DP Tool Club 19/CD_ASCQ_19_010295.iso/vrac/god4rm.zip/LIFE.TXT

Text File | 1994-11-06 | 72KB | 1,363 lines

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    GOD AND IMMORTALITY -- A PERSPECTIVE FOR RATIONAL MIND
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                SUMMARY

The ancient sages were right: it does work and it is harmonious
with science (as it always was). The new element here is an
answer to: WHY and HOW does it work? Un/fortunately, the answer
also confirms that to get all one has to give all. There are no
shortcuts and no way to cheat. This game is mercilessly honest.

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An earlier version of these notes was presented in a CIS discussion.
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        INTRODUCTION

For several years I wondered what is the basis in
(physical/biological) reality of the mystical gestalt of God
and immortality (e.g. Gospel of Thomas, Jesus saying #1: ``And
he [Jesus] said "Whoever finds the meaning of these sayings
will not taste death."''). I knew with certainty (of a personal
non-verbal gestalt) that it wasn't merely a hallucination, it
is true and it means exactly what it says. But how can it be?
Since I also knew that laws of nature must be harmonious
(self-consistent) at all levels -- God doesn't (and cannot)
cheat, and at our level it must play by (or in harmony with)
the rules/patterns/laws of our level.

So, whatever the (higher level) patterns of mystical gestalt
might be, they can still only be another angle on the
patterns/laws uncovered by natural sciences (arrangement
similar to a crossword puzzle - physics, chemistry, biology,
medicine, psychology,...  fill in rows, mystical gestalt fills
in columns, but the two sets of patterns must be perfectly
harmonious [of course, we can always only know the partial
patterns in either set, but to the extent they are known,
they must agree]).

Educated as a theoretical physicist I had to know not only that
it (God, immortality) is possible, but also how is it possible,
how does it and how could it work at all in terms of the other
set of patterns (those of natural sciences). Since leaving the
academic world I had worked (through my consulting firm) for
several years on pattern recognition, neural networks, genetic
algorithms etc, the topics which in mid-1980s became unified
(along with some results of non-linear dynamics,
far-from-equilibrium statistical physics, cellular automata,
fractals, etc) into the new discipline, the complexity science.

Interestingly, this science cuts across several other sciences,
or in the crossword puzzle analogy, it's the 'vertical' pattern,
just like the mystical gestalt. The common thread it follows
across many different sciences is the realization that various
adaptible complex systems appearing on all levels of complexity
(from genetic engines to economies, societies and ecosystems)
have a common mathematical core, they all utilize
mathematically the same kind of natural computing scheme (the
network with adaptible links under punishments/rewards), only
implemented on different "hardware". This insight is already
being utilizied in practice by new families of computer
algorithms, immitating various complex adaptible systems
(genetic engines, gene pools, neural networks, economies,
social networks), and they all exhibit uncanny spontaneous
intelligence (anticipatory ability).

As I became aware of this 'perpendicular' relation of
complexity science visa analytical sciences, it downed on me
that the 'Intelligent Presence' of the mystical God-gestalt is
precisely the vast intelligent network of intertwined social
and eco webs (and beyond), identified by complexity science as
the same kind of intelligent system as our brain, except that
this one is a giant brain of unimaginable capacity and
intelligence.

From the human perspective, the dominant outer network is the
social organism, that's the outer network where most in/out
connections emanating from one human (the cell or neuron of the
social organism) are hooked into. So, as a good approximation,
one can identify the God of monotheistic religions, the God of
people, with the social organism (indeed, the ancient texts
about God deal mainly with the social organism, ethics, laws
and history of social harmonization). The mind of God, or the
holy spirit, corresponds thus to the "neural" process unfolding
in the social & eco networks, in the same manner as person's
mind corresponds to the neural process unfolding in the network
of neurons, brain.

From this angle, the ancient immortality recipes translate into
the RECODING of the pattern of "self" (which starts out in the
local & fragile network, brain) into the pattern of "Self" in
the more durable outer network (social organism and beyond).

This strategy for immortality of self-pattern is based on the
ancient wisdom of not putting all eggs in one basket. Or, on
even more primal wisdom already utilized by the brain itself to
preserve memories and mind algorithms despite deaths of
billions of neurons over person's lifetime -- brain spreads
each memory over many links, each memory changes slightly the
strengths of thousands of links (and each link is shared by
thousands of memories). So no important memory or mental
process is critically dependent on any one or few neurons.

The LIFE, DEATH, LIFE section (below) follows up this basic and
simple idea in more details, showing that the mystical gestalt
of God and immortality (and relation to the ethics of love) was
right on the target -- it is a tangible and 'speakable'
reality, not a hallucination of a sensory deprived mind stuck
alone in a desert few nights too long.

The only "catch" is that it's not really a matter of internally
believing or disbelieving any particular images or stories,
complying with some ossified rites, reciting the right verses,
etc, but it's a matter of consistently doing the things which
appear quite at odds with the conventional wisdom about
self-interest, it's not in talking the talk but in walking the
walk. So, the "bad" news is that there are no shortcuts or
clever tricks here, this game is mercilessly honest, and you
truly get what you pay for, you reap as you have sown. To get
all one has to give all. The "good" news is that it is real and
it works, we do get the Lifeseed, the rich land to plant it in,
the water to water it,... but it's up to each of us what we'll
do with it.


    MYSTICAL GOD GESTALT & COMPLEXITY SCIENCE

While there is a great diversity of religions and their
prescriptions, the mystical insight (which is at the root of
all religions) seems to have a common core across the
cultures, continents and millenia -- the existence of an
intelligent live presence. In recent years science (complexity
science) has arrived to realization that there actually is an
intelligent live presence, a kind of higher lifeform on Earth.

Although the complexity science is a new discipline, its name
and present scope emerging only in 1980s, many of its results
were scattered among mathematics, physics, biology, computer
science, economy for decades (some going back to 19th century).
The crystallization seed for the new discipline was the insight
that there is a common core shared by great variety of complex
systems, such as genetic engines, gene pools, ecosystems,
immune systems, brains, economies, societies, natural
languages, webs of scientific theories, cultures,... The common
core is the network structure, with nodes interconnected via
_adaptible_ links, where the links change in response to the
punishments and rewards acting on the system.

Complexity science shows that such systems spontaneously
develop anticipatory behaviours, they internally model their
environment, run these models 'in their head', as it were, in
order to anticipate the responses of their actions and select
the optimal one (which tries to minimize punishments, maximize
rewards), like a chess player looking several moves ahead to
pick the best one. This property is purely a mathematical
result for these kind of networks, independent of what links or
nodes are made of, of what kind of messages/items are passing
through the links, what are the punishments & rewards.

Computer science has been using for several decades artificial
neural networks, a simplified immitation of brain, as a
powerful tool for difficult optimization and pattern
recognition problems.  That seemed an obvious choice. But in
recent years the genetic algorithms (immitating genetic engines
& gene pools) and Holland classifier (immitating society of
traders, simplified economy) have proven equally powerful in
solving same kind of problems.

In brain the nodes are neurons, linked by dendrites, axons and
synapses which carry electric charges and neuro-transmitters.
In genetic engine the nodes are nucleotides and links are
implemented as diffusion carrying enzymes, proteins, nucleic
and amino acids,... The gene pools are networks which link
genetic engines as sub-nets through links of sexual
reproduction, genetic crossover. Human societies contain many
types of nodes (e.g. humans, machines, animals) richly
interconnected through all types of adaptible links in all
types of communications, relations, law, trade, production,...
passing words of natural and artificial languages, information
(pictures, figures etc), goods, services, money...

But regardless of the particular kind of "hardware"
implementing the links, nodes and punishments/rewards, all such
systems act as intelligent/anticipatory creatures. Looking at
the overall system, it consists of innumerable intelligent
networks (in material and conceptual/symbolic domains),
nesting, overlapping, intertwining, permeating each other, all
unfolding simultaneously, sharing cells and motions with each
other, each in relentless pursuit of its own happiness,
continuously harmonizing with all others permeating it -- a
picture similar to an infinitely dimensional crossword puzzle,
creating and solving itself in all directions at once, through
infinitude of busy motions from the tiniest to the largest,
shuffling all letters in blocks of all sizes, in all places,
all at once.

The human societies, which are the most advanced kind of
intelligent networks (the most powerful natural computers) on
Earth, are a new kind of intelligent higher lifeform (with
humans as its cells), social organism, which has evolved on
Earth within last ten millenia, and is still evolving at an
exponential pace, already million times faster than genetically
evolving lifeforms (such as humans and other less complex
ones). The evolutionary quantum leap to social organisms
parallels the earlier quantum leap to multicellular organisms
which lead to the explosion of speciation and complexification.

Most people perceive the large motions of the social organism
as some kind of blind natural forces, on par with winds, river
flows, forest fires, or as pendulums and machinery run by the
'leaders' (an industrial age metaphor). The subtle purposes and
patterns of these motions, glimpsed at in a flash of gestalt,
are attributed to gods or God, invisible hand, dialectics of
class struggle, morphogenetic fields,... Now we know they are
of the same kind of purposes and patterns as those produced by
our brains, except that this brain is billions times larger and
unimaginably more powerful (also, the social organisms are only
the subnets of the wider ecosystem networks, which in turn are
subnets of biosphere).

The natural question is, if this brain is the same intelligent
presence that gestalt of mystics calls God -- how do death,
Kingdom of God (or equivalent), immortality of soul,
enlightenment,... fit into this perspective. Well, there is no
Paradise and Hell after death, only 'to be or not to be', and
although the Gate can be crossed (via the formula best
expressed by Zen as 'All is One, One is None, None is All'),
getting into 'to be' is a bit harder and more rare than
commonly believed,... but that is the subject of the main
section: LIFE, DEATH, LIFE.

For those intrigued by complexity science, here are few titles
I enjoyed reading:


1) "Complexity - The emerging science at the edge of order and chaos"
     by M.M. Waldrop,
    Simon & Schuster 1992 ISBN 0-671-7689-5 (the best
    popular intro into the new field [science of Complexity]
    by a physicist, explores also implications for economy,
    biology, computer science)

2) "Complexity - Life at the edge of chaos" by R.Lewin
   Macmillan Pub.Co., 1992, ISBN 0-02-570485-0 (nice intro into
   complexity science, mainly from biology angle; similar to, but
   a bit shallower than Waldrop's book)

3) "The Origins Of Order" by Stuart Kauffman
   Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-19-507951-5
   (More technical intro into science of complexity with
   applications to origin of life, evolution, mathematics)

4) "Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information"
   The proceedings of the 1989 workshop on Complexity.
   Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-201-51506-7 (fascinating
   collections of papers by leading scientists from around
   the world)

5) "The Quark and the Jaguar" by Murray Gell-Mann
   W.H.Freeman & Co., 1994, ISBN 0-7167-2581-9 (popular intro into
   complexity science, covers wide range of implications, from
   elementary particle physics to societies; best if read after
   Waldrop's book above, since Gell-Mann assumes readers' knowledge
   of concepts explained at great length in the Waldrop's book.)



    ILLUSTRATION FOR AN INTELLIGENT NETWORK


> can you simplify it at all...

Let's look a specific example, a network which can learn to
recognize letters.

The network consists of few hundreds cells. The cells are very
simple: each cell has few dozens of input lines and few dozens
of output lines. When the cell receives signals/pulses (e.g.
electric pulses) on some of its inputs, it responds by sending
pulses to all its outputs if the total number of pulses
received is greater than half of total number of input lines.
So, this works like voting - if the number of votes for 'pulse'
(as opposed for 'quiet') is above half, it sends out a 'pulse',
otherwise it sends out 'quiet'.

Important feature of the lines carrying the pulses is
ADAPTABILITY - the link strength (or the resistance of the
lines) is adjustible so they can be set to pass through
anywhere from the full strength of the pulse to the complete
cutoff (no pulse goes through). So the network will look like a
web of light bulbs interconnected via wires, and each wire
carrying a light-dimmer knob which can be tweaked continuously
from the complete dark to the full brightness. When cells
'count their votes' for ON or OFF, they use the NET VALUE of
the pulses (resulting after the attenuation), thus some inputs
are 100% on (value 1.00), some 35% on (value 0.35), etc. So,
it's like voting by shouting, where not only the content of the
vote counts, but also the loudness of the voter.

The network can be initially connected completely randomly, but
in practical applictains one often uses layered structure
(they're the simplest to analyze). In the picture below the
signals propagate UP, from the cells in A layer to the cells in
Z layer:


      0 1 0 1 1     <- The answer pattern (output of Z cells)
      Z Z Z Z Z     <- Z-cells are the "result" layer
     Y Y Y Y Y Y
     ...........    <- other layers
     C C C C C C
    B B B B B B B   <- layer of B-cells
   A A A A A A A A  <- layer of A-cells
   * * * - * - - *  <- Light dots (from scanner)


Each A-cell receives ON or OFF signal from a light sensor (e.g.
a page scanner), and sends a pulse (if light dot is ON) to few
dozen of B-cells. The connections (and their strengths or
resistances) from the A-cell to its pulse destination B-cells
are chosen randomly, so that each B-cell will typically receive
inputs of different strengths from dozens of different A-cells.
Each B-cell will count the votes (accounting also for their
strengths) it gets from A-cells, and send the outcome to dozens
of C-cells.  Similarly, each C-cell will count the net votes
received from dozens of B cells and send the outcome up the
ladder to D-cells, ...etc.

Finally, when the voting wave reaches Z-cells, they only count
the net incoming vote and each Z-cell posts its outcome as 0
(off) and 1 (on), which some external program reads as the
result-pattern. With 5 Z-cells in the picture there are at most
32 result-patterns (i.e. 2^5=32 combinations of five 0's and
1's: 00000, 00001, 00010, ... 11111), so 32 different letters
and punctuation signs can be recognized.

The external program (which runs the simulation) will, using
some convention, require that, say, letter 'a' (on the scanner)
produce result-pattern (on Z-cells) 00000, letter 'b' to
produce 00001 on Z-cells, etc. Since the cells are initially
connected randomly, when a pattern of light/dark dots for
letter 'x' is presented to A-cells, and the signals finally
reach Z-cells, there will be some random result-pattern of 0's
and 1's on the Z-cells, say 01011, and not the required one,
say, 11000 designated as a code for letter 'x'.

Now comes the LEARNING part: the leftmost Z-cell has produced
0, but the 'correct' answer was 1. To correct this, the Z-cell
will look back at the votes from the Y-cells which advised it,
and for all those Y-cells which had signalled it "vote 0"
(which was the 'wrong' advice) it will DECREASE SLIGHTLY the
link strength. For all the Y cells which had sent it something
in between 0 and 1 (due to attenuation/resistance of the
links), the Z cell will decrease the links proportionately to
the error (e.g. for Y-cells which had sent it 0.25, the link
strength will be decreased, but not as much as for 0 vote,
since the error is now 0.75, not 1.00; and for Y-cells which
had sent it 1, i.e. no error, there will be no change of the
link strength, i.e. don't fix if it ain't broken).


So, the Z-cell will reward and punish the Y-cells by decreasing
their link strengths proportionately to how "wrong" (relative
to Z-cell's target output value) they were. Similarly the
Y-cells will propagate their punishments/rewards down to
X-cells which had advised them, proportionately to how "wrong"
the X-cells were. But since each Y-cell had sent its output
signals (advice) to many Z-cells, the Y-cells don't have a
sharp target output value (such as 0 or 1, as Z-cells do), but
rather their target value is some averaged value between 0 and
1 (a weighted average from target values of Z-cells they had
sent signals to). After X-cells receive their punishments &
rewards from Y cells, they proceed the same way, punishing and
rewarding their advisors (W-cells) proportionately to how wrong
W-cells were, and so on, until the punishment-reward wave
reaches the A-cells, where it stops.

So the picture of one learning pass looks like this: a pattern
of light & dark dots for some letter 'x' is presented to the
layer of A-cells, then a wave of votes (signals) propagates
upward, from A to Z, then the wave of punishments & rewards
bounces back, propagating from Z to A.

To have the network learn all letters one has to present to
A-cell layer sequentially dot patterns for 'a', 'b',...'z',
then if necessary the whole series is repeated several times.
Namely, by the time the dimmer-knob tweaking is done for the
last dot pattern (e.g. image 'z') in the series, the
cummulative changes in link strengths may have wiped out the
results of the knob tweaking for the first pattern (e.g. image
'a') in the series. This is why the knobs are tweaked very
lightly (i.e. the punishments-rewards are as gentle as
possible). And as the learning cycles continue, the errors
decrease, thus the level of dimmer-knob tweaking decreases
(since it is proportionate to the magnitude of errors), and
we're done when an entire pass went on without a need to tweak
a single knob. Or, in the wave-picture, the bouncing wave going
up and down will smooth out the sharp rocks on the bottom.

The knowledge the network has acquired is thus stored in the
link strengths. But although there is no single link which
stores letter 'a', and the knowlede is spread out, there is a
STRUCTURE to this knowledge:

As network learns, one first notices that some cells in the
lower layers (e.g. B,C) SPECIALIZE -- they respond (activate
strongly) to specific features in the dot patterns presented to
the A-layer, e.g. some may become active if there is a
horizontal line in the dot pattern, some trigger on vertical
lines, some on curved, some on horizontal lines at the top of
dot rectangle, some at the bottom, etc. With speech recognition
networks one can see cells specializing in phonems. In social
networks one can also see the specialization at all levels and
in all human activities.

The specialization means that the network is in effect
ANALYZING the patterns from its environment by breaking them
into simpler fragments, the building blocks. But since each
specialist-cell feeds its output to many cells in the next
layer up, and since each higher level cell receives many
fragment-signals from the lower level specialists, the higher
level cells will start SPECIALIZING IN COMBINATIONS OF
ELEMENTARY FRAGMENTS (just as the lower level specializes in
the special combinations of their inputs, the light/dark dots).
For example, some middle-level cells will become active if
there is one horizontal line at the top (received from one of
horizontal line specialists) and one vertical line in the
middle (like letter T). In speech recognition networks on sees
higher level specialists combining phonems into common word
fragments.

In social networks one can see the same kind of process
everywhere, e.g. in science biologist combining results,
instruments, techniques from chemists, physicists,
mathematicians, computer scientists, other biologists; or in
manufacturing a computer maker combining parts from chip,
chasis, keyboard, monitor,... makers. Or pick any object around
you, say, a tootpaste, read all the labels, check all materials
involved -- there are probably hundreds or thousands of people
down the chain linked to you via that toothpaste, and your
punishments-rewards (money you paid for it) has been spread out
down that web, a bit to each of them.

As you go up the layers, the cells will specialize in higher
and higher level patterns, made up of various combinations of
lower level patterns. In other words, the lower layers act as
ANALYZERS of the environment, they break it apart into building
blocks, and the higher layers act as SYNTHESIZERS, putting
together the building blocks into the SCALED MODELS of the
environment. If you look at the speech recognition network,
where the temporal patterns are recognized, the synthesizers
are putting together the building blocks (phonems) into various
temporal sequences, i.e. they are creating scale models from
the building blocks, and running them in their head (unfolding
in time), as it were, in order to select the one which works
"best" (relative to whatever punishments/rewards they're
exposed to). In a network learning to play chess, the
synthesizers will combine several moves, looking ahead for the
"best" sequence.

Although for concreteness sake, I had described a highly
structured network (resembling a bit some government agency),
the same behaviours (learning, specialization, analysis,
synthesis, model creation & running, look ahead, etc) hold for
great variety of network structures, link updating procedures,
signal propagation and "voting" rules.

More importantly, the mathematics (& simulations) used to prove
such capabilities of the network, does in no way depend on what
are the links or nodes made of, what are the things passing
through the network links, what are the punishments/rewards.
So, these network properties are quite general -- they follow
purely mathematically, as soon as one can identify that the
network has adaptabile links, the nodes receiving inputs and
producing outputs based on inputs (via some
voting/weighing-like function) and punishments & rewards
affecting the links.

So, it is not necessary at all to have literal neurons hooked
up into a network, such as brain, to have a network give rise
to intelligent processes, such as analyzing patterns in their
environment, breaking them internally into building blocks,
hooking together these blooks into the scaled models of the
environment (including the network itself, i.e. there is the
ego-actor as a part of the model), running (internally) these
models in order to look ahead and select the optimal actions
for the ego-actor based on predicted outcomes.

We tend to notice such processes only in our own network,
brain, since we can introspect them directly, but the same kind
of processes go on in innumerable other networks, such as
genetic engines, immune systems, gene pools, social
organizations, news media, industries, sciences, economies,
government agencies, political movements, social organism as
whole, wider ecosystems (including social organisms), etc. They
are all intelligent networks (adaptible complex systems) with
the general features described above, only implemented on
different "hardrware", with their intelligence attuned to
different perspective of the "environment" (different from the
sensory perspective of human brain & senses).

Human brain tends to exaggerate dominance of its form of
intelligence compared to others around and within human
organism, and it gets away with it since it's job is to form
the words and sentences to "explain" and communicate what's
going on (like a spin doctor evaluating a TV debate of his
candidate). The AIDS epidemic shows quite clearly that there is
another intelligent network within us, the immune system, which
all of our brains and technology put together can't quite match
in its specialty - outwitting the gene pools (another
intelligent network) of microbes around us. Working quietly in
the background, the immune network learns vast numbers of
microbe patterns over persons lifetime, and destroys the
intruders efficiently and wisely without provoking the backlash
in the microbe gene pools. The quicker, but shallower network,
brain, in the meantime had discovered antibiotics and within
decades had managed, with its hasty arrogant actions, to spur
the microbe gene pools into the high speed crunch, and they're
now outwitting the scientific and farmaceutical behemoths, and
antibiotics are rendered useless one ofter the other (one
scientist said recently in Time magazine that he has concluded
that microbes are smarter than us). If immune network had been
as dumb and short-sighted, the microbes would have wiped us out
long time ago. And when the immune network fails (goes senile,
as it were), as in AIDS, they do wipe us out, despite all of
our arrogant high tech medicine. OTOH, the intelligence of the
immune network, without any help from the high tech
brain-centric medicine, has somehow pulled us through for
hundreds of millenia of microbe assaults (while the high tech
medicine, left to its arrogant self, can't pull through 1 life
worth against the microbe assaults on an AIDS patient).


          LANGUAGES -- INTELLIGENT BEINGS

So, the intelligent networks are by no means restricted to the
brain. More interestingly, they are also not restricted to
networks made up of 'matter'. The math demonstrating their
properties doesn't care what are the network nodes and links
made of. Thus the abstract worlds of natural and artificial
languages, cultures, conceptual structures of sciences,
religions, etc are intelligent networks in their own abstract
worlds, they learn, they model and anticipate, just as brain or
other 'matter' networks do.

For example, a natural language is a vast network of words,
phrases, quotations, concepts, with huge number of adaptible
links (semantic, stylistic, historical, grammatical, etc),
exposed to continuous stream of punishments and rewards (based
on how well it serves the communication, writing, speaking,
creativity, etc). And over millenia the natural languages have
evolved into very smart networks. For example, you may be
toying with some ideas in your head for hours, then you decide
to write them down, and as you write, one thing leads to
another, words and phrases associate with others, and, as if by
magic, you end up with a wisdom you never knew was in you. You
have in fact tapped into the wisdom and intelligence encoded
implicitly into the language network (encoded in its vast web
of constanly adapting links, which you absorbed as you learned
the language, but without being aware of the content of its
implicit wisdom and intelligence; these come to life most
strongly in writing since writing quiets down the noise and
limitations of the short term memory trying to cope with
forming the sentences [when speaking or thinking without
writing], and the subtle semantic links can then reverbrate in
full strength and over longer span of text, awakening thus the
intelligent giant of the language network).

Artificial langauges of sciences are even more subject to sharp
competitive pressures (punishments & rewards), and have
accumulated extremely powerful creative intelligence. Some of
greatest discoveries in science come from this intelligence.
For example, the electromagnetic waves were discovered when
Maxwell used particular form of differential equations to
express the previously known laws of electromagnetism, and in
that particular format, guided by purely aesthetic reasons, he
felt the equation would look nicer, more symmetrical, if there
was an extra term. So he added the prettifying term, and when
he worked out the consequences of the addition, it was an
electromagnetic wave. Similarly, mathematicians stumbled into
an odd feature of Maxwell's equations - when you rewrite them
by substituting original variable letters X1,Y1..., with
particular odd looking expression of some new variable letters
X2,Y2,... then you expand it all, then collect the new labels
into compact form, and the equations look the same in the new
labels (X2,Y2,...) as those in the old labels (X1,Y1,...). That
oddity (Lorentz transformations) lingered for several decades
until Einstein explained that this "lingustic" oddity is in
fact the theory of relativity. This kind of magic wisdom,
comming seemingly out of nowhere, has happened time after time,
and a physicist Eugene Wigner got so puzzled by it (after it
sprung its intelligence in his discovery which earned him Nobel
prize) that he wrote a paper about this strange phenomenon, and
he gave it a name: the UNREASONABLE EFFECTIVNESS of
mathematics.

Glancing at the bigger picture -- there innumerable intelligent
networks, on all scales, in all domains, nesting, overlapping
and permeating each other, unfolding through myriad of little
motions, each motion serving many networks simultaneously,
while each net is pursuing its own happiness (intelligently
optimizing the motions relative to its rewards & punishments),
and harmonizing the shared motions with all other nets
permeating it in pursuit of their own happiness. Therefore
asking for The Purpose and The Cause of any little motion is
meaningless, since each serves numerous intelligent networks,
each is a part of many anticipatory/intelligent processes each
unfolding purposefully toward their own anticipated goals, and
each motion is a part of many different patterns/laws each
defining its own causes and effects (e.g. is bee heading toward
the flower to collect the nectar, or is the flower attracting
the bee to pollinate it, or is it the bee cells interacting by
electro-chemical processes, or is it just a pile of atoms
following Schroedinger equation... etc). Similarly, asking "who
is in charge here," say, is it human brain (human will, mind)
or is it the brain (will, mind) of social organism (the
approximate God of monotheism) is as meaningless as asking who
is in charge of you, is it your will and mind, or is it the
electro-chemical processes of your cells.

-----

Returning now briefly to the thesis of this thread -- the
pattern of 'self' (say, person's mind, will, affection) get
initially encoded into a single fragale network, brain, which
lasts few decades, then perishes, taking with it the precious
'self'. But this fragale network is a subnet of a vast outer
network, the social organism (and beyond), and it is attached
to the outer network via tens of thousands of links. So, the
possibility I suggested is to recode the live 'self' pattern
from the fragile network, brain, into the live 'Self' pattern
in the outer network, social organism. The conventional wisdom
of self-interest conditions all of us to direct most of our
actions toward pleasing the biological network in which the
'self' pattern originated. Thus we fail to develop sufficient
feedback with the outer network to grow the Self. The ancient
immortality recipe, the ethics of unconditional love, is
precisely the method for developing this feedback needed to
recode the mortal 'self' pattern into the immortal 'Self'
pattern (see LIFE, DEATH, LIFE section for more).


> ...where do we plug in Chaos theory?

The chaos plays important role in the complexity science (the
two books among those I listed (in the intro) have "chaos" in the
title). At the moment it is only an empirical observation that
the complexification occurs at the very edge between chaos and
order.  This edge is a point of phase transition, like the
point (on temperature scale) of ice melting into water. (In
complexity science the scale isn't the temperature but the
average probability [per some unit of time] that a building
block in a complex system will change its state during the time
unit; this parameter is called lambda patrameter, e.g. lambda=0
means totally frozen system, lambda=1.00 means totally chaotic
system; for 1-dimensional 2-state cellular automata the
lambda=0.273 [i.e. odds of change per time step are 27.3
percent] is the edge of chaos and order, and at that lambda the
systems start evolving intelligence.)

Intuitively this is plausible since on the 'ice' (order) side
of the edge, the system is frozen out and very few new things
are tried out to move complexity forward, and on the
water/chaos side, too many new things are tried out to allow
any created structure to stick around long enough so the more
complex things could build upon the things built so far. At the
very edge the new structures are created and destroyed on all
scales.

An interesting mathematical result for these systems (at the
point of phase transition) is self-similarity, which is also
reflected in a common intuition that nature seems to enjoy
reusing its tricks on different levels of complexity.

Another mathematical property of the systems at the edge of
order and chaos is the presence of power laws, such as Zipf law
for natural languages and many other complex systems (e.g. if
you rank words by frequency of usage, then the usage frequency
of the k-th word on the list will be approximately proportional
to 1/k, i.e. the top ranking word will be used twice as often
as the second ranking, three times as often as the third
ranking,... etc; or similarly, if you rank cities by size, then
the population in k-th city will be proportional to 1/k). This
provides a useful quantitative criteria for testing various
systems for being at the edge of order and chaos, and therefore
for systems undergoing spontaneous complexification (for
systems becoming more intelligent, anticipatory etc).


--------------------------------------------------------------------
           LIFE, DEATH, LIFE
--------------------------------------------------------------------

> Of course, consciousness makes inspiration possible, but I
> am not unduly impressed by consciousness in and of itself...
>
> However, I agree with your point that there -seems- to be a
> social organism. Certainly this can be discussed in
> behavioral terms, I'm not sure if it has a physiological
> basis (a la slime mold).  Again, the social aspects are
> interesting, but for me not very inspiring.

As long as one looks at the two (self and the social organism)
and their relations within the safe, albeit shallow, waters of
conventional wisdom ("behavioral terms", "social aspect" etc),
one will catch only the small fish.

The (inner) self of conventional wisdom (e.g. consciousness, or
mind, affection, will, or any other verbal schemata) rests on
our biologically inherited neural network, brain, and our body.
We draw the conventional boundaries of our (biological) self
from our birth on, as we extend our will from eyes and mouth,
down through neck, arms and the rest of our body. That phase
goes fairly quickly (although, looking at a child learning to
walk, not without hard struggle). But as we reach our
biologically connected boundaries, we quickly learn that
extending our will and senses beyond is much harder, others
simply won't do what one wills. As result of the increased
resistance to our expanding self we create an internal model of
reality consisting of self (the obedient, easily accessible,
part limited by our biologically inherited network) and others
(the disobedient, hard to access, part/the outer network/social
organism, interacting with the obedient part via language,
physical actions, exchange of goods, services, money, etc).

Most people never outgrow that model and their entire life
effort is centered on gratifying the obedient part of the
network, self.  They are like a child who found that extending
its will to legs is much too hard and painful experience, and
so it decided that it doesn't really need to learn to walk,
after all food and toys seem to come to it anyway, so what's
the problem. Luckily for the child it doesn't get to choose;
the ancient wisdom of the built in biological program drives it
to keep trying, falling, crying, trying again and so it
eventually learns to extend its will to its legs, mastering at
last its biologically connected domain.

As springs and Christmases go by, we realize one evening,
perhaps after inadvertently letting our glance rest on our dust
covered high school trophies for few seconds too long, or while
satisfying an inexplicable sudden urge to dig out from basement
the faded photo album of our childhood, that the obedient part,
the all-imporant priceless self, jealously protected, rewarded
and pleased with the best we can offer all these years, isn't
going to be obedient to our will for much longer, and from all
that science and common sense tell us, myths and fairy-tales
notwithstanding, all will be gone, and there is nothing beyond
the Gate but a dark horrifying nothingness.

After all that investment of the best I can do, after all the
gifts brought to its insatiable altar, the ungrateful
treacherous self will simply dissolve on me, perishing into the
horrifying void, for ever. Maybe I ought to have my body frozen
into a liquid nitrogen, and some day science may figure a way
to revive me? But, science also tells me that the water
crystals will rip apart all my cells, all my neurons and
memories will be destroyed, and the priceless self with them.
It's almost better getting cremated and have my ashes scattered
over woods and meadows to feed the grass, and cows will eat the
grass, and they will make milk from the grass, and children
will drink the milk, and there will be few of my atoms in
there, in these kids as they joyfully play and grow.  But that
still ain't it. I've probably got now in me few atoms of
Democritus and I don't really think that does any good to poor
old Democritus. Also, most of my "own" atoms now are not the
same atoms which made 'me' ten years ago, and I'm still the
same self. So atoms won't do much for getting a piece of self
through the Gate.

The self is encoded in the neurons, as live/active memories and
action algorithms we accumulate over years. Curiously,
thousands of your neurons have died since this morning, several
while you're reading this sentence, and yet the self seems to
go on. You don't loose a chunk of self as hundreds of millions
of neurons die, you don't forget self, it actually seems to
grow and get richer as years go by.

The primeval wisdom built into your brain design, which allows
your core memories and mind algorithms, the self, to survive
the natural death of billions of your neurons over lifetime, is
a spreading of each memory over thousands of neural links, with
no single or several links being critical for that memory, i.e.
it's the ancient wisdom of not putting all the eggs in one
basket. Each memory is encoded by gentle modifications of
thousands or millions of neural links (their strengths), and
any link is modified by thousands of memories (a scheme
analogous to hologram). And the more some memory is spread out,
the more resistant it is to any random cell death or localized
or random damage. The self is thus fairly safe.

Well, until the Gate. Since however widely we spread the self
within our biologically inherited network, however many neuron
links we use for its most valued core, none of them will get
through the Gate, all our cells, including all our neurons, die
shortly after we die, and the self, however wisely encoded into
our neural links, will perish into the void.

Thus the cause of the ultimate fragility of conventional self
when it reaches the Gate is the fact that it is entirely
encoded in a single fragile network, the biologically inherited
network, brain, which cannot pass through the Gate.

But we know (from complexity science) that there is a vast,
intelligent, outer network around us, the social organism (and
beyond), using the same kind of natural computing machinery as
our brain, but of unimaginably greater capacity and natural
computing power than our brain, and more importantly in the
context of the biological Gate, of much _greater durability_
than our brain and our body.

So, the strategy for getting the self beyond the Gate of our
biological organism is the same one the self already uses to
persist in face of deaths of billions of neurons which carry
it, the old eggs in the basket trick -- the self must be spread
out beyond the particular biological network (brain & body) in
which it started, it must be ENCODED INTO THE VAST OUTER
NETWORK, the social organism (and, of course, into the outer
networks beyond the single social organism, human race,
ecosystem, ...etc).

But how does one encode self into the outer network? Has anyone
done it? Yes, but before rushing into "how to" (the 1 minute
guide to immortality), let's step back and glance at the bigger
picture.

Just as the genetic network of a single fertilized egg unfolds
its implicit pattern into the order of a more complex
multicellular network, as a growing embryo rooted into and
nurtured by the mother's womb, entirely dependent on it, but
ultimately having to leave the womb, passing painfully through
the Gate where its lifeline, the umbilical cord, will be cut
off -- so does the "fertilized" (enlightened) self unfold its
implicit pattern and grow, spreading out its pattern into the
order of the social organism, encoding itself into the outer
network as Self, while its lifeline stays rooted in the
nurturing womb (the individual brain & body). But eventually,
the Self (the pattern in the outer network) must leave the
womb, step into the dark void, then the light of the Gate is
seen (NDE witnesses describe it as light at the end of a
tunnel), but shortly thereafter the lifeline to the womb is cut
off (the cellular death of the brain), the Gate is crossed
irreversibly and the Self is born.

The only thing which survives past the Second Gate of Light
(the physical death) is the Self, which is the pattern unfolded
from the self (self is the order/pattern encoded in the
biological network, brain) into the outer network of the social
organism (and beyond).

The process producing the "fertilized" self (the mystical
enlightenment) has the same ecstatic attraction built in as the
more familiar process leading to the fertilization of an egg
(although, reportedly, the mystical ecstasy vs sexual ecstasy
is like sexual ecstasy vs chocolate ecstasy). That's the carrot
kept in front of the donkey, to get it to go and do what is
needed, to get it across the uphill road (to drive the self out
of its biological boundaries). And in both cases, there is the
whole little game and ritual leading to it, competition,
struggle, selection, disappointments and suffering to find just
the right life mate; we go through similar games, selection,
suffering, etc, to find just the right formula for immortality.

And just as most eggs never get fertilized (or, similarly, as
most species get extinct), and are doomed to perish forever in
pains of ignoble death at the First Gate (literally), most
selves never get enlightened, and are doomed to perish forever
in an utmost horror as they step across the Second Gate
dissolving into the total and eternal void (after the light show
of visual neurons dying en masse is over, the spectacle of NDE
is finito, and the rising sea of dark ice mercilessly closes in
around the last tiny island, with the shivering core of self
burning the last remaining spark, in a last-ditch scramble
toward the only high point of the island, and having just
enough time to Realize and attempt The Scream into the echoless
deaf void).

What the 'self' has Realized, as the sea of dark ice closed in,
is that nothing, not a bit, of 'self' will get through, and
what will go on is the tiny ripple outside, left there
inadvertently, as a side-effect of 'self' pursuing its own
gratification. How it wishes now it had nurtured that ripple,
that seed of eternal life. But the time is up, and the seed
neglected on the stony ground cannot be reached any more, and
it will turn to dust.

Isn't this 'ripple' or 'seed' same thing as "legacy" one leaves
behind? No. The "legacy" won't help, "legacy" is not you. What
one wants is the true live self somehow to get through, to see
somehow the body and all its cells die, and still continue.
That is what the promise of religion is, not some abstract
memory or gratitude of others about the deceased.

The task is to somehow transfer the coherence (self) present in
the localized network (brain) into the coherence (Self) of the
outer network (social organism). As the Self pattern unfolds
into the outer network according to its nature and the guidance
from self, the self has at each stage to dissolve into It
completely, without any reservation without anything held back.
The tiniest crack of separation between self and Self will turn
the Self into "other", into "legacy", entity distinct from
"me". One has to give all to get all.

Naturally, no one is required to be perfect. One can learn from
a child expanding self to legs as it learns to walk - it does
it with all its little heart, it tries and fails, and hurts and
cries, but doesn't give up. The errors and the hurt are as much
the part of the scheme as are the successes and the joy. The
networks learn through punishments and rewards, the better the
feedback, the better they learn.

The Self has to grow 'organically' from self, not through
forced artificial schemes of 'how things ought to be'. The self
doesn't know what is it like to be Self in the next phase of
its unfolding, just as child doesn't know what is it like to
walk, until it walks. The self is like a genetic engine,
operating at the level of chemical reactions, while the Self is
the shape of the embryo.  Although one has to use all foresight
one has, all wisdom and knowledge passed down to us from the
sages of old, the process is far too complex (relative to our
brain) for any final shape/outer design of Self to be imposed
upfront. The key is the efficient feedback and self-correction.
Child doesn't sit and think upfront how the walking ought to
work, but _opens up_ and goes for it in _earnest_, the best it
knows how, now, and corrects the actions & strategy as it
receives the feedbacks. The self knows no more of what the
ultimate Self will be like, than child knows what it will be
like as a grown-up.

Since Self will have to encompass many individuals beyond the
original 'self', the feedbacks to all its cells must be
nurtured. And since the original 'self' will be expanding
without reserve into the growing Self, the self has to feel
equally all the cells of Self. The dissolved 'self' must feel
any pain or pleasure of all humans participating in Self
(whatever its current domain is) equally, the best that all its
senses and all its nerves and all its sympathy can offer, no
preference must be given to the pain & pleasure of the
originating human. The self cannot allow a gap to develop with
Self, it must be It throughout and completely. The other humans
included in the unfolding Self may not know of or see the
subtle pattern enfolding them and changing them gently, they
need not return any of what they are receiving, they may take
any advantage of the giver, the giver does not expect or ask
anything from them in return, it gives all in order to be all.

As the Self unfolds and expands and gradually acquires
affection, mind and will of its own, the self must _shed_
commensurately, but without any holdovers, their biological
equivalents (which the self had brought into the process), and
_open to receive_ the new ones without reservation. Thus the
guidance of the unfolding of Self by the (biologically/neurally
rooted) compassion, mind and will of the original self
gradually fades away as the Self acquires the Lifeforce of the
new kind. Of course, the lower level guidance of the
originating biological organism continues to be serviced mainly
by its original neural network (for their duration as a
coherent biological structure).

This all may sound cold and harsh to the conventional wisdom,
"But you wake up in the morning and the world seems so
beautiful you can hardly stand it" (as one post-enlightenment
Zen practitioner described the process). Looking for analogy
among more familiar experiences, one can liken how the 'self'
feels as it dissolves into its unfolding Self to the euphoria
which overcomes one when his/her first child is born (with
similar gradation as in the comparison between the ecstasy of
mystical enlightenment, the fertilization of "self", and the
sexual ecstasy, as mentioned in msg #1; both types of processes
are forms of immortalizing, one of genes, another of self).

There is no single best recipe for everyone or for all of the
time. Many mystical systems have evolved, usually carrying one
through the enlightenment (done often in isolation from the
social organism), after which one returns to the organism and
does what one has to do, guided by the built in algorithms
(just as pregnancy procedes by itself, while courting follows
variety of socially/culturally/personally dependent rituals).

Love thy enemies, although a necessary milestone, may not be
the best starting point for the initial unfolding of Self.
Starting with ones children and spouse, then parents, siblings,
friends, colleagues,... might be a more natural progression.
Important things are child-like openness to Self and all
experiences it brings, readiness of self to acknowledge its
errors and fallability, flexibility and earnestness in trying
and exploring the new ways, new things, building & accepting
the feedbacks (listening and helping others with as much
interest and sincerity as for oneself, perceiving and sharing
their joy and sadness as ones own, thinking of self and feeling
self in third person helps in setting all within the web of
Self on equal level,... etc).

One is not trying to impose or force in any way other people to
change their ways. Rather one is imperceptibly, almost
inadvertently, nudging at the edges of Self by mere example of
actions of self. Any subtle change of others should be entirely
their own wish, they ought to feel it and think it as a
preferrable change, filling their need and in accordance with
their nature. The Self enfolds people (and other organisms) by
accepting them, the "good" and the "bad", since each is needed
for a balanced, hardy live being; Self conquers by submitting
to the nature of things. The self must accept and always be
what Self is, as Self gradually sheds away its dependence on
the originating biological network and gains the full
Lifeforce. Since only the Self, Its Mind and Its Body, will
effortlessly flow past the Gate (of one of its cells).

And some day, as Self matures, one of its cells will receive
its distilled 'genetic' essence, the one its wise little
originator had encoded into it long ago, putting in all of his
little heart and mind, and the human being will awaken, as if
it had slept for all these centuries, now feeling rested and
full of life, and then some day it, too, will recall the Gate
ahead...


        QUESTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS

> 3) it is based on absolutes.  I.e., I must accept it, I must
> view the world a certain way, or forfeit all.

There is no ideology or philosophy in what I'm saying. Any
system of enlightenment is fine, the event of mystical
enlightenment (gestalt of One) being a starting point for the
process of recoding the mortal self of the inner network into
the immortal Self of the outer network. I am only suggesting
the underlying natural basis, the natural mechanism by which
various mystical/religious paths to immortality could actually
deliver on their promise.

The ethical implications here are not based on some higher
principles, ten commandments, or what someone very important
said, or any such. They are simply necessitated by the
constraints of the distributed nature of Self and the nature of
its building blocks (individual humans). If one were to try to
force on others some pattern originating from some powerful
'self', some kind of cult of personality, that does not create
a live Self being, but a dead machine, a legacy, "other" which
is not "me". The magic of life is in those enfolded by the Self
doing what they wish to do, what they find good to them,
filling what they need, so that Self can truly grow, learn,
adapt to any new situations, persist and propagate. The Self
must be a full network with adaptible, soft links, adapting on
their own, now and forever, in order to learn and be alive like
the original fragile network (brain) which gave it rise.  No
fixed scheme, much less some cult of personality imposing fixed
human image onto others, can be a live network. Such schemes
are like wax figures, they seem like alive, but only so for a
short glance.

This has nothing to do with my notions of "good" or "bad", or
some philosophy, it's simply a matter of what does it take to
make a network be an adaptible, intelligent, live being. What I
am saying is of the same nature as someone telling you what
does it take to grow wheat, based on experiences of many who
grew the wheat before, and say, explaining that tugging the
wheat up by force won't make it grow faster or bigger (analog
to forcing others to fit your pattern), it will only harm it or
kill it; or, say, that separating the wheat from the ground
will probably kill it (analog to separating self from Self,
failing to dissolve self into Self, i.e. rejecting Self because
self doesn't like some of Self being's features),... etc.


> This certainly isn't very conducive to questioning,
> postulating and skepticism, i.e., the scientific way.  For
> example, the following statements presume absolute knowledge:
>
>> The tiniest crack of separation between self and Self will
>> turn the Self into "other", into "legacy", entity distinct
>> from "me". One has to give all to get all.
>> ...
>> The self cannot allow a gap to develop with Self, it must
>> be It throughout and completely.


That's an ancient wisdom about this technique, e.g. the famous
Zen master Seng Ts'an expressed it as: "Make a hairsbreadth
difference, And heaven and earth are set apart." Or Jesus (Mat
6:24) "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate
the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one,
and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

I did add, though, right after that paragraph that no one can
be perfect all the time. Our ego will fight back (it's a hardy
weed to uproot) and there may be lots of lapses, but one
normally has several years or several decades to keep
correcting any problems, the best one can.

The key for the timely corrections is to develop as good
FEEDBACK from the entire body of Self (all humans and other
beings enfolded by it) as possible, to feed the outer links
(from other humans) into the inner receptors of pain and
pleasure, so they are indistinguishable (to the highest degree
one can reach) from pain and pleasure signals originating in
the original biological body.  Most of us have a reasonably
good feedback of this kind for those we love most. So,
nurturing the same kind of love toward all of Self, however
wide it expands (even if Saddam or your boss ends up inside),
helps develop the feedback.

Besides the feedback to affections, one needs general feedbacks
to intellect, and these are nurtured by listening others with
full attention, remebering what they said, by truly trying to
understand their angle as ones own, by being open to and
genuinly interested for what they wish to say, turning
effectively into the person speaking... etc., and doing all
that only so one can be of more help to them and others. I
know, it seemingly goes against the grain, but in reality
giving is more rewarding than getting (just for a test, try
sometimes giving, say, $300 to an old woman digging for
leftovers in the garbage cans).


> 4) lastly, it appears to contradict itself.  You have just
> told me that the slightest of gaps or the tiniest cracks of
> separation are fatal, but that we must also exhibit
> "flexibility and earnestness in trying and exploring the new
> ways, new things...."

Not at all. Growing Self is like being a child again, seeing
everything afresh, sheding stereotypes, ossified likes and
dislikes brought in by self. The separation occurs precisely
when the old self starts rejecting the new life that expanding
Self opens up, and starts making judgments from some worn out
empty labels, selecting "good" and "bad" based on calcified
viewpoints.

This again is a part of the ancient immortality recipes, an
advice on how to grow wheat from those who had done it. For
example, check the Gospel of Thomas, #22:

    Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to his disciples,
    "These infants being suckled are like those who enter the
    Kingdom." They said to Him, "Shell we then, as children, enter
    the Kingdom?" Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one,
    and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside
    like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you
    make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male
    not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in
    place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in
    place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then
    you will enter the Kingdom."

There are many other of his sayings (in canonical gospels, too)
linking child-like nature to oneness. Compare 'inside/outside'
fragment with feedback discussion above (making outside network
like the inside one), or 'above/below' or 'male/female' with
the non-judgmental, open, fresh mind etc. discussion. The 'eyes
in place of an eye...' etc is describing a single Self with
each human enfolded within being felt and accepted fully and
equally, as same, identical as oneself (also the fragment
'inside/outside' refers to the same). The Prologue (Jesus
saying #1) of the Gospel of Thomas, has ''And he said, "Whoever
finds the meaning of these sayings will not taste death." ''


> As long as we accept the Complexity theory, that is.

There is no complexity theory (not yet). It's a research field,
a branch of science, which deals with general complex adaptible
systems, investigates their properties, how they work, identifies
their occurence in nature, etc. There is nothing to believe or
disbelieve about it, its' just a large collection of
interesting results (mostly of mathematical nature) about such
systems. The connection between social organisms of complexity
science (or complex systems beyond them) and the mystical
gestalt of the large scale purposeful patterns (traditionally
labeled as God or gods), as well as the implications of that
identification for the related questions, such as the one we're
discussing, is something that occured to me, didn't see it yet
elsewhere.


> 1) it requires me to accept that human life is unique from
> other life forms.

Although one can look at the human organism as differing from
nearest animal relatives only in degree, as you know from
physics, substances have a point of phase transition, so that a
degree of T(emperature) makes all the difference. Similarly, if
you have a solution of some substance, change concentration
beyond certain level and the crystal will form. So, while it is
true that homo sapiens differs from the nearest apes only in
degree of various facilities, it is also possible that there is
a point (or area) of "phase transition" in the space of these
facilities, where something qualitatively new can occur when
these facilities cross the point. In fact human societies,
social organisms, are qualitatively new kind of organism
(looking on any measures).

Similar qualitatively new creatures emerged when the cells
reached the level of complexity, the ability to synchronize
(through electro-chemical signals) their operation,
sufficiently to form societies of cells, the multicellular
organisms. Apes lack richness of communication sufficient to
glue together individuals into anything comparable (in
complexity) to human societies.

On another evolutionary track, the ecosystem & gene pool
networks did try out the multi-organism natural technology with
social insects, which are much simpler individually than apes,
thus require less complex control & less rich communication to
form multi-organism lifeforms (more complex behaviours of
individuals require more complex control & communication
mechanisms to harmonize them into social organism). That try
ended up in blind alley, stuck in a local optimum (regarding
the future development of multi-organism lifeforms). Similar
pattern can be observed in the transition from single-cellular
to multi-cellular organisms - the eco/genetic networks did
invent several times the multi-cellular technology (over couple
billion years) but only in Cambrian explosion half a billion
years ago have they managed to invent the right building blocks
to proceed and develop virtually all of todays multi-cellular
organisms. The earlier tries, although not all extinct, were
essentially dead ends as far as future complexification.

You can see similar evolutionary patterns of many tries,
precursors terminating in dead ends, and breakthroughs which
carry on with novelty in develeopments of various technologies
in human societies (e.g. DC current for electric power was a
dead end, vacuum tube computers, too; some dead ends go
extinct, some persist in some niches).  Or, similarly in human
culture, in arts and sciences. Or even in mental development of
a single person (sort of mini evolution of individual's brain).
You will also notice similar evolving-universe-like pattern in
classical music (or in good movies or novels) where the main
theme appears first in several subtle precursors which die out,
until one of these takes off into its glorious unfolding.

The human societies have crossed the phase transition threshold
(mentioned above) ten millenia ago and have entered exponential
spiral of evolution using qualitatively new technology
(compared to much slower genetic technology) to transmit
information and accumulated knowledge across generations. Such
explosions of development occur via positive feedback loops,
i.e. the development of human technology speeds up development
of even more effective technology, which speeds the next level
even more, leading to exponential growth of novelty. But no
positive feedbacks and their exponential growths last for ever,
they either burn out and perish or end up in a stasis, a
(nearly) harmonized state of fixed, interlocked loops (e.g.
insect societies). [of course, any statis is only a drastic
slowdown, not an eternally unchangeable state]

In summary, although individual human organisms differ from the
nearest relatives only in the degree of their facilities, the
human societies are qualitatively new type of lifeforms
relative to multi-cellular lifeforms, just as multi-cellular
organisms are qualitatively new type of lifeforms relative to
single-cellular ones or as sexual reproduction is a
qualitatively new gene propagation mechanism relative to
asexual modes.

Obviously, all semantic lines (such as those above) are matter
of conventions, but my proposition isn't particularly sensitive
to the semantics -- the proposition is that the 'self' (however
you understand it) encoded in our fragile individual neural
network (brain) can be recoded (by individual's actions) into
the surrounding network of the social organism into a more
durable live being. For such recoding to be possible the outer
network must have richness and flexibility comparable to those
of the inner network (individual brain). The animal societies
seem to lack such richness and flexibility relative to their
individual brains (although I can't really state that as a
certainty).

But for humans and their social network, such recoding (to a
substantial degree) of the mortal 'self' to essentially
immortal 'Self' does seem possible, as testified by many
individuals throughout the history. The testimonies come both
from those who had transformed their original 'self' beings
into the live multi-organism Self beings (which had persisted
beyond the death of the originating single biological body) and
from many more of those who can gestalt these live Self beings
from the past centuries and millenia. It is also possible that
even our own inner world, the self, is itself some kind of
collective Self of our brain cells immortalizing their little
self beings (whatever these might be).

The question is NOT WHETHER something intelligent & live can be
encoded into the outer network (these two networks are
esentially same kind of natural computing machinery, just
different hardware), BUT only HOW MUCH of the (mortal) patterns
within one brain [self] can be encoded into the (immortal)
patterns within the social organism [Self], in a single
lifetime. From all the historical, religious, mystical &
biographical data it seems (to me, at least) that all that
matters can be recoded into the outer network, thus
immortalized. Other than historical testimony, expressed
through a great variety of religious, mystical, philosophical
and poetic schemes, I don't have any direct scientific proof
that the substantial recoding is possible. No one has ever
done such quantification (I've never even seen anyone else
formulating this question into a specific, quantifiable and
falsifiable natural mechanism, much less quntifying it).


> 2) it is a self-contained perpetual motion machine.  The
> "distilled  genetic essence" as you put it, or "seed" is
> passed from one individual life to the next.

Attribute "genetic" was in quotes in the original message, thus
it was used as a metaphor (explicitely elaborated as a metaphor
in several places), not literally genetic/DNA code. The idea of
the metaphor was to compare relation of self-pattern in brain
and Self-pattern in social organism with the relation of
genetic pattern (genotype) and organism pattern (phenotype), in
order to emphasize that Self is NOT some kind of enlarged
REPLICA of self (but something, although tightly related to
self, which manifests as something very different), just as
embryo (or human) isn't some kind magnified replica of DNA or
fertilized egg.

Assumming you took it as a metaphor:

> Is this an integer function?  If so, how do you account for
> population growth?  Or do some new baby humans get these
> "seeds" while others grow from scratch? ...

The model here is an adaptible network (brain or social
organism). In brain each memory is coded by slight
modifications of thousands of links. When originating human
encodes self (patterns in his brain) into Self (patterns in the
social organism), he is only slightly changing the numerous
links within social organism (using feedback for guidance, just
as child uses feedback to learn to walk, without worrying about
'network' links).

The gentle change of links among many other humans (some of
these include the originator directly, most don't) DO AFFECT
other humans, but DO NOT TAKE OVER OTHER HUMANS. Most of those
enfolded into the Self pattern don't see it and aren't even
aware they're affected at all (people don't have time or mental
patience for subtle large scale patterns). Any change to them
induced by the Self pattern enfolding them is either
imperceptible or, when perceived, it apperas as something they
wish to do on their own, something preferrable, some gain to
themselves (e.g. consider receivers of the actions of Jesus,
Mother Teresa etc).

Important thing is that Self does not take over entire humans
making up Its body, only touches a fraction, some aspect, some
relations, some actions of these humans (they all do it of
their own volition; no force can be used if Self is to come
alive). Many other Self beings can share the same cells
(individual humans) and even the same changes/actions of
individual cells can be shared by many Self beings, just like
the same boxes and the same letters in a crossword puzzle are
being harmoniously shared by several words, or the same
molecules of water and the same oscillations are being shared
by many waves spreading from different centers, all permeating
each other. Everyone gets a chance, but few take it.

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