<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Dear Alex, <div class="">You could send me again your paper.</div><div class="">I stand with what I said in my email.</div><div class="">Best,</div><div class="">Lou</div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 15, 2024, at 12:57 AM, Alex Hankey <<a href="mailto:alexhankey@gmail.com" class="">alexhankey@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:#0b5394">Dear Lou, <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:#0b5394">I thought I had discussed with you my theory of Fractal Physiology, <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:#0b5394">a universal property of biological control systems, that enables <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:#0b5394">the mind / consciousness to collapse wave functions <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:#0b5394">Stuart has seen me talk about it in Tucson. <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:#0b5394">Best wishes, <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:#0b5394">Alex <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:#0b5394"><br class=""></div></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Mon, 15 Jan 2024 at 12:22, Louis Kauffman <<a href="mailto:loukau@gmail.com" class="">loukau@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div style="overflow-wrap: break-word;" class="">"<span style="color:rgb(11,83,148);font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large" class="">After all, in Jon von Neumann's 'Mathematical Principles of Quantum Mechanics'</span><span style="color:rgb(11,83,148);font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large" class=""> </span><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">the ability of consciousness to reduce wave packets is completely accepted,”</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">You have there some causal ideas “ability of consciousness to reduce” that may lead to confusion.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">There is no question that in the models of QM that we use the buck stops when an experimenter knows the outcome.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">What collapses is mindstuff when the outcome is known. But before the outcome is known, what “could be collapsed” is evolving </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">possibility. Possibility becomes actuality at the point of knowing. Knowing does not cause the collapse. We have no theory about a cause for the collapse except that what is so is so.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:"times new roman",serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br class=""></div><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 14, 2024, at 5:38 AM, Alex Hankey <<a href="mailto:alexhankey@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">alexhankey@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class=""><div class=""><div dir="ltr" class=""><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">Dear Stuart and other friends and colleagues, <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">Consciousness as we experience it cannot be understood properly from the second or third person perspectives. <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">The ancient Vedic civilisation got it spot on when it held that only internal awareness developed through <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">the practice of 'meditation' starting after awareness has been internally directed by using Yoga's </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">Fifth Limb (called Pratyahara) can achieve this. I have been teaching Pratyahara in <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">the form used by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi since 1971, and I can show how<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">it fits the definition given in Pada II of Patanjali's 'Yoga Sutras': </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">'Directing Awareness Inward away from the Senses'. <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">From the first person perspective, it becomes clear that consciousness is </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">capable of 'Knowing Itself Directly without Intermediary'. Then<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">'The Self knows Itself by Itself'. That means that the Self </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">constitutes a Perfectly Self-Observing System.<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">The consequence of that is an explanation </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">for how wave function collapse occurs. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">A serendipitous, unforeseen result, </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">making the model appealing. </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">After all, in Jon von Neumann's 'Mathematical Principles of Quantum Mechanics' <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">the ability of consciousness to reduce wave packets is completely accepted, and </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">it can be said of von Neumann that he never got anything (seriously) wrong. <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">Here he was entirely in agreement with Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">The next steps are to link this phenomenological picture into mathematics <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">of biological regulation, in nervous systems, etc. In that regard, Jeffrey <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">Goldstone whom I first met as an
undergraduate at Trinity
Cambridge
</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">gave me an invaluable hint - the Neural Net - Spin Glass identity. <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">The detailed physics of this last section is not difficult to give. <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">All best wishes to one and all, <br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)">Alex (Hankey)<br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br class=""></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:times new roman,serif;font-size:large;color:rgb(11,83,148)"><br class=""></div></div><br class=""><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, 12 Jan 2024 at 19:48, Stuart Kauffman <<a href="mailto:stukauffman@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">stukauffman@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br class=""></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div class="">Thanks Lou. I agree that the discovery of mathematics is often not deductive, and I need better to understand what you say below. I do mean what I am saying about Mind, entanglement, and more. I have long adopted Heisenberg’s interpretation of the quantum state, 1958, as potentia. Dean Radin and colleagues have powerful experimental data that deserves to be considered on some of these issues. Some if this is in the Kauffman Roli paper, “What is Consciousness?” recently published in the LInnean Society journal. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Best to all.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Stu<br id="m_-2655921899643357404m_6024423224963890698lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage" class=""><div class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 11, 2024, at 11:37 PM, Louis Kauffman <<a href="mailto:loukau@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">loukau@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class="">Dear Stu,</div>My feeling (and I mean feeling) is that you are right Stu, but you choose rhetoric that leads you into mistakes.<div class="">The purpose of mathematical models is structural and sometimes deductive. We are concerned primarily with language where the words have meaning and definitions can be </div><div class="">elicited. I suspect that you have been seduced by some notion that mathematics is only a deductive or computational enterprise, but it is much more than that at the level of the distinctions that it studies via the definitions and constructions that are made. The error that can then result is to throw away too much. And start making up words that in fact have no meaning such as “mind is quantum”, “mind entangles with the world”, “we collapse the wave function”, “we experience the single state as a qualia”. By the time you start talking this way, you have left the grounds of discourse with discrimination, for rhetoric for which some will applaud you and others will scorn you.</div><div class="">(Again I am probably over my quota and can send again next week.)</div><div class="">Best,</div><div class="">Lou</div><div class=""><br class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 11, 2024, at 6:21 PM, Stuart Kauffman <<a href="mailto:stukauffman@gmail.com" target="_blank" class="">stukauffman@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class=""><div class=""><div class="">Gordana I completely agree. Moreover, the Third Transition claims to demonstrate that the evolving biosphere is a non-deducible propagating construction, not a deduction, not a COMPUTATION at all. The grounds to think human mind is a computation are being erased. We do not create meaning by deducing, we create it as living organisms acting in the world. “Meaning” is to ME, acting and doing in my world, for all living creatures. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Andrea Roli and I wrote a further paper, “What is Consciousness?", published in the Linnean Society recently, 2023 Vol 139. We jury rig. Non - embodied Universal Turing Machines are algorithmic and cannot jury rig. Embodied UTM in robots can jury rig a bit, but far too slowly, we think. We suggest mind is quantum, it entangles with the world, we collapse the superposition wave function, and we experience the single state as a qualia. </div><div class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">And Kirkegard was exactly correct as are you.</div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Stu<br id="m_-2655921899643357404m_6024423224963890698lineBreakAtBeginningOfMessage" class=""><div class=""><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Jan 11, 2024, at 4:07 PM, Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic <<a href="mailto:gordana.dodig-crnkovic@mdu.se" target="_blank" class="">gordana.dodig-crnkovic@mdu.se</a>> wrote:</div><br class=""><div class=""><div style="font-family:Helvetica;font-size:24px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration:none" class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">On<span class=""> </span></span><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">9 January 2024 at 18:32</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class=""><span class=""> </span>(below) Stuart wrote:<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">”<span class="">(...) responsible free will? Glad to argue for this. Gordana?”<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards"</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9pt;font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">Søren Kierkegaard, Journalen JJ:167 (1843), Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, Søren Kierkegaard Research Center, Copenhagen, 1997--, volume 18, page 306.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:9pt;font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">L</span><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">ife cannot be understood forward</span><span lang="SV" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">s</span><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class=""><span class=""> </span>since we cannot know all possible consequences of our present decisions. Despite this, ethical practice has found pragmatic solutions. For example, a popular ethics topic today is AI, a technology that is developing incredibly quickly. We have no idea what will come next year. Yet, people have started thinking about future scenarios, challenges, possible pitfalls, etc. Societies want to prepare even under uncertainty. We do this all the time.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">Ethics is a distributed intelligent learning adaptive system.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">The question of predicting a system's future behavior also relates to research. The paper "A third transition in science?" relates both<span class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">to<span class=""> </span></span><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">the methodology of prediction and the direction of the new transition in science, a post-Newtonian paradigm.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">The current paradigm shift is occurring in the material sciences—physics, chemistry, biology—as well as in other forms of knowledge production and<span class=""> </span><b class="">meaning creation</b>.<span class=""> </span><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">At the foundation of information,<span class=""> </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">there is<span class=""> </span></span><span style="font-family:"Avenir Light",sans-serif" class="">the concept of 'meaning'.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-family:"Avenir Book"" class="">This meaning is tightly bound to values, but that is a subject for a new discussion.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-family:"Avenir Book"" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="SV" style="font-family:"Avenir Book"" class="">Gordana<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="SV" style="font-family:"Avenir Book"" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span lang="SV" class=""> </span></div><div style="border-width:1pt medium medium;border-style:solid none none;border-color:rgb(181,196,223) currentcolor currentcolor;padding:3pt 0cm 0cm" class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size:12pt" class="">From:<span class=""> </span></span></b><span style="font-size:12pt" class="">Fis <<a href="mailto:fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" class="">fis-bounces@listas.unizar.es</a>> on behalf of Stuart Kauffman <<a href="mailto:stukauffman@gmail.com" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" class="">stukauffman@gmail.com</a>><br class=""><b class="">Date:<span class=""> </span></b>Tuesday, 9 January 2024 at 18:32<br class=""><b class="">To:<span class=""> </span></b>Louis Kauffman <<a href="mailto:loukau@gmail.com" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" class="">loukau@gmail.com</a>>, 0 <<a href="mailto:stukauffman@gmail.com" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" class="">stukauffman@gmail.com</a>><br class=""><b class="">Cc:<span class=""> </span></b>fis <<a href="mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" class="">fis@listas.unizar.es</a>>, Andrea Roli <<a href="mailto:andrea.roli@unibo.it" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" class="">andrea.roli@unibo.it</a>><br class=""><b class="">Subject:<span class=""> </span></b>Re: [Fis] Fis Digest, Vol 108, Issue 5<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></span></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Lou how splendid! I fully agree and perhaps even more. Wheeler’s wonderful 20 questions is, as you say, OUR joint<span class=""> </span><i class="">conscious<span class=""> </span></i>construction of what will become. What becomes did not yet exist.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">The clearest physical example is exactly the evolving biosphere. Whatever the Actual biosphere is now, it enables an un-prestatable Adjacent Possible into which it literally physically constructs itself. What is Actual now must be stable enough to enable what can next arise. The same thing occurs in the evolving global economy. Goods and services that now exist enable the coming into existence of new, non-prestatable, non-deducible complements and substitutes, screws and screwdrivers - screws and nails.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">We do not know what is “in” the Adjacent Possible of the biosphere. We do not know the sample space of the process, so can have no probability measure nor even define “random”.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">It is critical to our discussions to get beyond formal deductions. Evolving life is an evolving physical, in part, construction.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Beyond the way the biosphere physically constructs itself without appeal to MIND and consciousness, we also are conscious, choose and act. Ask any Venture Capitalists and entrepreneurs. They cannot deduce - compute “The risk”.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">As Soren Kirkegord roughly said, We live our lives forward into mystery.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Uhoh, responsible free will? Glad to argue for this. Gordana?<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Stu<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><blockquote style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt" type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">On Jan 8, 2024, at 8:38 AM, Louis Kauffman <<a href="mailto:loukau@gmail.com" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" class="">loukau@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Dear Stu,<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">The constituents of your Kantian wholes still obey the laws of physics. I am made of atoms and molecules. <u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">In studying mathematics the structures obey the axioms I have chosen to study, but they are not so constrained by them that they do not have surprising behaviour.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">The prime numbers obey the Peano axioms but that does not make them staid and predictable, quite the contrary. Novelty arises in relation to constraints.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Look at the molecular biology. We are pretty damn sure the the molecules in the cell obey physical law all the way down to quantum mechanics. And those molecules have evolved into the dance of life. How those evolutions occurred is your fantastic study AND all that occurred as far as we can tell with no violation of physical law.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">I see that every even number not equal to 2 is the sum of two odd primes (in many ways!) I also see that whenever this happens it happens within the rules of arithmetic. The rules of arithmetic do not deny this phenomenon, but it may well be that they neither predict it or make it possible for it to be deduced from them. That is the way things are. Constraints are part and parcel of creativity.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Ah, but you ask Why can Physics have constraining laws? Ha! <u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Note that in the Feynman Path Integral version of QM the “particle” does whatever it likes.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">The laws arise from the phase relationships of the particles that arrive at a given “place” in conjunction with assumed properties of “observers”. <u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Wheeler in his book on Gravity (Misner, Thorne and Wheeler) speaks eloquently about “Law without Law”.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">I suggest you read John Wheeler who, in my opinion has the best answer to this question in terms of his <u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Parable of the Game of Twenty Questions. <u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">I can send you my paper related to that but it will be too long for this email. <u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Excerpt included below.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class="">86. Here is a remarkable story told by the physicist John Archibald Wheeler about a Game of Twenty Questions (Davies, P.C.W and Brown, J. R. (1986)): “ Then my turn came .... I was locked out an unbelievably long time. On finally being readmitted, I found a smile on everyone’s face, a sign of a joke or a plot. I nevertheless started my attempt to find the word. ‘Is it an animal?’ ‘No.’ Is it a mineral?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Is it green?’ ‘No.’ ‘Is it white?’ ‘Yes.’ These answers came quickly. Then the questions took longer in the answering. All I wanted from my friends was a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Yet the one queried would think and think before responding. Finally I felt I was getting hot on the trail, that the word might be<span class=""> </span></span><i class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPS,serif" class="">cloud</span></i><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class="">. I knew I was allowed only one chance at the final word. I ventured it: ‘Is it<span class=""> </span></span><i class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPS,serif" class="">cloud</span></i><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class="">?’ ‘Yes,’ came the reply, and everyone in the room burst out laughing. They explained to me that there had been no word in the room. They had agreed not to agree on a word. Each one questioned could answer as he pleased – with one requirement that he should have a word in mind compatible with his own response and all that had gone before. Otherwise, if I challenged, he lost.</span><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class="">This surprise version of Twenty Questions was therefore as difficult for my colleagues as it was for me ... What is the symbolism of the story? The world, we once believed, exists<span class=""> </span></span><i class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPS,serif" class="">out there<span class=""> </span></span></i><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class="">independent of any act of observation. ... I, entering the room, thought the room contained a definite word. In actuality, the word was developed step by step through the questions I raised ... Had I asked different questions or the same questions in a different order I would have ended up with a different word ... However, the power I had in bringing the particular word<span class=""> </span></span><i class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPS,serif" class="">cloud<span class=""> </span></span></i><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class="">into being was partial only. A major part of the selection lay in the ‘yes’ or ‘no’ replies of the colleagues around the room ... In the game, no word is a word until that word is promoted to reality by the choice of questions asked and answers given.” Wheeler’s allegorical fable was intended to illuminate the conditions of the quantum physicist. In quantum physics no phenomenon is an actual phenomenon until it is observed and agreed upon by all the physics colleagues. The story just as well illustrates the world of social interaction.</span><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div><div class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class="">87. My thesis is that all attempts to find stable knowledge of the world are attempts to find theories accompanied by eigenforms in the actual reflexivity of the world into which one is thrown. The world itself is affected by the actions of its participants at all levels. One finds out about the nature of the world by acting upon it. The distinctions one makes change and create the world. The world makes those possibilities for distinctions available in terms of our actions. Given this point of view, one can ask, as one should of a theory, whether there is empirical evidence for this idea that stable knowledge is equivalent to the production of eigenforms. In this case we have only to look at what we do and see that whenever “something is the case” then there is an orchestration of actions that leaves the something invariant, making that something into an eigenform for those actions. The eigenform thesis is not itself a matter of empirical science. It is a matter of definition, albeit circular definition. Another point of view is that the empirical evidence is all around you. Examine any thing. How does it come to be for you? Investigate the question and you will find that thing is maintained by actions. The action could be as simple as opening your eyes and looking at the cloudy sky. With that action, the cloudy sky comes to be for you. I do not assert that this is the usual scientific explanation of cloudy sky. But if you want to work with such things then it is usually even more transparent. The sharp spectral lines of Helium are the result of setting up a very particular experiment that produces them. The experiment, its equipment, the scientists and all that is needed to perform it is the transformation whose eigenform is the spectrum of Helium.<span class=""> </span></span><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div><div class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class="">88. It is a fruitful beginning to look at present scientific endeavors and to see how they are interrelated and find connections among them, to engage in meta-scientific activity. This can reveal how theories, seemingly objective, actually affect the world through their very being, and how these actions on the world come to affect the theories themselves. In exploring the world, we find regularities. It is possible that these regularities are our own footprint. In the end we shall begin to understand the mystery of the eigenforms that we have created, constructed and found.</span><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">(LK in Constructivist Foundations, Vol. 11, No. 3)<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class="">This is of course related to Wheeler’s “It from Bit”. Each question gives a bit of information. The whole pattern of questioning gives the resulting world of “everything that is the case”. The striking thing in the parable is the lack of causality, and the philosophical question: How much comes just from our demand for consistency? And you will note to what great lengths we go as (mathematical) scientists to preserve consistency even in the face of acausality.</span><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div><div class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class="">Best,</span><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Lou<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:TimesNewRomanPSMT,serif" class=""> </span><u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div><div class=""><blockquote style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt" type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">On Jan 7, 2024, at 7:27 AM, Stuart Kauffman <<a href="mailto:stukauffman@gmail.com" style="color:blue;text-decoration:underline" target="_blank" class="">stukauffman@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div><div class=""><div class=""><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Thank you Lou. I agree. Creativity is not deduction. Given what you write, Andrea and I claim to have shown that no laws at all entail of the evolution of the biosphere which is a non-deducible, propagating, construction. Assume this is correct. But physics DOES HAVE LAWS THAT ENTAIL. So if Andrea and Stu are right and physics with laws is right, why can physics have entailing laws but not the evolving biosphere. One answer is that living organisms really are Kantian Wholes with Catalytic and Constraint closure, that can evolve new boundary conditions creating novel phase spaces, that can evolve and create ever-new phase spaces by<span class=""> </span><i class="">selection on the whole, which is downward causation</i><span class=""> </span>for those feature that survive and propagate best in the current context - and there is no prior description of what the current context will become. <u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">But even if Andrea and I are right about evolving life, why can PHYSICS have entailing laws?<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">All very odd.<u class=""></u><u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class=""><u class=""></u> <u class=""></u></div></div><div class=""><div style="margin:0cm;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif" class="">Stu</div></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></div>_______________________________________________<br class="">
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MIT World Peace University, </span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse" class="">124 Paud Road, Pune, MA 411038 </span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse" class="">Mobile (Intn'l): +44 7710 534195 </span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse" class=""></span><div class=""><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse" class="">Mobile (India) +91 900 800 8789 </span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse" class="">WhatsApp: as for Mobile, India</span></div><div class=""><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:13px;border-collapse:collapse" class=""><div style="font-size:12.8px" class="">____________________________________________________________</div><div style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><span style="font-family:georgia,serif" class=""><br class=""></span></div><div style="font-size:12.8px" class=""><span style="font-family:georgia,serif" class=""><a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00796107/119/3__;!!D9dNQwwGXtA!Roe0Lh41DYPHupoSeZ-LEul-LccHoMTvZyGeD1NvsL9QldpaCbMkS1gx5o5Y-a6IA5O7m1NBegHOQw4c$" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" target="_blank" class="">2015 JPBMB Special Issue on Integral Biomathics: Life Sciences, Mathematics and Phenomenological Philosophy</a></span></div></span></div></div></div></div>
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