The Universe as a System that Generates its Own Rules by Lorraine Ford

Lorraine,

Thanks for clarifying. I entirely agree re maths, algorithms and computers, and tend to agree but have had nagging doubts about how far that can go. i.e. Deep & fluid learning in AI is now based very closely on our own neural networks, so may be created by us but are they significantly more more 'representations' than the children we also create? Who says who the law applies to or not?

That leads to; Can we prove that our OWN brains are not 'representations' of something? - simply more complex than the ones WE can create so far. So I'm really questioning the assumption that there's a clear 'lawfulness' line, so asking; if there is the 'separation' you invoke, what specifically defines it?

I can't see subjectivity can be it as both humans and AI can now have exactly the same direct range of input data range similar sensors.

The only answer I can find (as the feedback loops and layered logic can now be recreated) is in the Kolgorov complexity and uncertainty of and from the smallest quantum interactions, which is a reason I focused on 'decoding' what we call 'noise'. So the question would then be, and you may be the girl to answer this; are computers systems not subject to the same uncertainty rules that we are? Why do our computers often have glitches and throw up random abnormal behaviours? (or even crash for no obvious reason!)

So IS there any way of proving we're not a 'hologram', or that there's no god?

Lastly; You may know Elon Musk has been well involved in AI, and has said once we have a real AI it's be lethal to us, even with a 'kill switch' it'd kill us first or disable it. Valid point?

Very best

Peter

Bravissimo Ms. Eord! I give a standing ovation to you. Excellent work. Only so it is necessary to write an essay. Of course i'll give high score.

Best regards and good luck,

Vladimir A. Rodin

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2752

Dear Lorraine,

Our essay suggests some criticism on panpsychism and anti-platonism. I rated your composition high for its seriousness and your will to truth, so I am curious to see your reflection on our objections. In case you did not yet rate our essay, I would appreciate you will do it.

Cheers,

Alexey Burov.

Dear Lorraine,

Many thanks for your post on our page! I just answered you there.

All the best,

Alexey Burov.

Lorraine,

I have commented on your essay above. But I need to let you know that you got it right when you commented on Brendan's blog.

It is so spot on that I repeat it here:

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Re ethics:

My impression is that the only thing that ever shook human complacency, self-centredness and hubris is various forms of disaster: personal, financial, ecological, war etc. I'm probably talking about you and me, not just everyone else. Mere words, logic, or ethics rarely ever pricked the bubble of complacency, self-centredness and human hubris.

To ever look beyond one's own little life, logic, ethics, knowledge and experience is required to evaluate the situation, and to find solutions for problems identified. Then various vested interests in the status quo battle to stop solutions being implemented. Not that the situation is really quite that simple.

Another problem is deluded over-confident illogical men (it's mainly men): you'll see plenty of them in this essay contest. They will try to tell you that the machines are going to take over the world, or that the universe itself is in effect a machine, or that the universe is a mathematical space, or that reality is a computer simulation. The latest manifestation is the brave new emergenteers who miraculously make consciousness and free will emerge out of complexity. These are the brave new illogical religions and the new illogical "miracles".

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I invite you to visit my essay (as you said you would). And remember that my goal is to win this contest :)

Don Limuti

Dear Lorraine,

With great interest I read your essay, which of course is worthy of high rating. Excellently written.

I share your aspiration to seek the truth

«Our universe is both constrained by law-of-nature rules, and free to make new short-term local rules.»

«But the issue is not "how does structure emerge?". The issue is "how do rules (representable by mathematical equations) emerge?". The answer is that rules that control the system in question don't emerge: rules are ex nihilo introductions to the system.»

«the essay doesn't give examples of simple emergence which might help to explain more complex emergence.»

I wish you success in the contest.

Kind regards,

Vladimir

Lorraine,

Thanks for visiting my essay. And for providing some needed balance in this essay contest with your essay and your confronting the bozos.

Appreciate your contribution!

Don Limuti

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

Lorraine,

Isn't 'living' itself just an emergent concept from the trillions of trillions of particles and interactions we're built from? Take those away and what's left? The only other option seems to be the metaphysical concept of a 'soul'. We can't rule that out of course, same as a God, but I think we should be scientifically honest about it if we invoke it.

So unless we properly redefine 'living' in some other way I don't tend to agree that your last sentence, though the normal human response, is a true objective scientific statement.

Another response most make, which I think is in error, is allowing subjective responses to content and 'agreement' with hypotheses of essays to affect our assessment of the quality of the essay. The scoring criteria don't include; 'degree of agreement' and quite rightly! All points of view should be argued, and as well as possible, which you've done. So our different take on things doesn't detract from the value of your delightfully written and presented essay. Well done. Scoring it now.

Very best

Peter

(now returning to the negative charged hemisphere - though as I wrote in 2014 'there is no 'UP' in space'!)

Dear Lorraine,

I very much enjoyed your essay. I read it before and felt that you perhaps over-stated your case. After reading again, I'm re-thinking this. I believe I got hung up on terminology, while your concept is good.

Either there is free will or not, and I do believe in free will; I'm not sure if there's a better example of the universe "generating its own rules". This must somehow begin with "fine-tuning" and proceed at the level of every living thing. It is my basic assumption, but the one I have the least explanation for.

As usual, your essay is chock full of things I agree with, from computers deterministically processing symbolic representation of higher-level subjectively experienced information, etc., and computer's inability to achieve self-awareness (which I've expanded on with Natesh Ganesh) to "no deep understanding of emergence", and the view of it as progressive restrictions on degrees of freedom.

As one who believes information comes into existence when an energy threshold triggers a structural change ('in'-forming the system) , I agree with you about "must derive from local physical structures".

I tend to depart some from your views of quantum mechanics, but that does not detract from your essential points; it only changes the way in which your points are achieved. It is hard (impossible?) to argue with your point that "the universe is all there is ... that necessarily generates its own rules." If there is free will, this must, in some way, be an ongoing process.

I'm glad I re-read your essay! I will rate it tonite.

Also, I'm sure your living with and loving your local nature-life does not hurt your thinking about these things. The wildlife diversity on our ranch is soul-refreshing, making it easier to see into the nature of things.

My very best wishes,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Lorraine, I'm so sorry -- I didn't see that rating ended yesterday. I love your essay. Your clarity on several points that we both share is very refreshing.

I'm traveling right now, but will get back to you later (if they let me).

Jim

You are welcome,

It is a beautiful plant.At this moment I see the acer palamatums growing and the leaves are beautiful also in my small garden.

Friendly

Dear Lorraine,

It is a pity that I could not see your email earlier, since post Apr 7, my reviews, and comments, do not elicit responses. Below, your statements are quoted in double quotes.

Your opening lines, "unlike a model system that we might set up, where we impose the system rules from the outside, there is nothing and no one outside the universe to generate rules", appeared remarkably on the spot. I do hold similar views too. But a few statements later, one encounters, "So it is not illogical to hypothesise that the universe itself must in some sense know, must in some sense be aware of, the rules it generates", I began to feel uncomfortable with the use of the terms, 'know' and 'aware'. But, "Contrary to Rovelli's hypothesis, it is rules that are 'meaningful information'", gave a different picture altogether. Only difference I would like to add is that the rules are not meaningful information, but the reality of information is based on the natural causality of the rules.

There may be a small problem with, "But the single outcomes of quantum randomness also have the status of 'necessity' if you hypothesise that a one-off local rule for each outcome has been generated by the universe, a rule that can be represented by an equation that resets the numeric value for the 'uncertain' system variable." I am not sure, if one is to gather that this generation of rule is arbitrary, or does it also have a rule, since if it is arbitrary, then it must be random, otherwise determinism comes back in terms of having a rule for rule generation. Secondly, one measurement of a system must be related to another to maintain certain probability distribution? I mean the processes could be stochastic, but the generation of photon from a coherent source, and their arrival at a screen past a double slit must have a pre-determined distribution.

Aims and intentions are reflections of an element of desirability, why does any one context appear more desirable than another? Secondly, if such a sense of desirability is part of all elemental systems as well, then of course one should see violations of second law of thermodynamics everywhere if elements exhibited any degree of commonality of desirability. In contrast, if there is no centralized sense of desirability for a being / entity then it would be difficult for elements to set their courses of desirability such that they serve the purpose of the unified whole system. Later on, I do notice that you have offered resolution of this, "Paradoxically, it's seemingly the restriction of possibilities for lower-level entities (like particles, atoms and molecules) via structural constraints and rules, that leads to the potential for building higher-level entity structure (like single- and multi-cell living things), and the progressive refinement of information categories that might be used by the entity".

"computers do not actually process information - they process representations of information; computer programs do not actually generate rules - they can only generate representations of rules." In my view, information processing takes place at all interactions, where semantics of experiencing also emerges in the same process. The computers are not yet programmed to achieve this level of emergence.

"Despite the ubiquity of emergent behaviour there remains no deep understanding of emergence". What if one lays down the specific process of the emergence of higher level semantics from lower level primitives? This is what I have attempted. I do not attribute sense of knowledge, awareness, and desirability to all physical entities. But I work out how information processing via specifically organized interactions may give rise to high level complex and abstract semantics. It is very well possible !

Rajiv