Будущее - это может быть даже забавно!
В блоге 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR тут вышел последний пост Стюарта Кауффмана, в котором он суммирует все причины, почему, по его мнению, в современной науке вырисовывается кризис:
The End Of A Physics Worldview: Heraclitus And The Watershed Of Life by Stuart Kauffman
Я также выбрал его комментарии при обсуждении (смотри под катом); что я сделал, прежде всего, для себя самого (ну, и для читателей тоже, кому интересно) - это что-то вроде конспекта, что Кауффман писал во всем блоге ранее.
Самое интересное, как всегда - в конце. Предположение, что Potential также реально, как и Actual, мало сказать, что смелое - из него многое вытекает... И дело тут может касаться не только будущего - хотя это первое, что приходит на ум, похоже, что и самому Кауффману. Искать возможность повлиять на будущее, люди конечно будут (тем более в Институте Санта-Фе), здесь может быть даже и какая-то гонка вооружений на этом поле с плохо предсказуемыми последствиями - хотя бы из-за того же принципа неопределенности... Кстати, многое из того, что Кауффман пишет, указывает, что он имеет ввиду противоположно направленную стрелу времени, которая действует одновременно, но на разных уровнях с нашей обычной временной стрелой - здесь нет ничего необычного и нового: такие мысли уже выдвигали те, кто занимается самоорганизацией, появлением порядка из хаоса и т.д. - в конце концов, символу змеи, пожирающей свой хвост, уже не одна тысяча лет... Необычным же иногда кажется то, что Кауффман от такого хода мыски как-то сразу открещивается, когда его прямо об этом спрашиваешь (так что лучше не спрашивать); и уже совсем трудно поверить, будто о самой такой идее он никогда не слышал - ну да ладно, достаточно уже того, что Potential онтологически - обалдеть, слово! - реально.
Так вот, из этого, в частности, следует, что в точно такой же мере (или почти такой, но это частности) "онтологически" реальным также может быть и... прошлое; и так или иначе, кокой-то его в буквальном смысле отпечаток, который можно реально и безопасно (в отличии от будущего) изучать - как под микроскопом! ;) - "онтологически" реально существует! Вот это может быть не менее любопытно, чем даже будущее - похлеще wikileaks будет! - чем не поле для гонки вооружений во славу Истины, ради прогресса науки, на страх элитам, и на потеху честной публике!
Stuart Kauffman (SAK43) wrote:
All, I'm surely not supporting morphic resonance, which seems nuts to me. I'm pointing out something that seems to be far deeper; I) Organisms ARE Kantian wholes in which the whole exists for and by means of the parts, and the parts exist for and by means of the whole. Gonen Ashkenazi has a collectively autocatalytic 9 peptide set, where this set of complex molecules "get to exist" in the universe above the level of atoms, when most complex molecules will never exist, the universe does not have time to make all proteins length, say, 200 in 10 to the 39power repetitions of the history of the universe on the Planck time scale. ii. It is a FACT that we cannot prestate all the uses of any set of objects or processes. Try it for a screw driver alone or with other objects or processes. iii. therefore, in biological evolution, it really is true that Darwinian preadaptations occur all the time. My standard example is the evolution of swim bladders, whose ratio of air and water adjust neutral buoyancy in the water column, from the lungs of lung fish. Here a NEW FUNCTION AROSE. A Darwinian preadaptation, or exaptation, is a causal consequence of one or several parts of one or several organisms of NO selective use in the current
Of no selective use in the current environment that comes to have a new functional use in a different environment. Now, do you think you can say ahead of time ALL THE POSSIBLE Darwinian preadaptations, just for humans, in the next million years? It seems we cannot. iv. This feature of evolution shows us in our incapacity to prestate which causal consequences of one or many structures or processes in an evolving cell will "find a use" ie a preadaptation, which enhances the fitness of the cell - or organism. v. But to do mathematics we need the concepts ahead of time, ie the semantically laden meaning of terms such as mass, length in physics - which meanings shift slowly as we invent new theories, Newton to Einstein for example. vi. But we do NOT have the terms for the swim bladder before it arose, nor for Facebook before the computer was invented. vii. So we do not know the variables, swim bladders, Facebook, in terms of which to write down equations of motion for the biosphere or economy, both creating new organs/organisms or goods with new functions. vi. Further Newton taught us that to use the calculus, and his laws, we need the laws of motion, the initial and boundary condtions.
Consider billard balls on a table. We measure initial condtions, the boundary conditions of the shape of the table, and use Newton's laws of motion in differential equation form, then integrate them to find the future and past trajectories of the balls. But IF WE DO NOT KNOW THE EVER CHANGING SHAPE OF THE TABLE, WE DO NOT KNOW THE BOUNDARY CONDITIONS, SO CANNOT INTEGRATE NEWTONS EQUATIONS. This is NOT deterministic chaos,where we do not know the initial conditions. It is a deeper incapacity to integrate those equations. Now when the swim bladder evolves by Darwinian preadaptation, natural selection acted in a population of fish to achieve a well functioning swim bladder for neutral buoyancy in the water column. But once the swim bladder exists it REALLY IS a new Adjacent Possible Empty ecological niche. For example, a bacterium or worm only able to live in swim bladders might evolve. Bacteria only able to live in sheep lungs exist. But the new Adjacent Possible ecological niche was NOT created as a NICHE by selection, so evolution IS building the very possibilities, without selection, that it will become. More, the niche is the boundary condition shaping the evolution of the worm evolving to live in the swim bladder.
But if we do not know before the evolution of the swim bladder by Darwinian preadaptation, that it will come to exist and constitute a new empty adjacent possible niche, then we do not know the boundary condition it provides on the evolution of the worm. Then even if we had the laws of motion of the biosphere, which we cannot have because we cannot prestate the relevant new variables, eg swim bladders, we could not even integrate those equations of motion. It would be, again, like trying to calculate the motions of the balls on the billiard table when the boundary conditions provided by the shape of the table kept changing in unknown ways. We could not integrate Newton's equations of motion in differential equation form to obtain the (here determinsitic) trajectories of the balls.
This post is necessarily very compact and assumes familiarity with all I've just noted below and posted in the past on npr.org/blogs/13.7 A limitation to about 1000 words precludes restating all the past posts each time.
I understand the difficulty of this post. I hope these comments help unpack it. If it is right, then there really seems to be no law that entails the detailed evolution of the biosphere. This does not preclude statistical laws
Stuart Kauffman (SAK43) wrote:
No vitalism at all. Could you write down an equation for the evolution of the biosphere including Darwinian preadaptations? My claim is we cannot do so. Nor can we write down equations for the evolution of the economy, exploding from 1000 goods and services 50,000 years ago to billions today. For the economy we need to concern ourselves with whether we are conscious and have free will. But for the biosphere 2 billion years ago, this question neither arises, presumably, and in any case, would have little or no bearing on the emergence of Darwinian preadaptations.
I invite careful consideration of this post. We have had a framework of thinking since Newton. I think no combination of known quantum mechanics and classical physics laws will entail the evolution of the biosphere. If so, we really have to think anew. It is hard to escape 350 of formulated thought since Newton's triumph.
Stuart Kauffman (SAK43) wrote:
HI All, JT I am very familiar with the emergence of which you speak. As it happens I invented Random Boolean Networks, RBN, as models of genetic regulatory networks in cells. These exhibit three regimes: order, criticality, and chaos, and have multiple dynamical attractors. I've long thought cell types in us correspond to attractors, which people are beginning to agree with. More, it now appears that cells (and brains? ) may be dynamically critical. It is all great stuff. And I think Mark that we do need other cases of life to try for a "general biology". A group of us interested in the origin of life problem recently talked to CERN, which seems to be interested, still UNOFFICIALLY, in joining a larger effort to create new life based on collectively autocatalytic sets probably in reproducing lipid vesicles called liposomes.
But my bet is that were we to succeed in creating such new life and these forms, able it seems to evolve in an open ended way, co-evolved with one another, and if quantum effects can matter as well as classical physics, then we would again find Darwinian preadaptations which we could not prestate. At some level of their co-evolving complexity, I bet we could not write down laws for that co-evolution.
Stuart Kauffman (SAK43) wrote:
ps Nathan thanks. I am trying to build on work since 1995, first published in Investigations, then in Reinventing the Sacred. If we are to question the adequacy of what Newton taught us: laws, initial and boundary conditions, differential equations and integration to yield the entailed behavior, the motion of the billiard balls, then we must be both bold but cautious. Its all very new material. If true it bears on how we see ourselves in the world as human beings. Thus, it does bear on what we wish for in an emerging global world of 30 civilizations woven together, forever diverse I HOPE, to enhance the diversity of ways we can be human. We too co-create, here our cultures and civilizations, beyond entailing law.
Stuart Kauffman (SAK43) wrote:
All I understand your diversity of tones. But please see my further elaboration on this post in the comments below. The post is necessarily dense to fit 9 ideas into 1000 words. I've blogged about most in the past more slowly. You can find those posts on 13.7 and see what you think.
What I am saying is that we may have to rethink the framework of physics when it comes to the evolution of life in the biosphere, or our economy, or our cultural evolution or history. There are some physicsists, S. Weinberg in his Dreams of a Final Theory, who truly dream of a fundamental theory that entails all that arises in the universe. The dream of a final theory has driven physics for centuries and is a wonderful dream. It is how we think in many respects. But rather fewer physicists now believe that. See Nobel laureate physicist Philip W. Anderson, "More is Different", Science about 1973. Physicists are gradually giving up on reductionism to a "theory of everything" that would entail all in the universe. If not such a theory, for example if no law entails the evolution of the biospherthen we confront the deep question of seeing in some new way, consistent with all the laws of physics we know, how the living world works.
Stuart Kauffman (SAK43) wrote:
Chris, warm thanks. You comment: "The brain is a microcosm of what your theme - 1 trillion to the multi-trilionith power of inter-activities that are directly connected to the outer environment." I think you are right. Some of you have followed these posts for some time. From mid November 2010 to end January 2011 I posted a 10 post series on open quantum systems able to decohere to classicality (for all practical purposes, FAPP) and it now seems, also able to RECOHERE from classical FAPP to quantum coherent. Its amazing. My colleagues and I believe there is an unrecognized Poised Realm hovering back and forth between quantum and classical behavior, and able to behave both NON-DETERMINSTICALLY due to their quantum aspects, but also behave NON-RANDOMLY due to their classical aspects. (This is also obviously true of evolution itself with random quantum events in mutations yet convergent evolution of octopus and human camera eyes.) From the above we believe we can construct Trans-Turing systems, non-determinate yet non-random, have filed a US Utility patent now owned by two universities, and hope this bears on the mind-brain system, perhaps in synapses, with exprimental tests of the hypothesis that qualia are associated with experimental tests that qualia are associated with quantum measurement. (Fruit flies, Drosophila, can be anesthetized with ether. Select for flies requiring less and less ether to be anesthetized, until say, none is needed at all. Now find the genes and proteins involved, and test if the NORMAL forms of those proteins are involved in quantum measurement, while the versions in the selected flies can no longer carry out quantum measurement. It might work, or fail to work so we are doing science. ) This is now an chapter in the Alan Turing Centennial volume, The Once and Future Turing: Computing the Future, Cambridge University Press 2012. I have hopes for that work.
I also have cautious hopes for the ideas in this "contentious" post. If I am right, along with co-worker Giuseppe Longo, a senior Italian-French mathematician at the Ecole Normal Superieur in Paris who I thank at the bottom of the post, we may well be on the way to showing that, in fact, the physics view of the world reaches a true watershed at life. If so, it is not the "end of the world", but a beginning of an enlarged world, for the biosphere has exploded with life in the past 3.5 billion years, perhaps indeed without entailing law. Then much is new.
Stuart Kauffman (SAK43) wrote:
Basil, I agree, but with caution. i I think the current post is almost certainly right. One reason is that IF quantum mechanics and classical physics CANNOT be united, then both are involved in evolution, as I note in the post, so evolution really is both non-determinate random because quantum, but non random because both classical and natural selection to yield convergent evolution. 2. Suppose there IS some theory,X, from which QM and classical physics can be derived, including General Relativity. It seems very unlikely that X would NOT have some indeterminate features like current QM and some determinate features like classical physics. If so, again evolution is both indeterminate and also non random. In either case 1 or 2, it is hard to see how a single X law can entail the detailed evolution of the biosphere. 3, The Poised Realm, hovering between quantum coherent and classicality for all practical purposes, (FAPP) with decoherence to classicality FAPP and REcoherence to quantum coherence, seems ever more secure science. But 4, this in turn seems strongly to support Trans-Turing behavior, ie AGAIN, non-determinate because partially quantum yet non-random because partially classical behaviors. This seems almost secure, if new.
Cont. 4. The possibility that Trans-Turing systems may have something to do with mind-body eg in neurotransmitter receptors in synapses, or as revealed by selection for ease of anesthetization of fruit flies with examination of quantum measurement or not in normal or mutant proteins would test experimentally whether quantum measurement IS associated with conscious experience, qualia. Here we just don't know, but the science is directly achievable. 5 The "wild card" is the hypothesis of an ontologically real Possiblle, Res potentia for unmeasured quantum behaviors, and Res extensa for real Actuals, for classical physics, linked by quantum measurement. The only truly plausible grounds for this is as an interpretation of quantum mechanics based on Feynman's sum over all possible histories approach to QM. Well, ok, but that is not independent "proof" of the reality of Possibilities". Right now the only other indication I see to try to "find" real possibilities is this: In Answering Descartes: Beyond Turing, I propose (after Penrose did so), that qualia are associated with quantum measurement, testable with the fly selection experiment as a start. Then UNCONSCIOUS mental processes could be associated with unmeasured Res potentia.
unconscious mental processes could be associated with unmeasured quantum processes in the mind-brain, which could be testable. Well neat if true, and I like the idea that consciousness has to do with measurement and quantum unmeasured processes, but that also is not "proof" of the reality of Res potentia. The only other weird tests of the reality of Res potentia is that it predicts that there is NO deductive mechanism for quantum measurement derivable from within quantum mechanics, nor can quantum physics and classical physics including General relativity be deductively united. Why? Because the (X is Possible) of unmeasured QM does NOT entail the (X is Actual) of classical physics. Well, after 85 years no one has united GR and QM, nor derived measurement from within QM. But someone might succeed. In addition, hanging something as HUGE as an ontologically real Res potentia on the simple mere logic above, and C.S Pierce's point borrowed by me that Feynman's formulation of QM evades the law of the excluded middle while classical physics obeys it, is not the world's strongest grounds for such a big conclusion as the reality of Res potentia. Yet there seems no harm in considering Res potentia and Res extensa linked bymeasurement
The only other weird line of evidence for the reality of Res potentia is negative: If Res potentia pertains to unmeasured quantum processes and Res extensa to classicaity, eg the persistent spots on the screen in the two slit experiment, linked by quantum measurement, then:i. There can be no mathematical deductive mechanism for quantum measurement derivable from within quantum mechanics; ii. Quantum Mechanics and classical physics including General Relativity seem not to be unitable. Why? Because the (X is Possible) of unmeasured quantum processes of Res potentia, does NOT entail the (X is actual) of classical physics, eg the spots on the screen. (so the wave particle duality is united in the above hypothesis of Res potentia and Res extensa linked by measurement. Well nobody in 85 years has united GR and QM within a monist ontology of the Actual. Nor has anyone derived quantum measurement from within QM. But it is indeed weird negative evidence for a real Res potentia, because somebody might succeed in the above hopes. And it is hard to be persuaded by the logic alone above and about Feynman's sum over all possible histories evading the law of the excluded middle while classical physics obeys it. That is where things sit
Stuart Kauffman (SAK43) wrote:
Sextus, I wish I knew the source. Thank you re Heidegger. I'm trying to guess at a "disavowal of a transcendental subject". I think many of us would really like to know what Heiddegger meant by that. Can i impose on you again to expand?
To my real astonishment, I myself have some ideas I do not trust at all on the subject: i. IF we can get human agency from Trans-Turing systems in the mind brain system where experienced qualia are associated with quantum measurement - testable with selection on flies, then it seems their dual, a primitive subject "I" is that which experiences. ii. Now if qualia are indeed provably associated with quantum measurement - a future scientific task - then either quantum measurement is NECESSARY, but NOT SUFFICIENT FOR QUALIA; OR QUANTUM MEASUREMENT COULD CONCEIVABLY BE NECESSARY AND SUFFICIENT FOR QUALIA=EXPERIENCE. (I do not know how we would prove the latter.)_ iii. IF quantum measurement were necessary and sufficient for qualia, then wherever in the universe quantum measurement happens, we have to say some form of "qualia" arise. (I am NOT happy about this.) Call these "proqualia". Whitehead had similar thoughts. iv. But if we can hope to build a conscious mind-brain from build a conscious mind-brain from trans-Turing behaviors eg in synapic moolecules entangled with one another and carrying out measurement, (where entanglement and measurement is to help solve the qualia binding problem) then (I'm NOT happy about this), it does not seem ruled out that Trans-Turing behavior and/or quantum measurement in entangled degrees of freedom - quantum - classical and back - may occur in the wider universe. If so, this could be a start of a transendental subject. (I'm not happy about this). v. This could conceivably tie to John A. Wheeler's famous two clues: "It from bit", and "The universe observing itself." Here "It from bit" would be classical from quantum via measurement to produce an experienced "bit" of information about the world. (Shannon is no help, lacking anything but syntatics.) vi. A subjective "I" could relate to Wheeler's Universe observing itself. vii One further clue: In the Conway Kochen Strong Free Will theorem, they prove that IF the quantum physicist has free will in deciding to measure a spin up vs down or to measure it left versus right (the so called basis problem I believe but am not quite sure), then "nothing in the past of the universe determines the behavior of the spin;
Further the Strong Free Will theorem states that there is no mechanism for quantum measurement - the same conclusion I reach below from the reality of Res potentia and Res extensa linked by quantum measurement. Finally, the behavior of the spins is "not random". I am not sure what they mean here, but believe it is related to the preferred basis issue. viii A final point, Conway Kochen need a resonsiible free willed physicist. But by Trans-Turing non-determinate and non-random behavior we have a chance for a responsible free will for our physicist.
I have NO idea what to make of this set of ideas except that they could possibly be interesting. Could there really be a transcendental subject? I have no idea. Stu
Stuart Kauffman (SAK43) wrote:
Hi All, on the vast subject of mind, mind-brain, computation (I agree Pankaj we are not living computo - in my view, a mistake driven by Bertrand Russell and sense data statements and my old mentor McCulloch and younger Pitts. ) As noted below, I've worked up my 11 posts on these topics from mid Nov 2010 to end Jan 2011, in Answering Descartes: Beyond Turing, on line republished by the European Conference on Artificial Life 11 at:http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12760 . And the Descartes chapter is now in press for the Alan Turing Centinnial volume, The Once and Future Turing: Computing the World, Cambrdige University Press, 2012.
Maria, you raise such huge topics, and there is room for debate on all issues. I personally argue in "Descartes" and the past posts mentioned above that we are no "living computo" because we solve the FRAME problem all the time, while no algorithmic system can, it seems, do so. The problem with an algorithmic approach is that we cannot prestate the relevant degrees of freedom, relational and not, and the possible USES of those degrees of freedom. More precisely, try to list the uses of a screw driver. There is no bounded or orderable set, so we cannot be guaranteed that any finite list of causal conseuences and their "affordances" entail the solution to an arbitrary problem, even if we humans trivially find such solutions all the time. Thus I do not think mind is a computing machine and Turing is wrong: his algorithms were, he recognized, at best an "imitation game" for the Turing machine is a subset of discrete state, discrete time classical physical systems, while classical physics includes Poincare's deterministic chaos for the three body gravitational problem. No algorithm can exhibit chaos: given an algorithmic random number generator started from the same generator "seed" it will produce exactly the same results each time. Thus IF we want to limit ourselves to classical phyisics we are not limited to Turing/Algorithmic systems. And quantum mechanics says it may be silly to restrict ourselves to classical physics. And the mixture of quantum indeterminate random mutations and convergent independent evolution of the octopus and vertebrate camera eye really says neither quantum mechanics alone, nor classical physics alone is sufficient for entailing biological evolution. Life is not a machine, nor a straightfoward quantum system.
Stuart Kauffman (SAK43) wrote:
All, Pankaj, Maria, Mike, Bob, if I had to try to say what the comments below point to it is something like this: What is our deep humanity? Tell me if you all feel something like what I'm inarticulately sensing: The purpose of this post is to argue that with life, the entailing view of scientific law seems to fail, and we are liberated from it - indeed the Aug 15th post is "Seeking Our Humanity". It may be that the fundamental reason is that quantum and classical physics cannot be united (after 85 years of effort that may be true), and as I wrote below, biological evolution is both quantum and classical, quantum indeterminate random, classical convergent camera eyes of octopus and us non-random, so neither alone. Then it seems there really is no single entailing law and life really is A or The Watershed. If so I sense this magical "becommng", (Bob the becoming is real since 3.7 billion years ago, or 50,000 years of cultural evolution). If Kant, Buddhism, Tao, have sought the way to be embodied "being", Mike's "human being", in the world we co-create - beyond mere knowledge, with all our human faculties - Jung's intuition, thought, sensation, feeling, or whatever we seek, the issue seems "our humanity" and what we co-create. As most of you know, I've tried hard last Nov to end Jan 2011 to post about mind-brain, the Poised Realm, responsible free will, consciousness. As noted below, my own current best summary, somewhat different than the posts, are on line from European Conference on Artificial Life, at : http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=12760
republished under the title of "Answering Descartes:Beyond Turing" in The Once and Future Turing: Computing the Universe, Cambridge University Press 2012, the centennial volume for Turing. Right now, it is the "best I can do" on this vastly hard topic. The chapter is VERY dense to fit the page limitations. Thanks All Stu