[Fis] New Year Lecture - Stuart Kauffman

Fri Jan 5 17:47:37 CET 2024

Beware of the cryptic Cartesianism of opposing informationalism to
physicalism (as in "it from bit").
By accepting this framing, we risk falling for the old idealism vs
materialism trap, just in a new form.

On Fri, Jan 5, 2024 at 3:59 AM Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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!QWqRy48IxgI7uqQVW1zW2bni_amdH6RTRyIDsnv2KVgCUL0gLsvl9TQg9-0nZwoqnXSch1vxIkH0HogQ-8uUlw$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsfs.2022.0063__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RH-1N1FEJfqU41WdGgs7y8jJfe5UgMaHIJlh56CZUw76fWIEwZkUE9gIll06GR3L150IpC24ewV5iF7LveZK0HwbrDZ8$>
>
>
>
>
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-- 

*Professor Terrence W. DeaconUniversity of California, Berkeley*
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