Category: Biology of Information

• Cardiac activity: its role in perception and action

  Patterns of cardiac activity continuously vary with environmentaldemands, accelerating or decelerating depending on circumstances. Simultaneously, cardiac cycle affects a host of higher-order processes, where systolic baroreceptor activation largely impairs processing. However, a unified functional perspective on the role of cardiac signal in perception and action has been lacking. — Patterns of cardiac activity continuously vary…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-17

  Active Inference, Biology of Information, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology

  #ActiveInference, #TheInformationLens

• Human innovation depends on our collective brains

  A recent study investigates hunters’ causal understandings of bow design and mechanics among the Hadza, one of the last remaining foraging populations. The results suggest that sophisticated technology can evolve without complete causal understanding. Human innovation depends not on our individual brainpower but on our collective brains, on networks of diverse minds sharing information, lucky…

  walterstiers

  2023-03-17

  #sense-making, Biology of Information, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology

  #emergence, #TheInformationLens

• “A New Evolutionary Law”

  Revisiting Leigh Van Valen’s “A New Evolutionary Law” (1973) by Ricard Solé, (Biological Theory (2022) 17:120–125) Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass Leigh Van Valen was an American evolutionary biologist who made major contributions to evolutionary theory. He is…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-25

  Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Science

  #Ecosystem, #emergence, #Entanglement, #TheInformationLens

• Ecosystems – Mutualism – Synthetic biology

  Synthetic Mutualism and the Intervention Dilemma describes how ecosystems are complex networks of interacting individuals co-evolving with their environment. As such, changes to an interaction can influence the whole ecosystem. However, to predict the outcome of these changes, considerable understanding of processes driving the system is required. Synthetic biology provides powerful tools to aid this…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-25

  Biology of Information, Life Ideas, Science

  #Ecosystem, #Mutualism, #TheInformationLens

• The Niche theory : Compete, Facilitate & Mutualisme

  From competition to facilitation and mutualism: a general theory of the niche by Koffel, Daufresne and Klausmeier explores the niche theory. Niche Theory is a central framework in ecology based on the recognition that most interactions between organisms are indirect, mediated by the biotic and abiotic dynamical environment these organisms live in. Despite its potential…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-25

  Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Science

  #Ecosystem, #Mutualism, #TheInformationLens

• Can Creativity Be Stored? Yes, and It Should Be

  For those of us who are not creative, it is difficult to imagine how creative people work.The explanation for the messy creative person and the uncreative brainstorming session can be found in research by Poornika Ananth and Sarah Harvey published in Administrative Science Quarterly. They had a big study of creative individuals in theatre and architecture, and…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-23

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Creative Thinking, Design Thinking, Science

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Neuroplasticity enables bio‑cultural feedback

  The scientific reports article “Neuroplasticity enables bio‑cultural feedback in Paleolithic stone‑tool making” elaborates on the idea described in articles like The comparative neuroscience and neuroarchaeological evidence indicate that functional systems supporting stone tool making have undergone substantial change over human evolution, and that these changes may be relevant to a much wider range of distinctively…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-22

  #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Life Ideas, Science, Social-Technical

  #Analogy, #downcausation, #emergence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Brain-Behavior relationships

  “Improving the study of brain-behavior relationships by revisiting basic assumptions” discusses how scientific communities tacitly agree on assumptions about what exists (called ontological commitments), what questions to ask, and what methods to use. All assumptions are firmly rooted in a philosophy of science that need not be acknowledged or discussed but is practiced nonetheless. In…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-21

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Information Technology, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• “Average is good, extremes are bad”

  Traditionally, studies emphasize differences in neural measures between pathological and healthy groups, assuming a binary distinction between the groups, and a linear relationship between neural measures and symptoms. A continuous relation across the divide of normal and pathological states between neural measures and mental functions shows a relation which can be characterized by a nonlinear…

  walterstiers

  2023-02-10

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology

• Awe brings Health

  Awe as a Pathway to Mental and Physical Health describes how experiences in nature or in spiritual contemplation or in being moved by music or with psychedelics promote mental and physical health. The article is define awe at its core. Awe engages five processes that benefit well-being:(1) shifts in neurophysiology, (2) a diminished focus on…

  walterstiers

  2023-01-12

  Biology of Information, Life Ideas

• Develop or disrupt & team size

  “Large teams develop and small teams disrupt science and technology“Increases in team size have been attributed to the specialization of scientific activities, improvements in communication technology, or the complexity of modern problems that require interdisciplinary solutions. This shift in team size raises the question of whether and how the character of the science and technology…

  walterstiers

  2023-01-09

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Policy, Science, Social-Technical, Walking

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• ATTENTION: “What You Know is What You See.” & you can change both…

  Attending is a cognitive process that incorporates a person’s knowledge, goals, and expectations. What we perceive when we attend to one thing is different from what we perceive when we attend to something else. Yet, it is often argued that attentional effects do not count as evidence that perception is influenced by cognition. Two arguments…

  walterstiers

  2023-01-09

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Information Technology, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

  #Analogy, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

  Cognitive science has developed computational models that decompose cognition into functional components. Computational neuroscience has modeled how interacting neurons can implement elementary components of cognition. It is time to assemble the pieces of the puzzle of brain computation and to better integrate these separate disciplines. Modern technologies enable us to measure and manipulate brain activity…

  walterstiers

  2023-01-02

  Biology of Information, Uncategorized

  #Analogy, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind

• Wouter inspired me to (re)act

  The most valuable communication happens in informal and unpredictable ways. (Most organizational charts are an illusion…) Wouter,je uitspraak is zowel waar als relevant. De meeste bedrijven baseren zich nog steeds op de near-composability van H. Simon, een organisatiemodel dat werkt, maar alleen voor korte-termijn doelstellingen. Een bedrijf is  complexer dan wat near-composability kan aanreiken. “no…

  walterstiers

  2022-12-09

  #Cynefin, #Sensemaking, #stakeholder economy, #Wicked, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Design Thinking, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, #Wicked

• Prediction: multi-scale pattern completion of the future

  The notion of the brain as a prediction machine has been extremely influential and productive in cognitive sciences.One prominent framework is of a “Bayesian brain” that explicitly generates predictions and uses resultant errors to guide adaptation. The prediction-generation component of this framework may involve little more than a pattern completion process. Brain-like systems can get…

  walterstiers

  2022-12-07

  #Sensemaking, Active Inference, AI, Biology of Information, Neurobiology/psychology

  #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Over-reliance on English hinders

  Several studies report a ‘bilingual advantage’ for cognitive control: the ability to plan, focus, and execute a wide array of tasks is better among bilinguals compared with monolinguals, in particular among older adult bilinguals. Nonetheless, this bilingual advantage is not replicated consistently, as the effect is heavily modulated by task, age of participants, and bilingual…

  walterstiers

  2022-12-07

  Biology of Information, Creative Thinking, Life Ideas, Science

  #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• “decrease the mental-self-processing & a synchronization with the interoceptive and exteroceptive-self-processing”.

  I stated in a previous post the insight into our neurology of meditation, in order to attain our goal to keep it simple, but often fail to realize it. I already suggested, we need “to kill our darlings” in order to be open to the full context of the terrain we’re exposed to. A recent paper…

  walterstiers

  2022-11-28

  #Sensemaking, Biology of Information, Creative Thinking, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology

  #DecisionIntelligence, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens

• Only then we will be on the right track.

  This is more a kind of “look what is available for you all”,Open Acces and available as pdf download: Luiz Pessoa published his latest book “The Entangled Brain: How Perception, Cognition, and Emotion Are Woven Together” And, yes, the conclusion is very valuable: Ultimately, to explain the cognitive-emotional brain, we need to dissolve boundaries within the…

  walterstiers

  2022-11-15

  Biology of Information, Neurobiology/psychology

  #DecisionIntelligence

• It all comes together in a perfect storm :: “Keep it Simple”

  Three different levels of information processing show a remarkable alignment. They all are guided by similar principles, which do map and overlap.Let me briefly summarize them: First:Active Inference , a sentient behaviour theory, builds on the free energy principle. FEP implies a coupling between the internal and external states of a system that is symmetric:…

  walterstiers

  2022-11-14

  #Cynefin, #Sensemaking, Active Inference, AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science, Social-Technical

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #HumanAI, #ProblemSolvingMind, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty, #Wicked

• Beliefs and Inference

  Beliefs are propositions about the true states of the world.Active inference—a process theory based on the free energy principle—describes how an agent forms and updates beliefs.The active inference framework posits that the agent (i) observes the world, (ii) infers the causes of the observations, and (iii) forms beliefs about the external states of the world.…

  walterstiers

  2022-11-07

  #Sensemaking, Active Inference, Biology of Information, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens

• Conscious Body (&Mind) A lecture given by Deric

  Derics Brownds published a summary of a recent lecture on his website The start of the lecture is setting a very important message I’ve learned about work that has shown, in just the past 10-15 years, that much of what we thought we knew about how our minds work isn’t quite right, our commonsense notions,…

  walterstiers

  2022-10-25

  Active Inference, Biology of Information, Complexity, Creative Thinking, Decision Intelligence, Neurobiology/psychology, Social-Technical

  #DecisionIntelligence, #TheInformationLens

• Beslissen: FEP, AI, Bayes

  “We sample the world to ensure our predictions become a self-fulfilling prophecy.” Karl Friston De beslissingswetenschappen en neurowetenschappen werden recent verrijkt door het principe van vrije energie (Free Energy Principle / FEP) van Karl Friston. FEP is misschien wel het meest allesomvattende idee sinds de theorie van natuurlijke selectie van Charles Darwin. Samenvattend is het…

  walterstiers

  2022-10-11

  AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Uncategorized

  #ActiveInference, #DecisionIntelligence, #emergence, #FreeEnergyPriciple, #HumanAI, #TheInformationLens

• Samenwerken als Ecosysteem

  De omschrijving ecosysteem voor een samenwerking kan misleidend zijn. De verschillende activiteiten die de deelnemers dienen uitvoeren, bestaat uit een stroom van informatie, beslissingen, acties, risico, voordelen en waarde, die bij een ecosysteem begrensd of toegeëigend kan worden aan ‘het ecosysteem’. (Zie hierbij ook het concept van FEP). Indien de vermelde stromen in essentie ruimer…

  walterstiers

  2022-10-11

  #Sensemaking, #Wicked, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Life Ideas, Social-Technical, Sustainability

  #DecisionIntelligence, #Ecosystem, #TheInformationLens

• Rethinking Computational Approaches to the Mind

  Rethinking Computational Approaches to the Mind Fundamental Challenges and Future Perspectives One-day Online Symposium21st October 2022 REGISTER HERE This one-day online event will bring together researchers with expertise in various areas such as complexity science, machine learning & artificial intelligence, information theory & data science, as well as computational/theoretical neuroscience & philosophy to explore different computational approaches…

  walterstiers

  2022-09-08

  #Sensemaking, AI, Biology of Information, Complexity, Decision Intelligence, Information Technology, Life Ideas, Neurobiology/psychology, Science

  #HumanAI, #TheInformationLens, #Uncertainty