The How and The Why of Emergence and Intention by George Gantz

Dear George,

the topic left room for interpretations, you went for the cosmic scale. You argue clearly, why you prefer to see intention whenever you have the choice. Your essay is nice to read and comforting. I like your pictures, especially the flocking of birds! Myself, I went for the question whether goal-oriented behavior on macroscopic scales is at all compatible with "mindless mathematical laws" on microscopic scales. I answer this question positively and I wonder whether you'd find this conclusion comforting. I'm leaning towards the naturalist side, in particular methodologically, but I also find joy and delight in exploring the universe. We started with different questions and cover different aspects of the topic, but concerning the attitude resulting from the choices you offer at the end of your essay, we do not end up all that different.

Cheers, Stefan

Dear George,

Thank you for the comment on my essay. Indeed there is a resemblance between your topic and mine. But I think while I went to a more evolutionary point of view, you went to a very beautiful poetic route. It indeed touched my heart seeing how, indeed, everything seem to self organized, despite the aparent lack of purpose in the universe, and that there is a sense of flow in all of that. This gives a reason to see purpose and not chaos to those who wishes to find a reason to exist, that our life has some value.

When you gave your grandsone as an example of the huge flow of love, as part of the universe's purpose in minimizing entropy, while exploring the environment, did made me a drop a couple of tears. It made me see through your eyes how something so simple can be an atom of the huge large scale principles of the universe.

Dear George,

Following up on your invitation to comment, I want to say first of all that I like your writing style, which is both friendly and economical. I know that your larger interest concerns the interface between science and religion (or spirituality), and I share that interest.

I find that the notions of 'randomness' and 'intentionality' are not well defined in the science/math/philosophy community. Perhaps that is unavoidable, since they are essentially human-centric notions. (What does 'random' mean but something whose 'cause' cannot be determined by a human observer? What does 'intention' mean but something imputed by a human observer?) So, the choice between a view of the world as random or intended seems to me artificial. As your essay progresses, there is increasing reliance on mentalist vocabulary (choice, guidance, attraction, disposition, top-down, aspirational, dance, embrace...) culminating in a cosmic vision of "love." While poetic, I don't find that using these terms supports your basic aim--which in more physicalist terms seems to be to reconcile the emergence of order with the 2nd Law. It simply restates the scientific problem in "folk" terms. (In fairness, I could be equally critical of the notion of "symmetry-breaking" as a causal force.)

I agree with many points you make (e.g. that the choice of worldviews is logically and empirically undecidable; that "everything is connected to everything else in a limitless web of reciprocity"), and with the spirit of the whole. On the other hand, I cannot make sense of the statement (or definition?) that "intentions are behaviors that can be observed." I don't see that the billiard ball and the human manifest intention in any comparable or common way, other than a definition imposed by the human. Humans can certainly read what they know as intention into observed behaviors of animate or inanimate matter. (Cf. Daniel Dennett's "intentional stance".) If intentions are to be understood simply as behaviors that can be observed, then why not stick with ordinary space-time description (Dennett's "physical stance")? Similarly, I do agree that human consciousness is NOT epiphenomenal, but serves downward causation in the human organism. But that is because there is a "top" to a human being, which performs an executive function. What is the top level of the physical cosmos? If we have recourse to something standing outside nature to fill that (executive) function--God, the "mathematical laws of physics," or some meta-system of dispositions)--then it is no longer science.

I hope this is helpful and not too harsh, for I did indeed enjoy reading your paper. Wishing you all the best in your philosophical inquires,

Dan

Dear George Gantz,

Descartes I read a long time ago, when I was 20 years old.

In philosophy I was looking for an answer to the question: "What is the matter?" The answer I not found. Then I went to the principle of identity of space and matter of Descartes, which allowed me to say that space is the body of God who works wonders. Moving space-matter became the basis of the New Cartesian Physic, which explained the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of which force on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.

This and other achievements make me ask you to help me to develop it further in FQXi. Rate my essay.

Sincerely,

Dizhechko Boris

George,

Hello again. As the contest is ending, I see that I have not commented or scored your essay ...

Flocking birds are amazing. In the Houston area, there are sometimes flocks as you describe. There are also migratory birds such as ducks that travel to and from the coastal area. They fly in V shaped flocks.

Monkeys and typewriters are a favorite topic for the question of randomness. In actual practice though, monkeys tend to hit a single key repeatedly and then make those screaming noises:-) A true random alpha-numeric generator might be a better choice for that example ... if there is such a thing. Once Shakespeare has been created though, you are correct in stating we don't know if it was intentional or not.

Many of the essays use the ideas of entropy and open & closed systems plus information. There might even be a consensus regarding these ideas..

The narrative of the billiard ball and the pool cue is good. A point that I don't think I have seen in any of the essays is the making and the use of TOOLS. A tool has no agency but its creator and its user certainly do.

The idea of an attractor in the solution space is presented in several of the essays. It seems reasonable to me.

Cooperation is definitely an advantage ... AND ... the ability to cooperate and the choice to cooperate are definitely signs of agency.

Regarding reciprocity, it seems like a reasonable idea. I believe that your essay is the only one that I have read that presents this idea. This allows a constraint to move up or down through the hierarchy to all the levels .... if we were in sufficient harmony with the universe, this might even be a way to have one's "will" expressed as an event.

All in all, this was an excellent effort on your part. Well done.

Best Regards and Good Luck,

Gary Simpson

Hi George (addressing both the cyclist and the grandfather),

very well written essay, well structured, a pleasure to read!

Now, following your comments in my page: if you wanted to really force me into one of the two branches of the choice:

1. Universe (or multiverse) from randomness within mathematical forms -- intentionality as epiphenomenal, OR

2. Universe from cosmic generative intentionality - humanity as part of a purposeful process,

I would choose option (1), if not for other reasons, for the fact that, in my opinion, it defines a much more attractive research agenda: trying to explain away the magic of goals and intentionality. This can be done so well w.r.t. biology, as mentioned by several essays here. (It is always a pleasure to reveal the trick behind the magic, for example showing that the specific distribution of word lengths in a printed western language does not reflect a 'magic' universal feature of human intelligence, but simply derives from attributing some probability to the blank (word_separating) character.)

At the other side (2) I see a much higher risk to mix a scientific approach with other perfectly respectful... aims and intentions. Some of your passionate passages in support of choice (2) reminded me of the visions by Teilhard de Chardin, in content, style, and tone.

It seems to me, however, that the two choices you describe are just the black and white extremes of an interesting spectrum (I see the narrative benefits of this setting), and I would gladly sit somewhere in the middle. For example, I am absolutely convinced of the important role that emergence, enriched with top-down causation, can offer to the growth of complexity in the universe, and I would not see this feature compatible only with choice (2), but also with choice (1).

In fact, one of the abstract pictures I prefer is that of a deterministic universe, mathematical in the sense of computational, with emergence and top-down causation as possibly the most fundamental drivers of evolution.

I would even accept terms such as 'sacred' (as in S. Kauffman's 'Reinventing the Sacred') in connection with these driving forces, but would stop there. In your essay, on the other hand, I perceive the need to describe a physical universe that naturally supports the most transcendental human aspirations, and that reveals divine intentions behind the scenes. Maybe it's a wrong impression. But if it is wrong, then our views may not be that different.

You write: "I believe this question is, and always will be, from an empirical standpoint, undecidable." Is this not unreasonably pessimistic? How can we exclude that some day, maybe in the near future, some computer experiment will generate an artificial dynamical system evolving according to simple algorithmic rules, yielding an ecology of agents that resemble the biosphere, and that develop forms of cooperative symbiotic, 'altruistic' or moral behaviors, without need for a priori design and goal? How would you feel, in this case? Progress in this direction is under way. Wouldn't this count for you as an empirical way to rule out a grand design and ultimate purpose?

You write: "science is a wonderful and intensely collaborative adaptation that serves to minimize discrepancy between theory and reality and maximize information - effectively exporting entropy to the larger world in the process." Do you have a precise form of exported entropy in mind, for this interesting example?

A rather trivial remark: obviously, the universe does not love us back. This is clear, for example, to all the children that were killed yesterday, in Syria, by chemical weapons.

Finally, in case you'll find yourself revising the text for publication (e.g. in the Springer Frontiers Series), I have two minuscule editorial suggestions (pleasing my taste -- you may well disagree!):

"On at least one planet, Earth, some of those chemicals reacted" --> remove "Earth".

"One species, humans, was able to build civilizations and science." --> remove "humans".

Sorry for the length. Bye!

Tommaso

George.

An excellent essay, interesting, beautifully written, original, easy to read and with a well argued hypotheses. They were the scoring criteria. But I struggled to rationalise it on first read so didn't comment until perhaps you'd read mine. I'm not sure if you have, but the second read was better, and it's time to chat.

First I firmly agree and conclude undecidability. But the semantic door opened with "a selection was made" on divergence or interactions. That may or not imply conscious intent so definition was needed, but you introduced "cosmic intentionality", transferring ball interactions to a player or 'the rules'. Certainly behavioural rules exist for cosmic particles, i.e. field alignments. But I struggle to assign conscious intent to the infinite angular relationships between particles and incoming waves, viz;

Take an interaction and momentum exchange between simple rotating spheres or a wave ('function') and a sphere). They may, entirely by chance, meet at any point on the surface. In the centre of mass rest frame; At the equator, one side finds motion LEFT, and the other RIGHT. Near the N pole is anticlockwise, the S pole clockwise (-/) The combinations vary inversely by the cosine with latitude. Now with standard absorption and re-emission the 'arriving' energy is requantized by the spheres momenta but varies entirely with that tangent point. So certainly a range of outcomes is possible, a semantic leap may admit 'a selection' (with conditions), but considering the full 'Bloch sphere' of attitudes possible could we rationally then make another leap to invoke 'intent'?

I also ask do you think causality 'must' imply determinism? (Tangent points are indeterminable) Can we answer this; Would you find or - polarity on an equator? Is that not too undecidable or 50:50?

Interestingly I identify how the scenario above classically reproduces QM's predictions, but is humankind yet quite ready for such heresy!?

I should confess I have published a model of an apparently well evidenced recycling cosmology with a fractal mechanism (evident in quasars), which DOES imply a greater repeating pattern. We would then have one universe (at a time, here) though maybe infinitely many nearby and previously!

Very well done for yours and I'm honoured mine is nearby and hope you'll comment honestly on it (the likelihood it'll be passed over for placings yet again is less important).

Best wishes

Peter

Peter (I assume Peter Jackson - it seems you may not have been logged in when you commented) -

Thank you for the careful read and excellent comments. Yes, I did read your essay - I found it difficult to follow but I am in general agreement with key points. Specifically, I would agree that "Nature may meet the conditions for a mathematical universe but it also does so for most physical and meta-physical universes and a 'creator'. All have infinite recursion, in both directions." An excellent and profound observation. I did stumble on the following sentence - "Maths or matter may imply a creator, who must be created." This implies infinite regress, which of course one is free to follow - although a single infinite (recursive) first creator is a much simpler speculation.

I cheerfully agree as well with your final conclusion: "No conclusion is possible as to whether or not a cosmic architect created our or any universe."

In your comment above, I am struck by a thought I had not articulated in my essay. Perhaps the undecidability of the nature of cosmic architecture (random vs. specific) that I discuss in some detail extends down to fundamental QM events at the point of interaction. A billiard ball (simple model of a spinning moving sphere) connects with another billiard ball --- is that precise interaction exactly the one required to send the second billiard ball into the pocket? As we conceptually dive down past the macro-particles to the QM level where the contact is instantiated, do we perhaps not find a choice point --- a single quantum interaction, fundamentally indeterminate, where a 50:50 probability ultimately decides the fate of the second billiard ball? By such interactions the fine tuning constants may have emerged in our universe.

It is a pleasure to converse with you! Perhaps through more conversation we will be able to meet Einstein's criteria - "we should be able to be explain physics to a barmaid" - or bartender as we should say in the 21st century...

Cheers - George Gantz

Dear Dr. Gantz -

Thanks for your comments over my way ["Causality and Teleology"].

Reading your essay felt like a humanistic version of my own views! What follows is headline-type description of this using your own [well-crafted] words.

"Do you believe that what exists is fundamentally an expression of randomness within mathematical forms? Or do you believe in a cosmic intentionality that provides generative guidance for the emergence and evolution of our uniquely specified universe?"

I guess that I'm saying that one has both of these simultaneously - my discrete combinatorics generate a unique generative model. This is our only large-scale disagreement, I think.

"... local structure and order emerges by exporting entropy to the larger environment."

Yes. Both of our [very similar] views rest nicely on Jeremy England's argument for life's emergence via its drive to maximize entropy creation [ie. growth].

"Phillip W. Anderson ... maintains that the hierarchical structure of increasing complexity arises as a function of symmetry breaking, and the resulting whole is more than, and different from, the sum of its parts."

I claim that the mechanism of emergence is to be described by the co-boundary operation, which is the topological version of the "integration" operation in Calculus. [I've not seen this thought elsewhere.] The erection of a new 'integrated' hierarchical level is entropically driven.

"The system searches through available configurations, constrained by mathematical laws and prior history, attracted to one that achieves that goal." This is the hierarchical bubble-up / trickle-down mechanism I describe.

"Self-reflective consciousness emerges, perhaps in the synchronous coordination of quantum behavior ... ." Indeed! 'Quantum behavior' is what I call space-like computation [versus Turing's time-like ditto].

"There is an additional feature to the cascade of emergent processes - they are reciprocally interactive. Reciprocity at the component level enables the system to seek adaptive solutions. Reciprocity between component and system levels is inherent in the dynamic of emergence --- components enable the system to search, and the system attraction to pointer states drives the selection. These relations flow up and down the emergent cascade. In the emergent history of our universe, everything is connected to everything else in a limitless web of reciprocity."

Oh yes! I say that the web is made out of gravity, which is space-like, not time-like, not causal.

"Cosmic intentionality is love flowing through the universe, guiding the emergent cascade. Each prior state evolves and moves towards a higher state, one reflecting a greater degree of intention, attraction, cooperation and reciprocation." Whether the evolved state is "higher" depends though on the degree of organization it represents in its newness. Not all evolution is progress - extinction is also a possibility, but this is a detail.

"While we can observe the actions of the entity ... we cannot observe his/her/its interior state." Right. But:

"From an empirical standpoint, there is no answer. The question is undecidable." I disagree: If the observer's consciousness is time-like, yes, but if it's space-like [eg. meditative state], this *is* the interior state, and you *are* the intention! Also, re Undecideability, since my view of computation exceeds Turing's formulation, this weakens arguments from this basis.

My conclusion is that the intentionality you mention can be properly identified with entropic gravity - the tendency for all things without distinction to attract each other. My mod4 construction, with the chakra system in mind, then directly and easily identifies gravity with love.

Hello George Gantz,

I very much enjoyed your essay; it's an excellent, literary read. But I think that you assume too much. Given the empirical evidence to date, the universe behaves with mindless, chaotic, deterministic causality according to natural law. If the universe appears to expresses 'cosmic intentionality' - well, that is just us anthropomorphizing the universe. Being mindless, the universe isn't even indifferent.

Causation is the realization that all events are the result of previous events according to natural law. Causation is not reductionist - if anything causation drives emergence and implementation. Determinism and free will are flip sides of the same coin. Free will is a consequence of top-down causation and the loose coupling between complex causal event chains. Both the universe and our minds are causally determined. If they were not, then both would be chaotic and incomprehensible. There would be no galaxies, stars, planets, elements, biology, or us. Without causality, the mind could not form coherent thoughts, as no thought could be the cause of another.

Causal, chaotic evolution is how life and minds with aims and intention arose. Random noise plus natural selection in a chaotic environment driving survival is the engine for the accumulation of complexity and emergence of life.

Intention and purpose are NOT epiphenomenal. A broad look at our accomplishments proves that it is not. Our purpose is our own to make.

As much as I admire your writing, and writing style, I do not think that you have proved your case.

Thanks for the good read.

Cheers,

Bruce Amberden.

Dear Sirs!

Physics of Descartes, which existed prior to the physics of Newton returned as the New Cartesian Physic and promises to be a theory of everything. To tell you this good news I use «spam».

New Cartesian Physic based on the identity of space and matter. It showed that the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of force which on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.

New Cartesian Physic has great potential for understanding the world. To show it, I ventured to give "materialistic explanations of the paranormal and supernatural" is the title of my essay.

Visit my essay, you will find there the New Cartesian Physic and make a short entry: "I believe that space is a matter" I will answer you in return. Can put me 1.

Sincerely,

Dizhechko Boris

Michael -

Thank you for the detailed review and comments. Yes, there are many parallels between our theses (as well the theses of other essayists). This is one of the exciting things about the FQXi contests - probing the most difficult of questions with a community of excellent thinkers. The result is --- the whole is greater than the sum of the parts!

You suggest that your model accommodates the simultaneity of the "random" and "intentional" views of the universe. In one sense, I agree with you --- they do appear as two sides of the same coin. However I pose them as opposites in my essay, although the choice between them is indeterminate on the basis of empirical or mathematical investigation.

I do not see that gravity can connect the two. Gravity is, after all, one of the emergent features of our universe. Rather than being fundamental, I would suggest that it is consequential - an emergent property in spacetime that manifests but does not explain cosmic intentionality.

This is clearly worth further discussion --- but alas the contest is nearing an end!

Regards - George