Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia; Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.
Post 113.January 8, 2021 continued . . . .
Aristotle and Einstein
Evolution via Computation
Some cosmologists have stuck their professional necks out to postulate that our physical universe is actually something like a computer simulation20. If so, then Reality is merely a mathe-matical computation21. While that may sound far-fetched, they are serious, and offer their reasoning in terms of Information Theory. Unfazed by the controversy, Feser has the temerity to ask, “is computation intrinsic to physics?” Then, he notes that John Searle objected “that computational features are all essentially observer-relative rather than intrinsic to nature”. Yet, Feser goes-on to argue “that computational descriptions do indeed track what Daniel Dennett calls ‘real patterns’ in nature”. And those innate patterns are what we interpret as meaningful Information. Thus, Feser begins to present his computational paradigm, which is amenable to my Enformationism thesis. He says, “Fundamental to the notion that natural processes are computational is the idea of information”. Moreover, physicist John Wheeler’s “famous ‘It from Bit’ thesis” implies that “it is information (the “bit”) that is metaphysically fundamental”.
Thus bolstered by the metaphysical fringes of science, Feser continues to develop that counter-intuitive notion of an information-based world, instead of a matter-based universe. He quotes physicist Rolf Landauer that “the laws of physics are the algorithms according to which the universe computes”. Ironically, computer-creation stories are not in accordance with biblical authority. So, despite Feser’s unstated attempt to justify the God of Catholic doctrine, this evidence only proves that something like the Deist G*D22 is reasonable, in the light of modern science. If the physicist’s flights of fancy sound far-out, “more controversial is whether there is semantic information to be found in biological phenomena”. He quotes philosopher of biology Alex Rosenberg : “Molecular biology is . . . riddled with intentional expressions . . . messenger . . . proofreading . . . editing . . . ” But Rosenberg doesn’t take those metaphors literally. Instead, he holds that “the crucial question is not intentionality but programming”. Yet that evasion inadvertently introduces the logical necessity for a Programmer to write a “program” for the physical universe to compute.
Regarding the subjectivity of the computer-universe meta-phor, Feser deconstructs Searle’s own analysis of the concept : “The same thing is true of anything we might think of as a computer — a brain, a genome, or the universe as a whole. Its status as a ‘computer’ would be observer-relative because a computer is simply not a ‘natural kind’ but rather a sort of artifact”. Hence, the universe itself is not “natural” in the sense of self-existent, but an artifact created by an outside agent. He continues with the analysis to say, “recall that ‘information’ in the technical, syntactic sense essentially involves a causal correlation between a physical state and some effect at the end of a causal pathway”. Therefore, the detection of information in any form, implies an initial cause with some meaningful goal-directed intention. But random accidents are acausal, and uninformative, because they leave no trail of causation, leading back to a First Cause. That’s why the function of causation is defined in terms of its objective – its purpose. So, EnForm-Action is inherently teleological & intentional . It’s like a vector arrow aimed at some future target or state. And it’s the cause of some future effect. It’s usually informative, because that effect often has meaning to a human mind.
Post 113 continued . . . click Next
Darwin digitized Evolution computerized
22. Deist G*D : An Enlightenment era response to the Roman Catholic version of Theism, in which the supernatural deity interacts and intervenes with humans via visions & miracles, and rules his people through a human dictator. Deists rejected most of the supernatural stuff, but retained an essential role for a First Cause creator, who must be respected as the quintessence of our world, but not worshipped like a tyrant. The point of Deism is not to seek salvation, but merely understanding. http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page12.html
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