Jun 13, 2023 03:13 PM
https://bigthink.com/hard-science/the-un...heres-why/
EXCERPTS: A new scientific paradigm is emerging that presents us with a radically different cosmic narrative. The big idea is that the Universe is not just an arbitrary physical system, but something more like an evolving computational or biological system — with properties strikingly similar to a complex adaptive system, like an organism or a brain. If this characterization turns out to be accurate, I do not think it is an overstatement to say that it is the most profound paradigm shift in the history of science and philosophy. If true, it raises new existential questions that will force us to completely rethink the nature of reality and ideas about whether the Universe has a function or “purpose.”
The idea that the Universe is something like an organism or a brain isn’t a new one. This concept goes back at least to 500 B.C. when it was first dreamed up by Anaxagoras. The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher proposed that an intelligent cosmic force, or “Nous,” guides the development of the Universe toward a more organized and purposeful state of existence. Today we might describe Nous as the principle of self-organization.
While the specifics of Anaxagoras’ theory of the Universe contain concepts that are not consistent with modern science, breakthroughs in our understanding of the nature of reality are breathing new life into the idea that the world as a whole may be very similar in structure and function to the biological organisms and information networks it has produced through the evolutionary process.
In recent years, a number of highly respected theoretical physicists and scientists from various fields have published papers, articles, and books that have provided compelling technical and mathematical arguments that suggest the Universe is not just a computational or information-processing system, but a self-organizing system that evolves and learns in ways that are strikingly similar to biological systems.
[...] For example, scientists have recently emphasized that the physical organization of the Universe mirrors the structure of a brain. Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder — renowned for her skepticism — wrote a bold article for Time Magazine in August of 2022 titled “Maybe the Universe Thinks. Hear Me Out,” which describes the similarities. Like our nervous system, the Universe has a highly interconnected, hierarchical organization.
[...] In 2020, theoretical physicist Vitaly Vanchurin published a landmark paper titled “The World as a Neural Network” in the journal Entropy. Where Hossenfelder described the structural organization of the Universe to be brain-like, Vanchurin argues that the world is literally a neural network, with an interconnected network of “nodes” existing at the microscopic scale that is equivalent to the network of neurons inside our skulls. This network allows the Universe not just to evolve, but to learn, and it is a hypothesis that may actually be testable someday.
[...] In 2021, a similar paper was published by some high-profile scientists, physicist Lee Smolin and computer scientist Jaron Lanier among them, called The Autodidactic Universe, which inspired sensational headlines like “Physicists working with Microsoft think the Universe is a self-learning computer.” The paper proposes that the cosmos may possess an innate ability to learn, adapt, and evolve in a manner akin to a living organism. This view diverges from conventional theories of everything, which typically treat the Universe as an inert system governed by unchanging laws. By contrast, Smolin and Lanier posit that the laws of the Universe might emerge sometime after its creation, and those laws might change or evolve as the cosmos develops and learns more about its own structure, dynamics, and possibilities.
[...] The idea that the Universe is a self-organizing system that evolves and learns through Darwinian mechanisms seems to be part of the emerging zeitgeist in cosmology. The new book On the Origin of Time reveals that the great late Stephen Hawking believed that the reductionistic paradigm he defended for much of his life is incorrect. Ultimately, Hawking felt that the mainstream narrative failed to explain “How the Universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life.”
[...] According to his close collaborator Thomas Hertog, the author of the book, Hawking came to the conclusion that the Universe is an evolving system that operates according to Darwinian principles that drive the world toward higher complexity, which would explain the existence of observers like you and I. Hertog told The Guardian, “In the end, we both came to think of physics in a way much more like how we think of biology…[our theory] leads to a new philosophy of physics that rejects the idea that the Universe is a machine governed by unconditional laws with a prior existence, and replaces it with a view of the Universe as a kind of self-organizing entity in which all sorts of emergent patterns appear, the most general of which we call the laws of physics.” (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: A new scientific paradigm is emerging that presents us with a radically different cosmic narrative. The big idea is that the Universe is not just an arbitrary physical system, but something more like an evolving computational or biological system — with properties strikingly similar to a complex adaptive system, like an organism or a brain. If this characterization turns out to be accurate, I do not think it is an overstatement to say that it is the most profound paradigm shift in the history of science and philosophy. If true, it raises new existential questions that will force us to completely rethink the nature of reality and ideas about whether the Universe has a function or “purpose.”
The idea that the Universe is something like an organism or a brain isn’t a new one. This concept goes back at least to 500 B.C. when it was first dreamed up by Anaxagoras. The pre-Socratic Greek philosopher proposed that an intelligent cosmic force, or “Nous,” guides the development of the Universe toward a more organized and purposeful state of existence. Today we might describe Nous as the principle of self-organization.
While the specifics of Anaxagoras’ theory of the Universe contain concepts that are not consistent with modern science, breakthroughs in our understanding of the nature of reality are breathing new life into the idea that the world as a whole may be very similar in structure and function to the biological organisms and information networks it has produced through the evolutionary process.
In recent years, a number of highly respected theoretical physicists and scientists from various fields have published papers, articles, and books that have provided compelling technical and mathematical arguments that suggest the Universe is not just a computational or information-processing system, but a self-organizing system that evolves and learns in ways that are strikingly similar to biological systems.
[...] For example, scientists have recently emphasized that the physical organization of the Universe mirrors the structure of a brain. Theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder — renowned for her skepticism — wrote a bold article for Time Magazine in August of 2022 titled “Maybe the Universe Thinks. Hear Me Out,” which describes the similarities. Like our nervous system, the Universe has a highly interconnected, hierarchical organization.
[...] In 2020, theoretical physicist Vitaly Vanchurin published a landmark paper titled “The World as a Neural Network” in the journal Entropy. Where Hossenfelder described the structural organization of the Universe to be brain-like, Vanchurin argues that the world is literally a neural network, with an interconnected network of “nodes” existing at the microscopic scale that is equivalent to the network of neurons inside our skulls. This network allows the Universe not just to evolve, but to learn, and it is a hypothesis that may actually be testable someday.
[...] In 2021, a similar paper was published by some high-profile scientists, physicist Lee Smolin and computer scientist Jaron Lanier among them, called The Autodidactic Universe, which inspired sensational headlines like “Physicists working with Microsoft think the Universe is a self-learning computer.” The paper proposes that the cosmos may possess an innate ability to learn, adapt, and evolve in a manner akin to a living organism. This view diverges from conventional theories of everything, which typically treat the Universe as an inert system governed by unchanging laws. By contrast, Smolin and Lanier posit that the laws of the Universe might emerge sometime after its creation, and those laws might change or evolve as the cosmos develops and learns more about its own structure, dynamics, and possibilities.
[...] The idea that the Universe is a self-organizing system that evolves and learns through Darwinian mechanisms seems to be part of the emerging zeitgeist in cosmology. The new book On the Origin of Time reveals that the great late Stephen Hawking believed that the reductionistic paradigm he defended for much of his life is incorrect. Ultimately, Hawking felt that the mainstream narrative failed to explain “How the Universe could have created conditions so perfectly hospitable to life.”
[...] According to his close collaborator Thomas Hertog, the author of the book, Hawking came to the conclusion that the Universe is an evolving system that operates according to Darwinian principles that drive the world toward higher complexity, which would explain the existence of observers like you and I. Hertog told The Guardian, “In the end, we both came to think of physics in a way much more like how we think of biology…[our theory] leads to a new philosophy of physics that rejects the idea that the Universe is a machine governed by unconditional laws with a prior existence, and replaces it with a view of the Universe as a kind of self-organizing entity in which all sorts of emergent patterns appear, the most general of which we call the laws of physics.” (MORE - missing details)
