vol III Development:
Chapter 3: Cybernetics
page 10: Wilderness
The universe is wild. What does that mean? Here, we argue from a cybernetic point of view that the Universe works toward an optimum balance of signal and noise, that is control and freedom. The key to this argument is the effectiveness of the Lagrangian approach to understanding the physical world. This approach is based on the very old idea that the divine creator fashioned the best possible Universe. On this site, since we identify God and the Universe, this means that the Universe is as good as God. Modern physics expresses this idea through the principle of stationary action, Hamilton's principle. Maupertuis' principle - Wikipedia, Hamilton's principle - Wikipedia
In the beginning . . .
The traditional Western theological view that the universe was created by God as described in Genesis attributed a specific divine design to the world. God created humans and gave them dominion over all the other creatures on earth. In general, we divide the world into wild and cultivated areas. Wild areas are those which have not been subjected to human dominion. Cultivated areas shown human influence, burning, logging, clearing, cropping, building, mining, and all other activities that override the wild status of the land. Wilderness - Wikipedia
Much of physics is still influenced by the notion that the universe was created by an omnipotent and omniscient god who could have created a different universe. Such a universe may not have been inhabited by humanity. Here we imagine that the universe is all that there is, so that there is nothing outside to limit or control it. It is completely controlled from within and there is no other universe. Although its evolution may have taken a different course at its later stages, it may be that in its early, simple stages, the selective process fixed on the only viable alternatives. Here we suggest that the universe is an intelligent life form, effectively the mind of god, and the evolution of creatures like ourselves was inevitable. Anthropic principle - Wikipedia
Science has replaced the creation stories of Genesis with a much more complex and long lasting series of events derived from astronomy, physics, and biology. The current hot big bang model proposes that the universe started from an initial singularity with no structure, no size, infinite temperature and all the energy of the existing universe, which implies that its energy density was infinite. Hawking and Ellis imagine that we can understand the formation of the universe by analogy with a time reversed black hole. They showed that Einsteins general theory of relativity leads logically to the formation of black holes, and astronomical observations suggest that there are many back holes in the universe which have been formed by the collapse of large stars. Hawking & Ellis: The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time
There are a number of difficulties with this picture. First, we cannot really make physical sense of infinite energy densities and infinite temperatures, particularly because in kinetic theory the temperature of a substance is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the elementary particles in the substance. A substance of zero size does not appear able to accomodate either motion and kinetic energy or a number of elementary particles. Secondly, the mass concentration necessary to cause the formation of a black hole by gravitational collapse is tiny compared to the overall mass of the universe. The classical lifetime of a black hole is infinite, and even taking the quantum mechanical evaporation of black holes into account, large black holes may last for a very long time. If the universe began as a gravitational singularity analogous to the singularity in a black hole, how could it explode into a universe? Hawking radiation - Wikipedia
The mind of God
One of the most important functions of mind, which we probably see best in children, is that it is the source of imagination and creativity. We only have to look at the amazing variety and beauty of the plants and animals that inhabit the world to see that the universe is amazingly well endowed with imagination and creativity.
In the following chapter of this site we will have more to say about how this works, but the most important point is that the universe has no boundaries, no outside control, so it is free to try anything. In other words, it has a large uncontrolled random element, that is plenty of imagination. This is the element of variation in the evolution of the world. We know that we can imagine things that do not actually exist, and things that would never work if we could make them. Here we see the role of selection, which picks out the viable variants from the infinite imagination of the world.
Hamilton's method
This brings us back to Hamilton's principle. The idea is that that the things that exist are stable. They can wobble a bit without falling over. We experience this in everyday life, which is full of difficulties. We need to be able to keep standing despite our difficulties. If we cannot overcome them by ourselves, we need to be able to seek help. Hamilton's notion of stationary action is that tolerable variations leave our action unchanged so that life goes on.
Hamilton formulated his principle in the world of mechanics. The path followed by a planet in its orbit is the one that resists perturbation. Mathematically, we find this path using the calculus of variations. Using this technique, we find the path that stays the same in the face of small changes. Calculus of variations - Wikipedia
One beauty of Hamiltons method is that it gives us the same answer as we would get if we used Newton's method of computing the orbits of planets and similar mechanical tasks. It greatest beauty, however, lies in the fact that it applies to a much wider range of situations than simple mechanics and dynamics. Our minds are wild and creative, but we must also keep them under some sort of control. We often see that very creative people seem to hover on the verge of madness, and sometimes go over the edge into drugs, self harm or even suicide. Wilderness lives close to that edge, hovering between stability and creativity. The details of this balance will emerge as we study physics, biology and psychology. Creativity and mental illness - Wikipedia
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Further readingBooks
Click on the "Amazon" link below each book entry to see details of a book (and possibly buy it!)
Hawking, Steven W, and G F R Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge UP 1975 Preface: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity . . . leads to two remarkable predictions about the universe: first that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to our universe. Our discussion is principally aimed at developing these two results.'
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Lonergan, Bernard J F, and Robert M. Doran, Frederick E. Crowe (eds), Verbum : Word and Idea in Aquinas (Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan volume 2), University of Toronto Press 1997 Jacket: 'Verbum is a product of Lonergan's eleven years of study of the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The work is considered by many to be a breakthrough in the history of Lonergan's theology ... . Here he interprets aspects in the writing of Aquinas relevant to trinitarian theory and, as in most of Lonergan's work, one of the principal aims is to assist the reader in the search to understand the workings of the human mind.'
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Links
Actus et potentia - Wikipedia, Actus et potentia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The terms actus and potentia were used by the scholastics to translate Aristotle's use of the terms energeia or entelecheia, and dynamis. There is no single word in English that would be an exact rendering of either. Act, action, actuality, perfection, and determination express the various meanings of actus; potency, potentiality, power, and capacity, those of potentia.' back |
Anthropic principle - Wikipedia, Anthropic principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The anthropic principle (from Greek anthropos, meaning "human") is the philosophical consideration that observations of the universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it. Some proponents of the anthropic principle reason that it explains why the universe has the age and the fundamental physical constants necessary to accommodate conscious life. As a result, they believe it is unremarkable that the universe's fundamental constants happen to fall within the narrow range thought to be compatible with life.' back |
Aquinas, Summa, I, 27, 1, Is there procession in God?, 'As God is above all things, we should understand what is said of God, not according to the mode of the lowest creatures, namely bodies, but from the similitude of the highest creatures, the intellectual substances; while even the similitudes derived from these fall short in the representation of divine objects. Procession, therefore, is not to be understood from what it is in bodies, either according to local movement or by way of a cause proceeding forth to its exterior effect, as, for instance, like heat from the agent to the thing made hot. Rather it is to be understood by way of an intelligible emanation, for example, of the intelligible word which proceeds from the speaker, yet remains in him. In that sense the Catholic Faith understands procession as existing in God.' back |
Calculus of variations - Wikipedia, Calculus of variations - Wikipedia, the free encylopedia, 'Calculus of variations is a field of mathematical analysis that deals with maximizing or minimizing functionals, which are mappings from a set of functions to the real numbers. Functionals are often expressed as definite integrals involving functions and their derivatives. The interest is in extremal functions that make the functional attain a maximum or minimum value – or stationary functions – those where the rate of change of the functional is zero.' back |
Creativity and mental illness - Wikipedia, Creativity and mental illness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' The concept of a link between creativity and mental illness has been extensively discussed and studied by psychologists and other researchers for centuries. Parallels can be drawn to connect creativity to major mental disorders including: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, major depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, and ADHD. For example, studies have demonstrated correlations between creative occupations and people living with mental illness. There are cases that support the idea that mental illness can aid in creativity, but it is also generally agreed that mental illness does not have to be present for creativity to exist.' back |
Fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, Fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, a fixed point theorem is a result saying that a function F will have at least one fixed point (a point x for which F(x) = x), under some conditions on F that can be stated in general terms. Results of this kind are amongst the most generally useful in mathematics.
The Banach fixed point theorem gives a general criterion guaranteeing that, if it is satisfied, the procedure of iterating a function yields a fixed point.
By contrast, the Brouwer fixed point theorem is a non-constructive result: it says that any continuous function from the closed unit ball in n-dimensional Euclidean space to itself must have a fixed point, but it doesn't describe how to find the fixed point (See also Sperner's lemma).' back |
Hamilton's principle - Wikipedia, Hamilton's principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In physics, Hamilton's principle is William Rowan Hamilton's formulation of the principle of stationary action . . . It states that the dynamics of a physical system is determined by a variational problem for a functional based on a single function, the Lagrangian, which contains all physical information concerning the system and the forces acting on it.' back |
Hawking radiation - Wikipedia, Hawking radiation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Hawking radiation is blackbody radiation that is predicted to be released by black holes, due to quantum effects near the event horizon. It is named after the physicist Stephen Hawking, who provided a theoretical argument for its existence in 1974. . . . A black hole of one solar mass (M☉) has a temperature of only 60 nanokelvins (60 billionths of a kelvin); in fact, such a black hole would absorb far more cosmic microwave background radiation than it emits. A black hole of 4.5×1022 kg (about the mass of the Moon, or about 133 μm across) would be in equilibrium at 2.7 K, absorbing as much radiation as it emits. Yet smaller primordial black holes would emit more than they absorb and thereby lose mass.' back |
Kilogram - Wikipedia, Kilogram - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'The kilogram or kilogramme (SI unit symbol: kg), is the base unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) (the Metric system) and is defined as being equal to the mass of the International Prototype of the Kilogram (IPK).' back |
Maupertuis' principle - Wikipedia, Maupertuis' principle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In classical mechanics, Maupertuis' principle (named after Pierre Louis Maupertuis) is an integral equation that determines the path followed by a physical system without specifying the time parameterization of that path. It is a special case of the more generally stated principle of least action. More precisely, it is a formulation of the equations of motion for a physical system not as differential equations, but as an integral equation, using the calculus of variations.' back |
Wilderness - Wikipedia, Wilderness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, ' Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. . . . The term has traditionally referred to terrestrial environments, though growing attention is being placed on marine wilderness. Recent maps of wilderness suggest it covers roughly one quarter of Earth's terrestrial surface, but is being rapidly degraded by human activity. Even less wilderness remains in the ocean, with only 13.2% free from intense human activity.' back |
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