Information and symmetry: Adumbrating the abstract core of complex systems

Information and symmetry are essential theoretical concepts that underlie the scientific explanation of a variety of complex systems. In spite of clear-cut developments around both concepts, their intersection is really problematic, either in fields related to mathematics, physics, and chemistry, or even more in those pertaining to biology, neurosciences, and social sciences. The present Special Issue explores recent developments, both theoretical and applied, in most of these disciplines

The Sociotype of Dermatological Patients: Assessing the Social Burden of Skin Disease

Skin diseases can be the cause of a significant psychosocial burden. However, tools to screen for social interaction difficulties and diminished social networks that affect the wellbeing and mental health of the individual have not been sufficiently developed. This study is based on the sociotype approach, which has recently been proposed as a new theoretical construct implemented in the form of an ad hoc questionnaire that examines the social bonding structures and relational factors. A pilot study was conducted in Alcañiz Hospital (Spain), with a study population of 159 dermatology patients. The results showed that in both subjective estimates concerning family, friends, work, and acquaintances, and in quantitative aspects, such as social contacts, duration of conversations, and moments of laughter, there were significant differences between the sample regarding diagnostic severity, dermatological diseases, and gender. The sociotype questionnaire (SOCQ) is a useful tool to screen for social difficulties in dermatological patients

Natural intelligence and the ‘economy’ of social emotions: A connection with AI sentiment analysis

By approaching the concept of Natural Intelligence a new path may be open in a variety of theoretical and applied problems on social emotions. There is no doubt that intelligence emerges as a biological/informational phenomenon, although paradoxically a consistent elaboration of that concept has been missing. Regarding emotions, they have been keeping an unclear status, being often restricted to the anthropological or to ethological approaches closer to the behaviorist paradigm. Herein we propose a different track, centered in the life cycle advancement. The life cycle in its integrity becomes the nucleus of natural intelligence's informational processes, including the consistent expression of emotions along the maximization of fitness occasions. In human societies, the overall ‘economy’ of social emotions is manifest, showing up in the conspicuous interplay between bonding processes and different classes of social emotions. The essential link between natural intelligence, emotions, and the life cycle of individuals may harmonize with current progresses – and blind spots – of artificial intelligence fields such as ‘sentiment analysis.

Fundamental, Quantitative Traits of the “Sociotype”

In whatever domain of life, from cells to organisms to societies, communicative exchanges underlie the formation and maintenance, and decay, of the emerging collective structures. It can be clearly seen in the human social world. The different classes of social bonds in a complex society revolve around, and are intimately related with, the communicative relationships that every individual entertains—essentially via face-to-face conversation. In the present work we have investigated the fundamental metrics of both social bonds and communicative exchanges along the development of the “sociotype” construct. It is a new approach developed by the authors within the genotype-phenotype-sociotype conceptual triad. The sociotype means the relative constancy, or better the similar fabric, of the social world in which each individual life is developed. In order to ascertain the metrics of the fundamental quantitative traits inherent in the sociotype, a fieldwork involving a total of 1475 individuals (68.59% female, and 49.79 mean age, SD = 21.47) was carried out. The four relational realms of family, friends, work/study, and acquaintances were investigated. The overall results about conversation time (an average of 220 min/day), and about the number of social bonds (an average of 98), differ from previous assumptions, such as Dunbar's number or Killworth's number. Other results about gender, age, and use of social media and Internet contribute to highlight significant differences among the different social segments, and particularly the diminished “sociotype” of the elderly. Finally, it is curious that a non-Gaussian distribution has been obtained for the specific population allotment of these metrics, and intriguingly the Planckian distribution equation (PDE) appears to be a most cogent fit

Sociotype and cultural evolution the acceleration of cultural change alongside industrial revolutions

The present work explores, from the vantage point of the sociotype, the dramatic acceleration of cultural change alongside the successive industrial revolutions, particularly in the ongoing information era. Developed within the genotype-phenotype-sociotype conceptual triad, the sociotype means the average social environment that is adaptively demanded by the “social brain” of each individual. For there is a regularity of social interaction, centered on social bonding and talking time, which has been developed as an adaptive trait, evolutionarily rooted, related to the substantial size increase of human groups. A quantitative approach to the sociotype basic traits shows fundamental competitive interrelationships taking place within an overall “attention economy.” Approaching these figures via the Planckian Distribution Equation, they can be connected with many other competitive processes taking place in the biological, economic, and cultural realms. Concerning culture, the cognitive limits of the individual, which we consider commensurate with the sociotype general limitations, impose by themselves a strict boundary on the cultural items effectively handled by each individual, fostering the overall competition and decay. Further, the emergence of differentiated generations with ample discrepancy in styles of life, social aspirations, and dominant technologies would represent a systematic bias in the competition and replacement of cultural items. Intriguingly, the cultural acceleration detected in modern societies alongside the successive industrial revolutions, with an ostensible climax in the ongoing fourth industrial revolution –the information era– might be itself a paradoxical consequence of the sociotype''s dynamic constancy

Waves as the Symmetry Principle Underlying Cosmic, Cell, and Human Languages

In 1997, the author concluded that living cells use a molecular language (cellese) that is isomorphic with the human language (humanese) based on his finding that the former shared 10 out of the 13 design features of the latter. In 2012, the author postulated that cellese and humanese derived from a third language called the cosmic language (or cosmese) and that what was common among these three kinds of languages was waves—i.e., sound waves for humanese, concentration waves for cellese, and quantum waves for cosmese. These waves were suggested to be the symmetry principle underlying cosmese, cellese, and humanese. We can recognize at least five varieties of waves—(i) electromagnetic; (ii) mechanical; (iii) chemical concentration; (iv) gravitational; and (v) probability waves, the last being non-material, in contrast to the first four, which are all material. The study of waves is called “cymatics” and the invention of CymaScope by J. S. Reid of the United Kingdom in 2002 is expected to accelerate the study of waves in general. CymaScope has been used to visualize not only human sounds (i.e., humanese) but also sounds made by individual cells (cellese) in conjunction with Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) (unpublished observations of J. Gimzewski of UCLA and J. Reid). It can be predicted that the gravitational waves recently detected by the Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) will be visualized with CymaScope one day, thereby transforming gravitational waves into CymaGlyphs. Since cellese in part depends on RNA concentration waves (or RNA glyphs) and humanese includes hieroglyphs that were decoded by Champollion in 1822, it seems reasonable to use cymaglyphs, RNA glyphs, and hieroglyphs as symbols of cosmese, cellese, and humanese, respectively, all based on the principle of waves as the medium of communication

Dinámica social de las emociones: Redes sociales y patrones emocionales colectivos analizados mediante técnicas de machine learning e Inteligencia Artificial

La presente Tesis, realizada mediante un compendio de publicaciones, representa la línea de investigación seguida por el Autor a lo largo de dos etapas distintas. En ambas etapas, sin embargo, la temática de investigación ha permanecido coherente: las redes sociales, los lazos interindividuales, y las emociones que acompañan a las dinámicas de socialización. Lo que ha variado es la metodología de análisis. En primer lugar, a través del trabajo de campo y la creación de un nuevo test sobre la desaparición de las redes sociales del individuo (el grave problema de detectar la soledad no deseada entre los mayores) se ha procedido a analizar la conexión entre los estratos de relación social (lazos fuertes versus lazos débiles) junto con la respectiva presencia de emociones bien diferenciadas (primarias versus secundarias) en el contexto de los procesos adaptativos del "sociotipo". Paralelamente, todo ello se ha continuado a otro nivel mediante el uso de herramientas de inteligencia artificial para el análisis de sentimientos (sentiment analysis), combinando estas técnicas de manera novedosa con machine learning y análisis estadístico multivariante. Estas técnicas se han aplicado, entre otros trabajos, al análisis de intercambios masivos de mensajes en las redes sociales durante la reciente pandemia y al estudio de compilaciones de noticias publicadas sobre una catástrofe natural, como la reciente erupción del volcán Cumbre Vieja en las Islas Canarias. Los resultados obtenidos a lo largo de esta línea de investigación pueden contribuir, por un lado, a mejorar la detección de la soledad en personas mayores y a clarificar los procesos emocionales en las relaciones sociales en general. Por otro lado, y muy especialmente, al seguimiento de las consecuencias en la opinión pública de las decisiones y políticas adoptadas tanto en situaciones de graves desafíos sanitarios como frente a catástrofes naturales. Indudablemente, la repercusión multidisciplinar de este tipo de estudios de análisis de sentimientos, que complementan la teoría de decisión y el análisis de riesgos, es cada vez mayor y abarca múltiples ramas de las ciencias sociales, la economía, las ciencias políticas y las ciencias de la comunicación.<br /