[FRIAM] Opportunity to join a discussion about Charles Sanders Peirce

[gⅼеɳ ☣]

Thanks for posting your intro materials to purpose of the universe.  I haven't looked at them, yet, but will (probably next week).

But since I'm making a feeble attempt to review the "living systems as entropy maximizers" theme for another meeting, the below paragraph of yours tweaked me.  It strikes me that Smolin's "maximal variety" (e.g. [⛤]) conception meshes well with England's conception of physical (non-living) adaptation, as well as Constructor Theory's "any non-impossible recipe".  The first two (Smolin and England) seem to be intuitionistic in that they imply a recipe (follow the path with the most options), whereas Deutsch/Marletto are (perhaps) more classical (in logic/math terms) by allowing any recipe that doesn't contradict known constraints.

I *think* it's a mistake to read Smolin's conception as implied by the Marletto quote, which was about Bohm and Wigner.  I'm ignorant of what Bohm and Wigner actually suggested.  But Smolin seems to propose that things like stars exhibit (some) similar properties to living systems, especially in their ability to "maintain themselves as constant source of light and heat", despite the high entropy bath in which they sit.  So, when considering things like cosmological constants and how they seem "tuned for life" (e.g. [⛧]), it's important to avoid putting the cart before the horse.  It's not that the universe is tailored to produce life.  It's that the universe is what it is and life-like systems just happen to be a very likely outcome in this universe.

I'd *love* it if you (or anyone) would argue with me and help me refine my thinking or, better yet, change my mind and be able to explain how Smolin, England, and Deutsch/Marletto are fundamentally different!


[⛤] http://www.johnboccio.com/research/quantum/notes/150602938.pdf
[⛧] https://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0702115.pdf

On 10/29/2017 12:57 PM, Robert Wall wrote:
> 
> In the context of *information *being another physically fundamental entity in the universe along with *energy *and *matter*, I brought up David Deutsch <https://www.edge.org/video/constructor-theory>'s Constructor Theory <https://aeon.co/essays/how-constructor-theory-solves-the-riddle-of-life> at the FRIAM as a very recent contender to build a new physics based on this uber-reductionist viewpoint. I haven't heard much more progress on this over the last two years and I think Deutsch is relying on his postdoctoral research associate, Chiara Marletto, to bring this into the domain of biology.  Constructor Theory is to address this conclusion: "The conclusion that the laws of physics must be tailored to produce biological adaptations is amazingly erroneous."  So this theory would indeed compete with Smolin's Cosmological Natural Selection Theory.  But, Constructor Theory might be very much in line with Jeremy England's Physics Theory of Life
> <https://www.quantamagazine.org/first-support-for-a-physics-theory-of-life-20170726/> (Note: this is from /QuantaMagazine/, which we also discussed) and, perhaps with Nobel-Prize-winning physical chemist Ilya Prigogine views derived from the Second Law of Thermodynamics and self-organizing dissipative structures.  Fun stuff to read about ...

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