The Advancement of New Theology Using New Science: The Three Key Concepts of Thomas Torrance

The author begins with a selective outline of historical understandings of the concepts of space and time, in order to demonstrate their import for and engagement with theology. She then procedes to organize the three key concepts in Torrance\'s thought that are the most significant to the advancement of contemporary theology using insights from \"new science.\

A comparative survey of integrated learning systems

This paper presents the duction framework for unifying the three basic forms of inference - deduction, abduction, and induction - by specifying the possible relationships and influences among them in the context of integrated learning. Special assumptive forms of inference are defined that extend the use of these inference methods, and the properties of these forms are explored. A comparison to a related inference-based learning frame work is made. Finally several existing integrated learning programs are examined in the perspective of the duction framework

From Simple to Complex and Ultra-complex Systems:\ud A Paradigm Shift Towards Non-Abelian Systems Dynamics

Atoms, molecules, organisms distinguish layers of reality because of the causal links that govern their behavior, both horizontally (atom-atom, molecule-molecule, organism-organism) and vertically (atom-molecule-organism). This is the first intuition of the theory of levels. Even if the further development of the theory will require imposing a number of qualifications to this initial intuition, the idea of a series of entities organized on different levels of complexity will prove correct. Living systems as well as social systems and the human mind present features remarkably different from those characterizing non-living, simple physical and chemical systems. We propose that super-complexity requires at least four different categorical frameworks, provided by the theories of levels of reality, chronotopoids, (generalized) interactions, and anticipation

From Simple to Complex and Ultra-complex Systems:\ud A Paradigm Shift Towards Non-Abelian Systems Dynamics

Atoms, molecules, organisms distinguish layers of reality because of the causal links that govern their behavior, both horizontally (atom-atom, molecule-molecule, organism-organism) and vertically (atom-molecule-organism). This is the first intuition of the theory of levels. Even if the further development of the theory will require imposing a number of qualifications to this initial intuition, the idea of a series of entities organized on different levels of complexity will prove correct. Living systems as well as social systems and the human mind present features remarkably different from those characterizing non-living, simple physical and chemical systems. We propose that super-complexity requires at least four different categorical frameworks, provided by the theories of levels of reality, chronotopoids, (generalized) interactions, and anticipation

How do we think : Modeling Interactions of Perception and Memory

A model of artificial perception based on self-organizing data into hierarchical structures is generalized to abstract thinking. This approach is illustrated using a two-level perception model, which is justified theoretically and tested empirically. The model can be extended to an arbitrary number of levels, with abstract concepts being understood as patterns of stable relationships between data aggregates of high representation levels

Systems microscopy analysis of cell migration

Single cell migration is heterogeneous and a complicated process. It arises from a hugely complex network of multi-scale interactions between molecular and macromolecular entities. Though the full, spatiotemporally resolved molecular complexity of the cell migration system is currently inaccessible, two macromolecular entities, namely cell-matrix adhesion complexes (CMACs) and F-actin, provide a means to abstract this complexity to a level that is tractable with imaging approaches, while also enhancing the significance of information captured from the cell migration system. Based on this rationale, we combined quantitative imaging and acquisition of multi-scale quantitative data, describing simultaneously both cell behavior (migration) and organization (e.g. CMAC and F-actin status) on a per cell basis, thereby leveraging a natural cellular (spatial and temporal) heterogeneity. This was then further combined with multivariate statistics and mathematical modelling, resulting in an approach referred to as systems microscopy. Subsequently, we employed this approach to interrogate several biological aspects. In the first study, we used a systems microscopy approach, including use of the Granger causality concept, to map pairwise causal (directional) relationships between organizational and behavioral features of the cell migration system, advancing on the commonly used correlative (non-directional) relationships. This way, we were able to leveraging the natural cellular heterogeneity to better understand the cell migration system. We found that organizational features such as adhesion stability and adhesion F-actin content causally determined the cell migration speed. Contrary to previous findings, we observed that cell speed also acted upstream of organizational features, including cell shape and adhesion complex location. A comparison between unperturbed and modulated cells provided evidence that Granger causal interaction patterns are in fact plastic and context dependent rather than stable and generalizable. In the second study, we employed a systems microscopy approach to separate the regulatory associations underlying either cell migration or its membrane dynamics. We introduced a new measure of relative membrane dynamics, corrected membrane dynamics (CMD), which is independent of cell speed. We found that F-actin features (e.g. F-actin concentrations at CMACs and F-actin concentrations per cell) were strongly associated with membrane dynamics while cell migration was more strongly correlated with adhesion-complex features (e.g. variance in CMAC age and CMAC shape). Moreover, these correlative linkages were often non-linear and context-dependent, changing dramatically with spontaneous heterogeneity in cellular behavior. In the third study, cellular plasticity was studied, using the Nuclear-Golgi positioning as a model system addressing the coordination between cell migration and cellular asymmetry. We systematically analyzed these processes over a two-dimensional experimental array wherein intracellular tension and matrix ligand density were progressively co-varied. We found plastic responses of cellular behaviours, e.g. for the cell motion angle, cell polarity angle and the polarity and motion alignment. Moreover, polarity and motion alignment and cell motion angle dynamics displayed non-linear and non-monotonic relationships to cell speed and the correlative relationship between them were context-dependent. Some of these relationships were susceptible to decoupling with a reduction in tension or attachment strength. Moreover, we found that the forward polarity of the Golgi is an ordered cellular state, in contrast to backward polarity. More broadly, we found that in the majority of cases, motion and asymmetry were coordinated and that the different types of coordination coincide with specific cellular behaviors. In the fourth study, we employed the systems microscopy approach to demonstrate the existence of two divergent modalities of mesenchymal cell migration, spontaneously emerging in parallel under a uniform environmental condition. The discontinuous migration acquires faster and less persistent migration and is characterized by a dramatic cell rearretraction events that are temporally decoupled from protrusion. Quantification of cell-matrix adhesion, F-actin and cell morphological features in each mode revealed that the cell speed within each mode is controlled by the unique assemblage of organizational features, suggesting the differential mechanism of regulating cell speed within each mode. We also demonstrated that the cell adaptive response is mediated by an adaptive switching rather than a progressive adaptive stretching, rendering adaptive switching as a dominant mechanism. We also provided evidence of important molecular regulators involved in adaptive switching, involving the sub-cellular systems of actomyosin contractility and cell-ECM interactions in this regulation

The Inhuman Overhang: On Differential Heterogenesis and Multi-Scalar Modeling

As a philosophical paradigm, differential heterogenesis offers us a novel descriptive vantage with which to inscribe Deleuze’s virtuality within the terrain of “differential becoming,” conjugating “pure saliences” so as to parse economies, microhistories, insurgencies, and epistemological evolutionary processes that can be conceived of independently from their representational form. Unlike Gestalt theory’s oppositional constructions, the advantage of this aperture is that it posits a dynamic context to both media and its analysis, rendering them functionally tractable and set in relation to other objects, rather than as sedentary identities. Surveying the genealogy of differential heterogenesis with particular interest in the legacy of Lautman’s dialectic, I make the case for a reading of the Deleuzean virtual that departs from an event-oriented approach, galvanizing Sarti and Citti’s dynamic a priori vis-à-vis Deleuze’s philosophy of difference. Specifically, I posit differential heterogenesis as frame with which to examine our contemporaneous epistemic shift as it relates to multi-scalar computational modeling while paying particular attention to neuro-inferential modes of inductive learning and homologous cognitive architecture. Carving a bricolage between Mark Wilson’s work on the “greediness of scales” and Deleuze’s “scales of reality”, this project threads between static ecologies and active externalism vis-à-vis endocentric frames of reference and syntactical scaffolding