Hi, thanks for your thoughts! In my essay, I focused in systems exhibiting agency (those where entropy decreases) in general terms. I avoided focusing in animate systems, because outside religious beliefs, I would not truly know how to define them. Where to draw the line? A virus can be thought of as a type of robot, albeit not constructed by us: A small machine devoted to well-programmed actions (self-replication). And from viruses to humans there seems to be a continuum of animate-ness. Man-made robots, moreover, not always express our own agency, they can be complex enough as to have emergent behaviour we never intended, not only in the bad sense (by miss-functioning), also in the good sense, surpassing our expectations. Think of computers that play chess better than humans. We do not even know how they do it, because they learn from their own experience, and their own mistakes. Their strategy gets hard-wired into their plastic architecture, but not in a way we can explicitly read it out. I do not believe, however, that they are animate, not yet at least, and I dare not speak of the future. I therefore believe it is not a bad idea to first try to understand angency, because I believe it is a simpler problem than consciousness.

So did you go for the big question? I will surely read your essay in due time!

Thanks again,

ines.

Hi Ines,

Thanks for your reply.

Hmm. I had never thought of the term 'animate' as having religious connotations...i should check my bible more often ;) However, i do like your way of describing them as systems where entropy decreases...at least to an extent.

That is, don't viruses then qualify as systems exhibiting agency? Clearly, their action expresses regulation/control via their inner and outer environs. I don't have a problem defining them as animate entities, albeit very simple ones. For me, another requirement for true agency is that their main objective is intrinsic survival (both individually and generationally). That is, their intrinsic inner and outer surroundings must be directly involved in the process of evolution...only this way can their entropy truly decrease. Thus, the virus qualifies but the man-made machine does not. That is, although the machine can perform functions that decrease entropy, it cannot do so such that its inner and outer surroundings are fundamentally oriented towards its own perpetuation. My brother drives a back hoe. Such machines can do things that no human being can do, but that does not make them animate beings. In the same way, we can make machines that might 'think' much better than ourselves, but i don't think they have any more agency than a back-hoe. Although, I think such agency could become possible in a man-made cyber-universe where some cyber-equivilent to a relationship between inner and outer environs gains the capacity to regulate those environs. What the status of such a cyber-agency would be in our material universe will be a question for folk who are younger that I. I would love to hear your response to the above.

Cheers,

William

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  • Post #7

Professor Samengo,

Quite a cogent piece that profoundly raises deep questions about self, goals, and the relations of the animate and inanimate. "Physics does not make sense, observers make sense of it." and "Life may not even be fundamentally different from non-life." Your opening paragraph intermixes images of life (dogs, owls, soccer players and self-driving cars) and non-life, though the latter is a construct of humans with a programmed goal. Your following paragraphs tie the examples together quite nicely.

"The notion of goal-oriented behavior that is used here always brings about an entropy reduction" Generally, living organisms seek order, but as we age we lose order. Reproduction is a way of sustaining a replacement order for your DNA which provides a solid foundation for storing and exhibiting order?

If life becomes extinct on Earth, we transfer meaning to other intelligent life residing in far away planets?

Thanks for a thought-provoking essay.

Jim Hoover

    I guess you focus goal on self-perpetuation, thereby imposing some qualitative constraints, whereas I work with just the quantitative constraint of entropy reduction. I do so, because I have no clear notion of what are the ultimate requirements to be alive, so I am not sure how to define survival. Is a single RNA molecule that self-replicates alive? Ideas and cultural traits can self-replicate, they are born, and they sometimes disappear. Computers surely do self replicate (both the software and the hardware), and they can be created and destroyed. Feeling insecure in this realm, I guess I prefer to impose no qualitative restrictions...

    Thanks for your thoughts!

    ines.

    Hi, James,

    > Generally, living organisms seek order, but as we age we lose order

    I sadly agree...

    > Reproduction is a way of sustaining a replacement order for your DNA which

    > provides a solid foundation for storing and exhibiting order?

    I would say yes, and add that we can not only reproduce biologically (making children), but also culturally: raising children, interacting with other people, discussing essays..

    > If life becomes extinct on Earth, we transfer meaning to other intelligent

    > life residing in far away planets?

    I wish I new... I just keep hoping so! Another alternative is that we evolve into something else that can make something useful with what we have constructed thus far.

    Thanks for your comments!

    inés.

    Professor Samengo,

    Hope you check out my essay.

    Jim

    Ines,

    GOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLLL!

    Many artists attempt to draw self-portraits. So they draw themselves. Then they draw themselves drawing themselves and they try to do this recursively. You have observed yourself observing yourself. Bravissima!

    A concept I had not adequately considered is the ability of the observer to define the system boundaries ... as a chemical engineer, I have used this concept thousands of times to solve heat and material balances, but I had never thought about it in the way that you describe. It seems to be a very central concept.

    Best Regards and Good Luck,

    Gary Simpson

      dear ines,

      "Therefore, entropy reduction and goal-oriented behavior are in a

      one-to-one correspondence."

      hooray! it is a relief to find someone else who has this same premise also be part of their essay. also i love that you also use maxwell's demon as well: it's such a well-known and simple model that helpfully demonstrates how entropy can be beaten with simple rules.

      i was however hoping that you would be able to connect these things to answer the essay's main question (or a variant of the same), "how may mathematical laws give rise to aims and intentions", and would ask if, in retrospect since your essay's submission, if you had any further insights on this question?

        Ha, ha! Touche'! You caught me in an infinite loop of recursive narcissism! I will look into your essay as soon as I find a bit of time...

        best! ines.

        I will certainly do so, just give me a bit of time, it's hard to keep up. Best! ines.

        Professor Ines,

        A very interesting essay. Enjoyed it a lot reading it. I do agree with you on the importance of observers and the observer's demarcation of what the system is. Thought the following line is very interesting "What is interesting in goal-directed behavior if the observer is allowed to engineer the very definition of the agent, in order to get the desired result? Plants grow because what we define as a plant is the stuff that grows every spring, and not the dirt left on the ground every autumn". Think we will both agree that information theory has tremendous potential to provide the missing links.

        I will have to ponder over the idea of ascribing goals to any entropy reduction in a system. I am wondering if that is too narrow a definition. After all, a (conscious) observer should be capable of ascribing a system as performing a computation (and hence the goal of performing that computation,) even with no entropy change(?)

        I do think we agree on some fundamental ideas. I describe emergence of goal and intentions in physical systems as a tradeoff between dissipation and complexity. In the spirit of Landauer, I have a submission titled 'Intention is Physical'. Due to lack of space, I did not have the chance to talk about the role of observers, but I have a few ideas on how such observers who ascribe goals might emerge in the first place (to be left for future work). I would love your comments and feedback if you have the chance to read it.

        Cheers

        Natesh

          Hi Natesh, I actually read your essay, and liked it a lot. Congratulations, good work!

          "Religions put belief first." by Lee Bloomquis.

          Lee: There is an elegance in your brevity.

          Perpetual attempts to discover our ignorance out of every successful step is the best way to evolve towards ontological reality. However, we betray ourselves when we fall in love with a success path that appears to validate a theory while ignoring that experimental evidences are only limited responses of the chosen interactants in our setup. This eventually leads us to develop an abiding "belief" in a "working" theory!

          ChandraSekhar Roychoushuri

          Hi, Ganesh - I feel a bit like having 2 personalities, by writing here and also at your place. If the mapping between inputs and outputs loses no entropy, then it is injective (or has random components, which does not fit the idea of a goal). In injective mappings, the input is equal to the output, except perhaps for a reassignment of the names of the variables. I believe that an important characteristic of a goal is that it be flexible: the goal must be reached under multiple conditions, and circumvent obstacles. That is why I restrict goal seeking to non-injective mappings. In a way, the interesting computations are the ones where information is lost. Or to put it more constructively, where information is compressed, and you only keep the few aspects of the input data (or environment, or initial state, call it as you wish) that are relevant to achieving the goal. Very much related to your physical mechanism of learning. Any thoughts, for or against this argument?

          Professor Ines,

          Thank you for your kind words about my essay. You mention: "Do the forces of energy given off by plasma, a fourth stage of matter, in fact, about 99% of normal matter in the universe, replicate and restructure in the form of dark matter?" It seems like a wild speculative proposal and I don't think it has been proposed by those seeking the source of dark matter. Nevertheless, it represents the connection and utilization of mindless math laws and goal-oriented behavior.

          I appreciate your interest in my ideas, considering some rate w/o reading, and I hope you rate them as highly as I did yours.

          Jim Hoover

          Dear Professor Ines Samengo,

          Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.

          I merely wish to point out that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.

          Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

          The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

          A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.

          Joe Fisher, Realist

          Dear Samengo,

          Nice essay on Neuron sciences ,

          Your ideas and thinking are excellent... "Observers learn how to observe, and they do so within the framework of learning theory [7]. They are first exposed to multiple examples of the process, that act as the training set."

          ..........................There are observers in our brain, one form picture of pen thro eye, another form a picture of a pen through touch etc... how they will coordinate with each other....?

          Though my essay is not related to your topic I request you to please have a look at it....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