I know of at least 3 books with this title. The most famous one is, of course, by Erwin Schrödinger. If you haven’t read it, I really recommend it highly. It’s difficult to overstate its importance...
Thank you for your comments. I am of course completely unsure as to how the gap between physics and biology will be bridged (though I am confident it will be), but I am hoping that it ends up being similar to how we understand complex macroscopic many-body structures in physics. For instance, we can now reduce the seemingly infinite diversity of snowflakes down to the quantum mechanics of the water molecule and the external conditions such as the air temperature and moisture. Sure, there are still many details to clarify even when it comes to the formation of snowflakes, however, there are no major gaps here as far as the account is concerned. My feeling is that the same will happen with life.
Sorry, to Jean-Pierre, but it is not as easy as it seems. I agree with Vlaktko that physics are first. I am a PhD researcher in philosophy concerned with being and becoming. There is no information before anything physical. It is just logical, what would you want the information to be recorded on?
However, I have another questionning: why would anything need to be primary. That's a human way of looking at it. We like hierarchies, but everything is connected, it is one complex system. There is no need to put one science above another. However I am convinced everything is quantum, most of all our mind. Nowhere I can find an explanation for the speed at which we think and respond, therefore it must be quantum tunneling which enables us to do do so.
Exciting article, as always, Vlatko. Do you know there is a computational theory of evolution? (The Engine of Complexity Evolution as Computation by John E. Mayfield). Darwinism can therefore theoretically be deduced from a universe of information. Non-living and living are linked in a monistic universe. But something is missing: the explanation of the qualitative transitions and the fact that the qualities become intentional. Computation naturally generates a complex reality but escapes its initial laws. What are these laws? Physical or informational? This controversy is the same as between substance and form: can we be satisfied with the structure of information to explain the substance?
I think there is no real separation between your 3 options, 'all is physics', 'all is information' and 'more is different'. Everything we can know about physics is informational. About accessing a “substance”, there is more illusion in physics than in psychology. Experiencing consciousness in the first person is more substantial than any physical experimentation. Conscious experience is direct and fusional, not that of a computational process. While physical experiments are simply to verify the validity of information that is impossible to experience as a substance.
The 3 options come together as follows: Physical laws emerge from the computation of hypothetical fundamentals: information -> physics. Computation generates levels of complexity that escape the initial rules, independences hidden in the correlations of energy levels in physics: information -> more is different. Finally, it is the accumulation of levels of complexity and their independence that creates the intention. Physical -> life. The intention is a “thickening” of the independence between living entity and its micromechanisms. No new transcendental law appears. Rather, each level of complexity creates its own law.
The laws of our conscious spaces are thus different and we can arrive at different conceptions of reality, while sharing the same level of atomic reality. Much more is very different!
Thank you for your comments. I am of course completely unsure as to how the gap between physics and biology will be bridged (though I am confident it will be), but I am hoping that it ends up being similar to how we understand complex macroscopic many-body structures in physics. For instance, we can now reduce the seemingly infinite diversity of snowflakes down to the quantum mechanics of the water molecule and the external conditions such as the air temperature and moisture. Sure, there are still many details to clarify even when it comes to the formation of snowflakes, however, there are no major gaps here as far as the account is concerned. My feeling is that the same will happen with life.
Sorry, to Jean-Pierre, but it is not as easy as it seems. I agree with Vlaktko that physics are first. I am a PhD researcher in philosophy concerned with being and becoming. There is no information before anything physical. It is just logical, what would you want the information to be recorded on?
However, I have another questionning: why would anything need to be primary. That's a human way of looking at it. We like hierarchies, but everything is connected, it is one complex system. There is no need to put one science above another. However I am convinced everything is quantum, most of all our mind. Nowhere I can find an explanation for the speed at which we think and respond, therefore it must be quantum tunneling which enables us to do do so.
I am, of course, a simpleton physicist and what I say will strongly reflect this fact. 🤣
After drying the tears of laughter caused by your comment, I was able to read the rest of your interesting article.
Thanks Vlatko, for not fearing the 'Thought Police'. Most amusing!
Exciting article, as always, Vlatko. Do you know there is a computational theory of evolution? (The Engine of Complexity Evolution as Computation by John E. Mayfield). Darwinism can therefore theoretically be deduced from a universe of information. Non-living and living are linked in a monistic universe. But something is missing: the explanation of the qualitative transitions and the fact that the qualities become intentional. Computation naturally generates a complex reality but escapes its initial laws. What are these laws? Physical or informational? This controversy is the same as between substance and form: can we be satisfied with the structure of information to explain the substance?
I think there is no real separation between your 3 options, 'all is physics', 'all is information' and 'more is different'. Everything we can know about physics is informational. About accessing a “substance”, there is more illusion in physics than in psychology. Experiencing consciousness in the first person is more substantial than any physical experimentation. Conscious experience is direct and fusional, not that of a computational process. While physical experiments are simply to verify the validity of information that is impossible to experience as a substance.
The 3 options come together as follows: Physical laws emerge from the computation of hypothetical fundamentals: information -> physics. Computation generates levels of complexity that escape the initial rules, independences hidden in the correlations of energy levels in physics: information -> more is different. Finally, it is the accumulation of levels of complexity and their independence that creates the intention. Physical -> life. The intention is a “thickening” of the independence between living entity and its micromechanisms. No new transcendental law appears. Rather, each level of complexity creates its own law.
The laws of our conscious spaces are thus different and we can arrive at different conceptions of reality, while sharing the same level of atomic reality. Much more is very different!