[Fis] New Year Lecture - Stuart Kauffman

[Pedro C. Marijuán]

Dear Stuart and FIS colleagues,

We are honored that you impart the FIS New Year Lecture this time. In 
this list, quite a few members share the impression that we are involved 
in a historical transition in science. Maybe, as you and Andrea Roli 
state, it could be the Third Great Transition. That it revolves around 
putting  into question the predominance of physicalist views was 
coincidentally discussed in a previous discussion session, when two 
pioneers of AI research (Yixin Zhong from China and Eric Werner from 
Oxford) were arguing for a paradigm change away for physicalism. Now you 
are providing strong arguments from the biological self-construction and 
evolutionary points of view. An important point is the argument on 
Kantian wholes, from the closure of auto-catalitic sets. It could also 
be considered as the organizational reliance on "cycles". In biological 
systems there is a towering presence of cycles: from elementary reaction 
cycles, to enzyme work-cycles, to regional reaction cycles, gene 
expression cycles (your Boolean networks!!), to genetic macro-cycles... 
to the cell's entire life cycle. And an even larger story could be told 
about cycles in complex organisms...

To put the argument in a nutshell: bye to physicalism (as a fundamental 
meta-scientific vision). Yes, but what would substitute for it?
I dare say "informationalism". You mention the biosphere and the  global 
economy, and even our cultures. Aren't all them based on the circulation 
of "information flows"  (in vastly different forms, of course)??
Let us think, for instance, on the enormous disarray created by the new 
social networks in our societies... we do not much understand the 
psychological changes derived for the intertwining of natural vs 
artifical info flows in our societies.

I am just reading Joseph's just arrived comments, philosophically and 
formally oriented. Fine.  I would ad that we are lacking a vast 
informational view that can help us to understand that strange world put 
into action 3,000 million years ago, full of emergent realms. So, 
filling in the gap that physicalim is unable to fill in consistently.

Best regards to all,
--Pedro
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El 04/01/2024 a las 23:54, Stuart Kauffman escribió:

Hello to All,

I am truly grateful to have this opportunity to discuss with you the 
recent Stuart Kauffman and Andrea Roli paper, “A Third Transition In 
Science?” J. Roy. Soc. Interface, 4/ 14 2023.  I attach a link below. 
It’s eventual publication in a fine journal after almost two years has 
its own wry history.

Andrea and I think we are correct, but we may be wrong. More, I only 
slightly begin to understand what our results, if correct, mean.

I had thought that the First Transition in science was Newton’s 
invention of Classical Physics in 1689 A.D. And I thought the Second 
Transition was the reluctant discovery of quantum mechanics between 1900 
and 1927 A.D.

I begin to suspect I was wrong.  The First Transition in science was in 
1299A.D. when the first mechanical clock was invented and installed at 
the Wallingford Abby. It was installed because the monks were often late 
for prayers. Within less than a century, Europe was dotted by chuch 
towers with ever - more impressive mechanical clocks. Modern people in 
1379 A.D. must have begun to wonder if the World itself was some amazing 
clockwork machine. Then Copernicus, 1543 A.D., then Kepler, Galileo and 
Newton.

This, then, was the Second Transition in Science. Yes, yes, yes!  The 
World is a vast clockwork machine. No room for God’s miracles – the 
Deistic God of the Enlightenment. No room for mind – Descartes lost his 
Res cogitans to Newton’s Res extensa. No Free Will.

With Planck, Heisenberg, and Schrodinger cam a loss of determinism, but 
still within the Newtonian Paradigm. And no mind and no responsible Free 
Will.

If Andrea and I are correct, this Third Transition demonstrates for the 
first time since 1299AD, 725 years later, that the evolving biosphere is 
not a clockwork machines. Evolving life is not a machine at all.

Are the two of us correct? If so, what does this Third Transition 
portend?  These  issues now lies before us.

Merci a tous,


Stu Kauffman


A Third Transition in Science? Link

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2022.0063__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RH-1N1FEJfqU41WdGgs7y8jJfe5UgMaHIJlh56CZUw76fWIEwZkUE9gIll06GR3L150IpC24ewV5iF7LveZK0HwbrDZ8$  
<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2022.0063__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RH-1N1FEJfqU41WdGgs7y8jJfe5UgMaHIJlh56CZUw76fWIEwZkUE9gIll06GR3L150IpC24ewV5iF7LveZK0HwbrDZ8$ >




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