Panmere

Available at Axiomathes Online First is a new paper by A.H. Louie, entitled “Explications of Functional Entailment in Relational Pathophysiology”. The abstract:

I explicate how various relational interactions between (M,R)-systems may have realizations in pathophysiology, and how the possible reversals of the effects of these interactions then become therapeutic models. Functional entailment receives a rigorous category-theoretic treatment, and plays a crucial role in this continuing saga of relational biology.

References

[1] 2012. Louie, A.H. “Explications of Functional Entailment in Relational Pathophysiology”. Axiomathes.2012, DOI: 10.1007/s10516-012-9189-9.

A new paper by Andreas Schierwagen entitled “On reverse engineering in the cognitive and brain sciences” has been published in the March 2012 issue of the Springer journal Natural Computing.[1]

The abstract:

Various research initiatives try to utilize the operational principles of organisms and brains to develop alternative, biologically inspired computing paradigms and artificial cognitive systems. This article reviews key features of the standard method applied to complexity in the cognitive and brain sciences, i.e. decompositional analysis or reverse engineering. The indisputable complexity of brain and mind raise the issue of whether they can be understood by applying the standard method.

Actually, recent findings in the experimental and theoretical fields, question central assumptions and hypotheses made for reverse engineering.

Using the modeling relation as analyzed by Robert Rosen, the scientific analysis method itself is made a subject of discussion. It is concluded that the fundamental assumption of cognitive science, i.e. complex cognitive systems can be analyzed, understood and duplicated by reverse engineering, must be abandoned. Implications for investigations of organisms and behavior as well as for engineering artificial cognitive systems are discussed.

References

[1] 2012. Schierwagen, A. “On reverse engineering in the cognitive and brain sciences”. Natural Computing. 11(1):141-150.

One of Robert Rosen’s most important books, Anticipatory Systems: Philosophical, Mathematical and Methodological Foundations, has been out-of-print and unavailable for many years. Through the efforts of his daughter, Judith Rosen, Anticipatory Systems is now in print as a second edition from Springer. From the publisher’s book page:

Robert Rosen was not only a biologist, he was also a brilliant mathematician whose extraordinary contributions to theoretical biology were tremendous. Founding, with this book, the area of Anticipatory Systems Theory is a remarkable outcome of his work in theoretical biology.

This second edition of his book Anticipatory Systems, has been carefully revised and edited, and includes an Introduction by Judith Rosen. It has also been expanded with a set of Prolegomena by Dr. Mihai Nadin, who offers an historical survey of this fast growing field since the original work was published. There is also some exciting new work, in the form of an additional chapter on the Ontology of Anticipation, by Dr. John Kineman.  An addendum– with autobiographical reminiscences by Robert Rosen, himself, and a short story by Judith Rosen about her father– adds a personal touch.

This work, now available again, serves as the guiding foundations for the growing field of Anticipatory Systems and, indeed, any area of science that deals with living organisms in some way, including the study of Life and Mind. It will also be of interest to graduate students and researchers in the field of Systems Science.

The book is currently in stock at Amazon.com.

Publication Date: February 2, 2012

ISBN-10: 1461412684 / ISBN-13: 978-1461412687

A special issue of Axiomathes [1] has been published which is a series of essays about the book More Than Life Itself: A Synthetic Continuation in Relation Biology by mathematical biologist Aloisius Louie. The authors include: J. A. Prideaux, John J. Kineman, Donald C. Mikulecky, and Claudio Gutiérrez, Sebastián Jaramillo, Jorge Soto-Andrade.

In addition, Louie comments on these writings in an essay of his own, providing a helpful feedback loop. For me, this was particularly useful in the case of the Gutiérrez et al essay, which I found to be a bizarre, erroneous and illogical screed. Louie pulls no punches in laying bare their errors, incoherencies, and misconceptions.

References

[1] Issue: Essays on More Than Life Itself. 2011. Axiomathes 21(3):373-489.

A paper by Juan-Carlos Letelier, María Luz Cárdenas and Athel Cornish-Bowden entitled “From L’Homme Machine to metabolic closure: Steps towards understanding life” [1] has been published in the October 2011 issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology. The abstract:

The nature of life has been a topic of interest from the earliest of times, and efforts to explain it in mechanistic terms date at least from the 18th century. However, the impressive development of molecular biology since the 1950s has tended to have the question put on one side while biologists explore mechanisms in greater and greater detail, with the result that studies of life as such have been confined to a rather small group of researchers who have ignored one another’s work almost completely, often using quite different terminology to present very similar ideas. Central among these ideas is that of closure, which implies that all of the catalysts needed for an organism to stay alive must be produced by the organism itself, relying on nothing apart from food (and hence chemical energy) from outside. The theories that embody this idea to a greater or less degree are known by a variety of names, including (M,R) systems, autopoiesis, the chemoton, the hypercycle, symbiosis, autocatalytic sets, sysers and RAF sets. These are not all the same, but they are not completely different either, and in this review we examine their similarities and differences, with the aim of working towards the formulation of a unified theory of life.

UPDATE: If the reader desires a copy of this paper, Athel Cornish-Bowden has graciously offered to provide them with a PDF. Athel may be contacted at: acornish@ifr88.cnrs-mrs.fr

References

[1] Letelier,J.-C. Cárdenas, M. L., Cornish-Bowden, A. 2011. “From L’Homme Machine to metabolic closure: Steps towards understanding life”. J. of Theoretical Biology 286:100-113. DOI:10.1016/j.jtbi.2011.06.033

Juan-Carlos Letelier will be presenting two papers on (M,R)-systems at the ECAL 2011 (European Conference on Artificial Life). The conference is Aug 8-12 in Paris, France.

The theme of the conference sounds quite interesting:

Refocusing on biology and complex systems

Back then, in the early 1990’s, the first two ECAL conferences in Paris and Brussels were mainly centered on theoretical biology and the physics of complex systems. Today, we feel that Alife can look back on these origins and take more inspiration from new developments at the intersection between computer science and theoretical biology—thus it is our wish to refocus the conference on complex biological systems. Closing a loop, this ECAL will mark the 20th anniversary of the 1st ECAL and will be framed as a tribute to the late Francisco Varela, co-organizer in 1991 with two of this year’s committee members (Paul Bourgine, CREA, and Hugues Bersini, IRIDIA).