Emergence of life and consciousness in a purposeful universe by Rodolfo Gambini and Jorge Pullin

Rodolfo and Jorge,

Your essay is very thoughtful and well written.

I appreciate your point that quantum "developments illuminate a world that is much more hospitable to life than that of the mechanist paradigm" which "open the possibility for new vistas on the problem of consciousness and, through it, how a Universe ends up understanding itself."

And I appreciate that "physical laws are descriptions of what happens in the world. Physical Reality may well go beyond the laws, which only describe observed regularities."

I think what you're getting at is that the idea of "blind mathematical laws" is a misconception, and properly conceived, the "physics" of the universe must be compatible with intentionality. The universe must somehow be intentional, in however inchoate its primitive physical form, because we are natural beings and we are intentional.

But although the concept of Life may be illuminated by your accent on top-down causation (i.e. supervenience), it doesn't actually "open the possibility for purpose in the world", or even of experience. Top-down determination only suggests how purpose and intention can be effective, not how it can be possible.

Mainstream biologists may agree that there is top-down determinism in the metabolism of a biotic cell, but they will absolutely deny that there is anything intentional about it. Intention and purpose involve imagining and possibly bringing about an eventuality that doesn't exist by working with and against causal processes. And there is nothing in the idea of quantum probability that begins to explain how such a disposition could come into the world.

Sorry, didn't mean to be anonymous -- the preceding was my review.

Dear Rodolfo and Jorge:

Thoroughly enjoyed your well-written essay. I fully agree with your expressed conclusion - " The purpose of the Universe should appear in the laws that favor the emergence of systems with high degree of complexity. ...... We hold the regularist position that states that the laws of nature just describe certain regularities of a reality that transcends them. From a first person perspective the world has a phenomenal nature which we perceive from our conscious mind but it also satisfies certain regularities that science, in particular physics, describes."

Building upon the spontaneous decay of quantum particles as the Downward Causation agent for the emergence of higher order consciousness or free-will phenomenon, I have developed an integrated relativistic model of the universe that resolves the Hard problem of consciousness, predicts the observed universe, and explains inner workings of QM. I would appreciate it very much if you could please provide your comments on my contest paper - " FROM LAWS TO AIMS & INTENTIONS - A UNIVERSAL MODEL INTEGRATING MATTER, MIND, CONSCIOUSNESS, AND PURPOSE" as it explains the emergence phenomenon as transcendence from one state of relative reality to the next higher state within an infinite sets of potential realities following the laws of conservation.

Looking forward to your feedback on my paper,

Best Regards

Avtar Singh

Hi, Gambini and Pullin,

Very Good essay sirs, Your views on consciousness are really fantastic ...!

In your concluding para you said.............. If the Universe Had no beginning as in the eternal inflationary scenario, one cannot discuss the purpose of its creation. But In a Universe That is life-­‐friendly and phenomenic in character one can always find purpose in its inhabitants.............

I want to say few points for further discussion ...

1. Probably you are referring to Bigbang based cosmologies here. There you are considering only 40 percent of all the Galaxies and remaining Blue shifted Galaxies and quasars are not considered.

I request you to have a look at Dynamic Universe model also for the other side of the coin.....

2. You are implying someone created the universe. I am also firm believer of God, but everything we cannot leave to God .... If we need some progress in science.... What do you say...?

3. You said nicely that life friendly phenomenon exists in Unverse... Good.

Hi Rodolfo and Jorge

"So any system in an entangled state exhibits downward causation. The states' roles in causation, their disposition to produce events, and their non separatiblity when entangled are at the root of this phenomenon". Bravo!

George

Dear Profs. Pullin and Gambini,

Thank you for your very well written and insightful essay. I agree with your final reflections on "purpose". Although I was a bit surprised of your aesthetic choice of the term "object" to describe any pre-event system. Still, you made it work. Thanks again and hope you find time to look over my essay.

William Ekeson

Dear Rodolfo and Jorge,

I am glad that I found your essay. I think we agree in our starting points, and our essays talk deeply with each other. In particular, I would note your, "If a further fine-tuning were required to have close to optimal conditions for life the Anthropic Principle would be insufficient to account for our existence in the universe. The recently discovered life-friendly properties suggest that this is the situation we are in." Although it is not fully clear what you mean here, I am happy to suggest you my proof of your point: the discoverability of the laws of nature, which is definitely an excess to what would be needed for the existence of simple observers.

Best,

Alexey Burov.

Dear Rudolfo Gambini and Jorge Pullin,

Thank you for reading and commenting on my essay.

You discuss an event ontology and the possibility that events in the brain can be accessed physically in a third person sense, but also mentally in a first-person sense as perceptions. Is this 'mental' access occasioned by the neural network itself, or by physical field, or what? As you know, I postulate a physical field that possesses the attribute of awareness: awareness of itself (hence Yang-Mills type non-linearity) and awareness of momentum/energy density. This postulate actually takes one quite far in a physical world that includes consciousness and intelligence in myriad entities.

As you note, I am 'regularist' in the sense that I believe we project structure onto regularities of nature. The 'necessitarian' interprets the structural projections as 'laws' governing system evolution, despite that QM is only a statistical bookkeeping system that depends from the evident universality of the partition function.

One would think that the underdetermination that is obvious from the existence of five or more 'interpretations' of quantum mechanics, would give pause to Quantum Credo-ists, but this is met head-on with "shut up and calculate". As a means of solving specific problems, this may be good advice. As a means of determining ontological reality, not so good.

You note that in a universe that is life-friendly and phenomenic in character one can always find purpose in its inhabitants, and this may imply "a universe capable of observing itself". With a consciousness field it is almost a foregone conclusion that local observations of self will evolve. If, instead, only a possibility exists that life and neural networks will evolve, given sufficient time, the possibility would also seem to exist that such would never happen, leading to absurdity and nihilism.

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Rodolfo and Jorge,

Interesting read. You say that the world has a nature that is receptive towards life and consciousness and encourages organization and complexity? The popular hypotheses has been that a primordial soup, a bolt of lightning and a colossal stroke of luck brought about life, but a more interesting proposal England's theory seeks to underlie, rather than replace, Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. He believes that "clumps of atoms surrounded by a bath at some temperature, like the atmosphere or the ocean, should tend over time to arrange themselves to resonate better and better with the sources of mechanical, electromagnetic or chemical work in their environments." The animate and inanimate have these characteristics.

Does the universe offer opportunities for life and consciousness thru such mindless laws that Jeremy England is describing? Since we are a further manifestation of the nature of the world do we become part of the capability of observing ourselves and the current and past universe through our telescopes?

You inspire some interesting questions.

Jim Hoover

A strong case is made in favor of certain emergent physical structures that show top-down causation to give rise to certain physical consequences. 'Universe having sufficient complexity for the purpose of evolution' is also placed well. But, this did not seem to lead to our sensing of aims and purpose.

"Nature described by quantum mechanics is about dispositions and events with a phenomenal internal aspect", did not really bridge the gap. Russell's quote, "an ultimate scientific account of what goes on in the world, if it were ascertainable,..", left much to be desired as to how it may become ascertainable.

The phenomenal nature is brought in as a hypothesis, "From a first person perspective the world has a phenomenal nature which we perceive from our conscious mind but it also satisfies certain regularities that science -in particular physics­‐ describes." It also seems to imply that we cannot have an objective third person measurement system for the same. Moreover, we will have to grant then that bacterium and even other lower forms may have subjective experience, and if its actions are in line with self-sustaining, then it also may have a sense of purpose.

- Rajiv

dear jorge,

i found your essay to be informative, insightful and highly readable. i do however have difficulty in seeing how it answers the main question (or a variant of the same), "how can mathematical laws give rise to aims and intentions" - would you be willing to elaborate?

many thanks.

Rodolfo and Jorge:

I enjoyed your essay for both its broad scope and specific details regarding physics and consciousness, especially how you address the hard question of why the universe 'encourages the emergence of life and consciousness'.

I agree that understanding the universe requires us to 'be precise about the nature of physical laws', and your statement near the end, 'Explaining why the Universe is life-friendly does not depend only on the values of certain parameters. It also depends on the elegance and creative potential of the physical laws. It depends on quantum mechanics being as it is, and on the geometric and dynamical nature of space-time.'

You may be interested in my essay, 'The Cosmic Odyssey of Matter'. This essay does not attempt to tackle the hard problem of how/why consciousness, but instead develops a simple framework/ontology to show the progression that leads from particles to life, individual consciousness, and social goals/consciousness. Per your guidance, I attempt to 'be precise about the nature of physical laws' by providing clear definitions and concepts that improve our understanding of the progression towards consciousness.

Regards, Ed

Dear Rodolfo, dear Jorge,

I like how you use entanglement as an illustration for how the whole can be more than the sum of its parts. I'm doubtful, however, as to whether entanglement actually plays a role for emergence on macroscopic scales. I'd rather think that Boltzmann-type arguments are more relevant there (this idea I pursue in my essay), since they are essentially independent of the details of the underlying microscopic dynamics.

Cheers, Stefan

Dear Rodolfo Gambini

I invite you and every physicist to read my work "TIME ORIGIN,DEFINITION AND EMPIRICAL MEANING FOR PHYSICISTS, Héctor Daniel Gianni ,I'm not a physicist.

How people interested in "Time" could feel about related things to the subject.

1) Intellectuals interested in Time issues usually have a nice and creative wander for the unknown.

2) They usually enjoy this wander of their searches around it.

3) For millenniums this wander has been shared by a lot of creative people around the world.

4) What if suddenly, something considered quasi impossible to be found or discovered such as "Time" definition and experimental meaning confronts them?

5) Their reaction would be like, something unbelievable,... a kind of disappointment, probably interpreted as a loss of wander.....

6) ....worst than that, if we say that what was found or discovered wasn't a viable theory, but a proved fact.

7) Then it would become offensive to be part of the millenary problem solution, instead of being a reason for happiness and satisfaction.

8) The reader approach to the news would be paradoxically adverse.

9) Instead, I think it should be a nice welcome to discovery, to be received with opened arms and considered to be read with full attention.

11)Time "existence" is exclusive as a "measuring system", its physical existence can't be proved by science, as the "time system" is. Experimentally "time" is "movement", we can prove that, showing that with clocks we measure "constant and uniform" movement and not "the so called Time".

12)The original "time manuscript" has 23 pages, my manuscript in this contest has only 9 pages.

I share this brief with people interested in "time" and with physicists who have been in sore need of this issue for the last 50 or 60 years.

Héctor

Dear Rodolfo Gambini and Jorge Pullin!

. I appreciate your essay. You spent a lot of effort to write it. If you believed in the principle of identity of space and matter of Descartes, then your essay would be even better. There is not movable a geometric space, and is movable physical space. These are different concepts.

I invite you to familiarize yourself with New Cartesian Physic

I wish to see your criticism on the New Cartesian Physic, the founder of which I call myself.

The concept of moving space-matter helped me: The uncertainty principle Heisenberg to make the principle of definiteness of points of space-matter; Open the law of the constancy of the flow of forces through a closed surface is the sphere of space-matter; Open the law of universal attraction of Lorentz; Give the formula for the pressure of the Universe; To give a definition of gravitational mass as the flow vector of the centrifugal acceleration across the surface of the corpuscles, etc.

New Cartesian Physic has great potential in understanding the world. To show this potential in essay I risked give «The way of The materialist explanation of the paranormal and the supernatural" - Is the name of my essay.

Visit my essay and you will find something in it about New Cartesian Physic. Note my statement that our brain creates an image of the outside world no inside, and in external space.

Do not let New Cartesian Physic get away into obscurity! I am waiting your post.

Sincerely,

Dizhechko Boris

Dear Jorge, dear Rodolfo,

The first point having impressed me in your essay is your refusal of nihilism, a rare thing in modern philosophy of science. Of course, at first glance, philosophy of science is not directly concerned by nihilism, nor by anti-nihilism, respectively the denial and the defense of values, and even of the pertinence characterizing the notion of value as such. Or, in other words, notion of value seems to concerning moral philosophy, perhaps social sciences and so on, but not philosophy of science.

In fact, it is not so simple.

Alexey and Lev Burov - they posted a positive comment on your forum - show in their essay that the current or at least mainstream conception of science reducing the latter to "formal systems" and subsequently denying the value which makes the difference between arbitrary formal things and approaches having a sense, systematically leads to self-refutation Moira and Eileithyia for Genesis by Alexey and Lev Burov聽. Personally, I am glad to see that the back ground of your essay is the same.

Anyway, to begin, I entirely agree that modern science during a long time-period had been imprisoned by (in?) the mechanism paradigm, and that modern knowledge inciting us to go beyond this paradigm opens up new horizons. Yes, but the mechanism paradigm is not only a path leading to a deadlock. This paradigm, by its nature, denotes something deeper allowing us to transcend a mechanist vision of the world while remaining in a scientific vision of the world. I will try to explain the foregoing. Physical knowledge is characterized by symmetry in prediction and retro-diction. This point makes all the difference between physics and non-physics. Physical time-symmetry without which physics would not be physics is based on group-theoretic foundations. You can find more details in my own essay Daring Group-theoretic Foundations of Biological Evolution despite Group Theory? by Peter Martin Punin. Now, from a physical standpoint - with regard to purely algebraic motivations, it is another story - the epistemic roots of group theory initially, please pay attention to "initially", are inscribed in mechanics stricto sensu. Consider the watch on your arm. This mechanism expresses a superposition of several expressions of the same rotation group, and this point allows at least ideally to predict as well to retro-dict the passed and future states of the watch from any state chosen as t0-reference. In the same sense, Galileo referred to group-theory avant la lettre, without being aware of it. Nevertheless, that what we call today the Galileo-group is fundamental in Newtonian mechanics. Always from our present-day perspective, we say that the Galileo-group is a subgroup of the Lorentz-Poincare-group in SR, whereas at the RG-level, Riemann manifolds are to be interpreted as a transformations group over a set of local approximations formalized the Lorentz-Poincare-group. So, in macroscopic physics, you find a lot of group-theoretic structures expressed by mechanical systems and vice versa.

Now, saying that quantum physics essentially transcends the mechanism paradigm, you are absolutely right. Of course, quantum entities cannot be reduced to sole "objects", and even the notion of entity is reducing, but for human minds it is hard to find better. Of course, simplifying bit, a Hilbert space comprises connected potentialities potentially connected beyond their actual (?) realization. And so on, your statement is complete through its compactness; so repeating it would be useless. Well, but how to explain that we are not merely lost at the quantum level?

Here, the answer is compact: it is in turn for group-theoretic reasons. Hilbert spaces, the unique possible "environment" of Schr枚dinger's wave is a group-theoretic "entity". Heisenberg's matrix approach equivalent of Schr枚dinger's approach is based on non-commutative matrix group theory. Top-down causation as you evoke it from a rigorous physical perspective, is formalizable in terms of semi-groups; knowing that the latter, mathematically speaking, require previously given full groups. This point seems paradoxical, but it is not the case: To describe top-down causation to be formalized in terms of semi-groups, you need a Hilbert space being a full group-theoretic entity.

So, on the one hand, I think that the nature of physical laws necessarily comprises group-theoretic foundations, and on the other hand,these group-theoretic foundations allow physics to transcend its initial mechanist limits.

Now, an important point, must be clarified. If group theory funds mechanist as well as non-mechanist physics, it must precede ontologically any form of physics, and "preceding something ontologically" implies "preceding something in an immaterial and eternal way." The foregoing obviously leads to Platonism which does not please everyone. Well, but since you mention Leibniz, recall that Leibniz precisely says that our physical universe, instead of existing, also could not exist. So its existence is a mystery. The eventual existence Platonist mathematical universe would be mysterious, but not "more mysterious" than the existence of our material/physical one. Subsequently, if the ultimate consistency of physics is better ensured by Platonist presuppositions than by the current refusal of Platonism, there is no reason to reject Platonism at the cost of non-consistency.

In my paper you find certain paths denoting that anti-Platonism encounters serious deadlocks, among others the fact that within an universe considered as a historical process, law appearing "with" the phenomena they govern imply circularity.

Evoking yourselves the turtle paradox, you probably agree with the foregoing. Analogously to the turtle problem, an issue like "Where comes the law XX from?" perhaps receive the answer "From UVU." Yes, but the answer will be followed by a new question: "Where comes UVU from?" And so on. Ultimately, we have the choice between and endless, infinite series of questions and answers and questions and answers, or self-reference (implying circularity) or the reference to something transcendent/eternal. Reading your non-nihilist essay, and provided I understand well, I think, you are not opposed to a transcendent/eternal solution. Your reference to Leibniz seems to go in this sense.

But now, a real problem arises. Eternity is eternity, whereas aims and intentions are inscribed in time. So, our contest subject has to be reformulated: How can mathematical laws operate such a passage from eternity to temporality?

Or, more basically: given that physical laws are group-theoretic laws, and that biological evolution as such is not formalizable in terms of group theory, how can mathematical laws operate such a passage from group theory to non-group theory?

Even if both questions are not positioned at the same ontological level, they converge, and this interesting. But the answer is hard to find.

Saying that our universe is life-friendly, or fine-tuned for life, of course you are absolutely right. Nevertheless, fine-tuning is a necessary precondition for the appearance of life, but not a sufficient one. Fine-tuning belongs to physics, so to the aspects of our universe being formalizable in terms of groups and/or semi-groups. The next stages, the passage, under life-friendly conditions, from inert matter to living matter, and then evolution, and then the appearance of thought (this is again another story; see the essay of A.& L. Burov and my comment on their forum Moira and Eileithyia for Genesis by Alexey and Lev Burov globally are not formalizable in terms of group theory.

How to resolve this problem?

Have you an answer beyond the fine-tuning precondition?

In my own paper Daring Group-theoretic Foundations of Biological Evolution despite Group Theory? by Peter Martin Punin , I try to find this kind of answer: Given the essentially group-theoretic foundations of physics, evolution theory should be group theory embedded in non-group-theory. Such a model is possible. For the moment, there is a lot of speculation, but perhaps my approach is less speculative than other approaches doing as if physics would not be physics, or as if universal physical laws exceptionally could be forgotten in evolution theory.

Agreeing the essential of your vision, I would be glad to open a discussion with you.

All the best

Peter

Greetings Rodolfo and Jorge,

This essay is certainly one of the finest I have read, in this contest. Both in terms of an idea that is worthy to present, and in having clear exposition of your message, I must give you kudos. But also; you have squarely addressed the topic in a satisfying way, which many of the essays fail to do. I like that a universe that encourages evolutionary trends is a natural consequence of quantum mechanics, and that this is a more general result - rather than being tied to your own interpretation of QM.

I admire that you were able to explain all of the technical details using only one easy to understand equation. This essay sets a standard for clarity. My own essay affirms that the laws of nature encourage living beings to arise and evolve, and creates spaces or ranges for us to do so, but my rationale is very different. I assert that certain features in higher-order Maths can also give rise to evolutionary features of natural law. A conversation I had with Tevian Dray at GR21 affirmed some of my ideas on this, which inspired this year's paper.

I invite your comments on my entry. Good luck in the contest!

All the Best,

Jonathan

Dears,

I want you to ask you to please have a look at my essay, where ...............reproduction of Galaxies in the Universe is described. Dynamic Universe Model is another mathematical model for Universe. Its mathematics show that the movement of masses will be having a purpose or goal, Different Galaxies will be born and die (quench) etc...just have a look at the essay... "Distances, Locations, Ages and Reproduction of Galaxies in our Dynamic Universe" where UGF (Universal Gravitational force) acting on each and every mass, will create a direction and purpose of movement.....

I think intension is inherited from Universe itself to all Biological systems

For your information Dynamic Universe model is totally based on experimental results. Here in Dynamic Universe Model Space is Space and time is time in cosmology level or in any level. In the classical general relativity, space and time are convertible in to each other.

Many papers and books on Dynamic Universe Model were published by the author on unsolved problems of present day Physics, for example 'Absolute Rest frame of reference is not necessary' (1994) , 'Multiple bending of light ray can create many images for one Galaxy: in our dynamic universe', About "SITA" simulations, 'Missing mass in Galaxy is NOT required', "New mathematics tensors without Differential and Integral equations", "Information, Reality and Relics of Cosmic Microwave Background", "Dynamic Universe Model explains the Discrepancies of Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Observations.", in 2015 'Explaining Formation of Astronomical Jets Using Dynamic Universe Model, 'Explaining Pioneer anomaly', 'Explaining Near luminal velocities in Astronomical jets', 'Observation of super luminal neutrinos', 'Process of quenching in Galaxies due to formation of hole at the center of Galaxy, as its central densemass dries up', "Dynamic Universe Model Predicts the Trajectory of New Horizons Satellite Going to Pluto" etc., are some more papers from the Dynamic Universe model. Four Books also were published. Book1 shows Dynamic Universe Model is singularity free and body to collision free, Book 2, and Book 3 are explanation of equations of Dynamic Universe model. Book 4 deals about prediction and finding of Blue shifted Galaxies in the universe.

With axioms like... No Isotropy; No Homogeneity; No Space-time continuum; Non-uniform density of matter(Universe is lumpy); No singularities; No collisions between bodies; No Blackholes; No warm holes; No Bigbang; No repulsion between distant Galaxies; Non-empty Universe; No imaginary or negative time axis; No imaginary X, Y, Z axes; No differential and Integral Equations mathematically; No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to General Relativity on any condition; No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models; No many mini Bigbangs; No Missing Mass; No Dark matter; No Dark energy; No Bigbang generated CMB detected; No Multi-verses etc.

Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true, like Blue shifted Galaxies and no dark matter. Dynamic Universe Model gave many results otherwise difficult to explain

Have a look at my essay on Dynamic Universe Model and its blog also where all my books and papers are available for free downloading...

http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/

Best wishes to your essay.

For your blessings please................

=snp. gupta

Dear Rodolfo and Jorge,

I think I understand in general terms how your view of the emergence of consciousness and purpose depends on a number of factors. These factors include a regularist as opposed to a necessitarian view of physical laws, an ontology in which events are fundamental, some features of quantum mechanics, the values of fundamental physical parameters, and the "elegance and creative potential of the physical laws." However, one thing that is not clear to me is the importance for this picture of not accepting the principle of sufficient reason in the form in which Leibniz advocated it. You mention the principle of sufficient reason at the top of page 8.

In any case, thank you for an interesting and worthwhile discussion.

Laurence Hitterdale