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Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

#91

Post by ysofunny »

bubblyworld wrote: post #41
hliyan wrote: post #38

Tried reading the paper [1]. I understand the authors are academics, which is why I'm surprised the paper reads like a layman's attempt at a contributing to a "theory of everything", or at best, an inquiry written by a 18th century European philosopher of science. - "identification of conceptual equivalencies among disparate phenomena were foundational to developing previous laws of nature" - what exactly is a "conce…

I think speculative science always starts out as philosophy. This is as true now as it was in the 18th century. If you look at any thinker on the edge of human understanding you'll find something similar (e.g. I was reading Michael Levin's stuff on bioelectricity recently and it also has a heavy dose of philosophy). I don't really have an issue with any of the points you raised - why do they bother you? The interesti…

> I think speculative science always starts out as philosophy

or in my words: "the first approximation is poetic. the last one is mathematical"

from philosophy to hard-science and engineered tooling and other products (andor services)

similarly to

from poetry as dubious, cloudy, and vague ideas all the way to crystal clear, fixed and unmoving (dead) formalizations

Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

#92

Post by ysofunny »

analog31 wrote: post #81
haswell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think speculative science always starts out as philosophy. This is as true now as it was in the 18th century. Indeed, and Natural Philosophy was the precursor to what we now call Science. I still think the old name better fit what we’re doing because it admits that the work is still a philosophical endeavor. This is not to question the validity of what we now call science, but it’s common these days to believe in…

Tell me about the supremacy of science after the government restores the NIH, NOAA, etc. In fact most people in the world believe in the supremacy of their religious faiths.

My religious faith is science

now what?

Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

#93

Post by ysofunny »

EncomLab wrote: post #51

"Complexity" is a hugely problematic term when used in this way - remember that entropy and complexity are related, but they are not interchangeable. A complex system can have lower entropy than a simpler system, and conversely, a system can have high entropy but be relatively simple. By mingling these terms without specifying objective reference points, it all just comes out as word salad. This paper just reads like…

that is why the complex is distinct from the complicated

Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

#94

Post by haswell »

analog31 wrote: post #81
haswell wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think speculative science always starts out as philosophy. This is as true now as it was in the 18th century. Indeed, and Natural Philosophy was the precursor to what we now call Science. I still think the old name better fit what we’re doing because it admits that the work is still a philosophical endeavor. This is not to question the validity of what we now call science, but it’s common these days to believe in…

Tell me about the supremacy of science after the government restores the NIH, NOAA, etc. In fact most people in the world believe in the supremacy of their religious faiths.

You're describing anti-science sentiment, which is problematic and dangerous. But this is also whataboutism.

I'm describing unfounded beliefs many people hold about science based mostly on a lack of philosophical understanding, which is orthogonal to anti-science sentiment and still important to examine.

I don't see a reason for there to be tension between the two.

Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

#95

Post by mjan22640 »

kmoser wrote: post #6
Gualdrapo wrote: post #4

I remember reading somewhere that maybe the purpose of life is to increase entropy in the universe. If that is true and we haven't found any sound evidence of life elsewhere, I don't know.

Where did you read this? "Purpose" is a very loaded word. If life has any purpose at all, it's to reproduce and propagate one's genes. Additional entropy just sounds like an inevitable side-effect of that.

Reproduction is not really a purpose. What makes copies of itself, happens to persist.

Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

#96

Post by Kungfuturtle »

This reminds me of Teilhard de Chardin's take on complexification, as laid out in his seminal book Le Phénomène humain. See e.g., this article[0] for a simple overview of the hypothesis. For further reading, I recommend the excellent new translation by Sarah Appleton-Weber, The Human Phenomenon[1].

[0] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/%28SICI%2910...>

[1] https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10.3828/...>

Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

#97

Post by roughly »

kens wrote: post #78

Coincidentally, I'm reading Walker's book "Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence" on the same topic. (Walker is one of the researchers in the article.) Summary: I don't like the book. The book was motivating me to write an article "Books I don't like", but I'll comment here instead :-) The book describes "Assembly Theory", a theory of how life can arise in the universe. The idea is that you can qua…

Walker gave a talk recently at Long Now on Assembly Theory that sounds like it did a better job of getting the point across:

https://longnow.org/ideas/informational-theory-life/

Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

#98

Post by Viliam1234 »

kens wrote: post #78

Coincidentally, I'm reading Walker's book "Life as No One Knows It: The Physics of Life's Emergence" on the same topic. (Walker is one of the researchers in the article.) Summary: I don't like the book. The book was motivating me to write an article "Books I don't like", but I'll comment here instead :-) The book describes "Assembly Theory", a theory of how life can arise in the universe. The idea is that you can qua…

> It's not a crackpot book, but there are an uncomfortable number of crackpot red flags.

How do you know it's not a crackpot book? All evidence you mentioned here seems to support that conclusion.

Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

#99

Post by analog31 »

haswell wrote: post #94
analog31 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me about the supremacy of science after the government restores the NIH, NOAA, etc. In fact most people in the world believe in the supremacy of their religious faiths.

You're describing anti-science sentiment, which is problematic and dangerous. But this is also whataboutism. I'm describing unfounded beliefs many people hold about science based mostly on a lack of philosophical understanding, which is orthogonal to anti-science sentiment and still important to examine. I don't see a reason for there to be tension between the two.

I may have overreacted. I'm a scientist, and I'm surrounded by scientists. When I hear about "supremacy of science" it's usually being presented as a straw man. I don't know any scientists who believe it, beyond the temporary phase in everybody's education where they get caught up in the "master of the universe" feeling.

Re: Why Everything in the Universe Turns More Complex

#100

Post by analog31 »

ysofunny wrote: post #92
analog31 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me about the supremacy of science after the government restores the NIH, NOAA, etc. In fact most people in the world believe in the supremacy of their religious faiths.

My religious faith is science now what?

I'm open minded about religion. It can be whatever you want.
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