interventions designed to protect animals. I show that these readings are based on implausible interpretations of Rawls’s theory. I argue, on the one hand, that Political Liberalism is neutral with respect to the question of the nature of our moral duties toward animals and, on the other hand, that the theory can potentially justify a significant range of state interventions in the interest of animals. This indicates that the tension between Rawls’s theory and animal ethics is less sharp than Abbey and Garner suggest. Finally, I identify possible strategies, consistent with the Rawlsian framework, for including animals among the subjects of justice. (shrink)

During the past 25 years, the words “theory of action” and “agency theory” have become key-terms in a new branch of philosophy. The themes appear to gain a centrality and influence such that one is led to think that they should cover most of philosophy, including the foundation for all of the human sciences. The number of treatises on human action and on philosophical and special-scientific theories of action is staggering. For the most part inspired by analytic philosophy, the new (...) approach threatens to take over that school’s central place on the stage of international philosophical concern. Having ousted theory of science from that position with an avalanche of analytic studies, analytic philosophy, in turn, is now being overrun by philosophy of action as supposedly suitable basis for the sciences. (shrink)

Andrée-Anne Cormier and Harry Brighouse explore the question of whether there are good reasons for schools to try and produce citizens disposed to use, and practiced in, civil discourse and behavior, and if so, what this implies for schools. First, the authors propose an account of the value (and disvalue) of civility, drawing on Cheshire Calhoun’s conception. They argue that civility is good in many circumstances, but not always. In some circumstances, it is neither beneficial nor morally required. Second, they (...) elucidate the reasons for teaching civility in schools and what they think that doing so would involve, what demands it would make on teachers, and how the aim of promoting civility would shape the structure of schools. Finally, they identify some reasons for pessimism that schools can be very successful in promoting civility. They do not think that these are conclusive reasons against teaching civility in schools, but they suggest that civility can only be taught well if educators are clear-eyed about the hurdles they will have to overcome. (shrink)

"One of the really significant books to have come out of the women's movement." —Mary Daly "Rape of the Wild is a bold work that stress[es] the absolute necessity of kinship with nature and all forms of life." —Animal's Agenda "This book is constructively "radical" in that it channels the energy of anger into a probing examination of the roots of patrist violence." —Changing Man "... a welcome addition to ecofeminist literature... " —Feminist for Animal Rights "Rape of the Wild (...) is a very moving, passionately written expose of men's subjugation and exploitation of the natural environment and of women." —Forest History Society This visionary and inspiring book is a cogent analysis of man's use and misuse of his environment and an impassioned plea for a feminist ecological revolution. (shrink)

This chapter argues that school should cease to be compulsory at age 16 and that an education resource account (ERA) should be established for students who leave school at that age. The ERA would be sufficient to cover three years of full-time education. It could be linked to inflation and early school leavers could use it in accredited non-profit educational institutions at any later point in their lives. Two sets of arguments are discussed in support of the proposal. The first, (...) building on the empirical literature, focuses on efficiency and highlights the advantages of an ERA with respect to the ‘disruptive’ students issue in particular. The second set of arguments is anti-paternalistic. The chapter distinguishes three anti-paternalistic arguments: the view that individuals are the best judges of their own welfare, the idea that autonomous decision-making is a component of well-being, and a respect-based view of what renders anti-paternalism wrong. (shrink)

This article explores the question of whether it is morally permissible for the liberal state to require schools to teach religions “neutrally” to children. I examine this question through the normative analysis of Canadian Supreme Court case Loyola High School v. Quebec. I argue that it is in principle morally impermissible for the liberal state to oblige all schools to adopt a neutral approach to teaching children about religious diversity. I propose a normative framework for evaluating the legitimacy of such (...) an imposition and identify a strategy in support of accommodating schools like Loyola that does not appeal to the existence of a strong parental right to control their children’s education. (shrink)