• apokrisis
    6.8k
    I'll repost a longer explanation I gave elsewhere that explains the basic point Hoffman makes in Life's Ratchet. It details the instability or dynamism on which life is founded.

    Biophysics finds a new substance

    This looks like a game-changer for our notions of “materiality”. Biophysics has discovered a special zone of convergence at the nanoscale – the region poised between quantum and classical action. And crucially for theories about life and mind, it is also the zone where semiotics emerges. It is the scale where the entropic matter~symbol distinction gets born. So it explains the nanoscale as literally a new kind of stuff, a physical state poised at “the edge of chaos”, or at criticality, that is a mix of its material and formal causes.

    The key finding: In brief, as outlined in this paper http://thebigone.stanford.edu/papers/Phillips2006.pdf , and in this book http://lifesratchet.com/ the nanoscale turns out to be a convergence zone where all the key structure-creating forces of nature become equal in size, and coincide with the thermal properties/temperature scale of liquid water.

    So at a scale of 10^-9 metres (the average distance of energetic interactions between molecules) and 10^-20 joules (the average background energy due to the “warmth” of water), all the many different kinds of energy become effectively the same. Elastic energy, electrostatic energy, chemical bond energy, thermal energy – every kind of action is suddenly equivalent in strength. And thus easily interconvertible. There is no real cost, no energetic barrier, to turning one kind of action into another kind of action. And so also – from a semiotic or informational viewpoint – no real problem getting in there and regulating the action. It is like a railway system where you can switch trains on to other tracks at virtually zero cost. The mystery of how “immaterial” information can control material processes disappears because the conversion of one kind of action into a different kind of action has been made cost-free in energetic terms. Matter is already acting symbolically in this regard.

    This cross-over zone had to happen due to the fact that there is a transition from quantum to classical behaviour in the material world. At the micro-scale, the physics of objects is ruled by surface area effects. Molecular structures have a lot of surface area and very little volume, so the geometry dominates when it comes to the substantial properties being exhibited. The shapes are what matter more than what the shapes are made of. But then at the macro-scale, it is the collective bulk effects that take over. The nature of a substance is determined now by the kinds of atoms present, the types of bonds, the ratios of the elements.

    The actual crossing over in terms of the forces involved is between the steadily waning strength of electromagnetic binding energy – the attraction between positive and negative charges weakens proportionately with distance – and the steadily increasing strength of bulk properties such as the stability of chemical, elastic, and other kinds of mechanical or structural bonds. Get enough atoms together and they start to reinforce each others behaviour.

    So you have quantum scale substance where the emergent character is based on geometric properties, and classical scale substance where it is based on bulk properties. And this is even when still talking about the same apparent “stuff”. If you probe a film of water perhaps five or six molecules thick with a super-fine needle, you can start to feel the bumps of extra resistance as you push through each layer. But at a larger scale of interaction, water just has its generalised bulk identity – the one that conforms to our folk intuitions about liquidity.

    So the big finding is the way that contrasting forces of nature suddenly find themselves in vanilla harmony at a certain critical scale of being. It is kind of like the unification scale for fundamental physics, but this is the fundamental scale of nature for biology – and also mind, given that both life and mind are dependent on the emergence of semiotic machinery.

    The other key finding: The nanoscale convergence zone has only really been discovered over the past decade. And alongside that is the discovery that this is also the realm of molecular machines.

    In the past, cells where thought of as pretty much bags of chemicals doing chemical things. The genes tossed enzymes into the mix to speed reactions up or slow processes down. But that was mostly it so far as the regulation went. In fact, the nanoscale internals of a cell are incredibly organised by pumps, switches, tracks, transporters, and every kind of mechanical device.

    A great example are the motor proteins – the kinesin, myosin and dynein families of molecules. These are proteins that literally have a pair of legs which they can use to walk along various kinds of structural filaments – microtubules and actin fibres – while dragging a bag of some cellular product somewhere else in a cell. So stuff doesn’t float to where it needs to go. There is a transport network of lines criss-crossing a cell with these little guys dragging loads.

    It is pretty fantastic and quite unexpected. You’ve got to see this youtube animation to see how crazy this is – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-uuk4Pr2i8 . And these motor proteins are just one example of the range of molecular machines which organise the fundamental workings of a cell.

    A third key point: So at the nanoscale, there is this convergence of energy levels that makes it possible for regulation by information to be added at “no cost”. Basically, the chemistry of a cell is permanently at its equilibrium point between breaking up and making up. All the molecular structures – like the actin filaments, the vesicle membranes, the motor proteins – are as likely to be falling apart as they are to reform. So just the smallest nudge from some source of information, a memory as encoded in DNA in particular, is enough to promote either activity. The metaphorical waft of a butterfly wing can tip the balance in the desired direction.

    This is the remarkable reason why the human body operates on an energy input of about 100 watts – what it takes to run a light bulb. By being able to harness the nanoscale using a vanishingly light touch, it costs almost next to nothing to run our bodies and minds. The power density of our nano-machinery is such that a teaspoon full would produce 130 horsepower. In other words, the actual macro-scale machinery we make is quite grotesquely inefficient by comparison. All effort for small result because cars and food mixers work far away from the zone of poised criticality – the realm of fundamental biological substance where the dynamics of material processes and the regulation of informational constraints can interact on a common scale of being.

    The metaphysical implications: The problem with most metaphysical discussions of reality is that they rely on “commonsense” notions about the nature of substance. Reality is composed of “stuff with properties”. The form or organisation of that stuff is accidental. What matters is the enduring underlying material which has a character that can be logically predicated or enumerated. Sure there is a bit of emergence going on – the liquidity of H2O molecules in contrast to gaseousness or crystallinity of … well, water at other temperatures. But essentially, we are meant to look through organisational differences to see the true material stuff, the atomistic foundations.

    But here we have a phase of substance, a realm of material being, where all the actual many different kinds of energetic interaction are zeroed to have the same effective strength. A strong identity (as quantum or classical, geometric or bulk) has been lost. Stuff is equally balanced in all its directions. It is as much organised by its collective structure as its localised electromagnetic attractions. Effectively, it is at its biological or semiotic Planck scale. And I say semiotic because regulation by symbols also costs nothing much at this scale of material being. This is where such an effect – a downward control – can be first clearly exerted. A tiny bit of machinery can harness a vast amount of material action with incredible efficiency.

    It is another emergent phase of matter – one where the transition to classicality can be regulated and exploited by the classical physics of machines. The world the quantum creates turns out to contain autopoietic possibility. There is this new kind of stuff with semiosis embedded in its very fabric as an emergent potential.

    So contra conventional notions of stuff – which are based on matter gone cold, hard and dead – this shows us a view of substance where it is clear that the two sources of substantial actuality are the interaction between material action and formal organisation. You have a poised state where a substance is expressing both these directions in its character – both have the same scale. And this nanoscale stuff is also just as much symbol as matter. It is readily mechanisable at effectively zero cost. It is not a big deal for there to be semiotic organisation of “its world”.

    As I say, it is only over the last decade that biophysics has had the tools to probe this realm and so the metaphysical import of the discovery is frontier stuff.

    And indeed, there is a very similar research-led revolution of understanding going on in neuroscience where you can now probe the collective behaviour of cultures of neurons. The zone of interaction between material processes and informational regulation can be directly analysed, answering the crucial questions about how “minds interact with bodies”. And again, it is about the nanoscale of biological organisation and the unsuspected “processing power” that becomes available at the “edge of chaos” when biological stuff is poised at criticality.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    It's not rocket science.apokrisis

    It's actually a lot more complicated than rocket science. Rockets are simple.

    Tour pulls the usual creationist trick. Imagine the world as the sterile laboratory of the synthetic chemist where everything has been pulled apart and kept well away from anything that might let it react or develop a structure.apokrisis

    That's not what the article says, though.

    I googled James Tour, he denies being creationist, but he has been associated with The Discovery Institute. And I don't much like them. So I guess he does have a creationist axe to grind.

    But I think the question still remains. The cardinal point of any living structure is that I manifests purpose, right from the very first. There has to be that purposive action for anything to be regarded as an organism, as distinct from a mineral. That intentional ability - not conscious intention, but the ability to adapt in pursuit of the goal of survival - that is unique to living forms, is it not? And that is what seems a cardinal difference from anything in the inorganic domain.

    This is where such an effect – a downward control – can be first clearly exerted. A tiny bit of machinery can harness a vast amount of material action with incredible efficiency.apokrisis

    Downward, from what? Upward, I presume, is from physical constraints - the laws governing the interactions of particles. What imbues symbols with the power to exert 'downward control'?
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    It's actually a lot more complicated than rocket science. Rockets are simple.Wayfarer

    Yep. That was the joke.

    I googled James Tour, he denies being creationist,Wayfarer

    I googled him too. His line is that he is a messianic jew who thinks it is important to read the Bible every morning and meditate on its meaning. He doesn't hear God literally speaking to him, but he is very aware of His presence.

    So at least he is honest about the axe he is grinding. He has strong motivation to read the state of the science a particular way.

    But I think the question still remains. The cardinal point of any living structure is that I manifests purpose, right from the very first. There has to be that purposive action for anything to be regarded as an organism, as distinct from a mineral. That intentional ability - not conscious intention, but the ability to adapt in pursuit of the goal of survival - that is unique to living forms, is it not? And that is what seems a cardinal difference from anything in the inorganic domain.Wayfarer

    Isn't that what I'm arguing? It all starts when the ontically distinct thing of information enters the world. Or rather, semiosis and "sign processing". A molecule becomes a message when it material aspects are no longer what is causal. Instead it is the function that is being executed in the name of some higher organismic purpose which is the thing.

    A cell pore is just a protein switch. You can explain how it opens and shuts due to the critical instability of its mechanical arrangement of electrostatic bonds. It just wobbles back and forth for "no good reason at all" so far as any materialist can see. Indeed, a materialist would chuck such a flaky bit of machinery in the bin as being fundamentally useless.

    But for a living system, that complex molecule exists to perform a function. It is informational in the sense that it performs a crisp logical operation. Shut or open. Them's your sharp choices. And so now the further thing of "choice" is an ontological reality of the world.

    So the material world is already busy entropifying. It already has that global thermodynamic goal. That is how the Cosmos exists and persists. It keeps running down the hill by expanding and cooling.

    Then the biological world seems to change the game by suddenly expressing a negentropic desire. It wants to live and survive. It gets this idea in its head of being an organism.

    However while that is true from a particular point of view - the usual one that evolutionary theory use to tell its story from - it misses the larger point of view which is the grand thermodynamic one.

    Now it can be seen that life and mind simply accelerate entropification locally. For some reason, entropification has got held up. Negentropy has arisen by accident in the form of the barriers preventing quick entropification. And so life and mind can get going as more purposeful and designed structure that knows how to fulfil the Second Law's desires.

    So life's desire to exist and persist is a sub-goal - a negentropic one that subserves the global entropic one. The fact that it is the very opposite seeming kind of goal is exactly what you would expect if it is to be the complementary or mutual direction of action.

    If accidental negentropy has arisen in the Cosmos - like the way fossilised plankton got trapped as petroleum in ancient sedimentary rock - then what could be more fitting than purposeful negentropy arising as the matching response. Entropification which got locally deaccelerated can be locally reaccelerated again.

    Indeed, just as we humans are doing for those languishing fossil fuel stores in our valiant bid to waste them all to heat in great big planetary-scale burst.

    Of course you will protest again that life on earth can't be so pointless and futile as all that. You feel that being human must have some special significance.

    But my argument allows humans to invent their own meanings if they like - so long as they are intelligent enough to understand the constraints that have formed their nature so far.

    Thermodynamics only sets the ground conditions. Within that space, we can freely choose what to do. Literally nothing is stopping us.

    We do have a choice over climate change and ecocide for example. But also, that choice seems quite polarised in our debates about the issue.

    Either we can be hair-shirt greens and say we have to cut down to 100 million people living off permaculture in harmony with whatever scraps of traditional ecosystems remain. Or instead, we can trust to the exponential wonder of technology, the glory of the Singularity, to make a safe transition to our next evolutionary step.

    I've always been a greeny, but it is honestly a tough call. Life delights in presenting us with polarised dilemmas - the 50/50 choices that maximise the information content of existence. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, etc.

    A bit of a diversion in the argument it might seem. Yet really, I'm still talking about the same metaphysical issue. Everything turns out to be dialectically poised in existence for good reason.

    So if you are puzzled that the Universe seems to be torn between two purposes - entropy and negentropy - well really they are only the complementary aspects of the one (pansemiotic) process needed to bring existence into existence itself.

    I stress semiosis here because the basic idea was recognised by idealists like Schelling and Hegel - as their complementary intellectual response to the Newtonian-inspired Enlightenment realists. But Naturphilosphie and the like didn't get down to the basic infodynamic mechanism like Peirce managed to do.

    So this whole thread and the many others like it want to force a hard binary choice. Either brute materialism is right or religious-style idealism is right. By now it should be obvious that - socially - each needs the other as its "other". Our culture is divided sharply because the dichotomisation of our metaphysical choices is the mechanism that drives metaphysical advance (or intellectual negentropy) itself.

    But in the end, the bigger story is how the two extremes thus created can find their resolution, their synthesis. That is where naturalism or systems thinking comes up through the middle.

    Although no-one ever notices because you still have two cultures at war producing their vast clouds of hot air, or waste heat. Entropification always wins.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    His line is that he is a messianic jew who thinks it is important to read the Bible every morning and meditate on its meaningapokrisis

    Oh yeah, and also 'Tour holds more than 120 United States patents plus many non-US patents.[36] He has more than 600 research publications,[37] with an H-index = 119 (100 by ISI Web of Science) and i10 index = 484 with total citations over 67,000 (Google Scholar).' But I guess the former outweighs the latter, right? You want to be careful about the kinds of aspersions you're engaging in, though.

    It all starts when the ontically distinct thing of information enters the world.apokrisis

    The overall aim of which is: to hasten the heat death of the universe. Of course, we can entertain yourselves with other ideas whilst so doing. So it's not really ontically distinct.

    It's not lumpen materialism, but it's still materialism, insofar as the overall principle is physical, namely, entropification, which just happens to throw up apparently meaningful things, like people, in the process.

    Whereas I am sure there is an implicit dualism in the 'epistemic cut', which remains outstanding, which Howard Pattee frankly acknowledges in that paper on the physics and metaphysics of biosemiology.

    I think your model is very much what would be needed to simulate life. But it doesn't have much to say about the actual problems of philosophy, apart from deflating them or subjectivising them.
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    But I guess the former outweighs the latter, right?Wayfarer

    Jeez, I gave Tour points for being upfront and honest about his metaphysical prejudices. I then pointed out the obvious flaw in his reasoning. Thousands of workable lipid options make abiogenesis more comprehensible, not less.

    Deal with my actual answers, don't just divert.

    And yes, any number of research patents and papers in his field of synthetic chemistry don't outweigh faulty arguments motivated by a metaphysical prejudice.

    It's not lumpen materialism, but it's still materialism, insofar as the overall principle is physical, namely, entropification, which just happens to throw up apparently meaningful things, like people, in the process.Wayfarer

    It's stronger than "just happens". I said - as a metaphysical opposite or complementary thing - it would count as "meant to happen". It is another necessary fact. We can only know entropy to be a metaphysical thing because there is its metaphysical "other" from which it can measure its own existence.

    Of course, if we are just speaking from a human point of view, I can agree that you are objectively right if you want to argue our entropic contribution to the Cosmos is infinitesimal, while our negentropic significance seems way out of scale.

    The amount of actual entropy produced by human civilisation hardly registers in the big picture. Who cares if some random planet has a sudden temperature rise of 3 or 4 degrees?

    And when it comes to negentropy, we might well be the most complex, intelligent, and creative beings ever to exist in the Universe - or at least until we went 'poof' after the short, bright flare of an anthropocene.

    So yes, I am certainly a physicalist - a naturalist seeking immanent explanation with no spooky substances of any kind. And that rules out traditional notions of material substances as well as immaterial ones, as you know.

    But it doesn't matter how often I remind you of such subtleties, you will still want to lump me as "other" - the necessary move to make some variety of idealism come out as right for you.

    Again, I am neither idealist nor realist, materialist nor dualist.

    One has the choice. Either remain trapped eternally in the standard "philosophical" culture wars - the WWE of reductionists and theists thumping chests and banging heads - or find the very small door marked exit. Walk through and discover the third option that is naturalism, organicism, systems science.
  • MikeL
    644
    At face value there appears to be some support for the idea of a thermodynamic gradient that favours the direction of life. If the logic of this holds scrutiny then this is quite a big deal. It starts a whole series of cause and effect chains after 'the hump' that tend to run away. The fact that we don't know how all the molecules or membranes in the cell came to be there is an important point, but is weakened by the observation that they could be placed on the gradient. Based solely on thermodynamics, if the arguments presented by Apokrisis hold, it is feasible at least to suggest the molecules formed naturally somewhere at some point.

    Of course this all only points in the direction of life, and says Life could be that'a'way. It does not demonstrate 'life'. So, I think a key approach at this point is to find examples of molecular and cellular interactions that do not make sense in terms of cause and effect, while also scrutinising the thermodynamic claims about life a lot closer - If we can find an apparent sentience beyond the chemistry the table is turned once more.

    The sentience of the mind is a strong fallback position as Rich has highlighted, but I also think there is plenty of stuff to work with lying around in the world of molecules and cells. It should be noted that the idea of the mind as a holographic field was first proposed by noted Quantum Mechanist David Bohm.

    One such example that might constitute evidence of a sentience would be the organelle called mitochondria inside eurkaryotes. This is commonly thought of as the battery of the cell. Theory has it that the mitrochondria, who have their own genetic code (mitochondrial DNA, as opposed to nuclear DNA), invaded our cells, but our cells trapped them in a process known as endosymbiosis.

    So we all have symbiotes inside us! Because these symbiotes have their own mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA), this means that they should be free to multiply inside us like a virus. The thing is, the expression, replication and maintenance of mtDNA is :

    " Expression, replication, and maintenance of mtDNA require factors encoded by nuclear genes. These include not only the primary machinery involved (eg, transcription and replication components) but also those in signaling pathways that mediate or sense alterations in mitochondrial function in accord with changing cellular needs or environmental conditions. " quote

    : our cells stole their machinery and enslaved them.
  • MikeL
    644
    But my argument allows humans to invent their own meanings if they like - so long as they are intelligent enough to understand the constraints that have formed their nature so far.apokrisis

    That was a good post.

    Looking further into entropy and living systems I see there is no net positive gradient toward life afterall. I must have misunderstood what was being suggested. The lowered entropic states (the bonds and concentration gradients) come at a higher entropic cost. The environment is simply flushed through the container to achieve a cause.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    But my argument allows humans to invent their own meanings if they like - so long as they are intelligent enough to understand the constraints that have formed their nature so far.
    — apokrisis

    That was a good post.
    MikeL

    There is always some magic hidden in any materialistic research explanation of life. There has to be, because there is nothing there.

    In one breathtaking leap we go from some soup of chemicals to "humans inventing their own meaning". So you have chemicals, which satisfy Big Pharm (which pretty much determined academic curriculum nowadays) and then out of no where you have humans inventing meaning?? to make it digestible for those who are experiencing life as it unfolds. What is missing from the materialist-scientific description of life is one iota of intellectual honesty. It is a game of hide and seek. Where is the mind injected in this paper?

    Ultimately it is only a packaged story designed to satisfy the intended readership - usually to raise some money. Always, we are almost there.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    And yes, any number of research patents and papers in his field of synthetic chemistry don't outweigh faulty arguments motivated by a metaphysical prejudice.apokrisis

    So having a religious view amounts to a prejudice, but having an aversion to religious philosophy does not.

    I think the philosophical and historical issue that underlies this particular matter, has to do with what constitutes a 'naturalist explanation'. Due to the history behind the question, there are certain kinds of ideas, and certain kinds of understanding, that are tacitly prohibited by so-called naturalist explanations. One of the factors that seems has to be ruled out, is the notion that there is any kind of intentionality in the creation and evolution of life. Life has to be understood as 'self-generating', for ideological reasons, not for empirical reasons. Or rather, if life is seen as something that is not self-generating, or as something which can't be understood in terms of the physical sciences, then that undermines the very basis of empiricism itself; it inevitably suggests some manner of vitalism, which is the kiss of death to naturalism. That's what is behind the dismissal of anything that could be seen as 'spooky'.

    A question I have for naturalism is this: what would be an empirical test for orthogenesis? ('orthogenesis' being any theory variations in evolution follow a particular direction and are not merely sporadic and fortuitous.) In the past, I have said that evolutionary processes tend towards producing greater levels of self-awareness; I was told there is 'no evidence' that this is the case.

    Thomas Nagel suggested, in his book, Mind and Cosmos, that there might be some kind of universal telos towards the development of life and mind. This idea was one of his most despised. It seems that there is a strong cultural predisposition to the notion that life must be essentially fortuitous, and the universe essentially meaningless, as a presupposition of science. Whereas I think it is more a presupposition of the kind of culture that produced this kind of science. I think it is a presupposition which is impossible to either validate or refute on the basis of what science is considered to be, because it's essentially a metaphysical presupposition, one that lies beneath science, and therefore dictates what ought to be taken seriously by scientists. Ultimately, it is no more supported by science, than the opposite.

    Creationism and Buddhism.

    Interestingly, Buddhism doesn't have a dog in the creationism fight. The reason why, is that 'the origin of the world' never played a big part in the Buddhist religion. (It's there, but it's kind of apocryphal.) As far as Buddhists are concerned, the life we experience is solely the result of the kind of karma we have created, and also a result of ignorance, i.e. our inability or refusal to see the reality of the human situation. However it's interesting that Buddhist scholar Bikkhu Bodhi observes that the notion of 'fortuitous origins' - that the life we have is a result of chance - is the view of 'the vast majority of Western people, who believe it is supported by science'. This has ethical consequences - ultimately because what we do, or don't do, doesn't actually matter in the end, because we arise out of nothing, and return to nothing. So long as we obey the law, seek self-fulfilment and meaningful relationships, there is nothing beyond that to aspire to. However, even that kind of secular philosophy of 'Eudaimonia' seems a tall order for many people. And in any case, in the end, it doesn't matter, because nothing can matter; 'what matters' is simply social convention, a human invention.
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    So having a religious view amounts to a prejudice, but having an aversion to religious philosophy does not.Wayfarer

    Yep. There is a world of difference between a prejudice and a hypothesis. One accepts measurement, the other strives to avoid it.

    Life has to be understood as 'self-generating', for ideological reasons, not for empirical reasons.Wayfarer

    Nope. Metaphysical reasoning leads us to crisp either/or hypotheses. Then those alternatives can be weighed.

    So either existence is self-generating, or ... the other thing.

    And actually, the other thing doesn't even make rational sense. Talk of divine causes or transcendent being collapses in the usual familiar fashion. It becomes in the end just another way of saying "I don't know what makes existence self-generating, so there must be something more".

    So we would pursue a story of self-generation and see how far it gets us. As science has demonstrated, that is a huge way indeed.

    Maybe your creating God had some choices about the strength of a handful of natural constants. You often trumpet that as the best evidence of "the crisis" of modern physics.

    But a God free only to change a few physical parameters - pick one universe out of a multiverse of other options he didn't invent - is not much of a creator really.

    It seems that there is a strong cultural predisposition to the notion that life must be essentially fortuitous, and the universe essentially meaningless, as a presupposition of science.Wayfarer

    But that is hardly my position is it? I argue that entropy and negentropy are two sides of the one coin. The essence of pansemiosis would be seeing that the Heat Death of the Universe is just as much a state of exceptional order as disorder.

    There is nothing spiritual about this view to be sure. But dualism is precisely what is being rejected here. Again, the two-ness of matter and symbol is a mutually formative deal. It is the third thing of their interaction which is the process making a world.
  • schopenhauer1
    9.9k
    It is the third thing of their interaction which is the process making a world.apokrisis

    And where the hidden dualism lies- the Cartesian theater you wish to avoid. @Rich was right. Sleight of hand. I don't even have a stake in the game. In fact, I WANT it to just be physicalism with some overriding theory- but the sticky situation of hidden Cartesian theaters keep arising.

    You constantly change the goal post. My guess is you are in the camp that thinks a newborn has no internal sensation (inner experience) because they have not learned distinction (between sensory nuances like "green" and "blue") etc. But you already moved the goal post from qualia in general to some particular qualia (i.e. green, blue, etc.).
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    There is a world of difference between a prejudice and a hypothesis. One accepts measurement, the other strives to avoid it.apokrisis

    If all you have is a hammer.....

    As science has demonstrated, that is a huge way indeed.apokrisis

    ...in a culture, a vast number of whose inhabitants have no sense of purpose whatever. They're literally killing themselves for want of purpose. (They do have good surgery and medicine, I'll grant that).

    Talk of divine causes or transcendent being collapses in the usual familiar fashion. It becomes in the end just another way of saying "I don't know what makes existence self-generating, so there must be something more".apokrisis

    Which might even - shock, horror - amount to an admission that there is something we don't know. The very fact that the nature of life and mind might elude the quantitative sciences ought to suggest simply a sense of humility, although I know it's a big ask.

    It seems that there is a strong cultural predisposition to the notion that life must be essentially fortuitous, and the universe essentially meaningless, as a presupposition of science.
    — Wayfarer

    But that is hardly my position is it?
    apokrisis

    It is, though. You just said, up-thread, that humans are capable of 'devising their own meanings'. But the 'meaning' you see in 'pan-semiosis' doesn't really express any meaning, other than the running-down of entropy; 'negentropy' is a kind of sleight-of-hand of dumb stuff, appearing to be smart, so it can get to non-being that much faster :-)
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    And where the hidden dualism lies- the Cartesian theater you wish to avoid.schopenhauer1

    Do I really have to walk you through the reasons why semiosis or a modelling relation is not representationalism all over again?

    You constantly change the goal post.schopenhauer1

    Nope. Still in the same place. It's just you tumbling randomly in space that makes it look like they dance about.

    My guess is you are in the camp that thinks a newborn has no internal sensation (inner experience) because they have not learned distinction (between sensory nuances like "green" and "blue") etc.schopenhauer1

    In fact what makes me think that is a lack of cortical connections in the newborn brain. The wiring hasn't even grown.

    It takes time for the newborn brain to form its discriminatory circuits. We can tell that from EEG recordings. Early on, a stimulus creates generalised firing. The brain reacts much the same to any environmental source of energy. Then the firing of individual cells starts to correlate with an ability to make perceptual discriminations. The brain does get specific and consciousness thus becomes a high contrast qualitative state. We can definitely be seeing red as we are not seeing green, etc.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    My reading is, the whole reason Peirce's semiotics became so influential, was because of the manifest and obvious inadequacies of mechanistic materialism. So the fact that life is language-like rather than machine-like, and all the metaphorical opportunities that provides, is a huge leap forward from lumpen materialism. But Peirce's philosophy was an idealist philosophy - if you google the term 'objective idealism', Peirce comes up as the #1 hit. So when I raise that, oh well, that's the aspect of Charlie that's a bit of an embarassment - Uncle Charlie's been raiding the Christmas plonk again. We can do with all his methodology, the hard-nosed pragmaticist, but the starry-eyed idealist Charlie - let's not mention that.

    Nevertheless semiotics is a step in the right direction. But the other shoe has yet to drop.
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    If all you have is a hammer.....Wayfarer

    But you are speaking for those who don't even have a hammer....only an axe to grind.

    Which might even - shock, horror - amount to an admission that there is something we don't know.Wayfarer

    That misses the point. You don't even have a hypothesis. You just have a belief that you claim as knowledge. Yet it is a belief that falls into the class of ideas that are "not even wrong" as there is no method to fix that belief in a formalised fashion. The belief is merely a habit - an accident of social circumstance.

    If you are brought up in Yoruba or Salt Lake City, it is pretty predictable how you will think existence works. That doesn't seem a very secure way of fixing your beliefs, does it.

    ...suggest simply a sense of humility.Wayfarer

    In the end, fuck humility. Or rather I like a method that builds humility in formally in agreeing it is "only testable models". Then it become possible to say my model fucks your model. Check the numbers.

    You just said, up-thread, that humans are capable of 'devising their own meanings'. But the 'meaning' you see in 'pan-semiosis' doesn't really express any meaning, other than the running-down of entropy; 'negentropy' is a kind of sleight-of-hand of dumb stuff, appearing to be smart, so it can get to non-being that much faster.Wayfarer

    I get it. You still need me to be the "other" of Scientism so your New Age mysticism can seem the good guy here by comparison. It's just rhetoric not argument. But rhetoric is fun too.
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    But Peirce's philosophy was an idealist philosophy - if you google the term 'objective idealism', Peirce comes up as the #1 hit. So when I raise that, oh well, that's the aspect of Charlie that's a bit of an embarassment - Uncle Charlie's been raiding the Christmas plonk again. We can do with all his methodology, the hard-nosed pragmaticist, but the starry-eyed idealist Charlie - let's not mention that.Wayfarer

    These are your wishful binaries that must be projected on to Peirce. I get it. We must divide ourselves into opposing camps. We must be team materialism or team idealism. Peirce becomes one more team mate to squabble over.

    At a rhetorical level, perfectly entertaining. Just don't mistake it for proper philosophical discussion.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    was right. Sleight of hand.schopenhauer1

    Whenever I'm told to read a physicalist paper on this topic, the only thing I look for is the phrase or word, (they are constantly changing) that slips mind into the thousands of words that surround it. Information, symbols, signs?? These are all a product of a mind! A computer doesn't contain information, it contains on/off switches designed by a mind. It is the mind that creates information from these on/off switches.

    There is absolutely no way to get around it, somewhere, somehow, in any physicalist paper describing life, mind miraculously appears somewhere. The only way to avoid this miracle, is to make mind fundamental and irreducible. It may be hard for physicalists to swallow, but anyone who embraces their own mind readily accepts this. I have no problem recognizing my mind as me.
  • T Clark
    13k
    One of the factors that seems has to be ruled out, is the notion that there is any kind of intentionality in the creation and evolution of life. Life has to be understood as 'self-generating', for ideological reasons, not for empirical reasons. Or rather, if life is seen as something that is not self-generating, or as something which can't be understood in terms of the physical sciences, then that undermines the very basis of empiricism itself;Wayfarer

    Well, it does undermine the very basis of empiricism. Is that what you mean by "ideological reasons?" It's more a methodological reason. Science can only deal with things that are falsifiable in a scientific context. Although I come from science, I recognize it is like that old joke - I lost my keys. Where? Over there. Why are you looking for them here? Because the light's better.

    On the other hand, that's a choice that makes sense to me. I recognize that a deity could have created this universe by fiat 27 years ago and could come back and fiddle with things any time she wants, but that's not how I see the world. I see it as continuous with my own experience over the last 65 years. The universe seems pretty consistent. Science seems to work pretty well. I'm comfortable here. But I'll throw it all away in a second if I'm given a reason. I would love to.
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    The only way to avoid this miracle, is to make mind fundamental and irreducible.Rich

    Love the confused thought process. Materialists can't explain mind and idealists can't explain matter. You substance dualists really deserve each other. Go at it, boys!
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    I recognize that a deity could have created this universe by fiat 27 years ago and could come back and fiddle with things any time she wants, but that's not how I see the world.T Clark

    A Christian ought to say that that's not the point of their faith. It's not 'proposing an hypothesis' in the sense of a falsifiable, abstract description of how particular things will behave under given conditions. The point of a Christian life, I would have thought, was to live in relationship with the organising principle of the Cosmos, although I admit, that is not a particularly Christian way of expressing it. Nevertheless I would like to think that this is what they mean.

    Karen Armstrong gives an excellent account of how Christianity made a fatal mistake by trying to present itself in terms of the natural sciences, from the late medieval times. This is when it was common to believe that scientific discoveries 'shewed God's handiwork'. This was a sword that cut two ways. It's a long and detailed argument, presented in her book,
    Case for God.

    If you are brought up in Yorubaapokrisis

    RIght! Either get with the naturalist program - or you're a shamanist! And I'm accused of 'dichotomising'!

    In the end, fuck humilityapokrisis

    Speak volumes, don't it.
  • Rich
    3.2k
    Material arises exactly as explain in Bohm's quantum mechanics. The wave is real and it creates patterns that manifest as perceived particles. One only has to conceive of quanta as waves of consciousness. Immaterial yet real.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    The universe seems pretty consistent. Science seems to work pretty well. I'm comfortable here.T Clark

    Here's the thing - given the order we observe, we can explain a great deal. But we can't explain the order. That is a serious and important point.
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    Either get with the program - or you're a shaman!Wayfarer

    Shamanism is an example of getting with the program. That was the point.

    You are standing up for uncritical belief. And when that doesn't give answers, you say the "humility" of not even trying should be good enough.
  • javra
    2.4k
    Well, it does undermine the very basis of empiricism. Is that what you mean by "ideological reasons?" It's more a methodological reason.T Clark

    I think I get what Wayfarer is saying. Empiricism these days addresses only the materialist notions of that which can be perceived through the physiological senses + logic/maths; is, in a way, itself at times a kind of placeholder for materialism, implicitly at least.

    However, I grew up on the empiricism of, first and foremost, David Hume - a very different basic understanding of what empiricism entails. Given this background, here, to me, there's a potential convergence between the methodology of modern science (e.g., falsifiability) and the very old-time foundations of empiricism as interpreted by the philosophical skeptics (a kind of falsifiability applied to logic tempered by experience, including various inferences as applied to experience itself). Well, I'm showing my own partialities.

    I don't have anything to definitively prove here - it would also be a different topic than that of this thread's. Just wanted to say that the philosophical skepticism of someone like Plato and his Academia can, as methodology, be rather complimentary to the methodology of the empirical sciences. Both hold as foundation an absence of obtainable absolute certainty; both seek justifications for greater strength of conviction. And, in a sense, both are founded upon inductive (with today's concepts, also abductive) reasoning.

    Basically, for what its worth, imo, its not the methodological reasoning that would be undermined, but the very metaphysical foundations upon which today's global community is, for the most part, materialistically built.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    You are standing up for uncritical belief.apokrisis

    Au contraire, this is all an example of where you draw your lines, of the division you see between the naturalist, which to all intents is 'things which science can explain', and then all the boo-word metaphysics that you think belongs to anyone who questions naturalism. I am not uncritical in the least, I have a post-graduate degree, I work in a demanding technical field, I integrate thoroughly with technological society (sometimes too well, I glumly think). But you have this clear border or boundary, which every time it is questioned, produces a predictable response of sarcasm and dismissal. If you wanted to take seriously the opportunities provided by interactions such as these, you would do well to consider that.
  • Wayfarer
    20.6k
    Basically, for what its worth, imo, its not the methodological reasoning that would be undermined, but the very metaphysical foundations upon which today's global community is, for the most part, materialistically built.javra

    (Y) You get my drift.
  • T Clark
    13k
    I think I get what Wayfarer is saying. Empiricism these days addresses only the materialist notions of that which can be perceived through the physiological senses + logic/maths; is, in a way, itself at times a kind of placeholder for materialism, implicitly at least......Basically, for what its worth, imo, its not the methodological reasoning that would be undermined, but the very metaphysical foundations upon which today's global community is, for the most part, materialistically built.javra

    For me, it has always seemed that the scientific assumptions - processes operating today are the same as those that have been operating forever and at comparable rates - are the strength of the scientific method. Generally, I buy into those assumptions, but I recognize it takes a leap of faith. It seems to have worked out pretty well.

    I guess that sets up Hume's problem of induction. Based on induction from historic behavior, I believe that induction from historic behavior provides a good guide to understanding.
  • javra
    2.4k
    Generally, I buy into those assumptions, but I recognize it takes a leap of faith.T Clark

    Why a leap of faith? It's the very conclusion that inductive reasoning would result in – and it, as conclusion, would remain true and untarnished until in any way falsified … this by something that would then hypothetically point toward what is even closer to (absolute) objectivity.

    If I interpret you right, it doesn’t seem like this process of induction poses a problem for you. As it doesn’t for me. Though it’s a problem for those that want absolute certainty, neither was it a problem for Hume.
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    Empiricism these days addresses only the materialist notions of that which can be perceived through the physiological senses + logic/mathsjavra

    But is it still materialism when the "belief" is epistemically grounded in the logic/maths? And the physiological senses are relegated to the job of simply reading a number off a dial?

    To be a materialist is to believe in the reality of substances. Stuff that exists in some brute fashion and has inherent properties. Dualists are just believers in two kinds of material - a matter stuff and a soul stuff. Panpsychists believe in the one kind of material, but with two kinds of inherent properties.

    Science - especially where it is clear about its epistemology - just says it is all models. We construct qualitative concepts that we then seem to be able to quantify in some useful way.

    So if physicists mention entropy, or information, or energy, or quanta, or particles, what is really going on inside their heads?

    The lay-person thinks of it as being a claim about "the existence of real substantial being". But really, the words become just placeholders to talk about some observable invariance of nature.

    "What is energy? It's this quality the Universe seems to have. Something is conserved as something also changes. I can see a metaphysical contrast between what seems invariant - fixed and solid - in a situation and what is merely contingent, the bit to which we would instead attach some particular number to quantify its degree."

    That is all in the end a physicist can say about the Universe. One can see what is generally symmetrical or invariant about experienced reality in relation to what is then the contingency of its possible symmetry breakings - the range of particular ways the invariance can be particularised.

    If a physicist is really pushed (and I am talking about the metaphysically informed ones, of whom there are plenty) then the question of "what is real?" does become pretty Platonic. A particle is a point. Unless we consider it as a string, or a loop, or a knot - each of those conceptions speaking to some different set of symmetries or invariances that seem to explain the symmetry breakings we actually then measure.

    So any usual notion of "material" goes right out the window. The image left in the physicist's mind is of a pure mathematical object. And then even the object gets chucked out as what the mind's eye "sees" is really all the possible rotations and translations that are the set of possible actions such an object would have. The mind's eye is left only with the ghostly kinesthetic play of pure relata.

    This is why you need a mathematically trained brain to understand metaphysics from a truly scientific point of view. Materiality has been left far behind to be replaced by mathematico-logical conceptions. Nothing is left of the Cheshire Cat except its grin. Or in this case, a sense of some structure of invariance which can also only be broken with certain moves. You can bend and fold and twist. Those relations then tell of the heart of existence - the reason why it exhibits "materiality" in some well-behaved and measurable way.
  • apokrisis
    6.8k
    ...this is all an example of where you draw your lines, of the division you see between the naturalist, which to all intents is 'things which science can explain', and then all the boo-word metaphysics that you think belongs to anyone who questions naturalism.Wayfarer

    And no matter how many times I say the opposite, you will trot this nonsense out.

    There are three camps here. The reductionist, the idealist and the naturalist - natural philosophy being the systems approach that both accepts the reality of all four Aristotelean causes, and sees them as part of the one world.

    So reductionism rejects the reality of formal and final cause.

    Idealism - if it follows its own logic - rejects material and efficient cause. Or it is forced to dualise them.

    Naturalism accepts all four causes and sees them as complementary aspects of the same reality. Semiosis is then the metaphysics that cements the deal by explaining the "how".

    Being a natural philosopher, I of course don't in fact accept a hard boundary between metaphysics and science. They are different levels of the same discipline. The theory and the applied.

    But never mind, go back to accusing me of Scientism. That way you can be in the right by standing on the other side of the dualistic divide.
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