[Fis] Second Law: The Unending Debate

Sun Mar 2 17:09:27 CET 2025

Were such debates already finished by Popper (demarcation through
falsification)? Or by Wittgenstein (Shut up - (if you run out of correct
language))?

I agree with Howard that math is just "one of many" but not "only"
language. There exist, say, music and emotional gestures (such as what we
just saw in the drama in the White House two days ago), dances, arts,
architecture, etc. You count them.

One Russian scientist said long ago that the wings of science are
methodologies, and facts are like air. Without air, wings cannot work. Now,
what is this thing called "fact"?

It is the stable eigenstate reachable by our cognitive system.

Recently, the phenomenon of the LLM's tendency to confabulate has been
highlighted. I think it is like a mirror for us to re-examine our cognitive
system (and our rationality). How reliable is it, actually?

Is anyone here interested in discussing possible types of
rationality/science and the role/position of math and logic? In the context
of "Information" or "Informatics", of course. But I tend to collect
Informatics and Systemics and Cybernetics together in a 3-D or 4-D
framework (adding time), at least as a thought experiment.

Best regards - Jason

On Sun, Mar 2, 2025 at 5:00 AM Pedro C. Marijuán <pedroc.marijuan at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>
> Some days ago there was a thought-provoking exchange between two FISers
> which I was incidentally following-- Howard Bloom and Andrei Igamberdiev.
> The argument was about an essay --with a critical stance on the vulgar use
> of the second law-- that Howard had written to be published in the Journal
> BioSystems, the chief editor of which is Andrei. They have allowed me to
> compile the whole exchange (the initial essay is not included). Here it is:
>
>
> *--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
>
> *Andrei's comments on Howard's manuscript:*
> Dear Howard,
> I have read your manuscript with great interest. I like many ideas and
> challenging points expressed in it. Your criticism of the Second Law is
> based on important arguments that should be analyzed in detail and
> evaluated by the scientific community.
> However, as I mentioned in my previous letter, this style and arrangement
> of the paper is not suitable for a journal specializing in natural science
> such as BioSystems, and probably for any other similar journal.  It is more
> suitable for a journal specializing in philosophy or a popular scientific
> magazine discussing hot topics in modern science.
> You are suggesting that the concept of entropy and the Second Law are
> wrong completely. However, they work for ergodic systems, i.e. the systems
> having the property that, given sufficient time, they include or impinge on
> all points in a given space and can be represented statistically by a
> reasonably large selection of points. Definitely, the Universe as a whole
> is not ergodic, and it may be possible to prove that living systems are
> also not ergodic. Thus, the Second Law and the concept of entropy have
> severe limitations that are often not considered by scientists.
> Robert Rosen discussed this idea but very briefly. In particular, he
> mentioned that complexity is not the objective property of the system but
> it is the characteristics arising from its description (including the
> internal description by the system itself). He criticized the concept of
> entropy from this point.  Recently, Stuart Kauffman attempted to limit the
> Second Law and to formulate the Fourth Law that he is considering as more
> general. You can check his papers (see, e.g., Kauffman, S., 2022. Is There
> a Fourth Law for Non-Ergodic Systems That Do Work to Construct Their
> Expanding Phase Space? Entropy (Basel) 24(10), 1383.
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.3390/e24101383__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XSYrU2DDIfifxsARbvGB3VVvGuPErh2NKm4sZbdXPZ46AM5QK7e3z5brN7GmwiukRwMm1ZTIw6-_TVEYVCVYif0NCqf1$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://doi.org/10.3390/e24101383__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!X_TnWreE2VnrNpXNmanG239L-iTIsfU9RUiO1BL80Mit-J9e3SqGppF5gLgMr140kwtoJ_KWPm2jrHSEhJJ7pfoUjIQr$>
> Thus, in my opinion, it is really important to analyze the assumptions
> taken for the formulation of the Second Law and the possible limitations
> connected to it. It is more productive to concentrate on possible
> limitations of the Second Law Instead of claiming that it is wrong. I don’t
> see this development in your paper. The Law of Flamboyance is suggested
> vaguely without any definite physical formulation. This presentation may be
> useful for general philosophical discussion but not as an introduction it
> as a new physical law.  The paper contains many interesting references to
> the debates of famous scientists, which would be useful for a popular
> scientific publication, however, in its current form it is not suitable for
> BioSystems or another journal with a similar scope.
> I am sorry for not being supportive at this time, but your interesting
> essay does not fit the scope of BioSystems.
> With best regards,
> Andrei
>
> *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
> *Howard's response: *
> andrei, hi,
>
> thanks for an extremely thought provoking, generous, and engaging turndown.
>
> i look forward to the next time we have an opportunity to communicate.
>
> with warmth and oomph--howard
>
> ps.  here's what your extraordinarily knowledgeable thoughts have prodded
> me to:
>
> MIT physicist and cosmologist Max Tegmark says that math is the universe.
> and many believe that ideas without a mathematical foundation are not
> science.
> Jesus had an opinion on this sort of thing.  he said about the strictness
> of the high priests of his day, the sabbath was made for man, not man for
> the sabbath.  the same is true of mathematics in science.  math is a tool
> of science.  science is not a tool of mathematics.
>
> in other words, often math helps us understand the cosmos.  but the living
> things in the cosmos vastly outstrip our math.  Newton was able to reduce
> the solar system to math.  but if darwn had been forced to mathematize his
> origin of species, there would have been no evolution.  no darwinism.  no
> origin of species.
>
> which explains more, newton's principia or darwin's origin?  in reality,
> they are both potent tools of understanding.  but the number of puzzles
> that neither of them can solve is vast.
>
> each of them--Darwin's approach and Newton's-- is far more limited than it
> imagines.  and math is far more limited in its powers than today's
> scientific community thinks.
>
> it's important to keep this in mind: newton's principia has almost no
> equal signs. in other words, newton did not have modern algebraic
> equations.  he expressed his laws with the math of his day: geometry,
> ratios,diagrams, and verbal reasoning.  today it would be said that
> newton's principia is not sufficiently mathematical to be taken as serious
> science.
>
> we forget that the equation was only invented in 1557 and only put to
> common use 80 years later.  in other words, our math is primitive.  it's
> the equivalent of the first collection of stone tools 3.2 million years
> ago, the oldowan stone toolkit.
>
> the new developments in math 300 years from now will startle us.  but
> science will still be mistaken if it imagines that all that we see and know
> can be expressed in equations.
>
> tegmark is wrong.  the cosmos is not a product of math.  math is a product
> of the cosmos. and the most startling thing in this universe, life, is
> ahead of the meager grasp of equations by light-years.
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andrei's response:*
> Hi Howard,
> thank you for your engaging response. I completely agree with you
> regarding Max Tegmark. Together with Joseph Brenner, I tried to express the
> views on mathematics that are completely opposite to Tegmark's, in our book
> "Philosophy in Reality" (Springer, 2021). However, in the scientific
> discourse, it is difficult to develop the framework to describe the origin
> of mathematics as we use the reasoning that assumes the existence of some
> formal structures before they develop in reality. We can further discuss
> possible solutions of this paradox.
> I will look forward to our future communication.
> With warmest regards,
> Andrei
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Final Note: *
> What Howard wrote to Andrei was turned into an article and posted it on
> substack.  The announcement of that article on X got a quarter million
> views.
>
> see https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://howardxbloom.substack.com/p/why-math-must-not-godzilla-science__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!XSYrU2DDIfifxsARbvGB3VVvGuPErh2NKm4sZbdXPZ46AM5QK7e3z5brN7GmwiukRwMm1ZTIw6-_TVEYVCVYif3ivjwL$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://howardxbloom.substack.com/p/why-math-must-not-godzilla-science__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!X_TnWreE2VnrNpXNmanG239L-iTIsfU9RUiO1BL80Mit-J9e3SqGppF5gLgMr140kwtoJ_KWPm2jrHSEhJJ7pccCyLRx$>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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