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  • Post #85

Dear Sara Imari Walker,

I'm not QUITE sure what to make of your essay in the context of this competition.It is eloquently written. You clearly set out a point of view. I am not sure you have said which -basic- physical assumptions are wrong, though you have said that bottom up causation from chemistry to life may be inadequate to account for living things.

I'm not sure you aren't in part creating a non existent problem by saying that there is a lack of knowledge about the distinction between life and non life. What distinguishes a living thing from a non living thing is summed up by the Characteristics of living things: movement, excretion, respiration, reproduction, irritability, nutrition and growth. The viruses are not life but complex chemistry on the boundary between living and non living as they can not autonomously reproduce but require the biochemistry and structure of a host cell. Combustion too is just chemistry, it does not have a distinct structure that separates it from the environment. Which my son has informed me is now taught at High School as another characteristic of a living rather than non living things. (Probably to overcome the perennial question: why isn't fire alive?) As an astrobiologist you would know all that though.

A virus does contain encoded information but that in itself does not make it alive. A computer programme contains encoded information but it does not make it alive. It is the higher function characteristics or potential for those higher function characteristics of living things that makes them alive. At least according to current widely accepted and taught definitions of life. Changing the definition of living rather than non living to one of encoded information content makes me a little uneasy, as it could be a way of giving a living definition to AI or advanced robotic inventions.

Just because a virus is non living and less complex than a living organism it does not mean it is not highly evolved. Viruses are adapted to their living hosts, they are not simple precursors of life.

I'm sorry if those responses sound too critical.It is a very readable, thought provoking essay. I agree with your conclusion. Looking at the development of information and the control it allows, within (and between) living systems, could be useful in pinpointing a transition from inanimate chemistry to pre-living chemistry to biochemistry.

Good luck, kind regards Georgina.

    Dear Sara:

    Benjamin Dribus draw my attention on your intriging essay, which after reading I appreceate very much. Indeed reductionism ad infinitum is not working, it is useful upto certain scales.

    In "THE CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION" I explain the role of consciousness, which of course is a perception of my image of "reality". As Ben said :"if you take these things seriously and put them together with my causal approach, you get a very complex (but interesting) picture of time and consciousness".

    I hope you will take the time to read and rate "The Consciousness Connection" and look forward for your comments.

    Wilhelmus

      Hi Domenico,

      This is an interesting suggestion that I believe some researchers are exploring at present. It is very challenging though! Technically it is very difficult to detect any kind of chiral signature remotely, particularly if it is a weak signal. Chirality as a remote biosignature has even been proposed as a possible biosignature in exoplanet atmospheres (an area of inquiry in its infancy) - this abstract may be of interest to you: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011AGUFM.P14C..08S

      Best,

      Sara

      Dear Mrs. Walker

      It is a nice presentation of informatics of life. Maybe you should also stress more that top-down causation exists also in inanimate world, but it is much less presented. You also found analogy with quantum physics. I hope that this top-down causation of information can help at simulations of computer life and in simulations of evolution?

      But, higher levels which causes on life, are also decisions. Decisions are things of consciousness. (If mainstream explanations of Libet experiment can be replaced. One is my explanation at the end of the essay.) I also wrote that memory is connected with existence of consciousness. Maybe we will find connection of this with your and Tononi's explanation.

      Here, quantum consciousness is also possible to include. Namely, non-quantum physics is one-optional, if someone can calculate everything, he can calculate future events. (Let us ignore Chaos theory.) Thus we need explanations of decisions, whose can be explained only with quantum theory. There is a lot of other arguments for quantum consciousness. Something is written in my essay, in my other article, and in my first essay.

      In the last part of my essay I wrote about consciousness. However, consciousness is a consequence of matter. But what is matter, is not known enough. What is matter, will be given by a quantum gravity theory. So, in the first part of article I try to answer this question. You will see that quantum theory is a lot of connected with information, Brukner, not only consciousness. I do not believe that consciousness arise from nowadays physics. I believe in panpsychism, still more than Koch.

      You wrote that present physics is enough to explain to consciousness. I claim that this is not true. So here we have possibility to put arguments and anti-arguments. The other my claim is that consciousness is a quantum phenomenon. I guess that here we also do not agree? Maybe one day an experiments will be possible to test existence of non-quantum consciousness, to test Tononi's idea, to test my idea of memory background of consciousness, and to test idea of panpsychism.

      Best regards, Janko Kokosar

      p.s.

      At the end of primary school it should be already clearly mentioned to schoolpersons that consciousness is not yet explained and that a lot of possibilities is open. But this is not mentioned even at university. My opinion is that this is a consequence of subconscious conspiracy of mainstream science to serve their truth. Do you agree with this?

        Hi Ben,

        Thank you for your very thoughtful comments! My rejection of the fully reductionist picture does apply at the classical level (although I also have not ruled out the possibility that life is intrinsically quantum-mechanical). That being said, if I understand what you mean correctly, I don't "really mean it" as you state it, i.e. I don't mean "that subsets of spacetime exert influence on other subsets independent of the influences between their respective events". To put in perspective of your very nice essay - top-down causation as used here would only occur for causally-related events that are timelike-separated (such that standard bottom-up causation is always part of the story). So mutual causation between "lower" levels and "higher" levels is always the case. In this regard I very much agree with the how George Ellis has framed this in his essay - that is, that top-down causation occurs by higher levels setting contraints on lower level relations (which is what opens the possibility of nonphysical entities being causally efficacious).

        In living systems this becomes particularly interesting because nonphysical (or virtual) entities appear to have causal efficacy. I am not sure if this argument could be made for other areas of physics in quite the same way. For example, in this regard I would consider computers or any artificial systems to be derivative of our biosphere and therefore not be separate physical phenomena since they only arise in nature (as far as we know) from living systems.

        With regards to your point 4, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on specific physical instances of causally efficacious information outside of biology in classical physics. Perhaps you are viewing this as one opportunity to possibly uncover an intrinsic quantum mechanical foundation for biological systems?

        Thanks again for the well-wishes and engaging discussion!

        Best,

        Sara

        Dear Anthony,

        You bring up many interesting points here. I certainly agree that both holistic and reductionist approaches are required for a useful explanatory framework. Do you really think it is the case that it is 50/50? Does this derive from theory/empirical evidence or conjecture? I ask because in thinking on the transition from non-life to life, if you take the idea of a transition causally efficacious information seriously, ideally one would like to identify when this transition can be said to have taken effect (50%, > 50%?) i.e. when can you say true emergence has occurred? I am not sure I have ever come across a rigorous criteria for this kind of measurement.

        Thanks very much for your engaging discussion!

        Best,

        Sara

        Dear Frank, Yes I do agree that the properties of the observer are an important attribute of any interpretation of physical reality.

        Best,

        Sara

        Hi Georgina,

        I certainly appreciate your critique. In fact, the challenges associated with defining life are notoriously difficult, one can just look at various attempts over the history of science (Schrodinger's "What is Life?" is a great example). Your list "movement, excretion, respiration, reproduction, irritability, nutrition and growth" is certainly valid if one seeks a list definition-theory for life, but I find this unsatisfactory. List definitions don't give you much explanatory power. So for example, if I take your list it would be very difficult for me to predict what other life-forms beyond our biosphere could potentially exist. Worse, I have no way of determining how common life should be. Most attempts at definition-theories of life have faced problems, not necessarily with non-living examples (as demonstrated by the nice example you cite of fire, which meets perhaps one criteria on the list - metabolism - but not the rest), but instead with living systems that might not match all the criteria in a particular list. For example, an organism incapable of reproduction (e.g. a sterile mule) technically wouldn't fit your definition. Or as another example - a desiccated organism, not currently exhibiting any measurable metabolic activity wouldn't qualify either. Both examples would typically be considered examples of life. If you reduce your list, you start to include things like fire which aren't alive, but if you expand it your start to exclude things which are living. Steve Benner has a nice recent paper about some of the difficulty of defining life within the context of astrobiology which you may find of interest available here http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/ast.2010.0524.

        As far as viruses go, I would consider them living but only as part of a larger biological system. I certainly think they are more than just chemistry in this regard. With regard to computers, I think if one is taking any kind of fundamental approach to understanding life, computers or anything else derivative of our biosphere should not be taken as a separate example - these only arise as a bioproduct of living systems so their existence as a natural phenomena is inextricably tied to the existence of life. Therefore, I am not aiming to discuss the distinction between artificial life and life per se, but if there is anything distinct about living systems that sets them uniquely apart from all other natural phenomena that don't derive their existence from the emergence of life. In this sense I believe that the onset of coded information and information control provides a very clear distinction.

        Biology has traditionally been a science of defining and categorizing, with little by way of determining overarching theory. The aim of my essay is to suggest that physical approaches, based on deeper conceptual interpretations of the living state, may be a productive mode of inquiry into understanding life as a physical phenomena of fundamental significance on par with phenomena studied in other regimes of theoretical physics. So I suppose in the context of this thread, that the basic physical assumption that I reject, is precisely that definition-theories are adequate and that there is nothing to be gained by going beyond them.

        Thanks again for your comments.

        Best,

        Sara

        Dear Janko,

        I think it is likely that the nature of consciousness and the nature of life are intimately connected. However, I don't think that present physics is at all sufficient to explain consciousness! I am very sorry if I gave that impression. I like Tononi's measure of integrated information as an interesting way of quantifying causal architecture (which is central to the story of information processing throughout biological hierarchies), but I don't think it nearly captures the full picture with regards to life or consciousness. As far as the possible connection between consciousness and quantum mechanics - I am not sure I agree there is a deep connection, but I will read your essay to see more of your perspective on this.

        Thanks for the comments!

        Best,

        Sara

        Dear Wilhelmus,

        Thank you for your kind comments. I look forward to reading your essay.

        Best,

        Sara

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        • Post #95

        Hi Sara, thanks for your reply and clarifying a few points.

        The characteristics of living things pertain to groups of organisms and not necessarily any one individual. So whereas in an ant colony there is only one reproducing female the non fertile females are still considered living things because they are the same type of organism.Viruses on the other hand can never reproduce themselves independently because they lack the "machinery" to do so. I wouldn't regard mitochondria as living things either, though they may have long ago been independent unicellular organisms. They now lack the necessary completeness to be regarded as living in their own right.

        There is perhaps a subtle but -useful- difference between the concept of an organism and a living thing. While living things are organisms, there is also the possibility of other natural forms that might be regarded as organisms but not necessarily life. I would put the viruses and mitochondria in that category, (between living and non living). The chemistry is not mere chemistry but organised giving function. That does tie in with your point about information content because what does it take to be an organism? Information that builds the structure enabling function.

        The other important feature, for me, of all (Earth) life is that it shares the same code. Whether fungus, plant, microbe or animal. The exception being the recently artificially created organisms with extra base pairs. Which I regard as "alien" and potentially dangerous to all natural Earth life, if it ever escaped and became a competitor. Organisms on other planets, descended from Earth life perhaps by panspermia, or from a common ancestor from which Earth life also developed could be regarded as part of or an addition to the "kingdoms of life". However if it has a very different information base then it is not part of that, even though it is an autonomous organism. That could be regarded as a kind of prejudice but it is stemming from a deep appreciation that all of the Earth's life forms are related and possibly unique in the universe.

        Dear Sara,

        Thanks for the detailed response! Regarding the possibility that life may be inherently quantum-mechanical, I expect at least that this is the case with consciousness. This is principally because of the need to escape determinism on self-referential grounds. In particular, I am not much a believer in classical digital strong AI.

        With regard to the causal efficacy of information in fundamental physics, I realize now that I was probably using the word "information" in a different sense than you. What I was referring to was the prevalence in the field of quantum gravity of models involving a fundamental scale with irreducible, indistinguishable elements. The usual distinction between "information" and the physical system used to encode it is no longer clear at this level. Ordinarily, this distinction is justified by the fact that there are many different ways to encode information physically, with no particular method preferable to the others. At the fundamental scale, however, there is a unique "preferred" physical encoding of the "information" in a system: namely the system itself.

        This is related to entropy; you've probably heard the example involving a deck of playing cards: you can associated an entropy to the deck ignoring everything except that there are 52 distinguishable objects. However, if you consider the thermodynamic entropy of all the molecules in the deck, it is vastly greater. Relating entropy to information, the point is that the existence of a fundamental scale would provide a bottom to this kind of consideration; you could associate a measure called THE entropy to any system. Mathematically, this is related to things like compression and Kolmogorov complexity. Maybe this justifies the "it-from-bit" view in a sense. Take care,

        Ben

        Sara,

        The 50% comes from beliefs that I posted in my last essay. Our concious thought is believed centered in the critical strip of Reimann Zeta analytic space, implying, our modeled thoughts may be centered between two information surfaces (as per the visual double Mirror model I had shown). Because I believe that the entire physical universe represents a "life of the 1st kind," every other thing (human life included) would resemble a scaled space and time measure of it ... like brain neurons representing galaxies, stars etc., in a duel representation, etc. This implies that life information is centralized between two reflective surfaces, one converging (quantum surface - reductionist) and one diverging (edge of universe - Holistic). Life measure is believed at the very middle when it comes to our measuring anything at all. Each measure depends on BOTH surfaces.

        This also fits the half advanced and half retarded bill set forth by Feynman for relaying causal information (emitter/absorber theory - Feynman-Wheeler theory)

        Regards,

        Tony DiCarlo

        If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is [math]R_1 [/math] and [math]N_1 [/math] was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have [math]S_1=R_1 N_1 [/math] of points. After it anyone give you [math]dS [/math] of points so you have [math]S_2=S_1+ dS [/math] of points and [math]N_2=N_1+1 [/math] is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have [math]S_2=R_2 N_2 [/math] of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be: [math]S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] (S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1[/math] In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points [math]dS [/math] then the participant`s rating [math]R_1 [/math] was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process.

        Sergey Fedosin

        Sara, I thoroughly enjoyed the clear thinking and concise language in your essay. You addressed extremely important questions, gave a good review of current literature on the subject and lead the reader to your points. Your background positions you carry out important work in your field. I was motivated by your essay to complete some work that I carried out some time ago. I just posted a new paper on my thread entitled "Information networks inherent in life molecules". I would be pleased if you would download it and give me your thoughts.

          Hi, Sara

          Thank you for your well-considered essay, very germane because it challenges the mechanist paradigm where it is most vulnerable.

          I offer a few comments:

          In your opening paragraph, you say "The central challenge is that we don't know whether life is 'just' very complex chemistry, or if there is something fundamentally distinct about living matter." This frames the issue in ontological terms. It might be more productive to frame it in terms of research strategies or epistemology: what other approaches than mechanism might be appropriate?

          On the second page you say "It is widely appreciated that the known laws of physics and chemistry do not necessitate that life should exist." This could be taken to mean that such laws are incomplete or inadequate. A proper theory would at least make life probable.

          Also on p2: "The problem is that the Darwinian criteria [are] simply too general, applying to any system (alive or not) capable of reproduction..." Life is not only self-replicating but also self-maintaining and self-defining, which memes, computer programs, and other artifacts are not.

          p3: "We routinely use terminology such as 'signaling'... [etc] implying that the informational narrative is aptly applied in the biological context". I believe care must be taken in transfering ideas about human communication to other living systems, let alone to non-living matter. What is needed is a careful re-consideration and expansion of the notion of agency. This should take into account the sort of psychological transference challenged by Hume and Piaget. (we learn a notion of causal agency, for instance, form early personal experience then project this onto impersonal objects, so that one thing is held to influence another in the way that we, as agents, make things happen.) This sort of consideration should be applied to the concept of information, which is also human based and implies a communicating agent. Specifically, while the organism is a molar agent, some clear notion of internal agency needs to be developed in order to clarify the role and nature of information in biological systems. As it stands, information, while objectified in physics, is implicitly information for human observers and agents.

          p5: "this state of affairs potentially hints as something fundamentally different about how living systems process information..." Further to the above point, does any natural system "process information", or is this a way of speaking derived from the computational metaphor? Also {bottom of page5]: "the peculiar nature of biological information..." Perhaps it is the physical notion of information that is peculiar!

          p7: "For the latter, information is passive, whereas for the former information plays an active role and is therefore causally efficacious." It might be more appropriate to say that non-living systems have no use for information, which is rather a human projection. The active role of information in organisms might alternatively described in terms of agency within the organism.

          p7: "This forces new thinking in how life might have arisen on a lifeless planet, by shifting emphasis to the origins of information control..." I think you have identified a key point for future research.

          Best of wishes in your research and in the contest.

          Dan

          I hope this is help

            I am not sure how much work has been done in this area ... but great suggestion to seek it out!

            Sara

            Ben, thanks for the clarification. And again, thanks for the great discussion!

            Best,

            Sara

            Hi Georgina,

            This is an important point that you bring up about the level of organization at which we define "organism". It does seem that most definitions of life apply only at the level of populations and not individuals. I suppose this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does make it more difficult to identify where we should draw the line for alive v. not alive!

            I completely agree that a virus or a mitochondrion is not alive outside of a host. I like your point that they do play a functional role inside a living system, so they are clearly part of living organisms. I think a major challenge is that this could be said of any individual functioning component of living systems - e.g. as another example DNA has a function in biology, but is not alive on its own. So yes, this ties very much in with a central theme of my essay - that an essential feature is the information that enables function, but the information is not intrinsic to the object but instead the system as a whole (context is required).

            Thanks again for the engaging discussion!

            Best,

            Sara