Some resonances between Eastern thought and Integral Biomathics in the framework of the WLIMES formalism for modelling living systems

Forty-two years ago, Capra published “The Tao of Physics” (Capra, 1975). In this book (page 17) he writes: “The exploration of the atomic and subatomic world in the twentieth century has …. necessitated a radical revision of many of our basic concepts” and that, unlike ‘classical’ physics, the sub-atomic and quantum “modern physics” shows resonances with Eastern thoughts and “leads us to a view of the world which is very similar to the views held by mystics of all ages and traditions.“ This article stresses an analogous situation in biology with respect to a new theoretical approach for studying living systems, Integral Biomathics (IB), which also exhibits some resonances with Eastern thought. Stepping on earlier research in cybernetics1 and theoretical biology,2 IB has been developed since 2011 by over 100 scientists from a number of disciplines who have been exploring a substantial set of theoretical frameworks. From that effort, the need for a robust core model utilizing advanced mathematics and computation adequate for understanding the behavior of organisms as dynamic wholes was identified. At this end, the authors of this article have proposed WLIMES (Ehresmann and Simeonov, 2012), a formal theory for modeling living systems integrating both the Memory Evolutive Systems (Ehresmann and Vanbremeersch, 2007) and the Wandering Logic Intelligence (Simeonov, 2002b). Its principles will be recalled here with respect to their resonances to Eastern thought

Knowledge in Memory Evolutive Systems

The Memory Evolutive Systems (MES), introduced in a series of former papers, propose a mathematical model, based on Category theory, for open autonomous hierarchical systems such as biological, neural or social systems. Here the authors show that MES give a framework in which to study the formation, representation and interpretation of knowledge. In particular, they explain how the system can acquire pragmatic or conceptual knowledge though the coordinated action of a net of competitive internal patterns of agents, called coregulators (or CRs). This knowledge is not rigid, but is adapted to different situations subject to an appropriate choice of some parameters. Depending on its complexity level, a CR participates in an automatic or deliberate manner to the development of the collective distributed memory, relying on the partial information it collects at its own timescale on the system, its environment and the records of its past experiences. Higher CRs can classify records and develop more complex conceptual knowledge. Language (for men and social groups allows a system to interpret its own knowledge and intentionally diffuse it

Memory Evolutive Systems Hierarchy, Emergence, Cognition

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