[Fis] An Unbeatable Tradition?

Thu Jan 25 14:53:54 CET 2024

Dear Stuart Kauffman, dear all,

I joined a month ago. Thanks for the learned exchange! I agree with 
Stuart (and Katherine). Here some - quite random - follow ups. In my view...

1) Darwinism - in it's 'essence' or at least in its gene-Darwinian 
variant - is atomistic, both in regard to the acknowledged entities as 
well as processes.
2) Therefore it celebrates "the passive" (natura naturata), not "the 
active" (natura naturans).
3) English empiricism likewise has emphasised only on the passive side, 
originally with almost theological overtones, but philosophically got 
into some troubles (eg. Hume).
4) I think, an extended evolutionary synthesis needs to increasingly 
overcome the (eliminative) entity-reductionism and process-reductionism  
and acknowledge the active side as well, without giving up the good 
sides of explanation. (By the way, I am not sure, whether the 'mind' is 
passive, or not also acting, as you may agree)
5) In my view, we need a) to continue to reconsider existing 
evolutionary theory with more theoretic scrutiny and not count 
everything as (strictly) Darwinian, b) perhaps to draw on some 
evolutionary (earlier) romantic traditions (despite its own dangers), c) 
to acquire a more precise mathematical understanding of basic notions 
and processes (deduction and Bayes' law - per se - is not enough) and 
link the biological discourse to physics, dynamic systems theory, 
information etc.). Address simultaneously very basic issues in 
philosophy/psychology/philosophy of science as well. Sorry, if I preach 
to the choir. Much stuff to continue learned exchanges anyway. ;-)

Best wishes Momme (von Sydow)

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Am 23.01.2024 um 04:06 schrieb Stuart Kauffman:
> Bless you Pedro.
>
> Some not quite random comments:
>
> 1) Descartes got us started thinking about a “mind in a vat” wondering 
> if it were being deceived. This mind never acts in the world, it only 
> observes. Science is knowledge, not action,
> 2) living organisms are open non-equilibrium systems so we all must 
> interact with the rest of the world, e.g. to eat, to sense food, avoid 
> poison That is all life must ACT or Do. My wife, Katherine Kauffman, 
> rightly adds life must sense the world, then FIND and CARE, or Orient 
> and Evaluate Good or Bad for me, then choose and act. Value enters 
> here, she rightly says.
> 3) Essentially all British empiricism is about knowing the world, not 
> acting in it.
> 4) The understanding of “mind” as “representing the world", also  all 
> of AI, is latter day Descartes. There is no doing in the world. There 
> is mere synthetics, no semantics. Again, Andrea and I have struggled 
> as have others, Kalevi Kull and biosemiotics.
> 5) “Doing" in the world includes finding novel affordances that cannot 
> be deduced. This is Orienting or FINDING. This is jury rigging,. How 
> does that arise?
> …………….
>
> Please turn to Kauffman Roli "The Third Transition", and Kauffman 
> Roli, “Is the emergence of life’…..”
>
> 1) It really is true that living entities are Kantian Wholes that 
> achieve Catalytic Closure, Constraint Closure, and spatial Closure.
> 2) Therefore cells really do construct themselves. Cells to not deduce 
> themselves.
> 3) It is really true that the reproduction of a cell has nothing to do 
> with a /separable/ set of Instructions that are carried out. See 
> Aristotles 4 causes below where the s/eparate instructions/ can be 
> followed or carried out by /indefinitely many *sufficient but not 
> necessary */ means.
> 4) In evolution, leave MIND out of this for now, it is really true 
> that evolving organisms create ever novel adaptions  by creating their 
> ever- novel adjacent Possibles and seize SOME of these by heritable 
> variation and genetic drift.
> 5) It is really true that these do constitute newly POSSIBLE ways to 
> co-exist.
> 6) This IS, in one sense, *the creation of new possibilities in the 
> universe*. ii. The new possibilities are /NEW information/.  iii This 
> new information did /not require /MIND or consciousness. Think of the 
> evolution of the heart or loop of Henle in the kidneys.
> 7) The Newtonian Paradigm requires a fixed phase space where no new 
> possibilities can come to exist. So does Boltzmann and so does 
> Shannon. This is profoundly inadequate - Andrea Roli and I wrote “The 
> world is not a theorem.” There is no /creation /of information in all 
> of physics.
>
> 1) What about MIND, Free Will, Consciousness? Well….
> 2) Think about Aristotle’s Four Causes: Formal, Efficient, Material, 
> Final.
> 3) E.g., the blueprint is the /formal cause/. The /indefinite 
> diversity/ of different materials, bricks, wood, stones, iron, that 
> are used to construct the house are the /material cause/. But no one 
> of this set of *sufficient* material causes is also NECESSARY. (Given 
> a function, it can be realized in idenfintely many ways. The house is 
> build via /Efficient cause, /again indefinite in variety, electric 
> tools, sharp sticks. Each suffienct but not necessary. /Final cause,/ 
> “I sure want a house. We seem to be talking about a science 
> of/propagating sufficient but not necessary conditions. /This is 
> neither Classical nor Quantum Physics. (So also the evolution of 
> morphologies without mind above.).
> 4) Given MIND,  Free Will, Consciousness and Responsible Choice 
> Aristotle’s four cases make sense. They do NOT make sense for the Cell 
> constructing itself. So what is going on?
> 5) Mind, Responblible Free Will and Choice among more than one 
> ontologically real possibilities makes sense and seems to be one clear 
> sense of information that is different from the cell constructing 
> itself. In both cases there is something about /alternative sufficient 
> but not necessary conditions./ Both can be new in the universe 
> information, ie a new plurality of possibles and information guides 
> choice among them. We do Jury rig. Inventions are novel over the prior 
> art. Jury rigging is not deductive, nor is invention.
>
> So somehow there seem to be more than one way new in the universe 
> possibilities can come to exist and unleash, or better, enable the 
> next actuals and possibles.
>
> Pedro, there is a lot once beyond the Newtonian Paradigm and strong 
> reductionism. The world really is not (only) a theorem.
>
> But sometimes it is a theorem eg Classical and Quantum Physics.  Odd.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Stu
>
>
>> On Jan 22, 2024, at 9:32 AM, Pedro C. Marijuán 
>> <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> An Unbeatable Tradition?
>>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> While watching the evolution of our discussions in this NY Lecture 
>> focused on the "Third Transition" I have the impression that physics 
>> becomes an inexorable attractor, the necessary end of any civilized 
>> discussion on information. Precisely, the initial arguments were 
>> about living organisms creating ever new ways of "getting to exist", 
>> adaptively constructing new-in-the-universe possibilities--with their 
>> exploration of the adjacent-possible going outside of the Newtonian 
>> paradigm... Fine, very fine.
>>
>> My contention is that in the last decades we have heard many times 
>> that rejection of the Newtonian but seemingly we cannot advance in 
>> the development of truly independent views, post-Newtonian and 
>> non-physicalist anchored (about information). Not aspiring to any 
>> universality about the conceptions of this independent informational 
>> exploration of life--at least shouldn't it be attempted?? Once some 
>> basics could be cohered and decently developed, it might provide some 
>> interesting complementarity with the endless conundrums on its and 
>> bits by physicist and computerist colleagues. Michael Conrad (who in 
>> the 70s and 80s was already arguing about the unpicturability of 
>> enzyme function) put an interesting comment: /_"When we look at a 
>> biological system we are looking at the face of the underlying 
>> physics of the universe"_/ (in BioSystems, 38, 1996, p.108). Quite 
>> enigmatic. So, an unexpected convergence might be found finally--but 
>> not mandating it at the very beginning.
>>
>> As I briefly argued days ago, the adjacent possible may be considered 
>> in a variety of time-scales. The infamous "What is it to be done?" 
>> (in Spanish, the concise "Qué hacer?" ) may be repeated for cells, 
>> for organisms, for humans, for societies... Or in other more 
>> frivolous words, "Qué será, será... the future's not ours to see". No 
>> wonder that all these kinds of informational creatures are endlessly 
>> looking for "signals", to march towards truly adaptive adjacent 
>> possibles. Our new knowledge on Prokaryotic signaling systems, on how 
>> they are intertwined with the advancement of the life cycle, points 
>> exactly in that direction: exploring the external/internal 
>> environment so to self-orient towards adaptive outcomes. They were 
>> the First Ones. Our own nervous system continuously scans the 
>> external and the internal, and mixes up with an elaborate arrangement 
>> of emotional resources and socialization cues so to do more or less 
>> the same, achieving viable life courses, etc.etc. Our own societies 
>> are involved in dire prospects and strange policy navigation towards 
>> the adjacent--what? Possible? Impossible? Disastrous? Inevitable?
>>
>> The lack of an informational cosmovision is patent. It was already 
>> evident for Ortega y Gasset in the 1930s: /"The confusion on the 
>> terrible public conflicts of the present stems //in good part //from 
>> the incongruence between the perfection of our ideas on physical 
>> phenomena and the painful back-warded state of the 'moral 
>> sciences'--//about that, //both the politician and the physicist are 
>> at the very height of the barber" /(in Revolt of the Masses, 1930s).
>>
>> Before putting an end, I have found pretty interesting (maybe 
>> converging) recent comments on logics by Joseph, Eric, Plamen... 
>> Unfortunately the "reality" of the life cycle is always maintained 
>> perfectly invisible (or partially entered via some sanitized surrogates).
>>
>> Thanking your attention,
>>
>> Best --Pedro
>>
>>
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