Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

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OK - life (let alone Life) doesn't emerge from material systems with some magic from "complexity" or other "wider wholes".  The bridge theory is not pragmatically backed by the applicable logic and math.  Here we agree.

My assertion is that information science can mine from what we know about integrative levels, complex systems, biological perception and biological regulatory functioning to find a complete level of activity describing the evolution of mind.



The emergence of mind from the brain is a failed neurobiological philosophy.  My formulation is: brain organization emerges from the action of will (as measurable enforced meaning changing real-world probabilities) driving the bio-information goals that are functional behavior.

There is the well-hewn science of physiology where organic materials are chemically organized into cells and organs.  There is also, the fast developing science of bio-informatics, which is the tools and pattern analysis that track the information processing and functional behaviors of living things.

The bridge theory between physiology and bio-informatics needs to append the information objects of mind, such as perceptions, memory, goals and stimulus responses to their corresponding chemical organizations.  Top-down and bottom-up.

Goals, with an organic will behind them, are active structured information.  Seeing two separate environments, each discrete, we can define one where mind is active.  And know that the information objects generated by living things are real - just as we physically see arms as real.  Hence, informational realism is a framework for parsing how mind changes real-world probabilities.


in the past I did mention that Dembski has espoused some view of Informational Realism?

Not that I want to become repetitive in my use of repetitions of some of my previously posted statements, but it seems to me that it is again very appropriate in my response to this latest post of yours:

"It is still the case that none of the interesting material you just covered addresses this as far as I can tell. It does address how relatively simple unicellular organisms can carry out very simple stimulus/processes dictated by immediately occuring inner survival needs/response patterns of action. This simply doesn't constitute design of an irreducibly complex machine - a process which I contend requires a complex and creative mind of some sort. A mind that can envision the need for each of the many parts or components, and how they must work together to accomplish what the overall design is required to do, and judge whether the overall design meets the requirements (which include not interfering with the other existing functions of the cell). A mind that can realize, for example, that a whip-like "propeller" requires a hub and bearing assembly and also a "motor", and a system to respond to environmental stimuli, and also a system to manufacture the overall system of subsystems. This is just the tip of an iceberg of complexity."

Your statement is

"My formulation is: brain organization emerges from the action of will (as measurable enforced meaning changing real-world probabilities) driving the bio-information goals that are functional behavior."

Brain organization is extremely complex (in fact it is apparently the most complicated machine known in the Universe), and you dismiss its origin as some sort of magical "emergence" phenomenon.

This presumes that a very high level (enough to create the brain) of mind (in the form of "will" and "goals") already pre-exists as a property of living organisms. How living organisms and their complex biological machines originated, how mind originated and what is its true nature are the main issues in contention, in addition to the issue of the magnitude or level of mind that is required to create complex biological machines.

Your statement is

"...if you have coded communication and a will to live - biological designs will emerge in service to life."

This again presumes the prior existence of mind, in this case something (it must be mind) with a "will" to live. And claiming biological designs will simply "emerge" from coded communication and a will to live, is both circular and an appeal to magic. Coded communication presumes the existence of mind in the first place (starting with the origination of the DNA coding system), and a "will" to live is a property of consciousness which remains a mystery both is its true nature and its origin.  

Your statement is

"The bridge theory between physiology and bio-informatics needs to append the information objects of mind, such as perceptions, memory, goals and stimulus responses to their corresponding chemical organizations.  Top-down and bottom-up.....Goals, with an organic will behind them, are active structured information.  Seeing two separate environments, each discrete, we can define one where mind is active.  And know that the information objects generated by living things are real - just as we physically see arms as real.  Hence, informational realism is a framework for parsing how mind changes real-world probabilities."

This runs squarely into Chalmers' Hard Problem in the philosophy of mind and its ultimate nature. All attributes or characteristics or qualities of mind are immaterial and cannot be defined in material terms, certainly not ones like "active structured information" and "information objects". An example is the fact that mentally experiential qualia like the perception and experience of the color red are indefinable (are not possibly parameters of) the physical facts of the wavelength and intensity and spacial pattern of the electromagnetic radiation (light) that corresponds to it. 

All the physical descriptors of the physical nature and organization of the experienced color red don't go anywhere in understanding what is the essence or true nature or property of mind called Qualia.

As your words don't go anywhere in understanding the origin of Qualia (or of the experience or agency or will or intentionality or meaning of consciousness of any kind). Even though your statements seem to be attempting to do so.

Coded communication presumes the existence of mind in the first place (starting with the origination of the DNA coding system), and a "will" to live is a property of consciousness which remains a mystery both is its true nature and its origin.  

All attributes or characteristics or qualities of mind are immaterial and cannot be defined in material terms, certainly not ones like "active structured information" and "information objects". 

There is no physical measurement of will.  There are measures and methods that are based on real world outcomes quantifying will and motivation.  These measures address the activity of mind and are used commercially on a huge scale.  Mind and its motivations have a firm place in science, regardless of post-modern claims.  The willful enforcement of plans is not a physical act.  Behavior from its informational ordering would be the translation to the physical environment.  It is characteristic of mind. 

I don't follow your points.  I have never written about will and understanding as anything other than biological information processing.  Your "springing" the facts of will and communication as having mind processing information is awkward, as I clearly agree.  When you take the "mystery position"  you speak for yourself.  A model for mind is winning in science.  Just as the physiology defeated the bullshit neoDarwinists.

 Noble has called for an extended evolutionary synthesis, and more controversially a replacement for the modern synthesis.[19][20]

He has argued that from research in epigenetics, acquired characteristics can be inherited and in contrast to the modern synthesis, genetic change is "far from random" and not always gradual. He has also claimed that the central dogma of molecular biology has been broken as an "embodiment of the Weismann Barrier",[21] and a new synthesis will integrate research from physiology with evolutionary biology.[22][23][24] 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Noble

The point of my posts are that materials and forces are beautifully modeled and that we can simulate them, has enabled our understanding of physical events to expand.  Now science is simulating the actions of information.  Mental work and bio-communication are understandable as information processes and open to being modeled by science.

I do see a model for biological information processing and it involves understanding that information structure and objects are real.  I have referenced dozens of recent science articles that confirm this.  Information and its activity forms a separate discrete level from the physical.  They interact through correspondence.  

To argue back at me - that information is immaterial is like    what??????????????  Of course it is, its a foundational tenet of Informational Realism.  (I can repost the L. Floridi quote if you like)

Do you get that a classic information object is -- a plan -- that can be enforced?  It is made - not of quarks - but of real-world probabilities and their inner relations.  It is not made of brains, it is made of structured bits, that bring the past to now and predict wants and needs in the future.

I have addressed your questions and probing.  Please remit on whether you can de-materialize a plan and see it as an object for observation in informational terms.

For what it is worth, the evidence suggests to me that information processing is biological but awareness of the information and whatever it is that reaches out for the information is not and cannot be physical in any sense of the word.  My position is that life (at least animal life) requires both biology and non-biology in order to exist.

There is no physical measurement of will.  There are measures and methods that are based on real world outcomes quantifying will and motivation.  These measures address the activity of mind and are used commercially on a huge scale.  Mind and its motivations have a firm place in science, regardless of post-modern claims.  The willful enforcement of plans is not a physical act.  Behavior from its informational ordering would be the translation to the physical environment.  It is characteristic of mind. 

I don't follow your points.  I have never written about will and understanding as anything other than biological information processing.  Your "springing" the facts of will and communication as having mind processing information is awkward, as I clearly agree.  When you take the "mystery position"  you speak for yourself.  A model for mind is winning in science.  Just as the physiology defeated the bullshit neoDarwinists.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Noble

The point of my posts are that materials and forces are beautifully modeled and that we can simulate them, has enabled our understanding of physical events to expand.  Now science is simulating the actions of information.  Mental work and bio-communication are understandable as information processes and open to being modeled by science.

I do see a model for biological information processing and it involves understanding that information structure and objects are real.  I have referenced dozens of recent science articles that confirm this.  Information and its activity forms a separate discrete level from the physical.  They interact through correspondence.  

To argue back at me - that information is immaterial is like    what??????????????  Of course it is, its a foundational tenet of Informational Realism.  (I can repost the L. Floridi quote if you like)

Do you get that a classic information object is -- a plan -- that can be enforced?  It is made - not of quarks - but of real-world probabilities and their inner relations.  It is not made of brains, it is made of structured bits, that bring the past to now and predict wants and needs in the future.

I have addressed your questions and probing. 

Please remit on whether you can de-materialize a plan and see it as an object for observation in informational terms.

Yes, that can certainly be done, but there are fundamental and crucial information deficits in such a procedure - this de-materialization of a plan and seeing it as an informational object fundamentally can not capture the information necessary to originate the plan or to originate the entity that made the plan.

And the terminology used in this statement has the circularity that it inherently is refering to an act of consciousness. The term "object for observation" refers to an act of observation that inherently is an act carried out by a conscious entity, whereas an "object" is a discrete thing that is fundamentally in a different existential realm than consciousness.

Consider a "plan" for the great marble sculpture of the old testament figure David by Michaelangelo. This would use some form of descriptors, including blueprints, a great number of multiple 3D cross sections, a 3D "map" consisting of a multitude of point specifications in x,y and z dimensions and chemical composition, and be combined with a detailed art expert description giving the background of the historical and personal elements that went into the inspired creation.

This information about the sculpture as a physical object would presumably furnish enough information to build a duplicate of the sculpture indistinguishable from the original, and also enough information to understand to some degree the cultural and personal influences affecting the sculptor.

I submit that this would be a detailed plan to make the sculpture David, but it would not in the slightest capture the essence of the immaterial artistic creativity of Michaelangelo that enabled him to create this masterpiece. And this plan would certainly not contain the information needed to create another different masterpiece sculpture.

And this information could not possibly be enough to create the original alive conscious sculptor, Michaelangelo.

This shows that the essence of a great work of art is not captured by its informational plan as it might have existed in the mind of its creator, and it doesn't capture the essence of the indefinable artistic creativity manifested by the scultor or artist or composer in creating his work. Any more than understanding the musicological plan of a Mozart symphony captures the powers that Mozart manifested in creating this work. 

Most importantly, this plan doesn't contain any information at all about how the creator of this work himself came to be - how he originated.

All these things remain a mystery.

So, observing a plan as an informational object just doesn't constitute a key or gateway to any useful insight, as far as I can tell. It doesn't capture the essence of the plan, which is immaterial and has to do with meanings, purposes, beauty or its opposite, elegance and many other non-physical things associated with consciousness. And it doesn't solve the mystery of what was the conscious creator of the plan, and it doesn't solve the mystery of what is the conscious entity that makes the observation itself. 

And I submit that modern science has no idea whatsoever of what the answer to these mysteries is, as there is not even a glimpse of a "light at the end of the tunnel" in research attempting to understand consciousness. 

Given these problems, observing a plan as an informational object just doesn't go anywhere toward understanding the origin of the plans for anything, much less living organisms.

- this de-materialization of a plan and seeing it as an informational object fundamentally can not capture the information necessary to originate the plan or to originate the entity that made the plan.

. The term "object for observation" refers to an act of observation that inherently is an act carried out by a conscious entity, whereas an "object" is a discrete thing that is fundamentally in a different existential realm than consciousness.

And I submit that modern science has no idea whatsoever of what the answer to these mysteries is, as there is not even a glimpse of a "light at the end of the tunnel" in research attempting to understand consciousness. 

Modern science has buried NS + RM = Evolution.  It was buried, not by thought experiments and philosophy, but by the hard data.  There is no mystery in the data, and it is clear that information science and physiology has found means for evolution that includes organisms actively gaining information for their own benefit purposefully.

I think you are fighting a demon that has already been defeated.    

I simply disagree with Mysterianism and see science untangling the natural events that underlie reality.  I am going to stay away from answering the ontological and semantic questions you capably present.  There is pragmatic and comprehensive evidence at hand.

Consciousness is an abstract term and includes dozens of information gathering pathways.  Understanding consciousness in the whole, starts with understanding the interacting parts and how they work together.  That requires scientific methods for gathering data and analysis.  The measurement for such  - is the bit and particularly groups of bits of mutual information.  

When quantification of an observation is made - bits are measure to determine the amount of mutual information gained.  The information structures (variables) can be quantified at source A, before observation, with bits found at observer B after communication.  Those reproduced bits at the receiver, including their corresponding meanings, are the focus of science.  And these transformative patterns of bits define what is communication, just like units of force define what is energy.

Point One: if an organism knows something, science untangles that by a measurement of mutual information.
Observation is not magic, if something has been observed, there will be evidence that mutual information has been gained.  The term essences has a meaning of chemical smells (especially in North Jersey).  It has no place in a defining a measurable thing outside of olfactory responses.

The goal is not to solve age old philosophical arguments.  The goal is to see biological plans as a natural process and see how they work.  The information that is a plan is so recognized, because of it is mutual information with a predicted outcome.  If a program (information object) is a plan, we can measure its mutual information with its start state environment, its active process and its predicted outcome.  No magic.  

If you have a program that recreates activity for removing material from the block of marble that left a statue of David, you would know (have the mutual information) for what is needed to physically create David. A program to recreate the ideas incorporated in the David shape - is not as simple.

Saying that a program to sculpt David doesn't meet other expectations is a distraction.  Information science is not magic either.  It does stuff and that stuff can be tested with certainty or it can be unresolved.  The information that was at the root of the development of physical Michelangelo, could be specified if there is testable DNA in his remains.  It likewise, will not address the the art he created.

However, there are programs that can parse proportion and aesthetic senses.  They can measure ratios and advise some of the things that are beautiful in the statue.  We can look at the art before and since and discover relational aspects to compare and contrast.  Of course, there is no magic programs or computers to solve all mysteries at once.  But they do increase the potential for deeper understanding.

Bio-evolution includes special kinds of informational processes.  We are learning more every day about how they work.  Unraveling the physical and informational science will tell us a lot about our reality as physical and informational agents.  It may define how we use meaningful ideas, but it isn't going to tell us the meaning of life.

Science does not directly address divine plans.  Science however, is moving forward, and I for one am highly optimistic about recent discoveries.  These informational discoveries with lead us to better understand how meaningful experience is at the center of mind.  

I cited this paper once before.  It is exactly what I'm talking about.

Increase in Mutual Information During Interaction with the Environment Contributes to Perception
Daya Shankar Gupta 1,* and Andreas Bahmer 2
1 Biology Department, Camden County College, Blackwood, NJ 08012, USA
2 Comprehensive Hearing Center, ENT Clinic, University of Wuerzburg, 97080 Wuerzburg, Germany;

Abstract:   Perception and motor interaction with physical surroundings can be analyzed by the
changes in probability laws governing two possible outcomes of neuronal activity, namely the
presence or absence of spikes (binary states). Perception and motor interaction with the physical
environment are partly accounted for by a reduction in entropy within the probability distributions of
binary states of neurons in distributed neural circuits, given the knowledge about the characteristics
of stimuli in physical surroundings. This reduction in the total entropy of multiple pairs of circuits in
networks, by an amount equal to the increase of mutual information, occurs as sensory information
is processed successively from lower to higher cortical areas or between different areas at the same
hierarchical level, but belonging to different networks. The increase in mutual information is partly
accounted for by temporal coupling as well as synaptic connections as proposed by Bahmer and
Gupta (Front. Neurosci. 2018). We propose that robust increases in mutual information, measuring
the association between the characteristics of sensory inputs’ and neural circuits’ connectivity patterns,
are partly responsible for perception and successful motor interactions with physical surroundings.
The increase in mutual information, given the knowledge about environmental sensory stimuli and
the type of motor response produced, is responsible for the coupling between action and perception...

Point Two - Psi is mutual information that an organism gains without a physical signal.  It is recorded observations without a physical process.  I assert there is a process and science and logic can make it known.

Modern science has buried NS + RM = Evolution.  It was buried, not by thought experiments and philosophy, but by the hard data.  There is no mystery in the data, and it is clear that information science and physiology has found means for evolution that includes organisms actively gaining information for their own benefit purposefully.

I think you are fighting a demon that has already been defeated.    

I simply disagree with Mysterianism and see science untangling the natural events that underlie reality.  I am going to stay away from answering the ontological and semantic questions you capably present.  There is pragmatic and comprehensive evidence at hand.

Consciousness is an abstract term and includes dozens of information gathering pathways.  Understanding consciousness in the whole, starts with understanding the interacting parts and how they work together.  That requires scientific methods for gathering data and analysis.  The measurement for such  - is the bit and particularly groups of bits of mutual information.  

When quantification of an observation is made - bits are measure to determine the amount of mutual information gained.  The information structures (variables) can be quantified at source A, before observation, with bits found at observer B after communication.  Those reproduced bits at the receiver, including their corresponding meanings, are the focus of science.  And these transformative patterns of bits define what is communication, just like units of force define what is energy.

Point One: if an organism knows something, science untangles that by a measurement of mutual information.
Observation is not magic, if something has been observed, there will be evidence that mutual information has been gained.  The term essences has a meaning of chemical smells (especially in North Jersey).  It has no place in a defining a measurable thing outside of olfactory responses.

The goal is not to solve age old philosophical arguments.  The goal is to see biological plans as a natural process and see how they work.  The information that is a plan is so recognized, because of it is mutual information with a predicted outcome.  If a program (information object) is a plan, we can measure its mutual information with its start state environment, its active process and its predicted outcome.  No magic.  

If you have a program that recreates activity for removing material from the block of marble that left a statue of David, you would know (have the mutual information) for what is needed to physically create David. A program to recreate the ideas incorporated in the David shape - is not as simple.

Saying that a program to sculpt David doesn't meet other expectations is a distraction.  Information science is not magic either.  It does stuff and that stuff can be tested with certainty or it can be unresolved.  The information that was at the root of the development of physical Michelangelo, could be specified if there is testable DNA in his remains.  It likewise, will not address the the art he created.

However, there are programs that can parse proportion and aesthetic senses.  They can measure ratios and advise some of the things that are beautiful in the statue.  We can look at the art before and since and discover relational aspects to compare and contrast.  Of course, there is no magic programs or computers to solve all mysteries at once.  But they do increase the potential for deeper understanding.

Bio-evolution includes special kinds of informational processes.  We are learning more every day about how they work.  Unraveling the physical and informational science will tell us a lot about our reality as physical and informational agents.  It may define how we use meaningful ideas, but it isn't going to tell us the meaning of life.

Science does not directly address divine plans.  Science however, is moving forward, and I for one am highly optimistic about recent discoveries.  These informational discoveries with lead us to better understand how meaningful experience is at the center of mind.  

I cited this paper once before.  It is exactly what I'm talking about.



Point Two - Psi is mutual information that an organism gains without a physical signal.  It is recorded observations without a physical process.  I assert there is a process and science and logic can make it known.

"We propose that robust increases in mutual information, measuring
the association between the characteristics of sensory inputs’ and neural circuits’ connectivity patterns,
are partly responsible for perception and successful motor interactions with physical surroundings.
The increase in mutual information, given the knowledge about environmental sensory stimuli and
the type of motor response produced, is responsible for the coupling between action and perception..."

My view is that this quote represents the fundamentally flawed physicalist paradigm dominant in our society that dooms present scientific efforts to understand consciousness as a phenomenon based in the actions and interreactions of virtually uncountable neural circuits in the brain. This flaw, this wrong-headed approach, has resulted in the total lack of plausible understandings despite many years of concentrated and focused work by materialist neuroscientists.

This physicalist paradigm ignores the great body of empirical evidence for consciousness being an immaterial "something" that inhabits and physically manifests through the neural structures and circuits of the physical brain. A "something" whose native habitat is a spiritual non-physical realm existing in parallel with our physical world. This evidence might be topped by the veridical NDE evidence, such as documented in The Self Does Not Die by Smit and Dirven, for instance. Then there is the reincarnation evidence developed by many scientific investigators, most prominently Ian Stevenson.

I might challenge you to explain or even begin to explain the NDE and reincarnation data (to say nothing of the many other paranormal areas like mediumistic communications), following the research direction you have been describing.

This physicalist paradigm ignores the great body of empirical evidence for consciousness being an immaterial "something" that inhabits and physically manifests through the neural structures and circuits of the physical brain. A "something" whose native habitat is a spiritual non-physical realm existing in parallel with our physical world. 

Again, I am looking over my shoulder to see who you are talking about or to?  For decades I have been a fierce voice against physicalism.  Not by saying it is wrong, but promoting a better model of reality (IMHO).  

(1) The information science article I referenced is not a political paper.  It expresses no philosophical opinion.  It does present information measures and pattern analysis - revealing how mind is working.  Read it, you might see how there are parallel avenues for bio-chemistry to support a different level of information activity that carries intent and learning.
https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/21/4/365/htm
(2)* Informational Realism is a view that immaterial information is fundamental.  It is not a "something", it has real proponents like Oxford Scholar Luciano Floridi.
(3) Rather than "a native habitat" as a metaphor for "a spiritual realm"-----the parallel existence of a level of information/meaningful activity already exists as a group of science methods!  They are commercially employed in everyday life and have changed our cultural times to be called the "information age". 

This comment in no way disparages a spiritual realm and ethical study.  Its just they are not empirical as you want.

(2)*

 “A basic idea in communication theory is that information can be treated (mathematically) very much like a physical quantity such as mass or energy” – Claude Shannon

“Information is information, not matter or energy” – Norbert Wiener
 
“Without matter, there is nothing; without energy matter is inert; and without information, matter and energy are disorganized, hence useless” – Anthony Oettinger

Again, I am looking over my shoulder to see who you are talking about or to?  For decades I have been a fierce voice against physicalism.  Not by saying it is wrong, but promoting a better model of reality (IMHO).  

(1) The information science article I referenced is not a political paper.  It expresses no philosophical opinion.  It does present information measures and pattern analysis - revealing how mind is working.  Read it, you might see how there are parallel avenues for bio-chemistry to support a different level of information activity that carries intent and learning.
https://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/21/4/365/htm
(2)* Informational Realism is a view that immaterial information is fundamental.  It is not a "something", it has real proponents like Oxford Scholar Luciano Floridi.
(3) Rather than "a native habitat" as a metaphor for "a spiritual realm"-----the parallel existence of a level of information/meaningful activity already exists as a group of science methods!  They are commercially employed in everyday life and have changed our cultural times to be called the "information age". 

This comment in no way disparages a spiritual realm and ethical study.  Its just they are not empirical as you want.

(2)*

"...information measures and pattern analysis - revealing how mind is working.  Read it, you might see how there are parallel avenues for bio-chemistry to support a different level of information activity that carries intent and learning."

This research seems to me to boil down to trying to find out how the mind works by studying and analyzing the workings of the brain's neurons and neuron structures during normal brain-bound consciousness. I don't see how this can reveal anything about the immaterial mind which in very many NDEs has achieved and maintained for a time extremely clear consciousness while the brain was disfunctional, or (while the brain was still functioning) apparently still left the body and perceived things that could not have been perceived through the physical senses. This "information activity" that is being examined presumably is the coordinated activity of countless neurons in the brain. So, if the brain is disfunctional how can the mind with its properties or capabilities of consciousness, intent and learning continue to exist?

If the nature of this research is something else, please explain.

This research seems to me to boil down to trying to find out how the mind works by studying and analyzing the workings of the brain's neurons and neuron structures during normal brain-bound consciousness.

If the nature of this research is something else, please explain. 

I don't speak for the authors and not from any position of expertise.  What seems most to differ in our views is the acceptance of old model of a "ghost and a machine".  It is something that needs to be replaced.

Rather than the machine being the male dancer, with the ghost hanging along for the ride through time and space, I see  the information processing center as the natural alpha source.  The body, responses to command and control signals from the central processing identity.  It was the regulation of the DNA/RNA/Ribosome programs that built all aspects of the body.  In an informational view - each self is at the center of an informational environment.  Not a ghost - but a substantial active unit of life.  Plans drive bodies.  The plan for bodies being grown exists before a body.  

 Hermann von Helmholtz (1866) famously suggested that perception
results from a probabilistic inferential process, producing the best fit for a perceptual object based
on sensory data [8], which has inspired modern predictive coding theory [9–14]. In the predictive
coding scheme, predicted data carried by feedback connections, based on a hypothesis (of perception),
is compared with feedforward data (sensory input) to generate an error signal, which is carried to the
next hierarchy level to generate predicted data. This process is repeated at several levels to generate
appropriate predictions. A simulation of this model based on anatomical and physiological data
was used to generate appropriate predictions about statistical regularities present in images, which
suggested the biological plausibility of this predictive coding model [13].

This paper is promoting aspects of direct perception and how it is used by the mind.  Not the other way around.   A probabilistic inference is not a material object.  Its use is to create an encoded prediction.  Is a mental prediction a physical outcome?  No, it is information about what could be controlled by the mind.  

When they are saying "predictive coding models" - think a plan - and the assertion the authors make is that the logic of the information processing fits in a way that is corresponding to states of physical activity.  ie,  bits first then brain signals. 

This article is not how mind comes out from brains - its science mapping how mind gives instructions TO brains.

It reminds me of how I resolved my own cognitive dissonance by realizing that terms like spirit, information and matter are arbitrary distinctions and reality does not have these terms.  We create distinctions for the sake of communicating and recognizing important things but we take them far too literally when trying to understand the underlying nature of things.