Evolution as Nature's Trajectory from Computation to Narration

Authors

  • Ted Dace

Keywords:

Time, Information, Memory, Consciousness

Abstract

Because the basis of physical order is temporal, evolution and narrative are naturally emergent and not inexplicable anomalies in a universe predetermined by timeless mathematical principles. The temporal world of life and consciousness has no place in classical physics but is perfectly at home in a quantum context. In and of itself an atom is the continuous computation of outcomes of potential interactions. The central mystery of quantum mechanics is cleared up by replacing measurement with temporal instantiation as the mechanism by which nature coughs up the determinate world of the senses. In contrast to the continuous time of natural computation – whether atomic, biological or symbolic – the time of classical physics is a succession of discrete instants. As Bergson noted, theorists tend to spatialize this succession into a static sequence. No such operation is possible with unbroken flux and the memory and purpose implicit in it.

References

Ansell Pearson, K. 2002. Philosophy and the Adventure of the Virtual. London: Routledge.

Bachelard, G. 2000. "The Instant." Reprinted in Durie, R (ed). Time and the Instant. Manchester: Clinamen.

Bergson, H. 1911. Creative Evolution. New York: Henry Holt and Company.

Bergson, H. 1911b. Matter and Memory. London: Swan Sonnenschein.

Bergson, H. 1999. Duration and Simultaneity. Manchester: Clinamen.

Bohm, D. 1951. Quantum Theory. New York: Prentice-Hall.

Bohr, N. 1958. Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Bohr, N. 1987. Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature. Woodbridge CN: Ox Bow Press.

Canales, J. 2015. The Physicist and the Philosopher. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Carroll, S.B. 2005. Endless Forms Most Beautiful. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Darwin, C. 1993. The Origin of Species. New York: Random House.

Donald, M. 2001. A Mind So Rare: The Evolution of Human Consciousness. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

England, J. 2020. Every Life Is on Fire: How Thermodynamics Explains the Origins of Living Things. New York: Basic Books.

Ehrenreich, B. 1997. Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War. New York: Metropolitan Books.

Faye, J., and Folse, H.J. (eds) 2017. Niels Bohr and the Philosophy of Physics. London: Bloomsbury.

Folger, T. 2021. “Crossing the Quantum Divide.” Scientific American. Special Edition. Vol 30, No 5. Winter 2021.

Folse, H.J. 1985. The Philosophy of Niels Bohr: The Framework of Complementarity. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Gao, S. 2017. The Meaning of the Wave Function. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gare, A. 2022. Life Processes as Proto-Narratives. Cosmos and History. Vol 18, No 1.

Gibbon, E. 2000. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. David Womersley (ed). New York: Penguin.

Greer, J.M. 2005. "How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse." https://www.ecoshock.org/transcripts/greer_on_collapse.pdf

Heisenberg, W. 1958. Physics and Philosophy. New York: Harper and Brothers.

Kotler, S., Peterson, G.A., Shojaee, E., Lecoco, F., Cicak, K., Kwiatkowski, A., Geller, S., Glancy, S., Knill, E, Teufel, J.D. 2021. Direct observation of deterministic macroscopic entanglement. Science 372 6542, 622-625, 7 May, 2021, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf2998

Kuzminski, A. 2022. "The People's Money: Transitioning to a Steady State Economy." Counterpunch, https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/19/the-peoples-money-transitioning-to-a-steady-state-economy/

Laloë, F. 2019. Do We Really Understand Quantum Mechanics? Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Landauer, R. 1991. "Information Is Physical." Physics Today. May, 1991.

Lewton, T. 2021. "Quantum Double-Slit Experiment Offers Hope for Earth-Size Telescope." Quanta Magazine, https://www.quantamagazine.org/famous-quantum-experiment-offers-hope-for-earth-size-telescope-20210505/

Malin, S. 2001. Nature Loves to Hide. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Muller, R. 2016. Now: The Physics of Time. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Ney, A., Albert, D.Z. (eds). 2013. The Wave Function: Essays on the Metaphysics of Quantum Mechanics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ogas, O., Gaddam, S. 2022. Journey of the Mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

OSCE. 2022. "Daily and spot reports from the Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine." Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, https://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/reports?page=2. (For summary see https://kolozeg.org/?p=490445).

Pellicani, L. 1994. The Genesis of Capitalism and the Origins of Modernity. New York: Telos Press.

Robbins, S.E. 2021. Is Experience Stored in the Brain? A Current Model of Memory and the Temporal Metaphysic of Bergson. Axiomathes. 31:15-43.

Schlosshauer, M. 2007. Decoherence and the Quantum-to-Classical Transition. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Schneider, E.D., Sagan, D. 2005. Into the Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics and Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Semon, R. 1921. The Mneme. London: George Allen & Unwin.

Smolin, L. 2019. Einstein's Unfinished Revolution. New York: Penguin.

Stapp, H.P. 1993. Mind, Matter, and Quantum Mechanics. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Stapp, H.P. 2017. Quantum Theory and Free Will. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature.

Tainter, J.A. 1988. The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wheeler, J.A., Zurek, W.H. (eds) 1983 Quantum Theory and Measurement. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Whitaker, A. 2006. Einstein, Bohr and the Quantum Dilemma. Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wilson, R.A. 2005. Boundaries of the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wolchover, N. 2021. "Quantum Mischief Rewrites the Laws of Cause and Effect." Quanta Magazine, https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-mischief-rewrites-the-laws-of-cause-and-effect-20210311/

Downloads

Published

28-12-2022

How to Cite

Dace, T. (2022). Evolution as Nature’s Trajectory from Computation to Narration. Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy, 18(2), 175–227. Retrieved from https://cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/1052