Glen, I think Carl is referring to my earlier remark about String Theory. He is not alone in attacking Popper because Popper's idea concerning falsifiability and a "true" scientific theory stand in the way of just accepting a proposed theory base just on their mathematical elegance. I, myself, hope that science doesn't go this way, as it will be difficult to know where to draw the line between science and philosophy or even religion. Too Platonic for my taste.
So, you are correct that this is not entirely relevant to the current area of discussion. Nonetheless, I happen to like Jerry Coyne's position on this belief system, his being a lot less snippy than the Sabine one, IMHO: Is falsifiability essential to science? <https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/12/20/is-falsifiability-essential-to-science/> Sorry for the delayed response; I am out of town, and so, not near my library references. But, let's me try to continue with my feeble comparisons between the propositions of these three scientists: Deutch|Marletto (bing one), England, and Smolin. OK. So, I hear you saying (please correct me!) that you do see a > similarity in all 3 (England, Smolin, and Marletto) up to their attempts to > find a non-teleological explanation for the structures to which we tend to > ascribe teleology (teleonomic). You're right that I agree up to that point. Yep; it was teleonomy under the looking glass in the context of biological systems in particular ... with Nick leading the discussion with his 1987 paper on the topic, which I read with great interest. In your prior post, you posited that Marletto might be more closely aligned > with England, but England *contra* Smolin. My response was that Smolin > seems to be saying much the same thing as England. So, if Marletto is > consistent with England, then Marletto might also be consistent with > Smolin. And my stronger assertion is that England does not seem to > contradict Smolin. Actually, I think I said that Smolin's idea "competes" with Mareletto's. That was sloppy; I meant that Smolin's theory can exist in the same space with Constructor Theory as an explanatory system, but one that operates on the macro scale (cosmological), especially with respect to initial conditions (constraints) to our universe. Constructor Theory proposes a physical universe at the microscale that could start here and unfold with new constraints "evolving" from earlier ones. I see the heavier elements (e.g., carbon ... gold) being generated from later generation suns as a possible example of this. England seems to take this history into the abiogenesis by appealing to the idea of metabolic homeostasis with the production of dissipative systems being a likely outcome in this universe. Anyway, I should have used the term "complements" versus "competes." Erwin Schrödinger, in his *What is Life* (1944) coined the term *negentropy* to explain the process of such dissipative systems usurping negative entropy from their environments (e.g., food, sunlight) and staying in balance by expelling positive entropy back into their environments (heat or enthalpy in thermodynamic terms). Negentropy was later recognized (even by Schrödinger) to be equivalent to Gibbs free energy (i.e., energy available for work), especially because living systems exist in environments that are relatively stable in terms of temperature and pressure. Someone later than Schrödinger described this negentropy process as the extraction of *information* from the environment, which fits well, I think, with Constructor Theory. Gibbs (statistical) Entropy function resembles Claude Shannon's Information Entropy function, which seems to have motivated this concept. Some think that entropy is better for analyzing just closed (isolated or adiabatic) systems ... but this is a very complex topic, especially with respect to systems operating far from equilibrium maintain structures with few degrees of freedom or states. It's pretty amazing stuff, though ... but I am not the best one to explain these processes ... and that's just what they are: processes. Yes, Smolin and England could be aligned but on different scales--macro and micro respectively. For Smolin we would need to understand black holes a bit better in this context, I think. A fecund universe is one with a lot of black holes ... cosmic eggs, if you will that have cosmic "genomes" that resemble the parent universe, but with variations due to whatever. So see these as new constraint generators, I suppose, in the context of Constructor Theory. Can any of this be brought back into the domain of *teleonomy*? It is a question of about how something can arise from nothing. In an earlier thread with my philosophy group I brought this to a discussion on a similar topic titled "The Bridge From Nowhere": This might have something to do with the *Hard Problem of Consciousness* as well. Not sure. But, it is fun to think about. We have been discussing the role or purpose of consciousness in the universe. *Nautilus*: The Bridge From Nowhere <http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/the-bridge-from-nowhere-rp>(September 1, 2016) *How is it possible to get something from nothing?* I have been thinking about this article for some time now. I am especially intrigued with the author's interpretation of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation: *H(x)|Ψ> = 0.* *Ψ* (Psi) is the wave function for the universe (notice it is timeless). As observers, we are forever doomed to see only a piece of the larger > puzzle of which we are a part. And that, it turns out, could be our saving > grace. When the universe splits in two, the zero on the right-hand side of > the equation takes on a new value. Things change. Physics happens. Time > begins to flow. You might even say the universe is born. Could it be that something is just what nothing looks like from the > inside? If so, our discomfort with nothingness may have been hinting at > something profound: It is our human nature that recoils at the notion of > nothing, and yet it may also be our limited, human perspective that > ultimately solves the paradox. There is this other explanation: Deep at the heart of cosmology there is this unproved and unprovable belief > that the whole bulk, that is, everything that there is not just our > universe but the sum total of all universes, is a zero sum game. That is > all the disturbances wave functions etc that there are, balance themselves > out to result in the concept that if there was not something (which there > is) there would be nothing. > This is in effect the full extension of the well known and accepted law of > the conservation of energy writ as large as possible. > It is possibly the nearest thing to the modern cosmologists view of the > concept of "god" which in religions is seen as something that acts on > everything to produce things. Somehow, this particular *Nautilus* article spoke to me about this mystery in a meaningful (philosophical) way. Anyway. Hope this is not too feeble an explanation. Robert On Mon, Nov 6, 2017 at 11:15 AM, gⅼеɳ ☣ <geprope...@gmail.com> wrote: > Heh, I'm too dense to understand how Sabine's rant is relevant. Are you > suggesting that England, Smolin, and Marletto are tossing fiddled > falsifiable noodles at the wall? Or are you suggesting my hunt for > similarities in the 3 models is something like her Dawid fallacy (the > light's better by the lamp post)? Or, perhaps, are you suggesting that > entropy maximization is an example of trying to characterize an entire > space of possibilities and, hence, something Sabine would appreciate? > > > On 11/06/2017 08:54 AM, Carl Tollander wrote: > > Hey, don't hold back, Sabine. > > > > http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2017/11/how-popper-killed- > particle-physics.html?m=1 > > > > > > On Nov 5, 2017 11:09, "┣glen┫" <geprope...@gmail.com <mailto: > geprope...@gmail.com>> wrote: > > > > OK. So, I hear you saying (please correct me!) that you do see a > similarity in all 3 (England, Smolin, and Marletto) up to their attempts to > find a non-teleological explanation for the structures to which we tend to > ascribe teleology (teleonomic). You're right that I agree up to that point. > > > > But what I was looking for was a deeper similarity: the core concept > of all 3 is that the answer should be found by examining the space of > possible states surrounding any given system. In 2 of them (England and > Smolin), the proposal is entropy maximization. In the 3rd (Marletto), the > proposal is less constructive, but still focused on the circumscribed set > of states or distributions of those states. In your prior post, you > posited that Marletto might be more closely aligned with England, but > England *contra* Smolin. My response was that Smolin seems to be saying > much the same thing as England. So, if Marletto is consistent with > England, then Marletto might also be consistent with Smolin. And my > stronger assertion is that England does not seem to contradict Smolin. > > > > If, in Marletto, we set the "recipe" to entropy maximization, then > all 3 seem quite consistent. What am I missing? > > > -- > ☣ gⅼеɳ > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ by Dr. Strangelove
