Giorgio Matassi and Pedro Martinez

Front. Ecol. Evol., 13 January 2023 Sec. Models in Ecology and Evolution

In this review essay, we give a detailed synopsis of the twelve contributions which are collected in a Special Issue in Frontiers Ecology and Evolution, based on the research topic “Current Thoughts on the Brain-Computer Analogy—All Metaphors Are Wrong, But Some Are Useful.” The synopsis is complemented by a graphical summary, a matrix which links articles to selected concepts. As first identified by Turing, all authors in this Special Issue recognize semantics as a crucial concern in the brain-computer analogy debate, and consequently address a number of such issues. What is missing, we believe, is the distinction between metaphor and analogy, which we reevaluate, describe in some detail, and offer a definition for the latter. To enrich the debate, we also deem necessary to develop on the evolutionary theories of the brain, of which we provide an overview. This article closes with thoughts on creativity in Science, for we concur with the stance that metaphors and analogies, and their esthetic impact, are essential to the creative process, be it in Sciences as well as in Arts.

Read the full article at: www.frontiersin.org

Sean Kelty, Raiyan Abdul Baten, Adiba Mahbub Proma, Ehsan Hoque, Johan Bollen, Gourab Ghoshal
Academic success is distributed unequally; a few top scientists receive the bulk of attention, citations, and resources. However, do these “superstars” foster leadership in scientific innovation? We introduce three information-theoretic measures that quantify novelty, innovation, and impact from scholarly citation networks, and compare the scholarly output of scientists who are either not connected or strongly connected to superstar scientists. We find that while connected scientists do indeed publish more, garner more citations, and produce more diverse content, this comes at a cost of lower innovation and higher redundancy of ideas. Further, once one removes papers co-authored with superstars, the academic output of these connected scientists diminishes. In contrast, authors that produce innovative content without the benefit of collaborations with scientific superstars produce papers that connect a greater diversity of concepts, publish more, and have comparable citation rates, once one controls for transferred prestige of superstars. On balance, our results indicate that academia pays a price by focusing attention and resources on superstars.

Read the full article at: arxiv.org

Arsham Ghavasieh, Manlio De Domenico
Complex network states are characterized by the interplay between system’s structure and dynamics. One way to represent such states is by means of network density matrices, whose von Neumann entropy characterizes the number of distinct microstates compatible with given topology and dynamical evolution. In this Letter, we propose a maximum entropy principle to characterize network states for systems with heterogeneous, generally correlated, connectivity patterns and non-trivial dynamics. We focus on three distinct coalescence processes, widely encountered in the analysis of empirical interconnected systems, and characterize their entropy and transitions between distinct dynamical regimes across distinct temporal scales. Our framework allows one to study the statistical physics of systems that aggregate, such as in transportation infrastructures serving the same geographic area, or correlate, such as inter-brain synchrony arising in organisms that socially interact, and active matter that swarm or synchronize.

Read the full article at: arxiv.org

Tomasz Korbak

Adaptive Behavior 31(1)

The notion of self-organisation plays a major role in enactive cognitive science. In this paper, I review several formal models of self-organisation that various approaches in modern cognitive science rely upon. I then focus on Rosen’s account of self-organisation as closure to efficient cause and his argument that models of systems closed to efficient cause – (M, R) systems – are uncomputable. Despite being sometimes relied on by enactivists this argument is problematic it rests on assumptions unacceptable for enactivists: that living systems can be modelled as time-invariant and material-independent. I then argue that there exists a simple and philosophically appealing reparametrisation of (M, R)–systems that accounts for the temporal dimensions of life but renders Rosen’s argument invalid.

Read the full article at: journals.sagepub.com

Koen Siteur, Quan-Xing Liu, Vivi Rottschäfer, Tjisse van der Heide, Max Rietkerk, Arjen Doelman, Christoffer Boström, and Johan van de Koppel

PNAS 120 (2) e2202683120

Human-induced environmental changes push ecosystems worldwide toward their limits. Therefore, there is a growing need for indicators to assess the resilience of ecosystems against external changes and disturbances. We highlight a novel class of spatial patterns in ecosystems for which resilience indicators are lacking and introduce a new indicator framework for these ecosystems, akin to the physics of phase separation. Our work suggests that aerial imagery can be used to monitor patchy ecosystems and highlights a link between physics and ecosystem resilience.

Read the full article at: www.pnas.org