Dialog with Howard Pattee - Part 4 - "Property Dualism"

"Property Dualism" based on Wikipedia

Howard Pattee's 2008 paper "Physical and functional conditions for symbols, codes, and languages" is available for download here. I recently re-read it in detail and engaged in what was for me an interesting and rewarding email dialog with Howard.

This is the fourth in a planned multi-part posting that includes portions of our email dialog.

Click for Part 1 - His 2008 Paper

Click for Part 2 - Determinism vs Probability

Click for Part 3 - QM and Chess Analogy

Click for Part 5 - Flatland and Higher Dimensions

INTRODUCTION

By the time I wrote my Oct 19th email (excerpted below), I had carefully re-read the remaining sections of Howard's paper.

For Blog readers who have not yet read the original paper (and to remind those who have), and to provide context regarding Howard's personal journey from the "material school" to what is now called "biosemiotics", here is the first part of Section 4 of his paper:

4. Early personal history of the problem

There are more requirements for a polymer sequence to function as a symbol besides energy degeneracy, coding rules, and the ability to fold into a specific catalyst. The entire system must be able to replicate and to persist by heritable variation and natural selection. It was only after studying the nature of hierarchical organization, von Neumann’s logic of self-replication, and the measurement problem that I began to understand the essential semiotic requirement that symbols and codes must be part of a language to allow open-ended evolution. To explain this I need to recount a brief personal history.

The symbol-matter problem first arose in my thinking about the origin of life. I have to agree with Laotsu that symbols emerged from the lawful material universe at the origin of life. From an evolutionary point of view I do not see how one can support the claim that semiotic principles are on the same footing as physical laws. Symbols and life are coextensive concepts and their occurrence in the universe is cosmically very recent and exceedingly sparse, at least for life as we know it.

Before the discoveries of the genetic code and protein synthesis, physicists often viewed life as a basic challenge to natural laws, and many expressed doubt that life is reducible to physical laws. Bohr (1933), Delbrück, and Schrödinger are prominent examples of those whose thoughts on the subject are in the literature (e.g., McKaughan, 2005). Like many other physicists at the time, I was challenged by the central question raised by in Schrödinger’s "What Is Life?” He asks how the gene, “that miniature code,” could reliably control the development of such highly complicated organisms. In the 1960s there were two schools of thought; one school focused on the molecular structure and biochemistry of life, the other school (that should now be recognized as “biosemiotics”) focused on the informational aspects of genetic control (e.g., Beadle, 1963; Kendrew 1968; Stent, 1968; Delbrück, 1970).

I first belonged to the material school because my physics research was on x-ray microscopic and micro diffraction techniques for studying cell structure. Because the origin of life certainly requires understanding the origin of higher levels of organization, I also began to study hierarchical structures, specifically how new levels of organization are distinguished and whether higher levels of structure were objective, a descriptive convenience, or an epistemic necessity. …

The following excerpts are from an email from Ira Glickstein to Howard Pattee (Oct 19, 12:30 AM) and his reply (Oct 19, 10:58 AM).

NOTE: In his email, Howard includes the following links to Wikipedia that, for some reason, I could not get to be clickable within the quoted excerpts below, so here they are in clickable form: mind-matter problem, information-entropy distinction, and property dualist.

[IRA GLICKSTEIN] Howard, I just completed reading the remaining sections of your paper in detail. Of course I am always impressed by your writing style and calm, non-threatening attitude of presentation. I found it quite satisfying to once again spend time reading and trying to understand your reasoning processes, and I totally respect your valuable contributions to our understanding of hierarchy theory, complexity, the semiotic cut, biosemiotics, semiotic closure, and so on. So, please take the following in a positive sense as I intend it.

[HOWARD PATTEE] Ira, Here are my comments stimulated by your thoughtful discussion of my paper.

[IG] You contrast two schools of thought in the 1960s, one (with you, initially, as a member) that focused on the "material" aspects of molecular structure and biochemistry of life, while the second focused on the "informational" aspects of genetic control, that you note would now be called "biosemiotics".

You also ask whether hierarchical descriptions of complex systems are simply accepted and employed by humans because they make it easier to describe and understand these complex systems, or whether these levels actually exist. You, I am fairly sure, would now say the correct focus is on the informational aspects and that the hierarchical levels and structures are real and actually exist.

[HP] No, I am not focusing only on informational aspects. All information must have a physical embodiment. Symbols vehicles are matter or energy. I'm focusing on the symbol-matter problem. I consider the symbol-matter problem the primitive and simpler case of the philosophers' mind-matter problem. In physics it is related to the information-entropy distinction. I am a property dualist, or what I call an epistemic dualist; I am not a Cartesian substance dualist which is what you are worried about.

[IG] I would like to join your view, but I am worried that it veers too close to the Scilla and Charybdis of dualism - the idea that material and "spirit" are separate and distinct (and only interact thru the agency of God). You are careful to say you are not a dualist and that everything is material. The "mind" is not separate from the physical brain, and so on. But, is that a tenable position? Useful it definitely is, but is it in any sense to be literally interpreted?

[HP] Yes, I expect to be interpreted literally, which by definition means "following the words of the original very closely and exactly." I am a property dualist (which is not close to substance dualism) and I state that all symbols and symbolic activity require a material basis, which includes all forms of matter and energy, known and unknown.

[IG] At IBM and Lockheed Martin I conceptualized and designed complex avionics systems and software. On my diagrams, I had a hierarchy of software modules inside a number of physical computers. … Now, if you and I examined an actual aircraft, we would find the avionics as a number of metal boxes, connected by wires. … We would be hard-pressed to find that hierarchy of software modules and systems and subsystems I used to conceptualize and design that avionics system! What happened to my neat and easily conceptualized hierarchy of systems, subsystems, components and modules? It vanished into thin air like your fist when you unclench it to shake hands.

The above reasoning seems to me to support the idea that the actual avionics system is merely "material" and all the "informational" and "hierarchical" stuff is simply the way we humans have come up with to make it more convenient for us to conceptualize, design, and construct a complex system.

[HP] It is not "merely material." It is carefully selected matter precisely assembled only by virtue of the information in your brain (which is also a material structure). This design and construction information is certainly not just a "convenience." It is an absolute necessity. The genetic information performs the same design and construction information for the organism.
 
[IG] Even the computer program, when loaded into the computer as a string of electrical pulses, causes millions of semiconductor junctions to physically flip to different electrical states (that we call "1" and "0"). It is all physical!

[HP] Of course as a monist it must be all physical. To a physicalist, existence is all physical. But you have to understand what "physical" really entails. The laws of physics are moot without the information acquired from measurement of initial conditions and boundary conditions. Information structures are boundary conditions that control the lawful dynamics.

[IG] Yes, the specific order of those computer bits does control the displayed symbols and does make the radar antenna scan back and forth and so on, and (if it is the flight control subsystem) actually control the engine and airfoils and make the plane fly, but all the "information" is in the "minds" of us human engineers and programmers. Oh, and our "minds" (as you agree) are merely patterns of neuronal connections among the physical neuronal cell of our brains! So, where is the "information"? The "hierarchy"?

[HP] As I said, the computer code and the neural structure are not "merely" anything. They form the informational boundary conditions that control the dynamics.

[IG] Don't tell me the information and hierarchy is on my diagrams and computer program listings.

[HP] That is exactly what I'm telling you. The hierarchical levels are obvious in computer design, and not so obvious in brains. Without your information there would be no computers, and without genetic information there would be no brains.

[IG] Nope, all those are merely paper with ink marks, or computer chips with various voltages on millions of tiny structures, and displays with complex dots of light. None of this is "information" until a human looks at it, and, even then, all it is is patterns and weights of neural connections. OY!

[HP] Four billion years before humans looked at genes, their information was instructing matter how to replicate and evolve into humans.

[IG] As I write the above I feel a sense of loss. I never really believed in God as an intelligence external to the Universe, but I can imagine how a true believer might feel a big loss if we reasoned him or her out of the "God delusion". Is the "mind" a delusion if we really believe it exists? But you say you are a materialist, and I believe you are.

[HP] What do you think you have lost? Eddington: "There is nothing to prevent the assemblage of atoms constituting a brain from being of itself a thinking object [with 'free will'] in virtue of that nature which physics [the laws] leaves undetermined and undeterminable." Most of the structures in the universe are not determined by laws, but by chance (Gell-Mann's "frozen accidents").

[IG] … the "mind" is a word we use to conveniently describe something that is too complex to describe in full neuronal detail. Just as "God" is a word we use to describe the aspects of the Universe that we will never understand in full detail - the wonderful Laws of Nature, the Universal substance we can only perceive as interchangeable "energy" and "matter", of "waves" and "particles", of "random" and "deterministic", of "infinite" and "finite", of "continuous" and "discrete". … but I am optimistic:

“My candle burns at both ends / It will not last the night; / But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends - / It gives a lovely light.” Edna St. Vincent Millay, "A Few Figs from Thistles", 1920

Love from Ira (who did not expect this tome to keep me up past midnight)

Dialog with Howard Pattee - Part 3 - QM and Chess Analogy

Howard Pattee's 2008 paper "Physical and functional conditions for symbols, codes, and languages" is available for download here. I recently re-read it in detail and engaged in what was for me an interesting and rewarding email dialog with Howard.

This is the third in a planned multi-part posting that includes portions of our email dialog.

Click for Part 1 - His 2008 Paper

Click for Part 2 - Determinism vs Probability

Click for Part 4 - Property Dualism

Click for Part 5 - Flatland and Higher Dimensions

INTRODUCTION

The following excerpts are from an email from Ira Glickstein to Howard Pattee (Oct 16, 3:28 PM) and his reply (Oct 16, 8:21 PM)

[IRA GLICKSTEIN] Howard: Wow! A nearly instant reply with considerable detail. THANKS.

[HOWARD PATTEE] Ira, I'm always ready to argue over fundamentals of epistemology, provided I have time. What do we know?

[IG] I read your comments and the attachment in detail. Of course, I know that my finite, discrete, determinate Universe flies in the face of all the accepted QM theory and experiments. So far, the Copenhagen interpretation of QM has done exceedingly well in all experiments and therefore I am almost certainly wrong. But, since your Universe is, at heart, probabilistic, even you have to admit there is some non-zero possibility I am right :^)

[HP] The interesting psychological question is why you persist in holding on to a belief that in your own "rational"? thinking " you agree is "almost certainly wrong." Jonathan Haidt would say it is because your belief has a sacred aspect that is more important than reason. He says this is a stronger tendency in conservatives than in liberals. Do you think he has a point?

[IG] If the Universe is really continuous in time and space, and if energy and matter can be infinitely divided, then I agree that the Universe cannot be fully determinate. So, I lose in that case.

[HP] I don't think you lose on that point. I agree with Poincaré that infinity and continuity are constructs of the human imagination that have no observable consequents.

[IG] But, has time and space really been shown to be infinitely divisible? Is energy mass infinitely divisible?

[HP] Certainly not. The evidence simply disappears in the uncertainty. relations and the quantum foam.

[IG] I like simple physical thought experiments.

[HP] But until they are checked by experiments don't bet on them. Historically they are often wrong.

[IG] Consider chess, a finite, discrete system where all possible board states may be enumerated and placed in logical time order. Any given board state may have only some relatively small number of predecessors and successors according to the rules of chess. Thus, each possible game sequence of chess may be specified, and all possible sequences of chess board states may be enumerated as a finite set.

Now consider my finite, discrete Universe as a really big multidimensional array in spacetime with a finite number of energy and mass quanta. All possible Universe states (up to a certain time since the Big Bang) may (in theory) be enumerated. Unlike chess, the Universe has no external players, so each Universe state has one and only one successor state. Thus, given perfect knowledge of the initial starting state (at the Big Bang) or any other time since that event, there is only one valid string of Universe states. The result is the past, current, and future history string of the one and only Universe we have the privilege of being a part of.

[HP] That is the issue. There is no evidence that this order of states is unique or deterministic. The Path Integral formulation or sum-over-histories of QM say otherwise. So in this case the chess game is not a good analogy. Howard

[IG] Love, and thanks for your willingness to communicate with such a misguided soul as myself. Ira

[added 9 Nov 2013] The following excerpts are from an email from Ira Glickstein to Howard Pattee (Oct 17, 12:07 AM) with my reply to Howard's reference to Jonathan Haidt and his "Five Channels of Morality".

[IG] Howard, yes, I guess my belief in determinism has a "sacred" aspect that helps me continue to be optimistic in the face of all the chaos of the world situation of continual warfare, both physical and political, and of my inevitable demise as I watch my fellow residents leave Freedom Pointe at the rate of a couple a month, some "feet first" and others to Assisted Living or skilled nursing. I know I am a lot closer to the end of my life than to the beginning, and, having no real belief in traditional religion, and having sold my shotgun and rifle ten years ago when we left NY, I apparently need something to cling to. My committed Christian political allies have their "guns or religion ..." and I would have nothing if not for my determined determinism :^)

On the other hand, I do not think either Spinoza or Einstein were particularly conservative in their attitudes towards social, political, or traditional religious matters, yet they were both strict determinists to the ends of their lives.

But I do accept Haidt's study result that conservatives are more likely to honor the sacred than liberals. We discussed Haidt's "five channels of morality" here http://tvpclub.blogspot.com/2008/11/ted-talks-five-channels-of-morality.html and he shows that conservatives value each of the five (harm, fairness, authority, ingroup and purity) about equally, while liberals tend to rate harm and fairness way above the other three, with purity at the bottom. If we equate the sacred with what Haidt calls purity, which is reasonable, then conservatives value the sacred more highly than liberals. But, both conservatives and liberals rate harm the highest.

Meanwhile, I am encouraged by your reference to Poincaré that infinity and continuity are constructs of the human imagination that have no observable consequents. That would imply that either the Universe is neither infinite nor continuous but only seems so to our limited human minds, or, that, even if it is both infinite and continuous, that would not have the random consequences I attribute to continuity.

When I ask if "time and space [have] really been shown to be infinitely divisible? Is energy mass infinitely divisible?" You reply "Certainly not. The evidence simply disappears [in QM uncertainty] ..."

So, I remain hopeful (and you and accepted physics remain uncertain - at least in the QM sense!) Ira

Ira Glickstein

Dialog with Howard Pattee - Part 2 - Determinism vs Probability

Howard Pattee's 2008 paper "Physical and functional conditions for symbols, codes, and languages" is available for download here. I recently re-read it in detail and engaged in what was for me an interesting and rewarding email dialog with Howard.

This is the second in a planned multi-part posting that includes portions of our email dialog.

Click for Part 1 - His 2008 Paper

Click for Part 3 - QM and Chess Analogy

Click for Part 4 - Property Dualism

Click for Part 5 - Flatland and Higher Dimensions

INTRODUCTION

At the time I wrote my Oct 16th email (excerpted below), I had carefully re-read the first three sections of Howard's paper.

For Blog readers who have not yet read the original paper (and to remind those who have), and to provide context regarding our long-standing differences of opinion as to causality, determinism, and the arbitrariness of symbols, here are the titles and initial paragraphs of each of the first three sections of Howard's paper:

1. Epistemology and terminology are problems for biosemiotics

There are classical epistemic problems that have troubled the greatest minds for over 2000 years without reaching any consensus. This is the case for conceptual dualisms, like discrete and continuous, chance and determinism, form and function, and especially the mind-body problem that has persistently puzzled philosophers, and is still a central issue for philosophy, psychology, artificial life, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science. It is also closely related to fundamental issues in physics, the information-energy relation and what is known as the measurement problem. All of these problems are related to a category I have generalized as symbol-matter problem.

Biosemiotics, virtually by definition, cannot escape these problems. In my view, the central difficulty with the historical mind-body problem is that philosophy approached it from the wrong end of evolution. The many concepts and terminologies that have been invented to describe thought and language at the highest evolutionary levels of human cognition are not conceptually or empirically clear enough to adequately describe symbolic control at the cellular level where this duality first appears, and where it is simple enough to understand. Because my education began as a physics student, I learned that one must thoroughly understand very simple problems before one could even think clearly about more complex problems. …

2. The rules of symbols and the laws of matter have incompatible epistemic assumptions.

Let me begin with two epistemic assumptions that are a common source of misunderstanding. Models of symbol systems and material systems are based on incompatible epistemic assumptions. Physical laws ― the laws of matter and energy ― are based on the principle that any candidate for a law must give the same results for all conceivable observers and for arbitrary changes of reference frames. These conditions are called invariance and symmetry principles. Physical laws seek to describe those relations between events over which individual agents, whether single cells or humans, ideally have no control or freedom to make changes. Laws must appear universal and inexorable. By contrast, any candidate for a symbol system is based on the condition that all individual agents, from cells to humans, ideally have complete symbol-writing freedom within the syntactic constraints of the symbol system.

In other words, physical laws must give the impression that events do not have alternatives and could not be otherwise (Wigner, 1964), while informational symbolic structures must give the impression that they could be otherwise, and must have innumerable ways of actually being otherwise. Semiotic events are based on an endless choice of alternatives, not only in symbol sequences but also in codes that interpret the symbols. It is just those innumerable alternatives, selected by heritable propagation, that are the prerequisites for evolution as well as for creative thought. …

3. How can symbols and codes be free of physical laws?

This question is a second common source of misunderstanding about the symbol-matter problem. It is a belief among many scientists and philosophers that because physical laws are universal and inexorable there is in principle no room for alternative behaviors, in particular, the freedom of symbolic information, and ultimately free-will. This is a belief with a psychological basis that long predates the discovery of physical laws. It is rooted in the concept of causality ―the feeling that every event must have a cause. Aristotle and Lucretius could not accept indeterminism long before Laplace and Einstein. ...

The following excerpts are from an email from Ira Glickstein to Howard Pattee (Oct 16, 8:25 AM) and his reply (Oct 16, 12:51 PM)

[IRA GLICKSTEIN] Howard: thanks for uploading this paper. I am currently reading it in detail and am up to section 4. You make a very strong case for indeterminacy and arbitrariness of symbols. Of course, I accept that our human brains, even when assisted by highest technology sensors and computers cannot determine the future of evolution and natural (or even artificial) selection.

However, if (a BIG IF) time and space are finite and discrete (as, apparently are the quanta of matter) THEN (I would like to believe and therefore I do believe), at the Big Bang when a finite amount of matter/energy and space-time and the finite, Universal, and unchanging Laws of Nature originated, there were (and therefore still are) only a finite number of possible states of the Universe. 

[HOWARD PATTEE] The issue of determinism vs probability does not depend on discreteness. It depends on the nature of laws and what we call states of a system. There is no empirical evidence that the state of a system is exact. It is a probability distribution according to most interpretations of QM. Born even argues that classical models are probability distributions. …

The laws may be unchanging but still only probabilistic, as well as the states.

[IG] Thus, the sequence of formation of our Universe and ultimately of life and it's associated symbols, were (and are) fully determined.

I guess we are each too old to modify our basic beliefs.…

[HP] At least I can claim that all of the empirical evidence that I have acquired is consistent with a probabilistic universe. I have never come across any evidence of strict determinism. I have only experienced events with very good statistics.

I agree, however, that faith in determinism and God cannot be disproved by empirical evidence.

[IG] Meanwhile, THANKS again for being such an important part of my intellectual and personal life. …

[HP] Keep thinking. Howard

 

Ira Glickstein

Dialog with Howard Pattee - Part 1 - His 2008 Paper

Howard Pattee's 2008 paper "Physical and functional conditions for symbols, codes, and languages" is available for download here. I recently re-read it in detail and engaged in what was for me an interesting and rewarding email dialog with Howard (who is still paying the price for being Chairman of my PhD committee nearly two decades ago :^). He has given me his permission to share his comments on my email critiques of his 2008 paper, and I plan to do so in subsequent postings in this "Dialog with Howard Pattee" series.

This is the first in a multi-part posting that includes portions of our email dialog.

Click for Part 2 - Determinism vs Probability

Click for Part 3 - QM and Chess Analogy

Click for Part 4 - Property Dualism

Click for Part 5 - Flatland and Higher Dimensions

HOWARD A FAVORITE ON THIS BLOG

Howard has been an Author, Commenter and/or Subject on this Blog almost since its inception in 2007. Although he has not actively posted here for some time, I've noticed that postings by or about him, as well as postings where he has made comments, consistently garner high numbers of page views, year after year. Clearly, his name is a popular Google search term!

Although I have known and highly respected Howard since I first met him at Binghamton University as a System Science professor in the early 1990's, I still have difficulty getting my anal engineer's brain around his important contributions to the field now called "biosemiotics" (from the Greek bios meaning "life" and semeion meaning "sign"). At my request, he summarized the field of biosemiotics on this blog, here.

HOWARD'S RESEARCH INTERESTS

He began his graduate study of physics in the 1940's and was attracted to the classic problem of the physical basis of life. Rather than concentrate on the chemical basis of how living organisms are created from non-living matter, he approached it from the conceptual problem of where symbolic function emerges in the context of physical laws. Howard's research interests include: Physics of Symbols, Origin of Life, Epistemology, the Symbol-Matter Problem, the Quantum Measurement Problem, Biosemiotics, and the Epistemic Cut.
 
The very idea of the "physics of symbols" seems like a contradiction in terms to me. Howard and I have gone round and round on the "reality" of how a physical thing becomes a "sign" and a "sign" becomes a "symbol".  Although Howard is not a "dualist" in the way René Descartes considered "mental" and "material" to be two different substances, he calls himself a "property dualist" in our dialog, believing that the world consists of one type of physical substance that has both "physical" and "mental" properties.

His latest book, co-authored with Joanna Rączaszek-Leonardi, was published in 2012 as Biosemiotics, Volume 7 2012, LAWS, LANGUAGE and LIFE, Howard Pattee’s classic papers on the physics of symbols with contemporary commentary.

Links to many of his papers are available at:  http://binghamton.academia.edu/HowardPattee.

I hope Howard's many fans will post comments on this Blog.

advTHANKSance!

Ira Glickstein

Biosemiotics

Ira suggested that I try to summarize the field of BIOSEMIOTICS ― the study of how symbol systems control living organisms and societies. I’ll try to do this in a series of short posts of less than 750 words. Then you can ask questions if I am unclear, make comments or disagree with what I have said. Hopefully, we can clear up the problems, and go on to the next post.

1^ST TOPIC: WHAT IS MEMORY

A symbol system, like the genetic code, a natural language, mathematics, or an artificial computer language, requires a set of symbols and rules that reside in a memory. Memory-stored symbols are the fundamental and essential requirement for life. It is required for self-replication and all open-ended evolution. Memory is also necessary for any learning and thinking process in nervous systems. Memory is also a requirement for universal computation.

Memory and symbols can be physically implemented in endless ways, in molecules like DNA, in texts like this page, in photographs, in digital magnetic, electric and optical patterns in computers, and in neural patterns in the brain. But these particular types of memory are not what make memory of fundamental importance. So, what are the properties of memory that are essential in evolution, learning, and computation?

Two essential properties of memory are PERMANENCE and CHANGEABILITY. These properties sound incompatible, but they are complementary. In a previous post on the C- and L-minds, I compared permanence to the CONSERVATIVE aspect of memory, and I compared changeability to the LIBERAL aspect of memory. Clearly, success in adaptive evolution, learning, and social systems requires the proper balance of conservative permanence and liberal change. That is why I disagree with any liberal or conservative who claims an ideological superiority.

A good memory must also be quickly accessible, and its symbols must have the ability to effect or control a specific change. A gene must be capable of controlling protein synthesis. A brain must be capable of controlling muscles. A computer memory must be capable of changing the state of the hardware. In all of these symbol systems, genes, brains and computers, the memories have also evolved the property of self-reference. That is, genes can control their own expression, brains can think about their own thoughts (e.g., consciousness), and computer programs can address themselves. This turns out to be a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it allows organisms, brains and computers to inspect internal predictive models of the world. On the other hand, self-reference can lead to contradiction, infinite regress, and undecidable questions like whether we have free will.

While it is clear that evolution, learning, and computation could not occur unless memory has some degree of permanence and some degree of change, the nature and results of the changes are different in all three cases. In evolution, memory change is called mutation or variation, and changes are largely random. Natural selection determines the ultimate results. In nervous systems memory change is called learning. Learning is more complex and includes instruction, experience, reorganizing existing memory (thought or reasoning) and random or directed search, and often cultural selection. In computation, memory change is often called recursion or rewriting. A memory-stored program usually determines change, but programs can simulate random change and, model evolution, learning, and thinking.

Here is the classical problem of symbolic memory. The peculiar fact is that the physics of memory ― that is, the laws governing the material structures of memory symbols ― has no necessary relation to the function or meaning of the symbols. Symbol vehicles obey physical laws, but analysis of these diverse physical structures does not tell us what is important, namely the function or meaning of the symbols. Neither does analysis of these physical embodiments of memory tell us how the behaviors of memories differ in evolving organisms, brains and computers. Physical laws alone cannot predict or usefully describe the course of evolution, learning, thinking, or computation. Briefly, the problem is that symbols are arbitrarily related to their meaning or referent. The meaning or function of symbols is determined by a code or an interpreter. Symbols do not exist alone, but are a part of a language.

This fact has been a problem since the beginning of philosophy. It is
the root of the classical body-mind problem. Today in physics it is the basis of the measurement problem ― how the irreversible process interpreted as a measurement can arise from state-determined reversible laws. Some physicists also see this as an energy-information dichotomy. In biology this is the crux of the origin of life problem, how did this symbolic control of matter begin? How did molecules become messages? I call this the symbol-matter problem.

NEXT TOPIC: WHAT IS A LANGUAGE?

Howard