-------- Mensaje reenviado --------
Asunto: Re: [Fis] Cancer Cure?
Fecha: Tue, 31 May 2016 19:54:05 +0200
De: Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov <plamen.l.simeo...@gmail.com>
Para: Robert Ulanowicz <u...@umces.edu>
CC: Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>
Dear Bob and All,
it is a compliment for me to read your notes on the subject. You don't
need to excuse. It is indeed a complex world of relations. And tt is
good that you rmentioned all this again from your perspective. We do not
know how many have entered the discussion later. Reiterations and
questions are always good and welcome. Well, I was expecting a vigorous
discussion on this subject which approaches its end now. But it is still
better to have one feedback rather than writing all this on paper of my
own without knowing what the reviewer or the reader would say at the
end. I still hope to hear a few more voices on that. We could take on
some of the other two major groups of diseases mentioned in the opening
session. Bob, I am glad that you mentioned quantum logic. Do you think
we can try using it to express the emergent state of a disease (in
combination or not with heterogeneity afine SOC) We are not limited to
cancer only. In fact I am also interested to know your opinion on such
aspects as self-similarity or symmetry/asymetry during the development
of a disease throughout all transition phases. These issues have been
often discussed in a different context at FIS. How about the
biosemiotics aspect which I mentioned earlier? Tell me what do you think
could be a promising approach to tackle a tough health problem.
Is there anybody out there? :-)
All the best,
Plamen
On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 6:54 PM, Robert E. Ulanowicz <u...@umces.edu
<mailto:u...@umces.edu>> wrote:
> Dear Bob,
>
> thank you for your response. What you said in the core -
heterogeneity -
> resonated with the first suggested example I began this session
with: the
> puzzle of registering the heterogeneity of cancer, both in the
> molecular-biological and histological level, both in space and
time. It
> appears that exactly this elusive property of matter, liveness,
from the
> single cell to entire eco-systems, which implies intelligence
throughout
> all scales (as Brian Ford states) is what we still cannot in
system(s)
> biology put on the feet of statistical mechanics and classical
> physics.Aren't tumors such intelligent clusters of heterogeneous cell
> computers interacting within internaly secured invasive networks that
> escape our medical enigma code breakers placed in our synthetic
drugs and
> radiation devices? Also such undesired life is not easy to kill.
And yet
> cancer cannot win the battle unless our own internal systems
surrender and
> become allies of the invador.
Dear Plamen,
To begin, please allow me to apologize for joining the conversation
midway
without having read your earlier postings.
It's obvious that you also expressed the sense of what I was saying.
There
are about 6 fundamental laws of physics, which allows for several
hundred
combinations among the laws. Meanwhile, most living systems consist
of at
least 40 identifiable constituents, which can interact on some 10^47
possible ways. It should be no surprise that (many?) more than one
combination can satisfy any specification of the laws. So the laws
are not
broken; they simply lose their power to *determine* a unique outcome.
As you say, sufficiently heterogeneous living system can usually find a
way around most obstacles in their way.
> And yet, healthy systems have some sort of regularity, layered
structure
> and hierarchies as those we observe in a skin biopsy sample.Genetic
> mutations do not remain local at the damaged spot; they are
signaled to
> other "mentally weak" cells which are turned into traitors,also
perhaps
> even via non-local induction. Are wandering "bad" cells and
accelerated
> replication the only sources of growing agressive cancers? Here
is perhaps
> where biosemiotics and phenomenology could help along with
creating new*
> heterogeneous* SOC models, as you mentioned. You are right, the
call for
> devising a mathematics that can handle heterogeneous sets,
> vectors,matrices, categories and other sorts of organisation in
biology
> simultateously was already spread by Bob Root-Bernstein in his
opening
> article to our 2012 edition of integral biomathics (see last link
in my
> signature). We do not have such an underpinning mathematics and its
> related
> computation yet. Therefore we remain still stuck in the old system
> biological models rooted in physics at best.
I should have mentioned that SOC can also possibly apply to
heterogeneous
systems. For example, we have plotted the countervailing properties of
networks -- their efficient performance vs. their reliability, and
we have
found that ecosystems from various habitats all achieve about the same
balance between these two traits. (See Fig. 7 on p1890 in
<http://people.clas.ufl.edu/ulan/files/Dual.pdf>.) These metrics do have
heterogeneity built into them. (They are calculated on n-dimensional
networks -- each node representing a distinct constituent.) Some have
suggested that the balance point is very near a critical point.
Ergo, SOC
can apply to heterogeneous systems.
> Many of us hope that the right answers to all this will be given
once we
> understand quantum gravitation and master quantum computation.
But I have
> my doubts in such hopes too.
I have severe doubts about quantum gravity -- at least quantum in the
sense of Planck. (Quantum logic is another matter, and may apply to
gravity.) The Planck constant and the gravitational constant are
separated
by some 43 orders of magntude. The engineering rule of thumb is that
phenomena characterized by dimensionless parameters greater than 10^5 or
less than 10^(-5) are dynamically independent.
Quantum computing, on the other hand, might prove quite helpful in
addressing the combinatorics of heterogeneous systems. Let us hope.
> The questions I ask are those of an ex product planner colecting
customer
> feedback to devise a new product. Perhaps we can succeed in doing
that
> together. Thank you for this.
So then you are quite aware of the combinatorics and surprises connected
with dialogs! It's a complicated world!
Thank you for your contributions to FIS, and I apologize again for not
having read your earlier postings.
> All the best,
>
> Plamen
Peace!
Bob
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