Second Chapter
Evgenii Rudnyi
Unfortunately I was not able to attend this week and I find the idea
with the Dropbox perfect. I have just browsed the version #16 and I
should say that I like it very much. I think this should be a bestseller.
A small comment to "then the standard approach in physics would be to
define the initial conditions of the embryo". I am afraid that this
corresponds more to the Leibniz time. I will remind you what Laughlin says
"Collective instability would create a Barrier of Relevance capable of
destroying the predictive power and falsifiability of theories, and it
would also fool people, through the Deceitful Turkey effect, into
thinking they had found explanation for things where they actually had
not. In other words, the machinery of life is rendered inaccessible by
the very physical principle central to its function. This being the
case, nature itself is the censor, not legislators or bureaucrats."
On the other hand, recently I have learned a nice word nomologicalism
Nomologicalism=df An adequate scientific explanation must be law-based
(universal-driven).
According to it, as Rex Allen claims on the everything-list, everything
is determined by the initial conditions of the Universe.
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2010/10/intelligence-and-nomologicalism.html
Best wishes,
Evgenii
P.S. I was able recently to reproduce 404 error in my installation of
Wordpress and I hope that I have fixed this.
Dr. Richard Gordon
Dear Evgenii,
Yep, you’re right, and the last chapter will address what I call the poverty of physics. William R. Buckley and I read:
Laughlin, R.B. (2005). A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down. New York, Basic Books.
and got nothing substantial out of it. I tried finding something in his published papers that would be intermediate between pablum and nuts and bolts, without success.
I did not say that given initial conditions, the future of a system is perfectly predictable. Newton’s laws are generally a plausible approximation at the millimeter scale of embryos, so simple things like rounding up of a drop of liquid can be reasonably estimated from initial conditions. Classical statistical mechanics can deal with an ensemble of possibilities. I’m also aware that in a chaotic system (deterministic or not, isolated or the whole universe), the smallest difference in initial conditions can lead to quite different trajectories. However, much goes with the word “different”, which is a matter of perception and scale dependent pattern recognition of the observer. So I will argue here that this is yet another case where the role of the observer in physics has yet to be fully understood. Every embryo is unique, yet most embryos of same species and opposite sex can result in adults that can do it again. Life overcomes our chaos inhibitions on making predictions. How may be a deep problem.
Yours, -Dick
ps: You may post any of this on your blog, if you want to open this dialogue to your blog readers.
Richard (Dick) Gordon
Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca
Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
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>
Evgenii Rudnyi
I am looking forward to reading the last chapter.
Just a couple of words for Laughlin. After the first reading I was
disappointed because there was almost nothing about emergency there. Yet
eventually I have looked at the book as just stamp collection for
emergency. After all before making a theory, it is good to collect some
observations. Then I have read the book the second time and finally I
like it exactly as a collections of observations from physics and
science in general. As what biology concerns, I like for example the
next paragraph:
"The reflection of emergence is justified as defending science from
mysticism. The ostensible scientific view is that life is chemical
process, and that the bold, manful thing to do is identify and
manipulate them with stupendous amounts of money and supercomputers. The
corresponding mystical view is that life is a beautifully unknowable
thing that can only be screwed up by humans with all their money and
computer cycles. Between these extremes we have the profoundly
important, but poorly understood, idea that the unknowability of living
things may actually be a physical phenomenon."
Also this is good:
"� most biologists consider the physicists� obsession with certainty and
correctness to be exasperatingly childish and evidence of their limited
mental capacities. Physicists, in contrast, consider tolerance of
uncertainty to be an excuse for second-rate experimentation and a
potential source of false claim."
And there is more.
> So I will argue here that this is yet another case where
> the role of the observer in physics has yet to be fully understood.
The role of the observer is clearly a problem. Yet, I guess it is a hard
problem. For example a paper that has recently been discussed at the
everything-list
The Observer Class Hypothesis
http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2198
I like a lot there: "Boltzmann Brain (i.e. a disembodied brain floating
in the void).
> You may post any of this on your blog, if you want
> to open this dialogue to your blog readers.
I have just made a link to this Google Groups discussion.
Best wishes,
Evgenii
on 23.01.2011 23:03 Dr. Richard Gordon said the following:
> Sunday, January 23, 2011 4:21 PM, Panacea, Florida Dear Evgenii, Yep,
> you�re right, and the last chapter will address what I call the
> poverty of physics. William R. Buckley and I read:
>
> Laughlin, R.B. (2005). A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from
> the Bottom Down. New York, Basic Books.
>
> and got nothing substantial out of it. I tried finding something in
> his published papers that would be intermediate between pablum and
> nuts and bolts, without success.
>
> I did not say that given initial conditions, the future of a system
> is perfectly predictable. Newton�s laws are generally a plausible
> approximation at the millimeter scale of embryos, so simple things
> like rounding up of a drop of liquid can be reasonably estimated from
> initial conditions. Classical statistical mechanics can deal with an
> ensemble of possibilities. I�m also aware that in a chaotic system
> (deterministic or not, isolated or the whole universe), the smallest
> difference in initial conditions can lead to quite different
> trajectories. However, much goes with the word �different�, which is
Dr. Richard Gordon
Dear Evgenii,
Well, defining life has always been an amusing endeavor. For the past 100-150 years, it’s kind of been boiled down to whether special laws have to be added to “physics as we know it”, though of course the latter has been a moving target.
While I’m not going to let you jump to the last chapter of:
Natalie K. Gordon & Richard Gordon (2011). Embryogenesis Explained [in preparation]. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company.
in:
Embryo Physics Course, most Thursdays at 2-3pm Pacific Time, held online at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Silver%20Bog/84/32/60
especially because it hasn’t been written yet, if you’d like to prepare in advance, please read:
Smuts, J.C. (1926). Holism and Evolution. New York, Viking Press.
Contrary to the literature cited by:
Garrett, T. (2011). The observer class hypothesis. http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2198
I suggested that we could be the third “generation” of life in the universe:
Gordon, R. & R.B. Hoover (2007). Could there have been a single origin of life in a big bang universe? Proc. SPIE 6694, doi:10.1117/1112.737041.
The key to my thoughts on observers is that embryogenesis is the formation of the observer, itself a presumably physical process. I think physics will have to deal with that. In addition to Garrett (2011):
“If there is no upper bound to the complexity of information structures, then existing as a entity that is continuously evolving in time is also natural....“
check out a somewhat similar argument by a mathematician:
Chaitin, G. (2010). To a Mathematical Theory of Evolution and Biological Creativity [Research Report CDMTCS-391], Centre for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, University of Auckland.
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS//researchreports/391greg.pdf
Thanks.
Yours, -Dick
ps: I know Russian is your first language. You meant “emergence” where you wrote “emergency”.
Richard (Dick) Gordon
Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca
Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
On 2011-01-24, at 2:23 PM, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:Re: EmbryoPhysics126:: Second Chapter
> Dear Dick,
>
> I am looking forward to reading the last chapter.
>
> Just a couple of words for Laughlin. After the first reading I was disappointed because there was almost nothing about emergency there. Yet eventually I have looked at the book as just stamp collection for emergency. After all before making a theory, it is good to collect some observations. Then I have read the book the second time and finally I like it exactly as a collections of observations from physics and science in general. As what biology concerns, I like for example the next paragraph:
>
> "The reflection of emergence is justified as defending science from mysticism. The ostensible scientific view is that life is chemical process, and that the bold, manful thing to do is identify and manipulate them with stupendous amounts of money and supercomputers. The corresponding mystical view is that life is a beautifully unknowable thing that can only be screwed up by humans with all their money and computer cycles. Between these extremes we have the profoundly important, but poorly understood, idea that the unknowability of living things may actually be a physical phenomenon."
>
> Also this is good:
>
> "… most biologists consider the physicists’ obsession with certainty and correctness to be exasperatingly childish and evidence of their limited mental capacities. Physicists, in contrast, consider tolerance of uncertainty to be an excuse for second-rate experimentation and a potential source of false claim."
Steve McGrew
I think quantum mechanicists have mostly moved beyond thinking that the
observer has any role at all in quantum mechanics. In the many-worlds
view of QM, the observer branches right along with the branching of the
world due to alternative possible outcomes of each QM experiment. And
of course the observer never notices the branching. Put an observer in
the box along with Schroedinger's cat, and not only is the cat both
alive and dead, but so is the observer-- and of course the states of the
two are entangled.
Steve
On 1/24/2011 7:21 PM, Dr. Richard Gordon wrote:
> Monday, January 24, 2011 9:10 PM, Panacea, Florida
> Dear Evgenii,
> Well, defining life has always been an amusing endeavor. For the past 100-150 years, it�s kind of been boiled down to whether special laws have to be added to �physics as we know it�, though of course the latter has been a moving target.
>
> While I�m not going to let you jump to the last chapter of:
>
> Natalie K. Gordon& Richard Gordon (2011). Embryogenesis Explained [in preparation]. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company.
>
> in:
> Embryo Physics Course, most Thursdays at 2-3pm Pacific Time, held online at http://slurl.com/secondlife/Silver%20Bog/84/32/60
>
> especially because it hasn�t been written yet, if you�d like to prepare in advance, please read:
>
> Smuts, J.C. (1926). Holism and Evolution. New York, Viking Press.
>
> Contrary to the literature cited by:
>
> Garrett, T. (2011). The observer class hypothesis. http://arxiv.org/abs/1101.2198
>
> I suggested that we could be the third �generation� of life in the universe:
>
> Gordon, R.& R.B. Hoover (2007). Could there have been a single origin of life in a big bang universe? Proc. SPIE 6694, doi:10.1117/1112.737041.
>
> The key to my thoughts on observers is that embryogenesis is the formation of the observer, itself a presumably physical process. I think physics will have to deal with that. In addition to Garrett (2011):
>
> �If there is no upper bound to the complexity of information structures, then existing as a entity that is continuously evolving in time is also natural....�
>
> check out a somewhat similar argument by a mathematician:
>
> Chaitin, G. (2010). To a Mathematical Theory of Evolution and Biological Creativity [Research Report CDMTCS-391], Centre for Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science, University of Auckland.
> http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/CDMTCS//researchreports/391greg.pdf
>
> Thanks.
> Yours, -Dick
>
> ps: I know Russian is your first language. You meant �emergence� where you wrote �emergency�.
>
Dr. Richard Gordon
Dear Steve,
I never “got” the Schroedinger cat paradox, because: 1) a cat is an open system; 2) live/dead are not quantum states; 3) live/dead is not a binary variable. The many worlds view is amusing, but I don’t see: 1) how the branching can be discretized in time; 2) how lack of relativistic simultaneity allows a whole universe everywhere to split into two universes, even if splitting were “instantaneous” everywhere? At any rate, I will go with William Blake and stick with the embryo:
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.
Embryos may be the key to the universe.
Yours, -Dick
Richard (Dick) Gordon
Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca
Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
Steve McGrew
QM goes on in all systems, open and closed.
Discretization is an outcome of QM that occurs only when certain conditions are met: in systems whose dynamical evolution *can* be periodic.
Believe it or not, splitting is not something that must happen simultaneously, instantaneously, everywhere. It is not something that propagates.� Entanglement is the essence of splitting, and it has been shown to be unfettered by time or distance.
The live/dead cat story is designed to stimulate thought, not to be a scientifically usable definition of a good experiment.� It is easily reducible to a more understandable experiment: e.g., a basketball-throwing machine that can only toss a basketball through one opaque glass window or another from inside a closed room. ("closed" only to exclude confounding influences, not to exclude observation per se).� Send one of a pair of photons whose spins are entangled, into the room.� If spin is up, the basketball goes through the East window, if spin is down, the basketball goes through the West window.� Measure the spin of the photon you *don't* send in, and you'll find that it is highly correlated to which window the basketball came out of, is coming out of, or will come out of.� That is, the correlation is independent of the order of events.
If we ever come up with a physically meaningful definition of "live/dead", they will be quantum states. Again, quantum states are not necessarily discrete.� In fact, the state of a radioactive nucleus is not discrete.� It is only approximately discrete.� The longer its half-life, the better the approximation.� If, as some theories suggest, protons are unstable with some very long half-life, then no atom anywhere has a perfectly discrete quantum state.
I think embryos are awesome, and are very, very complicated things.� I'm very sure that quantum mechanics, perhaps with a new level of sophistication, will be required for their complete understanding.� But there is no reason to believe that embryo development involves anything beyond basic physical principles acting on suitable initial conditions-- unless we crave magical explanations.
Regards,
Steve
On 1/24/2011 10:33 PM, Dr. Richard Gordon wrote:
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 1:19 AM, Panacea, Florida Dear Steve, I never �got� the Schroedinger cat paradox, because: 1) a cat is an open system; 2) live/dead are not quantum states; 3) live/dead is not a binary variable. The many worlds view is amusing, but I don�t see: 1) how the branching can be discretized in time; 2) how lack of relativistic simultaneity allows a whole universe everywhere to split into two universes, even if splitting were �instantaneous� everywhere? At any rate, I will go with William Blake and stick with the embryo: To see a world in a grain of sand And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand And eternity in an hour. Embryos may be the key to the universe. Yours, -Dick Richard (Dick) Gordon Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo On 2011-01-25, at 1:00 AM, Steve McGrew wrote:
Dr. Richard Gordon
Dear Steve,
Thanks for entangling embryos with entanglement. However, stick with us on:
Natalie K. Gordon & Richard Gordon (2011). Embryogenesis Explained [in preparation]. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company.
Because we shall argue, contrary to your statement, that embryos are simple, not complicated. And we won’t be invoking quantum mechanics anymore than you do when wroughting iron.
In regard to open systems, I have a simple point. Schroedinger’s equation for atomic/molecular systems is a distinct equation for every spatial configuration of atomic nuclei, and in general these cannot be written as linear combinations of one another. In some sense, then, every configuration is quantum mechanically a distinct whole. An open system is therefore transitioning between different “wholes” as atoms cross its boundary, unless one includes the whole universe (violating the distinction between open and closed systems, and giving us a sampling of one, or many universes, as you wish, but annihilating object boundaries).
We are thinking of renaming our cat “Schroedinger”. Thanks.
Yours, -Dick
Richard (Dick) Gordon
Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca
Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
On 2011-01-25, at 10:24 AM, Steve McGrew wrote: Re: EmbryoPhysics128:: Embryogenesis Explained: last chapter/formation of the observer
> Dick,
> QM goes on in all systems, open and closed.
>
> Discretization is an outcome of QM that occurs only when certain conditions are met: in systems whose dynamical evolution *can* be periodic.
>
> Believe it or not, splitting is not something that must happen simultaneously, instantaneously, everywhere. It is not something that propagates. Entanglement is the essence of splitting, and it has been shown to be unfettered by time or distance.
>
> The live/dead cat story is designed to stimulate thought, not to be a scientifically usable definition of a good experiment. It is easily reducible to a more understandable experiment: e.g., a basketball-throwing machine that can only toss a basketball through one opaque glass window or another from inside a closed room. ("closed" only to exclude confounding influences, not to exclude observation per se). Send one of a pair of photons whose spins are entangled, into the room. If spin is up, the basketball goes through the East window, if spin is down, the basketball goes through the West window. Measure the spin of the photon you *don't* send in, and you'll find that it is highly correlated to which window the basketball came out of, is coming out of, or will come out of. That is, the correlation is independent of the order of events.
>
> If we ever come up with a physically meaningful definition of "live/dead", they will be quantum states. Again, quantum states are not necessarily discrete. In fact, the state of a radioactive nucleus is not discrete. It is only approximately discrete. The longer its half-life, the better the approximation. If, as some theories suggest, protons are unstable with some very long half-life, then no atom anywhere has a perfectly discrete quantum state.
>
> I think embryos are awesome, and are very, very complicated things. I'm very sure that quantum mechanics, perhaps with a new level of sophistication, will be required for their complete understanding. But there is no reason to believe that embryo development involves anything beyond basic physical principles acting on suitable initial conditions-- unless we crave magical explanations.
>
> Regards,
> Steve
Evgenii Rudnyi
Some problem with quantum mechanics and parallel universes is that they
are mathematical models. The question how mathematics is related to the
Universe has to be yet explained. Well, some physicists nowadays claim
that physical reality is identical with mathematical reality, in other
words we live in Matrix. To this end I would recommend your everything-list
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/
where there are some philosophers as well and this makes the discussion
there much more enjoyable. Now I like even more what philosophers say as
compared with physicists. By the way Laughlin in this respect is very
good - he understands the border.
On the other hand, philosophers sometimes are too pessimistic. Say one
of recent statements
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/msg/597a467f3a83b5d3
"What the WORLD is, if it exists (what does that mean?) what we call a
"universe" or "existence" is hazy. No outside view."
Evgenii
on 25.01.2011 16:24 Steve McGrew said the following:
> Dick, QM goes on in all systems, open and closed.
>
> Discretization is an outcome of QM that occurs only when certain
> conditions are met: in systems whose dynamical evolution *can* be
> periodic.
>
> Believe it or not, splitting is not something that must happen
> simultaneously, instantaneously, everywhere. It is not something that
> propagates. Entanglement is the essence of splitting, and it has
> been shown to be unfettered by time or distance.
>
> The live/dead cat story is designed to stimulate thought, not to be
> a scientifically usable definition of a good experiment. It is
> easily reducible to a more understandable experiment: e.g., a
> basketball-throwing machine that can only toss a basketball through
> one opaque glass window or another from inside a closed room.
> ("closed" only to exclude confounding influences, not to exclude
> observation /per se/). Send one of a pair of photons whose spins
> are entangled, into the room. If spin is up, the basketball goes
> through the East window, if spin is down, the basketball goes through
> the West window. Measure the spin of the photon you *don't* send in,
> and you'll find that it is highly correlated to which window the
> basketball came out of, is coming out of, or will come out of. That
> is, the correlation is independent of the order of events.
>
> If we ever come up with a physically meaningful definition of
> "live/dead", they will be quantum states. Again, quantum states are
> not necessarily discrete. In fact, the state of a radioactive
> nucleus is not discrete. It is only approximately discrete. The
> longer its half-life, the better the approximation. If, as some
> theories suggest, protons are unstable with some very long half-life,
> then no atom anywhere has a perfectly discrete quantum state.
>
> I think embryos are awesome, and are very, very complicated things.
> I'm very sure that quantum mechanics, perhaps with a new level of
> sophistication, will be required for their complete understanding.
Steve McGrew
Actually, my background is in physics and mathematics.
All mathematical science is of course based on mathematical models,
which encompass the most concise summary we currently have of all the
available quantitative observations. I don't see that as a problem,
except of course that when the math suggests the existence of things we
have not yet observed, it challenges experimentalists to determine
empirically whether or not those things exist. If it turns out that
they don't exist, then theorists have some more data to work with --
some more constraints on what the "right" theory must be.
Quantum mechanics is extremely well supported by experiment. The "many
worlds hypothesis" is perhaps the simplest of several possible
interpretations of the equations of quantum mechanics. Unfortunately,
there is apparently no direct way to test for the existence of the "many
worlds".
The idea that there is only one world and that an observer has a sort of
magical effect on quantum mechanical states is another possible
interpretation, but that "observer effect" interpretation requires
instantaneous propagation of information, both forward and back in time,
which would violate basic principles of relativity -- just the problem
that Dick mentioned.
Regards,
Steve
William R. Buckley
read. Not a single new idea presented therein; I would not base arguments upon the content of that book, nor
use quotations from same as justification for opinions I hold.
Evgenii: could you please expand your criticism of Leibniz? My understanding of the issue is that Leibniz' ideal
is not satisfiable because the quality of knowledge is less than perfect; we have no means of representing, much
less obtaining a perfect measure. Is this or is this not the prime argument against Leibniz? Also, are you
arguing for or against the claims of Rex Allen?
wrb
Newman, Stuart
Does David Bohm's implicate order represent a viable alternative to magical observer and many worlds?
Stuart
Regards,
Steve
--
Dr. Richard Gordon
Dear Steve & Evgenii,
Okay, I signed up for:
http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/
since the message quoted:
http://groups.googlecom/group/everything-list/msg/597a467f3a83b5d3
mentioned my mentor Robert Rosen (I postdoced with him). Seems as good a reason as any to watch adults playing with toy universes. “everything-list“ reminds me of the Belafonte song “Clear as mud, but it covers the ground”.
Now, has anyone got a decent review of “the observer in physics”? Boltzmann’s brain, a current fad, reminds me much of:
Tipler, F.J. (1994). The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead. New York, Doubleday.
written by a Catholic astrophysicist with the reasoning processes of a rabbi. I lectured on it once in a Department of Religion class.
The multiuniverse stuff seems rather tangential to embryogenesis, but I’m open to links. I suspect it is the process that generates observers, rather than Boltzmann’s brain. Just an empirical observation, but who knows what’s out there? Thanks.
Yours, -Dick
Richard (Dick) Gordon
Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca
Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
Steve McGrew
To tell the truth, I've always been dismissive of David Bohm's ideas, largely because his "holographic universe" uses a false idea of what a hologram is. Guess I've been poisoned by nearly 40 years of intimate experience with real holograms. It may have made me overlook some potentially useful aspects of his ideas.
That said, I did a quick review of what Bohm means by "implicate order", and I guess there is a certain amount of vague congruence between that idea and Everett's "many worlds hypothesis".
It is probably important to point out that there are two very different ideas that might get confused if we're not careful. The Many Worlds Hypothesis, in its essence, asserts that the whole universe is a single quantum mechanical object, with a very complicated wavefunction describing the relative probabilities of all the different possible states of the universe all the way down to the subatomic level -- and that ALL of those states coexist but do not and cannot interact with each other. A different idea is that an infinity of physically distinct universes exist which can, in principle, interact in the future or might have interacted in the past. There are several major variations of this second idea.
Anyway, I personally think that Bohm's "implicate order" does not offer a viable alternative to magical observers or Many Worlds, because it doesn't seem to constitute a fleshed-out theory capable of making rigorous predictions. It seems that, rather, it is an appeal to the physics community to open their minds to the possibility of nonlocal approaches to physics. But I don't see any evidence that he has shown a viable nonlocal approach.
Regards,
Steve
Steve McGrew
I guess my initial comments were meant to caution you and others about getting too carried away with the idea of "observer".� From my perspective, which is a bit mechanist, "observer" is just a name for a system that accumulates information about the world outside itself, in the form of internal states correlated with external states, with the correlation mediated by physical interactions.� So photons enter my eye, trigger neural responses in the retina, and ultimately cause changes in synapses, thereby forming a memory of a sunrise.� The memory is correlated to something that happened in the external world.� So, to me, a DVR hooked up to a video camera is a valid observer.� Sure, an embryo turns into an observer -- whether it is the embryo of a millipede, mouse, or man.
Steve
On 1/25/2011 1:02 PM, Dr. Richard Gordon wrote:
Tuesday, January 25, 2011 3:49 PM, Panacea, Florida Dear Steve & Evgenii, Okay, I signed up for: http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/ since the message quoted: http://groups.googlecom/group/everything-list/msg/597a467f3a83b5d3
mentioned my mentor Robert Rosen (I postdoced with him). Seems as good a reason as any to watch adults playing with toy universes. �everything-list� reminds me of the Belafonte song �Clear as mud, but it covers the ground�. Now, has anyone got a decent review of �the observer in physics�? Boltzmann�s brain, a current fad, reminds me much of: Tipler, F.J. (1994). The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead. New York, Doubleday. written by a Catholic astrophysicist with the reasoning processes of a rabbi. I lectured on it once in a Department of Religion class. The multiuniverse stuff seems rather tangential to embryogenesis, but I�m open to links. I suspect it is the process that generates observers, rather than Boltzmann�s brain. Just an empirical observation, but who knows what�s out there? Thanks. Yours, -Dick Richard (Dick) Gordon Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
Dr. Richard Gordon
Dear Steve & Stuart,
I had much the same problem with Karl Pribram’s holographic brain. I just got a copy of:
Briggs, J.P. & F.D. Peat (1990). Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness, Harper & Row.
and skimmed it to remind myself of Bohm’s stuff. These guys were deliberately mystical, and vehemently anti-reductionist, all in the name of science, of course.
But let me pose a simple problem and see how you guys think about it:
What causes a droplet of water to round up?
Thanks.
Yours, -Dick
Richard (Dick) Gordon
Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca
Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
Dr. Richard Gordon
Dear Steve,
Nice, concise definition. But note that your DVR/camera is constructed by an observer. So origin of life is the problem of origin of the observer, and embryogenesis is self-construction of the observer from... some minimal conditions we haven’t quite specified, i.e., the initial conditions of the fertilized egg (as a plausible starting point for a life cycle, if arbitrary). Evolution is evolution of the embryogenesis of observers. Thanks.
Yours, -Dick
Richard (Dick) Gordon
Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca
Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
On 2011-01-26, at 12:10 AM, Steve McGrew wrote:
> Dick,
> I guess my initial comments were meant to caution you and others about getting too carried away with the idea of "observer". From my perspective, which is a bit mechanist, "observer" is just a name for a system that accumulates information about the world outside itself, in the form of internal states correlated with external states, with the correlation mediated by physical interactions. So photons enter my eye, trigger neural responses in the retina, and ultimately cause changes in synapses, thereby forming a memory of a sunrise. The memory is correlated to something that happened in the external world. So, to me, a DVR hooked up to a video camera is a valid observer. Sure, an embryo turns into an observer -- whether it is the embryo of a millipede, mouse, or man.
>
> Steve
Steve McGrew
That's a good question, because the standard answer is that the drop "seeks" its lowest-energy state.�
But that answer is very high-level, like assigning a single temperature to the whole universe.�
The "pointilist" answer is that at the surface of a nonspherical droplet the average force on a molecule is inversely related to the radius of curvature, and points toward the center of curvature. IF there is any viscosity or other such damping force, and if there is no "sticking friction", the end condition after a bit of oscillation is a nice, round droplet.
The high-level analysis and the low-level analysis end up with the same final condition *because* the high-level analysis was developed to capture the macroscopically important features of the system and its dynamics.� However, it is not difficult to design experiments in which high-level analysis cannot accurately describe the system behavior.� Trying to patch up a high-level analysis to make it more accurate requires a hierarchy of more and more complicated rules.� Trying to make a low-level analysis more accurate mostly requires better computational techniques.
Steve
On 1/25/2011 10:00 PM, Dr. Richard Gordon wrote:
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 12:45 AM, Panacea, Florida Dear Steve & Stuart, I had much the same problem with Karl Pribram�s holographic brain. I just got a copy of: Briggs, J.P. & F.D. Peat (1990). Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness, Harper & Row. and skimmed it to remind myself of Bohm�s stuff. These guys were deliberately mystical, and vehemently anti-reductionist, all in the name of science, of course. But let me pose a simple problem and see how you guys think about it: What causes a droplet of water to round up? Thanks. Yours, -Dick Richard (Dick) Gordon Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
Steve McGrew
:) The particular DVR/camera I invoked emerged via natural evolution, so was not constructed by an observer. ;)
It's marvelous, but not necessarily magical, that intelligent & conscious systems can evolve spontaneously from raw elements under suitable conditions.
I like your statement, "Evolution is evolution of the embryogenesis of observers."� It certainly distills out the aspect of evolution that is ultimately most relevant to us.
Steve
On 1/25/2011 10:09 PM, Dr. Richard Gordon wrote:
Wednesday, January 26, 2011 1:02 AM, Panacea, Florida Dear Steve, Nice, concise definition. But note that your DVR/camera is constructed by an observer. So origin of life is the problem of origin of the observer, and embryogenesis is self-construction of the observer from... some minimal conditions we haven�t quite specified, i.e., the initial conditions of the fertilized egg (as a plausible starting point for a life cycle, if arbitrary). Evolution is evolution of the embryogenesis of observers. Thanks. Yours, -Dick Richard (Dick) Gordon Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo On 2011-01-26, at 12:10 AM, Steve McGrew wrote:
Evgenii Rudnyi
> Quantum mechanics is extremely well supported by experiment.
Well, it does not include gravitation yet, so it is still some way to
describe the Universe not speaking of Multiverse. I do not know what you
think of the superstring theory, but my personal feeling is rather
skeptical.
On the other hand, it is in any case just a mathematical model (provided
that one does not accept the Matrix idea). One cannot exclude for
example that there are different mathematical models that describe with
the same precision the same experimental data.
> The "many worlds hypothesis" is perhaps the simplest of several possible
> interpretations of the equations of quantum mechanics.
I understand that but here, I am afraid, everything is about
definitions, what is the Universe, what is the Multiverse, etc.
> Unfortunately, there is apparently no direct way to test for the
> existence of the "many worlds".
The same concerns the superstring theory, so the claim from some people
that it is not even wrong. In general I would say that the Multiverse
theory does not help for example to earn more money. Either I live in
the Universe, or in the Multiverse, or even in the Matrix, actually this
absolutely does not matter. Chalmers has a nice paper in this respect
David Chalmers, The Matrix as Metaphysics
http://consc.net/papers/matrix.pdf
Best wishes,
Evgenii
on 25.01.2011 21:00 Steve McGrew said the following:
Evgenii Rudnyi
As for Rex Allen and nomologicalism, I just do not know.
I do not know what to say against nomologicalism but my unconsciousness
forces me to ignore such stuff when I take practical decisions.
on 25.01.2011 21:20 William R. Buckley said the following:
Evgenii Rudnyi
http://blog.rudnyi.ru/2010/10/theory-of-nothing.html
Please note that somewhere in Internet (just search Google) there is a
free legal copy of this book.
This book is not deep but it contains all the buzzwords and it is
possible quickly to understand what games people are playing.
on 25.01.2011 22:02 Dr. Richard Gordon said the following:
> Tuesday, January 25, 2011 3:49 PM, Panacea, Florida Dear Steve&
> Evgenii, Okay, I signed up for:
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list/
>
> since the message quoted:
>
> http://groups.googlecom/group/everything-list/msg/597a467f3a83b5d3
>
> mentioned my mentor Robert Rosen (I postdoced with him). Seems as
> good a reason as any to watch adults playing with toy universes.
> �everything-list� reminds me of the Belafonte song �Clear as mud, but
> it covers the ground�.
>
> Now, has anyone got a decent review of �the observer in physics�?
> Boltzmann�s brain, a current fad, reminds me much of:
>
> Tipler, F.J. (1994). The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology,
> God and the Resurrection of the Dead. New York, Doubleday.
>
> written by a Catholic astrophysicist with the reasoning processes of
> a rabbi. I lectured on it once in a Department of Religion class.
>
> The multiuniverse stuff seems rather tangential to embryogenesis, but
> I�m open to links. I suspect it is the process that generates
> observers, rather than Boltzmann�s brain. Just an empirical
> observation, but who knows what�s out there? Thanks. Yours, -Dick
Dr. Richard Gordon
Dear Steve,
My reading of the tenor of physics is that the “high-level” analysis is not fundamental physics, and that you and I are basically reductionists, David Bohm notwithstanding. In that case, a role of the observer is to create the higher-level analysis. The reason for that is perception: of food, danger and mates. Droplets and statistical mechanics are side effects, as are more complicated “rules”. Thanks.
Yours, -Dick
Richard (Dick) Gordon
Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca
Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
On 2011-01-26, at 9:28 AM, Steve McGrew wrote:
> Dick,
> That's a good question, because the standard answer is that the drop "seeks" its lowest-energy state.
>
> But that answer is very high-level, like assigning a single temperature to the whole universe.
>
> The "pointilist" answer is that at the surface of a nonspherical droplet the average force on a molecule is inversely related to the radius of curvature, and points toward the center of curvature. IF there is any viscosity or other such damping force, and if there is no "sticking friction", the end condition after a bit of oscillation is a nice, round droplet.
>
> The high-level analysis and the low-level analysis end up with the same final condition *because* the high-level analysis was developed to capture the macroscopically important features of the system and its dynamics. However, it is not difficult to design experiments in which high-level analysis cannot accurately describe the system behavior. Trying to patch up a high-level analysis to make it more accurate requires a hierarchy of more and more complicated rules. Trying to make a low-level analysis more accurate mostly requires better computational techniques.
>
> Steve
Newman, Stuart
________________________________________
From: embryo...@googlegroups.com [embryo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Dr. Richard Gordon [gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:56 PM
To: Stephen P. McGrew
Cc: embryo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: EmbryoPhysics146:: Embryogenesis Explained: last chapter/formation of the observer
--
Evgenii Rudnyi
How would you define the term fundamental in this context? For example
let us take a statement from chemistry
acid + base = salt + water
Is this fundamental or not? If possible, please explain why.
Best wishes,
Evgenii
on 26.01.2011 22:05 Newman, Stuart said the following:
> I think that is an unduly reductionist view of physics, Dick.
> Gravitation is as fundamental as quantum mechanics (notwithstanding
> that they may one day be unified) and thermodynamics is as
> fundamental as either of them.
> ________________________________________ From:
> embryo...@googlegroups.com [embryo...@googlegroups.com] On
> Behalf Of Dr. Richard Gordon [gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca] Sent:
> Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:56 PM To: Stephen P. McGrew Cc:
> embryo...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: EmbryoPhysics146::
> Embryogenesis Explained: last chapter/formation of the observer
>
> Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:50 PM, Panacea, Florida Dear Steve, My
> reading of the tenor of physics is that the �high-level� analysis is
> not fundamental physics, and that you and I are basically
> reductionists, David Bohm notwithstanding. In that case, a role of
> the observer is to create the higher-level analysis. The reason for
> that is perception: of food, danger and mates. Droplets and
> statistical mechanics are side effects, as are more complicated
> �rules�. Thanks. Yours, -Dick
Newman, Stuart
My view is that different forms of matter have relative degrees of autonomy, Some forms may be historically older than others, but newer forms can separate themselves from preexising ones and exhibit their own partly irreducible regularities.
In the example you gave, I think the statement you provide is "fundamental" in the sense I mean, since chemistry is autonomous of physics. There are points where you can see how the objects of one science are partly the objects of another (physics => chemistry; chemistry + physics => biology; psychology => sociology) but partial reducibility doesn't mean that the objects of the sciences are not distinct.
Best,
Stuart
-----Original Message-----
From: embryo...@googlegroups.com [mailto:embryo...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Evgenii Rudnyi
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2011 2:52 PM
To: embryo...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: EmbryoPhysics148:: Embryogenesis Explained: last chapter/formation of the observer
Dear Stuart,
How would you define the term fundamental in this context? For example
let us take a statement from chemistry
acid + base = salt + water
Is this fundamental or not? If possible, please explain why.
Best wishes,
Evgenii
on 26.01.2011 22:05 Newman, Stuart said the following:
> I think that is an unduly reductionist view of physics, Dick.
> Gravitation is as fundamental as quantum mechanics (notwithstanding
> that they may one day be unified) and thermodynamics is as
> fundamental as either of them.
> ________________________________________ From:
> embryo...@googlegroups.com [embryo...@googlegroups.com] On
> Behalf Of Dr. Richard Gordon [gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca] Sent:
> Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:56 PM To: Stephen P. McGrew Cc:
> embryo...@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: EmbryoPhysics146::
> Embryogenesis Explained: last chapter/formation of the observer
>
> Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:50 PM, Panacea, Florida Dear Steve, My
> reading of the tenor of physics is that the "high-level" analysis is
> not fundamental physics, and that you and I are basically
> reductionists, David Bohm notwithstanding. In that case, a role of
> the observer is to create the higher-level analysis. The reason for
> that is perception: of food, danger and mates. Droplets and
> statistical mechanics are side effects, as are more complicated
> "rules". Thanks. Yours, -Dick
>
> Richard (Dick) Gordon Visitor, Camera Culture, Media Lab, MIT
> Visitor, BioMicroFluidics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical&
> Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University
> gor...@cc.umanitoba.ca Blog: http://www.science20.com/cosmic_embryo
>
--