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Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

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Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#351

Post by enneff »

jyounker wrote: post #102

I went I read the first few paragraphs I thought, "Is someone ripping off Stuart Kaufmann? He was writing about this idea thirty years ago." Then I read the first author: Stuart Kaufmann. For those of you following along at home, Kaufmann has been developing the ideas here for decades. The paper is less a "here is a new idea" and much more "here is a concise summary of 50 years of work". The words and thoughts seem o…

It doesn’t seem opaque to me and I’m no scientist. Pretty clearly expressed imo.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#352

Post by vixen99 »

creer wrote: post #336
scirpaceus wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also an argument that didn't sit well with me when I heard Guillaume Verdon / Beff Jezos on his recent Lex podcast state that the universe wants to produce more entropy, and that life evolved the way it has because it's more efficient at producing heat and entropy than, say, a rock. Perhaps he said that loosely as a figure of speech, because it should be obvious (religious beliefs aside) that the universe doe…

Yes, this "want" of pop science is annoying. I don't see anything lacking with simply using something like "enables", "allows". An environment with sticks allows evolutionary paths that can use sticks. A world with pools of high energy makes it easier for energy-using systems to develop there as opposed to outside of them. A world with light - go figure - makes it possible for light-using systems to subsist.

So are the atomic accretions known as humans who have 'wants' part of 'pop science'? Free will? If not, our justice system needs massive reconsideration, an idea with which many people concur but (I would have thought) is unlikely to prevail.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#353

Post by willlma »

enneff wrote: post #351
jyounker wrote: post #102

I went I read the first few paragraphs I thought, "Is someone ripping off Stuart Kaufmann? He was writing about this idea thirty years ago." Then I read the first author: Stuart Kaufmann. For those of you following along at home, Kaufmann has been developing the ideas here for decades. The paper is less a "here is a new idea" and much more "here is a concise summary of 50 years of work". The words and thoughts seem o…

It doesn’t seem opaque to me and I’m no scientist. Pretty clearly expressed imo.

So you didn't look any of these terms up? Would love an explanation of

* Kantian Wholes

* Catalytic Closure

* Constraint Closure

* Spatial Closure

* a first-order phase transition to molecular reproduction

* phylogeny of metabolisms

* template replication

Thanks

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#354

Post by birracerveza »

basil-rash wrote: post #14
asow92 wrote: post #6

> We are, truly, Of Nature, not Above Nature. This sentiment has always made me question when people say things are "unnatural", "artificial", or "synthetic": If we ourselves are of nature, and these things are a byproduct of us, then aren't they naturally occurring? edit: added "synthetic" to reduce ambiguity.

That’s one of those revelations that only sounds profound when everyone involved is really stoned. Outside of that, everyone knows the meaning of “unnatural” and we all get that the colloquial meaning and a strict etymological analysis don’t quite align.

As George Carlin said

> Could be the only reason the earth allowed us to be spawned from it in the first place. It wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it. Needed us.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#355

Post by kthielen »

jiggawatts wrote: post #294
wanderingstan wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s been a while, but in this vein I enjoyed Chaitin’s Toward a Mathematical definition of “Life” : http://home.thep.lu.se/~henrik/mnxa09/Chaitin1979.pdf Blew my mind as I started to wrap my brain around information theory.

The Lex Fridman interview with Lee Cronin "Controversial Nature Paper on Evolution of Life and Universe" really opened my eyes. I find myself agreeing with the essential points Lee lays out, that there is a mathematical / physics-based definition for life or life-like systems such as advanced AI and robotics. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGiDqhSdLHk

Yeah but, how is an assembly index different than an LZW code?

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#356

Post by lkadjal »

ta8645 wrote: post #5

Can't help but wonder, is AI an expected phase transition in the evolution of life in the universe? Is life really just the larval stage of a higher order intelligence?

We are not anywhere close to creating a conscious AI. An AI without humanity is completely pointless unless it is capable of building a conscious AI which I doubt it is.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#357

Post by lejoko »

willlma wrote: post #353
enneff wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t seem opaque to me and I’m no scientist. Pretty clearly expressed imo.

So you didn't look any of these terms up? Would love an explanation of * Kantian Wholes * Catalytic Closure * Constraint Closure * Spatial Closure * a first-order phase transition to molecular reproduction * phylogeny of metabolisms * template replication Thanks

Read the article ! As it says : "We explain these concepts below."

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#358

Post by lupusreal »

vixen99 wrote: post #352
creer wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this "want" of pop science is annoying. I don't see anything lacking with simply using something like "enables", "allows". An environment with sticks allows evolutionary paths that can use sticks. A world with pools of high energy makes it easier for energy-using systems to develop there as opposed to outside of them. A world with light - go figure - makes it possible for light-using systems to subsist.

So are the atomic accretions known as humans who have 'wants' part of 'pop science'? Free will? If not, our justice system needs massive reconsideration, an idea with which many people concur but (I would have thought) is unlikely to prevail.

The justice system doesn't really depend on free will. If the threat of punishment deterministicly alters the behavior of society in a productive way, then this justifies it.

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#359

Post by ChatGTP »

scirpaceus wrote: post #324
p-e-w wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like metaphysics. The Universe doesn't "want" to increase entropy, entropy increase is simply a consequence of applying basic statistics to matter and energy. There is no mechanism that actively explores various pathways for making entropy increase faster.

This is also an argument that didn't sit well with me when I heard Guillaume Verdon / Beff Jezos on his recent Lex podcast state that the universe wants to produce more entropy, and that life evolved the way it has because it's more efficient at producing heat and entropy than, say, a rock. Perhaps he said that loosely as a figure of speech, because it should be obvious (religious beliefs aside) that the universe doe…

Who is Beff Jezos?

Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?

#360

Post by spiralx »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #291
jmcqk6 wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you describe a rock sitting on the top of a mountain? It is not moving relative to the matter around it, but it certainly contains quite a bit of energy, in a variety of different forms. I am trying to recognize that even in that rock, energy is dissipating in multiple ways, and any number of different events can lead to it dissipating in different ways. I suppose you can say that the individual atoms compo…

potential energy is. IMO, largely a pedagogical tool. it's an explanatory position, rather than a thing. the rock, does, obviously "contain" energy thanks to e=mc2. but the notion that the rock is energetically in a different state as it sits on top of the mountain that when it sits at the bottom never sat well with me in high school, and it still doesn't, 45 years later.

I mean any type of energy is just as intangible as potential energy, so I don't see that the energy stored by doing work (i.e. interacting with one four forces) is that different to the idea of energy stored by being in motion. You never measure "energy" directly after all, but it's a useful abstraction - after all, everything in science is an explanatory position.
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