Evolution applied to everything:

1) Physical evolution (by the laws of physics) acts to provide primary organization to ALL matter living/non-living without exception.

I am not suggesting that life is somehow exempt from physical laws and processes; I'm saying that physical laws and processes aren't the end of it; there are other factors involved which are not accounted for by mere complexity. There are, for example, life forms which are simpler than some inorganic compounds.

2) "Life" is an emergent property of the structural function "S" of said matter.

No, life is organic, not structural. This is a fundamental difference which cannot be accounted for by structural complexity. An organism is different to a structure in the way a three dimensional object is different to a plane figure, and no amount of sheer complexity in 2-d can account for 3-d.

3) Thus, the emergence of the "Life Function" is driven by the complexity and order of the Structural Function "S(a,b,c...)".

I have answered this point 2. above.

4) "Biological Evolution" must by virtue be driven by the underlying principles of "Physical Evolution"

Driven, yes, but under-determined, by physical processes alone.

Originally posted by DeepThought
The key thing about life is that it is able to pump entropy out of itself so as to maintain its inner organisation.

Good point there. The simplest single-cell organism is already performing two feats no star could, first by storing energy and then by reproducing itself. Stars only radiate energy and then extinguish themselves. As Norbert Wiener famously said, “information is negative entropy.” A single-cell organism which survives long enough to duplicate itself has defied one of the laws of physics by passing on information in the form of DNA to another generation. Life is little pockets of intense negative entropy.

Originally posted by moonbus
Good point there. The simplest single-cell organism is already performing two feats no star could, first by storing energy and then by reproducing itself. Stars only radiate energy and then extinguish themselves. As Norbert Wiener famously said, “information is negative entropy.” A single-cell organism which survives long enough to duplicate itself has defie ...[text shortened]... on in the form of DNA to another generation. Life is little pockets of intense negative entropy.

A single-cell organism is not a closed system thus, if I understand the law correctly, it wouldn't necessarily have always increase in entropy anyway because that law of entropy increasing only applies to closed systems.

-Please will someone here correct me if I didn't get that exactly right or accurate-

Joe: “ I don't know why the argument against the "theory" I posed keeps going to "it doesn't fit with Darwinian Evolution". I don't care about Darwinian Evolution in this context and I didn't mention it. It would be a small part of the much bigger picture of physical evolution.”

I’m not objecting to your so-called theory on Darwinian grounds. I object to it because it isn’t a “big picture” at all, it is an extremely narrow one which reduces qualities to quantities and it just doesn’t work; something essential always gets lost in that reduction.

If you reduce music to complicated frequencies, you miss the melody; if you reduce Beethoven’s Ode to Joy to complicated frequencies, you miss that it is an ode and you miss that it is an ode to joy--and those are precisely the most interesting aspects of it. If you reduce a painting to blots of pigment on canvas, you miss that it’s the most famous portrait in the world--you miss the Mona Lisa--and that is precisely the most essential and interesting aspect about it. If you reduce a chess game to blobs of plastic in a bi-colored array, you miss the elegance of a Morphy mate. It’s nothing to do with Darwin, it’s to do with reductionism, which is what I’m rejecting.

Similarly, if you reduce organisms to structures, if you think there is no fundamental difference between life and space dust but only a difference of degree ("complexity" at the same logical type), you are missing the most essential and interesting properties of life. And that applies equally whether life evolved from inorganic matter or was created by God or came about in some other way.

Originally posted by moonbus
[b]1) Physical evolution (by the laws of physics) acts to provide primary organization to ALL matter living/non-living without exception.

I am not suggesting that life is somehow exempt from physical laws and processes; I'm saying that physical laws and processes aren't the end of it; there are other factors involved which are not accounted for by [i ...[text shortened]... hysical Evolution"[/b]

Driven, yes, but under-determined, by physical processes alone.[/b]

I am not suggesting that life is somehow exempt from physical laws and processes; I'm saying that physical laws and processes aren't the end of it; there are other factors involved which are not accounted for by mere complexity. There are, for example, life forms which are simpler than some inorganic compounds.

No, life is organic, not structural. This is a fundamental difference which cannot be accounted for by structural complexity. An organism is different to a structure in the way a three dimensional object is different to a plane figure, and no amount of sheer complexity in 2-d can account for 3-d.

They may be simpler in 3-Dimensional structure ( i.e. crystallographic structure or material structure), but they would be represented as a simplistic 4-Dimensional structure. Plotted orthogonally to a 3-D spacial structure would be a 4th dimension of "Organizational Structure". This "Organizational Structure" metric might be tied to the amount of specialization in structures; its number and of interactions with other specialized structures that are grouped or "organized" and the complexity by which they interact. "Living organisms" would be represented in this new "Physical Evolutionary" space. That is the level of complexity and dimensional order beyond that of "lifeless" matter.

Driven, yes, but under-determined, by physical processes alone.

Please, define "under-determined" in this context to me.

Originally posted by moonbus
Joe: “ I don't know why the argument against the "theory" I posed keeps going to "it doesn't fit with Darwinian Evolution". I don't care about Darwinian Evolution in this context and I didn't mention it. It would be a small part of the much bigger picture of physical evolution.”

I’m not objecting to your so-called theory on Darwinian grounds. I object to ...[text shortened]... hether life evolved from inorganic matter or was created by God or came about in some other way.

I don't know why you get the impression that what I am saying would be some kind of reduction. What I'm saying "could" be a small start to a mathematical formulation of life. Is it suddenly less beautiful to you because it can be formalized in that way, to me its becomes exponentially more beautiful and amazing.

I believe what I posed would to preserve the qualities in the manner which I described above in both their structural complexity and structural relationships, and quantify them for a much deeper understanding of "Life" that is readily given to us by the mathematical and physical formalization that tell us so much about the universe we cannot experience first hand. Show me the beauty of time dilation without the Theory of Relativity?!?

Originally posted by joe shmo
I don't know why you get the impression that what I am saying would be some kind of reduction. What I'm saying "could" be a small start to a mathematical formulation of life. Is it suddenly less beautiful to you because it can be formalized in that way, to me its becomes exponentially more beautiful and amazing.

I believe what I posed would to preserve ...[text shortened]... experience first hand. Show me the beauty of time dilation without the Theory of Relativity?!?

I'm not saying there is no beauty in mathematical structures or formulas. I'm saying that sheer complexity alone does not account for all the phenomena we observe in the universe.

Beethoven's 9th Symphony played backwards is exactly as complicated as it is played forwards, but there is no melody in it played backwards. Mathematical complexity alone cannot account for this.

A woven tapestry is exactly as complex on the backside as on the front side, but you see the picture only on the front side. Mathematical complexity alone cannot account for this.

"Under-determined" means that physical principles or laws of physics describe only the physical properties of a given phenomenon, mathematical principles or laws describe only the mathematical characteristics of a given phenomenon, chemical principles or laws describe only the material characteristics of a given phenomenon, evolutionary principles (natural selection, genetic mutation, pressures due to food-shortage & climate change, etc.) describe only the relevant biological aspects of a given phenomenon, and so on. But there are other factors we observe in phenomena which are not accounted for by these means of description; the means of description therefore under-determine the phenomenon. There is something left over which is not yet accounted for by physical/chemical/mathematical/biological etc. etc. descriptions--and we're not talking about some mystical-magical-superstitious delusional fairy here--we're talking about perfectly ordinary and plainly observable features, such as melody, or the picture woven into a tapestry, or the friendliness in a friend's smile.

What you're trying to do is reduce everything to a single simplistic principle (viz. structural complexity of physical components); however complex specific instantiations of it might be (viz. "exponential formalism" ), the principle is too simplistic to account for the phenomena we observe.

"Evolution applied to everything" is, after all, the title of your thread here. We've already established that "evolution", for the purpose of this thread, is not Darwinian evolution, but something equivalent to "successive changes". It won't work. Simple iteration, no matter how mathematically complex, no matter how elegant those mathematical formulas might turn out, is too one-dimensional (= "reductionist" ) to apply to everything.

Precisely what is interesting about organisms is not preserved by structural formalism, no matter how complex. For the same reason that Beethoven's 9th played backwards is not melodic, though just as complex structurally.

EDIT:

The beauty of a mathematical model is no criterion of its applicability to the real world. Consider, for example, the astronomical theory of concentric spheres and epicycles: it was beautiful math but complete bosh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentric_spheres

http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~blackman/ast104/aristotle8.html

The second link has a nice animation showing how epicycles were supposed to work.

Originally posted by moonbus
I'm not saying there is no beauty in mathematical structures or formulas. I'm saying that sheer complexity alone does not account for all the phenomena we observe in the universe.

Beethoven's 9th Symphony played backwards is exactly as complicated as it is played forwards, but there is no melody in it played backwards. Mathematical complexity alone cannot ...[text shortened]... totle8.html

The second link has a nice animation showing how epicycles were supposed to work.

Taking your example of melody:

Pick three notes, play them in a sequences in time and you will perceive melody. Take those same three notes and reverse the sequence. You will again undoubtedly perceive melody. It will not be the same melody as previously played, but none the less it will be a melody, and immediately recognizable to you. The three note melody is simple enough to be perceived as a melody regardless of the sequence in which they are played out in time.

Now, add more 20 more notes to make a more substantial melodic line, take 20 of those melodic lines in parallel, start and starting and stopping in time,changing time, tone, amplitude, etc... and you will ( if you are a great composer) create a piece that is substantially more "alive" than the three notes its comprised of. What caused it to suddenly take on meaning...The total melodic structure and complexity.

Then, go ahead and play it in reverse. It will undoubtedly be a melody(just like its simpler three note example), but unless the composer had this in mind during its composition (making him a musical genius beyond compare) the melody will be completely lost on you. Why is that?

The "real" explanation is the melody doesn't actually exist ( neither are we more "alive" than the "rock" ). What you are hearing is a mathematical pattern written by a highly structured organ ( the brain) which consist of an unfathomably large number of interconnections and relationship complexity between structure and superstructure. That is it. The brain is a structural masterpiece ( which incidentally why you seem more "alive" than an amoeba or a rock for that matter). The only thing that exist is waves upon waves upon waves. When you hear melody, you are keying in to the mathematical pattern that arises from the complexity of the total melodic structure, nothing more. Its all just structure (symphony), written by a structure (the composers brain) to be interpreted by structure ( the listeners Brain) as it is played out organizationally in one direction in time (or as many dimensions in time and sequence as the composers structure can simultaneously create in the piece). The most important property that gives everything "meaning" is structure and its complexity.

Originally posted by moonbus
I'm not saying there is no beauty in mathematical structures or formulas. I'm saying that sheer complexity alone does not account for all the phenomena we observe in the universe.

Beethoven's 9th Symphony played backwards is exactly as complicated as it is played forwards, but there is no melody in it played backwards. Mathematical complexity alone cannot ...[text shortened]... totle8.html

The second link has a nice animation showing how epicycles were supposed to work.

The beauty of a mathematical model is no criterion of its applicability to the real world. Consider, for example, the astronomical theory of concentric spheres and epicycles: it was beautiful math but complete bosh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentric_spheres

http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~blackman/ast104/aristotle8.html

The second link has a nice animation showing how epicycles were supposed to work.

It may have been completely bosh, but it got the ball rolling in the correct direction. Look at what we have learned and can predict from that rolling ball?!?

Originally posted by joe shmo
[quote]The beauty of a mathematical model is no criterion of its applicability to the real world. Consider, for example, the astronomical theory of concentric spheres and epicycles: it was beautiful math but complete bosh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentric_spheres

http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~blackman/ast104/aristotle8.html

The second link ...[text shortened]... n the correct direction. Look at what we have learned and can predict from that rolling ball?!?

Like don't get in the way of the rolling ball?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Like don't get in the way of the rolling ball?

I'm not sure I follow? The ideological leaps towards a mechanistic perception of the universe by philosophers like "Aristotle" were arguably the most fundamental and significant contributions to "science" ever made. The mechanical viewpoint held until the 1900's! Our entire scientific foundation is owed to the likes of them, and those before them that had this notion. Without going through a "mechanical perspective" you will likely never even glimpse the things that may tell you "It might not be mechanical universe after all". So when someone says that a "scientific field of study" loses something in its "reduction" to "mechanistic views"...I say "that idea" is the only thing that is "bosh".

BTW: speaking of mechanistic views...check out your circular motion question in posers and puzzles. I believed I answered your "simplified" question that we talked about. Let me know if you have any questions.