Adam Hibberd
POST 1
Foremost in my thinking recently has been the subject of ‘teleology’ (the study of purpose) and in particular I have been contemplating the ‘teleology of curiosity’. Have you ever wondered about the definition and in particular the purpose of curiosity? Well I have found an answer to this question, teleologically speaking, and as a consequence I have found wider implications of this discovery which have proven to bear wonderful fruits upon which I shall elaborate in future posts.
The answer a scientist might give, is that it is a quality of humans which allows us to discover new knowledge about the universe. In turn the benefit of this knowledge is that we might find potential threats which otherwise could detrimentally affect our well-being or even extinguish us. By knowing, we can take counter-measures to reduce or even nullify these threats, or alternatively avoid them altogether.
The examples of the benefits of curiosity are numerous, whether it be curiosity in medicine, horticulture, agriculture, astronomy, astronautics, and others, inevitably new discoveries extend our existence on this planet and indeed in this universe.
You might wonder about the last two on this list, namely astronomy and astronautics, as they may seem entirely out of place. To elucidate, and taking astronomy first, imagine if a curious astronomer were to discover an asteroid on a collision course with Earth, we could then send a spacecraft (that’s astronautics) to deflect it from its course and extend our life here on Earth. Without this curiosity and acquisition of knowledge, we would have been extinguished. There are other myriad examples of this teleology of curiosity in action.
But what, you ask, is the purpose of this post? The answer is that a while ago I was working on a paper which addresses exactly these issues of teleology and ontology (the nature of being) and furthermore by a scientific rationale leads to some amazing and startling repercussions which will impact on us all. I shall continue to elucidate on my findings in future posts.
POST 2
In my last post I discussed the teleology (purpose) of curiosity. It is the acquisition of knowledge and the consequent responsive measures that allow us to extend our existence on the ‘planet’. I must emphasize at this juncture that, although I used the word ‘planet’ here, I could also have referred to the wider context, in other words the ‘universe’. This is because I shall be looking largely at the ‘bigger picture’ and clearly, ‘Earth’ is only a small portion (or subset) of the overarching universe in which we live. In what follows, however, my next question is not why but HOW do we acquire this knowledge?
There are two answers to this depending on whether you are considering a single human or the entire set of humans – the human species. For now I shall address the former case, which needs us to assume all of humanity is extinct save for a solitary human individual. How would this single human exercise his curiosity and discover new things?
First and foremost this individual must be aware of his surroundings. Here I define awareness as the transfer of information about his surroundings into his mind. In turn, to do this, he must have SENSES, there are of course traditionally five associated with humans, so sight, sound, touch, smell, taste.
By itself this information would be entirely useless, it would just be random data – in practice it all needs a CONTEXT in order for it to make cohesive sense.
I contend here (and I am not alone in this regard) that this context takes the form of an internal MODEL of the individual’s surroundings and these surroundings being a small part of the universe, we can say this model he has is a model of the universe.
It seems to me, whoever you may be, whatever your circumstances, you will necessarily have some form of internal model, or put another way, a representation, or view, or perspective, of the universe, which has been in the process of construction over the entire course of your existence. This model was constructed over time through the exercise of your curiosity and the discovery of the new, and I have articulated the purpose of curiosity in my last post.
As humans we are dependent on the influences of our carers as a baby or young child to provide reward and punishment to keep us on the right track and make sure our model is correct. In fact if, in our thought experiment, we were to assume the sole survivor was an infant, then clearly such an individual wouldn’t last long.
But here I make the assertion that the phenomenon of modelization is not confined to the human species, indeed any organism also has some form of internal model. From an amoeba to an elephant, every living member of a species has an awareness and an internal model of the universe. In the case of an amoeba clearly such a model is very simplistic, but note I make no assertions as to the fidelity or representivity of a living entity’s model with respect to the real universe, I just assert it exists in SOME FORM.
In my next post I shall address the methods of how the human species as a collective acquires knowledge.
POST 3
I have previously explained how we discover new knowledge on an individual basis – through curiosity, awareness and modelization. In doing so, I proposed a thought experiment where only one human exists. Of course reality is different – and so we must extend our argument to the true case, indeed we actually all belong to a social network, a community, a nation, a whole species. We are not alone.
As I have already explained, we each have our own perspective or internal model which allows us to understand our surroundings and indeed acquire new information which, through the action of our senses, will improve our model. Why do we need this model? It is so we can better cope with the universe’s challenges and also to predict its behaviour and take action to enhance our well-being or avoid dangers which would destroy us. Each individual has their own history of awareness and also a genetic make-up which means they have formed their own unique model or perspective on the universe which allows them to live their own way – a way which benefits them personally.
But this begs the question, could this model also benefit others? The answer is clearly yes! Thus, let us say I know a pharmacist in Coventry which stocks a certain medicine. This is therefore a part of my own internal model of reality. Let us further suppose I know someone else who needs this medicine, but is not aware of the location of the pharmacy, so it is NOT a part of his internal model. I can then through the act of communication convey the specific part of my model relevant to this other human. This second human has then updated his model and so has benefitted from this transfer of information through language.
Thus the model everyone has need not necessarily be of a private or personal benefit. He can disseminate part of it to other entities in order to assist them and also, in turn, if he is presented with a challenge (like say he is unwell) then he can request knowledge from someone else, which originates in this other person’s unique model constructed from this other person’s own unique experience. This may all seem rudimentary, but the logic here has some quite incredible implications so I ask you to bear with me.
In my next post I shall talk about the implications of all this on the nature of cooperation.
POST 4
In the last post we addressed the notion of communication with other members of a species, which allows us to consolidate, enhance and update our personal internal model. My contention is that every entity in a collective has a model and a means of communication to other individuals in its species. These phenomena exist in every single creature and it is THESE processes which are apparent when cooperation takes place.
The rationale behind the existence of cooperation between separate entities of a species has been a mystery which has stimulated much heated debate between scientists for some time and in truth has never really been properly explained. This is primarily because of the notion of the free-rider.
Imagine a collective of entities, all cooperating with the others and what’s more investing energy in doing so. However by engaging in cooperation, each individual is also receiving a benefit from it, which is greater than the cost to him, this cost being his own expenditure of energy.
But then you get to the question of free-riders and evolution. Because a free-rider decides to defect from the cooperation part but still benefit from the effort of others, such a free-rider in evolutionary terms would on an individual basis have a fitness advantage over those who cooperate and so should eventually over generations dominate the population. This then begs the question as to how does cooperation evolve? This free-rider paradox has existed for a long time and has never really been resolved, especially in the context of the insights of scientists such as Richard Dawkins and his Selfish Gene.
You now have in my previous posts on the subject an answer to this question. The answer is that the cooperation is not only in the form of physical activity, but of communication. Thus why should I go and get someone some pink Himalayan salt for example when it is far easier for me to tell that person how to get hold of it. In the first scenario, I am expending all the energy in cooperation, in the second scenario, I am only expending energy in the act of communication, the physical energy is used by my friend, who gets the pink Himalayan salt himself, off his own back.
You may now see that cooperation can be explained in the combination of three phenomena 1) Awareness, 2) Modelization, 3) Communication.
The consequences of this logic will be revealed in future posts.
POST 5
In my previous posts we have seen how awareness, modelization and communication combine to allow us to extend our life in the universe and also to help others and help ourselves. Let us now think about the nature of intelligence and complexity, specifically how we might measure them and what would these measures exactly represent.
Let us take the notion of modelization. Clearly the greater our awareness of what surrounds us then the more sophisticated we can make the model of our environment, which is after all just a small part of the universe. By moving around the universe, all-be-it a tiny fraction of its mind-boggling vastness, and experiencing it in the form of our senses, we can construct a more and more representative model of the universe which we exist in. Furthermore we have seen that we can exchange information about our models with other entities of the same species, allowing us to improve our models even further.
The more we are curious and the more we explore then the more likely we are to become aware of dangers which might inflict harm on us or alternatively find benefits which will enhance our well-being. Thus by building up our model, we are extending our stay in this universe.
This leads us to a possible measure of intelligence as being the degree of representivity or fidelity of our model to the real universe that we exist in. We might allocate 0 to no model whatsoever through to a maximum value of 1 to there being an exact correspondence in the model to everything which exists. It would seem that with the maximum possible intelligence of 1.0, we could survive until the end of the universe, whereas with no model at all, we would be totally unaware of any kind of danger which could extinguish us.
In what follows, I shall equate the measure of complexity with intelligence and use the identical definition as described above. It seems to me that it is an inevitable consequence of an evolutionary process, which in the long term favours those entities which can survive longest in the universe, to enhance intelligence/complexity, as I have defined them.
POST 6
We have seen how intelligence/complexity might be measured using some kind of relationship between an entity’s internal model of the universe and that of the real universe (where 0 is no model at all and 1 is a perfect model). I have also explained how an entity can engage in communication with other entities for two reasons: a) in order to enhance the models of the other entities by conveying aspects of its own or b) by updating its own model according to what they might communicate to it.
What becomes clear is that by both of the aforementioned activities, models can be constructed, shared and combined such that a global model begins to take shape.
Indeed, the model which each individual has begins to show characteristics similar to those of others. This then might lead one to consider combining all the individual humans into a unified whole. For the sake of convenience let’s call this unified whole of humanity H. The model that Hpossesses comprises a collective of all the models of its membership of individuals. Let us call this unified model MH. We could designate the intelligence of this model (previously defined) as I =I(MH).
It is possible that H will divide or bifurcate into two separate entities, say H1 and H2, because the models of the universe which each subdivision has is different. We could view this division as a separation of the global model MH into two distinct models MH1 and MH2. The discrepancy of these two models may be due to cultural reasons, or reasons of nationalism or religious differences, or political differences, my point here is that H1 and H2 have different perspectives of the universe MH1 and MH2 which don’t align.
This is where we get into the field of evolutionary group theory. We have two groups H1 and H2, how will evolution operate on these groups? I have previously resolved the thorny problem of the free-rider paradox, because within each group, members will hold together and not be undermined by the free-rider. But between these competing groups H1 and H2, what governs the successful group? The answer to this is from the preceding arguments now quite clear, it is generally the one whose model most accurately reflects the universe, it is generally the one with the highest metric of intelligence as I have previously described. In other words, generally what will happen is that H1 will defeat H2 if I(MH1) > I(MH2), alternatively H2 will defeat H1 if I(MH2) > I(MH1)
Let us delve further into the nature of this model and inquire what form this model might take? The previous analysis actually makes this quite clear in that the superior model is the one which corresponds most closely to the real universe. I state here that this will generally be the better scientific model because the whole purpose of science is to explain, understand and predict the nature and behaviour of the universe.
POST 7
We have defined H as the combined set of all humans. Let us now analyse the precise ontology of H. To this end note that H is doing the following:
- Firstly, H is manipulating its environment by construction of tools and machines which generally benefit itself. This manipulation manifests in all sorts of ways – agriculture, power generation, transport, habitation, etc. By all these activities, H is modifying the universe not only to enhance its own well being but further to extend its existence in the universe.
- Secondly, we observe that H is also building tools and machines to expand its awareness of the universe. These are such devices as microscopes, telescopes, compasses, infrared detectors, electron microscopes, etc – all these assist H in expanding its awareness and model of the universe as I have previously defined them.
What I shall now do is subsume these tools/machines into our definition of H and include all the means by which H is modifying and becoming increasingly aware of the universe into our definition of H.
Furthermore H is now in the process of developing particular types of machines – computers. Computers are themselves becoming increasingly aware and intelligent, these computers add to the model of H and so these are also incorporated into our definition of H.
The previous post showed how the entity H might bifurcate into two groups H1 & H2, the winning group generally being the one whose model of the universe is closest to that of the actual universe. As H expands its domain, through for example interplanetary and then interstellar travel, it may encounter another intelligent entity H’. At this point there are two possibilities, either H and H’ will come into conflict or they will unite peacefully. In the former case, as has been shown, the winning entity will generally be the one with the highest intelligence metric, and in the latter case, the two entities will combine their models and come together to make a new entity. In either case let us denote this new entity U.
POST 8
So we each exist in a universe as a member of an entity H – or extrapolating forwards in time, as a member of the combined entity U. It seems to be the case that the universe is so designed through evolution, through the presence of awareness, modelization and communication, and through an increasing metric of intelligence; to support the emergence of this very entity U we are a part of. It’s as though the universe wants us not only to be aware of it, but to increase the sophistication of our model of it by an ever-expanding awareness. We have seen that this model will be a scientific model, so let us address the general aim of scientists and indeed the purpose of science.
One of the purposes of science, or even the overarching purpose of science, is to fathom the fundamental law or laws of the universe. Indeed we have seen that U is building an ever-improving model of the universe which will undoubtedly include its natural laws. Let us now ask: why would the universe want U to achieve this ultimate destination?
One potential outcome of U knowing these fundamental laws would be to create a new universe, i.e. start a new universe from the big bang onwards. This might be a bit of a leap, but bear with me as if we make this leap, some interesting conclusions can be drawn.
A machine which can self-replicate is known as a von Neumann machine. Now is the universe a huge von Neumann machine? Let us analyse all the implications of this.
Have you ever thought that organisms on Earth are a kind of imperfect von Neumann machine? They certainly self-replicate – in fact they reproduce – but often they perform this task imperfectly, these imperfections result from the potential mutation of their genetic code, in turn due to mistakes in the replication of its DNA.
Let us continue on with this thought experiment and suppose that the universe is equivalent to an organism we are all familiar with on Earth. What then would be the analogue of an organism’s genetic code in the case of the universe? With some contemplation one can conclude that the analogue would be the LAWS OF NATURE, the very laws of nature we have established that U is trying to read.
Again, returning to the organism, this reproduces itself by replicating DNA sequence, this duplication being subject to possible mistakes. But isn’t it the case that U is doing precisely this, i.e. reproducing, and a part of this will be to duplicate the fundamental laws of nature? Furthermore there is the problem that these laws can never be known exactly, the principle which imposes a tolerance on knowledge – an inherent uncertainty in anything that can be known about the universe (for example the cosmological constants may never be perfectly measured), and in addition these fundamental laws may never be precisely known or understood. This then represents the very uncertainty in replication we see for DNA code in life on Earth.
POST 9
We now have proposed that the universe might be an imperfect von Neumann machine, or even a living organism here on Earth. We have seen that the entity U which we are all a part of, is gradually developing a knowledge of the universe, most importantly the fundamental laws of nature, which it would be able to use to create another universe, slightly different from our own, in that there will undoubtedly be errors in the duplication process due to the inherent uncertainty in anything that can be known. But if the universe is such an organism, where is the habitat, the environment in which it exists? (Just as organisms live in the environment of their host planet – in our case Earth.)
Can we conclude that the universe organism in which we exist, is a part of and living in a superuniverse? Furthermore when our universe reproduces, the new daughter universe which it creates will actually also be alive in this superuniverse. In fact could this superuniverse be abundant in other universes, separate and parallel to ours, some of which will be cooperating with our own through communication, some of which will be competing with our own in this superuniverse? In the former case, our universe may be a part of a multi-universe organism, in the latter case, our universe might be an entirely separate entity to its competitors, as they fight for survival in this superuniverse.
Whatever the case, can we go even further and argue that the superuniverse in which our universe organism exists, is also an organism in its own right, and that this superuniverse exists in a super-superuniverse. Indeed it is not a great leap of the imagination to conclude that this super-superuniverse may also be an organism existing in a super-super-superuniverse and so on. This begs the question, where does this all stop? Maybe there is no end, in other words we exist in a macrouniverse of universes and superuniverses which go on ad infinitum. This is a repeating pattern on all scales and levels of existence. Such a structure has a name – a fractal.
Is our universe a part of a macrouniverse whose nature is a fractal at all levels?
As we are entering the world – or should I say the macrouniverse – of the outrageous, could this whole macrouniverse structure have been built by some architect – an overseeing architect (possibly a software engineer?) Could all this in fact be a computer program? Indeed could this architect which we shall call C, exist in another macrouniverse? Could this macrouniverse have been crafted by some other architect which exists in another macrouniverse?
I think you can see where we are going with this logic. Each macrouniverse fractal structure is itself buried in an infinity of macrouniverses, in other words we have a fractal within a fractal structure.