Dear Arturo Tozzi and FISers Thank you for your very interesting ideas. For me they raise more questions: Why did the number of cosmic symmetries ever start diminishing? Could the whole process be eternally cyclical? I like your respectful use of capital letters. My mind boggles. Best rgds David
On 24 Feb 2017, at 15:24, [email protected] wrote: > Dear FISers, > > hi! > > A possible novel discussion (if you like it, of course!): > > > > A SYMMETRY-BASED ACCOUNT OF LIFE AND EVOLUTION > > After the Big Bang, a gradual increase in thermodynamic entropy is occurring > in our Universe (Ellwanger, 2012). Because of the relationships between > entropy and symmetries (Roldán et al., 2014), the number of cosmic > symmetries, the highest possible at the very start, is declining as time > passes. Here the evolution of living beings comes into play. Life is a > space-limited increase of energy and complexity, and therefore of symmetries. > The evolution proceeds towards more complex systems (Chaisson, 2010), until > more advanced forms of life able to artificially increase the symmetries of > the world. Indeed, the human brains’ cognitive abilities not just think > objects and events more complex than the physical ones existing in Nature, > but build highly symmetric crafts too. For example, human beings can watch a > rough stone, imagine an amygdala and build it from the same stone. Humankind > is able, through its ability to manipulate tools and technology, to produce > objects (and ideas, i.e., equations) with complexity levels higher than the > objects and systems encompassed in the pre-existing physical world. > Therefore, human beings are naturally built by evolution in order to increase > the number of environmental symmetries. This is in touch with recent claims, > suggesting that the brain is equipped with a number of functional and > anatomical dimensions higher than the 3D environment (Peters et al., 2017). > Intentionality, typical of the living beings and in particular of the human > mind, may be seen as a mechanism able to increase symmetries. As Dante > Alighieri stated (Hell, XXVI, 118-120), “you were not made to live as brutes, > but to follow virtue and knowledge”. > > In touch with Spencer’s (1860) and Tyler’s (1881) claims, it looks like > evolutionary mechanisms tend to achieve increases in environmental > complexity, and therefore symmetries (Tozzi and Peters, 2017). Life is > produced in our Universe in order to restore the initial lost symmetries. At > the beginning of life, increases in symmetries are just local, e.g., they are > related to the environmental niches where the living beings are placed. > However, in long timescales, they might be extended to the whole Universe. > For example, Homo sapiens, in just 250.000 years, has been able to build the > Large Hadron Collider, where artificial physical processes make an effort to > approximate the initial symmetric state of the Universe. Therefore, life is > a sort of gauge field (Sengupta et al., 2016), e.g., a combination of forces > and fields that try to counterbalance and restore, in very long timescales, > the original cosmic symmetries, lost after the Big Bang. Due to physical > issues, the “homeostatic” cosmic gauge field must be continuous, e.g., life > must stand, proliferate and increase in complexity over very long timescales. > This is the reason why every living being has an innate tendency towards > self-preservation and proliferation. With the death, continuity is broken. > This talks in favor of intelligent life scattered everywhere in the Universe: > if a few species get extinct, others might continue to proliferate and evolve > in remote planets, in order to pursue the goal of the final symmetric > restoration. In touch with long timescales’ requirements, it must be kept > into account that life has been set up after a long gestation: a childbearing > which encompasses the cosmic birth of fermions, then atoms, then stars able > to produce the more sophisticated matter (metals) required for molecular > life. > > A symmetry-based framework gives rise to two opposite feelings, by our > standpoint of human beings. On one side, we achieve the final answer to > long-standing questions: “why are we here?”, “Why does the evolution act in > such a way?”, an answer that reliefs our most important concerns and gives us > a sense; on the other side, however, this framework does not give us any > hope: we are just micro-systems programmed in order to contribute to restore > a partially “broken” macro-system. And, in case we succeed in restoring, > through our mathematical abstract thoughts and craftsmanship, the initial > symmetries, we are nevertheless doomed to die: indeed, the environment > equipped with the starting symmetries does not allow the presence of life. > > > > REFERENCES > > 1) Chaisson EJ. 2010. Energy Rate Density as a Complexity Metric and > Evolutionary Driver. Complexity, v 16, p 27, 2011; DOI: 10.1002/cplx.20323. > > 2) Ellwanger U. 2012. From the Universe to the Elementary Particles. > A First Introduction to Cosmology and the Fundamental Interactions. > Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. ISBN 978-3-642-24374-5. > > 3) Peters JF, Ramanna S, Tozzi A, Inan E. 2017. Frontiers Hum > Neurosci. BOLD-independent computational entropy assesses functional > donut-like structures in brain fMRI image. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2017.00038. > > 4) Sengupta B, Tozzi A, Coray GK, Douglas PK, Friston KJ. 2016. > Towards a Neuronal Gauge Theory. PLOS Biology 14 (3): e1002400. > doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002400. > > 5) Spencer H. 1860. System of Synthetic Philosophy. > > 6) Roldán E, Martínez IA, Parrondo JMR, Petrov D. 2014. Universal > features in the energetics of symmetry breaking. Nat. Phys. 10, 457–461. > 7) Tozzi A, Peters JF. 2017. Towards Topological Mechanisms > Underlying Experience Acquisition and Transmission in the Human Brain. J.F. > Integr. psych. behav. doi:10.1007/s12124-017-9380-z > > 8) Tyler EB. 1881. Anthropology: an Introduction to the Study of Man > and Civilization. > > > > > > Arturo Tozzi > > AA Professor Physics, University North Texas > > Pediatrician ASL Na2Nord, Italy > > Comput Intell Lab, University Manitoba > > http://arturotozzi.webnode.it/ > > > _______________________________________________ > Fis mailing list > [email protected] > http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
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