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?
#2Seems like a common theme these days, to find some theory of math/physics to explain life/evolution/consciousness
E/Acc -> Second law of thermodynamics leads to 'life' as way of increasing entropy. https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-new-thermodynamics-theory-o...
Constructor Theory -> A constructor is an entity that can cause the task to occur while retaining the ability to cause it again. - and Life is constructors.
Assembly Theory -> Lee Cronin. Assembly Theory defines all objects by their capacity to be assembled or broken down using minimal paths. https://iai.tv/articles/a-new-theory-of-matter-may-help-expl...
Whatever Donald Hoffman is saying lately. Which might not be about underlying layers, just how we can't know them.
etc...
Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?
#3This is written like a literary academic blog article rather than an academic paper in the sciences. It's fully of literary free association and hyperbolic language, etc.
At best it's a sort of mission statement for what would need to be a research programme with many many academic papers behind it. As it is, I'm not sure what the authors aim here is. It's a blog post.
Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?
#4Time to break out John Baez's checklist: https://archive.org/details/TheCrackpotIndex
Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?
#5Can'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?
Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?
#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.
Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?
#7Can'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?
In the context of the universe, I wouldn't call it "intelligence" versus "artificial intelligence". I would call it "organic intelligence" vs "inorganic intelligence".
Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?
#8> 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.
It makes more sense when you realize that unnatural and artificial are societal words akin to immoral or bad. Within that context they are perfectly crumulent words, it's only when we wish to have them be objective outside humanity that they don't make sense anymore.
Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?
#9I think life is going to be quite common as it seems it just requires liquid water and an extremely common type of rock in order to form alkaline hydro-thermic vents.
It appears that life developed quite quickly in this manner after the formation of the Earth.
The leap from bacteria and archaea to eukaryotes, however, took billions of years. So complex life may be rare.
Re: Is the emergence of life an expected phase transition in the evolving universe?
#10> 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.
Ok, maybe synthetic is a better word for many instances of their use. As in synthesized with the aid human intervention.