Stuart Kauffman | Beyond Pythagoras: No Laws Entail Evolution | Full Lecture | KLI

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Pythagoras' dream was that all is number, hence entailing law. Newton formulated this in classical physics, whose laws entail the becoming of the universe from given initial (and boundary) conditions. Do similar mathematizable laws entail the becoming of the biosphere? I am convinced the answer is “No”. Physics requires the prestatement of the very phase space of the system. In terms of that phase space, the relevant variables are known and dynamical laws can be written and then integrated, much as Newton taught us, to entail the temporal evolution of the system.
But we cannot prestate the phase space of biological evolution. Unprestatable new functionalities arise all the time due to Darwinian “preadaptations”, or “exaptation”. No one could have known 3 billion years ago that feathers would evolve for thermoregulation then be co-opted for flight. No one could have known that legs would evolve from the fins of fish, or that fins would arise. Not only do we not know what will happen, we do not even know what can happen. Hence we can write no laws of motion for the evolution of the biosphere, we have no idea what the relavant variables will be. Lacking laws of motion, we cannot integrate the missing laws, so no laws entail the radical emergence of the most complex system in the universe that we know, the biosphere. This evolution is not even mathematizable and the Pythagoran dream here fails.
Biographical note:
Stuart Kauffman is a theoretical biologist and a pioneer of complex systems research. Kauffman introduced many now-familiar models of complex systems, such as boolean networks to study gene regulatory networks, the NK model to study fitness landscapes, and collectively autocatalytic sets to study the origin of life. He is probably best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from self-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian adaptation. Kauffman is the author of several books, including his latest, "Humanity in a creative universe", in which he argues that biological evolution is not entailed by any laws.

[@modvs1]

I called my wife a "Kantian whole" and she slapped me.

[@florin.lupascu]

:))

[@georgeangles6542]

I like how Stuart Kauffman speaks common sense while making it sound scientific. 💪💪

[@HakuYuki001]

Common sense is a myth.

[@medaphysicsrepository2639]

Can’t believe I am just now discovering his works

[@koalanights]

2 years later here I am discovering him. may the adjacent possible of our new cognitive niches expand to more cracks in the floor and more niches: )

[@Sloop_Jonz_B]

Just found out about him yesterday. I can’t believe I’ve never heard of him before.

[@thephilosophicalagnostic2177]

This is a fantastic lecture. I've learned so much from it on topics I'm fascinated by, including evolution, emergence, and the open universe. Thank you for organizing the event and posting it here.

[@thomasmurphy9429]

Biochemist here. His conception of mathematical laws is incoherent. The complexity observed in evolved living systems necessarily emerges from the laws of motion operating on particles combined with their chemistry (which emerge from electromagnetic/nuclear physics). And so down through subatomic particles and fields. If you plugged all the particle information into a large enough computer, you could predict every single data of evolution on Earth; all you need is the initial state, the evolution (physical change over time) law, and computational power. Kauffman is essentially arguing that the trajectory of evolution in language interpretable to us (i.e. not particle data) is not possible by way of 'laws of motion' specific to evolutionary phenomena. Kauffman is right, but what's wrong with this? Why would reality be reducible to mathematical laws at every scale (including biology), as opposed to just the most fundamental (subatomic particles)?

[@d_wigglesworth]

I struggle with, “if you plugged all the particle information…you could predict…” True in principle but consider this assertion: there is no universe where such a computation could be conducted due to rounding errors and error propagation. While that assertion might evoke “irreducible complexity “ or some such thing… even “replaying” this universe wouldn’t do the trick! That is, Laplacian thinking (initial conditions etc) is incoherent: it merely assumes its apparent conclusions: it is nothing more than an unsupported and untenable assertion which has been largely accepted… largely because it’s a pretty notion and it fits with newtonian thinking but also with an infatuation with the invention (relatively recent!!) of the decimal place and with calculus… mathematics is a powerful and potentially very misleading hammer in our hands: the universe is not a nail! The “unreasonable effectiveness” of mathematics should be taken at face value: it is nothing more than the un-reasonable application of that hammer to a “nail” despite the non-nail-nature of our universe And if you disagree with that, consider how far our hammer is from complete: infinitely far!! So even if it is correct to expect math to be very suited to describing physical reality… consider how poorly it is likely to be recognized as “suitable” in its current form after a few decades/centuries when we have vastly expanded its reach. Either way, the Laplacian view is worthy of extreme skepticism . I dont perceive a clear picture painted by the presenter… but we need this kind of exploration to prepare us for some radically new - and more correct - thinking about our universe and ourselves. Accept the “laplace” view but be prepared to jettison it when this kind of exploration (eventually) reveals a new perspective.

[@d_wigglesworth]

Oh. Wait a sec. One more thought: The laplacian view that leads to laplacian determinism... it's the classic "extrapolation" error. We need to use math as a tool to understand our world, not as a straightjacket that restricts original thought that will lead to improved comprehension of physical phenomena. To that end, we should acknowledge the usefulness of a laplacian approach, but recognize it's limitations: we should expect that extrapolating a successful tool to include EVERYTHING is, to put it mildly, likely an overreach. :)

[@HakuYuki001]

@@d_wigglesworth You basically just stated what you personally believe without evidence but with full force of arrogant certainty.

[@d_wigglesworth]

​@@HakuYuki001 Yes, I did. This is the "comment" section. So. No offence intended; on either side, I presume! :) I often write down thoughts just to "test them out". Having a unarticulated, and therefore indefinite, thought is one thing... articulating it into a definite form (such as in writing) is something else entirely. The former might be riddled with error or be perfectly correct in some sense... but until it's in black-and-white... difficult to tell ! So whenever you see comments from me -- and possibly from everybody else -- I think it is safe to assume that the comment is really just a "trial" articulation of what is currently in the commenter's head-space....and that after reflection upon its definitely- (though not necessarily "clearly-") articulated form, the commenter might have a complete change of heart/head. In my case, I have to thank you for bringing my comment to my attention by responding to it. I've re-read that comment, naturally, and the impression I have is "Good! I wouldn't change a thing!" :) (though this was not necessarily to be the case, I assure you ... I often change my mind as I'm not afraid to articulate my thoughts just to "test them out") Apologies for coming off "arrogant". I don't mean to tell others how to think but only to give others -- and myself! -- something to reflect upon in case it is interesting. I hope it was interesting to at least SOME people!. In light of your comment I will perhaps express myself less arrogantly in future. :) A sincere Thank-You for articulating your thoughts in a definite form so that I can consider them. Occch... I was about to hit "reply" on this "essay" :) when I re-read the comment from @thomasmurphy9429 ... and I see that it is not clear from my -- now, rather old -- comment that I had correctly understood its content. but I think my Self from a month ago was trying to support the original commenter. Wasn't I?? Maybe I was. But now I'm going to make a fresh comment on that in a separate thread. :) ... here goes..

[@onetwothree4148]

Ignoring that your theory also isn't coherent... Fair enough that math is an incomplete model, or that there are physical limits to computation, but neither are relevant to the question here. Is the universe following logical rules that could theoretically be mapped out? And then of course you have to offer an alternative theory, however incomplete, that works better. I've never heard anyone articulate any alternative theory. It's easy to vaguely assert that other options could possibly exist, and that is technically true, but it's pretty useless to say. Might as well say God could have done it.

[@daveman439]

Wow!, I like what was stated there in the box below the window for this video. Wow

[@jcoelho6006]

Deep as everything Kauffman does

[@dimiterpp]

Amazing lecture

[@nicholaswestbury7689]

So the context point wrt the adjacent possibilities for the use of a screwdriver 🪛, is something relational like, if screws suddenly vanish or something else appears that could make use of some part of a screwdriver...

[@Setherian]

In more places then not it is definitely harder to open a new and prosperous business today then say 40 years ago! We are not getting enough context per capita and people are not getting more creative and there is not less bureaucracy and people are not in need of so many new things. Its not because now I can imagine doing a business of parties in a metaverse that i have any chance of succeeding.. Maybe in the USA people have a sense that there will be always more opportunities, but trust me, anywhere else it's just not like that..in Europe for example, all country side that could be farmed is already, a hell lot of people then move to a big city, it becomes a saturation hell, shit loads of people have ever more precarious working conditions and if there is no welfare the whole system shuts down. To say economies everywhere are negentropic is just insane. Hope I got it wrong then. Or maybe "order" in this case of economy just means it will get ordered towards one single agent, like if one person or entity could have it all? He might be thinking then that Capitalism leads to God? hahaha Oh and I'm also not so sure Culture is becoming more complex.., but if it is, it is "evaporating".. It seems to me that the vast majority of people are actually becoming more and more alike again..

[@Roscoe0494]

I didn't get past the initial calculation of how long it would take the universe to create one protein. Which by many times exceeds the age of the universe itself. So how exactly does one protein even come into being let alone hearts, let alone civilizations?

[@rv706]

That's not what he said. He said that the time the universe would've employed to form a collection containing at least one copy of each molecule made of a chain of 1000 atoms would be greater than the current age of the universe. So the universe doesn't create _all_ complex things, but only a very sparse subset thereof. Therefore, given any specific complex thing, such as a heart, it is a nontrivial question to ask why that specific complex thing came to exist.

[@JayBowles]

"the parts exist for and by means of the whole" - kant autopoietic system collectively autocatalytic set functional/task closure adjacent possible empty niche

[@PerNystedt]

Great talk by a very wise man. Nothing really came as a surprise after reading the "Futurica Trilogy" by Bard & Söderqvist though.

[@frodo279]

Why can't we just consider each organism as a goal seeking agent and that throwing in some statistical mutations we could in a way put a mathematical form to evolution? Agreed that you can't quantify using PDE's with BC and IC's , but that still doesn't refute the face that we are simple goal seeking agents trying to maximize our fitness function (which is basically to pass on our genetic materials successfully). Take the case of the peptide he mentions in the talk. If that mutation were to never occur, then the universe we live in might have never evolved the way it is. That thought is coherent with the theory of infinite universes occurring in parallel time lines. But the universe is the way it is and I believe that a mathematical framework is still applicable.

[@GuillermoValleCosmos]

I don't agree with everything, but there are many good ideas here.

[@EXHellfire]

What didn't you agree with and why?

[@esorse]

You cannot conclude that there is some thing corresponding with all the stuff representative noun universe with a purpose because of your hearts function.

[@samueldeandrade8535]

7:24 "how many ...?" The old fallacious human surprise with big numbers. How original.

[@yifuxero5408]

On Kant's statement that the parts exist only by means of the whole, this is an ancient concept going back to Marcus Aurelius. Set Theorist Georg Cantor came up with a hierarchy of sets, such as hyperinfinities, then in an AHA moment, realized that such levels of mathematical reality have a limit, which he called "The Absolute Infinite". This is experiential. Access "Mahamritunjaya mantra - Sacred Sounds Choir" and listen to it for 5 min per day for at least two weeks. Entities such as "auto-catalytic functions" are Pure Consciousness, along with the entire universe.

[@prinzessor]

what are chinups aoround the minute 9 to 10 ? I am german and I dont get it. Okay, finally I got it. It is a hortcut of "carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur" = CHNOPS

[@leo.budimir]

What is a chin-up molecule? Googling doesn't help

[@MrJustSomeGuy87]

It’s actually “chnops” - carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, sulfur en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHON

[@myhamismad]

This all sounds very Bergsonian

[@drkwrl]

I'm sold that there is no law entailing the becoming of the biosphere but why does he say the same about the universe?

[@drkwrl]

Ah, seeing this the second time, I have a feeling it might have to do with Kantian whole's

[@ryanholsapple5179]

@@drkwrl Plus the biosphere is a part of the universe, so if any part of the universe lacks a law entailing its becomin it stands to reason the becoming of the full becoming of the universe cannot be prestated by any laws.

[@ericpalmer3588]

Of course their aren’t any fundamental laws. Can’t be.

[@SystemsMedicine]

Hi Eric. Your assertion cannot be universally true, or it would be a ‘universal law’. Cheers.

[@privateprivate1865]

​@@SystemsMedicinelol.. true

[@Achrononmaster]

He mixes levels too much. Swim bladders etc do have a cause. The adjacent possible niche is a high level concept, and is not the level where fundamental causal processes operate. The Darwinian stories we use to explain adaptations are not causal stories, they are stories at a fairly high level of abstraction, and fundamental causal processes do not act at such levels. The fact one cannot generally find causal processes at a high level of abstraction is because physical complexity at such high levels is what philosophers refer to as "multiply realizabie". There are so many ways a swim bladder could form, so no physical causal process explains all swim bladders. But one particular swim bladder in one individual organism has a bunch of fundamental causal events which realize it. If you find you cannot explain phenomena using causation principles, but can use functional purpose concepts to explain the existence of the phenomena, then you know you are using abstractions. Such abstractions are difficult to reduce to base level physics due to multiple realizability. But any particular instance of a chain of events do have simple physical causes. This does not mean physical reductionism is "true". Kauffman is on point about this point, but does not really show reductionism is false. His arguments are qualitative and persuasive, but fall short of being definitive.

[@kvaka009]

Bijou Smith I don't think he argues that reductionism is false. As in that any process is constrained by and is dependent on the lower level. However, necessary entailment of physical laws for higher states is false. Therefore employing reductionism to explain or predict higher level possibilities is untenable. That's my sense of his point.

[@florin.lupascu]

Bijou Smith Ok, but he argues that the HOLE chain that "arrives" to produce a new function is acausal, so then physics cannot be used to explain the process, even there might be some causal explanation to local parts. I find the argument convincing.

[@doublenegation7870]

He isn't trying to argue that a reduction to physics is "false", but that it's non-exhaustive as an explanatory method, since it can certainly describe all physical things once they're given, but it cannot discriminate between functional properties and ancillary properties accessory to an organ in a "kantian whole". Knowledge of what a heart does so as to pump blood and the indirect consequence of its jiggling the pericardial sac so it goes "lub dub" are on an equal footing as far as a physical description is concerned. But that's the whole problem -- the two processes are not equal, as one of them is essential for the organism while the other isn't. Physics cannot in principle explain why, within the given universe of atoms, molecules, etc., whose possible combinations outrun the combinations that are actual, just this set of biological circumstances came to exist and not any of those other possible physical arrangements. To do this, we need the notion of purposive functioning that purely physical (i.e., geometrico-mechanical) descriptions cannot discern. Physics is not false -- it's true as far as it goes, but is not adequate to explain biologically physical things on its own terms.

[@ashleyjohnston6225]

This is pretty much what I was yelling at my screen.

[@SystemsMedicine]

While there are many technical problems with this presentation, and others like it, I want to try to summarize a general problem here. The speaker says: we can’t do this, you can’t do this, I can’t solve this, we can’t solve that; AND PRESTO, “proof” that it cannot be done. When a speakers asserts that something cannot be done in principle, their burden of proof is very very very high. [Impossibility proofs exist, but they are very difficult to do properly.] This kind of talk is fun in isolation, but is tiresome if there are many of them. (“The heart wants to pump blood.” This is just sloppy thinking. It’s ok at a fun seminar, or a beer hall, but highly misleading in a more serious context.)

[@tgenov]

He is simply using “impossible” to mean “intractable”. There isn’t enough time in the universe given the state space… Could you get lucky in the search space and guess a solution? Of course you can… You are confusing Mathemarics with empiricism.

[@SystemsMedicine]

@@tgenov Hi Tgenov. I think the talk was full of sloppy thinking and poor use of mathematical thinking. I disagree with the state space ‘analysis’ suggested in the talk. And I think the conclusions about lack of ‘laws’ in biology are completely unjustified. Again, the talk was stimulating, largely because it was so incorrect. [Strangely, the 1st question asked was a kind of ‘rug pulling’ question, which was dealt with rather rhetorically by the speaker. Phooey.] Of course biology is sufficiently regular that some form of ‘laws’ probably exist. I’ll bet you can think of one yourself, Tgenov. Give it a serious try for 1 hour, and let me know what you come up with. Cheers.

[@samueldeandrade8535]

Why hearts exist? Urgh. And people thinkt this man has something intelligent to offer?

[@SeanMauer]

This is why I'm a young earth creationist. We see extinction but not new creatures.

[@bconigliaro]

You can throw a wrench into Kauffman's theories with a Phillips screwdriver. Can you open a can of paint with it? No. Is a Phillips screwdriver an example of automata or part of an autocatalytic set? I think not.

[@philosophe5319]

Bob Laughlin this comment shows exceeding stupidity

[@jakecarlo9950]

@24:47 - Heidegger! Read Heidegger damn yer eyes!