Actually, it’s amazing that there isn’t more of an outcry about it. — Wayfarer

Agreed. My theory is that gene editing still too abstract a topic. When there's a donkey in the zoo with four heads, when we can see it instead of just think about it, the cultural ground may shift. Or maybe not. The "science clergy" as I've taken to calling them, have a pretty firm grip on the throne of authority. And, that's because they can deliver a great many goodies, as they will using gene editing too.

I think if you read up on it, you’re in a good position to be a ‘citizen activist’ about this subject, and it sure needs attention. — Wayfarer

Well, to be honest, I've largely lost faith in the audience, and discuss these things mostly because I'm addicted to thinking and typing. To put it another way, the knowledge explosion is a force of nature, a phenomena perhaps beyond the control of human beings, like a hurricane if you will, or a comet. It's going to do whatever it's going to do, and we're just along for the ride. And, at age 69, I'm at that point where I have one foot out the door, so to speak. This is my current list of excuses, to be updated as necessary. :-)

Right! But understand how this would be treated if you proposed it in, say, postgrad biology. — Wayfarer

Yes, I hear you, I entirely agree this is speculation which I'm unable to prove. I'm attempting to make a logical case, based on previous misunderstandings regarding where we saw two things that were really one. I can't prove the point, but maybe I can demonstrate that further speculation is warranted?

Also, you’re not talking ‘phenomena’. Phenomena are ‘what appears’. If ‘intelligence’ is something ‘behind’ everything, something that causes, then by definition, it’s not phenomena - it’s what causes phenomena. That’s a distinction that needs to be made. — Wayfarer

To engage the point, if matter=intelligence, and intelligence=matter, then the phenomena I'm describing does appear, in the form of matter, or perhaps just life.

I'm not proposing intelligence as something behind everything, such as is often done with the God concept.

1) I'm proposing intelligence _IS_ everything.

2) And, that the divisions we perceive between "things" is an illusion generated by the way our minds work.

Thanks for your ongoing participation. It's obvious you've been exploring topics like this for a long time, so it's fun to hear from you.

Jennifer Doudna learned how to make CRISPR from bacteria. Why didn't they get the Nobel instead of her?? — Foghorn

Because they couldn’t have turned up at the award ceremony? (Or, if they did they just would have made everyone sick.)

Because they couldn’t have turned up at the award ceremony? — Wayfarer

Oh, what a bad little biologist you're turning out to be. :-) Bacteria coat every surface everywhere, except in very carefully sanitized situations. Betty and Bob Bacteria are crawling all over the podium at the Nobel ceremony, patiently waiting for the Committee to recognize them as the original inventors of CRISPR. :-)

(Or, if they did they just would have made everyone sick.) — Wayfarer

Yes, I didn't want to alarm everyone, but that's the next step if they aren't given the @#$^%^ award, and they mean, right now!!!

I can't prove the point, but maybe I can demonstrate that further speculation is warranted? — Foghorn

Sure - but do a lot of reading on it. It’s a genuinely interesting question and there’s a ton of material. I don’t know where you’re up to in your life and career but there is something to be studied here. But don’t waste time - pursue it with serious intent. Which means, seeking out counter-factuals, things and people which will oppose your ideas. The only way to make them stand up to criticism is to have them criticised and to take criticism seriously. If you’re up for it.

Can you provide examples of intelligence in operation that can't be explained by physicalist answers? — Tom Storm

That's a meaty question. :D It's also not quite innocent, though.

Wouldn't a person whose against physicalism already consider the uncontroversial examples of intelligence as needing something other than a physicalist answer?

And, similarly so, a physicalist would see examples of intelligence as bolstering their viewpoint -- that clearly these examples are explained by physicalism, or compatible with physicalism.


But you're asking for that example which clearly cannot be explained by physicalism -- something that's necessarily not-physical. And in order to even hope to answer your question with any kind of possibly satisfactory answer I'd have to know what might satisfy you that something is not-physical?

Or, the other way around, what is your physicalism?

The laws of physics are not a property of any particular thing within reality, but a property of reality itself. These laws are expressed in a seemingly infinite number of varied circumstances. So bouncing a ball might seem to an observer to be an entirely different phenomena than the orbit of a planet, but the same laws govern both.

What if intelligence is like this? What if it's not a property of this or that thing, but a property of reality which is expressed in many different ways in many different circumstances? — Foghorn

What are some of the phenomena you would propose as being governed by this property?

So far I gather you mean primates like ourselves, and bacteria.

But couldn't the activities you specify -- the analysis, recording, reacting to information through genes, etc. -- also just be the activities of life?

Life eats, shits, reproduces, dies. There are different functions a particular organism must perform or fulfill in order to be counted as life.


And it's not like, say, the moon's smile is caused by intelligence.

Which means, seeking out counter-factuals, things and people which will oppose your ideas. The only way to make them stand up to criticism is to have them criticised and to take criticism seriously. — Wayfarer

Well, here am I, on a philosophy forum, where "here's what's wrong with that" is the cultural norm. :-)

As we've discussed, I did precisely what you've suggested on Doudna's (leading gene editing expert) Facebook page. I specifically and politely suggested to them that they use my challenges as practice for refining their own case, and vice versa. They politely declined, and then erased all my posts. That is, they are scientists, not philosophers. This is completely normal routine human behavior, and scientists are human too. I've been booted, banned and ignored on more science sites than I can count.

Philosophy forums are a rare phenomena. The vast majority of human communities are tribes, especially online. Effective challenges to the group consensus of any tribe have to be somehow removed because they threaten the glue that holds the tribe together.

Experts are the least likely to accept any new insight, because they have a huge investment in the status quo. They particularly can not afford to be observed publicly learning anything from non-experts. If it could be convincingly shown that gene editing is an existential threat, what is Doudna supposed to do? Turn in her Phd, give back the Nobel, and become a carpenter?

Setting all that aside, the larger point is that the knowledge explosion is perhaps best seen as a force of nature. We aren't driving it, we're riding it. This claim seems relevant to this thread because if intelligence is embedded in the fabric of reality as is being proposed here, arguing with it's evolution might be equivalent to trying to argue with the laws physics.

That's a meaty question. :D It's also not quite innocent, though. — Moliere

It's a sincere question. When a claim is made, like most, I prefer to understand what the evidence for that claim might be. I have no theory of physicalism but it seems to me there is no good evidence as yet of an alternative. I can't provide an example of any non-physical entities because I am not making the claim that such things exists. Hence my question.

Life eats, shits, reproduces, dies. There are different functions a particular organism must perform or fulfill in order to be counted as life. — Moliere

Yes, that's what life does. The question being asked here is, what is the source of these functions? Particularly for example, in the case of primitive life forms such as bacteria.

We could answer evolution is the source, which is agreeable here. But that just kicks the can down the road. Now we have to ask, what is the source of evolution's intelligent-like behavior?

Evolution may be a good example to focus on, because evolution isn't a creature or a life form. Evolution, like the laws of physics, is very real, and yet doesn't exist in the sense of having weight, mass, location etc. Evolution is not a "thing". And yet, evolution performs a function that we would label as highly intelligent, if we were the authors of evolution.

One way to explain this could be to propose that intelligence, like the laws of physics, is embedded in the nature of reality.

@Foghorn Does it make sense to say intelligence without their being an agent?

When a claim is made, like most, I prefer to understand what the evidence for that claim might be. — Tom Storm

The evidence I'm attempting to offer is that we have often seen division where it doesn't actually exist. Space and time, two words, one thing. Energy and matter, two words, one thing. Mind and body, two words, one thing. This proves nothing, it just raises interesting questions like...

Life and death. Two words. One thing?

Intelligence and matter. Two words. One thing?

Key to such an analysis (imho) is the nature of how our minds work.

My claim would be that the mind works by dividing a single unified reality in to conceptual parts (ie. nouns). This is the source of our genius, as we can now re-arrange the conceptual parts in our minds to form new visions of reality which don't yet exist in the real world. That is, we can be creative.

The price tag for this awesome power is that this process generates distortion by imposing a pattern of division on reality. We tend to mistake the pattern for the reality. And, this process of division tends to make us somewhat insane, because this division process creates the human experience of being divided from reality.

By innocence I don't mean to question your sincerity! Far from it. Only that there's a lot to unpack and while it seems a simple question, it's actually complicated and requires more than a simple answer.

I don't even know what would count as evidence for either physicalism or whatever-else. When it comes to claims like "Everything is. . . ", well... if such a sentence is true, then literally everything that exists counts as evidence for it.

They aren't really the sorts of claims that a strict evidential calculus can decide answers to, since literally everything counts in its favor -- another way to put this that people seem to like is to say they aren't falsifiable, while keeping in mind that this term is interpretable in multiple ways and I'm just meaning it more colloquially here.


I don't know if there's an example of intelligence that must exclude physicalism. But if you don't have a theory of physicalism -- which I don't exactly either -- then wouldn't it be difficult for anyone to come up with an example which counts as either physical or not?

Just something to think about in trading some examples... I'll try to give some to see what rattles around.



Sticking with the idea presented here as a basis for understanding intelligence:

Bacteria defend themselves from viruses by grabbing a bit of DNA from the virus and storing it in the bacteria's own DNA. This allows the bacteria to recognize the virus the next time they see it, and provide the appropriate defensive reaction.

Bacteria are selecting particular information, storing it, and then referencing it as needed. — Foghorn

So bacteria and people do some of the same things. Bacteria and people defend themselves from viruses, bacteria and people recognize viruses, and bacteria and people react to their environments. There is an entity and an environment, and said entity prioritizes itself in some manner over the environment, and intelligence is this capacity to store information and change future behavior in similar circumstances based upon said information.

Minimally speaking we have perception and memory as a bare-minimum for counting things intelligent. The bacteria, upon re-encountering a threat it has met before, will recognize it and defend itself, and this is all pretty well understood in physical terms.

And humans, too, have perception and memory -- among other things, but perhaps these are not counted as "intelligence" per se but are categorized otherwise.

But where are the anti-bodies in the brain that count as our memory of. . .. well, our memory, too, requires emotion, so I think I can claim that emotion must be part of intelligence as we understand it here too -- and that bit is very different from the bacteria. The bacteria's memory is a protein created which will bind to a particular sequence that identifies a threat with a high degree of accuracy. But where are our memories? We presume they are in our brains, somehow created through the bundled up interaction of neurons -- but we certainly don't know how all this works yet, scientifically. SO, at present at least, we're still working on a physicalist understanding of the mind.

At least as far as I understand things. I am by no means an expert, but just a random guy on the internet.

Does it make sense to say intelligence without their being an agent? — Mystic

This is a good question. I agree that I'm am likely bending the word "intelligence" beyond it's agreed upon meaning. I could say, "Luke, trust The Force!", but that's already taken. :-)

We are entering a quicksand swamp here, because nouns are specifically designed to create a conceptual division, and I'm attempting to refer to a single unified reality. I believe this problem has been discussed for thousands of years in the field of religion, and Wayfarer would likely be our best source on that history.

There is an entity and an environment, and said entity prioritizes itself in some manner over the environment, and intelligence is this capacity to store information and change future behavior in similar circumstances based upon said information. — Moliere

Good description, thanks. Yes, the usual understanding of intelligence is entity based.

The bacteria, upon re-encountering a threat it has met before, will recognize it and defend itself, and this is all pretty well understood in physical terms. — Moliere

Yes, and the interesting bit here, imho, is that we are discussing bacteria. They have no brain, no nervous system. And yet, they learned how to do CRISPR type operations maybe a billion years before a Nobel Prize winning scientist. And so we might claim that intelligence existed long before the evolution of higher life forms.

@Foghorn When language gets blurry trust one's Intuition. The only way out of this morass is the existence of divine intelligences! And the existence of matter.
Divine artists and material canvases!

I've been suggesting that what we call intelligence, and matter, may be not two things but one. That is, two different words for the same thing. United in reality, divided conceptually.
Isn't this the case with energy and matter? Isn't matter just one of the expressions of energy? — Foghorn

Yes. According the the Big Bang theory, All Energy, Matter, Intelligence, and Consciousness in the universe came from the same source, called "The Singularity". But the question arises, what form did those different expressions take when they were united in the "seed" of our universe. My guess is that the Singularity contained generic Information (program), analogous to the DNA in a seed or egg -- or like the "Boot Program" of a computer. And since Information is non-physical (e.g. mathematics & logic) everything in our vast current universe could be compressed into a tiny package with no physical dimensions (i.e. occupying no space).

Therefore, in my personal worldview, all Matter & Energy in the world originated as something with the Potential to develop into a variety of physical (Matter) and meta-physical (Mind) forms. Hence, both Energy and Matter are "expressions" of generic Information. And Quantum Theory supports that notion, in that physical Atoms of Matter, are reduced to mathematical Wave Functions on the quantum scale. One physicist remarked on the strange notion of a superposed particle, with no definite position or velocity : "it's nothing but Information!"

That's why scientists track those neither-here-nor-there particles by their effects on other particles. It's like following the spoor of a deer in the forest, without ever actually seeing the deer. What we "see" is Information about (related to) the particle, not the object itself. So, we use different words, and have different concepts for the various aspects of our world, that in fact are all "expressions" of the same Universal Potential : the power to Enform. :nerd:


The initial singularity is a singularity predicted by some models of the Big Bang theory to have existed before the Big Bang[1] and thought to have contained all the energy and spacetime of the Universe. . . . Although there is no direct evidence for a singularity of infinite density, the cosmic microwave background is evidence that the universe expanded from a very hot, dense state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial_singularity

Boot Program :
In computing terms, the term “boot” means to start a computer up from cold. When a computer is initially powered on, commands in the computer's ROM are automatically executed that instruct the computer to load the boot program into memory and execute its instructions.
https://www.dataclinic.co.uk/what-is-a-boot-program/
Note -- the Singularity was the "memory" and the Big Bang was the "execution" of the program.

And since Information is non-physical (e.g. mathematics & logic) everything in our vast current universe could be compressed into a tiny package with no physical dimensions (i.e. occupying no space). — Gnomon

I like this, thanks. Thought provoking.

What you describe may be mirrored to a degree in life. DNA is close to non-existent in relation to the matter it defines.

Perhaps this is cause for me to rethink my use of the word "intelligence". As example, DNA is not intelligence, it's just information, data. Perhaps what I'm attempting to reference is the DNA of reality?

Perhaps what I'm attempting to reference is the DNA of reality? — Foghorn

Where can DNA be found outside living organisms?

Actually, there's an argument that proto-organic matter might exist in vast quantities in interstellar space. This idea was subject of a book called Intelligent Universe by the late, great Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe. It's called 'panspermia'. However, to date, no definitive proof of extra-terrestrial DNA has ever been found.

It's also misleading to say that DNA is just information. It's an extremely complex molecular structure which encodes and conveys information - something which, incidentally, has been seized on by intelligent design proponents - see the argument from biological information.

In more mainstream circles, the realisation that DNA encodes information has lead to something of a revolution in biology.

But what conclusions can be drawn from the existence of DNA remains moot according to mainstream science, I think.

Yes, and the interesting bit here, imho, is that we are discussing bacteria. They have no brain, no nervous system. And yet, they learned how to do CRISPR type operations maybe a billion years before a Nobel Prize winning scientist. And so we might claim that intelligence existed long before the evolution of higher life forms — Foghorn

So did the moon learn to smile, or something?

Where can DNA be found outside living organisms? — Wayfarer

Well, no where that I'm aware of. I was just struggling to respond to the interesting point made by Gnomon.

My guess is that the Singularity contained generic Information (program), analogous to the DNA in a seed or egg -- or like the "Boot Program" of a computer. And since Information is non-physical (e.g. mathematics & logic) everything in our vast current universe could be compressed into a tiny package with no physical dimensions (i.e. occupying no space).

Especially this part...

And since Information is non-physical (e.g. mathematics & logic) everything in our vast current universe could be compressed into a tiny package with no physical dimensions

While DNA does have physical dimensions, it seems to play about the same role as what Gnomom is talking about.

Where can DNA be found outside living organisms? — Wayfarer

The reference was not to bio-chemical DNA, but to the non-physical "instructions" encoded in the chemical structure. The distinction is between the "carrier" of information Quanta (def 1.)and the message "content" Qualia (def 2.). We now use those letters metaphorically in reference to any design information (blueprint) that results in the construction of physical structure, such as the Universe. The Big Bang Singularity is sometimes compared to a Black Hole, in which material information is compressed into something we would no longer recognize as matter. It's close to pure, un-embodied mathematical information. :nerd:

DNA :
1. self-replicating material that is present in nearly all living organisms as the main constituent of chromosomes. It is the carrier of genetic information.
2. the fundamental and distinctive characteristics or qualities of someone or something, especially when regarded as unchangeable.
___Oxford

The Big Bang Singularity is sometimes compared to a Black Hole, in which material information is compressed into something we would no longer recognize as matter. It's close to pure, un-embodied mathematical information. :nerd: — Gnomon

I like this idea a lot, it is fascinating at the least. And I've never thought of it before this thread. So your participation is appreciated.

If I understand, the claim would seem to be that nature compresses something which exists (weight, mass, form etc) in to something which is real, but does not exist (no weight, mass, form etc)

This relationship between that which exists, and that which is real but doesn't exist, is of increasing interest here.

So, assuming that the pre-big bang state was reduced to a set of non-material instructions, real but non-existent....

What happens to those instructions after the big bang?

Where are they now?

This relationship between that which exists, and that which is real but doesn't exist, is of increasing interest here. — Foghorn

That's the crux of the Black Hole Information paradox. Everything that exists in reality is ultimately a form of quantum information, sometimes called a "quantum field" of empty space, where potential (virtual) particles pop in & out of existence. But when matter is sucked into a Black Hole, it's crushed & ripped-apart like a garbage grinder. So, where does the essential information go?

Since structural information is equivalent to causal Energy, complete destruction would contradict the First Law of Thermodynamics. Some have guessed that the squeezed essence of matter (thinking it's like orange juice) may have disappeared into a parallel universe. But, since quantum level Information (patterns, relationships) is mathematical, it actually occupies no space. So, compression doesn't destroy it, it just deconstructs the physical form that we can sense. Hence, I would say that the original information still exists, but is recycled back into Potential instead of Actual matter. :nerd:

Energy - Information equivalence :
The bit of information is equivalent to a quantum of minimum energy
https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1401/1401.6052.pdf

The First Law of Thermodynamics (Conservation) states that energy is always conserved, it cannot be created or destroyed. In essence, energy can be converted from one form into another.

The black hole information paradox :
The black hole information paradox is a puzzle resulting from the combination of quantum mechanics and general relativity. Calculations suggest that physical information could permanently disappear in a black hole, allowing many physical states to devolve into the same state. . . . This is controversial because it violates a core precept of modern physics—t
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox

What happens to those instructions after the big bang? — Foghorn

Those instructions are now doing their job. Like the encoded patterns of DNA, they are used as blueprints for construction of matter. And, like DNA, the code is recycled (reproduced) from one job to another, to continue the assembly of an expanding material universe.

But, since quantum level Information (patterns, relationships) is mathematical, it actually occupies no space. So, compression doesn't destroy it, it just deconstructs the physical form that we can sense. — Gnomon

I get this part pretty much.

So the data survives hyper-compression. Where is the data now? This question might help me tie my theory to what you're saying.

I'm arguing along the lines that "intelligence" (likely a wrong word to use) is a property, not of this or that thing, but of reality itself. If we change the word "intelligence" to "data" maybe my theory becomes more science-like?

I'm arguing along the lines that "intelligence" (likely a wrong word to use) is a property, not of this or that thing, but of reality itself. If we change the word "intelligence" to "data" maybe my theory becomes more science-like? — Foghorn

Yes. But I prefer the term "Information", because it exists in two basic forms in the real world. The original meaning of the term, referred to meanings in minds. But it has recently been applied to describe the causal power (to enform) of Energy. Since Energy is not a static property of matter, limited to a single form, it hops from one physical object to another. It's a general property of reality, not a specific property of any one thing. :smile:

The original meaning of the term, referred to meanings in minds. But it has recently been applied to describe the causal power (to enform) of Energy. — Gnomon

Casual power to enform?

Since Energy is not a static property of matter, limited to a single form, it hops from one physical object to another. It's a general property of reality, not a specific property of any one thing — Gnomon

Ok, I like this. And if it's true that matter is a form of energy, then nothing belongs to anybody? :-)

Casual power to enform? — Foghorn

The terminology I'm using here comes from my personal worldview, as expressed in the Enformationism thesis, in which everything in this world is one form or another of generic causal creative Energy, which I call "EnFormAction".

EnFormAction :
Ententional Causation. A proposed metaphysical law of the universe that causes random interactions between forces and particles to produce novel & stable arrangements of matter & energy. . . . AKA : The creative power of Evolution; the power to enform; Logos; Change.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Enform : To form; to fashion, to create.

Ok, I like this. And if it's true that matter is a form of energy, then nothing belongs to anybody? — Foghorn

Are you advocating Communism? :joke: