Matt: An exact description of the quantum state of the universe gives you everything else.
Pei:> Why? Just because it is the smallest object we know? Is this a
self-evident commonsense, or a conclusion from physics? As I said before, this is a very strong version of reductionism. It was widely accepted in the time of Newton and Laplace, but I don't think it is still considered as a valid theory in philosophy of science. This position is not only unjustifiable, but also lead the research to wrong directions. It is like to suggest an architect to analyze the structure of a building at atom level, because all building materials are made by atoms, after all. The fact that all building materials are indeed made by atoms only makes the suggestion even more harmful than a suggestion based on false statements.
The real flaw in physics-based reductionism is that you cannot explain *evolution*/*creativity*. Your quantum explanation will not explain for a start how new molecules - elements - compounds evolved.
Now in principle it might be possible to have a quantum account that explained the capacity for some level of evolutionary emergence - some level of element-ary evolution. But it's hardly going to explain higher levels. Different kinds of wholes - different kinds of clouds and stars and planets and black holes.
And it's certainly not going to explain how life evolved - how cells came to be, how, for example, different kinds of sensing and perception and consciousness and reflection and conscience emerged.
In sum, a physics explanation cannot explain how the different levels of forms and behaviour of matter - of which the world consists - evolved - and *could/will evolve in the future*. Physics is very low-level.stuff.
This is why I keep banging on about Kauffman's Reinventing the Sacred.It deals precisely with this. And it makes the connection - as AI/AGI-ers completely fail to do between all kinds of creativity - from low-level evolutionary creativity to high-level human and social creativity. (BTW evolution and creativity have themselves evolved and taken on new forms - and will continue to do so).
The challenge for science generally is to develop a new mechanistic worldview that can incorporate the creativity of the world - just as the challenge for AGI is to explain and instantiate high-level creativity (and even start talking about it).
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