The Cascade Model of Morphological Flows

From Mbscientific_wiki

Unifying our understanding Material, Biotic and Social Morphogenesis

We saw how energy flowed out of the Progenitor State of our space-time bubble and coalesced in a morphological flow continuum that gave rise to material morphologies, biotic morphologies and our social morphologies in a continuum of hierarchical complexity. In the process we covered our own morphological evolution, our bodies, our minds, our societies and cultures.

We discovered the we have an expanding aperture of perception into the Inherent Reality that we are a part of, and in its perception we create our own Perceived Reality that may vary substantially from person to person and culture to culture. We discovered that Inherent Reality is by definition abstract, from our perspective it is made up of dynamic flows that coalesce to bear morphologies, hence morphological flows.

Then we discovered the necessary correlations between the Knowledge Trees forming our Perceived Reality and the Morphological Flows forming in Inherent reality. This must be for our minds to have a worthy internal representation of the observed.

And since we depend on this accurate representation as our main method of survival, this behavioral (functional) trait is naturally selected for. Useful ideas tend to perpetuate, bad ones tend to die off. And that is a good thing, because as we discovered, our social behavior tends to introduce all manners of ideas, some masquerading as socially decreed truths. It is corroboration that acid tests ideas, weeding out beliefs, leaving facts.

That is the scientific method. But as we discovered, science is only a part of our psyche. And since it is limited to the island of knowledge in the ocean of unknown, we need and rely on our belief systems, the metaphysical rendering, religious rendering to have a measure of closure of the known and unknown domains.

So in this exercise, as we have pieced together our internal rendering of morphological flows, we have covered both genres of our psyche. Some were rendered in the language of science, others rendered in the language of beliefs.

Being armed with that nugget of self awareness, let's try to recap what we have put together. Remember at the end of each chapter we had a section called Chapter Key. It always inevitably ended as a number of entities, goning through a construction process, creating other entities. The picture is deceptively simple cascade step:

A cascade process could involve a series of steps and if modeled deterministically it could look something like:

Entity Set==(constructor)==>Entity Set==(constructor)==>Entity Set==(constructor)==>Entity Set [so on]

We discovered that our deterministic models take shape if we look backwards in time, looking at the flows that have established already. If we can tell the entities and the construction processes, we'll have a deterministic model of what has already happened. When we look forward in time, and we don't know the outcome, our short term models tend to be probabilistic (solid flows are the actual outcomes of the probabilistic dotted flows, circles are entities, ovals are the constructor processes):

And if we look further ahead in time, we inevitably discover chaotic dynamics. Then we have to talk about emergent stable and unstable states that the dynamic engenders, with the stable states forming the outcomes of the process, assuming there are stable outcomes.

And by now we know it is our minds that make up these models. As we string together the chapter keys one at a time, that is exactly what we find. Put together, that is our internal rendering of the morphological flows, The Cascade Model of Morphological Flows and it comprises all of these deterministic, probabilistic and chaotic cascades spanning material, biotic and our social evolutionary time lines in a continuum.

Let's recap the cascade steps.

Aggregating the Interaction Cascades from the chapters

We mapped the cascades in the Chapter Key section of each chapter: Chapter Key:

Morphological Flows, entities going through functional constructs thereby creating more complex entities with more complex functionalities:

Material Morphogenesis

1- Creation of Elementary Particles and the Cosmos

Progenitor State == construct? ==> Photons (big bang particle soup) == construct? ==> particles (electron-proton-neutron) == construct (Strong, weak, Electro-Magnetic forces) ==> hydrogen, helium clouds ==construct (Gravitation) ==> galaxies, stars and planets

2- Creation of Atoms

Stellar Nuclei == nuclear fusion (strong nuclear force) ==> more complex nuclei up to iron == super/hyper nova compression ==> yet more complex nuclei == atomic orbital constructors (Electro-Magnetism) ==> atoms in the periodic table of elements

Right from the get go we could see functional features of the flows:

1- Polar, opposing forces and attractor sets- we saw electric positive and negative charges, magnetic poles, strong forces binding nuclei, weak forces breaking them apart. We saw gravity in action, and recently we have discovered something with anti-gravity property pushing galaxies apart.

Right from the get go, in the particle domain, we saw these forces acting as attractor sets for matter, pulling and pushing and thus inducing flows. We saw atoms and molecules acting similarly, spreading their electromagnetic fields in their surrounding space, pushing and pulling each other in a geometrically specific manner.

2- Chaotic flow dynamics, creation and destruction in a hierarchy of complexity- these attractor sets induce chaotic flows. Therein entities mix and match in every which way. They interact, sometimes constructively, creating new entities thereby increasing the order of complexity, and sometimes destructively thereby decreasing the order of complexity. The stable entities perpetuate and the non-stable ones breakdown to their constituent morphologies. And, everything seems to have a lifetime.

3- Full spectral hierarchy- if you consider the hierarchy of complexity as a spectrum, the stable niches up the complexity ladder remain full.

What is really interesting is that that these early features are maintained through out the creation of the hierarchy of complexity. Lats call these the Fundamental Material Features of the Morphological Flows.

3- Creation of Molecules

atoms == molecular orbital constructors (valent, covalent bonds - Electro-Magnetism) ==> molecules == molecular orbital constructors (valent, covalent bonds - Electro-Magnetism) ==> more complex molecules

4- Creation of Proto-Biota

base organic molecules == chemical reactive constructors (Electro-Magnetism) ==> intermediate organic molecules == chemical reactive constructors (Electro-Magnetism) ==> biotic organics

biotic organics == constructor? ==> biotic aggregates manifesting structural functions

biotic organics == constructor? ==> biotic aggregates manifesting metabolic functions

biotic organics == constructor? ==> biotic aggregates manifesting replicative functions

biotic organics == constructor? ==> biotic aggregates manifesting sensory/motor functions

biotic organics == constructor? ==> biotic aggregates manifesting signaling (communication) functions

biotic organics == constructor? ==> biotic aggregates manifesting defense and immunity functions

Biotic Organics exhibiting cellular functionalities == accretion constructor? ==> proto-biota (??)

This was our embarkation point on to the tree of life. Here we chose 6 major functionalities that makes a cell seem alive to us: replication, metabolism, structural, sensor/motor, signaling, defense/immunity. Lets call these the Fundamental Biotic Features of the Morphological Flows.

But the biotic features didn't appear out of the blue. Each functional feature must have a process that allowed it to evolve to form its chemical constitution. That is subject to the Fundamental Material Features of the flow. So as the order of complexity rose to produce emergent morphologies (life), new setts of fundamental features emerged along with it.

Biotic Morphogenesis

5- Biotic Evolution and Natural Selection

DNA-(t+m)RNA-Protein functional aggregates == accretion mechanisms (Electro-Magnetism) ==> coalesced DNA-(t+m)RNA-Protein functional groups

DNA-(t+m)RNA-Protein pathways define the 6 functional groups that we chose as the markers of life.

DNA-(t+m)RNA-Protein functional aggregates == mutation mechanisms (various) ==> mutated DNA-(t+m)RNA-Protein functional groups

DNA-(t+m)RNA-Protein functional groups + supporting material in the environment ==constructor (accretion?) ==> Functioning Cell

functioning cell == replication and differentiation ==> functioning cell clusters and groups (organs)

functioning cell clusters and groups (organs) == cell-cell signaling, communication and transport ==> functioning organism

functioning organisms == natural selection + genetic accretion/mutation/epigenetics ==> functional speciation

And the key to successful speciation is the type of accretion/mutations that are agreeable to establishing the emergent valid (stable) state. Natural selection sees to that. Conversely, natural selection weeds out variants that result in unstable (invalid) states. It can be argued that speciation introduces different body designs that implement the 6 major functionalities up the ladder of complxity along the tree of life.

6- The tree of Life

Between comparing gene and protein sequences, comparative anatomy and studying the fossil record, the tree of life can be assembled (it is an evolving, US government funded, world wide collaborative work available at www.tolweb.org). A synopsis of what we covered pictorially is shown in the table below (follow the yellow brick road, branching in successive rows, till it gets to us - the white cells branch off to other life forms that may or may not be extinct - we don't follow the white branches - for that see tolweb.org):

Single cell primordial family:

Eukaryotes

Archaea

Eubacteria

?viruses, ? nanobes

Cell Colonies Animals (amoebae)

Cell Colonies Plants (green algae)

Fungi

Proteists

Etc.

Bilateria (mollusks, arthropods, vertebrates, etc.)

Cnidaria (jellyfish, anemones, corals)

Porifera (sponges)

Etc.

Deuterostomia (vertebrates, echinoderms, tunicates, etc.)

Arthropods (insects, crabs, etc.)

Mollusks (clams, snails, squid, octopus)

Annelids (segmented worms) , Flatworms

Etc.

Chordates (vertebrates and relatives)

Echinoderms (starfish, urchins, etc.)

etc.

Craniata (animals with sculls, hagfish, vertebrates)

Tunicates

Vertebrata (lampreys and jawed vertebrates)

Hagfish

Jawed Vertebrates

Lampreys

etc.

Lobed fin fish and 4 legged vertebrates

Ray-fin fishes

Sharks and rays

etc

Terrestrial vertebrates (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians

coelacanths

Other extinct relatives

Amniota (mammals, birds, reptiles, dinosaurs, etc.)

Amphibians (frogs, salamanders, etc.)

Extinct relatives

Etc.

Mammals

Reptiles, dinosaurs birds

Turtles

Etc.

Placental mammals

Platypus, Echidnas

Marsupials (opossums, kangaroos)

Primates (monkeys, lemurs, chimps, humans)

Rodents

Carnivora (dogs, cats, hyenas, bears, seals, walruses, etc.)

Cetacea (dolphins, whales, etc.)

Horses, tapirs, rhinos, etc.

Etc.

Humans, great apes, gibbons

New world monkeys

lemurs

Etc.

Human, gorilla, chimp, orangutan, etc.

gibbons

Old world monkeys

Hominids

Gorillas

Chimps

Etc.

Homo Sapiens

Australopithecus

Homo erectus

Homo habilis

Etc.

Segue

7- Evolution of Central Nervous Systems (and Brains)

Cell Stimulus-Response == cell differentiation ==> sensory and motor neurons

sensory neurons +motor neurons +controller neurons == life actions ==> instinctive behavior

Sensory neurons + neural memory circuits +affirming neurons == training ==> learning

Sensory neurons + memory circuits + integrator/arbitrators + controllers + motor cells == life actions ==> heuristic behavior

Inherent Reality (abstract entities and phenomenon) + heuristic networks ==imprinting ==> Perceived Reality (abstractions and an internal notion of what is physical)

Our Social/Cultural Morphogenesis

8- Evolution of the Individual Mind and Collective Minds

fore,mid, hind brain == evolution ==> triune brain

Inherent Reality: Abstract == perception, affirmation, memorizing ==> abstraction (atomic knowledge element)

atomic knowledge elements == classification ==> super, subclasses comprising knowledge trees (knowledge genres)

knowledge trees == personal and social corroboration ==> beliefs, truths and facts

knowledge trees == memetic evolution ==> societal and cultural absorption, advancement and expansion

9- Our Social/Cultural Evolution: Religion, Science, Economics, Democratic Governance, Arms

(note: societal knowledge trees and culture are one and the same thing)

societal knowledge trees: religion + governance == social evolution ==> tribal cultures, societies and governments

societal knowledge trees: science == scientific evolution ==> technological societies and cultures

societal knowledge trees: economics == economic evolution ==> national wealth, trans-national economic alliances

societal kowledge trees: democratic governance == evolution of free societies ==> global coalition of free societies

societal knowledge trees: military arts and sciences == military evolution ==> empires, international military alliances

Finally, as we followed our social evolution form early migrations to our current global state we came up with emergent functional aspects:

Geographical Domain
Measure of Social Cohesion - Governance and Religion
Measure of Technological Capacity
Measure of Wealth - Economics
Measure of Defense and Expansion - Military Capacity

Let's call these Fundamental Social Functionalities of Morphological Flows.

(Morphological) Flow Analytics

The Cascade Model of Morphological Flows is as much an analytical discipline as it is a descriptive one. You can put it to use for analytical purposes. If you look at an outcome that has already established, you can break it down to constituents and processes that brought it about. You can learn about the processes and use it as a predictor of what may happen if you look forward in time. And looking ahead at a longer time span, you can model the dynamics at hand and perhaps venture a prediction of what future outcomes might be.

One can argue that flow oriented thinking is how we naturally think. I'll give you a few segues before going on to the big one.

The first segue is a fun one. Say you are a young couple, it might be fun to look at your current attractor sets and play a compatibility game, trying to see where you might be pulling together or apart. The game might shed some light on how morphological flows apply to one's circumstances personally. Click here to play that game.

The second segue sheds some light on how we think mathematically. It turns out that mathematical thinking is just a formalized subset of flow oriented thinking. Here we'll start with some simple math and work our way through some fractal models with rather impressive results. Click here to go to the Cascade Math page.

Now for the big one. We left the last part of the last chapter, Reshuffling_the_World_Order, with our sustainability problem. As things stand, our current global social morphology is not sustainable. In this final segue, we are going to analyze the sustainability problem from a morphological flow angle, and look for solutions.