So, according to him, even the most simple physical objects have a 'mental aspect' so to speak, a very very rudimental ability to 'read' information and meaning, so to speak — boundless

Yep. Once you are stuck with the Cartesian metaphysical division into a mind stuff vs a world stuff, then this kind of wooly Panpsychism is where you must logically end up. It is built into the premises. You can’t think your way beyond the casual trap you have prepared for yourself.

Semiosis or systems thinking is just different. The world is divided at best into an entropic process and an informational process. You have a material world of dissipative structure organised by its emergent topological order. And you have a semiotic world of organisms in an enactive modelling relation with that material world, organised by its Umwelt that is what you would call a first person point of view of a third person version of “the world”.

Our mind is the model of the world as it would be from the point of view as it would be with us acting in it. The modelling relation is anticipatory. When you turn your head, you know it is you that is turning and not the world that is spinning, because your motor commands are fed into your sensory experience in a way to subtract your voluntary motion from your sense of what is happening “out there” in the world.

A first person vs third person contrast is what must arise for the modeling of the world to even function. This is the enactive or embodied argument. This is the trick that is generic to any notion of sentience or intelligent in an organism. Does it subtract its own actions in a way that makes “objective” the state of the world as it is sensed beyond. This is the basic semiotic algorithm that defines an organism with some kind of mind, some level of mentality.

Now one can speak of the physical world as if it is particles reading information. There are versions of pansemiosis where physics is treated as particles in a sign relation with their world as well.

But this is as best metaphoric. Not much maths in it. And really not an explanation in any theoretical sense. More a comforting fairy tale. A way not to be “reductionist”. A placeholder for a better worked out holist account.

However as I argued, biosemiosis now clears up the life and mind side of the equation, leaving the dissipative structure and topological order side much more plainly seen. The new holistic view of fundamental physics. The cosmological view that has to be fundamental as after all, it is all about dissipative structure if reality is that trajectory from a Big Bang to a Heat Death.

And this new semiotic view of reality is mathematically grounded in a statistical mechanics. We actually have a connection between semiosis as modelling and semiosis as dissipation as information theory is reciprocally related to entropy theory. Entropy is missing information. Information is absent entropy.

So both same yet different in a complementary or dichotomistic fashion. Physics puts all the information that specifies a physical system into its holographic boundary. Organisms then do the opposite thing of bringing all its self-regulating information inside its own boundaries as the information it encodes or remembers. Some collection of entropy controlling habits or routines.

Friston’s Bayesian Brain now takes this to the point where the predictive world modelling is expressed in dissipative structure terms and as the differential equations of a new Bayesian mechanics. The semiotic approach has become mathematically formalised as a theory both in terms of life/mind and also - in the de Sitter holographic view - in cosmology.

And why this isn’t widely understood is baffling. It can only be that dyadic Cartesianism still rules the cultural imagination at large. Along with the monisms of realism and idealism as the two ways to reduce what the Cartesian divide has left separated and competing for our social affiliation.

Meanwhile on the other historical track is the holistic metaphysical tradition that saw some kind of triadic relation as being foundational. The threeness that is a dialectical unity of opposites or the substantial being arising out of the hylomorphic pincer movement of material potential and necessitating form.

This way of thought became Peircean semiotics, systems science, hierarchy theory and far from equilbrium thermodynamics. It has gained its mathematical expressions. Yet it is still on the outside looking in as far as the limits of the cultural imagination goes.

It ain’t reflected in our popular notions of causality or logic. It indeed rouses great hostility from defenders of the Cartesian divide, too absorbed in their own ritualistic battles of idealist vs realists and not wanting to start all over having to learn a perspective that is both entirely new and also irreducibly complex. :smile:

physically real structure (or physically realised structure), — apokrisis

An important distinction. My observation is that biosemiotics is not strictly physicalist in orientation, based as it is on the principles of signs and intepretation, and that it's part of a wider movement away from physicalism in science generally, also apparent in physics itself. We have discussed many times previously the question as to the nature of information, meaning and mathematical objects and whether they can be described as physical. But conventions around what does and doesn't constitute scientifically-respectable discourse is also a factor in that conversation. How to think about mind, in particular.

I have some thoughts on the subject of the relationship between physics, logic and mathematics. Despite the drawbacks of the 'Cartesian division', I had the idea that the mathematization of the quantifiable attributes of natural objects nevertheless enabled enormous breakthroughs in the physical sciences. And that is because it enables the application of mathematical reasoning to physics (and much else besides). As is well-known, that has given rise to many astounding discoveries on the basis of maths (such as Diracs' discovery of anti-matter particles.) As to why this is so effective, that seems to be the source of some bafflement - Wigner's famous article on the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics' contains 12 instances of the word 'miracle'. But on the semiotic and enactivist view, it's really not so baffling, as the structure of experience is in some fundamental respect also the structure of 'the world'. That at least is the way I've been thinking about it.

As to why this is so effective, that seems to be the source of some bafflement — Wayfarer

Well yes. Until you start to understand the physics of dissipative structure and topological order. The physics of symmetry breaking and emergence. Then it is maths of “that type” which is what is effective, for perfectly natural and unbaffling reasons.

It is all about the holistic constraints that form can impose on matter. Poincaré symmetry imposes its structure on what can even be the case as a relativist spacetime manifold. Gauge symmetry - the Lie algebra story - then does the same thing to produce the particle physics of quantum field theory.

So it is only maths of a particular type. A maths that speaks to the mathematical necessity of topological emergence. There are only certain geometries that Nature could even arrive at as it shakes itself down into its fundamental patterns.

Wigner and Dirac were leaders in just going with that kind of maths even before they could really understand how far it would lead.

It was crazy effective. But not actually baffling anymore.

But on the semiotic and enactivist view, it's really not so baffling, as the structure of experience is in some fundamental respect also the structure of 'the world'. — Wayfarer

But pansemiosis is not biosemiosis as I have been at pains to explain. So really, Poincaré and Lie algebra have little application to the way organisms are self-organised. The maths that is crazy effective there is Bayesian probability perhaps. The maths of predictive modelling. Or the maths of hierarchy theory if we want a more general metaphysical frame that does show some deeper unity between the physics of dissipative structure and the biosemiotics of the modeling relation.

It was crazy effective. But not actually baffling anymore. — apokrisis

What Wigner found baffling was not that maths was so effective, but why it was. And also the way mathematics developed in one context proved effective in totally different contexts and in completely unexpected ways. Whence the conscilience between mind, world and mathematics? He doesn’t offer an answer to that question but it does suggest to me that the cosmos is more mind- than machine-like.

But since then the “surprise” is how the physics has pushed the maths.

But over the past 30 years a new type of interaction has taken place, probably unique, in which physicists, exploring their new and still speculative theories,have stumbled across a whole range of mathematical “discoveries”. These are derived by physical intuition and heuristic arguments, which are beyond the reach, as yet, of mathematical rigour, but which have withstood the tests of time and alternative methods. There is great intellectual excitement in these mutual exchanges.

The impact of these discoveries on mathematics has been profound and widespread. Areas of mathematics such as topology and algebraic geometry, which lie at the heart of pure mathematics and appear very distant from the physics frontier, have been dramatically affected. The meaning of all this is unclear and one may be tempted to invert Wigner's comment and marvel at “the unreasonable effectiveness of physics in mathematics”.

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsta.2009.0227

:up: Will read with interest.

it does suggest to me that the cosmos is more mind- than machine-like. — Wayfarer

Remember then that biosemiosis is in fact a surprising story of how machine like is the basis of life and mind. Semiosis is about how informational switches regulate entropic flows. And this is what we find right at the base level of biology where metabolism is no longer the cellular bag of chemical reactions it was in the 1970s. It is now a tale of nanoscale machinery.

Will read with interest — Wayfarer

On the particular point of “why”, think of it this way. Maths progresses as an inquiry by abstracting away constraints. The physical world develops as the series of topological phase transitions characterising the Big Bang by emergently adding new forms of constraint.

So they are the inverse of each other. What physics adds, maths subtracts. This is why each informs the other at a deep level … if folk are willing to talk across their academic divides.

Which is essentially what could be said about causality and entailment. There is a reason why we should seek the common root so as to understand the whole in better fashion.

But boundary policing is a favourite human pastime. If folk find a synergy between domains is possible, this is not just surprising but verging on “the unreasonable”. :grin:

Remember then that biosemiosis is in fact a surprising story of how machine like is the basis of life and mind. Semiosis is about how informational switches regulate entropic flows. — apokrisis

You say that but I’m inherently distrustful of mechanistic metaphors past a certain point. I can see how the analogy works but I can’t see how it accommodates the fact of intentionality at a deep level. Apropos of which, one of the books that turned up in my research today was The phenomenon of life: toward a philosophical biology, Hans Jonas. It was published in, I think, the sixties but I’m instinctively drawn to it. Do you know it?

You say that but I’m inherently distrustful of mechanistic metaphors past a certain point. — Wayfarer

Did you watch the video? A swarm of little machines? Surely that must give you pause. But if your distrust isn’t swayed by evidence….

I will review it but the over-arching question is teleological. (I guess the micro tubules referred to in that video are the same as those that Penrose and Hameroff refer to in their Orch OR theory?)

Yeah. Conscious microtubules!

Give us a break.

do you think physics describes logic? — Shawn

I don't think there is any difference between logical consistency and existence, so logic describes the whole reality. Physics describes the part of reality we live in. Mathematics, with its foundation in set theory, is an elaboration of logic.

Yep. Once you are stuck with the Cartesian metaphysical division into a mind stuff vs a world stuff, then this kind of wooly Panpsychism is where you must logically end up. It is built into the premises. You can’t think your way beyond the casual trap you have prepared for yourself. — apokrisis

I sort of agree about panpsychism but I do not see as a necessary implication.

A first person vs third person contrast is what must arise for the modeling of the world to even function. This is the enactive or embodied argument. This is the trick that is generic to any notion of sentience or intelligent in an organism. Does it subtract its own actions in a way that makes “objective” the state of the world as it is sensed beyond. This is the basic semiotic algorithm that defines an organism with some kind of mind, some level of mentality. — apokrisis

I see. As the complexity of an organism rises, the more that organism can differentiate itself from its environment. In this view of things, self-awareness is so to speak, the pinnacle of this complexity. A cell has a very rudimentary 'notion' of a distinction between itself and its environment.

I think that in the simplest living organisms we can also see a sort of 'finalism' in their actions. After all, even a cell operates toward the goal of preservation of itself and, above all, of the species (with reproduction). Of course, it is not conscious but nevertheless there is a sort of 'finalism' in biological organisms that is not found in 'non-living' natural things. Same goes for a 'basic awareness' (for a lack of a better word) of being 'something distinct' from its environment.

I personally am not sure that there is only a 'quantitative' distinction between us and the simplest living organisms. There is IMO a qualitative difference... but let's not digress here.

However as I argued, biosemiosis now clears up the life and mind side of the equation, leaving the dissipative structure and topological order side much more plainly seen. The new holistic view of fundamental physics. The cosmological view that has to be fundamental as after all, it is all about dissipative structure if reality is that trajectory from a Big Bang to a Heat Death. — apokrisis

I think that 'holism' was actually present even in Newtonian mechanics. For instance, one can 'derive' the conservation of momentum of an isolated system from newtonian laws of dynamics. But such a derivation is best seen IMO as pragmatic. On the other hand, if one sees the 'conservation law' as a property of the whole isolated system the newtonian laws make much more sense. So it's not surprising to see that, gradually, holism becomes even more important in contemporary physics (I mean Noether's theorem, spontaneous symmetry breaking etc are holistic concepts after all). IMO, contemporary physics seems to suggest that the 'building blocks of the universe' are not ontologically primitive. On the other hand, imo it suggests more the reverse (albeit not in a conclusive way).

Friston’s Bayesian Brain now takes this to the point where the predictive world modelling is expressed in dissipative structure terms and as the differential equations of a new Bayesian mechanics. The semiotic approach has become mathematically formalised as a theory both in terms of life/mind and also - in the de Sitter holographic view - in cosmology. — apokrisis

Ok, thanks for the reference. I'll look.

Anyway, I wanted to ask you some questions, if you do not mind.

• The way I see it, as I said, living organisms, even the most basic ones, seem 'aware' of that they are distinct to their environment, that they are a 'whole', so to speak. Is there a 'global law' (spontaneous symmetry breaking) that describes the emergence of these 'individuals'?
• Do you think that our mind is algorithmic? If not, how 'machine-like' entities can 'give rise' to a non-algorithmic mind shall have an explanation. I think that our mind are not algorithmic but I don't think that I can make a rationally compelling argument of this point.
• Do you think that a 'proto-proto-awareness' of sorts is there in anything else besides living organisms and biomolecules?

Very nice video, indeed!

Anyway, while I see the 'machinery' of it. I also see that all those 'mechanical operations' are done in virtue of a 'larger goal' of the whole organism, so to speak. I am not sure there is no 'finality' here, as I would expect in a machine.

Also, even if all of this is machine-like, their 'programming' seem spontaneous. Why such a programming is there in the first place?

The way I see it, as I said, living organisms, even the most basic ones, seem 'aware' of that they are distinct to their environment, that they are a 'whole', so to speak. Is there a 'global law' (spontaneous symmetry breaking) that describes the emergence of these 'individuals'? — boundless

The best “law” would be Pattee’s notion of the epistemic cut. It sets the divide down at the atomistic level of when a molecule becomes a message. It roots things in the logic of a mechanical switch that regulates an entropy flow for some organismic purpose.

https://casci.binghamton.edu/publications/pattee/pattee.html

Do you think that our mind is algorithmic? If not, how 'machine-like' entities can 'give rise' to a non-algorithmic mind shall have an explanation. I think that our mind are not algorithmic but I don't think that I can make a rationally compelling argument of this point. — boundless

Well it is algorithmic looking down at the neural circuit level. You have processing units like cortical columns. And then it is algorithmic looking at the socially constructed level where we are imposing some kind of rational and grammatical order on our thought patterns, especially when we are “civilised” and have internalised a whole variety of cultural rules and procedures. As in how to behave as a driver or at a formal banquet.

What is not actually algorithmic about any of this is that all the “computation” is about the end outcome of regulating some self-constructing entropy flow. We are turning matter into bodies. And that is not something you associate with computers. That is what makes us organisms and them machines. Or rather our tools, as computers only have use for us when they are woven into our general entropy regulation projects.

So being algorithmic or mechanical is a tricky issue. If we turn a natural river into a system of canals, irrigation ditches and water wheels, is that “algorithmic”?

It isn’t purely organic. But it does display the finality we expect from organismic purpose. The landscape has been shaped by a desire. And this was possible to the degree that an algorithmic form could be imposed in terms of a logic of entailment or a causality based on a mechanics of form.

A complex system of switches was imposed on the river. And that served a holistic entropy-harnessing purpose. This is the self-organising and self-sustaining kind of state of affairs that we would recognise as being organismic. It speaks to the presence of life and mind.

Do you think that a 'proto-proto-awareness' of sorts is there in anything else besides living organisms and biomolecules? — boundless

The mistake here is to speak of awareness as a stuff rather than a process. An inherent property of “mentation” rather than a relational structure that is semiotic. Mind as simply what it is like to be in a regulating modelling relation with the world.

The best “law” would be Pattee’s notion of the epistemic cut. It sets the divide down at the atomistic level of when a molecule becomes a message. It roots things in the logic of a mechanical switch that regulates an entropy flow for some organismic purpose. — apokrisis

Thanks for the reference! Will read!

What is not actually algorithmic about any of this is that all the “computation” is about the end outcome of regulating some self-constructing entropy flow. We are turning matter into bodies. And that is not something you associate with computers. That is what makes us organisms and them machines. Or rather our tools, as computers only have use for us when they are woven into our general entropy regulation projects. — apokrisis

Ok, I see. That's more or less what was I getting at. I can understand that some or even most biological activity is alghoritmic/machine-like (like the one in the video you showed). But at some point, when life 'appeared' something changed, so to speak, where some composite physical objects began to 'operate' as you say as '(living) bodies' (or even like viruses or some complex single biomolecules), i.e. undivided wholes whose 'higher level' 'aims' determine (at least to some extent) the operation of their parts (I hope that the word 'aim' is not misleading here, I am not suggesting that, say, a bacterium has a conscious 'purpose').
And IMO that 'something' is crucial. How these kinds of 'proto-intentionalities' appeared in the first places?

Maybe your reference addresses this question, so I'll read!

A complex system of switches was imposed on the river. And that served a holistic entropy-harnessing purpose. This is the self-organising and self-sustaining kind of state of affairs that we would recognise as being organismic. It speaks to the presence of life and mind. — apokrisis

Exactly. While the whole operation might be simulated/repeated by a computer, I do not think it can be done by it in the first place (I guess that one might say it can happen with an extremely low probability... but the same can be said that it is possible to a computer to write the 'Lord of the Rings'...)

The mistake here is to speak of awareness as a stuff rather than a process. An inherent property of “mentation” rather than a relational structure that is semiotic. Mind as simply what it is like to be in a regulating modelling relation with the world. — apokrisis

However, I don't think that it is by itself enough. If the appearance of that 'relational structure' is still unexplained as an emergent feature, then IMO it doesn't change much. I am not saying that you are wrong or anything, but I think that seeing mind (especially self-consciousness) as a relation structure/process is not enough to 'prove' physicalism so to speak.

I am not suggesting that, say, a bacterium has a conscious 'purpose').
And IMO that 'something' is crucial. How these kinds of 'proto-intentionalities' appeared in the first places? — boundless

Even an enzyme is proto-intentional. A kinesin or any other molecular motor is proto-intentional. They exist to make things happen in preferred directions.

And intentionality is baked in at every level of structure. A worm has a mouth and sense organs at one end, an anus at the other. Its body plan is set up to plough through the dirt, eating as it goes.

You don’t have to look hard to see functionality in biology. It is there over all scales.

but I think that seeing mind (especially self-consciousness) as a relation structure/process is not enough to 'prove' physicalism so to speak. — boundless

As long as you talk about mind, consciousness, mentation, etc, you are already speaking in an idealist register. All those assumptions about res cogitans, about a mental stuff, about ineffable qualia, float along with you.

Semiotics tries to move us along to a more physically rooted view of life and mind as an informational structure/entropic process - the modelling relation. A kind of dualism if you like. But unmystical as it is closed for causality under its triadic connection.

One view fits traditional cultural practice. The other is grounded in science. You get to pick your side.

Even an enzyme is proto-intentional. A kinesin or any other molecular motor is proto-intentional. They exist to make things happen in preferred directions.
... — apokrisis

I wasn't denying that. I was just asking how does this 'proto-intentionality' appear in the first place.
I am not sure if its appearance is enough to explain self-consciousness but explaining that appearance would be an impressive move.

Btw, I read Pattee's article. Quite interesting, yes, but I do not have found the explanation of how the epistemic cut and/or the 'proto-intentionality' appear in the first place. In other words, I think the article explains where it appears, how it behaves but I didn't see an explanation of how it appeared in the first place (but maybe I misunderstood...).

Semiotics tries to move us along to a more physically rooted view of life and mind as an informational structure/entropic process - the modelling relation. A kind of dualism if you like. But unmystical as it is closed for causality under its triadic connection. — apokrisis

Ok, I do respect that, even if it will be found that this approach won't explain everything about life and mind. I think that it has lead and will lead to many good insights.

but I do not have found the explanation of how the epistemic cut and/or the 'proto-intentionality' appear in the first place. — boundless

Why can’t it have appeared “by accident”? In the usual evolutionary fashion.

By accident means 'for no reason'. There's the nub of the issue right there.

A kinesin or any other molecular motor is proto-intentional. — apokrisis

But here, are you imputing intentionality, which is the specific attribute of organisms, to 'switches' and 'motors'? So that even despite your rejection of physicalist reductionism, you're still employing a reductionist model. You're denying or flattening out the distinction between the mineral and organic domains by imputing intentionality to chemistry.

I mentioned The Phenomenon of Life, Hans Jonas. I doubt it's on your radar as he was a student of Heidegger with a background in hermenuetics and contintental philosophy (died 1993). Jonas' philosophy describes metabolism as the most basic form of life’s intentionality. He argues that through metabolic processes, even the simplest organisms maintain their form and identity by continuously interacting with their environment, with this interaction directed towards the goal of sustaining life. Jonas posits that living organisms have a form of perception and response that, while not conscious, is nevertheless intentional. For example, a plant growing towards light exhibits a form of directed, goal-oriented behavior. His philosophy is teleological, meaning he believes that all living beings have inherent goals or purposes. He extends this notion to even the simplest organisms, which act in ways that reflect basic survival goals. Jonas’s existential interpretation of biology suggests that life itself is an expression of a kind of intentionality, arguing that the very nature of being alive involves striving, goal-directed processes, and a fundamental interaction with the environment.

Semiotics tries to move us along to a more physically rooted view of life and mind as an informational structure/entropic process - the modelling relation — apokrisis

In contrast, what I've gleaned from your posts is that life is treated as a model, which is driven by thermodynamic energy, towards an ultimate end of the minimization of energy. It is a comprehensive framework but lacking from an existential perspective. It is 'life seen from the outside', as it were. Philosophy, and existentialism in particular, is concerned with the living of life, rather than its objective description - the controlling of it and the modelling of it. Philosophy as distinct from science.

By accident means 'for no reason'. There's the nub of the issue right there. — Wayfarer

Or no particular reason. It wasn't prevented. A fluctuation was possible.

How we understand "accident" is not as simple as you suggest.

But here, are you imputing intentionality, which is the specific attribute of organisms, to 'switches' and 'motors'? — Wayfarer

Switches and motors are only produced because they serve a purpose. Same with the enzymes and kinesins.

An actual light switch doesn't seem proto-intentional as clearly the lighting circuit, and the national power grid it is connected to, don't turn themselves on and off, let alone self-construct themselves as an entropic project of nature.

But enzymes and kinesins are functional little critters. They are embedded in the self-interested metabolic economy of an organism. It matters if they are "off or on". They only get built or degraded, deployed or withdrawn, to the degree they serve the purpose of the organism as a whole.

So that even despite your rejection of physicalist reductionism, you're still employing a reductionist model. You're denying or flattening out the distinction between the mineral and organic domains by imputing intentionality to chemistry. — Wayfarer

You have forgotten Pattee's epistemic cut and so have lost your bearings in this argument.

For example, a plant growing towards light exhibits a form of directed, goal-oriented behavior. His philosophy is teleological, meaning he believes that all living beings have inherent goals or purposes. — Wayfarer

Yep, that is all well and good. But then what is the mechanism? What mediates between the modelling and the world? Is this where he starts waving his hands?

In contrast, what I've gleaned from your posts is that life is treated as a model, — Wayfarer

You mean life embodies Rosen's modelling relation, or Peirce's semiosis? There is an epistemic cut that both separates and then connects in a fashion that allows an organism to build itself while degrading the world.

It is 'life seen from the outside', as it were. — Wayfarer

But it is only when we start to see life from the outside that we can start claiming to see life from the inside as well. If we can claim to stand outside its materiality, that is the modelling presumption – the Umwelt – that places us inside what we call "the realm of the mind".

And this dialectical claim only arises in humans once they have reached a linguistic and numeric level of semiosis. We become self-conscious as that has become the new structure of our world model.

We are now – mostly unconsciously – being shaped by our existence as socially constructed beings. The parts of the larger whole that is the human social organism doing its self-making entropic thing.

And to function as the individual parts of this new greater whole, we have to be objective about the fact of our own sentient existence so as to be able to place ourselves within the larger socialised subjective state that is our collective cultural Umwelt.

As subjects, we objectivise ourselves so as to function as the machinery of entropifying switches that becomes the epistemic cut upon which the collective consciousness of a tribe or civilisation becomes founded.

Philosophy, and existentialism in particular, is concerned with the living of life, rather than its objective description — Wayfarer

There you go. As an individual, you go to school and get suitably programmed for the function that society has in mind. Told who you "really are" and how you "ought to think and behave". So as to best serve the larger system that is now in charge of the entropy project in a way that appears to transcend the usual evolutionary and environmental limits.

Your complicity with "existentialism" is bringing about the opposite of what you imagine. You are objectivising yourself so as to fit the larger requirements of your society.

Or worse yet, learning just how to be a bad fit. Ending up both living in that society and feeling unhappy and confused about how its all panning out. :razz:

How we understand "accident" is not as simple as you suggest. — apokrisis

No, it's more like a handy kind of gap-filler, which can be assigned roles in many different contexts.

Regarding the 'epistemic cut', I noticed this passage from Howard Pattee in The Information Philosopher site:

A description requires a symbol system or a language. Functionally, description and construction correspond to the biologists’ distinction between the genotype and phenotype. My biosemiotic view is that self-replication is also the origin of semiosis.

I have made the case over many years (e.g., Pattee, 1969,1982, 2001, 2015) that self-replication provides the threshold level of complication where the clear existence of a self or a subject gives functional concepts such as symbol, interpreter, autonomous agent, memory, control, teleology, and intentionality empirically decidable meanings. The conceptual problem for physics is that none of these concepts enter into physical theories of inanimate nature

Self-replication requires an epistemic cut between self and non-self, and between subject and object.

Self-replication requires a distinction between the self that is replicated and the non-self that is not replicated. The self is an individual subject that lives in an environment that is often called objective, but which is more accurately viewed biosemiotically as the subject’s Umwelt or world image. This epistemic cut is also required by the semiotic distinction between the interpreter and what is interpreted, like a sign or a symbol. In physics this is the distinction between the result of a measurement – a symbol – and what is being measured – a material object.

I call this the symbol-matter problem, but this is just a narrower case of the classic 2500-year-old epistemic problem of what our world image actually tells us about what we call the real world. — Howard Pattee

So - how does 'the conceptual problem for physics is that none of these concepts enter into physical theories of inanimate nature' support the idea that this is a physical theory? It seems to me that by acknowledging the separation of observer and observed, the 'epistemic cut' actually re-affirms an ontological difference between the physical and biological which is also noted by Jonas above. (There's a dismissive reference at the end of the article to the convergence of the 'epistemic cut' with Heisenberg's philosophy of physics, but this is all far from settled as you well know.)

So if I were to argue that living organisms in whatever form they take, amount to the emergence of intentionality, I don't think I would be saying anything at variance with the passage quoted above.

So - how does 'the conceptual problem for physics is that none of these concepts enter into physical theories of inanimate nature' support the idea that this is a physical theory? — Wayfarer

Sure. That is why we biologists have always said biology is bigger than physics. It is large enough to also include semiosis as the new science of meaning.

Pattee himself then puts his finger on how it is a mechanics of information processing – switches, levers, ratchets, latches – that physically gives effect to his epistemic cut. With that, the missing connection is made. Physics gets drawn up into the mothership of pansemiotics.

So if I were to argue that living organisms in whatever form they take, amount to the emergence of intentionality, I don't think I would be saying anything at variance with the passage quoted above. — Wayfarer

I dunno. Pansemiosis is keen to extent intentionality to even the physical sphere as "tendency". That covers the Second Law's extremely general imperative of "thou shalt organise to entropify" as the global tendency of Nature.

Stan Salthe pushed this hard. Pattee himself was rather diffident in these conversations, being ironically more of a hardline physicalist within the biosemiotic camp. Salthe was a full-on Peircean internalist.

But I think you lean towards a physicalist interpretation of the inherent ambiguity implicit in the ‘epistemic cut’, so as to avoid the suggestion of being non-scientific or being tarred with the brush of philosophical idealism. And as a ‘science of meaning’, semiotics is not nearly so reducible to predictive formulae as are those of physics. The range of meanings able to be embodied in and communicated by both DNA and by languages is boundless :-)

But I think you lean towards a physicalist interpretation of the inherent ambiguity implicit in the ‘epistemic cut’, so as to avoid the suggestion of being non-scientific or being tarred with the brush of philosophical idealism. — Wayfarer

Why would I care if pragmatism is my judge in these matters? It ain't me who is all caught up in this particular culture war.

And as a ‘science of meaning’, semiotics is not nearly so reducible to predictive formulae as are those of physics. — Wayfarer

Did I mention Friston's Bayesian Brain? Did I mention Hoffman's Ratchet?

The science has been moving along at quite a clip. The genetic code wasn't even cracked when I was born. Now we have 3D animations of armies of molecular machines at work, harvesting entropy to rebuild bodies.

I'm not sure what more could be expected in terms of astoundingly swift progress.

That reminds of this 2008 conference on a general pansemiotic take of "The Evolution and Development of the Universe".

Here is Salthe's summary of his contribution....

I distinguish Nature from the World. I also distinguish development from evolution.

Development is progressive change and can be modeled as part of Nature, using a specification hierarchy. I have proposed a ‘canonical developmental trajectory’ of dissipative structures with the stages defined thermodynamically and informationally.

I consider some thermodynamic aspects of the Big Bang, leading to a proposal for reviving final cause. This model imposes a ‘hylozooic’ kind of interpretation upon Nature, as all emergent features at higher levels would have been vaguely and episodically present primitively in the lower integrative levels, and were stabilized materially with the developmental emergence of new levels.

The specification hierarchy’s form is that of a tree, with its trunk in its lowest level, and so this hierarchy is appropriate for modeling an expanding system like the Universe. It is consistent with this model of differentiation during Big Bang development to view emerging branch tips as having been entrained by multiple finalities because of the top-down integration of the various levels of organization by the higher levels.

Salthe is then accused of being too materialistic by other more idealist contributors. So you can see a range of opinion exists. Horace Fairlamb, for instance, still sees wiggle room for the emergence of mind as "true novelty".

So pick from it what suits your taste.

Why can’t it have appeared “by accident”? In the usual evolutionary fashion. — apokrisis

Well, I put it badly. I meant that the 'appearance' of 'proto-intentionality' must have been a possibility and the possibility of such an appearance must be IMO to be accounted for in order to have an explanation.

We see a lot of behaviors in living organism (and near-living 'organisms' like viruses) that simply are completely different from what one see in 'non-living things'. This of course doesn't deny the 'radomness' that is present in evolution.

So I guess that my question can be formulated as: how can we explain the possibility of the appearance of the 'behaviors' seen in living organism if before that those kind are simply not present?

the 'appearance' of 'proto-intentionality' must have been a possibility — boundless

Sure. The field of abiogenesis has plenty of suggestions on the matter. In general, one looks for a dissipative chemistry that could become colonised by some of the organic gunk it produces that proves able to function as a primitive information capturing code.

If for example a thermal vent is already producing organic molecules via minerals like greigite - rich in the same iron sulphur clusters that became woven into enzymatic reaction paths - then already there is a lot of the structure in place to get life going.

So it is not in principle a puzzle. It is putting together some particular evolutionary story that becomes the difficulty, not having a Time Machine.

Here’s a typical article on that - https://www.chemistryworld.com/features/hydrothermal-vents-and-the-origins-of-life/3007088.article

Thanks! I'll read the link before answering.