Physical laws — such as the laws of motion, gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics — codify the general behavior of varied macroscopic natural systems across space and time. In a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Cornell University’s Professor Jonathan Lunine, Dr. Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution for Science and their colleagues propose that an additional, hitherto-unarticulated law is required to characterize familiar macroscopic phenomena of our complex, evolving Universe.
In essence, the new ‘law of increasing functional information’ states that complex natural systems evolve to states of greater patterning, diversity, and complexity. In other words, evolution is not limited to life on Earth, it also occurs in other massively complex systems, from planets and stars to atoms, minerals, and more.
The new work postulates a ‘law of increasing functional information,’ which states that a system will evolve ‘if many different configurations of the system undergo selection for one or more functions.’
The new law applies to systems that are formed from many different components, such as atoms, molecules or cells, that can be arranged and rearranged repeatedly, and are subject to natural processes that cause countless different arrangements to be formed — but in which only a small fraction of these configurations survive in a process called ‘selection for function.’
I have been looking for someone smarter than me to deal with the time frame problem. “The law of increasing functional information” is self evident. My guess is as they are arguing, without clarifying, is that the secret is relative time frames. What makes evolution different is that the variants exist before selection breaking determinism in a way. The “purpose” they are seeing is what happens after selection which is deterministic. After the variants exist the choices disappear after one is selected.
What I’m thinking is that as you move through space time this reversal of causes and effects is something of an illusion. We know that the second law will return to all systems as the universe dies. You could say that determinism just hasn’t caught up with what is happening at the cone of causality for a special point in space time.
In any case as you have probably guessed I have no idea what I’m talking about If I had millions of dollars I would hire some talented physicists to work on it.
Evolution
I read somewhere that It begins with chaos, such as the BB.
Then within the chaos orderly patterns begin to form (Chaos Theory).
Then patterns become more and more complex, until there is such unmanagable complexity that the order tends to revert back into chaos.
Combine this with “conservation of energy” in closed systems, but “enthropy” and “energy exchange” in open systems, we seem to have several competing evolutionary processes going on but with different “worldlines” (timelines)
The problem is there is no obvious connection between the first cause the variant and the effect the selection. The important thing is that there are apparent breaks in the chains of determinism. It doesn’t matter how far back you can trace the causes of the variant. Both are as far as we can tell entirely deterministic when viewed independently.
In and of itself this is not an interesting observation. But if there are breaks in determinism then the reason we can’t see them is a time frame problem. As I said it is kind of an illusion because the time frames will collapse back onto themselves as the entropy returns. In other words causality is fixed but time isn’t. In a way cause and effect are reversed by information in the system locally and temporally. Think of it this way a plan for the future is in a strange way an effect that hasn’t happened yet. The cause is the plan but it doesn’t actually exist. It will only exist after the choice is made. The effect before the action in the plan is determined before any change to physical reality. You can think of that as time travel or the reversal of entropy temporally and spatially in living things based on what you could call intelligence. Or if you like information manipulation. Assuming the universe is made up of information it could be more applicable to other systems but I’m not actually interested in that.
Now keep in mind I have no idea what I’m talking about. I have been looking at quantum computing for an answer but that took me no where. As far as I can’t tell it is only taking advantage of multiple simultaneous calculation.
I’m not so sure of that. There are many variable processes that are probabilistic until they become deterministic.
Quantum super-position seems to be such a probabilistic event that yields a deterministic result at the time of the event. Until then it is a “future” variable.
Climate, weather, oceans, rivers are all probabilistic events, because of the chaotic dynamical nature of these conditions.
One can make an argument that probability is due to a lack of information, but in a dynamic (chaotic) environment the future is incalculable. It would take a computer the size of the Universe to make such calculations and part of that would still be outside our measurable reality.
I would go further than that and say everything we know about reality is a model of but not the thing itself. The models are always probabsistic in the sense that they are known not to be complete.
Your point however is valid, at some point uncertainty is so great that it is indistinguishable from true randomness.
I don’t find the explanations that physicists offer on quantum uncertainty very satisfying. It often goes something like this. The universe is deterministic at large scales but at the tiniest scales it is not. But when agreeing with you on the first point I’m saying how random does it need to be to satisfy your theories?.
Would it help if I said that I’m dealing with a specific theory that deals with one cone of causality at a specific point in time/space where we throw out randomness completely?
I think you know that I’m on a fishing expedition looking for a new species I have not encountered before. I have no idea what other people know, I’m not presenting a formal theory nor committed to it. It seems to me
I would agree with you completely. Uncertainty only pertains to the future which is not yet manifest.
OTOH, every instant in time is witness to a deterministic event.
As atheist. I like the MaxTegmark’s concept of a mathematical universe (MUH), if only due to the fact that there is no alternative theory that satisfies the axioms we use to examine the workings of the universe.
The argument that mathematics is a human invention is IMHO a shortsighted argument. Human mathematics are a human invention, but they are the symbolic representation of the deterministic nature of universal interactive processes that act with exquisite fidelity and lead to the very concept of determinism.
Universal mathematics don’t just describe the universal geometry, they define it.
I became convinced when watching the NOVA presentation of
The Great Math Mystery
Yes I like the mathematical universe hypothesis better than the informational universe hypothesis only because it seem more appropriately humble. Although I really do like this phrase “law of increasing functional information”. Would you agree that they are somewhat interchangeable ideas?
Out of curiosity are there any non atheists here? Doesn’t seem to me they would hang around long.
Oh, I agree completely. IMO, Universal mathematics is not based on human symbolic numbers and equations floating around in space.
Universal mathematics are based on Universal relational values, AKA “information” .
That’s why the human invented symbolic mathematics work so well. It is the mathematical map that describes the mathematics of the Universal terrain.
Note that the Table of Elements is based on the quantities of informational values contained in the atomic structures.
For instance the number of protons within an atom determines the type of element
it represents. An atom with 6 protons is a carbon atom.
Note that every time we quote human numbers, we are talking about a form of physical information that represents a generic mathematical value which relative to all other generic matematical values in the table of elements.
When these informational values interact, in mathematical processes, new informational values are created in the form of molecules. From there we go to self-copying polymers and the formation of biochemicals and abiogenesis is not far behind.
That’s why I like to think that “life” is a mathematical expression of dynamical but mathematical growth processes, like the Fibonacci Sequence.
I will get back to you if and when I find anything I think is interesting.
Right now I’m concentrating on demonstrating that intelligence is a property of life and that intelligence is choice or more or less equivalent to deterministic freewill. Not exactly compatibalism or indeterminism but some sort of pragmatism. The time frame thing is just a side interest.
Let me suggest a peek at “microtubules” as an integral part of biological intelligence.
I believe this self-organizing nano-scale dipolar coil which is a “common denominator” in ALL Eukaryotic lifeforms and is the most important cellular information processor, carrier, and communicator in all biological life sustaining functions.
Microtubule
Intracellular organization
Microtubules are part of the cytoskeleton, a structural network within the cell’s cytoplasm. The roles of the microtubule cytoskeleton include mechanical support, organization of the cytoplasm, transport, motility and chromosome segregation.
In developing neurons microtubules are known as neurotubules,[23] and they can modulate the dynamics of actin, another component of the cytoskeleton.[24] A microtubule is capable of growing and shrinking in order to generate force, and there are motor proteins such as kinesins and dynein that allow organelles and other cellular components (such as mRNA) to be carried along a microtubule, using specific adaptor proteins [25] [26].
This combination of roles makes microtubules important for organizing and moving intracellular constituents/cargo.
When you came back you picked my favorite subject “microtubules”
This incredible little dynamical nano-tube consisting of just 2 tubulins perform an astounding array of sensory information transport throughout the body and brains at all stages of evolution, from slime molds to humans.
Searching this, it’s being taken seriously, but give it time, we’ll see what the reaction is. This is some good discussion:
Scroll down to “Danno” who read the source and noted it was funded by Templeton. Personally, I’m having trouble seeing how this isn’t just a restatement of Darwin.
This is beyond Darwinian evolution which specifically addresses living things and occurs from generation to generation and specifically from observation of Earth based life.
This new perspective addresses all universal systems and one of the underlying result is that this Universal evolution of all systems follows a different worldline (time) than Darwinian evolution on Earth, because it is not generational, but a
purely random occurrence.
“You have a universe that keeps mixing things up and then trying out new possibilities ,” Hazen says, adding that it encompasses biological evolution, too. Things that work are selected for , he adds. “That works on nonliving worlds, and it works on living worlds. It’s just a natural process that seems to be universal.”
The team’s notion of fitness beyond biology is “really subtle, complex and wonderful,” Stuart Kauffman adds.
And, some say evolution is strictly about Darwinian natural selection and common descent, Hazen says. But, “I’m talking about diversification and patterning through time” from one stage to the next,
This new law identifies "universal concepts of selection" that drive systems to evolve, whether they’re living or not.
The research team behind the law, which included philosophers, astrobiologists, a theoretical physicist, a mineralogist and a data scientist, have called it “the law of increasing functional information.”
The law applies to systems that form from numerous components — such as atoms, molecules and cells —which can be arranged and rearranged repeatedly and adopt multiple different configurations, according to the statement. The law also says these configurations are selected based on function, and only a few survive.
theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman, professor emeritus of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of Pennsylvania, said the study is a “superb, bold, broad, and transformational article,”
Repeating the whole article and my link isn’t much of a response. Science has expanded the term evolution to minerals and to systems other than earth life already, so, what’s the new thing? Calling it a timeline or something line doesn’t help me.
Saying universe tries something new is anthropomorphizing, also not helpful. I’m asking, how are the “universal concepts of selection” not the result of all of the laws we already know?
I agree lausten when you skip to the end it turns a bit sour. I’m also suspicious that “the law of increasing functional information” without clearly stating what that law is opens the observation up to both creationist and simulation theorists. Both of which I dislike.
That said the timeline problem is I believe critical. The speed of causation may be constant but time is relative. Metaphorically life has a plan and a plan is a kind of time travel. Making life distinct from passive matter. Do minerals etc. or the universe have a plan? That would be the million dollar question. My guess is that if it does have a plan It lies outside the cone of general causality. That puts you back to square one. It is possible that new information will expand the cone of general causality but until it does we need to carry on.
The kicker is that physicists are telling me that randomness is real. At the moment I’m skeptical. Anything I’m interesting in only requires pseudo randomness as far as I can tell. white4u may be right and microtubules may take advantage of true randomness somehow but replacing near randomness with true randomness doesn’t really help me out.
Yes but it is more complicated than that. In a way the theory of universe as a simulation is a theist argument. If we say that it is an information universe it opens that door. Who runs the simulation?
I’m a pragmatist so I’m not interested in whether who is running the simulation is God or if it is just a mindless system. It’s a meaningless distinction.
If I had millions of dollars I would hire some talented physicists to work on it.
