Dear Brian,

Re crystallisation:

Except in the eye of the beholder, has anything mysterious "emerged" with crystallisation, temperature, or weather? If a system is 100% mechanistic, where all outcomes are 100% determined by constraints, the environment and "laws of nature", then no outcome is more emergent or mysterious than any other outcome.

But if quantum symmetry breaking is involved, then new information has in effect been input to the system. To paraphrase Wheeler: new information is created in quantum phenomena; this new information is not a deterministic consequence of the above-described mechanisms. I note you quote Wheeler in your essay, but a more telling quote of Wheeler's is: "Each elementary quantum phenomenon is an elementary act of 'fact creation'" [1]. If new information has been in effect non-mechanistically input to the system, then you cannot claim that the crystallisation outcome has somehow mysteriously "emerged" from a deterministic system.

Re "I envisage a different kind of picture, involving e.g. concepts such as nonlinearity, and fractality, rendering the kind of failures you refer to irrelevant":

The "kind of failures" I refer to are not irrelevant. Nonlinear systems and fractals are fully deterministic systems where some outcomes or behaviours might appear to "emerge", but in fact no outcome is more emergent or mysterious than any other outcome.

1. Quoted in QBism: Quantum Theory as a Hero's Handbook, by Christopher A. Fuchs and Blake C. Stacey, https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.07308v2 .

"In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is a phenomenon whereby larger entities arise through interactions among smaller or simpler entities such that the larger entities exhibit properties the smaller/simpler entities do not exhibit...Almost all accounts of emergentism include a form of epistemic or ontological irreducibility to the lower levels", [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence ].

Brian, by "emergence" you seem to mean something that is 100% reducible to the lower levels (or do you?), whereas I mean something that is irreducible to the lower levels. Quantum symmetry breaking in crystallisation is an example of something that is irreducible to lower levels, although the symmetry breaking itself has nothing to do with complexity/ dynamical systems. I'm claiming that the only way anything can "emerge" is via the input of new information to the system (this is only found to occur in quantum processes), whereas you seem to be claiming that something new can emerge from 100% deterministic processes.

Wikipedia, which you quote, is hardly the last word on any topic. More authoritative I suggest is the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, which has this article on the subject: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent/, and observes that there is more than one view on such matters. One point, which your comments fail to take into account, is that phenomena related to laws of nature are a function of the specifics of a given situation, as well as the underlying laws. In other words, certain situations are special. This includes life, see e.g. https://arxiv.org/html/1110.1768.

Brian, I have printed your arxiv paper: I hope to read it some time today. But I have previously read the Stanford article. Re "certain situations are special": there is absolutely no way of identifying "special situations" in a deterministic universe, unless you add a meta-level to the universe which has special algorithmic criteria about the lower level. In other words, you have to add new equations and algorithms to the system in order to identify "special situations". To put it another way, you need to have a theory about what equations (laws) and algorithms are, and how they are "created".

I have mentioned "the specifics of a given situation" in my reply on 15 March 2018 @ 14:17 GMT: "where all outcomes are 100% determined by constraints, the environment and "laws of nature"". The specifics of a situation includes the very import issue of what is the reality that underlies (what physics represents as) numbers. Despite the crucial importance of numbers, physics has no theory about what numbers might be.

I treat the issue on the basis of my training in physics while you it would seem do the same on the basis of your training in philosophy! Philosophy has its value but can also be detrimental to the process of discovering what is the case, as e.g. philosopher Hugh Mellor's dismissal of ESP as 'impossible' on the basis of some philosophical principle.

Brian, Re your paper "Limits to the universality of quantum mechanics" [1]:

It is true that "quantum mechanics cannot give a complete account of life", or a "complete account of all natural phenomena", because quantum mechanics cannot give a complete account of anything. The mathematical formulation of QM is merely the currently best way of representing something about the fundamental relationships in QM situations, but the mathematical formalism can't explain the "weird" underlying reality: why individual particle outcomes are unpredictable, and how the particle "knows" things about the experimental setup etc. 100 years of experimentation has only been able to conclude that this unpredictability/freedom and this "knowledge" are just the inherent nature of reality. But it would be even more "weird" if nature didn't use these inherent pre-existing aspects for something.

But despite the quotes in your FQXi essay about "observer-participancy" and "Matter feels" for which the "quantum" nature of reality is a natural fit, my impression is that you discount the "quantum" nature of reality, and you instead seem to be looking for latter-day duplicates of the "weird" quantum aspects to emerge out of a complex deterministic dynamical system and "circularity" [2].

1. Limits to the universality of quantum mechanics, Brian D. Josephson, 8 Oct 2011, https://arxiv.org/html/1110.1768

2. How observers create reality, Brian D. Josephson, 17 Jun 2015, https://arxiv.org/abs/1506.06774

What you say is correct -- I anticipate quantum physics coming out of a wider, less quantitative picture (which may itself not be all-encompassing. For example, it will have wavelike aspects, allowing parallel aspects of reality, some of which have observable consequences while others do not (cf. Bohm and Hiley's 'active information'). There will also be an emergent semiotic aspect, as discussed by Peirce, and 'centres of control' operating in a critical regime, as in Hankey's 'complexity biology'. I should also bring to your attention Plamen Simeonov's idea of 'integral biomathematics' (see http://inbiosa.eu/ and https://philarchive.org/archive/SIMSBT-10) which discusses the possibilities of integrating the mathematical and biological aspects of nature. I think the 'weird' aspects of QM are correlates of a more general entanglement, itself the outcome of triadic correlation which is in itself a little counterintuitive as well as having biological aspects. The point to understand is that different phenomena have the capacity to be woven together, which one may understand as a new theme to be taken into account, if you like a synthesis of thesis and antithesis, but a synthesis that just has to be taken for granted rather than something to be deduced from something deeper.

Hi Brian,

Great addition to the dialogue. I have been interested in the local-global connection, the causes of system stability, and the minimum requisite variety for self-organization, for some time. I was not surprised to find that many of my own conclusions match yours--particularly the importance of triadic (triangle, 2-simplex) relations.

"Measuring the Complexity of Simplicity": https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323685578_Measuring_the_Complexity_of_Simplicity

Brian, with respect, surely there is a problem with definitions, or lack of definitions?

1. How does one characterise what type of "thing" might emerge from complex deterministic dynamical systems? Is what emerges:

a) representable as a number;

b) a property (in the same sense that mass is a property) that can be mathematically represented as a relationship between other such properties;

c) representable as an algorithm; or

d) none of the above?

2. How does one characterise what is expected to emerge; how would one know that the following had indeed emerged from a complex deterministic dynamical system:

a) feeling ("matter feels") and knowledge (a particle "knows" things about the experimental setup); and

b) "observer-participancy" in the universe, and freedom (for instance, it might be considered that the unpredictability of observed particle outcomes is due to the inherent freedom of a particle)?

Brian, with respect, surely there is a problem with definitions, or lack of definitions?

1. How does one characterise what type of "thing" might emerge from complex deterministic dynamical systems? Is what emerges:

a) representable as a number;

b) a property (in the same sense that mass is a property) that can be mathematically represented as a relationship between other such properties;

c) representable as an algorithm; or

d) none of the above?

2. How does one characterise what is expected to emerge; how would one know that the following had indeed emerged from a complex deterministic dynamical system:

a) feeling ("matter feels") and knowledge (a particle "knows" things about the experimental setup); and

b) "observer-participancy" in the universe, and freedom (for instance, it might be considered that the unpredictability of observed particle outcomes is due to the inherent freedom of a particle)?

    Brian, you will be using algorithmic logic, numbers and equations to represent your work; these numbers, equations and algorithmic logic are presumably meant to represent something meaningful about what happened/happens in the universe.

    If you are using numbers, equations and algorithms to represent something meaningful about the nature of the universe, then surely you can also make a stab at describing what could potentially emerge from any such system?

    Lorraine, you are making assumptions there that may not be valid. Barad for example takes as foundational the fact that various 'agencies' work together to create phenomena, some of the agencies involving language. In a mysterious way, the combination of assertions in a language, and processes possessed by people who are familiar with that language, gives rise to appropriate responses to such assertions. This is something known to anyone who has encountered foreigners (and babies) who don't understand their own language. You may want to postulate that this can all be explained in terms of algorithmic logic, etc. but it is unclear that this is enough. Indeed, it is unclear even whether mathematical proofs can be understood thus (see Penrose, and arXiv:1307.6707 ("we think that we think clearly, but that's only because we don't think clearly: Mathematics, Mind and the Human World')).

    I think therefore that it is better to take Barad's 'entanglement of matter and meaning' as foundational, and see where we can go from there.

    Brian,

    1) Re "You may want to postulate that this can all be explained in terms of algorithmic logic, etc. but it is unclear that this is enough. Indeed, it is unclear even whether mathematical proofs can be understood thus" i.e. Re creative leaps:

    I never meant to imply that all aspects of outcomes can be logically explained in terms of algorithmic logic or mathematics. What I'm getting at is that all outcomes involve some aspects that are "creative leaps"; and that these creative leaps can't be represented as logical consequences of a complex mathematical/algorithmic system.

    I would argue that it is these creative leaps that are driving the system forward to new outcomes, where the outcome is thought of as being representable by a set of numbers associated with fundamental variables, and where at least one of these numbers is due to a creative leap (i.e. not due to logical consequence). The creative leap itself can't be represented, but the outcome can be represented, and a "creative leap" outcome can be thought of as the assignment of a new number to a variable.

    2) Re "language"/ perception:

    One can never avoid using symbolic representations when trying to characterise something about the (e.g. fundamental) nature of the universe; and when forming conclusions about the (e.g. fundamental) nature of the universe from these symbolic representations.

    The representations are usually mathematical, not "language". One can look at complex dynamic systems that might seem to evolve in time from the mathematical representations; or one can look at the mathematical representations themselves, and say that underlying every such representation there are categories, and relationships between such categories; and that therefore there is something fundamental about categories and relationships. I would argue that the fundamentals of perception are categories and relationships.

    I think we're largely in agreement at this point, though there remains that question of what you mean by 'number'. If it's sufficiently general I probably agree with you.

    This is maybe a point to bring up Yardley's cryptic ideas. She makes 'circles' basic, being both things and actions, but they can also be thought of as triads, e.g. lines, circles and the 'mandatory relationships' between the two. But the two related entities can manifest in a range of forms, e.g. zero and one (nothing and something) or a unit and a pair, or yin and yang, night and day. In other words, there is a concept that is the ultimate abstraction, or the basic contrast one would want to make, the 'difference that makes a difference'. This may fit in well with what you are saying (and of course there is again this business of thesis-antithesis-synthesis).