Random Musings on Chance and Necessity

Biosphere mini-max algorithm

While Monod believes that there is no ultimate purpose to the universe, he frequently talks about the propagation of information within the biosphere. I believe that this propagation of information constitutes a purpose of the universe, and the biosphere is the means through which this information is created. For the purposes of this article, we call the total amount of information produced by the biosphere the information biomass.

My first reason to believe this is more metaphysical. In the Advaita Hinduism tradition, there is the notion of Brahman and Atman. Brahman represents ultimate reality and Atman is the fragment of ultimate reality that exists within each conscious being. In this manner, every conscious individual that is attempting self-realization is attempting realization of the universe. In this self-realized state, which could be called enlightenment, the individual creates information that is referential to the universe or promotes the enlightenment of others (we can think of this as individuals who create science, art, or promote a “healthier” culture (which we won’t attempt to define at this time)). This fractal pattern is not a coincidence in my opinion, as I believe fractals are fundamental to the nature of this universe and how our cognition operates.

In any case, I believe that the biosphere is a system that aims to maximize information biomass, which could be considered the universe’s level of self-realization. In this way, it can be seen as a mini-max system. Each individual organism has its interest in maximizing its teleonomic output, but faces selection pressures either from the environment or through competition. The whole species benefits from each individual facing these pressures and having a certain subset of the population being killed off or unable to reproduce. This pattern moves up in scale. The whole ecosystem’s information biomass is maximized by potentially killing off or reducing the populations of certain species. This is all due to limited resources within the system.

Theoretically, I wonder if it’s possible to create some sort of adversarial model that has the resources within the system as an input and a metric of information biomass and seeing the dynamics of the species within the system. Perhaps it would have to be expected information biomass since the stability of the system is also important. In any case, this could be an interesting thought experiment to go further down. 

Enhanced complexity in vehicles of teleonomy and how that relates to culture

The book makes it clear that the means by which information is propagated increases in complexity over evolution. Evolution, in the broadest sense, started out via simple molecular interactions as the vehicle of propagation. Eventually, behaviors became the means of propagation. And in humans, due to the development of language, culture is the current highest complexity means of propagation.

I’m about to stitch together an array of different ideas, and they may not make sense immediately. Here we go.

Let’s start by noting that in humans, intelligence corresponds to less children. We know from census data that the more educated an individual is, the less children they tend to have. Next, I want to note that more intelligent individuals tend to recover from trauma more quickly and successfully. If we view trauma as fragments within a default mode network that promote survival as opposed to full thriving of the organism, then it seems that intelligence allows one to secure safety and move through trauma more successfully such that they are able to thrive. Of particular interest is Pete Walker’s book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. The surviving -> thriving model is telling in that it indicates a sort of phase shift in the existence of an individual. A heavily traumatized individual is not concerned with thriving and is more concerned with survival. Thus their focus is on reproducing and ensuring that their genes are propagated. This is a rough model that is parametrized by environment, intelligence, and culture. The phase transition occurs in that when an individual is thriving, they are more concerned with compression of information and creation. We may think of the ego as malware in the mind that produces junk self-referential information, and the fully thriving mind is one where there is no ego and it produces information and output that enhances the information biomass. 

Thus on the other side of the surviving -> thriving phase transition, we have that individuals pass on information via culture as opposed to their children. These individuals align more with being vessels for ideas than with being vessels for genes. What are the implications of this model? Does that mean people should aim to make cultural progress as opposed to focusing on their children? Who knows. One way of thinking of this thrival state is calling it enlightenment, and I link back to the review on Mystique of Enlightenment for an argument on why this state of being untraumatized should be considered enlightenment. In that case, what the individual should do is whatever arises from within that natural state, and that individual shouldn’t be looking towards me to guide them. I do conjecture that individuals in this state of enlightenment would be more concerned with the development of humanity and the culture as opposed to their own survival and material accumulation.