At the current age of the universe with the laws of physics as currently manifest is life a fundamental organisational aspect of physics and maths?
If we look at crystals, snow flakes, chemical reactions they are forced to form / organise a certain way when the conditions are within certain parameters. Is life also like this? Although the replication process of life is not as certain as crystaline structures neither is it as optional as the quantum froth - it is somewhat midway in between with one difference to both extremes - it agregates information over time increasing in complexity rather than collapsing or remaining in statis. Is life a fundamental law of the universe? Could it in fact be the unifying law that is being looked for - the law that would unify maths and physics?
To 'explain' - and it really is an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole:
1/ A system(a) without interaction with another system(b) does not exist for (b)(a practical example of this would be beyond the edge of the universe as perceived from the earth - since we cannot exchange information beyond the edge of the universe (light can never reach us nor could we send any light to it - it is expanding too fast) as far as 'our' system is concerned it does not exist nor can it ever (no matter how much time you spend you could never get there.))
2/ Once a system interacts with another it collapses all the potential options in the system down to one ( schrodinger's cat - until you interact again with the system the previous interaction between the systems collapsed the state of the cat to alive or dead - once you interact with the cat system again this duality also collapses.) Thus a system you cannot interact with OR have not yet interacted with is in the state beloved of Daoism - the uncarved block. It is a matter of debate as to whether your interaction merely confirms the state of the system or actively solidifies its history (imagine the cat system again - you open the box and its dead BUT you have a time machine so you go back in time and restart the process - since quantum processes are not fixed it is entirely possible that this time around the cat survives - the observer gets to alter history!)
3/ Our current attempts to explain the universe rest upon a system of maths that is not real - it is a perfect model of an imperfect manifestation of matter (theoretically you can divide the number one forever but in reality there is a fundamental limit to the smallest size of a particle - i.e. a real world physical limit to division - that means we have a finite number of particles / information in the universe but a notation system that is infinite ergo fundamentally incorrect.) The maths doesn't even maintain an accurate description of the universe at a singularity.
4/ We have to decide upon what physical laws the universe was and is formed - do they exist outside of the universe and if so what decides them in a non-existing system? or do they form from the universe at each stage of its 'life' in which case are they somewhat arbitrary? In both scenarios we either have a set of laws that 'create' the universe and hence life must be pre-encoded before the big bang even started (and a whole world of infinite regression hurt) OR the laws that engender life swing into existence at some point caused by the universe itself. Either way we get the uncomfortable situation where life looks necessary - i.e. forced by law rather than an accident of entropy.
5/ If life - the ability of matter to gather information and replicate and piggyback on the energy distribution of the universe to do so - is encoded in the laws then we begin to wonder why? If we can find a need for an observer to interact with ANY system to give it meaning (collapse its potentials into one) then it is possible that life is required to collapse the universe into reality. Once life exists it has the potential to replicate and identify the fundamental laws - i.e. the potential of conscience - the ability to become self aware. Once the universe or a portion of the universe is self aware it has the possibility of understanding how to start a universe again (???) The potential for life to respawn another universe encoded with life making laws..again.
What am I trying to say .. if life exists then life must be a fundamental law (since everything can be explained by fundamental laws) but if life is a fundamental law then God ends up being fundamental as well since that is the potential of life (to organise future universes or to maintain this universe forever or at the very least to fulfil a creative observer role) It doesn't need to be a bearded God or a multi-headed deity - it just needs to be sufficiently conscious to know the fundamental laws (and maybe then have control over them.) It also means that this universe MUST be teeming with life since the laws are encoded for that and there will be many, many earthlike planets across the universe each one repeating the drive to become conscious.
If only my excuse was pot!! - sadly its just my garbled reading of the Goldilocks enigma (Paul Davies) - and bless him these are my deliberations after he got me thinking - his stuff is far better.
Is life a fundamental law - or does the universe need observers
by Qcmbr 14 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Qcmbr
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DT
I've been thinking about some of these questions recently, but I'm afraid I'll have to do some more research before I feel prepared to comment on them
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Qcmbr
bttt
I spend ages thinking about this give me some comments you gimps hehehe -
darkuncle29
Interesting ideas Qcmbr.
I lack the language and vocabulary to discuss this in a scientific or intellectual way, but I do love the story of schroedinger's cats.
Here's my idea: All life is part of the 'creative awareness" of the universe, we are the "sensory" organs of the awareness. Most of us are not aware of the greater mind/awareness/whatever, but some may be. Our current state of human affairs is the result of an autoimmune disorder among the seemingly individual life units.
When that gets sorted out-or if it ever does-we return to the greater universal awareness. *pause*
OR - and this is going to be more difficult to communicate- Humans are all collectivly "god", but god doesn't exist until we get our crap sorted out with each otherfirst, and until after so many life cycles or however it works, we finially do get it worked out and we come together. Then at that moment, our individual minds/essences, combine and form the previous mentioned universal awareness. This awareness knows and can work with all the laws of physics, and exists outside of this universe's time frame, so that it can go back to the begining and create the universe and start the evolutionary process again, here or like you said, in a whole new universe.
Along the lines of what you were saying, life being the "missing" conceptual componet to our physics, what if the missing component wasn't so much life but love. I think the missing love is why "bad things" happen. It's not an absent god who allows bad things to happen, but us. We are learning-hopefully- to do the right things, the loving things. Sorry, I wandered a bit there.
So, there's my poorly worded stab at this discussion.
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cultswatter
2/ Once a system interacts with another it collapses all the potential options in the system down to one
Look at a black hole that draws in material. Some of the energy is beamed back out and some falls into the hole.
but in reality there is a fundamental limit to the smallest size of a particle
No one knows that for sure. but it is known that the nature of energy can be described sometimes as a particle and other times as an energy field
The maths doesn't even maintain an accurate description of the universe at a singularity.
I think that is outdated physics you are talking about. I think the notion of a singularity has been abandoned
Basically you are saying that physics wants to observe itself. I guess in a contorted way it might be possible
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Deputy Dog
Qcmbr
What am I trying to say .. if life exists then life must be a fundamental law (since everything can be explained by fundamental laws) but if life is a fundamental law then God ends up being fundamental as well since that is the potential of life (to organise future universes or to maintain this universe forever or at the very least to fulfil a creative observer role)
This looks like Mormon Theology
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Qcmbr
Deputy - I guess it does (so?) but this bit doesn't
"or at the very least to fulfil a creative observer role"
I'm wondering whether the role of life is to observe and whether life could in some way be a precondition of maths and physics or whether the laws that underlie maths and physics end up realising life.
Life is utterly special because only life has the ability to allow information to self examine, only life has the ability to examine and possibly understand its source. I once wrote an essay arguing that it is impossible to deconstruct a system using tools only generated from that system - in essence the tools themselves become the smallest measure of precision. In order to truly understand a system you need to use something external to it ( practical example - someone in a cult will struggle to discern objective truth using only tools agreed by the cult.) If life precedes this universe it can hope to fully understand it, if is caused by this universe it may be unable to see the whole picture??
I don't yet buy the idea that consciousness is an unnecessary side effect of evolution (I'm hoping that we can find evidence that it is a law - that consciousness permeates all life given enough time.) - why does life aggregate information? There is no other system we have so far observed that does that. Life doesn't just sort it processes, selects and passes on - in short it has offspring. If life is a fundamental law - the law of children - then maybe we could see this in other systems - maybe this universe is a child of another and so on..
I'm going back to watching my movie now! -
DT
It's kind of like the question of whether a a falling tree makes a sound if no one is around to hear it. Does the universe exist if there is no one to observe it? It may seem pretty philosophical, but scientific discoveries about the role of the observer in reality suggest that it may be a legitimate question. I can speculate that there are many universes that are a kind of collection of probability waves that haven't collapsed yet because there isn't yet an observer present. Or what if a universe develops as a growing collection of probability waves and it finally includes probability waves that represent a proper observer. Could that probability wave collapse itself and bring that universe into existence? This could change our view on the chances of life developing. It could even make it seem inevitable in some circumstances. I'm sorry if I'm explaining myself poorly. We and our language seem poorly adapted to discuss and understand these abstract concepts.
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Qcmbr
DT - absolutely spot on.
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Deputy Dog
Qcmbr
Life is utterly special because only life has the ability to allow information to self examine, only life has the ability to examine and possibly understand its source. I once wrote an essay arguing that it is impossible to deconstruct a system using tools only generated from that system - in essence the tools themselves become the smallest measure of precision. In order to truly understand a system you need to use something external to it ( practical example - someone in a cult will struggle to discern objective truth using only tools agreed by the cult.) If life precedes this universe it can hope to fully understand it, if is caused by this universe it may be unable to see the whole picture??
Only intelligent "Life"!
I don't yet buy the idea that consciousness is an unnecessary side effect of evolution (I'm hoping that we can find evidence that it is a law - that consciousness permeates all life given enough time.)
Even plants and microbes?