Life only physical/chemical reaction?

[quantumcarl]

Chaos, Process, Design and mud

Dudes, try and get into the mind-set of "emergence, Complexity Theory, Catastrophe Theory, bifurcation, critical points, and non-linear dynamics". Really I've come to terms with questions about nature, evolution, biology, the brain and mind from those prespectives and it makes sense to me. Now I could be wrong but about 10 years ago I use to look outside of my window and wonder why about lots of things in the world. Then I started studying non-linear dynamics and the others topics I mentioned above. I no longer wonder why about a lot of things.

However we explain things and whatever we project on to what we are able to observe in nature... we're still a pile of rocks that can walk and talk by clacking our bits together and making sparks .

Isn't that special?!

 

[selfAdjoint]

However we explain things and whatever we project on to what we are able to observe in nature... we're still a pile of rocks that can walk and talk by clacking our bits together and making sparks .

Isn't that special?!

It sure is, and that raises the question of why some people need to postulate something EXTRA in us. I am not talking about those who have personal experiences to cite, but the others, who just don't think evolved creatures are fine enough for them to be one.

 

[BigMacnFries]

Dudes, try and get into the mind-set of "emergence, Complexity Theory, Catastrophe Theory, bifurcation, critical points, and non-linear dynamics". Really I've come to terms with questions about nature, evolution, biology, the brain and mind from those prespectives and it makes sense to me.

Can you give a brief intro into how these theories might give insight?

 

[saltydog]

Can you give a brief intro into how these theories might give insight?

Hello BigMac.

Perhaps I should work on a coherent presentation; that would take time. But for now I can give you some examples:

Consider Emergence and Complexity Theory first. The quintessential example is the termite mound: the termites do not know what they're building; they don't have enough neurons. Yet the clay cathederal "emerges" from the ground. The mound is an emergent property of the non-linear dynamics between termite, mud, and peheromone. Scott Camazine, et. al., presents this and other examples in "Self-Organization in Biological Systems". Complex interractions give rise to gestalt properties. Should we be so surprised that life emerges from complex chemistry? Should we not be so with massivelly fed-back non-linear neural dynamics giving rise to mind?

Another interesting book about Complexity Theory is, "Complexification" by John Casti.

Next consider bifurcations and critical points. Many phenomena in nature exhibit abrupt change: water turning to ice, a concrete block suddenly fracturing, an avalanche, explosion, tons more. The dynamics in these cases are not smooth: they exhibit a critical point, surpassing such results often in qualitatively different behavior. Stuart Kauffman wrote "At Home in the Universe" in which he presents his views about the origin of life from the perspective of Emergence and critical points: "whenever a collection of chemicals contains enough different kinds of molecules, a metabolism will crystallize from the broth": perhaps a critical point was reached in the early chemical history of the Earth springing forth life.

Non-linear dynamics exhibits "strange attractors", stable regimes of activity surrounded by a "basin of attraction": nearby dynamics are "drawn into" the attractor. At this point, I am led once again to quote Rene' Thom from "Structural Stability and Morphogenesis":

"All creation or destruction of form or morphogenesis can be described by the disappearance of the attractor representing the initial form and its replacement by capture by the attractor representing the final form".

From this perspective, one can consider the drive from simple to complex that we observe in living systems as the trajectory biochemistry takes as it is "captured" by attractors embedded more deeply within its dynamics: like zooming into a Mandelbrot Set.

Rene' Thom is the father of Catastrophe Theory. The quentessential example is the cusp catastrophe exhibited in the cubic differential equation:

\frac{dy}{dt}=a+by-y^3

The important point is that much non-linear dynamics exhibits "shocks", or catastrophies which cause abrupt and qualitatively change to a system when it is pushed past a "bifurcation point" (critical point). Could this have been the reason for the Cambrian Explosion, the divergence of man from ape, and the Big Bang? I believe it was.

 

[quantumcarl]

The important point is that much non-linear dynamics exhibits "shocks", or catastrophies which cause abrupt and qualitatively change to a system when it is pushed past a "bifurcation point" (critical point). Could this have been the reason for the Cambrian Explosion, the divergence of man from ape, and the Big Bang? I believe it was.

The points raised in your post are outstanding in detail and reason.

One term I'd question is where you say catastrophe and non-linear dynamics could be the "reason" behind the big bang and the emergence of life etc. Reason implies logic and, judging from what you've described about chaos and so on... there is no logic but rather cause and effect.

Still this is very cool stuff. Is this study a branch of physics?!

There are many who really don't want to believe that catastrophe is the catylist to evolution and change. They take the long slow approach where, over time, genes are modified by incremental behaviour and environemental modifications.

When I encounter people of this school I remind them that pretty well all events are catastrophies... relative to scale... but catastrophies just the same.

 

[saltydog]

Is this study a branch of physics?!

I think it's a consortium of several fields with emphasis on Mathematics.

There are many who really don't want to believe that catastrophe is the catylist to evolution and change. They take the long slow approach where, over time, genes are modified by incremental behaviour and environemental modifications.

Gradual change of course is part of evolution: Punctuated Equilibrium represents periods of relative statis "punctuated" by periods of rapid change. To me, that is suspiciously consistent with Catastophe. Consider the cubic differential equation which exhibits the plot below. This is the cusp catastrophe. Consider some dynamic process described by following the the surface of the top fold towards the edge. The dynamics is relatively smooth until it reaches the edge, the bifurcation point. At this point, it abruptly "falls" off the edge onto the bottom fold. A catastrophe has occurred and often the change causes qualitatively different dynamics. I image all of life 550 or so million years ago on the top fold of such a cusp. Something happen "pushing" the dynamics across the bifurcation point. Disparate animal clans emerged on the bottom fold.

 

[BigMacnFries]

Consider Emergence and Complexity Theory first. The quintessential example is the termite mound: the termites do not know what they're building; they don't have enough neurons. Yet the clay cathederal "emerges" from the ground. The mound is an emergent property of the non-linear dynamics between termite, mud, and peheromone. Scott Camazine, et. al., presents this and other examples in "Self-Organization in Biological Systems". Complex interractions give rise to gestalt properties. Should we be so surprised that life emerges from complex chemistry? Should we not be so with massivelly fed-back non-linear neural dynamics giving rise to mind?

I think this point is incedibly interesting in the creation of the brain. From the small amount I have read about neural networks, it seems some basic principles, such as Kohonen networks, can mean a bunch of neurons that are somewhat stupid in an individual sense, can self organise into a network that does some amazing things.

The problem with this idea of neural dynamics giving rise to the mind and not the brain is that of logical supervenience. It seems obviously clear to me that there could be a being excatly the same as me, atom for atom, neuron for neuron, that simply does not have any qualia. It does everything and says everything I do but it is completely "dark" on the inside. Although it might seem weird that this being would write what I'm writing now that is a separate argument. The only point I am making is that this kind of being seems logically possible, i.e. you could imagine it.

With the termite mound you cannot imagine all the individual termites doing excatly what they do individually, but the termite mound not being there. The "termite mound" and "the termites doing what they do" are different ways of talking about the same thing. You cannot have one and not the other, they logically supervene.

You can have a brain without qualia, therefore they do not logically supervene. Therefore although the idea you described above is very interesting in terms of how brains emerge it doesn't seem to be a very good idea of how qualia emerge. Its just another way of describing a physical system or physical properties and then saying that these physical properties that emerge are qualia, where, in auctual fact, qualia do not logically supervene onto these emergent physical properties, so explaining them does not explain qualia.

 

[saltydog]

It seems obviously clear to me that there could be a being excatly the same as me, atom for atom, neuron for neuron, that simply does not have any qualia. It does everything and says everything I do but it is completely "dark" on the inside.

You can have a brain without qualia, therefore they do not logically supervene. Therefore although the idea you described above is very interesting in terms of how brains emerge it doesn't seem to be a very good idea of how qualia emerge. Its just another way of describing a physical system or physical properties and then saying that these physical properties that emerge are qualia, where, in auctual fact, qualia do not logically supervene onto these emergent physical properties, so explaining them does not explain qualia.

Hello BigMac. I've run across qualia a lot and still do not understand it so cannot respond to your comments. There are many good people in here that do understand it well and so do not wish to serve as an example of PF's level of familiarity with the topic. Thanks for replying though.

 

[quantumcarl]

Hello BigMac. I've run across qualia a lot and still do not understand it so cannot respond to your comments. There are many good people in here that do understand it well and so do not wish to serve as an example of PF's level of familiarity with the topic. Thanks for replying though.

Qualia/awarenesses/personal modes of perception emerge from the emergent property of an emergent phenomenon. It is these properties that caused the evolution of qualia and determine the nature of awareness itself.

Qualia is a physical and an emergent property. If you compare the termite to qualia and actions thereby caused by awareness, there is only one root process bringing them into the classic environment of emergence. The termite evolves from physical processes. The end product of neuronal development and evolution, which is physical, is the emergent property of qualia. Qualia is determined by hormonal balances or imbalances and other individual "wiring" or behavioural modification learned by the neurons or cerebrial ganglia of an organism.

There is no darkness without a personal qualia. There is only confusion in a brain that can't determine a qualia of its own and that must rely on existing opinions and other external stimulus to form temporary opinions/personalities of their own.

To say that qualia isn't related to emergent properties is to say that the sound a cricket makes isn't related to the cricket's legs rubbing together... or that the light produced by a firefly is not a result of its physiology.