What causes the atom to decay? Is it really some determining nudge or do we believe the strongly supported maths that says the "collapse of the wavefunction" is actually spontaneous or probabilistic? — apokrisis
Heisenberg didn't prove indeterminacy, he proved uncertainty inherent in certain kinds of measurements. — VagabondSpectre
If we boil this down, life is self-organizing information (and consumes energy to do it, and so requires abundance of fuel). — VagabondSpectre
if some hidden, more fundamental, thing efficiently causes a particle to decay, then would that not beg the question as to what determines the hidden cause? — John
The unmoved mover is the simplicity of form that lies at the end of the trail (the Heat Death that is entropy's self-made sink). — apokrisis
he way I'm usually referring to information is in the sense of physical data contained in particular arrangements and regimes of interaction between matter and energy. — VagabondSpectre
Given that life is an open system, and that the dissipative structures to which you allude depend on an influx of energy (in order to resist the second law of thermodynamics), where does hard indeterminism actually benefit the model? — VagabondSpectre
The electron transport train is what keeps life warm so to speak, but the self-organizing property of life's data goes beyond that to provide innovative direction well beyond mere random variance. — VagabondSpectre
If we boil this down, life is self-organizing information (and consumes energy to do it, and so requires abundance of fuel). — VagabondSpectre
Learning digital information networks are also physical structures which give rise to physical complexity that can rival the complexity found in nano-scale biological machinery. Even though it all exists materially as stored charges (what we abstract as bits), the connections and relationships between these parts can grow in complexity by more efficiently utilizing and ordering it's bits rather than by acquiring more of them (although more bits doesn't hurt). — VagabondSpectre
We don't have an AI yet capable of taking control over it's own existence (in the way that biological life does as a means of perpetuation), but I think that chasm is shrinking faster than most people realize. — VagabondSpectre
Still struggling with how this is not simply nihilism, — Wayfarer
Why does it have to be not nihilism? — apokrisis
Then we (Kim jong-un, or Trump) should press the red button then, and get back on track.Why does it have to be not nihilism? My argument is that the goal of the Comos is entropification. Then life and mind arise to accelerate that goal where it happens to have got locally retarded. So life and mind are the short-term cost of the Cosmos reaching its long-term goal.
That's not just nihilism - the idea that our existence is cosmically meaningless. I am asserting we exist to positively pick up the pace of cosmic annihilation. So super-nihilism. :)
You may have an aversion to the word "essence", but your "common use", which is full of ambiguities and equivocations is quite useless for any deductive logic. — Metaphysician Undercover
I've already said that these are two different issues - that the Comos itself might be indeterministic or vague "at base", and that life requires material indeterminism as the condition for being able to control material flows. — apokrisis
Nevertheless, I think any information whatsover must mean something, or bear meaning, or have meaning - otherwise, how is it information? 'Meaning' and 'information' aren’t synonyms, but they’re joined at the hip. — Wayfarer
Yes, but that is only the material conditions we experience, which might be like navel gazing in reference to the bigger picture.But we have good telescopes. We can see the heat death already. The Universe is only a couple of degrees off absolute voidness. The average energy density is a handful of atoms per cubic metre. Nihilism is hardly speculation.
When you look at a photograph on a computer screen, you're seeing a representation of data contained in light that came from the real world; the information conveyed by the image on your screen reflects real world data. How it actually gets that way though entails many transformations and what we might refer to as abstractions between the original existent data and the stored representation that reflects it — VagabondSpectre
A probabilistic collapse of uncertainty in particle-waves isn't exactly indeterminism. — VagabondSpectre
"Self"-organizing information might be slightly deceptive phrasing. I'm not looking for an un-caused cause. Complex structure and patterns can grow in size and complexity from a basic set of simple and well defined rules which cumulatively adds complexity the longer they exist. Complex states far into the progression of a given system depend on and can be informed by previous and less complex states of that system and it's inputs. It is specifically the function of data left-over from previous states/inputs informing (giving rise to apparent anticipation) the progression of the system toward more complex states of being which I would illustratively describe as "self-organizing". — VagabondSpectre
What is required for deductive logic is that the use on the left be the same as the use on the right. — Banno
If 'the meaning' is in some sense fundamental then it seriously challenges physicalism - which is exactly why, I think, Apokrisis' style of semiotic analysis and the rest, has suddenly become such a big deal. — Wayfarer
The wave-function collapse is the single greatest philosophical/metaphysical issue arising out of modern physics. Ironic, considering how strongly positivists had hoped that physics would once and for all drive a stake through the heart of metaphysics. — Wayfarer
Perhaps you were not looking for an uncaused cause, but that's what you described. When you introduce "a basic set of simple and well defined rules", then you assume information which is outside of the "self-organizing" system. You avoid an uncaused cause by positing a set of rules. But by doing this, you have changed the description of the thing (life). It is no longer "self-organizing information", it is now described as a capacity to follow some rules. And since the rules must exist as some form of information, now your described thing (life) must have the capacity to interpret information.
Do you agree, that your self-organizing thing requires these two things for its existence, a set of rules, and the capacity to interpret rules? There is one other thing which I must add though, and that is the will to act. Rules and interpretations of rules do not create any organized structures without the will to act according to the rules. — Metaphysician Undercover
I just mention all this as there is a fourth metaphysical option which gets beyond the problems presented by the others you mention. And it checks out scientifically - or at least that is what all the quantum evidence, dissipative structure theory, and condensed matter physics should by now suggest. — apokrisis
A computer which can work somewhat objectively in translating languages or a camera which takes a picture and records light data are not aware of the meaning contained within the data they manipulate and store, but they somewhat objectively work with that data none the less in a way that retains meaning. — VagabondSpectre
Is it really a fourth option, or just essentially an elaboration of the second option I listed? — John
It is different in that it explicitly embraces the holism of a dichotomy. It says reality is the result of a separation towards two definite and complementary poles of being - chance and necessity, material fluctuation and formal constraint, or what Peirce called tychism and synechism, that is, spontaneity and continuity. — apokrisis
Electricity is extensively utilized by living things. — Mongrel
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.