We tend to apply our current mental models to the world around us. A good example is the 'universe as a clock' model. Recently there has been the 'universe as a computer' model. Perhaps the mythology of the past derives from the same instinct.
Another model to use perhaps is 'the universe as a system'. With this as a backdrop, I would like to posit a few observations and derive a summary on the topic of mind and matter and how we fit in the overall scheme of things.
Emergence: I have argued before that the mind is an emergent phenomenon. It does seem to me that calling the mind an 'emergent' phenomenon is making a call for either the chicken or the egg. Rather it is easier to acknowledge both the chicken and egg exist and are related to each other. Meaning, the word emergent implies that matter existed first, and the mind emerged from it. This might be semantics, but language imbues assumptions.
Impact: Also, mind can influence matter. An artist can conceive of a concept and can execute on a sculpture that did not exist before.
We are a system: There are any number of articles today that represent each living organism as a vast complex of living organisms - existing symbiotically. We are a living system. However, there are 'systems' everywhere. The universe is full of systems. A galaxy is a system. The more I watch Hubble pictures, the more this becomes a revelation. Galaxies are born and grow. Stars are born and grow. If for a second, we are willing to accept life as a 'system' that occurs under the conditions earth provides - then we are one of many systems in the universe.
Exo-planets: We are discovering exo-planets at an astonishing rate. How soon before we discover a planet teeming with 'life' - and how soon before we discover that we are but one 'type' of life - ie carbon based.
Advances: We are accelerating our nano technologies and bio technologies - which means that we are extending the ways we can live and perceive the world around us. The recent discussion on what the Jim Webb space telescope is potentially going to show us is a case in point. We have no idea what it is that we are going to discover. But we are building the tools to do so!
Summary - I piece all this together to say reach the following plateau of observation:
This universe is a vast array of systems interacting at various levels - operating at various space scales and various time scales. We find ourselves as one local system in this array. One specific attribute for us is the emergent mind that offers self-reflection.
Matter clearly is a universal phenomenon and so are waves. However, it is not known yet, if the mind-matter system is a local phenomenon or a universal phenomenon.
Another model to use perhaps is 'the universe as a system'. With this as a backdrop, I would like to posit a few observations and derive a summary on the topic of mind and matter and how we fit in the overall scheme of things.
Emergence: I have argued before that the mind is an emergent phenomenon. It does seem to me that calling the mind an 'emergent' phenomenon is making a call for either the chicken or the egg. Rather it is easier to acknowledge both the chicken and egg exist and are related to each other. Meaning, the word emergent implies that matter existed first, and the mind emerged from it. This might be semantics, but language imbues assumptions.
Impact: Also, mind can influence matter. An artist can conceive of a concept and can execute on a sculpture that did not exist before.
Exo-planets: We are discovering exo-planets at an astonishing rate. How soon before we discover a planet teeming with 'life' - and how soon before we discover that we are but one 'type' of life - ie carbon based.
Advances: We are accelerating our nano technologies and bio technologies - which means that we are extending the ways we can live and perceive the world around us. The recent discussion on what the Jim Webb space telescope is potentially going to show us is a case in point. We have no idea what it is that we are going to discover. But we are building the tools to do so!
Summary - I piece all this together to say reach the following plateau of observation:
This universe is a vast array of systems interacting at various levels - operating at various space scales and various time scales. We find ourselves as one local system in this array. One specific attribute for us is the emergent mind that offers self-reflection.
Matter clearly is a universal phenomenon and so are waves. However, it is not known yet, if the mind-matter system is a local phenomenon or a universal phenomenon.
We are special in this sense that we are a specific type of system. Perhaps when we discover other exo-planets with carbon-life forms, we won't be that special after all.
However, we are not special in the sense that we are a local system, and the universe is teeming with systems of all kinds.
5 comments:
Surya,
Love systems and your rumination here. How about layering in the following thoughts?
Regarding emergence, I've intuitively felt that the best model for this is co-emergence of consciousness and matter. Rupert Sheldrake talks about morphic fields that are generated by the shape itself. These fields are invisible (to us) patterns which are strengthened over time ... and hence can be shared and repeated with higher probability.... it is used to explain the ideas of "phantom limbs" - and supports the science of limb regneration by amphibians...
Sorry... I digress. My point was that the "mind" may be a co-emergent property that follows from the neurological-chemical makeup of the human nervous system.
I think the systems metaphor is a helpful model for understanding how things work. In the end, though, its perspectives - up and down the chain - that make up the universe. Every being, every element of nature has a perspective - an "awareness" of its surroundings - and a set of reactions/non-reactions as a result. Even protons and electrons exhibit awareness of each other... just their perspective.
more food for thought.
And we are each the galaxy for everything living inside us. And humankind is a galaxy. And commerce is a galaxy. Etc., etc.
It is turtles all the way down . . .
First, I’d make a distinction between the arrow of time and evolution of the universe vs. the difficulty of disentangling the causal web of one new emergent feature of that evolution, such as the development of life. So, for instance, I’d have no problem saying that life is an emergent quality of chemistry, which is an emergent quality of physics. You could summarize this as needing a big bang before there could be life on earth.
I think Eric J. Chaisson’s Cosmic Evolution: The Rise of Complexity in Nature does a pretty good job of providing an overview of this. He then defines these emergent phases of cosmic evolution in which these phases build on each other (and are therefore are causally necessary precedents) in Epic of Evolution: Seven Ages of the Cosmos.
But the chicken and egg thing is a useful rebuttal to those who, within an “age” or system try to then describe its elements in simplistic causal narratives based on linear, independent variable models which try to call one thing an egg and the other a chicken. Calling someone on that sort of thinking via the ‘chicken and egg’ analogy is meant to call attention to the nonlinear, interdependent variable models of cosmic evolution, or coevolution, which eschews naming one thing the ‘egg’ and another a ‘chicken’.
I’m a monist (there is only the physical universe) and it would seem you’re a dualist (there is also some sort of separate – as in, not an emergent quality of the physical – substance in the universe). And there’s not much more I can say in defense of my position than, it’s just a ‘prejudice’ (as in, to pre-judge), not an empirically proved ontological fact. As you know, we haven’t yet found that bottom turtle and so my belief that this elusive turtle will also be physical in nature and not spiritual has no more basis in truth than does yours. I’ve just seen how throughout history we’ve always been able to explain away the spiritual explanations with physical ones and therefore expect we’ll continue to do so.
Of course, I could be wrong about that.
But the thing I found most interesting in the below piece was that it proffered a middle ground, so to speak. It suggested that ‘consciousness’ is a much more basic and widespread property than most would allow for today. An interesting proposition. But I suspect they’d still see it as an emergent phenomenon that didn’t preexist the physical universe and isn’t ontologically separate from it. And further, as the authors point out, the reason we get all wrapped around the axle re just how it can be that the mental is able to affect the physical is that we still tend to see mind and matter as discrete substances or ontologies when they’re coevolved interdependent aspects of the same ontology.
From porous to discrete to porous again. But this time without the superstition and mythology. This time it’s "Integrated information theory".
I find that quite interesting. Which is to say, it comports with my monist, physicalist prejudice.
A nice piece. Will conglomeration be not a better word than array?
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