Fractal catalytic model


Contributors to Wikimedia projects

Article Images

The fractal catalytic model (also referred to as the soliton-catalytic model) - proposed by Christopher James Davia and adopted in the research of Carnegie Mellon University (Lee and Marge Gregg) Professor of Psychology Patricia Carpenter - is a “theory of cognition grounded in metabolism” [1] which identifies enzymatic catalysis (taking place in cells) as a “prototypical process” [2] applying at all levels of scale in biological organisms.

The theory asserts that energy (associated with metabolism) and information (associated with cognition etc) become synonymous in complex biological structures via a self-organizing, multiple-scale catalytic process – the proposed mechanism involving the catalytic action of soliton propagation in (biological) excitable media[2].

Developed initially within the field of embodied cognition[3][4] it has been referenced in such areas as semiotics[5], artificial intelligence[6][7] and theories of life’s origins.[8][9]

References

  1. ^ Davia, C.J. (2002). "Minds, Brains & Catalysis: A theory of cognition grounded in metabolism". Dept of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. – also alternately titled: “Quantum Ontology: Minds, Brains, and Catalysts”.
  2. ^ a b Davia, C.J (2006), "Life, Catalysis and Excitable Media: A Dynamic Systems Approach to Metabolism and Cognition", in Tuszynski, J.A (ed.), The Emerging Physics of Consciousness (The Frontiers Collection), Springer, pp. 255–292, ISBN 978-3540238904
  3. ^ Carpenter, P.A; Davia, C.J. (2006). "A catalytic theory of embodied mind" (PDF). Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (2006): 1080–1085.
  4. ^ Carpenter, P.A.; Davia, C.J.; Vimal, R (2009). "Catalysis, Perception and Consciousness". New Mathematics and Natural Computation (NMNC). 5 (1): 287–306.
  5. ^ Thibault, P.J (2011). "Languaging Behaviour as Catalytic Process: Steps Towards a Theory of Living Language (Parts 1 & 2)" (PDF). The Public Journal of Semiotics. 3 (2): 2–151.
  6. ^ The CORVUS II / SCARI (Self-organizing Curious Anticipatory Architectures for Robust Intelligence) project mounted by the Cognitive Models subgroup of Texas A&M University-Commerce (Principle Investigator Derek Harter, Ph.D.) existed to “build and understand models of cognition based on (the) theory of intelligence as a self-organizing catalytic process” via the implementation of a “curious infrastructure built on top of a distributed, heterogeneous grid computing environment”. National Science Foundation (NSF), $450,000. See Harter, D (Nov 2006). Catalytic Self-Organization of Hierarchies: A Dynamical Systems View of Cognition. Presentation for the 2006 Northeast Texas INNS/MIND Workshop on Goal Directed Neural Systems. UT-Arlington, TX for a brief summary.
  7. ^ Bandyopadhyay, A; Fujita, D; Ranjit, P (2009). "Architecture of a massive parallel processing nano brain operating 100 billion molecular neurons simultaneously". International Journal of Nanotechnology and Molecular Computation (IJNMC). 1 (1): 50–80.
  8. ^ Mitra-Delmotte, G; Mitra, A.N (2011). "Softening the "crystal-scaffold" for life's emergence". Physics Research International – review article accepted Nov 2011.
  9. ^ Mitra, A.N (2011). "Consciousness: A Direct Link with Life's Origin?". Journal of Cosmology. 14: 4792–4799.

Bibliography