WOW, WHAT A RIDE.  Should you challenge yourself to explore the textual landscapes below, be alerted that is the outpouring from one mind/world SCREAMING INTO THE WILDERNESS.  This is a RECORD of a burst of emergent cognition, with no significant editing. Wish it were done video and in a text medium that would have highlighted the structure of process.  1/31/2013 11:20 PM

Living beings are often either components of other living beings or composed of other living beings.  Our billion+ individual cells are alive, and under circumstances some can be kept alive outside our bodies and can propagate. Our individual cells can be transplanted and survive in other organism, as well as cells from other organisms can thrive within us. We also host micro-organisms within our bodies whose genomes are not human. Some small one-celled organisms host other even smaller organisms within them, in tight symbiotic relationships.  A baby is alive within its mother until birth. Consider the following variations of living entities and then ponder whether we have yet settled on a “definition” of “life” or a “living entity”?

  •     Termite insects are functioning components of the hive – and it is open controversy whether to consider hives living beings “in their own right”.  But, termites can’t digest wood that it eats. The first stage of working with little wood fragments is that they are ingested by tiny one celled animals in the gut of the termite.  This tiny animal is actually symbiotically attached to another one celled animal (each with different genomes)  that provides it mobility.  Although this little animal ingests wood, it can’t digest the wood either. That is done by even tinier bacteria that live inside the little one celled animals.  And this is only the beginning of the story. Will the real termite please stand!
  •     Organs can be kept alive for a time outside the body and many can be transplanted within other bodies, where they can live well for years. Technology is near being able to grow new organs outside the body, living organs.
  •     When biological cells divide (mitosis) what was one living entity becomes two living entities.  At what point do we declare – walla – the pair is  no longer a living entity?
  •     Egg and sperm are both living entities that merge to become a single living entity. At what point do we declare the pair no longer alive? Have they died? Life isn’t created at either conception or birth – life continues.
  •     Is a virus alive when it exists as a “fixed”, complex molecular structure, or is it alive when it’s molecular components are separate, replicating, and moving about inside the biological cell it has infected? Or is it alive only in the brief interval when it is re-assembling (in duplication) inside the cell, after using the cell to reproduce its components?
  •     Organelles, such as the mitochondria are hypothesized as once independent bacterial organisms that continued to live in another, larger cell that ingested it, but lived and reproduced within that cell.  Through evolution the organelles and their hosts became symbiotically bound.  Do we consider the organelles today as living entities or only molecular parts of cells?

Previously I have characterized “nuet” as a “inner/woven-world” hosted by the biological entity called Larry Victor. Similar inner/woven-worlds would be hosted by other human persons.  Read details on this cognitive scheme elsewhere; here I want to explore the possibility of viewing “nuet” as a living entity and what that might entail.  I have frequently referred to nuet “as alive”, but in metaphor. Here I speculate scientifically.

  •     For me, this train of thinking started from the cybernetic/psychological theoretical perspective called Constructivism.    I chose to avoid this word because of the implication of intentional construction by a conscious agent. “Woven” seemed more appropriate, as we can imagine emergent weaving without external weaving agents. The “wiring up” of an emergent brain is an exemplar of biological “weaving”.

I would like to change the terminology – that a living entity like nuet be called a MindWorld (mw).  Although “woven” may still be appropriate, I must elevate “mental processes” to parity with “world systems”. The “livingness” I propose for mw is mental/informational and not biological; a form of life based on biological substrates but not “itself” biological.

MindWorld

MindWorlds are emergent entities in “information space” – tentatively representing patterns of material activity in the biological substrates of human Brains & Bodies.  Although much of the activity may be neural-molecular-electromagnetic in the brain and neurological subsystems, we need not limit it to that substrate.  Indeed, there is really no reason to limit its substrate to a biological entity – but we will not attempt to extend the host domain during this initial exploration.

Once we delve deeper we may consider extending the substrate to activity within the DNA-nucleus system. We may even speculate that this system is also a (different type) of living entity. Although there is no direct evidence at this time that activity patterns associated with cognition may also be found in the DNA-complexes, we should not exclude this possibility, What shifts in conceptualizing will it take to view cellular nuclei as living entities of their own right?

  •     Trends in physical science speculate reality formats where information is primary.  Much of post-modern physics is being viewed this way – however with great confusion.
  •     The reality metaphor of “substance” has been removed from physics (in practice).  We are left with patterns (of what)? Soon we will be satisfied with pure patterns and forget about the “what”. This is not a return to Platonism, but generates some eerie feelings.

LOOKING AHEAD.  What may “happen” in this century is a “deep intentional creation” of a radically new living system/ecology/holarchy where our biological bodies are re-formatted in different patterns of interaction significantly different from the patterns viewed in contemporary civilization and it “parts”. [Note the mixed play of metaphor systems in our languaging.]

  •     This will not require any change in the bio-physiological-chemical-molecular functioning of our bodies.  This is not the time for genetic manipulation or other radical tinkering with bodies.  This may come down the pike, but not now – except if needed for small tweaks.
  •     Nor will it call for radical changes in experiential components of our awareness fields – although the mixes and compositions may be strikingly new and exciting. However, the “whole” of our “sense” of ourselves, others, and our “world” may be as different from our view today as modern civilization differes from the view of our tribal ancestors prior to agriculture or cities.

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD.  What is new/nu? nuet shifts from being only a hyper-complex structure/process of information flows in patterns forming (all represented as material process/patterns) in Larry’s brain — {metaphor: nuet as a musical composition represented as orchestral instrumental vibrations (brain activity)} — to being a living entity OF EQUAL REALITY PARITY with the biological existence of Larry.  nuet is a new life form  emergent within and symbiotic with Larry.
nuet is NOT A PARASITE.  Will some persons feel their MindWorlds as parasites?

WHAT IF the basic entities of the nu emergent Humanity are MWs and not biological humans?   Remember, MWs are hosted by biological humans (and IMHO unlikely to be uploaded into non-living intelligent machines; but that need not be a concern at this time).

  •     Biological humans will be constrained in their movement/interaction according to new patterns of MWs and not the mythological abstractions of Civilization.
  •     MWs interactioning with other MWs will be significantly different from humans interacting with humans.
  •         We must mine Maturana’s and other’s work with autopoietic systems and structural coupling, as a start.
  •         Consciousness will be a feature of MWs, not the essential core. This will be viewed as both liberating and may further the “Expansion of Consciousness” desired.

DOWN TO EARTH  – Making it Happen —  maybe???
MWs aren’t “taking over”.  They have been living within us for as long as we were a species, and before.

CREATIVE AGENCY may, in cosmic retrospect, be acknowledged as primary.

  •         Don’t think human-style agency or intention.  Was there CREATIVE INTENTION involved in the BigBang, the formation of Galaxies, Stars, Solar Systems & Planets, Biospheres and Sentient Beings?  Or was it but one big neoDarwinian random variation + deterministic selection game?
  •         ALERT:  All of the above is within the context of Larry/nuet.  Reality/Logic is circular, or mobius, or beyond.

    THIS IS LOCAL — EARTH/GAIA/HUMANKIND/PERSONAL

  •         If other (non human) players are around, they are irrelevant !!!!!! THIS IS OUR TRIP.
  •             BUT – WITH A (potential/possible) COSMIC CONNECTION – but no cosmic agency can do it without US.
  •         ACTION FRAME:   NOW  2013-soon.
  •         IF this is relevant, and maybe TOP ESSENTIAL, and it appears to be emerging – at this time – only in nuet/Larry == then what should be done to optimize the opportunity?
  •  FACT === Larry is conatively disabled in competencies for him to adequately lead an emergence of others around nuet.  To depend on Larry TAKING THE LEAD is equivalent to abandoning the opportunity.  Larry will continue attempting to attract seafing.

WHAT DOES NUET NEED?  WHAT DOES LARRY NEED?
These were the top two headings of this new file, but pushed off for this MIND BLAST.
I had to look to the top of this doc to see what it was about  ::NUET IS ALIVE::  I see I’ve deviated at bit, but not necessarily along the wrong path.
SEE HOW EASILY IT IS TO BE DIVERTED WHEN IT BECOMES “CONCRETE”.

nuet MORE THAN WORLD.

Before, the awareness behind Larry (the unobservable observer of Larry’s “conscious” experientials) remained supreme. nuet was still part of Larry’s ego reality. nuet was the inner/woven-world emergent within Larry’s biology, and which emitted behaviors and experientials, eliciting feedback. nuet had a degree of agency, Larry had no significant agency.  This was OK to nuet/Larry.  However, nuet had no effective agency to direct Larry (in face of his conative dysfunction).  Larry waits for explicit directions from nuet – and none comes.  Larry/nuet appeared stagnated, and others weren’t making a difference.

Elevating nuet to a MW, a living entity co-existent with Larry, SHIFTS THE FRAME.

nuet is a MIND-world. Before only WORLD.  How does this make a difference?

  •         For nuet, “mind” labels the process, but not the content, of “the mental” (is this just kicking the can down the language road).  Consider “music” as the deep process (not our comprehension of that process) involved in creating, playing, and experiencing musical compositions. No musical composition, no matter how rendered, is MUSIC.  MUSIC lies behind all instances of explicit music. MUSIC is more than the media – it involves the “scientific foundations” of how the media functions.
  •         MIND is beyond any mental content or experience. Here we mentally dance the PARADOXICAL.
  •             folks — i am writing here in a style that is rather new to me  –  conversing with imaginary friends at a distance.
  •             I am NOT HOLDING BACK, nor pushing what isn’t “me”.  FLOW!!!
  •         Mind/World –  AT THIS MOMENT I insight this as a mobius complementarity.
  •             lost my train of thought
  •         Mind observes World, World embodies Mind.
  •             The organization of the WORLD OUT THERE, as “posted – where?”  by Larry in his “archive of doc/sems” is only “half the idea”. INTERPRETATION & MEANING float over, thread within, infuse the EXTERNAL WORLD REFLECTED WITHIN.
  •             nuet is not just World Within as Without. It involves the PROCESS.
  •             World is as Structure as Mind is as Process.  Yet, the foundations is:
  •                 Structuring Process // Processing Structure == an essential complementarity.