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| Natura: | Preprint |
| Pubblicazione: |
2017
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| Accesso online: | https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.03113 |
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| _version_ | 1866909250980151296 |
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| author | DeDeo, Simon |
| author_facet | DeDeo, Simon |
| contents | The rich experiences of an intentional, goal-oriented life emerge, in an unpredictable fashion, from the basic laws of physics. Here I argue that this unpredictability is no mirage: there are true gaps between life and non-life, mind and mindlessness, and even between functional societies and groups of Hobbesian individuals. These gaps, I suggest, emerge from the mathematics of self-reference, and the logical barriers to prediction that self-referring systems present. Still, a mathematical truth does not imply a physical one: the universe need not have made self-reference possible. It did, and the question then is how. In the second half of this essay, I show how a basic move in physics, known as renormalization, transforms the "forgetful" second-order equations of fundamental physics into a rich, self-referential world that makes possible the major transitions we care so much about. While the universe runs in assembly code, the coarse-grained version runs in LISP, and it is from that the world of aim and intention grows. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1712_03113 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Origin Gaps and the Eternal Sunshine of the Second-Order Pendulum DeDeo, Simon History and Philosophy of Physics Popular Physics The rich experiences of an intentional, goal-oriented life emerge, in an unpredictable fashion, from the basic laws of physics. Here I argue that this unpredictability is no mirage: there are true gaps between life and non-life, mind and mindlessness, and even between functional societies and groups of Hobbesian individuals. These gaps, I suggest, emerge from the mathematics of self-reference, and the logical barriers to prediction that self-referring systems present. Still, a mathematical truth does not imply a physical one: the universe need not have made self-reference possible. It did, and the question then is how. In the second half of this essay, I show how a basic move in physics, known as renormalization, transforms the "forgetful" second-order equations of fundamental physics into a rich, self-referential world that makes possible the major transitions we care so much about. While the universe runs in assembly code, the coarse-grained version runs in LISP, and it is from that the world of aim and intention grows. |
| title | Origin Gaps and the Eternal Sunshine of the Second-Order Pendulum |
| topic | History and Philosophy of Physics Popular Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.03113 |