Philosophy Now Forum

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Taken as a whole the universe is not on an evolutionary trajectory of increasing complexity.

What evidence do you offer in support of this claim?

Obvious Leo wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Taken as a whole the universe is not on an evolutionary trajectory of increasing complexity.

What evidence do you offer in support of this claim?

The 'so-called' evolution of all stars is terminal. A vase that is smashed cannot be re-formed.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Taken as a whole the universe is not on an evolutionary trajectory of increasing complexity.

What evidence do you offer in support of this claim?

The 'so-called' evolution of all stars is terminal. A vase that is smashed cannot be re-formed.

You're ignoring the bigger picture. The early universe contained only hydrogen, helium and a small trace of lithium. The entire rest of the periodic table of elements is the result of stellar evolution and no solar systems such as ours are possible without most of these elements. Simple atoms evolve into more complex atoms and complex atoms are able to form into complex molecules which are themselves able to evolve into more complex molecules. Molecular evolution is the next big thing in organic chemistry because it inevitably leads to life and mind. That our universe has come to life is the most remarkable consequence of this evolutionary process and most astrobiologists are of the view that this occurred in our galaxy around about as early as it possible could have, give or take a billion years or so. This was simply because the elements needed for living systems to be self-sustaining were not in sufficient abundance for it to evolve.

The vase will not reform itself but some of the atoms which constitute the vase may ultimately finish up in the brain of a philosopher, so in the bigger picture the matter content of the vase has moved from a simpler physical structure into a more complex one. The Newtonian model of the world is utterly unable to account for this overall trend because evolving systems are not law-determined but self-determined. Only a self-organising universe can possibly account for the fact that you and I are in it but in fact the philosophical implications run far deeper than this. A self-organising universe mandates its own comprehensibility.

Something I forgot to mention. It is estimated that 92% of all the planets which will ever form in the universe are yet to come into existence. Obviously no meaningful statement can be made about entities which are yet to evolve but 13.8 billion years of evidence suggests that they will be more complex than anything which is currently known.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:
What evidence do you offer in support of this claim?

The 'so-called' evolution of all stars is terminal. A vase that is smashed cannot be re-formed.

You're ignoring the bigger picture. The early universe contained only hydrogen, helium and a small trace of lithium. The entire rest of the periodic table of elements is the result of stellar evolution and no solar systems such as ours are possible without most of these elements. Simple atoms evolve into more complex atoms and complex atoms are able to form into complex molecules which are themselves able to evolve into more complex molecules. Molecular evolution is the next big thing in organic chemistry because it inevitably leads to life and mind. That our universe has come to life is the most remarkable consequence of this evolutionary process and most astrobiologists are of the view that this occurred in our galaxy around about as early as it possible could have, give or take a billion years or so. This was simply because the elements needed for living systems to be self-sustaining were not in sufficient abundance for it to evolve.

The vase will not reform itself but some of the atoms which constitute the vase may ultimately finish up in the brain of a philosopher, so in the bigger picture the matter content of the vase has moved from a simpler physical structure into a more complex one. The Newtonian model of the world is utterly unable to account for this overall trend because evolving systems are not law-determined but self-determined. Only a self-organising universe can possibly account for the fact that you and I are in it but in fact the philosophical implications run far deeper than this. A self-organising universe mandates its own comprehensibility.

The cost of all this complexity is energy, once that has degenerated to heat there is no chance of heat changing the simple to complex.

Obvious Leo wrote:Something I forgot to mention. It is estimated that 92% of all the planets which will ever form in the universe are yet to come into existence.

Odd thing to say, and most bizarre claim.

The fact is that light is required of all these processes. And the perfect organisation of pure light is easily lost and only recovered with extreme difficulty and inefficiency.
Light strikes an object and most of it turns to heat. Try turning that heat back into light and there is a 99+% loss.
That is the bottom line.

Obvious Leo wrote:Something I forgot to mention. It is estimated that 92% of all the planets which will ever form in the universe are yet to come into existence.

This really is a strange statement. Everything I've read about the subject never made that kind of assertion. How was this estimated, by whom, and on what inference(s) was it made would be truly interesting to know even though I can't fathom how it could ever be estimated in the first place based on what we currently do know! Any literature available regarding this?

Obviously no meaningful statement can be made about entities which are yet to evolve but 13.8 billion years of evidence suggests that they will be more complex than anything which is currently known.

By extension, if the estimated 92% is severely questionable - which it undoubtedly is - but even if feasible, in what way would evidence amount that they will be more complex than anything which is currently known? It begs the question, in what way more complex? Would 'complex' mean quality or quantity due to the hypothesized remainder (92%) still to be formed, a fraction of which expected to develop intelligent life?

It would be really interesting where you got your 92% - or within range - and by what statistic the Universe would be made more complex then it already is!

Dubious wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:Something I forgot to mention. It is estimated that 92% of all the planets which will ever form in the universe are yet to come into existence.

This really is a strange statement. Everything I've read about the subject never made that kind of assertion. How was this estimated, by whom, and on what inference(s) was it made would be truly interesting to know even though I can't fathom how it could ever be estimated in the first place based on what we currently do know! Any literature available regarding this?

Obviously no meaningful statement can be made about entities which are yet to evolve but 13.8 billion years of evidence suggests that they will be more complex than anything which is currently known.

By extension, if the estimated 92% is severely questionable - which it undoubtedly is - but even if feasible, in what way would evidence amount that they will be more complex than anything which is currently known? It begs the question, in what way more complex? Would 'complex' mean quality or quantity due to the hypothesized remainder (92%) still to be formed, a fraction of which expected to develop intelligent life?

It would be really interesting where you got your 92% - or within range - and by what statistic the Universe would be made more complex then it already is!

Dubious,

Leo is correct. A little research turned up this article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a ... hs/413017/

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Dubious wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:Something I forgot to mention. It is estimated that 92% of all the planets which will ever form in the universe are yet to come into existence.

This really is a strange statement. Everything I've read about the subject never made that kind of assertion. How was this estimated, by whom, and on what inference(s) was it made would be truly interesting to know even though I can't fathom how it could ever be estimated in the first place based on what we currently do know! Any literature available regarding this?

Obviously no meaningful statement can be made about entities which are yet to evolve but 13.8 billion years of evidence suggests that they will be more complex than anything which is currently known.

By extension, if the estimated 92% is severely questionable - which it undoubtedly is - but even if feasible, in what way would evidence amount that they will be more complex than anything which is currently known? It begs the question, in what way more complex? Would 'complex' mean quality or quantity due to the hypothesized remainder (92%) still to be formed, a fraction of which expected to develop intelligent life?

It would be really interesting where you got your 92% - or within range - and by what statistic the Universe would be made more complex then it already is!

Dubious,

Leo is correct. A little research turned up this article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/a ... hs/413017/

PhilX

Interesting article! Thanks for posting! It would be nice if Leo himself would occasionally post a link which offers some reference to his own position. Though interesting, I still don't know how it refers to "entities...that will be more complex than anything which is currently known". In what way is this complexity, which was the main point, going to be accomplished?

Also this statement in your link by Peeples sounds anything but scientific:
This is a bit of a tricky question since the universe is infinite, and so the number planets in it now or in the future is infinite.

This sounds absurd especially when denoted as fact. Can the Laws or Models of physics even be applied to a Universe that's infinite? How could any 'scientist' make this kind of statement as if it were obvious?

I don't see how this article proves Leo correct. The following links offer a very different scenario from the one given but again physicists need to know much more before they can be even moderately certain of their theories. At this point, it's just as valid to believe that the Universe and the 'entities' in it are already as complex as they're going to get.

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-universe-b ... scale.html
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/42 ... hysicists/

Dubious wrote: At this point, it's just as valid to believe that the Universe and the 'entities' in it are already as complex as they're going to get.

Except that self-organising systems don't stop evolving from the simple to the complex. Thus far we have only 13.8 billion years worth of evidence but the self-organising trajectory has been exclusively uni-directional towards progressively lower entropy states. Such a trajectory in evolving systems is about as fundamental a law of nature as it is possible to imagine because it needs only the universal law of causality to drive it, so to suggest that it might somehow be reversed at some unkwown future time would be to deny the ontological truth of the principle that all effects must be preceded by causes.

The 92% figure was one I got from a paper by astrophysicist Paul Davies but I can't recall which one. It is generally accepted in both astrophysics and in astrobiology that the universe is just a pup with at least many tens of billions of good years of evolutionary life left in her. Other than the inexorable trend towards informational complexity it is inherent in the nature of evolving systems that the future of them is unknowable but the evolution of life and mind introduces yet another loose cannon into the equation. It would be reasonable to assume, as Kardashev does, that the future course of physical reality will be at least partially determined by the sentient civilisations which evolve within it over these tens of billions of years. However beyond this general assumption I decline to speculate.

"Prediction is difficult, particularly of the future"...Yogi Berra.

Of course Yogi understates the case because prediction of the future is more than just difficult. It is definitively impossible precisely because of this inexorable trajectory from the simple to the complex. However a universe which operates purely as a blind automaton but which has nevertheless mandated its own comprehensibility is almost exactly the universe which Anaximander spoke of 2500 years ago and which Baruch Spinoza defined over 300 years ago so my ideas are by no means original.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Dubious wrote: At this point, it's just as valid to believe that the Universe and the 'entities' in it are already as complex as they're going to get.

Except that self-organising systems don't stop evolving from the simple to the complex. .

This is a failure of perspective. There are a possible infinite number of failed self-organising systems, depends on how you delimit what is and what is not a "system".
Your anthropomorphic obsession seems to give undue credence to the biological scum on the earth;s surface with, from the perspective of the Universe is a temporary mirage of complexity which is in a continual state of growth and failure but whose time is limited.

Hobbes. Once again you're only looking at parts of the picture instead of the whole. I attach no particular significance to earthly life in this scenario but only to life in general as an inescapable consequence of an evolutionary process. This is canon orthodoxy in evolutionary theory.

"The survival value of human intelligence has never been satisfactorily demonstrated"....Michael Crichton.

It is widely supposed that any civilisation which develops the ability to destroy itself will inevitably do so. On the basis of the evidence from a sample size of one it is difficult not to be persuaded by this view but to generalise from such an observation nevertheless fails the test of logic. Some biologists have suggested that species at least as smart as us could evolve and become extinct on this planet as often as another hundred times before it becomes too uncomfortably hot to sustain a biosphere and to suggest that our planet is in any way unique in the universe is to draw a very long bow indeed. That at some stage such a sentient civilisation somewhere in our galaxy might go forth and colonise our galaxy is by no means a blind leap of faith even though it is not in any way mandated that this should occur. It doesn't make all that much sense to speculate about such things from our anthropocentric perspective but it doesn't hurt to remember that such a bigger picture is a possibility which lies within our grasp.

Obvious Leo wrote:Hobbes. Once again you're only looking at parts of the picture instead of the whole. I attach no particular significance to earthly life in this scenario but only to life in general as an inescapable consequence of an evolutionary process. This is canon orthodoxy in evolutionary theory.

No, quite obviously you are looking at a tiny part and I am indeed looking at the whole.

He said: "An anti-electron, anti-matter, can we see them, no. The point I'm trying to make is not everything is visible, touchable, yet we accept them by FAITH."

No, sir, I do not. I accept these entities as real because each is measurable. Tools were developed to extend human senses in to both macro- and micro-worlds. The nature of the atomic and nuclear is plumbed not through faith but through measurement with these instruments. This information, these measurements, are reasoned through, considered and contrasted with and against other information, other measurements.

On the other hand, I do not accept the counter-intuitive 'multiverse'. There's not a jot of evidence to support the theory beyond math (which is to say: 'multiverse' is nuthin' more than mathematical wordplay).

Understand: I'm a limited creature...my choice of avatar was no light thing...again: I must see the dragon before I can accept (or fear) it.