Constructing a Theory of Life

Georgina,

If new information has not been added to this tiny part of the universe that we are discussing, then there is no new function. Every detail of a hurricane is explainable in terms of lower-level information-processing events; and every detail of enzyme interactions are also explainable in terms of lower-level information-processing events unless new information has been added to the system. New function, i.e. new lawful power over the outcome numbers, means that one or more new information relationships have been added to the universe-system.

I know you don't understand this, but if mathematics (which we use to represent the universe-system) has shown us anything, it is that situations/outcomes are a consequence of rules/laws/relationships. The reverse is not true: rules/laws/relationships do not emerge from situations/outcomes. Only those who refuse to face facts claim that rules/laws/information relationships can emerge from situations/outcomes.

So, who created the new information relationship? And who knows about it? This enzyme-related information certainly does not exist from our human point-of-view (it is only science that has brought this information to our attention): this capacity of an enzyme or a cell, to know about new information, existed long before human beings existed.

Who created the new information relationship? And who knows about it?

Rules and Laws describing or mathematically representing relationships can be 'distilled' from observation of outcomes of particular circumstances. The distilled rules or Laws can then be used predicatively, applied to similar circumstances. That does not mean nature has a rule book in some platonic realm (additional to material reality) from which it is able to receive instruction of what to do.The rules are a characterization of what happens not necessary instruction of what to do, so it can happen.

The enzyme can act ass a catalyst because of its 3D shape and topology, it does not need permission from a new rule. The shape is not formed by someone but by 'environment driven self assembly'. No one need know about it for it to function. An experiment can be conducted and the function of the enzyme characterized by an equation if wanted.

So Georgina,

You are saying that an enzyme is like a hurricane: every detail of its interactions are explainable in terms of lower-level information-processing events.

I.e. no new function has emerged: just like the word "hurricane" is nothing but a label we give to something that is fully explainable in terms of lower-level information-processing events, the word "enzyme" is nothing but a label we give to something that is fully explainable in terms of lower-level information-processing events.

You are saying that, with an enzyme, nothing new has emerged except the label we give it. You seem to be contradicting yourself because you have previosly asserted that the "catalytic function of the enzyme [is] an emergent property" (Georgina Woodward replied on Aug. 8, 2018 @ 00:35 GMT).

No Lorraine, the content of your first two and a half paragraphs is what you have been saying, not me. I am not contradicting myself but you are trying to make it look as though I am. Individual amino acids or even the sequence of amino acids unfolded does not enable and explain the function of the enzyme. The folded shape and topology enables and explains the function. The catalytic function is emergent at that particular state of organization.

No Georgina,

There is no such thing as order, or "self-organisation", or "emergence" out of chaos: that's just a misleading catchphrase.

Order/ "self-organisation"/ "emergence" never occurs out of chaos: order only occurs as a result of rules.

This is where the phrase "order out of chaos" is coming from: When you plot on a graph the numerical outcomes of a rule [1], human observers sometimes notice patterns or pseudo-patterns in the number outcomes plotted on the graph. These patterns/pseudo-patterns have no power in themselves to determine outcomes - it's the other way around: it's the rules which determine the pattern/pseudo-pattern outcomes.

Enzymes don't "self-organise", order does not emerge out of chaos. Any order in the enzyme is because of an existing lawful rule.

The only debate is whether, like a hurricane, every detail of its interactions are explainable in terms of lower-level information-processing events due to existing laws of nature; or whether it is apparent that a new rule has been added to the universe-system.

.................

1. Where a rule is made up of equations, algorithms, and number assignments; and where, as a result of the rule, the number outcomes are sometimes represented as colours.

I don't think a hurricane is a comparable system. A small dust devil is like a miniature hurricane. There is no such thing as a miniature version of an enzyme I.e. The same type of functional structure at a smaller scale. The vectors for all of the individual air molecules could theoretically be amalgamated to get the mass movement of the whole hurricane; It is a question mostly of scale not complex organization.

"Despite the ubiquity of emergent behaviour there remains no deep understanding of emergence. At each level of complexity, new laws, properties and phenomena arise and herein lies the problem.

Properties describing one level of a complex system do not necessarily explain another level, despite how intrinsically connected the two may be. Understanding the emergence of the structure of molecules does not necessarily allow one to predict the emergence of cellular biology." [1]

Georgina, as I said, the only debate is whether, like a hurricane, every detail of an enzyme's interactions are explainable in terms of lower-level information-processing events due to existing laws of nature; or whether it is apparent that a new rule/law has been added to the universe-system. And the other issues are: what caused that rule, and what knows about the rule.

.......

1. Emergence: the remarkable simplicity of complexity, Andy Martin (Senior lecturer, Physics, University of Melbourne) and Kristian Helmerson (Professor of Physics, Monash University), 1 October 2014, https://theconversation.com/emergence-the-remarkable-simplicity-of-complexity-30973

Lorraine, I have given the answer that the shape and topology of the folded enzyme 's protein is required for its function. Its function is not explicable by considering its constituents alone or considering it as an unfolded sequence. I don't see why a new rule needs to be specified. It seems to me you are saying the equivalent of a circular wheel can not roll unless a new rule is written enabling it. Different shapes can accomplish different things because of what they are not because of what they have been told they can do in a rule. If you think it can be done perhaps you would explain how an enzyme works using your 'lower level information'. I have described how I think the enzyme folding is facilitated. Perhaps you would like to explain how it occurs without involving the complex environment and interactions with it.

Georgina,

As I indicated, the only debate is:

1. Whether, like a hurricane, every detail of an enzyme (naturally, I'm including it's shape/spatial configuration!!), and it's interactions, are explainable in terms of lower-level information-processing events due to existing laws of nature (which include variables representing relative spatial positions!!);

OR

2. Whether it is apparent that a new rule/law has been added to the universe-system.

Seemingly, a new rule has been added to the universe-system.

So, what created the new rule, and what knows about/experiences the new rule?

Can you explain how the function of an enzyme comes about in terms of your "lower-level information-processing events" Or does the explaining the function of the whole, by means of shape and topology, require the whole to be considered? Parts of the enzyme do not have the catalytic function on their own. I don't think any new rule is needed for the function to emerge though, that is your specification

Georgina,

Both free will and enzyme folding are high-level phenomena that, like all phenomena, rest on the foundation of physics. They are not explainable in terms of high-level phenomena or outcome situations - they are only explainable in terms of the laws of physics, and the fundamental-level nature of reality.

"Emergence" is a myth: it implies that outcome situations (representable as sets of variables and numbers) can be a logical cause of new laws/rules (representable as equations and algorithms), and thereby, new properties. But we know for a fact that only the reverse is true: the laws, and the nature of reality, are the cause of the outcome situations.

I'm claiming that both free will and enzyme folding are only explainable in terms of:

1) Adding new information relationships (representable as equations, algorithms and/or number assignments) to the universe; and

2) The necessary, fundamental aspect of the universe that creates and knows about information relationships is inherent in particles, atoms. molecules and living things, i.e. there is no numb, dumb matter.

Re the issue of whether new information can be added to the universe:

1. What IS information? Information in the universe consists of categories of information (like energy, momentum, time, relative spatial position) which equate to relationships between other categories of information, i.e. information in the universe always has context. Information is always relationship (representable as equations, algorithms and number assignments). More precisely, information is always the universe's knowledge (representable as equations, algorithms and number assignments).

2. All particle, atomic and molecular information interactions are quantum events, so there is nothing simple and easily explained going on. Energy is not always conserved within these events i.e. new information is added to the universe within these events.

3. A professor of physics and an associate professor of physics (and they are not the only ones) have come to the conclusion that: "At each level of complexity, new laws, . . .arise" [1].

.........

1. Emergence: the remarkable simplicity of complexity, Andy Martin (Senior lecturer, Physics, University of Melbourne) and Kristian Helmerson (Professor of Physics, Monash University), 1 October 2014, https://theconversation.com/emergence-the-remarkable-simplicity-of-complexity-30973

I agree that new rules can apply to higher levels of organization or complexity. A man made wing shape has rules of physics associated with air flow that apply to it; that don't apply to the micro constituents within it. The whole can provide lift in appropriate circumstances. I don't think the new rule is necessary for the shape to exist but is a result of what it is -and therefore often (but not exclusively) a reason for its manufacture. The wing shape could for example be a part of a static sculpture.

Lot's of conditional qualifications, but that would seem necessary if we are to consider knowledge and information as having a real, existential physical property. And why not? Two millennia elapsed between the abstract identification of the orthogonal relationship and the experimental observation of it having a physical form in the electromagnetic dynamic. That argues well for information being physical rather than being an artifact of analysis.

You wrote "a physical form in the electromagnetic dynamic"

Only if time is considered as something existent in/over which forms can be distributed. But not if time is only the singular extant configuration of the universe, each configuration being a different time. So there is no orthogonal time dimension in external reality as opposed to the model.

I think that processes happen but, for the most part excluding life and computers, without adhering to a separate plan or set of rules. That rules can be found that apply to repetitive processes or similar circumstances does not mean they were causal. Which is different from, for example, following a kitting pattern or running the algorithm of a cellular automaton. In such cases the information controlling the change is separate from the process and the material reality being transformed by it.

Anonymous, I think I may have misinterpreted your post. I don't know whether you are talking of the orthogonal relationship of the time dimension to space or the orthogonal relationship of magnetic and electric components of electromagnetic radiation. Not sure I follow your argument. Are you saying that because the abstract notion was considered prior to the development of the physics, the abstract is in some way producing the actualized form in nature?

G. Woodward,

I decline to create a fqxi account, the site seems to have technical problems which do not get adequate attention as would be expected of an enterprise associated with the level of expertise available through Perimeter Institute. I'm skeptical therefore of security safeguards, though I think there is some good as a public outreach and some value in serious dialogue presented here. So I occasionally browse, but a brief comment then requires use of the public box.

So without getting into a discourse, I would say your observations and questions do address the argument of what is meant by information being existential. The point of the abstraction in antiquity of orthogonality becoming observed experimentally in modernity goes to the original abstraction being an idealization of form in a comparatively primitive world. That abstraction derived from study and argument of relationships between simple ratios independent of scale, and for that matter independent of time or reference to space. Purely the ideal of ratios giving rise to geometric form, and thus implying space.

The Pythagoreans invented an abstract that then informed all manner of advancements in architecture, engineering, art, philosophy and even the formalization arithmetic and the equi-partition of the number line. So can we then argue that that evolution which led to the experimental observation of the right angle rule of electromotive force, is itself of existential origin discovered in the abstractions of idealizing thought in a earlier more primitive time? I think its would be worth arguing so as a line of inquiry.

Hi, the site does get a lot of spam. It might look like the site isn't working properly as the posts listed as recent can't all be accessed. However it is set up so spam posts, which are mostly advertising, can be reported as inappropriate and disappear while awaiting moderation.

I think the definition of existence that is used will either allow or disallow immaterial relation to be included. I would exclude them, reserving physical existence for substantial things and their relations. Brain activity in a material brain can easily be considered as something physical happening. A diagram on paper is a material representation, also something physical. But the immaterial concept without concurrent means of being known, through thought or visualization can be true/correct while not having a physical existence of itself -I think : )