Matter Thinks

The Cybernetic Explanation October 12, 2009

Posted by Michael in Cybernetics, Observations, Ontology.
1 comment so far

One thing materialists have come to grips with is that there may be multiple ways of describing nature that are fundamental and true. Most famously there is wave-particle duality, which gives us two equally true, equally fundamental descriptions of all matter and energy. Then there are the cases where two descriptions are each true and fundamental, but in different ways. Take the case of the temperature of a body: we can view it as the kinetic energy of individual molecules, or we can view it as a property of the body as a whole. The former is ontologically fundamental, being the most precise and complete description possible, but is computationally intractable, therefore unknowable. So we choose the epistemologically fundamental description — temperature of the body as a whole. Yes, such a description brings with it imprecision and incompleteness, but these uncertainties are strictly governed by the mathematics of large numbers, to the degree that it is possible to formulate laws such as Boyle’s law relating pressure and volume in gases that are statistical in nature yet ironclad and true.

And then there is entropy and the arrow of time.

The second law of thermodynamics predicts a steady increase in disorder (entropy) in a closed system over time. Like other laws that operate at large scales, the second law can be derived from the statistical behavior of large numbers of molecules. It has also been abundantly confirmed in empirical observations.

But there is a fundamental truth introduced by the second law which is oddly inexplicable at the micro level: the arrow of time. The second law of thermodynamics says that balloons don’t unpop, rust doesn’t turn to iron, and eggs don’t unscramble. The funny thing is that no other physical laws prohibit these things from happening. Is it possible that something we experience so immanently and intimately — the one-way flow of time — is just a statistical artifact? Many physicists and philosophers are unconvinced.

I won’t weigh in on that particular question. But I will say that there is a loophole in the second law: it only holds for a closed system as a whole, and doesn’t rule out local increases in order. In fact, it happens all the time: it’s called life. Every living creature is an island of reverse entropy, every living cell a little machine that absorbs disordered matter, burns some of it as fuel, and uses the rest to build things — such as new little machines.

Is life a special case? No. Every air conditioned home or car is also an island of reverse entropy. Perhaps you may consider air conditioners to be extensions of life, “things-engineered-by-life”, along with spiders’ webs, termite hives, hermit crab shells, water wheels and semiconductors. Even in the realm of life itself, discernible order occurs at many levels: proteins, organelles, cells, organisms, societies. If life is a necessary cause, it’s one with a multiple personality disorder.

From a reductionist physicalist point of view, it’s hard to get much of an explanation for this order — it seems to be random, a statistical artifact like entropy itself. In essence, from the reductionist point of view, there is nothing to explain: life follows the laws of physics like everything else, and in the closed system of which it is a part, the second law is honored.

But this is willful blindness. There is clearly something to be explained, and if science cannot explain it then magical and supernatural explanations will fill the void.

Not to fear, though. Indeed there is a logical explanation. It goes like this:

1. Systematic local reversal of entropy is caused by systematic feedback.
2. Systematic feedback is caused by directed behavior.
3. Directed behavior is caused by a Turing machine or the equivalent.
4. There exist Turing machines.
5. Therefore there may exist systematic local reversals of entropy.

Shorter version: life is a computation.

But the explanation is actually broader than life. It begins with a fundamental relationship between feedback and entropy. And this makes sense, because feedback can be seen as a way to reverse the arrow of time in a limited but real sense.

To understand this, consider the iconic case of the rudder of a boat and the steersman who controls it. Moving the rudder causes the boat to turn. The arrow of time leads from cause to effect, from changing rudder position to changing boat direction. But in the mind of the steersman, changing the direction of the boat comes first, changing the position of the rudder second. Boat direction is the independent variable; rudder position the dependent variable. This is easy to see by considering the possibilities: the steersman could just as easily decide to turn right as turn left, but once the boat direction is decided the rudder position is determined and cannot be otherwise.

So, in this sense, in a cybernetic system (a system based on feedback) an effect may lead to a cause. This, I would argue, is the root principle underlying the reversal of entropy. It’s the first and most important proposition in the five-point explanation above.

The second point states that the whole arrangement of rudder and steersman is not random; the rudder exists in the first place explicitly to enable the cause, in order to enable the achievement of the effect. So not only does effect precede the cause, desire for the effect precedes the possibility of the cause. The feedback system exists to fulfill a purpose.

The third point states that for the purposeful behavior to work, it must entail knowledge, in this case of the motion of boats and the effect of rudders. This could be conscious knowledge achieved through observation and reason. Or it could be genetic knowledge acheived through evolution. Either way, it is the result of computation, and computation requires a Turing machine.

The fourth point posits the existence of one or more Turing machines. So where do Turing machines come from in the first place? This is, of course, the perfect spot to throw in a supernatural explanation, an outside intelligence to act as the first cause. But a naturalistic account is surely more plausible: given that local systems of reverse entropy (life) have arisen naturally in the material universe, Turing machines must be endemic to nature.

As a materialist, I find the natural explanation better than the supernatural one, even if it requires going further than the conventional physicalist argument generally runs. In essence, the cybernetic view requires accepting a new duality: the duality of information and matter. Duality is not dualism; it is dual identity, two equally valid ways of seeing the same thing. The materialists says (correctly in my view) that there can be no information without matter. The cybernetic materialist says that, in addition, there can be no matter without information.

This is not as mystical as it might sound. It takes nothing away from physicalism, and offers nothing to the dualist. On the contrary, it seeks to expand the physicalist explanation to concepts, abstractions and logic, in other words, the building blocks of thought: they are fundamental attributes of matter, like charge and mass, that are inseparable from matter yet may be described on their own terms. Do charge and mass exist the same way matter exists? I don’t know the answer, but whatever it is I believe it also holds for logic and arithmetic. Perhaps they don’t extend quite all the way to fundamental particles; perhaps, like entropy, they emerge at larger scales. Either way, they inhere in physical existence.

Finally, we get to point five, the conclusion: if you are a cybernetic materialist, naturally there is life, and life reflecting on life. That’s the cybernetic explanation.