My current take on emergence and causation. Is the universe pulled toward Life?

[Giulio Prisco]

Turing Church newsletter: My current take on emergence and causation.
Is the universe pulled toward Life? I have been reading and thinking a
lot about causation and the metaphysics of biology. This is a snapshot
of my current take.
https://www.turingchurch.com/p/my-current-take-on-emergence-and

[John Clark]

On Mon, Nov 15, 2021 at 3:36 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> https://www.turingchurch.com/p/my-current-take-on-emergence-and

> Is life entailed by physics? Is the emergence and growth of life a result of the kind of physics we are familiar with (known physics and incremental improvements based on the reductionist framework of known physics)? Or do we need a new framework? 

I don't think a new physics framework would be of any use in understanding how life works.  

>  or will they require an entirely new framework where other forms of causation (e.g. backward, downward, top-down, teleological) play a role alongside the efficient causation mechanisms of today’s physics?

I rather doubt it but there's a possibility backward causality might be important in very fundamental physics, but if it is I don't think it would only be important only to physics that eventually involves life but rather to everything and all of physics; there would be nothing special about life in that regard. As for teleology,  if things happen because of the purpose they serve rather than causes that produce them then that leaves open the question of whose purpose? There doesn't seem to be a universal answer to that question and if something claims to be the ultimate answer to everything then it should be true in every frame of reference, and teleology is not. 

 

> Kauffman bets on a concept due to Maël Montévil and Matteo Mossio (2015) called “Constraint Closure” as an organizational principle that builds order “faster than that order can be dissipated by the second law of thermodynamics.”

I don't see how that could be true. If there's one law of physics that  would hold true in every universe in the multiverse I'm convinced it would be the Second Law Of Thermodynamics, that's because it's based on logic and not on other physical laws,  it's simply true that there are more ways something can be chaotic than ways it can be well ordered.

> the efficient causation laws of the physics we know are strictly followed, but leave the actual evolution of physical systems under-determined.

Yes, but if Hugh Everett's many worlds idea is correct then that would explain why at the smallest most fundamental level we can only make probabilistic predictions not exact ones. 

> it can be argued that classical mechanics is under-determined as well, and that under-determination might follow from Gödel’s theorems.

If quantum mechanics is under-determined at the sub microscopic level (and it is) then things at our everyday macroscopic level must be under-determined too. Godel told us that there are true statements in arithmetic that have no proof (the Goldbach Conjecture maybe?); I hope not but perhaps in a similar way there are true things about physics that have no experimental verification.  

> I think definable natural laws only scratch the thin surface of a thick reality that can’t be reduced to a finite description

If so then it's a waste of time to even talk about an ultimate description of reality.  As Wittgenstein said "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence".

> physical laws maximize overall entropy production rates. Producing physical systems that keep low entropy locally (e.g. living systems) is the fastest way for the universe to increase global entropy, and that’s it. 

I agree with that.

> [The] universe is rationally governed in more than one way - not only through the universal quantitative laws of physics that underlie efficient causation but also through principles which imply that things happen because they are on a path that leads toward certain outcomes - notably, the existence of living, and ultimately of conscious, organisms.”

If Hugh Everett is correct and everything that is not logically self-contradictory (such as a violation of the second law of thermodynamics) does happen, then it's not surprising that intelligence finds itself in a universe in which stable structures that can process data (Turing Machines) are possible. As for consciousness, after saying consciousness is the way data feels when it is being processed I don't think there's much more that can be said about it.

John K Clark

[Lawrence Crowell]

When somebody advances backwards causality my eyes glaze over and I stop reading. There are a few physicists who advance backward causality, but the idea is just wrong. It came from Feynman and Wheeler with their advanced gauge potentials with absorbers. Even they gave up on it pretty quickly. 

LC

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On Mon, 15 Nov 2021 at 19:36, Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Turing Church newsletter: My current take on emergence and causation.
Is the universe pulled toward Life? I have been reading and thinking a
lot about causation and the metaphysics of biology.

I don’t think there’s anything about biological systems that’s inconsistent with what we know about organic chemistry.

This is a snapshot
of my current take.
https://www.turingchurch.com/p/my-current-take-on-emergence-and

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Stathis Papaioannou

[Giulio Prisco]

On Mon, Nov 15, 2021 at 4:22 PM John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Nov 15, 2021 at 3:36 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > https://www.turingchurch.com/p/my-current-take-on-emergence-and
>
>
>> > Is life entailed by physics? Is the emergence and growth of life a result of the kind of physics we are familiar with (known physics and incremental improvements based on the reductionist framework of known physics)? Or do we need a new framework?
>
>
> I don't think a new physics framework would be of any use in understanding how life works.
>
>> > or will they require an entirely new framework where other forms of causation (e.g. backward, downward, top-down, teleological) play a role alongside the efficient causation mechanisms of today’s physics?
>
>
> I rather doubt it but there's a possibility backward causality might be important in very fundamental physics, but if it is I don't think it would only be important only to physics that eventually involves life but rather to everything and all of physics; there would be nothing special about life in that regard.

I agree. Life "works" like the rest of physics. If new principles are
needed to explain life, those new principles apply to the rest of the
world.

> As for teleology, if things happen because of the purpose they serve rather than causes that produce them then that leaves open the question of whose purpose? There doesn't seem to be a universal answer to that question and if something claims to be the ultimate answer to everything then it should be true in every frame of reference, and teleology is not.
>
>>
>> > Kauffman bets on a concept due to Maël Montévil and Matteo Mossio (2015) called “Constraint Closure” as an organizational principle that builds order “faster than that order can be dissipated by the second law of thermodynamics.”
>
>
> I don't see how that could be true. If there's one law of physics that would hold true in every universe in the multiverse I'm convinced it would be the Second Law Of Thermodynamics, that's because it's based on logic and not on other physical laws, it's simply true that there are more ways something can be chaotic than ways it can be well ordered.

But you agree with "Producing physical systems that keep low entropy

locally (e.g. living systems) is the fastest way for the universe to

increase global entropy" below, which is essentially the same thing.
Pockets of local order are the fastest way to grow overall disorder
(by eating free energy from the environment and giving back high
entropy waste), and that's how thermodynamics favors life (or so these
people think).

>
>> > the efficient causation laws of the physics we know are strictly followed, but leave the actual evolution of physical systems under-determined.
>
>
> Yes, but if Hugh Everett's many worlds idea is correct then that would explain why at the smallest most fundamental level we can only make probabilistic predictions not exact ones.
>

Perhaps we don't need an "explanation" of the probabilistic nature of
physical laws. Perhaps this is just how things work.

>> > it can be argued that classical mechanics is under-determined as well, and that under-determination might follow from Gödel’s theorems.
>
>
> If quantum mechanics is under-determined at the sub microscopic level (and it is) then things at our everyday macroscopic level must be under-determined too. Godel told us that there are true statements in arithmetic that have no proof (the Goldbach Conjecture maybe?); I hope not but perhaps in a similar way there are true things about physics that have no experimental verification.
>

Yes.

>> > I think definable natural laws only scratch the thin surface of a thick reality that can’t be reduced to a finite description
>
>
> If so then it's a waste of time to even talk about an ultimate description of reality. As Wittgenstein said "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence".
>

There's scratching the surface, and there's scratching the surface a
bit deeper. We can't know everything at a given time, but we CAN know
(and do) more than we could before.

>
>> > physical laws maximize overall entropy production rates. Producing physical systems that keep low entropy locally (e.g. living systems) is the fastest way for the universe to increase global entropy, and that’s it.
>
>
> I agree with that.
>
>> > [The] universe is rationally governed in more than one way - not only through the universal quantitative laws of physics that underlie efficient causation but also through principles which imply that things happen because they are on a path that leads toward certain outcomes - notably, the existence of living, and ultimately of conscious, organisms.”
>
>
> If Hugh Everett is correct and everything that is not logically self-contradictory (such as a violation of the second law of thermodynamics) does happen, then it's not surprising that intelligence finds itself in a universe in which stable structures that can process data (Turing Machines) are possible. As for consciousness, after saying consciousness is the way data feels when it is being processed I don't think there's much more that can be said about it.
>
> John K Clark
>>
>>

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[Giulio Prisco]

On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 1:35 AM Lawrence Crowell
<goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> When somebody advances backwards causality my eyes glaze over and I stop reading. There are a few physicists who advance backward causality, but the idea is just wrong. It came from Feynman and Wheeler with their advanced gauge potentials with absorbers. Even they gave up on it pretty quickly.
>

So you did NOT stop reading Wheeler and Feynman!!! ;-) ;-)

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[John Clark]

On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 2:15 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Perhaps we don't need an "explanation" of the probabilistic nature of physical laws. Perhaps this is just how things work.

Maybe. We know from Gleason's theorem that if quantum probabilities are to make any sense, that is to say if all the probabilities are real numbers between 0 and 1 and all the probabilities of a predicted event add up to exactly 1, then all the probabilities must be expressible by the square of the absolute value of the wave function just as quantum mechanics says. So the real question is not why does the Born rule exist but rather why must we use probabilities at all, why can't we make exact predictions? Perhaps the answer is just as you say, that's just the way things work; after all there's no law of logic that says every event must have a cause.

John K Clark

=============

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[Giulio Prisco]

On 2021. Nov 16., Tue at 13:08, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 2:15 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Perhaps we don't need an "explanation" of the probabilistic nature of physical laws. Perhaps this is just how things work.

Maybe. We know from Gleason's theorem that if quantum probabilities are to make any sense, that is to say if all the probabilities are real numbers between 0 and 1 and all the probabilities of a predicted event add up to exactly 1, then all the probabilities must be expressible by the square of the absolute value of the wave function just as quantum mechanics says. So the real question is not why does the Born rule exist but rather why must we use probabilities at all, why can't we make exact predictions? Perhaps the answer is just as you say, that's just the way things work; after all there's no law of logic that says every event must have a cause.

Exactly.

Btw I’m thinking about this. Think of a sequence of random bits, call it R(n). Now think of the same sequence as the deterministic unfolding of a random real number r given as initial condition. So the sequence becomes D(n) = nth bit in the binary expansion of r. R is random, and D is deterministic. But R and D are the same thing!!!

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[John Clark]

On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 10:54 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 2021. Nov 16., Tue at 13:08, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 2:15 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>>> Perhaps we don't need an "explanation" of the probabilistic nature of physical laws. Perhaps this is just how things work.

>> Maybe. We know from Gleason's theorem that if quantum probabilities are to make any sense, that is to say if all the probabilities are real numbers between 0 and 1 and all the probabilities of a predicted event add up to exactly 1, then all the probabilities must be expressible by the square of the absolute value of the wave function just as quantum mechanics says. So the real question is not why does the Born rule exist but rather why must we use probabilities at all, why can't we make exact predictions? Perhaps the answer is just as you say, that's just the way things work; after all there's no law of logic that says every event must have a cause.

> Exactly. Btw I’m thinking about this. Think of a sequence of random bits, call it R(n). Now think of the same sequence as the deterministic unfolding of a random real number r given as initial condition. So the sequence becomes D(n) = nth bit in the binary expansion of r. R is random, and D is deterministic. But R and D are the same thing!!!

It's not really deterministic because it depends on initial conditions which are random; but then again maybe it is deterministic after all, Hugh Everett would say every possible initial condition exists (and therefore every random sequence is revealed), it's just that "you" only get to observe one of them. After all , the quantum wave function is completely deterministic but, because we can only observe a very small part of it, things seem random to us, so we must resort to probability in our predictions.

John K Clark

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[Giulio Prisco]

On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 10:12 PM John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 10:54 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 2021. Nov 16., Tue at 13:08, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Tue, Nov 16, 2021 at 2:15 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> >>> Perhaps we don't need an "explanation" of the probabilistic nature of physical laws. Perhaps this is just how things work.
>>>
>>>
>>> >> Maybe. We know from Gleason's theorem that if quantum probabilities are to make any sense, that is to say if all the probabilities are real numbers between 0 and 1 and all the probabilities of a predicted event add up to exactly 1, then all the probabilities must be expressible by the square of the absolute value of the wave function just as quantum mechanics says. So the real question is not why does the Born rule exist but rather why must we use probabilities at all, why can't we make exact predictions? Perhaps the answer is just as you say, that's just the way things work; after all there's no law of logic that says every event must have a cause.
>>
>>
>> > Exactly. Btw I’m thinking about this. Think of a sequence of random bits, call it R(n). Now think of the same sequence as the deterministic unfolding of a random real number r given as initial condition. So the sequence becomes D(n) = nth bit in the binary expansion of r. R is random, and D is deterministic. But R and D are the same thing!!!
>
>
> It's not really deterministic because it depends on initial conditions which are random; but then again maybe it is deterministic after all, Hugh Everett would say every possible initial condition exists (and therefore every random sequence is revealed), it's just that "you" only get to observe one of them. After all , the quantum wave function is completely deterministic but, because we can only observe a very small part of it, things seem random to us, so we must resort to probability in our predictions.
>

Everett aside, we have this problem all over mathematical physics
based on differential equations and real numbers. We insist that
things unfold deterministically from given initial conditions, but the
initial conditions are real numbers, the vast majority of which
(besides a zero measure subset) are uncomputable and random. We may as
well think that experiments reveal or perhaps *define* or even
*create* the initial conditions in the past, and everything becomes
circular. Nicolas Gisin makes similar points in his recent papers
based on analogies with intuitionist maths:
https://arxiv.org/search/physics?searchtype=author&query=Gisin%2C+N

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[John Clark]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 4:15 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Everett aside, we have this problem all over mathematical physics
based on differential equations and real numbers. We insist that
things unfold deterministically from given initial conditions, but the
initial conditions are real numbers,

But are they, are Real Numbers really real?  The Bekenstein Bound says the amount of information that can be packed inside a volume is proportional to the number of Planck Areas (the square of the Planck Length) needed to enclose it, and that number is an integer not a real number.  Of course we don't know for a fact that the Bekenstein Bound is true, and we don't know for a fact the time and space are quantized, but if they are and there is a smallest unit of time and a smallest unit of distance then Real Numbers are a sort of mathematical Harry Potter story and our physical world can be fully described without Real Numbers.

John K Clark

==

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[Giulio Prisco]

On 2021. Nov 17., Wed at 12:45, John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 4:15 AM Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Everett aside, we have this problem all over mathematical physics
based on differential equations and real numbers. We insist that
things unfold deterministically from given initial conditions, but the
initial conditions are real numbers,

But are they, are Real Numbers really real?  The Bekenstein Bound says the amount of information that can be packed inside a volume is proportional to the number of Planck Areas (the square of the Planck Length) needed to enclose it, and that number is an integer not a real number.  Of course we don't know for a fact that the Bekenstein Bound is true, and we don't know for a fact the time and space are quantized, but if they are and there is a smallest unit of time and a smallest unit of distance then Real Numbers are a sort of mathematical Harry Potter story and our physical world can be fully described without Real Numbers.

The Bekenstein bound is a quantum notion. Similarly, Heisenberg shows that assigning classical initial conditions to a particle is out. But it can be argued that real numbers are already a problem in classical physics, because we can’t know an infinite amount of information.

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[John Clark]

Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

 John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

 Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> But are they, are Real Numbers really real?  The Bekenstein Bound says the amount of information that can be packed inside a volume is proportional to the number of Planck Areas (the square of the Planck Length) needed to enclose it, and that number is an integer not a real number.  Of course we don't know for a fact that the Bekenstein Bound is true, and we don't know for a fact the time and space are quantized, but if they are and there is a smallest unit of time and a smallest unit of distance then Real Numbers are a sort of mathematical Harry Potter story and our physical world can be fully described without Real Numbers.

> The Bekenstein bound is a quantum notion. 

Yes but there is no experimental evidence that the Bekenstein Bound is actually true, it is simply a theoretical prediction based on the fact that quantum mechanics can't make any sense out of distance is shorter than the Planck Length or time intervals shorter than the Planck Time. But we already know quantum mechanics can't be the final word on the subject because it can't explain how gravity works or what things are like at the singularity at the center of a Black Hole.  So maybe real numbers are real and maybe they're not. 

John K Clark

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[Lawrence Crowell]

On Wednesday, November 17, 2021 at 11:44:18 AM UTC-6 johnk...@gmail.com wrote:

Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

 John Clark <johnk...@gmail.com> wrote:

 Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> But are they, are Real Numbers really real?  The Bekenstein Bound says the amount of information that can be packed inside a volume is proportional to the number of Planck Areas (the square of the Planck Length) needed to enclose it, and that number is an integer not a real number.  Of course we don't know for a fact that the Bekenstein Bound is true, and we don't know for a fact the time and space are quantized, but if they are and there is a smallest unit of time and a smallest unit of distance then Real Numbers are a sort of mathematical Harry Potter story and our physical world can be fully described without Real Numbers.

> The Bekenstein bound is a quantum notion. 

Yes but there is no experimental evidence that the Bekenstein Bound is actually true, it is simply a theoretical prediction based on the fact that quantum mechanics can't make any sense out of distance is shorter than the Planck Length or time intervals shorter than the Planck Time. But we already know quantum mechanics can't be the final word on the subject because it can't explain how gravity works or what things are like at the singularity at the center of a Black Hole.  So maybe real numbers are real and maybe they're not. 

John K Clark

Not quite. The LIGO detection of gravitational radiation is consistent with the thermodynamics of black holes. If the Bekenstein bound were wrong the thermodynamics of black holes would not work and gravitational wave data would reflect this.

LC 

[John Clark]

On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 8:08 PM Lawrence Crowell <goldenfield...@gmail.com> wrote:

 >> there is no experimental evidence that the Bekenstein Bound is actually true, it is simply a theoretical prediction based on the fact that quantum mechanics can't make any sense out of distance is shorter than the Planck Length or time intervals shorter than the Planck Time. But we already know quantum mechanics can't be the final word on the subject because it can't explain how gravity works or what things are like at the singularity at the center of a Black Hole.  So maybe real numbers are real and maybe they're not. 

John K Clark

> Not quite. The LIGO detection of gravitational radiation is consistent with the thermodynamics of black holes. If the Bekenstein bound were wrong the thermodynamics of black holes would not work and gravitational wave data would reflect this.

Are you sure about that, is the truth of the Bekenstein bound really necessary to explain current experimental results? I agree the LIGO results are consistent with the Bekenstein Bound being true, but so are a lot of other things and that's not the same as evidence that it is in fact true. It doesn't seem to me that the Bekenstein Bound is needed to explain what we see today, I say that because the existence of Gravitational Waves was predicted from General Relativity long before anybody knew that Black Holes had anything to do with thermodynamics, Einstein started talking about them as early as 1916.

John K Clark

 

[Lawrence Crowell]

If the Bekenstein bound did not exist the so called laws of black hole thermodynamics would not work. In fact you could violate the second law of thermodyanmics. However, with the magnitude of gravitational radiation measured and the masses of the black holes in their initial state and the final state black hole all fits well with black hole thermodynamics.


LC