Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Incomplete Nature
How Mind Emerged From Matter (2011)

by Terrence Deacon
https://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Nature

Into The Cool
Energy Flow, Thermodynamics,

and Life (2006)

Schneider & Sagan
https://www.amazon.com/Into-Cool-

Absence Attracts
Incompleteness Sucks
Cool pulls Heat
Black Hole Beckons

   Post 68. January 20, 2019

  What Is The Power of Absence?

   Energy flows into The Void

 Terrence Deacon's 2011 book, goes into great detail to create a plausible hypothesis for solving the mystery of how living organisms suddenly emerged on Earth, after billions of years of spatial expansion & material aggregation had managed to build only simple inorganic chemical systems that strictly obeyed the zero-sum 2nd law of Thermodynamics. Those structures, such as stars, converted raw energy into lifeless lumps of matter that did little to slow the astronomical waste of energy known as Entropy. So what's the difference between stars and the organic chemistry we now know as Biology? What changed a zero-sum world into a non-zero1 (positive) environment suitable for human habitation?

  Deacon thinks the answer is “Constraints”, which are not physical fences, but metaphysical patterns of Potential. He calls these statistical opportunities “Absences”2, because they are merely empty spaces that can be filled by actual things ─ like those in a jigsaw puzzle. The puzzle solver that decides what will fit those gaps is active Information (natural selection). In terms of my Enformationism thesis, Information (passive) is stored or constrained energy (potential), and Enformation (active) is directed or channeled energy (work). Information can be stored in a mind as meaning, or in a battery as electric potential. Enformation is energy3 "flowing" in an organized system. Organs are channels for energy flow, or corrals for storage. Organisms redirect energy for their own purposes.

Deacon's "Autogens" are minimal organisms that resist Entropy long enough to use energy to maintain their geometric form, and to construct replicas of themselves. His "Morpho-dynamic" processes create organs (forms) to corral and channel energy. "Teleodynamic" systems (organisms) use organs to store and redirect energy to perform the Work of maintenance and construction. Work keeps the system going into the future, hence it is end-directed activity. Reproductive Work is a self-recreating cycle of living organisms. [See Incomplete Nature p318]

Enformation (see EnFormAction), in its physical form, is the workhorse of the universe. It begins as the law of Thermo-dynamics, which is the universal tendency for energy to flow downhill from high to low or from hot to cold. Morphodynamics adds constraints on the free flow of energy. Teleodynamics adds side-channels to perform self-directed & end-directed Work. Life adds work to reproduce the memory (DNA), structure & constraints of the organism into seeds of potential for future living organisms. The Life force is not a physical substance though ─ as some envision Spirit, Soul, Chi, Prana, or elan vital, but merely the process of recycling successful patterns of organization. So, what is the ultimate attractor4 toward which all change is directed? 

End of Post 68

1. Nonzero :
“The principal argument of Nonzero is to demonstrate that natural selection results in increasing complexity within the world and greater rewards for cooperation”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonzero:_The_Logic_of_Human_Destiny

2. Absence :
   Deacon says that Absence is “a defining  property of life and mind”. Like the name-less Tao, it’s a way, not a wayfarer, it’s a channel, not the flowing water.
  The notion of efficacious Absence is counter-intuitive, so it requires a lot of explanation and examples :
   Absence is like the emptiness of a cup that is able to contain & constrain coffee for the purpose of drinking. Potential is not real, but the power to realize.
   Absence is like the “Strange Attractors” of physics, that act as-if they had a gravitational pull to cause things to move toward an empty point in space. By analogy with the physical law of Thermodynamics, think of it as Cold, the absence of Heat. [See diagram at right]
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature

  We mould clay into a pot,
   but it is the emptiness inside
   that makes the vessel useful  __Laozi, Tao Te Ching

3. What is Energy?
   Energy is usually defined as the Ability or Power or Potential to cause measur-able Change in matter. When a transformation is useful to humans, we call it “Work”.    That general ableness is a quality of the whole universe, not a local substance, so it can’t be used up, and we can’t make more of it. All we can do is direct its effects to where we want something to change.
   The Potential for change is measured in terms of mathe-matical ratios, such as 1 : 2, or relationships like High to Low, or static states of storage as in electric voltage. Like Virtual quantum particles, energy is com-posed, not of matter, but of Mind, in the sense of stored Information (knowledge, memory) that can cause a body to move in certain ways.
   Energy doesn’t flow like water, but its influence can move matter in a sequential manner, as electricity propagates through wires. Nevertheless, we tend to imagine it in material metaphors, because energy itself is invisible & intangible. In fact, it is more like Spirit, in its relationship to Body. The body goes where the spirit moves it.

4. Absence is attractive :
   Deacon’s “absence” is a god-shaped hole in the universe. By that I mean – as objects are drawn toward a Black Hole – all things circle around the Attractor, then down the drain . . . only to return to the origin of all things . . . maybe.

                     

HOT   WORK       COLD

                     

                                 

POTENTIAL     ENFORMY      ENTROPY

                                 

| Energy                       Time ||

Virtual                 Actual                Vanished

Active                Changing                     Passive

















In the adjacent diagram, Hot things change in the direction of Cold, which is also the direction of Time. But living things tempo-rarily divert the flow for their own purposes. Energy is the potential for change, Enformy is con-structive change, Entropy is exhausted energy – no more change.