Oscar Castro - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (original) (raw)
Papers by Oscar Castro
Mientras que Kant sostenía que cuando uno percibe, tiene unas formas dentro de uno mismo; unas fo... more Mientras que Kant sostenía que cuando uno percibe, tiene unas formas dentro de uno mismo; unas formas que son el espacio y el tiempo, y que éstas son puestas por el propio sujeto. Por su parte, Johannes Müller mostraría, desde un punto de vista materialista, con su teoría de las energías específicas cómo el tiempo y el espacio eran puestos por el sujeto biológico. Etcheverry, J. L. Traducción cambio y tiempo.
Principles of minimal cognition in smart slime
ABSTRACT The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars o... more ABSTRACT The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars organisms competence as the foundation of a cognitive principle that goes beyond minimum metabolic processes. I study the recognition of the environment in case of slime mold and bacteria as significant learning processes in differentiating between hostile environment or optimal and physical transformations of each agency on the basis of received signals in both the membrane and within the agencies. Sensorimotor coordination mechanisms of metabolic adaptation expanded shapes. Some of these coordination mechanisms are linked to the perception with the environment through pulses, as temporal processing of signals.
Aspectos Biosemióticos de la Consciencia
Pensamiento, 2007
Data for: Slime mould: the fundamental mechanisms of biological cognition
Latex Package with all data
Blueprint for a Semiotics of the Sacred: Prolegomena of a "Hierosemiotics
The sacred as numinous experience is related to neurophenomenology. When the neuroscientists talk... more The sacred as numinous experience is related to neurophenomenology. When the neuroscientists talk about what is culture, every time they are talking that is a subproduct of the brain. Because the aim of the brain is to make resolutions in order to survive. Is it possible the revelation as a signal of survival, to immortal way? Is it possible that the sacred is – as Giorgio Prodi claims – a "bio-logical", and not a cognitive or emotional, problem (that is, theology cannot exist without biology)? I propose a prolegomenon of a Semiosphere of the Sacred which nucleus is out of the Semiosphere of the Culture, about the semiotics of religion that lives inside, even though it is wired. I call it “‘Hierosemiotics’ the (bio)semiotic analysis of the experience of the numinous or sacred, cross (pierce) and across the particular religion or cultures. For a robust methodological model, I present two pathways. On the one hand, I develop the “hermetic hermeneutics”, through the Algis Uždavinys’ “anagogic way”. So, for reach this level, I need to analyse the Umberto Eco’s “hermetic drift” to the limits of interpretation, and I want to propose the one way to break this “drift” and take a leap forward. By another way, I propose the work of Raimon Panikkar to describe the way of the Interreligious and Intercultural dialogue to make the way real. The bridge between both pathways is the Pannikar’s “diatopical hermeneutic” to go to the alterity for understanding the “revelator” and his signs of the sacred experience. All this allows an anagogical experience of the sacred as a humankind heritage. The Egyptian "anthropo-logic" and "theo-logic" description forge the bio-semiotic meaning of the Sacred, and their Hieroglyphics our Hermetic way of the “Hierosphere”.
A Biosemiotic Approach to Allorecognition: A possible connection between organic codes and the interpretation of their Umwelt
Allorecognition is a faculty of specific cells and organisms through which they can recognize the... more Allorecognition is a faculty of specific cells and organisms through which they can recognize the difference between self and non-self, self and environment and between its own tissues and those from others. Allorecognition appears in the recognition of antigens expressed on the surface of cells of non/self origin. It is known as kin recognition (self/non-self) and kin selection (self/environment). A specific organism capable of making a distinction between itself and non-self of different strains, as well as their environment is the slime mold. Allorecognition works in immunogenic cells like T and B cells, and in other histoimmunological cells. We will aim to show the biosemiotic inference of recognition in unicellular organisms—and the explanation of multicellularity by aggregation—through different mechanisms that allow allorecognition. The adaptive immune memory of cells is crucial for our explanation. It is also important to study its decline and consequences thereof, as it happens with microglia in the brain, for instance. Studying these models is essential in looking for ways to deal with recognition failure. A biosemiotic understanding of this faculty, both at a simple and a more developed stages, will have profound consequences in the study of code duality at the level of genetic foundations and the phylogenetic pattern. However, there are also ontogenetic patterns as generators of epigenetic landscapes that support the interpretative capacity of a sense-making and decision-making process. We see here an opportunity to interact with both code and interpretation biosemiotics. Both of these perspectives can be complementary in understanding meaning information. With this, we can bring a new semiotic perspective on how a cellular organism fuses, becomes an aggregated organism, phagocytosis, and even the cycle of life itself. We hope to describe the pathways of the recognition system of cellular organisms. Finally, this biosemiotic focus is expected to amplify the description of minimal cognition with semiotic details of such recognition pathways.
Khôra in Spiritual Landscapes: A Bio-semiotic approach with Umwelt in Architecture's Phenomenology of the Perception
The concept of a sacred place in spatial language is a phenomenon that transcends the possibiliti... more The concept of a sacred place in spatial language is a phenomenon that transcends the possibilities of univocal phenomenological description. Every individual lives in his own perception of space and time based on at first instinctive and solipsistic encounter of space, to then fill it with different semiotic levels of it. This multilevel and intersystemic development of perception offers a discursive wealth where semiospheres coexist in vivid interactions. Sometimes they are like a palimpsest experience; others are a linguistic emptiness that generates new semiotic meanings. I would like to focus my speech on the concept of Khôra as an impersonal space of power where different forms of expressing what Rudolf Otto called the numen are configured. For this, I will use the concepts presented by Julian Kristeva, Jaques Derrida and Nader El-Bizri to express a bio-semiotic synthesis in the phenomenological experience of historical urban landscapes. Finally, I want to cross the sacred landscape through Alexei Lidov’s concept of “Hierotopy” to invigorate an experience, together with Khôra, where our perception of the landscape increases its meaning iconographically, semiotically and symbolically. Keywords: Khôra, numen, semiosphere, palimpsest, Genius Loci, hierotopy
The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing device... more The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing devices for in which the slime mould played a role of a sensing, actuating, and computing device. These devices treated the slime mould rather as an active living substrate yet the slime mould is a self-consistent living creature which evolved for millions of years and occupied most part of the world, but in any case, that living entity did not own true cognition, just automated biochemical mechanisms. To "rehabilitate" the slime mould from the rank of a purely living electronics element to a "creature of thoughts" we are analyzing the cognitive potential of P. polycephalum. We base our theory of minimal cognition of the slime mould on a bottom-up approach, from the biological and biophysical nature of the slime mould and its regulatory systems using frameworks suh as Lyon's biogenic cognition, Muller, di Primio-Lengeler\'s modifiable pathways, Bateson's "p...
Living systems are smarter bots: Slime mold semiosis versus AI symbol manipulation
BioSystems, 2021
Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act... more Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act creatively. We offer an understanding of the emergent qualities of biological sign processing in terms of generalization, association, and encryption. We use slime mold as a model of minimal cognition and compare it to deep-learning video game bots, which some claim have evolved beyond their merely quantitative algorithms. We find that these discrete Turing machine bots are not able to make productive, yet unanticipated, "errors"-necessary for biological learning-which, based on the physicality of signs, their relatively similar shapes, and relative physical positions spatially and temporally, lead to emergent effects and make learning and evolution possible. In organisms, stochastic resonance at the local level can be leveraged for self-organization at the global level. We contrast all this to the symbolic processing of today's machine learning, whereby each logic node an...
BioSystems, 2021
Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act... more Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act creatively. We offer an understanding of the emergent qualities of biological sign processing in terms of generalization, association, and encryption. We use slime mold as a model of minimal cognition and compare it to deep-learning video game bots, which some claim have evolved beyond their merely quantitative algorithms. We find that these discrete Turing machine bots are not able to make productive, yet unanticipated, "errors"-necessary for biological learning-which, based on the physicality of signs, their relatively similar shapes, and relative physical positions spatially and temporally, lead to emergent effects and make learning and evolution possible. In organisms, stochastic resonance at the local level can be leveraged for self-organization at the global level. We contrast all this to the symbolic processing of today's machine learning, whereby each logic node and memory state is discrete. Computer codes are produced by external operators, whereas biological symbols are evolved through an internal encryption process.
Principles of minimal cognition in smart slime molds and social bacteria
Pensamiento
The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars organisms ... more The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars organisms competence as the foundation of a cognitive principle that goes beyond minimum metabolic processes. I study the recognition of the environment in case of slime mold and bacteria as significant learning processes in differentiating between hostile environment or optimal and physical transformations of each agency on the basis of received signals in both the membrane and within the agencies. Sensorimotor coordination mechanisms of metabolic adaptation expanded shapes. Some of these coordination mechanisms are linked to the perception with the environment through pulses, as temporal processing of signals.
Biosemiotics is a discipline that emerged in the 1960s from studying communication and transfer o... more Biosemiotics is a discipline that emerged in the 1960s from studying communication and transfer of signs and signals between animals (zoosemiotic) by the semiologist Thomas Sebeok. Its origin can be placed a hundred years ago in the works of the biologist and philosopher Jakob von Uexküll, who develop a "theory of meaning" (Bedeutungslehre) to describe (with the minimal possible anthropocentricity) how animals perceive their environ-ment and inner world. It is review here the conditions of possibility for cognitive processes in organisms without a nervous system, where some events lead us to propose ways of learning and behavior influenced not only by basic tropisms. We study the biosemiotic cognitive foundations within slime molds and bacteria, in order to establish a possible phenomenological biology, based on the measurement of minimal perception thresholds. Después de los estudios efectuados en los múltiples campos de la biología evolutiva y del desarrollo, en torno a ...
Corrigendum to "Slime mould: The fundamental mechanisms of biological cognition" [BioSystems 165 (2018) 57-70]
Bio Systems, Apr 24, 2018
![Research paper thumbnail of Slime mould; The fundamental mechanisms of biological cognition [corrigendum] [BioSystems 165 (2018) 57–70]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/56981668/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Added in case of Oscar Castro: “The research leading to the results of Professor Oscar Castro has... more Added in case of Oscar Castro: “The research leading to the results of Professor Oscar Castro has received funding from the European Regional Development Fund (IUT 2-44, Semiotic modeling of self-description mechanisms: theory and applications) and the Estonian Research Council (MOBJD213, Mobilitas Pluss Postdoctoral Researcher Grant)”
And corrigendum errata of two references.
BioSystems, 2018
The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing device... more The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing devices for in which the slime mould played a role of a sensing, actuating, and computing device. These devices treated the slime mould rather as an active living substrate yet the slime mould is a selfconsistent living creature which evolved for millions of years and occupied most part of the world, but in any case, that living entity did not own true cognition, just automated biochemical mechanisms. To \rehabilitate" the slime mould from the rank of a purely living electronics element to a \creature of thoughts" we are analyzing the cognitive potential of P. polycephalum. We base our theory of minimal cognition of the slime mould on a bottom-up approach, from the biological and biophysical nature of the slime mould and its regulatory systems using frameworks suh as Lyons biogenic cognition, Muller, di Primio-Lengeler's modi able pathways, Bateson's "patterns that
connect" framework, Maturana's autopoetic network, or proto-consciousness and Morgans Canon.
Keywords: consciousness, cognition, slime mould
RESUMEN: La Geometría llamada «Sagrada» es una metáfora de la Ordenación del Universo, la huella ... more RESUMEN: La Geometría llamada «Sagrada» es una metáfora de la Ordenación del Universo, la huella digital de la Creación. Este es un estudio interdisciplinar donde se ofrece información sobre diversas materias que van desde teoría de la estética, historia del arte, hasta la mecánica cuántica, pasando por la simbólica, la antropología de las religiones, la microbiología y la cosmología. El interés de este estudio es la visión heurística y transdisciplinar que se proyecta sobre un conocimiento perenne y holístico del sentido de la geometría como una semiótica de lo sagrado en la vida. Comenzamos nuestro camino en los albores de la humanidad, en la que la geometría estaba vinculada con la posibilidad de comunicación. Sobre todo de forma que su semiótica no fuese únicamente fuente de gestión social y económica. Sobre todo hay una fuerte motivación de comunicación con lo tremendo, lo magnífico, lo inefable y lo sagrado (Mircea Eliade), o «lo santo» (Rudolf Otto). Veremos cómo dicha vinculación semiótico-simbólica adquiere cada vez mayor complejidad, aunque su grado de abstracción ya es sutil desde el neolítico. Lo complejo viene en la aplicación de la matemática geométrica a la arquitectura (desde los megalitos hasta los templos y pirámides, pasando por los zigurats) y sus operaciones mágicas, teúrgicas y místicas. Nos concentraremos en ver algunas características de las construcciones hasta llegar a Pitágoras de Samos en cuya escuela de geometría se vive una edad de oro, en el sentido pleromático del conocimiento sapiencial de las matemáticas: la armonía del número y del ritmo.
ABSTRACT: The so-called «Holy Geometry» is a metaphor about the universe's Order, the digital sign of Creation. This article is an interdisciplinary study that offers information about diverse themes ranging from aesthetics theory and history of art, to quantum mechanics, through symbolism, anthropology of religions, microbiology, and cosmology. The interest of this study is the heuristic and trans-disciplinary vision projected to a perennial and holistic knowledge concerning the meaning of geometry as a semiotics of the sacred in life. We begin our journey from the dawn of humanity, when geometry was linked with the possibility of communication in such a way that its semiotics was not the sole source of social and economic management. Above all, there was a strong motivation to communicate with the tremendous, the magnificent, the ineffable, and the sacred (Mircea Eliade), or «the holy» (Rudolf Otto). We will see how said semiotic-symbolic link acquires greater complexity, although its degree of abstraction was already subtle beginning from the neolithic period. The complexity came from the application of mathematical geometry to architecture (starting from megalithic monuments, temples, pyramids, andziggurats) and its magical, mystical, and theurgic operations. We will concentrate on some characte-ristics of the constructions until we reach Pythagoras of Samos, in whose school of geometry was livedthe Golden Age in the pleromatic sense of the sapiential knowledge of mathematics: the harmony ofnumber and rhyme.
KEY WORDS: Geometry, arithmosophy, esoteric, archetype, hierarchy, number, rhythm, Pythagoras,Thales, Schwaller de Lubicz, nous, soul (anima), proportion, analogy
PENSAMIENTO, vol. 63 (2007), núm. 238, pp. 743-775
A través de la palabra conciencia, tanto la ciencia como la filosofía han querido explicar un fen... more A través de la palabra conciencia, tanto la ciencia como la filosofía han querido explicar un fenómeno que completa el sentido de nuestra experiencia vital. Resulta intrigante que su implicación en la manifestación de nuestra naturaleza cognoscitiva sea evidente y crucial. La inteligencia, la intuición, el conocimiento, las emociones, la capacidad de razonar, la percepción entre otras propiedades integradas en la psicobiología de nuestra constitución vital nos acompañan ontogénica y filogénicamente. Pero nos es de momento difícil llegar a un consenso explicativo de a qué llamamos consciencia. Tan complejo, que la atribución de la consciencia únicamente en el ser humano ha quedado muy reducida tanto en los campos disciplinares como en su comprensión profunda. El campo de estudio necesita de una ampliación interdisciplinaria como de una profundización superior en cada disciplina científica. Sería como si la etología pudiese llegar a niveles de biología celular, incluso molecular y, así crear una etología comparativa. Nuestro estudio de la consciencia se amplía a todo ser vivo si determinásemos aspectos muy concretos de lo que es “percibir el medio circundante”, el “umwelt” de Jacob von Uexküll.
En este artículo me centro en los rasgos biosemióticos neurales que pueden conducirnos a señales o signos que infieren conciencia o características que comprendan transducción de información y su posterior respuesta consecuente. Para ello daremos un primer repaso por lo que quiere definir actualmente la biosemiótica, en lo referente a los signos significativos que provocan información a las máquinas celulares, para pasar a trascender el sentido de máquina celular cuando existen signos de percepción tanto de su autoorganización y como de su entorno. Dichos aspectos toman sentido al estudiar los fenómenos que permiten la condición de posibilidad de una emergencia de la conciencia. Para ello nos centraremos en el estudio biofísico del fenómeno de coherencia estudiados por Hameroff y Penrose a través de los microtúbulos por un lado, y por el estudio de los biofotones del profesor Fritz Albert Popp aplicados a los procesos sinápticos del cerebro.
En estos tiempos en que el espíritu científico describe y delimita con definiciones técnicas muy ... more En estos tiempos en que el espíritu científico describe y delimita con definiciones técnicas muy concretas las explicaciones científicas, cuando se trata de explicar temas fronterizos existen dificultades semánticas y no se repara en mixtificaciones. Aparece una nueva conexión interdisciplinar entre las ciencias de la mente y las ciencias del espíritu, abordándose el estudio de los fenómenos místicos como cuestión fundamental para plantear el problema de la existencia de Dios. Las respuestas de los neurobiólogos se centran en ofrecer explicaciones “estímulo-respuesta”, pero no comprenden por qué ocurre por autoinducción. Tampoco hay explicación de la experiencia personal, cuando en un proceso místico el individuo tiene diferentes manifestaciones de su individualidad: el ego, la mismidad, el yo, la ipseidad, etc. No son lo mismo y deben exponerse en una analítica comparativa. Lo que se pretende aquí es ofrecer un programa transdisciplinar de estudio de la experiencia personal, en cuanto es fundamento para el estudio de lo numinoso –según el término de Rudolf Otto–, o de aquello que siempre ha fundamentado la experiencia mística, desde que el hombre es homo religiosus. Expondré dos de los puntos cruciales de un programa transdiciplinar. A) Primero el estudio de semántica comparativa de los diferentes conceptos del yo, alma, espíritu y conciencia desde las principales fuentes tradicionales. Viendo así tanto las similitudes como las diferencias, ontológicas y fenomenológicas. B) Segundo, expongo un breve repaso de la reciente historia de la neuroteología. Veremos los modelos explicativos de los diversos programas de estudio neurobiológico de los fenómenos místicos. Todo esto para concluir con una propuesta nueva, tanto epistémica como hermenéutica, de la pregunta por la experiencia personal de lo numinoso, planteada en un marco científico transdiciplinar.
Palabras clave: Ipseidad, numinoso, Purusha, theosis, Adam Kadmon, ayin, sunyata, Al-Insân Al-Kâmil, Wahdat Al Wujûd, cortex prefrontal ventromedial, monoamino oxidasa, area de asociación y de orientación, lo íntimo, enacción, oikeiosis, anagogía, neuroteología.
Nowadays, science restricts the contents of all scientific explanations with very specific and te... more Nowadays, science restricts the contents of all scientific explanations with very specific and technical definitions. This is specially the case in its attempt to define borderline issues. At the present moment, there is a growing interdisciplinary link between the so-called “sciences of the mind” and the “sciences of the spirit”. This growing connection is specially an issue with mystical phenomena (for instance, when one regards a key issue, such as the existence of God). Neurobiology usually considers explanations on the basis of the relation “stimulus-response”, but they are not knowledgeable about what happens for instance, in self-induction. When explaining a mystical experience, it is difficult to define the exact differences of an individual manifesting itself and one needs to use terms such as “ego”, “I”, “self”, “selfness”, “ipseity”, etc. They are not the same thing. These concepts must therefore be analysed in a comparative way.
My intention is to render a transdisciplinary programme for the study of the first person (I) as a foundation for the study of the “numinous” (the term invented by Rudolf Otto) or the base of all mystical experiences of the homo religious.
Two of the basic aspects of the transdisciplinary programme will be expounded:
a) A study of comparative semantics of all the historical conceptions of the “I”, present in all traditions from an ontological and a phenomenological point of view
b) A brief review of the recent history of “neurotheology”. We will analyse the explanatory models present in the neurobiological studies of the mystical phenomena.
My intention is to render a new epistemological and hermeneutical view of the question about the “I” experience of the numinous as a transdisciplinary scientific model.
Key words: Selfhood, Numinous, Purusha, Theosis, Adam Kadmon, ayin, sunyata, Al-Insân Al-Kâmil, Wahdat Al Wujûd, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, monoamine oxidase, association and orientation areas, the private, enaction, oikeiosis, anagogy, neurotheology.
ABSTRACT: The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars ... more ABSTRACT: The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars organisms competence as the foundation of a cognitive principle that goes beyond minimum metabolic processes. I study the recognition of the environment in case of slime mold and bacteria as significant learning processes in differentiating between hostile environment or optimal and physical transformations
of each agency on the basis of received signals in both the membrane and within the agencies.
Sensorimotor coordination mechanisms of metabolic adaptation expanded shapes. Some of these coordination mechanisms are linked to the perception with the environment through pulses, as temporal processing of signals.
KEY WORDS: Umwelt, subjectual, enaction, haptic perception, Weber-Fechner Law, bio-fenomenology.
RESUMEN: La percepción del entorno, así como la coordinación sensomotora de los organismos unicelulares competen como fundamentos de un principio cognitivo mínimo que va más allá de los procesos metabólicos. Trato de estudiar el reconocimiento del entorno en el caso de los mixomicetos y de las bacterias como los procesos significativos de aprendizaje en la diferenciación entre entorno
hostil u óptimo, y en las trasformaciones físicas de cada organismo en función de las señales recibidas tanto en la membrana como en el interior de los organismos. Los mecanismos de coordinación sensomotora expanden formas de adaptación metabólica. Algunos de estos mecanismos de coordinación están ligados a la percepción con el entorno a través de pulsos, según el procesamiento temporal de
las señales.
PALABRAS CLAVE: Umwelt, subjectual, enacción, percepción háptica, Ley de Weber-Fechner, bio-fenomenología.
Mientras que Kant sostenía que cuando uno percibe, tiene unas formas dentro de uno mismo; unas fo... more Mientras que Kant sostenía que cuando uno percibe, tiene unas formas dentro de uno mismo; unas formas que son el espacio y el tiempo, y que éstas son puestas por el propio sujeto. Por su parte, Johannes Müller mostraría, desde un punto de vista materialista, con su teoría de las energías específicas cómo el tiempo y el espacio eran puestos por el sujeto biológico. Etcheverry, J. L. Traducción cambio y tiempo.
Principles of minimal cognition in smart slime
ABSTRACT The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars o... more ABSTRACT The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars organisms competence as the foundation of a cognitive principle that goes beyond minimum metabolic processes. I study the recognition of the environment in case of slime mold and bacteria as significant learning processes in differentiating between hostile environment or optimal and physical transformations of each agency on the basis of received signals in both the membrane and within the agencies. Sensorimotor coordination mechanisms of metabolic adaptation expanded shapes. Some of these coordination mechanisms are linked to the perception with the environment through pulses, as temporal processing of signals.
Aspectos Biosemióticos de la Consciencia
Pensamiento, 2007
Data for: Slime mould: the fundamental mechanisms of biological cognition
Latex Package with all data
Blueprint for a Semiotics of the Sacred: Prolegomena of a "Hierosemiotics
The sacred as numinous experience is related to neurophenomenology. When the neuroscientists talk... more The sacred as numinous experience is related to neurophenomenology. When the neuroscientists talk about what is culture, every time they are talking that is a subproduct of the brain. Because the aim of the brain is to make resolutions in order to survive. Is it possible the revelation as a signal of survival, to immortal way? Is it possible that the sacred is – as Giorgio Prodi claims – a "bio-logical", and not a cognitive or emotional, problem (that is, theology cannot exist without biology)? I propose a prolegomenon of a Semiosphere of the Sacred which nucleus is out of the Semiosphere of the Culture, about the semiotics of religion that lives inside, even though it is wired. I call it “‘Hierosemiotics’ the (bio)semiotic analysis of the experience of the numinous or sacred, cross (pierce) and across the particular religion or cultures. For a robust methodological model, I present two pathways. On the one hand, I develop the “hermetic hermeneutics”, through the Algis Uždavinys’ “anagogic way”. So, for reach this level, I need to analyse the Umberto Eco’s “hermetic drift” to the limits of interpretation, and I want to propose the one way to break this “drift” and take a leap forward. By another way, I propose the work of Raimon Panikkar to describe the way of the Interreligious and Intercultural dialogue to make the way real. The bridge between both pathways is the Pannikar’s “diatopical hermeneutic” to go to the alterity for understanding the “revelator” and his signs of the sacred experience. All this allows an anagogical experience of the sacred as a humankind heritage. The Egyptian "anthropo-logic" and "theo-logic" description forge the bio-semiotic meaning of the Sacred, and their Hieroglyphics our Hermetic way of the “Hierosphere”.
A Biosemiotic Approach to Allorecognition: A possible connection between organic codes and the interpretation of their Umwelt
Allorecognition is a faculty of specific cells and organisms through which they can recognize the... more Allorecognition is a faculty of specific cells and organisms through which they can recognize the difference between self and non-self, self and environment and between its own tissues and those from others. Allorecognition appears in the recognition of antigens expressed on the surface of cells of non/self origin. It is known as kin recognition (self/non-self) and kin selection (self/environment). A specific organism capable of making a distinction between itself and non-self of different strains, as well as their environment is the slime mold. Allorecognition works in immunogenic cells like T and B cells, and in other histoimmunological cells. We will aim to show the biosemiotic inference of recognition in unicellular organisms—and the explanation of multicellularity by aggregation—through different mechanisms that allow allorecognition. The adaptive immune memory of cells is crucial for our explanation. It is also important to study its decline and consequences thereof, as it happens with microglia in the brain, for instance. Studying these models is essential in looking for ways to deal with recognition failure. A biosemiotic understanding of this faculty, both at a simple and a more developed stages, will have profound consequences in the study of code duality at the level of genetic foundations and the phylogenetic pattern. However, there are also ontogenetic patterns as generators of epigenetic landscapes that support the interpretative capacity of a sense-making and decision-making process. We see here an opportunity to interact with both code and interpretation biosemiotics. Both of these perspectives can be complementary in understanding meaning information. With this, we can bring a new semiotic perspective on how a cellular organism fuses, becomes an aggregated organism, phagocytosis, and even the cycle of life itself. We hope to describe the pathways of the recognition system of cellular organisms. Finally, this biosemiotic focus is expected to amplify the description of minimal cognition with semiotic details of such recognition pathways.
Khôra in Spiritual Landscapes: A Bio-semiotic approach with Umwelt in Architecture's Phenomenology of the Perception
The concept of a sacred place in spatial language is a phenomenon that transcends the possibiliti... more The concept of a sacred place in spatial language is a phenomenon that transcends the possibilities of univocal phenomenological description. Every individual lives in his own perception of space and time based on at first instinctive and solipsistic encounter of space, to then fill it with different semiotic levels of it. This multilevel and intersystemic development of perception offers a discursive wealth where semiospheres coexist in vivid interactions. Sometimes they are like a palimpsest experience; others are a linguistic emptiness that generates new semiotic meanings. I would like to focus my speech on the concept of Khôra as an impersonal space of power where different forms of expressing what Rudolf Otto called the numen are configured. For this, I will use the concepts presented by Julian Kristeva, Jaques Derrida and Nader El-Bizri to express a bio-semiotic synthesis in the phenomenological experience of historical urban landscapes. Finally, I want to cross the sacred landscape through Alexei Lidov’s concept of “Hierotopy” to invigorate an experience, together with Khôra, where our perception of the landscape increases its meaning iconographically, semiotically and symbolically. Keywords: Khôra, numen, semiosphere, palimpsest, Genius Loci, hierotopy
The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing device... more The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing devices for in which the slime mould played a role of a sensing, actuating, and computing device. These devices treated the slime mould rather as an active living substrate yet the slime mould is a self-consistent living creature which evolved for millions of years and occupied most part of the world, but in any case, that living entity did not own true cognition, just automated biochemical mechanisms. To "rehabilitate" the slime mould from the rank of a purely living electronics element to a "creature of thoughts" we are analyzing the cognitive potential of P. polycephalum. We base our theory of minimal cognition of the slime mould on a bottom-up approach, from the biological and biophysical nature of the slime mould and its regulatory systems using frameworks suh as Lyon's biogenic cognition, Muller, di Primio-Lengeler\'s modifiable pathways, Bateson's "p...
Living systems are smarter bots: Slime mold semiosis versus AI symbol manipulation
BioSystems, 2021
Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act... more Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act creatively. We offer an understanding of the emergent qualities of biological sign processing in terms of generalization, association, and encryption. We use slime mold as a model of minimal cognition and compare it to deep-learning video game bots, which some claim have evolved beyond their merely quantitative algorithms. We find that these discrete Turing machine bots are not able to make productive, yet unanticipated, "errors"-necessary for biological learning-which, based on the physicality of signs, their relatively similar shapes, and relative physical positions spatially and temporally, lead to emergent effects and make learning and evolution possible. In organisms, stochastic resonance at the local level can be leveraged for self-organization at the global level. We contrast all this to the symbolic processing of today's machine learning, whereby each logic node an...
BioSystems, 2021
Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act... more Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act creatively. We offer an understanding of the emergent qualities of biological sign processing in terms of generalization, association, and encryption. We use slime mold as a model of minimal cognition and compare it to deep-learning video game bots, which some claim have evolved beyond their merely quantitative algorithms. We find that these discrete Turing machine bots are not able to make productive, yet unanticipated, "errors"-necessary for biological learning-which, based on the physicality of signs, their relatively similar shapes, and relative physical positions spatially and temporally, lead to emergent effects and make learning and evolution possible. In organisms, stochastic resonance at the local level can be leveraged for self-organization at the global level. We contrast all this to the symbolic processing of today's machine learning, whereby each logic node and memory state is discrete. Computer codes are produced by external operators, whereas biological symbols are evolved through an internal encryption process.
Principles of minimal cognition in smart slime molds and social bacteria
Pensamiento
The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars organisms ... more The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars organisms competence as the foundation of a cognitive principle that goes beyond minimum metabolic processes. I study the recognition of the environment in case of slime mold and bacteria as significant learning processes in differentiating between hostile environment or optimal and physical transformations of each agency on the basis of received signals in both the membrane and within the agencies. Sensorimotor coordination mechanisms of metabolic adaptation expanded shapes. Some of these coordination mechanisms are linked to the perception with the environment through pulses, as temporal processing of signals.
Biosemiotics is a discipline that emerged in the 1960s from studying communication and transfer o... more Biosemiotics is a discipline that emerged in the 1960s from studying communication and transfer of signs and signals between animals (zoosemiotic) by the semiologist Thomas Sebeok. Its origin can be placed a hundred years ago in the works of the biologist and philosopher Jakob von Uexküll, who develop a "theory of meaning" (Bedeutungslehre) to describe (with the minimal possible anthropocentricity) how animals perceive their environ-ment and inner world. It is review here the conditions of possibility for cognitive processes in organisms without a nervous system, where some events lead us to propose ways of learning and behavior influenced not only by basic tropisms. We study the biosemiotic cognitive foundations within slime molds and bacteria, in order to establish a possible phenomenological biology, based on the measurement of minimal perception thresholds. Después de los estudios efectuados en los múltiples campos de la biología evolutiva y del desarrollo, en torno a ...
Corrigendum to "Slime mould: The fundamental mechanisms of biological cognition" [BioSystems 165 (2018) 57-70]
Bio Systems, Apr 24, 2018
Added in case of Oscar Castro: “The research leading to the results of Professor Oscar Castro has... more Added in case of Oscar Castro: “The research leading to the results of Professor Oscar Castro has received funding from the European Regional Development Fund (IUT 2-44, Semiotic modeling of self-description mechanisms: theory and applications) and the Estonian Research Council (MOBJD213, Mobilitas Pluss Postdoctoral Researcher Grant)”
And corrigendum errata of two references.
BioSystems, 2018
The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing device... more The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing unconventional computing devices for in which the slime mould played a role of a sensing, actuating, and computing device. These devices treated the slime mould rather as an active living substrate yet the slime mould is a selfconsistent living creature which evolved for millions of years and occupied most part of the world, but in any case, that living entity did not own true cognition, just automated biochemical mechanisms. To \rehabilitate" the slime mould from the rank of a purely living electronics element to a \creature of thoughts" we are analyzing the cognitive potential of P. polycephalum. We base our theory of minimal cognition of the slime mould on a bottom-up approach, from the biological and biophysical nature of the slime mould and its regulatory systems using frameworks suh as Lyons biogenic cognition, Muller, di Primio-Lengeler's modi able pathways, Bateson's "patterns that
connect" framework, Maturana's autopoetic network, or proto-consciousness and Morgans Canon.
Keywords: consciousness, cognition, slime mould
RESUMEN: La Geometría llamada «Sagrada» es una metáfora de la Ordenación del Universo, la huella ... more RESUMEN: La Geometría llamada «Sagrada» es una metáfora de la Ordenación del Universo, la huella digital de la Creación. Este es un estudio interdisciplinar donde se ofrece información sobre diversas materias que van desde teoría de la estética, historia del arte, hasta la mecánica cuántica, pasando por la simbólica, la antropología de las religiones, la microbiología y la cosmología. El interés de este estudio es la visión heurística y transdisciplinar que se proyecta sobre un conocimiento perenne y holístico del sentido de la geometría como una semiótica de lo sagrado en la vida. Comenzamos nuestro camino en los albores de la humanidad, en la que la geometría estaba vinculada con la posibilidad de comunicación. Sobre todo de forma que su semiótica no fuese únicamente fuente de gestión social y económica. Sobre todo hay una fuerte motivación de comunicación con lo tremendo, lo magnífico, lo inefable y lo sagrado (Mircea Eliade), o «lo santo» (Rudolf Otto). Veremos cómo dicha vinculación semiótico-simbólica adquiere cada vez mayor complejidad, aunque su grado de abstracción ya es sutil desde el neolítico. Lo complejo viene en la aplicación de la matemática geométrica a la arquitectura (desde los megalitos hasta los templos y pirámides, pasando por los zigurats) y sus operaciones mágicas, teúrgicas y místicas. Nos concentraremos en ver algunas características de las construcciones hasta llegar a Pitágoras de Samos en cuya escuela de geometría se vive una edad de oro, en el sentido pleromático del conocimiento sapiencial de las matemáticas: la armonía del número y del ritmo.
ABSTRACT: The so-called «Holy Geometry» is a metaphor about the universe's Order, the digital sign of Creation. This article is an interdisciplinary study that offers information about diverse themes ranging from aesthetics theory and history of art, to quantum mechanics, through symbolism, anthropology of religions, microbiology, and cosmology. The interest of this study is the heuristic and trans-disciplinary vision projected to a perennial and holistic knowledge concerning the meaning of geometry as a semiotics of the sacred in life. We begin our journey from the dawn of humanity, when geometry was linked with the possibility of communication in such a way that its semiotics was not the sole source of social and economic management. Above all, there was a strong motivation to communicate with the tremendous, the magnificent, the ineffable, and the sacred (Mircea Eliade), or «the holy» (Rudolf Otto). We will see how said semiotic-symbolic link acquires greater complexity, although its degree of abstraction was already subtle beginning from the neolithic period. The complexity came from the application of mathematical geometry to architecture (starting from megalithic monuments, temples, pyramids, andziggurats) and its magical, mystical, and theurgic operations. We will concentrate on some characte-ristics of the constructions until we reach Pythagoras of Samos, in whose school of geometry was livedthe Golden Age in the pleromatic sense of the sapiential knowledge of mathematics: the harmony ofnumber and rhyme.
KEY WORDS: Geometry, arithmosophy, esoteric, archetype, hierarchy, number, rhythm, Pythagoras,Thales, Schwaller de Lubicz, nous, soul (anima), proportion, analogy
PENSAMIENTO, vol. 63 (2007), núm. 238, pp. 743-775
A través de la palabra conciencia, tanto la ciencia como la filosofía han querido explicar un fen... more A través de la palabra conciencia, tanto la ciencia como la filosofía han querido explicar un fenómeno que completa el sentido de nuestra experiencia vital. Resulta intrigante que su implicación en la manifestación de nuestra naturaleza cognoscitiva sea evidente y crucial. La inteligencia, la intuición, el conocimiento, las emociones, la capacidad de razonar, la percepción entre otras propiedades integradas en la psicobiología de nuestra constitución vital nos acompañan ontogénica y filogénicamente. Pero nos es de momento difícil llegar a un consenso explicativo de a qué llamamos consciencia. Tan complejo, que la atribución de la consciencia únicamente en el ser humano ha quedado muy reducida tanto en los campos disciplinares como en su comprensión profunda. El campo de estudio necesita de una ampliación interdisciplinaria como de una profundización superior en cada disciplina científica. Sería como si la etología pudiese llegar a niveles de biología celular, incluso molecular y, así crear una etología comparativa. Nuestro estudio de la consciencia se amplía a todo ser vivo si determinásemos aspectos muy concretos de lo que es “percibir el medio circundante”, el “umwelt” de Jacob von Uexküll.
En este artículo me centro en los rasgos biosemióticos neurales que pueden conducirnos a señales o signos que infieren conciencia o características que comprendan transducción de información y su posterior respuesta consecuente. Para ello daremos un primer repaso por lo que quiere definir actualmente la biosemiótica, en lo referente a los signos significativos que provocan información a las máquinas celulares, para pasar a trascender el sentido de máquina celular cuando existen signos de percepción tanto de su autoorganización y como de su entorno. Dichos aspectos toman sentido al estudiar los fenómenos que permiten la condición de posibilidad de una emergencia de la conciencia. Para ello nos centraremos en el estudio biofísico del fenómeno de coherencia estudiados por Hameroff y Penrose a través de los microtúbulos por un lado, y por el estudio de los biofotones del profesor Fritz Albert Popp aplicados a los procesos sinápticos del cerebro.
En estos tiempos en que el espíritu científico describe y delimita con definiciones técnicas muy ... more En estos tiempos en que el espíritu científico describe y delimita con definiciones técnicas muy concretas las explicaciones científicas, cuando se trata de explicar temas fronterizos existen dificultades semánticas y no se repara en mixtificaciones. Aparece una nueva conexión interdisciplinar entre las ciencias de la mente y las ciencias del espíritu, abordándose el estudio de los fenómenos místicos como cuestión fundamental para plantear el problema de la existencia de Dios. Las respuestas de los neurobiólogos se centran en ofrecer explicaciones “estímulo-respuesta”, pero no comprenden por qué ocurre por autoinducción. Tampoco hay explicación de la experiencia personal, cuando en un proceso místico el individuo tiene diferentes manifestaciones de su individualidad: el ego, la mismidad, el yo, la ipseidad, etc. No son lo mismo y deben exponerse en una analítica comparativa. Lo que se pretende aquí es ofrecer un programa transdisciplinar de estudio de la experiencia personal, en cuanto es fundamento para el estudio de lo numinoso –según el término de Rudolf Otto–, o de aquello que siempre ha fundamentado la experiencia mística, desde que el hombre es homo religiosus. Expondré dos de los puntos cruciales de un programa transdiciplinar. A) Primero el estudio de semántica comparativa de los diferentes conceptos del yo, alma, espíritu y conciencia desde las principales fuentes tradicionales. Viendo así tanto las similitudes como las diferencias, ontológicas y fenomenológicas. B) Segundo, expongo un breve repaso de la reciente historia de la neuroteología. Veremos los modelos explicativos de los diversos programas de estudio neurobiológico de los fenómenos místicos. Todo esto para concluir con una propuesta nueva, tanto epistémica como hermenéutica, de la pregunta por la experiencia personal de lo numinoso, planteada en un marco científico transdiciplinar.
Palabras clave: Ipseidad, numinoso, Purusha, theosis, Adam Kadmon, ayin, sunyata, Al-Insân Al-Kâmil, Wahdat Al Wujûd, cortex prefrontal ventromedial, monoamino oxidasa, area de asociación y de orientación, lo íntimo, enacción, oikeiosis, anagogía, neuroteología.
Nowadays, science restricts the contents of all scientific explanations with very specific and te... more Nowadays, science restricts the contents of all scientific explanations with very specific and technical definitions. This is specially the case in its attempt to define borderline issues. At the present moment, there is a growing interdisciplinary link between the so-called “sciences of the mind” and the “sciences of the spirit”. This growing connection is specially an issue with mystical phenomena (for instance, when one regards a key issue, such as the existence of God). Neurobiology usually considers explanations on the basis of the relation “stimulus-response”, but they are not knowledgeable about what happens for instance, in self-induction. When explaining a mystical experience, it is difficult to define the exact differences of an individual manifesting itself and one needs to use terms such as “ego”, “I”, “self”, “selfness”, “ipseity”, etc. They are not the same thing. These concepts must therefore be analysed in a comparative way.
My intention is to render a transdisciplinary programme for the study of the first person (I) as a foundation for the study of the “numinous” (the term invented by Rudolf Otto) or the base of all mystical experiences of the homo religious.
Two of the basic aspects of the transdisciplinary programme will be expounded:
a) A study of comparative semantics of all the historical conceptions of the “I”, present in all traditions from an ontological and a phenomenological point of view
b) A brief review of the recent history of “neurotheology”. We will analyse the explanatory models present in the neurobiological studies of the mystical phenomena.
My intention is to render a new epistemological and hermeneutical view of the question about the “I” experience of the numinous as a transdisciplinary scientific model.
Key words: Selfhood, Numinous, Purusha, Theosis, Adam Kadmon, ayin, sunyata, Al-Insân Al-Kâmil, Wahdat Al Wujûd, ventromedial prefrontal cortex, monoamine oxidase, association and orientation areas, the private, enaction, oikeiosis, anagogy, neurotheology.
ABSTRACT: The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars ... more ABSTRACT: The perception of the environment as well as sensorimotor coordination of unicellulars organisms competence as the foundation of a cognitive principle that goes beyond minimum metabolic processes. I study the recognition of the environment in case of slime mold and bacteria as significant learning processes in differentiating between hostile environment or optimal and physical transformations
of each agency on the basis of received signals in both the membrane and within the agencies.
Sensorimotor coordination mechanisms of metabolic adaptation expanded shapes. Some of these coordination mechanisms are linked to the perception with the environment through pulses, as temporal processing of signals.
KEY WORDS: Umwelt, subjectual, enaction, haptic perception, Weber-Fechner Law, bio-fenomenology.
RESUMEN: La percepción del entorno, así como la coordinación sensomotora de los organismos unicelulares competen como fundamentos de un principio cognitivo mínimo que va más allá de los procesos metabólicos. Trato de estudiar el reconocimiento del entorno en el caso de los mixomicetos y de las bacterias como los procesos significativos de aprendizaje en la diferenciación entre entorno
hostil u óptimo, y en las trasformaciones físicas de cada organismo en función de las señales recibidas tanto en la membrana como en el interior de los organismos. Los mecanismos de coordinación sensomotora expanden formas de adaptación metabólica. Algunos de estos mecanismos de coordinación están ligados a la percepción con el entorno a través de pulsos, según el procesamiento temporal de
las señales.
PALABRAS CLAVE: Umwelt, subjectual, enacción, percepción háptica, Ley de Weber-Fechner, bio-fenomenología.
Presentation of PhD. Thesis Dissertation
Philosophy of Cognitive Biology. Biosemiotic approach to cognition in organisms without nervous s... more Philosophy of Cognitive Biology. Biosemiotic approach to cognition in organisms without nervous system: The case of myxomycetes (In Spanish)
Abstract
The question of cognition in organisms without nervous system is the main objective of my research.
In fact, the question of cognition itself is an insoluble question. We have dared to question the question to the primitive organisms lacking nervous system. Humberto Maturana was that in 1970, in his book "Biology of Cognition", on page 13 specifically says: "Living systems are cognitive systems and the process of living is a process of cognition. This applies to all agencies, whether or not the nervous system. "
It is that cognitive processes in organisms without nervous system are plausible. Furthermore, Maturana says that while interactions are physical-chemical nature, their cognitive process is out of the domain, rather holds a significant relationship to the autopoietic process. This relationship is primarily emergency a knowing observer who study the phenomenon.
My hypothesis is based on cognitive processes can be identified in organisms without nervous system. No wonder by cognition itself, but by the processes that empower, allowing self-holding and is enriched in a "biogenic" as it is called Pamela Lyon in these organisms lacking brain.
I focused on the slime, specifically in the plasmodium Physarum polycephalum, for their exceptional character is a giant der celled organism, but multinucleate, with some exceptional capabilities still further. But his partner is present pseudoplasmodial, multicellular, no less outstanding, Dictyostelium discoideum. I refer also inevitably of the best known prokaryotes such as Escherichia coli.
I developed my work dividing into two fundamental aspects of the study:
The first part goes to the agencies epistemology. Namely begin from the theory of knowledge and scientific disciplines. Start with the basics of biosemiotics as reference frame transdisciplinary research, to continue the phenomenology of cognition in biology.
Then we deep, from systems biology, in the descending branch of the subsystems, containing concrete examples of agencies and their internal components, primarily the cytoplasm. Thus we intend to focus the plausibility of a speech on the "proto-cognition" in these subsystems (proto-cellular agents and intracellular stability and phenomena, both structural and homeodynamics).
From this stadium we had the phenomenon of biocommunication to discuss about mechanotransduction signals as a fundamental phase for the "decision-making" and its ability to discriminate to make sense of what happens endogenously that it happen exogenously.
From here we move on to study cognitive biology, from the perspective of phenomenology. This entails an historical approach that allows us to see the conceptualizations in theoretical and experimental biology of the first confrontations on the conception of cognition – understood in the early twentieth century as "psychology" –of protozoa and how his speech, as Uexküll that has not lost force (saving the distances of these scientists diachronic speeches, sons of his age, deserve considerable attention). Then we went to the fundamentals of cognition non-representationist to put the speech in the proper fit to the reality of organisms. And finally we speak of cognitive biology and principles of minimal cognition that structure the state of affairs on its plausibility in organisms without nervous system, and, in fact, that is the thesis in question.
The second part goes from organisms to epistemology from its methodological development research. So we've prioritized to briefly know what a slime mold and more specifically the plasmodium Physarum polycephalum, morphological and physiological fundamentals that make them exceptional organizations.
Then we started with a brief history of the slime from the history of biology, mycology, until now, part of the protistology.
From this point the development of research is consistent with the question about the condition of possibility of cognition, offering interesting and exceptional developments that allow at least deeply questioning by a more categorical formulation of the phenomenon of agency under cognition as indisputable part of it.
Finally it exposed – as a synthesis of the thesis – tables of principles of minimal cognition, identified by the authors, to relate the processes acquired by Physarum polycephalum described in this research. It has focused - in line with its authors - the description "biogenic", although we accept a hybrid response principles of minimal cognition with AI as interactions with robotic or "memristors" generating a nervous mimetic of great importance to the study of adaptive behavior.
The question ultimately cannot be resolved; It also is intended. Rather the goal is the correct fit within the relevant disciplines, and provides guidance, coherent and constructive phenomenon of cognition, which is not tautological to the phenomenon of life, but contains both natural and artificial. Or as Aristotle tells us,
"Being in a subject means that which occurs in one thing / subject specific(πρᾶγμα) without being separable part (μέρος) own, cannot exist outside (χωρίς) of what they are" (Categories II, 1st 24- 25).
Keywords: Cognition, biosemiotics, transdisciplinarity, Physarum Polycephalum, cognitive minimum principles, molecular semantics, tensegrity, buffer, biogenic, autopoiesis, biohermeneutics, systems biology, regulation, agency, adaptive behavior, autopoiética enactividad, teleonomic lace, qualitative organicism, proto -qualia.
Lacková, L., Rodriguez, C. J., Kull, K. (2020). Gatherings in Biosemiotics XX, 2020
Allorecognition is a faculty of specific cells and organisms through which they can recognize the... more Allorecognition is a faculty of specific cells and organisms through which they can recognize the difference between self and non-self, self and environment and between its own tissues and those from others. Allorecognition appears in the recognition of antigens expressed on the surface of cells of non/self origin. It is known as kin recognition (self/non-self) and kin selection (self/environment). A specific organism capable of making a distinction between itself and non-self of different strains, as well as their environment is the slime mold. Allorecognition works in immunogenic cells like T and B cells, and in other histoimmunological cells.
We will aim to show the biosemiotic inference of recognition in unicellular organisms—and the explanation of multicellularity by aggregation—through different mechanisms that allow allorecognition. The adaptive immune memory of cells is crucial for our explanation. It is also important to study its decline and consequences thereof, as it happens with microglia in the brain, for instance.
Studying these models is essential in looking for ways to deal with recognition failure. A biosemiotic understanding of this faculty, both at a simple and a more developed stages, will have profound consequences in the study of code duality at the level of genetic foundations and the phylogenetic pattern. However, there are also ontogenetic patterns as generators of epigenetic landscapes that support the interpretative capacity of a sense-making and decision-making process.
We see here an opportunity to interact with both code and interpretation biosemiotics. Both of these perspectives can be complementary in understanding meaning information. With this, we can bring a new semiotic perspective on how a cellular organism fuses, becomes an aggregated organism, phagocytosis, and even the cycle of life itself. We hope to describe the pathways of the recognition system of cellular organisms.
Finally, this biosemiotic focus is expected to amplify the description of minimal cognition with semiotic details of such recognition pathways.
17th Annual Conference of the European Association for the Study of Religions (EASR). Tartu, June 25 to June 29, 2019, 2019
The sacred as numinous experience is related to neurophenomenology. When the neuroscientists talk... more The sacred as numinous experience is related to neurophenomenology. When the neuroscientists talk about what is culture, every time they are talking that is a subproduct of the brain. Because the aim of the brain is to make resolutions in order to survive. Is it possible the revelation as a signal of survival, to immortal way? Is it possible that the sacred is – as Giorgio Prodi claims – a "bio-logical", and not a cognitive or emotional, problem (that is, theology cannot exist without biology)? I propose a prolegomenon of a Semiosphere of the Sacred which nucleus is out of the Semiosphere of the Culture, about the semiotics of religion that lives inside, even though it is wired. I call it “‘Hierosemiotics’ the (bio)semiotic analysis of the experience of the numinous or sacred, cross (pierce) and across the particular religion or cultures. For a robust methodological model, I present two pathways. On the one hand, I develop the “hermetic hermeneutics”, through the Algis Uždavinys’ “anagogic way”. So, for reach this level, I need to analyse the Umberto Eco’s “hermetic drift” to the limits of interpretation, and I want to propose the one way to break this “drift” and take a leap forward. By another way, I propose the work of Raimon Panikkar to describe the way of the Interreligious and Intercultural dialogue to make the way real. The bridge between both pathways is the Pannikar’s “diatopical hermeneutic” to go to the alterity for understanding the “revelator” and his signs of the sacred experience. All this allows an anagogical experience of the sacred as a humankind heritage. The Egyptian "anthropo-logic" and "theo-logic" description forge the bio-semiotic meaning of the Sacred, and their Hieroglyphics our Hermetic way of the “Hierosphere”.
TARTU SUMMER SCHOOL OF SEMIOTICS 2019 17 20 August Semiotic dimensions of spaces & literacies, 2019
The concept of a sacred place in spatial language is a phenomenon that transcends the possibiliti... more The concept of a sacred place in spatial language is a phenomenon that transcends the
possibilities of univocal phenomenological description. Every individual lives in his own
perception of space and time based on at first instinctive and solipsistic encounter of
space, to then fill it with different semiotic levels of it.
This multilevel and intersystemic development of perception offers a discursive
wealth where semiospheres coexist in vivid interactions. Sometimes they are like a
palimpsest experience; others are a linguistic emptiness that generates new semiotic
meanings.
I would like to focus my speech on the concept of Khôra as an impersonal space
of power where different forms of expressing what Rudolf Otto called the numen are
configured. For this, I will use the concepts presented by Julian Kristeva, Jaques Derrida
and Nader El-Bizri to express a bio-semiotic synthesis in the phenomenological
experience of historical urban landscapes. Finally, I want to cross the sacred landscape
through Alexei Lidov’s concept of “Hierotopy” to invigorate an experience, together
with Khôra, where our perception of the landscape increases its meaning
iconographically, semiotically and symbolically.
Keywords: Khôra, numen, semiosphere, palimpsest, Genius Loci, hierotopy
The 11th conference of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies: “Anticipation and change”. University of Stavanger. June 13t h 15th 2019, 2019
The purpose is to show how simple organisms live “here and now”, as well as their ability to anti... more The purpose is to show how simple organisms live “here and now”, as well as their ability to anticipate future events. But how study the time lived by the minimal cells? The activity of singles and primitive cells like plasmodium is given by circadian cycles, as in any animal and plant, but in its domain. One of the cycles is that of hunger. Depending on the weight, the body's hunger cycle increases or decreases. It may alter the conditions of temperature, humidity, pH and light a little. The cycle of greater behavioral follow-up is the streaming of the plasmodium. Each contraction of the actin-myosin generates a directional rocking of the plasmodium to food sources or environments suitable for your life. So, the most common "time-lapse" of study in Physarum polycephalum is said streaming.
Time has been studied in relation to anticipatory movements. At the University of Hokkaido, they examined the rhythmicity of cellular behaviors and the ability of cells to adapt to periodic environmental changes by exposing Myxomycete to periodic changes in environmental conditions and observing their behavioral responses. In this way they showed that an amoeboid organism can anticipate the synchronization of periodic events. Organisms move quickly under favorable conditions but stop moving when transferred to less favorable conditions. They are exposed to low temperature conditions, which repeatedly present consecutive pulses at constant intervals, decreased their speed of locomotion in response to each episode. When subsequently subjected to favorable conditions, they spontaneously reduced their speed of locomotion at the point of time when the next unfavorable episode would have occurred. This implicit anticipation of imminent environmental change. After this behavior had been evoked several times, the locomotion returned to normal.
Moreover, in the end, we will see how an indecision provokes a different state of the multinuclear organism that makes us see the ability to make decisions is a simultaneity factor of multiple "times".
References:
Saigusa, T., Tero, A., Nakagaki, T., Kuramoto, Y. (2008) Amoebae Anticipate Periodic Events. Physical Review Letters, Vol. 100, Nº 1, 018101.
Takagi, S., Nishiura, Y., Nakagaki, T., Ueda, T., Ueda, K-I. (2006) Indecisive Behavior of Amoeba crossing an Environmental Barrier. In: Kousuke, Y. et al (Ed.) (2007) Topological Aspects of Critical systems and Networks. World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. Singapore.
Keywords: Physarum, streaming, indecision, memory, anticipation.
Bionote: Oscar Castro Garcia (Barcelona, 1967) (MAS Philosophy with honours; PhD Summa cum laude by the Autonomous University of Barcelona) is the first philosopher that research the Uexkull’s work in a Spanish University since Ortega y Gasset times. He is a postdoc researcher fellow in Department of Semiotics in the University of Tartu. The research includes minimal cognition in non-neural organisms in experimental biosemiotics and his unconventional computing with slime molds as a biological agency.
19th Annual Gatherings in Biosemiotics JULY 1 5, 2019 MOSCOW FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY MSU, 2019
Abstract Currently, in experimental biology, we have shown that certain activities of organisms w... more Abstract
Currently, in experimental biology, we have shown that certain activities of organisms without a nervous system resemble those of organisms with a nervous system. The recognition of spaces travelled, the detection of change, the decision making, or the memory of stimuli, are some of the examples of adaptive behavior that requires continuous information processing. Biosemiotics takes time developing key concepts in the dynamics of activities at the cellular level. It has classified not only the semiotic physiology from an aspect of the code, but it has also reached to interpret the way of interpreting the "sentience" of the organism. For that reason, it is necessary to understand that these organisms live, both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. For this, it is necessary to refine and redefine the semiotic concepts involved in the minimum cognitive processes. So, we could begin to understand the link between minimal semiotics and minimal cognition. The proto-cognitive physiology underlying the cognitive characteristics of these organisms will also be discussed. It is very important to understand that there can be no cognitive processes and stages if they are not based on an architecture that allows it, what we call "proto-cognitive foundations". Just as the proto-cognitive processes are interrelated with the proto-semiotic developments that generate a molecular semantics that is indispensable for the normative functioning of the agent. The proto-cognitive development of the cell resides in the structural scaffolds of the cellular morphology; as well as all the cytoplasm and its semiotics - functional and designer - of the spatial arrangement, of the variation of the homeostatic stability, and the cellular coherence. The role they have, both the cell morphology and the “cytosemotic” processes influence - both directly and indirectly - the cognitive processing of adaptation with modification acquired by both unicellular and "denervated" pluricellular organisms. I will focus on examples of the adaptive behavior of certain bacteria such as slime molds as fundamental examples of the minimum cognitive principles in semiotic agents.
Keywords:
Allorecognition phenomena, Cognition distributed, Kin-recognition (Kin-discrimination), cytosemiotics, proto-cognition, proto-semiosis, eusemiosis, endosemiotics, Physarum, Dictyostelium, Prokaryotes.
18 th Annual Biosemiotics Gathering Berkeley, California, June 17 20 2018, 2018
My interest in this meeting is to propose some transdisciplinary methods that allow the biosemiot... more My interest in this meeting is to propose some transdisciplinary methods that allow the biosemiotics to develop a fundamental role in the multiversality of scientific and human knowledge. Therefore, I would like to begin to contemplate this possibility through the minimal processes of cognition in living organisms.
We are going to contemplate Deacon's concept of sentience in the minimum terrain of cognition in organisms without a nervous system. I have collected the minimum cognitive principles developed in prokaryotes, and I have made an extended and compared version for one of the most primitive eukaryotes that exist: the myxomycetes, popularly known as slime molds. These protists have a bridge-like development between multinucleate unicellular beings (Physarum polycephalum) and uninucleate pluricellular organisms (Dictyostelium discoideum). Their adaptive behaviours have turned out to be the most impressive that has been discovered in these eighteen years of studies. Toshiyuki Nakagaki described in Nature that these organisms had a primitive intelligence to find the minimum path of a labyrinth, or that they could replace railway engineers to generate the route map of commuter railways in Tokyo. From that moment until today, various investigations have been made on such behavior, the capacity of short-term and spatial memory or even decision-making to decide whether to go to a hostile environment where a rich egg awaits or a favourable environment where poor quality oat flakes expect you. My work tries to link the sentience of these organisms with the perception of both their Umwelt and their Innenwelt to understand what Nakagaki refers to with the term primitive intelligence, and if this can be combined studies on the perception that fit the requirements Intelligence theorists without representation of Rodney A. Brooks applied to the AI. In this way, we can offer a point of union between cognitive enactivity and its sentience in non-brain organisms. I will expose future studies on the thresholds of perception - both minimum and maximum. Finally, I will end up leaving open a dialogue about whether this cognition allows going safely to more committed terms such as "proto-qualia" and "proto-consciousness" among others based on a robust experimental verification and a vigorous biohermeneutics.
Keywords: Sentience, cognition, supervenience, subvenience, proprioception, autopoietic enactivism, biohermeneutics, Physarum, Dictyostelium.
I would like to deal with the following question: What are individual neurons doing? Are they sim... more I would like to deal with the following question: What are individual neurons doing? Are they simply acting as computational units? Neurons are cells, and cells are elaborate structures. In fact, they are so elaborate that even if we only had one cell, we would still be able to do very complex things. For instance, a paramecium (a unicellular being) can swim towards its food, flee from danger, avoid obstacles, and apparently, learn from experience. All these actions seem to suggest the presence of a nervous system, but a paramecium does not possess a nervous system. There are no neurons in a paramecium; there is only a single cell. How, then, is it able to do all these things? Guenter Albrecht-Buehler's works established that cells have a certain type of "vision" because of their centrioles, and that these centrioles have a data-integration system. Centrioles are made of microtubules. Albrecht-Buehler also said that microtubules act as if they were nerves(*). These are not metaphorical analogies, but are biosemiotic performances that allow clarificatory comparison. Take the example of cortical neurons. If they display this kind of activity performances, then, despite the lack of centrioles for cellular mitosis, they are still able to perform the microtubular activity of transporting neuropeptides and essential neurotransmitters that are indispensable for interactivity to take place. I also would like to deal with how the mesh of tubulins in a microtubule permits the coherent pumping of long-range phonons. Fröhlich proposed a transition phase outside the heat balance, a state in many ways similar to or resembling that of a laser beam(*). Each macro-molecule emits several rapidly vibrating charges. To begin with, these vibrations are incoherent and disordered both in phase and frequency. In Fröhlich's model, the vibration spectrum depends on the flow of energy supplied to the system (chemical GTP energy or electromagnetic radiation energy). Fröhlich showed that electronic vibrations reach the same frequency by being far from equilibrium (between 10 11 and 10 12 Hz) via a dielectric behaviour, which Stuart Hameroff and J.A. Tuszynsky discovered in the activities of microtubules(*). This same frequency is therefore reached when the critical flow in the supply of energy is exceeded. What, then, are the conditions that allow long-range quantum phenomena, initially in a state of mesoscopic biological components, to emerge or evolve towards the processes of a classical field? Quantum decoherence plays a fundamental role in the transition from a quantum to a classical field. An observer's intervention is still crucial for the collapse of the wave function, since the intervention allows the concrete realization of any one of the multiple states of the wave-particle's moment and energy.
Presentation od DEA (MPh.) Thesis Dissertation
The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing un-conventional computing devic... more The slime mould Physarum polycephalum has been used in developing un-conventional computing devices for in which the slime mould played a role of a sensing, actuating, and computing device. These devices treated the slime mould rather as an active living substrate yet the slime mould is a self-consistent living creature which evolved for millions of years and occupied most part of the world, but in any case, that living entity did not own true cognition, just automated biochemical mechanisms. To " rehabilitate " the slime mould from the rank of a purely living electronics element to a " creature of thoughts " we are analyzing the cognitive potential of P. polycephalum. We base our theory of minimal cognition of the slime mould on a bottom-up approach, from the biological and biophysical nature of the slime mould and its regulatory systems using frameworks suh as Lyons biogenic cognition, Muller, di Primio-Lengeler´s modifiable pathways, Bateson's " patterns that connect " framework, Maturanas autopoetic network, or proto-consciousness and Morgans Canon.