What Is an Individual? Biology Seeks Clues in Information Theory.

What Is an Individual? Biology Seeks Clues in Information Theory.

Jordana Cepelewicz

What is an individual? Researchers are using information theory to develop a more general, objective definition that encompasses the kinds of relationships that individuals as different as a single animal, a colonial organism or a weather phenomenon have with their environment.

The task of distinguishing individuals can be difficult — and not just for scientists aiming to make sense of a fragmented fossil record. Researchers searching for life on other planets or moons are bound to face the same problem. Even on Earth today, it’s clear that nature has a sloppy disregard for boundaries: Viruses rely on host cells to make copies of themselves. Bacteria share and swap genes, while higher-order species hybridize. Thousands of slime mold amoebas cooperatively assemble into towers to spread their spores. Worker ants and bees can be nonreproductive members of social-colony “superorganisms.” Lichens are symbiotic composites of fungi and algae or cyanobacteria. Even humans contain at least as many bacterial cells as “self” cells, the microbes in our gut inextricably linked with our development, physiology and survival.

The same applies in fields of biology dealing with more abstract concepts of the individual — entities that emerge as distinct patterns within larger schemes of behavior or activity. Molecular biologists must pinpoint which genes out of many thousands interact as a discrete network to produce a given trait. Neuroscientists must determine when clusters of neurons in the brain act as one cohesive entity to represent a stimulus.

“In a way, [biology] is a science of individuality,” said Melanie Mitchell, a computer scientist at the Santa Fe Institute.

This research is looking for objective scientifically measurable criteria and rules to define "individuals" in biology in general, in animals and plants. The implication of course is that since human beings are no more than specially advanced animals (according to Darwinism), such criteria and rules would apply also to humans. Or for that matter to bring in SETI, to aliens from another planet.

I think that at least with humans and many of the higher animals there is a fundamental problem with this enterprise, the fact that the subjective (as opposed to the objective) dimension is extremely important. Subjectivity and in the case of humans personhood are the essence of consciousness and are the key factors in the Hard Problem. I don't think there can ever be objective, measurable criteria for all the parameters, qualities, properties or aspects of personality that we know from personal experience to make up the individuality of a person, because these are part of the inner essence, part of "what it is like" to be that unique person.

This research is looking for objective scientifically measurable criteria and rules to define "individuals" in biology in general, in animals and plants. The implication of course is that since human beings are no more than specially advanced animals (according to Darwinism), such criteria and rules would apply also to humans. Or for that matter to bring in SETI, to aliens from another planet.

I think that at least with humans and many of the higher animals there is a fundamental problem with this enterprise, the fact that the subjective (as opposed to the objective) dimension is extremely important. Subjectivity and in the case of humans personhood are the essence of consciousness and are the key factors in the Hard Problem. I don't think there can ever be objective, measurable criteria for all the parameters, qualities, properties or aspects of personality that we know from personal experience to make up the individuality of a person, because these are part of the inner essence, part of "what it is like" to be that unique person.

I have to admit I lean toward Stephen W's position here - that the mathematical description has value so long as we don't confuse the model for the actual.

I also think Information as a concept, even if information is ultimately collapsed into that which we call "physical" or "mental" or some "neutral stuff", has incredible value for parapsychology. If, for example, information is the bridge between the two realms of matter and psyche, it becomes easier to make an argument for Psi.

Even beyond that, these modeling criteria for an individual can provide a description in terms of an informational process. Keep in mind what one of the major early pioneers of quantum biology (and admittedly young field) Johnjoe McFadden said about survival - that since Information isn't destroyed it's entirely possible an individual survives death. As a verb-based process this could provide an explanation for why a personality lives beyond death of the body, because personhood is continued so long as the informational process is continued.

[Laird]

I think both Sci and nbtruthman allude to a key question here: does this working definition of an individual entail personhood (i.e., awareness from a subjective perspective) or not? The answer would provide a clue into the theory's developers' metaphysical leanings - in particular, whether or not they hold to a sort of animistic/panpsychic worldview in which consciousness and its subjects are ever-present throughout biological reality, or whether life without consciousness - defined by information processing rather than personhood - is possible and even widespread.

I have to admit I lean toward Stephen W's position here - that the mathematical description has value so long as we don't confuse the model for the actual.

I also think Information as a concept, even if information is ultimately collapsed into that which we call "physical" or "mental" or some "neutral stuff", has incredible value for parapsychology. If, for example, information is the bridge between the two realms of matter and psyche, it becomes easier to make an argument for Psi.

Even beyond that, these modeling criteria for an individual can provide a description in terms of an informational process. Keep in mind what one of the major early pioneers of quantum biology (and admittedly young field) Johnjoe McFadden said about survival - that since Information isn't destroyed it's entirely possible an individual survives death. As a verb-based process this could provide an explanation for why a personality lives beyond death of the body, because personhood is continued so long as the informational process is continued.

You capitalize the word Information. Perhaps you mean information in some sense I am not familiar with. It seems to me that information as instantiated in the matter and energy known to physics very much is always eventually destroyed, by all the degrading processes of nature. Whether mere Shannon information (bits of data having some configuration whether or not having specification and meaning), or the complex specified information constituted by a human body or a book, if it is instantiated in matter along with this matter it inevitably eventually decays into randomness either gradually or abruptly. Because it is a pattern imposed on impermanent matter it is inevitably destroyed by forces of entropy. 

In the physical world the information process is a physical process and inevitably eventually dissipates. If personhood is a physical information process it also is impermanent and eventually dissipates.

An individual may survive death and the decay and dissolution of the body only if there is an immaterial spirit or soul, which is eternal and not subject to entropy. Obviously a very high degree of information must be embodied in or constituted by the spirit or soul, but not as a physical structure or pattern, and probably not in any humanly comprehensible way. The entropy issue is of course one of the reasons materialists who believe in the universal reign of physical law will not accept survival.

You capitalize the word Information. Perhaps you mean information in some sense I am not familiar with. It seems to me that information as instantiated in the matter and energy known to physics very much is always eventually destroyed, by all the degrading processes of nature. Whether mere Shannon information (bits of data having some configuration whether or not having specification and meaning), or the complex specified information constituted by a human body or a book, if it is instantiated in matter along with this matter it inevitably eventually decays into randomness either gradually or abruptly. Because it is a pattern imposed on impermanent matter it is inevitably destroyed by forces of entropy. 

In the physical world the information process is a physical process and inevitably eventually dissipates. If personhood is a physical information process it also is impermanent and eventually dissipates.

Capitalized to suggest Information as some quantity, perhaps a substance, that either underlies the physical and mental or at least points to whatever marks the bridge between them. To differentiate from "information" in the sense of what you get from watching the news or merely making a measurement.

Here's McFadden's exact quote:

Does the cemi field survive after death?

mmm an interesting question. My hypothesis is that conciousness is the experience of information, from the inside. There is a postulate in physics that information is neither created or detroyed – the conservation of information ‘law’. It is however just a postulate, nobody has ever proved it. But, if true, it would suggest that awareness (associated with that information) – in some form – might survive death

So regarding ->

An individual may survive death and the decay and dissolution of the body only if there is an immaterial spirit or soul, which is eternal and not subject to entropy. Obviously a very high degree of information must be embodied in or constituted by the spirit or soul, but not as a physical structure or pattern, and probably not in any humanly comprehensible way. The entropy issue is of course one of the reasons materialists who believe in the universal reign of physical law will not accept survival.

But this only brings into view another question - what, exactly, is a soul?

The limits of the soul you will not find walking, even if you wander down every road. Such a deep principle (logos) it contains.
 -Heraclitus

Information, however, might give us a place to look at this journey from the outside just as McFadden suggests consciousness would be looking at the same journey from within. Information here could be a way of marking the "shape" of the Form in a Platonic/Aristotelian sense, the soul then being the Form of the earthly and varied subtle bodies.

OTOH, perhaps it's the inverse of how we usually think of it ->

"His soul was not in his body. Rather, his body was within the cosmic immensity of his soul."
  -AA. Attanasio

But even here Information can play a role, giving us an understanding of how the environment and the individual are unified [perhaps by Kastrup's suggestion of alters each having a dashboard and informational boundary]...though I would agree that the people mentioned in the OP of the thread don't seem to be thinking of things this way. However, they do accept gradations of individuality as well as individuals working in concert, from cells to humans at the least - this seems close to the idea of the soul as a Form offering continuity even as so many of the body's cells are replaced. (Though my understanding is there are brain cells that are not replaced in this way.)

I have to admit I lean toward Stephen W's position here - that the mathematical description has value so long as we don't confuse the model for the actual.

I also think Information as a concept, even if information is ultimately collapsed into that which we call "physical" or "mental" or some "neutral stuff", has incredible value for parapsychology. If, for example, information is the bridge between the two realms of matter and psyche, it becomes easier to make an argument for Psi.

No. Information is an abstraction like logic or mathematics. One cannot use an abstraction as a bridge. This has been the difficulty in such things as the debate as to whether idealism or dualism better describes reality.

One can throw words and ideas around endlessly, but they remain words and ideas. Far from helping matters, it serves only as a smokescreen, to obscure the fact that at this point we don't know what we even mean by terms such as psyche, only that it is a useful placeholder for something which we know from empirical experience.

I think there's a danger in getting lost in intellectual constructs. But in the end we come back to the real difficulty, that of bridging the gap between our intellectual wanderings and the actual things to which they are supposed to apply.

No. Information is an abstraction like logic or mathematics. One cannot use an abstraction as a bridge. This has been the difficulty in such things as the debate as to whether idealism or dualism better describes reality.

One can throw words and ideas around endlessly, but they remain words and ideas. Far from helping matters, it serves only as a smokescreen, to obscure the fact that at this point we don't know what we even mean by terms such as psyche, only that it is a useful placeholder for something which we know from empirical experience.

I think there's a danger in getting lost in intellectual constructs. But in the end we come back to the real difficulty, that of bridging the gap between our intellectual wanderings and the actual things to which they are supposed to apply.

I'd ultimately agree, that there has to be something more than what we normally think of as information underlying reality.

But from what we might call a marketing standpoint  I don't think it does parapsychology much good to provide no bridge from the usual position of the "phyiscal" underlying the mental toward a place where the mental is co-equal to, if not the Ground of, the physical.

If parapsychology wants to simply insist that it deals with some aspect of reality that transcends all mathematical modeling I see it more likely dying as a field rather than getting a revival. Which would be a shame, since conditions are ripe for it to make a comeback. [I suppose everyone at least would accept the probability calculations, though I'd also concede to anyone who pointed out it is a leap from saying hits are above chance to making something like information the corner stone of a theory.]

I'd ultimately agree, that there has to be something more than what we normally think of as information underlying reality.

But from what we might call a marketing standpoint  I don't think it does parapsychology much good to provide no bridge from the usual position of the "phyiscal" underlying the mental toward a place where the mental is co-equal to, if not the Ground of, the physical.

If parapsychology wants to simply insist that it deals with some aspect of reality that transcends all mathematical modeling I see it more likely dying as a field rather than getting a revival. Which would be a shame, since conditions are ripe for it to make a comeback.

Well, I wasn't really asserting something like "transcends all mathematical modeling". The same issue arises, a mathematical model is a model of something. We can create models of all sorts of things such as road-traffic flows, or a nuclear reactor or even nuclear weapon. It hardly seems necessary in those cases to note that the model is not the thing itself. We can model a nuclear explosion without the risk of vaporising ourselves. But it does seem that when it comes to consciousness phenomena, there is an undue haste to try to ignore that obvious distinction.

I did one ask Stevenw about information transmission:

(I am highly aware that this my be hard to take if you are in a science field that has physics envy, or you are seeking a magical mystery tour.)  ESP will get defined by science soon enough, as being possible through natural information processes, in my humble opinion.

Information is transmitted via a medium (examples: sound waves in air, light pulses in fibre-optic cable). Which medium or media do you envisage in the case of ESP?

There was a long and erudite response:
https://psiencequest.net/forums/thread-u...8#pid14538

However, and with the greatest respect to Stephenw, it didn't seem to move us forward. I'd say the very length of the response worked against it.

I'd ultimately agree, that there has to be something more than what we normally think of as information underlying reality.

But from what we might call a marketing standpoint  I don't think it does parapsychology much good to provide no bridge from the usual position of the "physical" underlying the mental toward a place where the mental is co-equal to, if not the Ground of, the physical.

If parapsychology wants to simply insist that it deals with some aspect of reality that transcends all mathematical modeling I see it more likely dying as a field rather than getting a revival. Which would be a shame, since conditions are ripe for it to make a comeback. [I suppose everyone at least would accept the probability calculations, though I'd also concede to anyone who pointed out it is a leap from saying hits are above chance to making something like information the corner stone of a theory.]

It would indeed be a great shame, but I say so be it. I wouldn't want parapsychology to deliberately or not go down a road leading to falsity and illusion, just to obtain acceptance and funding. 

My view is that the ultimate nature of the psyche or consciousness or mind is basically unknowable to humans. It is the unknowable trying to scrutinize and analyze its own nature, a fruitless enterprise. Its ultimate nature is certainly not information per se. 

Any science that studies paranormal phenomena needs to mold itself around that bitter pill of what reality is starting to really look like, and restrict itself to continuing to build the scientific case for the existence of the  phenomenology it studies, and how it works, but not futilely search for its ultimate essence. If that is just too unfashionable or politically incorrect or paradigm-breaking for acceptance by mainstream science, so be it. The same applies to parapsychology embracing idealism or panpsychism or some other form of Monist philosophy of mind rather than the dualism for which there is much more evidence, merely for the marketing or practical obtaining of support reason that dualism is greatly unfashionable and politically incorrect in academia.