Hi Plamen, Hi colleagues,
I would feel guilty not adding two grains of salt here, but I am aware
that a thorough understanding of what I say require some familiarity
with theoretical computer science and mathematical logic, at least for
the first remark.
About phenomenology, the incompleteness theorem and those extending
it, assures us that ideally arithmetically sound machines have a very
rich set of phenomelogies, once accept the classical theory of
knowledge (True belief). Indeed incompleteness prevents the third
person representation to ever account of the machine's knowledge, and
here the math leads to a tour de force: a (meta)-axiomatization of a
subject not amenable to any third person description, neither formal
or informal. That theory is given by the modal logic S4Grz. Better, I
presented an argument that if Descartes Mechanism is correct (a
digital version of it, based on Church-Thesis), then physics has to be
phenomenological, and this is confirmed to in the sense that the
observable extracted from arithmetic get a quantum logic with an
alternate histories interpretation which mirrors already what Nature
suggests to us.
So I would say that we do have a rich phenomenology for the universal
numbers. It is there in arithmetic, but asks for some investment in
the study of computer science and its relation with mathematical logic.
About cancer. What strikes me as extremally odd is that most people
seems to continue to ignore the discovery made in the US, and well
hidden since, that injecting THC in tumoral brain mice reduces, and
sometimes eliminates the brain tumor. This has been rediscovered since
by a Spanish laboratory 20 years later, on different animals or
tissues, but cannabis remains in schedule one or equivalent in many
state and countries, so, despite the many wittnessing it works on
humans, the subject remains taboo. In fact, Mechoulam, in Jerusalem,
discovered both the THC in cannabis, and later, the corresponding
agonist in the brain, and actually the whole endocannaninoïd system,
whose main global role is the reparation and boosting of the entire
immune system, which explains the very long time evidence of the
medical prowess of hemp.
I agree and appreciate most holistic remarks made here on cancer and
its therapy research. I think that the endocannabinoid system and the
medical cannabis illustrates all this very well. But the illegality of
a drug kills the genuinely free-markets, which is the best regulator
of global integration of complex ideas, I think, and today's medicine
and pharmacy are more merchandising of diseases than a will of health,
and this is obviously a problem for integrative medicine, as it
disintegrates the honest basic research needed at the bottom and start.
Two links with references:
http://www.mapinc.org/newstcl/v01/n572/a11.html
http://www.cannabis-infos.com/2014/08/dossier-68-etudes-qui-demontrent.html
Best,
Bruno
On 14 May 2016, at 09:49, Dr. Plamen L. Simeonov wrote:
Dear Colleagues,
My contribution will finalize the discussion on phenomenology in the
domains of biology, mathematics, cyber/biosemiotics and physics by
the previous speakers (Maxine, Lou, Sœren and Alex) with a
“challenging topic” in 3φ integrative medicine. You may wish to
skip the small font text notes following each underscored phrase
like the one below.
Note 1: Although this term is often used as synonym for holistic
healing (s. ref. list A), its meaning in this context with the
prefix 3φ goes much “deeper” into the disciplines’ integration
leaving no room for speculations by mainstream scientists. The
concept is a linguistic choice of mine for the intended merge of the
complexity sciences physics and physiology with phenomenology for
application in modern medicine along the line of integral biomathics
(s. ref. list B).
It is rooted in the last presentation of Alex Hankey, since it
naturally provides the link from physics to physiology and medicine,
and thus to an anthropocentric domain implying a leading part of
phenomenological studies. To begin, I compiled a précis of Alex’
thesis about self-organized criticality (s. ref. list C) from his
paper “A New Approach to Biology and Medicine” -- the download
link to it was distributed in a previous email of him -- and
extended it with my reflections including some questions I hope you
will resonate on.
I am curious of your opinion about how to apply the scientific
method, and in particular mathematics and information science, to
study illness and recovery as complex phenomena.
Alex Hankey: self-organized criticality and regulation in living
systems
There is a continuous growth and change at the end of a phase
transition in an organism, i.e. at its critical point, which is the
end point of phase equilibrium.
Both endo and exo, genetics and epigenetics are important for life.
Self-organized criticality is a characteristic state of a system at
its critical point generated by self-organization during a long
transient period at the complexity edge between order/stability/
predictability and disorder/chaos/unpredictability.
Regulation of growth, form and function as a balance between health
and illness. The role of regulation and homeostasis in maintaining
the structure and function of living systems is critical. Every
deviation from a regulated state of being leads to imbalances,
failures and subsystem dysfunction that is usually transitory, but
could also become life-threatening, if the organism cannot find a
way to restore quickly to a balanced, healthy state. Living beings
are robust and fault-tolerant with respect to hazards; they possess
multiple alternative pathways for supplying and maintaining their
existential functions. However, some state transitions in response
to severe harms can become practically irreversible, because of the
deep evolutionary interlocking between the participating entities
and processes. Sometimes the normal functioning of the organism
cannot be easily restored by its natural repair processes,
especially when adversities reoccur frequently, and the organism
fails ill.
Synchronicity of action and information between the building blocks
of a living system. There is a need for every physiological function
to be correctly coordinated with all other “peer” functions.
Information flows within a living system interconnect all
physiological functions and organs at multiple levels into a single
mesh of regulatory interconnections. Multiple feedback-control loops
enable the cross-functional interlocking of both healthy and ill
state changes of the organism. Adjacent/peripheral/secondary
homeostasis processes act as fine-tuning catalyzers of substrate
ratios and process rates exchanged within the living system.
Imbalances of these quantities lead to excess/blockage or scarcity/
draining of essential nourishment and information exchange pathways.
Regulation at criticality not only fine-tunes a process, it
optimizes it for survival: with respect to a given generation’s
available possibilities in the light of the past generations’
possibilities. To survive an organism or a species needs to develop
optimal response-ability to environmental distress.
New ecological definition of life according to Hankey: self-
regulating, self-reproducing systems that maximize efficiency of
function to maximize competitiveness in their chosen environment.
Summary: Elements of self-organized criticality
Criticality
Edge of the chaos
Self-organized criticality
1/f fractal patterns of response
… and beyond
I wish to add a 5th aspect to this definition from the perspective
of integral biomathics:
Phenomenology
The latter is a largely studied matter in contemporary medicine (s.
ref. list D), at least at the macro, interpersonal level.
Note 2: A level refers to the compositional hierarchy defining
levels by scale.
The key question in such a “deep holistic” physically-
phenomenological physiology (3φ) is how to define or comprehend
(self-organized) criticality operationally within the unifying
framework of biomathematics and biocomputation. Indeed, a single
temporary imbalance within a living system regarded as disease
involves multiple agents, perspectives and interpretations at all
levels altogether, moreover simultaneously.
Note 3: Simultaneously at different levels involves very different
sized 'moments' at the different scales.
So, how should we approach and take into account the other levels/
scales in order to derive a reliable diagnosis and therapy?
Note 4: The notion of “subject” becomes plural (“subjects”)
as superposition of quantum states to survive the integration of the
multiple first-person subjective descriptions and the standard third-
person objective one.
Until now criticality has been non-phenomenological.
Note 5: In their 2012 paper “No entailing laws, but enablement in
the evolution of the biosphere” Longo, Montévil and Kauffman claim
that biological evolution “marks the end of a physics world view of
law entailed dynamics” (http://arxiv.org/abs/1201.2069). They argue
that the evolutionary phase space or space of possibilities
constituted of interactions between organisms, biological niches and
ecosystems is “ever changing, intrinsically indeterminate and even
(mathematically) unprestatable”.Hence, the authors' claim that it
is impossible to know “ahead of time the 'niches' which constitute
the boundary conditions on selection” in order to formulate laws of
motion for evolution. They call this effect “radical emergence”,
from life to life. Yet this applies to abiotic dissipative
structures like tornadoes as well. Living beings are not radically
different in this respect. In their study of biological evolution,
Longo and colleagues carried close comparisons with physics. They
investigated the mathematical constructions of phase spaces and the
role of symmetries as invariant preserving transformations, and
introduced the notion of “enablement” to restrict causal analyses
to Batesonian differential cases (1972: “the difference that makes
a difference”). The authors have shown that mutations or other
“causal differences” at the core of evolution enable the
establishment of non-conservation principles, in contrast to
physical dynamics, which is largely based on conservation principles
as symmetries. Their new notion of “extended criticality” also
helps to understand the distinctiveness of the living state of
matter when compared to the non-animal one. However, their approach
to both physics and biology is also non-phenomenological. The
possibility for endo states that can trigger the “(genetic/
epigenetic) switches of mutation” has not been examined in their
model. This is intended to be different in 3φ integrative medicine.
If we split a human body into macro (patient), mezzo (systems) and
micro levels (cells) three distinct questions regarding
phenomenology arise: i) how these levels pervade into each other
with larger scale providing context (boundary conditions) and lowest
scale providing raw materials for middle scale to function, monitor
and control vital processes, ii) who/which are the agents taking
care for this to happen spontaneously, and iii) what kind and role
plays information in the context of i) and ii). After all what we
are concerned about is modeling the agency of the systems in the
mezzo level.
Where should we go from here?
In particular, I am interested to know what kind of scientific-
phenomenological methodology can be developed and applied for
investigating the following three major groups of ailments:
oncological diseases with a particular focus on spatial and temporal
heterogeneity both in terms of flawed histological structures and
biochemical reactions;
neuro-degenerative disorders such as vascular dementia, Parkinson
and Alzheimer diseases:
altered organ and physiological system failures such as the Multiple
Organ Dysfunction Syndrome (MODS), cardiovascular and autoimmune
diseases.
In the first group, the extreme diversity of cancer tissue
structures and circulating tumor cells (CTC) concentrations over
both spatial and temporal scales makes the reliable classification,
diagnosis, model/hypothesis generation, forecast and treatment of
individual patients very difficult. This is a real challenge for
modern pathology. Another problem is that pathologists are actually
dealing with random tissue and blood samples over irregular periods,
which hinder the exact 3D histological reconstruction of the tumor
formations and tracing their development over time and space. Using
additional means such as diagnostic sonography, CT, MRT and PET
images do not improve sufficiently the hypotheses about the
individual cancer morphology and development. All this makes tumor
classification and diagnosis, even when analyzing high-resolution
digital images from biopsy slices by means of virtual microscopy,
very difficult and often a guesswork also for experts. The recent
advances in high-performance medical scanning and automation
systems, computerized visualization and graphical modeling tools, as
well the collection of huge amounts of anonymous patient data in
specialized medical databases make the impression that the solution
of these problems is only a question of more automation,
performance, investment and time. However, many pathologists begin
to realize a third problem, namely that tumors appear to be unique
in their histological structure and development, related to the
personal history and the overall state of health of the individual
patients. This argument reveals the need for developing a more
personalized and differentiated medicine that goes over scales
without becoming purely symptomatic, causality-driven and
reductionistic.
Recent research in the other two fields leads to the same
conclusion. Therefore, I think that we may be able to develop and
test hypotheses about emergence and development of deficiency and
illness that will lead to individual therapies in 3φ integrative
medicine. Your ideas regarding this assumption are very welcome.
Some interesting questions bridging the previous discussion sessions
to this one are:
- Why does a human embryo repeat the evolutionary history of
its species when going through its development stages? Is it because
it is more secure to project and set up the execution of a future
life plan by tracing and bodily memorizing a series of evolutionary
encoded (successful) “locks” through equilibrium states at the
edge of criticality?
- Which is the vital role of recursion and repetition of life
processes including their material and information exchange flows in
the criticality driven self-regulation for recovery from imbalances
and the reversibility and healing of diseases? How can we
effectively model such processes?
- Do we make difference between a physicist’s time and a
biologist’s time in complex living systems?
I look forward to your feedback and notes on the subject.
References:
A. Integrative Medicine
Integrative Medicine: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrative_medicine
What Is Integrative Medicine?:
http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/alternative-medicine-integrative-medicine
Integrative Medicine Research:
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/integrative-medicine-research/
Advances in Integrative Medicine
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/advances-in-integrative-medicine
B. Integral Biomathics
Integral Biomathics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Biomathics
Integral Biomathics: A Post-Newtonian View into the Logos of Bios
https://arxiv.org/ftp/cs/papers/0703/0703002.pdf
On Some Recent Insights in Integral Biomathics:
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1306/1306.2843.pdf.
Integral Biomathics Reloaded: 2015 (free access until July 19th 2016):
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610715001509
C. Self-organized criticality:
Self-organized criticality:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organized_criticality
Self-organized criticality (SOC):
http://www.johnboccio.com/courses/SOC26/15-SOC.pdf
Self-organized criticality:
http://web.mit.edu/8.334/www/grades/projects/projects12/V.%20A.%20Golyk.pdf
Self-organized criticality – what it is and what it isn’t
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.96.8017&rep=rep1&type=pdf
.
D. Phenomenology in Medicine
The meaning of illness: a phenomenological approach to the physician/
patient relationship: https://baylor-ir.tdl.org/baylor-ir/handle/2104/8286
; http://hdl.handle.net/2104/8286.
Body Matters: A Phenomenology of Sickness, Disease, and Illness:
http://philpapers.org/rec/AHOBMA.
Suffering Transfigured: Phenomenological Personalism In the Doctor-
Patient Relationship: http://elischolar.library.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1658&context=ymtdl
.
The challenge of neuroscience: Psychiatry and phenomenology today: https://www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de/fileadmin/zpm/psychatrie/fuchs/Challenge_of_Neuroscience.pdf
.
Rediscovering Psychopathology: The Epistemology and Phenomenology of
the Psychiatric Object: http://cfs.ku.dk/staff/zahavi-publications/Rediscovering_Psychopathology.pdf
.
PHENOMENOLOGY IN PSYCHIATRY: http://www.wpanet.org/uploads/Sections/Philosopy_and_Humanities/Phenomenology-in-Psychiatry.pdf
.
Plamen
____________________________________________________________
2015 JPBMB Special Issue on Integral Biomathics: Life Sciences,
Mathematics and Phenomenological Philosophy
(note: free access to all articles until July 19th, 2016)
2013 JPBMB Special Issue on Integral Biomathics: Can Biology Create
a Profoundly New Mathematics and Computation?
2012 Integral Biomathics: Tracing the Road to Reality
2011 INtegral BIOmathics Support Action (INBIOSA)
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