Emerging Machine Intelligence

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Emerging Systems and Machine Intelligencemerging Systems and Machine IntelligencePart one - Philosophical Underpinnings


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1.1 Introduction

Entities that possess the ability to become more organized over time, that is, grow andlearn, often exhibit activities that can be described, metaphorically, as intelligent. Thoseactivities often involve the solution of a problem relevant to the entity in itsenvironment. For example, the members of an insect colony swarm together to repel acreature that threatens the colony, bees dance to communicate the location of a foodsupply, or a chimpanzee uses a stick as a tool to retrieve termites from a termite mound.On a slightly longer time scale, trees communicate to warn of impending insectinfestation. Over long time scales, species of fish invent legs and lungs so they caninhabit more of the earth's surface. And over vast expanses of time organic life-forms inthe oceans participate in fixing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to maintaintemperatures on the surface of the earth that are favorable for their continued existence.Although insect colonies are not considered intelligent beings nor is the evolution of aspecies normally described as an entity to which intelligent activities can be ascribed,the metaphor is appropriate. We propose a working description of the phenomenon ofintelligence that accepts the metaphor as representing a true state of affairs. It says that

intelligence is bound up in the dynamic interactions that occur between systems andtheir environments at various levels of existence (to be defined later). Those interactionsare a result of the nature of the system and the nature of the environment which serve tomodify and therefore to define each other. It claims that intelligence is a part of theorganizing activity that characterizes some open processing systems (that concurrentlydisplay increasing entropy1 and increasing order). The implication is that what wethink of as human intelligence is actually an effect of the way human systems interactin and with their environment. It implies corollary interactions between other systemsin and with their environments. Human intelligence is then either a kind of intelligence,when viewed in a larger context, or a complex of activities defined redundantly as theintelligent things humans do, when viewed from a narrow human perspective. Thishypothesis implies that there is no reason to suppose that a machine intelligence must

be of the human kind and, in fact, argues against the possibility of a machineintelligence being too human-like. It provides support for the methods of machinelearning as the appropriate approach to implementing intelligence in machines. Further,it indicates that for a machine to approach human-like intelligence it is necessary for themachine to possess a degree of human characteristics and to gain knowledge of theworld through interaction with humans in a human-like environment at the human

1 Entropy has its roots in probability theory (Khinchin, 1957). When applied to a probabilityspace (which may model either physical or abstract (information) systems) entropy is ameasure of the uncertainty with which the states of the system occur. In this paper bothinformation theoretic entropy and physical entropy play a part, since both kinds ofentropy are exhibited by the systems being discussed (in fact the distinction is sometimesblurry, see section 1.7). Open systems are those systems that interact with the surroundingenvironment. They exchange information, energy, matter and space with that environmentand their parts organize themselves to further some goal of the whole system. In doing thisthey exhibit a decrease in entropy both in terms of information and energy. A social systemexhibiting a decrease in physical entropy is a growing system one exhibiting a decrease inentropy related to information can be thought of as a learning system. Closed systems donot interact with their environment and display positive entropy (run down). Entropy isintimately involved with the existence of order, a theme that is developed further in section1.7.


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level of existence.

Big Bang

Interstellar Molecular activity

1 Billion Years

The Earth Formsg7

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ArcheozoicMicrobes

Cells With Membranes

Multicelled Organisms Plants Animals Man``` `

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Paleozoic mesozoic cenozoic

Figure 1.1: History of the universe (letters represent months of the year...a popular

rendition)

1.2 The evolution of the universe

Discoveries in biology coupled with current cosmological theory gives us an idea ofhow we have come to be. Here is a speculative account. Ten to fifteen billion years agothe universe was small, dense, relatively homogenous, contained only very activesubatomic particles and was rapidly expanding and cooling. At some point in the greatexpansion vast quantities of hydrogen gas formed. Over time, some of the hydrogen gasformed into denser clouds. In a process that continues today, parts of those cloudscollapsed or were compressed to still denser masses that heated to the point that nuclear

fires began to burn. The stars thus formed grouped into pairs, clusters and galaxies.They burned hydrogen into helium, eventually some stars went through a sequence ofinternal collapse during which heavier atomic elements were formed. Some stars wereof such a size that their fate was to explode and spread the heavier materials into thesurrounding space. Those elements simmered slowly in the spaces between the stars.Atomic structure permitted the formation of molecules of varying complexity. Aboutfour to five billion years ago our solar system formed from hydrogen gas and theelemental and molecular debris from past stellar explosions. Earth formed at anappropriate distance from the sun to permit liquid water to pool on the surface. The


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energy flux from the sun and atmospheric effects such as lightning, rain, running water,and wave action produced a continuously stirred chemical stew in which various newmolecules formed, dissipated, and reformed. Some of those molecules were of a typethat attract complementary or like molecules and grew in layers or strings. An event orprocess that cleaved off a portion of the molecule produced new molecules; selfreplicating molecules formed. Such molecules were subject to reproduction errorscreating similar but different molecules that were also able to replicate themselves. Inthe ancient seas some molecules could replicate more easily, perhaps because of theavailability of their constituent parts in the environment or perhaps because of theirstructure. They would tend to flourish while those less successful would tend to die out.More complicated arrangements of molecules arose, some had protective casings and became the first cellular entities. Cooperating cellular entities were successfulinnovations and became the first organisms. The cooperating systems progressed tostates of greater order and eventually, in combination, worked significant changes intheir environment and themselves. Systems of increasing complexity were producedand in turn interacted in the changing environment to produce still more complexsystems. Eventually, the system produced plants, then animals, then ape-like animals,

and then man-like apes.At this point in the narrative we shift time scales from billions of years to tens ofthousands of years so we can speculate on the advent of man. Humans that wereanatomically indistinguishable from modern humans evolved in Africa sometime between 300,000 and 50,000 years ago. Other anatomically different homo sapiens(Neanderthal man and Peking man) were, for a time, contemporaries of those earlymodern humans. Neanderthal man was shorter, more thickly muscled and had asloping cranium that contained a brain that was, on average, 10% larger than those ofthe early modern humans. Little is known about Peking man because very few of hisremains have been discovered. All three branches of homo sapiens wore clothing, builtshelters, used stone implements, used fire and buried their dead. The emergence of

these relatively unique abilities can probably be attributed to the fortunate combinationof several attributes. The first was an upright stance that freed the hands for purposesother than locomotion. The second was the configuration of the human hand that, inaddition to being good for climbing was good for grasping and manipulating any smallobjects, e.g. tools. And, finally there was the development of some critical amount of brain matter to provide coordination and problem solving capabilities. It can beconjectured that the hands were an artifact of the tree climbing nature of the apeancestors, that the upright stance was acquired when those ancestors ventured out onthe plains and found it to their advantage to stand up straight so they could look outover the grass to see what the other animals were up to. And the large brain evolved toprocess the information from the senses, since that would allow the relatively slow,weak and defenseless ape-human to keep track of the positions of other animals, to

learn their behavior and to anticipate that behavior. With this combination of attributesthe homo sapiens developed a stone age culture that persisted for hundreds ofthousands of years. Then about 35,000 years ago the early modern humans emerged asthe single representative of homo sapiens. At the same time these 'early moderns'began to develop complex tools (over a period of time, flint tipped spears, bone carvedweapons, needles and fishhooks, rope, nets, and bows and arrows, appeared), art (cavedrawings of local flora and fauna and man and his artifacts) and they organized theircommunities and their activities. These technologically innovative people are called


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Cro-Magnon man.

Why did Neanderthal and Peking man become extinct while the anatomically and brainsize inferior Cro-Magnon man survived and flourished? Probably that success can beattributed to the superior technology of Cro-Magnon man and the fact, oftendemonstrated in recent times, that when a technologically superior culture comes incontact with an inferior one, the inferior culture is often destroyed. But that does notexplain why Cro-Magnon man developed technology and the others groups did not. Itis tempting to hypothesize that, through a genetic variation Cro-Magnon mandeveloped a better brain. This seems reasonable for it can be used to explain Cro-Magnon man's inventiveness. And, contrarily, if Neanderthal man had been as'intelligent' as Cro-Magnon man then Neanderthal man would have copied Cro-Magnon man's technology and progressed at a sufficient rate to ensure his survival.However, in light of current knowledge about brain structure and composition theargument for a superior brain seems questionable. A comparison of present daymammalian brains reveals that the brains of larger mammals differ from each otherprimarily by weight, in a relation that is highly correlated with body size2 .Further

evidence comes from the study of the skulls of ancient and modern primates. To someextent these skulls indicate by their shape and deformations the structure of the brainsthey contained. Features of brain structure noted in modern human skulls, related tovarious aspect of human existence, notably speech and hand control, appear to havedeveloped in all of the various branches of primates, and are evident in Neanderthaland present day apes. If brain differences can't account for the differences between manand animal, why suppose that they account for the differences between Neanderthaland Cro-Magnon man? In addition, there does appear to be evidence that, for a shortperiod of time in western Europe in a late ice-age culture termed the Chatelperronian,Neanderthal man did coexist with Cro-Magnon man and did adopt Cro-Magnon'stools. Archaeologists have debated long and hard over which people createdChatelperronian culture. The evidence for it consisted of a mixture of Neanderthal and

Cro-Magnon tools but no Cro-Magnon art. Then a skeleton was unearthed that provedto be Neanderthal. That has apparently settled the question and Chatelperronianculture was Neanderthal. Neanderthal man and by extension Peking man wereprobably not hopelessly unintelligent, but just victims of a technologically advancedculture. What then accounts for Cro-Magnon man's development of that technology?

It has been conjectured (for instance Diamond, 1989) that the genetic innovation thatled to the development of modern language and the ascendancy of Cro-Magnon manwas the modification of the larynx and throat in a manner that permitted refined

2The relation is brain weight a(body weight)b in which b is determined by the taxonomiclevel (i.e. the relationship changes between orders but is typically between .2 and .8). Some

possible explanations are that since the brain grows relatively faster during gestation thanlater on in the growth of an animal, those animals with long gestations (most large animals)are predisposed toward relatively larger brains, and that relatively large or small brainweights may result from the demands of particular ecological conditions (Pagel and Harvey,1989). If intelligence were correlated with brain weight it would be expected that some largebrained individual animals should exhibit more intelligence than some individual smallbrained humans. Certainly large brained humans would be more intelligent than smallbrained humans. The latter is a once popular theory, debunked by Stephen Jay Gould (Gould,1981).


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speech3 . The development of a complex language could then permit cooperativebehavior on a scale previously unknown "you circle around and chase those deer thisway and I'll hide behind that large rock and jump out and spear one," and the transferof knowledge; "you have to use a long smooth stone and strike the flint rock at a sharpangle to get a good edge" and a new social structure; "he is old and weak but we mustcare for him because he knows which plants we can eat and the ways of the animals."Slowly, in conjunction with the development of language, a technological civilization,could develop. Note that the importance of the development is not in the complexity ofthe ideas expressed (the ancestors of modern man were almost certainly able tocomprehend such complexities for many millions of years before speech appeared), butin the fact that such complex ideas could be easily communicated. Discoveriesconcerning the nature of the world, made by individuals, could be rapidlycommunicated to everyone and that information could be passed on from onegeneration to the next. Knowledge gained by experience was no longer lost upon thedeath of the individual and most innovations could contribute to the advance of thewhole society. Our current civilization is a result of this process which has expanded,accelerated, and in effect, taken on a life of its own.

1.3 Philosophy of mind

This story describes a sequence of events all of which seem plausible. In fact, most of thesteps depicted accord with generally accepted scientific theories supported by someempirical evidence. But even if such an explanatory account were more detailed,containing all of the current speculation and theory about the evolution of the universeand particularly about how man came to be, the story would not explain why such anapparently fantastic sequence of events, all tending to produce order from disorder andcomplexity from simplicity, should occur. Since it did occur, why did it result increatures such as ourselves? The story implies that we, in our current state, representonly an incremental change in accord with a well established pattern of evolution. But

we perceive of ourselves as fundamentally different from all other contemporary lifeforms; a great leap forward! It is probably safe to say that most people would specifythat we differ from the animals because of our intelligence or because of the human mind.Trivially and obviously our minds are different than animal minds just as our formdiffers from animal forms. But most people would not be willing to admit thepossibility that an animal even has a mind. Descartes, the father of modern philosophy,did not believe that animals have minds, and many present day philosophers, scientistsand other intellectual types also do not believe that animals possess minds; witness thecontroversy that arises whenever a scientist proposes that animals do (or do not) haveminds (see for example the letters to the editor in Science news, 7/29/89 and 9/2/89 orthe work of Donald R. Griffin, Professor Emeritus, Rockefeller University, reported inScientific American, SCIENCE and the CITIZEN , PROFILE May 1989). Do only people

possess minds? What then is a mind? Where does a mind come from? If humansevolved a mind, why did no other animal evolve a mind? Or did they? Obviously themind is not a tangible thing but, if you tend to accept the above description of howthings have come to be (or anything similar to it) then you will tend to believe that

3Others argue that the roots of language go back perhaps two million years and emergedalong with brain developments (reported in Science News, Vol 136, no. 2, July 8, 1989). Inthat case Neanderthal man also possessed speech and the ascendancy of CroMagnon manremains unexplained.


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minds evolved along with everything else. It would be hard to deny that minds areintimately connected to the physical organs called brains. Perhaps then, every thing thathas a brain has a mind. Perhaps the difference between man and animal is that humanminds are superior? If they are superior, how are they superior? Is it that human mindsare intelligent minds? Is intelligence the key?... We will argue that these questions areonly important to our human egos. The questions are misguided in that they assume acertain scheme of things in which there are universal goals and purposes and objects ofcentral or universal importance. Within the assumption remains the disguised assertionthat man is in some way one of those objects of central importance. In spite ofCopernicus, Galileo, Newton, Darwin, and Einstein, the anthropocentricism observed by Francis Bacon in his Novum Organum almost four centuries ago (1620) remainstoday:

"The idols of the tribe are inherent in human nature, and the very tribe or race of man.For man's sense is falsely asserted to be the standard of things. On the contrary, allthe perceptions, both of the senses and the mind, bare reference to man and not theuniverse..."

We will argue that the above questions don't have an answer because they aremeaningless. That is, they are meaningless if you subscribe to the scheme of things as willbe developed in the first part of this paper.

In questions of physics, astronomy, and cosmology there are two philosophicallyopposed viewpoints. Materialists advocate that all of nature is describable in terms ofobjects and laws while idealists believe that there exist controlling forces and/orimplicit universal templates to which the universe conforms and which are beyond theken of man. In Biology and its related fields their are mechanists who believe life isdescribable in terms of the materials that comprise living things and the laws that bindthat material while opposing them there are vitalists who believe that life is so differentthat it is necessary to hypothesize an elan vital or life force, that may not be reduced toother laws. In mathematics the opposed camps are the foundationalists and theintuitionists, the former putting their faith in the axiomatic derivation of all thingsmathematics, the latter relying on the truth as revealed by discovery. Likewise there aretwo philosophically opposed descriptions of the human mind. The one that has been themost popular down to and perhaps including the present time maintains that thehuman mind is more than some physical activity of the body. In this philosophy themind is largely independent of the body, is inherently capable of thought processes andinherently possesses knowledge. This idealist's (or, to use a more recent term,mentalist's) philosophy maintains that the elements that serve to define a mind are notcomprehensible. That is, the mind is not a result of the known or knowable laws thatgovern the material universe. The opposing point of view belongs to the physicalists.

Their approach to the description of human mind, to which undoubtedly, materialists,mechanists, and foundationalists would subscribe, states that the human mind is justthe sum of the electro-chemical activity of the brain. In more recent versions of thisphilosophy (since the advent of theories of evolution) the mind is seen as beingconstrained indirectly by the genetic material that serves as a blueprint for ontogenesisand as a repository and transferal agency for the information derived from man'sinteraction with the environment over the course of evolution.

The two generic views (call them idealists and materialists) affect all of the rest of the


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subject matter of philosophy. For instance, the idealist's philosophy accommodates theideologies of theology, while the materialists view rejects, or at the minimum castsdoubt on, the existence of a Creator of the universe, and more strongly rejects the ideathat any such Creator has an ongoing interest in the universe. For the point at hand, theidealist's view argues strongly against the possibility of constructing artificiallyintelligent minds in machines, for, if that is to be done, those machines will have to bebuilt to conform to laws known to man. It is interesting to note, however, that shouldthe idealist's view be correct, the existence of a machine that is artificially intelligent isnot precluded; it is possible that the same externally motivating force that applies to thehuman mind might apply to an appropriately vitalized assemblage of silicon basedelectro-chemical components. Likewise, should the materialists view be valid, there isno assurance that it is within man's ability to construct an acceptably intelligentmachine (we might not know all of the relevant rules nor be able to discover them in areasonable amount of time even if they are comprehensible to us). Whatever the case,since the advent of computers the two views are more distinct than before. Thepossibility of machine intelligence gives the advocates of both views a real world issueon which to focus. We will present a viewpoint that lies somewhere between these two

extremes. It does not resort to the unknown or unknowable to explain things but neitherdoes it accept the contention of the materialist that everything is reducible to a set offundamental rules and objects. It is holistic in nature but not mystical or spiritual. Itdoes not abandon science, but it does recognize limitations in some of the most popularmechanisms of scientific endeavor. It does not preclude the construction, by man, of(truly) intelligent machines but it does imply that there are some restrictions on howthose machines can be brought to be.

The purpose at hand is an exploration of the nature of human intelligence and theapplication of any observations or conclusions to an effort to create an artificial human-like intelligence. However, we deem the context in which that intelligence arose to be asimportant as the investigation of the mind itself. To that end a diverse set of theories

taken from philosophy, biology, physics, cosmology, mathematics, computer science,psychology, and linguistics is reviewed below. Philosophers have been asking questionsabout what it means to exist and the nature of mind since the beginning of recordedhistory, since, or even before, the emergence of modern man. This recent (relativelyspeaking) body of philosophical thought would seem a good place to start. So again weshift gears from thousands of years to hundreds of years and continue the narrative inhistorical order, but now we concentrate on the attempts to find answers to thesequestions.

1.4 Historical perspective

To the ancient Greek philosophers Socrates and Plato, human perception of the world as

revealed by the senses was but a poor and corrupt reflection of the more real, perfect,and comprehensive underlying system of truths in which everything had its proper andlogical place. They were not psychologists and spent little time in analyzing the obviousand imperfect functioning of the human mind. They advocated that man should striveto use his mind in a systematic and logical manner that would allow him to see theunderlying perfection of that more perfect and more real world. This Platonic concept ofthe ideal and real world as revealed by the mind is the most important legacy of thesephilosophers and remains with us today. In a sense it is the distant parent of the current


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philosophies that encourage reification of abstract ideas such as intelligence. In the areaof mathematics Euclid in his Elements produced a set of propositions and theoremscarefully built by reason in a such a clear and lucid manner that it immediately becamea text book and remained the primary text on geometry for centuries. This seed was tolay dormant until the western renaissance at which time it began to grow. It became theparadigm for mathematical and philosophical reasoning. Today euclidean may be usedas a synonym for the adjective axiomatic and may be directly associated withfoundationalism in mathematics. Aristotle was the last of the line of Greek philosophersand in fact the last philosopher of note for a long time. In his philosophy universalsreplace the Platonic Ideals. He associated words with concepts and so presented the firstphilosophy of meaning and reference. He had a theory in which forms wereindependent of the substance of which they were composed. The essence of a man wasthat without which a man would no longer be a man. That essence was a form and soindependent of the physical substance of a man. This duality of substance and a form isfor a man, body and soul, an idea to be pursued later by Rene Descartes.

Greek thought represented a relatively unshackled pursuit of knowledge. Great strides

in human culture, government, architecture, astronomy, engineering, technology andespecially mathematics were made during this period. But when the Greek influence inworld affairs declined philosophizing also declined until, by the end of the Romanempire, which at least approved of the Greek ways, what passed for philosophy wasargument over theological doctrine. For over 2000 years little was added to the littlealready achieved in the philosophy of mind. Over that time Aristotle's philosophy andscience and Euclid's methods and geometry were unchallenged and unchanged. It wasin the context of what the Greeks had achieved two thousand years before that progresswas finally resumed in the seventeenth century.

Rene Descartes published his Principia Philosiphiae in 1644 and founded modernphilosophy. Descartes was looking for an axiomatic system of philosophy similar to the

axiomatic systems of mathematics. To this end he contrived to strip away from humanknowledge all elements that could be reduced and to concentrate on the "smallest andsimplest things" 4 Then from these fundamental propositions, and using "all the aids ofintellect, imagination, sense, and memory"5 to build up all of human knowledge (Smithand Grene, 1948). Descartes' starting place was the famous proposition "I think thereforeI am." He contrived to show the dual nature of the mind as existing independent of thebody and controlling the body (as Descartes maintained, through the pineal gland). Thiswas an introspective approach that measured the mind through the mind's own eye. Itis idealistic in view but based on analysis; attempting to prove that the mind isautonomous and comes with "imagination, sense and memory." These ideas areconstructed in a manner that rigorously adheres to logic and by an individual with a background of immensely successful mathematical invention. Although the logic is

incorrect6 it set the tone for philosophical investigations of the mind in the succeedingage. The idea that humans were born with a mind endowed with logic and worldknowledge, and independent of the body, was ubiquitous among philosophers until

4 Rene Descartes, Rules for the Direction of Understanding Rule IX (City: Publisher, Year) Pages.

5 Rene Descartes, Rules for the Direction of Understanding Rule XII (City: Publisher, Year) Pages.

6 Norman Malcom, Thought and Knowledge (City: Publisher, 1977) Pages.


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some philosophers, enthusiastic about the successes of the new scientific methods basedupon empirical evidence, brought about a new approach to the concept of mind.

Descartes died in 1650, eight years after the birth of Isaac Newton. Descartes wasundoubtedly one of the giants Newton was referring to when he spoke of seeing furtherbecause he stood on the shoulders of giants. A contemporary of Newton's and perhapsanother of the giants to which he referred was Thomas Hobbes. The mechanism andprecision of the universe was being revealed by science and was reflected in Hobbesphilosophy. Here is a part of the introduction to his Leviathon:

"Nature, The art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is by the art of man, as inmany other things, so in this also imitated, that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing lifeis but a motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principle part within; why may wenot say, that all automata (engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth awatch) have an artificial life? For what is the heart but a spring; and the nerves, but so manystrings; and the joints , but so many wheels , giving motion to the whole body, such as wasintended by the artificer?"

Hobbes saw imagination (ideas or impressions) as sense weakened by the absence of theobject and thought as a form of reckoning. He was enthusiastic about the new empiricalbased science and the results to be derived therefrom. He was the precursor of a stringof empirical philosophers, caught up in the methods and results of the emergingscience.

John Locke in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding published in 1690 was thefirst of these empiricists to clearly state an emerging theme, rhetorically answering hisown query about the origin of human knowledge, "To this I answer in one word, fromexperience: in that all our knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derivesitself."7 But it was David Hume in his Treatise on Human Nature published in 1739 whoclearly elucidated this new approach. Hume specifies all knowledge as arising from two

sources; ideas and impressions. By impressions he means percepts or thoughts arisingfrom the senses and by ideas he means all of the faint echoes of impressions, and thecombinations of them, that arise in the mind. He states that the purpose of the Treatise isto establish the proposition "that all our simple ideas in their first appearance arederiv'd from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, and which theyexactly represent."8 He seized upon an idea of the Bishop George Berkeley (acontemporary) that general ideas are simply a collection of particular ideas "annexed toa certain term," in other words connected mentally in a network. He then proceeds todetail the characteristics of such a network. A present day computer programmerfamiliar with knowledge representation schemes would be startled by Hume'santicipation of those schemes. It is possible to detect in the Treatise, concepts that wouldtranslate into the present day computer knowledge implementation techniques offrames with default values and inheritance, various sorts of semantic networks (e.g.kind-of, is-a), procedural attachment, indexing and classification schemes as well asthe psychological concepts of short term and long term memory. The knowledge

7Book II, Ch. I, Sec 2

8Book I, Part I, Sec. I


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representation hypothesis9 (Smith 1982) is a modern restatement of Hume's hypothesisin which computers are the object of these mechanizations.

From a philosophical standpoint, Hume's major impact was in his denial of a necessaryrelation between cause and effect. That an effect followed necessarily from every causewas an axiom used freely by philosophers and was the basis of some proofs for theexistence of God (basically such proofs traced the chain of cause and effect back to a firstcause, which was God). Hume pointed out that there was no reason for this belief sincethe fact of sensual awareness of what is termed the cause and what is termed the effecttogether with the fact that the cause is observed in conjunction with the effect are thesole criteria by which to judge, and they do not prove the assertion. For instance, if twoclocks were identical except the first had a chime and the other didn't then the chimingof the first might be perceived to be caused by the second. Hume argued that judgementbased upon the probable progression of events had to be substituted for the certainty ofthe absolute (this anticipates the importance accorded the probability distribution ofstates of systems in this paper). Hume's philosophy focused on the nature of humanmind and surveyed the universe from that viewpoint. It emphasized reason in this age

of reason and made no inferences about God. For this Hume was considered a skepticand was guaranteed a response from less skeptical philosophers. The reply came fromImmanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason published in 1781.

Kant accepted Hume's proof that the law of causality was not analytic and went furtherto assert that everything was subjective in nature. But he also maintained that the mindhad to possess an innate mechanism that provided the order that it made of its percepts.A simple network or classification system would not do the trick; how would such anetwork be established in the first place? Sensual datum would not simply orderthemselves. He proposed that there were twelve A priori concepts, three each in fourcategories. They included the categories of quantity (unity, plurality, totality), quality(reality, negation, limitation), relation (substance and accident, cause and effect,

reciprocity) and modality (possibility, existence, necessity) (Russell 1945). His argumentin support of the existence of these innate mechanisms of mental order depended uponshowing the inconsistencies that arise from applying them to non-mental constructs.Much of the Critique is given over to such demonstrations. Whether or not Kant'sarguments are accepted, his criticism that Hume's concept of mind is missing anordering mechanism is valid. By extension, this criticism must also be seen to apply tothe knowledge representation hypothesis (Smith, 1985),(which could be easily correctedto specify that such a mechanism is included...evidently being supplied by an incrediblyinsightful human computer programmer).

9From Brian C. Smith Prologue toReflection and Semantics in a Procedural Language..paraphrased andannotated. Comments in parentheses have been added.

Any mechanically embodied intelligent process will be comprised of structural ingredients that :

1. we as external observers naturally take to represent a propositional account of the knowledge that the

overall process exhibits, (i.e. we recognize as the structures containing the knowledge of the system) and

2. independent of such external semantical attribution play a formal but causal and essential role in

engendering the behavior that manifests that knowledge. (i.e. which the machine can use to act on or

otherwise exhibit that knowledge.)


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In the course of Kant's Critique he discovers what he terms antinomies or contradictorypropositions that are apparently provable. As examples, consider the proposition thatspace is finite as opposed to the proposition that space is infinite, and the propositionthat everything is made of composite parts or that there are elemental things that cannotbe subdivided. Georg Wilhelm Friedreich Hegel, was a philosophical successor to Kant.His influence was strong during the early part of the nineteenth century. He seizedupon the idea of antinomy as a dialectic. He championed the idea that the mind sawthings in terms of thesis, each of which had its antithesis that came together with thethesis in a synthesis that had some of the attributes of both. This struggle between thesisand antithesis was the law of growth (Durant 1961).

Hegel saw the only reality in the world as the whole of the world. Everything derivedits existence from its relation to the whole (which might, for the sake of clarity, beviewed as an organism, so that, for example, your heart, derives its nature from the partit plays in your body). The Hegelian dialectic (basically the idea of thesis, antithesis andsynthesis augmented by other arguments) provided the method by which, eventually,

necessarily, and inevitably the whole is derived from its parts. Starting at anyproposition, its antithesis is obtained, the resulting synthesis provides furtherpropositions to which the dialectic is recursively applied; synthesis becomes thesis, thedialectic is reapplied and so on. Eventually the whole system is encompassed. Hegel'sphilosophy is convoluted but interesting for that convolution. All notable philosophiesup to Hegel's time (and philosophies to the present time) are constructed on theEuclidean (i.e. axiomatic) model, that is, according to the scheme calledFoundationalism. Foundationalism is characterized by a set of theses (or axioms) thatare accepted as truths together with justifying arguments (or logic) by which furthertheses are derived. A characteristic method of foundationalism is reductionism in whichtheses are made acceptable by reducing them to known (previously accepted) theses. InHegel's system the criteria for a thesis being accepted as part of the whole does not

depend on a basic set of axioms but on the whole itself. This has been termed theHegelian inversion by later philosophers. While Hegel's political philosophy wasinfluential in his time, notably influencing the young Karl Marx, his epistemologicalarguments have implications for non axiomatic system based philosophies (see thesection on cognitive systematization below).

The philosophers from Descartes through the empiricists philosophized to a background of mathematical invention and scientific discovery that revealed thevastness of the universe and the clockwork precision with which it operated. Aphilosopher could be reasonably well informed and understand all of the majordiscoveries. But science was growing and dividing into a host of disciplines. By themiddle of the nineteenth century no one man could be knowledgeable in all of them.

Since philosophy is largely a synoptic endeavor it became increasingly difficult for anyone philosopher to give an account of the importance and impact on philosophical ideasof the new discoveries in physics, computer science, biology, linguistics, cosmology,mathematics and psychology. To some extent the individual disciplines acquired theirown philosophers whose views were often myopic. In the following sections we willdiscuss those ideas in association with the disciplines that gave rise to them.


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1.5 Physical and Biological considerations

1.5.1 Evolutionary theory

The philosophical-religious climate of Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centurieswas favorable for investigations into the nature of biological organisms. This was dueto two aspects of the Judeo-Christian thought of that time:

1. Time was considered linear and events, measured from creation to eternity with(for the Christians) memorable deterministic events occurring at the advent andsecond coming of Christ. This was different from the cyclical nature of time of theGreek philosophers (and of most other cultures).

2. It was assumed that God had created the world in a methodical ordered manner.One perception of the order of things was the "scale of being," the "ladder ofperfection" or the "ladder of life." Man was perceived to occupy the highest earthlyrung of the ladder with all of the various life forms occupying lower positions

depending upon their perfection or complexity. The ladder did not stop at manbut continued on with Angels, Saints and other heavenly creatures that occupiedsuccessively higher rungs until finally God was reached. Man thus had a dualnature; a spiritual nature that he shared with the Angels above him on the ladderand an animal nature that he shared with the creatures below him on the ladder.

Scientific thought and religious thought often mixed during the renaissance and eveninto the nineteenth century. Investigations into biological complexity were encouragedso that the order of succession of creatures on the ladder of life could be more accuratelyascertained. That, coupled with the perception that time moved inexorably from thepast into the future set the stage for the discovery of evolutionary processes. All thatwas needed was the concept of vast periods of time10 , the idea that the ladder of life

might have a dynamic character, and a non supernatural mechanism by whichmovement on it could occur. These ideas, or various forms of them, had already gainedwidespread acknowledgement when Charles Darwin wrote his Origin of Species(published in 1859). Origin united the idea of the transmutation of species over geologictime with the mechanism of natural selection11 to yield the theory of biologicalevolution. The theory required strong champions for it made formal and respectable theheretical ideas that had only been the object of speculation. Even in 1866 (seven yearsafter publication ofOrigin of Species) the ladder was still being defended (Eiseley , 1958).From a scientific point of view these, were the last serious challenges to evolution. Theevidence from biology, geology and paleontology were too strong for that particularform of theological predestination. At about the same time (1866) an Austrian monknamed Gregor Mendel published a report on his research into genes, the units of

heredity. In it he outlined the rules that govern the passing of biological form andattribute from one generation to the next. The report was to lay unappreciated for thenext thirty years until around the turn of the century when the rules were10The idea of geologic time was provided by James Hutton, the father of geology.

11 The result of the uneven reproduction of the genotypephenotype in a group of members of aspecies that can mate with each other. The mechanism of selection is that of the interaction of thephenotype with its environment. The concept was popularized as 'the survival of the fittest' byHerbert Spencer.


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independently rediscovered. The Mendelian theory provided the Darwinian mechanismof natural selection with an explanation for the necessary diversification and mutationupon which it relied. The mendelian laws were incorporated into Darwinism whichbecame known as Neo-Darwinism. In 1953 J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick proposedthe double helix molecular structure of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from whichgenes are constructed and that contain the actual coded information needed to producean organism. This and various loosely related theories such as population genetics,speciation, systematics, paleontology and developmental genetics complement neo-darwinism and combine with it to form what is termed the synthetic theory ofevolution. The synthetic theory of evolution represents the state of the theory today(Salthe 1985).

This new wave of scientific discovery about the earth and the particularly the biology ofthe earth worked a new revolution in philosophical thought in which man had to beperceived as playing a smaller role in the scheme of things if for no other reason thanthe true grandeur of the scheme of things was becoming apparent. The first philosopherto embrace the new biological theories was Herbert Spencer. He was a philosopher of

the latter half of the nineteenth century who seized upon the theory of evolution aspresented by Darwin and generalized it to a philosophical principle that applied toeverything. As Will Durant (Durant 1961) demonstrates by partial enumeration, to:

"The growth of the planets out of the nebulae; the formation of oceans and mountains on theearth; the metabolism of elements by plants, and of animal tissues by men; the development ofthe heart in the embryo, and the fusion of the bones after birth; the unification of sensations andmemories into knowledge and thought, and of knowledge into science and philosophy; thedevelopment of families into clans and gentes and cities and states and alliances and the'federation of the world'."

The last, of course, being a prediction. In everything Spencer saw the differentiation ofthe homogeneous into parts and the integration of those parts into wholes. The processfrom simplicity to complexity or evolution is balanced by the opposite process fromcomplexity to simplicity or dissolution. He attempted to show that this followed frommechanical principles by hypothesizing a basic instability of the homogeneous, thesimilar parts being driven by external forces to separated areas in which the differentenvironments produce different results. Equilibration follows; the parts form alliancesin a differentiated whole. But all things run down and equilibration turns intodissolution. Inevitably, the fate of everything is dissolution. This philosophy was rathergloomy but it was in accord with the second law of thermodynamics12 or law of entropythat states that all natural processes run down. Entropy was proposed by RudolfClausius and William Thompson in the 1850's and was derived from the evidence ofexperiments with mechanical systems, in particular heat engines (see the section on

entropy below). That scientific fact tended to support a philosophy that the universeand everything in it was bound for inevitable dissolution was shocking and depressingto philosophers and to the educated populace at the turn of the twentieth century. But,thought about the mind now had a new dimension within which to work. Here was aproposal that tried to explain (as a small part of the over all philosophy) how12The first law of thermodynamics deals with the conservation of energy, stating that the sum of the flow of heat andthe rate of change of work done, are equal to the rate of change of energy in a system. There is a zero'th law (that, as

you may suspect, was proposed after the first and second laws, but that logically precedes them). It states that two

objects that are in thermal equilibrium with a third object, will be in thermal equilibrium with each other.


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environment might produce mind rather than the inverse. But theories of evolution donot provide for biology, that which the grand unified theories of physics wouldprovide for physics. The universal application of the Darwinian theory of evolution isnot so simple as Spencer would have it.

In response to the overwhelming wealth of detail, the biological sciences began to turninward. The detail allowed for tremendous diversification without leaving the confinesof the life sciences. The subject matter of biology was, and is, perceived as so differentfrom the subject matter of other areas of science that it is considered unique and to someextent closed. But the isolationist tendency is widespread in all of the sciences and, ashas been shown on many occasions, uniqueness is an illusion. In recent years there hasbeen a move on the part of some biologists to find a more general framework withinwhich biology fits together with the other disciplines of science. Such a move towardintegration should, of course, be of interest to all of the sciences. One such approach isthat proposed by Stanley N. Salthe13 .

Salthe notes (Salthe 1985) that there are at least seven levels of biological activity that

must be considered for the investigation of what are considered common biologicalprocesses. These include, but are not limited to, the molecular, cellular, organismic,population, local ecosystem, biotic regional, and the surface of the earth levels. Theseare usually studied as autonomous systems largely because of the difficulty inattributing cause to other levels. Salthe proposes that there is, inherent in biologicalphenomena, a hierarchical structure differentiated mainly by spacial and temporalscaling. The hierarchy is not limited to biological systems, extending upward to thecosmos and downward to quantum particles. Nor is it limited to any particularenumeration such as the seven levels mentioned above. Interactions between levels arelargely constrained to those that occur between adjacent levels. At a particular level(focal level) and for a particular entity the surrounding environment (or next higherlevel) and the material substance of the entity (next lower level) are seen as providing

initial conditions and constraints for the activities or evolution of the entity. Saltheproposes that a triadic system of three levels (the focal level and the immediatelyadjacent levels) are the appropriate context in which to investigate and describesystemic, in particular, biologic phenomena. So the theory of evolution that dependsupon natural selection applies at the population level and may or may not apply atother levels. Salthe distinguishes several factors that provide differentiation into levels.These include 1) scale in both size and time that prohibits any dynamic interactionbetween entities at the different levels, 2) polarity, that causes the phenomena at higherand lower levels to be radically different in a manner that prohibits recursion (that is,phenomena observed at a higher level are not seen to recur at a lower level) and 3)complexity, that describes the level of multiple interrelatedness between entities at alevel.

Biologists tend to be divided into two camps, the vitalists and the mechanists. Themechanists see no reason why all aspects of living systems cannot be described in13 The specific approach presented by Salthe has its roots in general systems theory. That theorysinception was in Norbert Wieners cybernetics. It was given its strong foundation and extended farbeyond the original content by such researchers as Ludwig Von Bertalanffy (1968), Ervin Laszlo (1972),Ilya Prigogine (1980), Erich Jantsch (1980), and many others. Systems science is now a firmlyestablished discipline. It provides the context in which the discussion concerning levels on the ensuingpages should be considered.


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physical terms. They believe it is possible to reduce phenomenon observed at one levelto the operation of laws on objects at a lower level. This mechanist/reductionistapproach has succeeded in explaining many biological phenomena to the great benefitof mankind. Most biologists would fall into this category (partly because of the successand partly because the alternative feels unscientific). Vitalists, on the other hand, feelthat the immense complexity of physical systems precludes an explanation for life interms of physical laws. The distinction between living and non-living things, whileperfectly obvious is virtually indefensible when formalized. Vitalists hypothesize anelan vital or life force to account for the difference. The nature of that force has not beensuccinctly identified by vitalists.

In spite of its popularity, complete explanations are not forthcoming from mechanistapproaches; it is one thing to recognize parts and interactions of parts of systems andanother to explain the activities of the whole in terms of the parts. Two problems standin the way of the success of the mechanists, 1) the process itself is doomed to an infiniteregress of explanation of finer and finer detail or the description of processes incontexts of ever greater and greater scope and 2) even after the successful explanation of

the nature of an object in terms of lower level those explanations provide no explanationfor the activities of that object at its level of existence as a whole. So the attempt of themechanists to reduce the events at one level to those at another, while useful, are notcomplete; it may be possible to explain the structure of a cell in terms of certainmolecular building blocks and the laws that govern those constituents, but doing sodoes not explain the activities of that cell. W. M. Elsasser (Elsasser, 1970) argues that theexistence of unique, distinguishable individuals at a level actually constitutes a featureof reality overlooked by the standard physics:

"The primary laws are the laws of physics which can be studied quantitatively only in termsof their validity in homogeneous classes. There is then a 'secondary' type of order or regularitywhich arises only through the {usually cumulative) effect of individualities in inhomogeneoussystems and classes. Note that such order need not violate the laws of physics"

Salthe and others who attempt to distinguish levels as more than mere handyabstractions to locate or specify objects provides a means by which mechanists andvitalists have some common ground. The processes and objects that occupy a level arenot expected to be completely explainable in terms of any other level, in fact anycomplete explanation is precluded by the increasing impermeability that characterizesthe correspondence between increasingly distant levels. Only the most immediate levelshave any appreciable impact on the activities of the other. This saves the mechanistsfrom the infinite regress of explanations but leaves the explanation of elan vital forfurther investigation. As Elsasser points out, these need not be mystic, spiritualistic, ornon-scientific. One possible explanation for the observed propensity of systems to self-

organize is given in section 1.7. It is an unexpected explanation, advocating thatorganization results not because of any positive motivating force (thereby avoiding aretreat from science) but rather because of the inability of some open systems to pursuetheir entropic imperative at a rate commensurate with the expanding horizons of thelocal state space. It will be argued that the nature of the system at a level in anenvironment dictates the form that the resulting organization takes. These ideas haveapplicability to virtually any system at any level, not just biological systems at the levelsidentified above. We shall comment and expand upon these ideas later in sections 1.7,1.11, and 1.12, but first we will review the development of knowledge about the nature


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of the physical world beyond (and below) the lowest levels mentioned above. We skipover the molecular level, whose rules and objects are detailed in chemistry, the atomiclevel described by atomic physics, and the nuclear level described by nuclear physics, tothe quantum level whose rules and objects are expressed in particle physics by quantummechanics. We do this because the quantum level vividly illustrates the increasinginability to relate the actions and objects at different levels far removed from the humanlevel of existence.

1.5.2 Quantum theory

At the end of the nineteenth century physicists were perplexed by the fact that objectsheated to the glowing point gave off light of various colors (the spectra). Calculationsbased on the then current model of the atom indicated that blue light should always beemitted from intensely hot objects. To solve the puzzle, the German scientist, MaxPlanck proposed that light was emitted from atoms in discrete quanta or packets ofenergy according to the formula, E = hf, where f was the frequency of the observed lightin hertz and h was a constant unit of action (of dimensions energy/frequency). Planck

calculated h = 6.63 x 1027 ergs/hertz and the value became known as Planck's constant.In 1905 Albert Einstein suggested that radiation might have a corpuscular nature.

Noting that mc2 = E = hf, or more generally mv2 = hf (where v stands for any velocity)provides a relation between mass and frequency he suggested that waves should haveparticle characteristics. In particular since the wavelength l , of any wave, is related tothe frequency by f = v/l, then l = h/mv, or setting the momentum mv = p, then p =h/l. That is the momentum of a wave is Planck's constant divided by the wavelength.Years later (in 1923), Prince Louis DeBroglie, a French scientist, noted that it should betrue that the inverse relation also exists and that l = h/p. That is, particles have thecharacteristics of waves. This hypothesis was quickly verified by observing theinterference patterns formed when an electron beam from an electron gun was projected

through a diffraction grating onto a photo-sensitive screen. An interference patternforms from which the wavelength of the electrons can be calculated and the individualelectron impact points can be observed. This, in itself, is not proof of the wave nature ofparticles since waves of particles, (for instance sound waves or water waves) whenprojected through a grating will produce the same effect. However, even when theelectrons are propagated at widely separated intervals (say one a day), the same patternis observed. This can only occur if the particles themselves and not merely theircollective interactions have the characteristics of waves. In other words, all of the objectsof physics (hence all of the objects in the universe), have a wave-particle dual nature.This idea presented something of a problem to the physicists of the early part of thiscentury. It can be seen that the wave nature of objects on the human scale of existence

can be ignored (the wavelength of such objects will generally be less than 1027 metersso, for instance, if you send a stream of billiard balls through a (appropriately large)grating the interference pattern will be too small to measure, or at least, small enough tosafely ignore). Classical physics, for most practical purposes, remained valid, but a newphysics was necessary for investigating phenomena on a small scale. That physicsbecame known as the particle physics.

The Austrian physicist, Erwin Schrdinger applied the wave mechanics developed byClerk Maxwell to develop an appropriate wave equation (y) for calculating the


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probability of the occurrence of the attributes of quantum particles 14 For example,solving y for a specified position of a particle (say the position of an electron near anatom) yields a value which, when squared, gives the probability of finding the particleat that position. Then, to investigate the trajectory of an electron in relation to its atom,the equation can be solved for a multitude of positions. The locus of points of highestprobability can be thought of as a most likely trajectory for the electron. There are manyattributes that a quantum particle might have, among which are mass, position, charge,momentum, spin, and polarization. The probability of the occurrence of particularvalues for all of these attributes can be calculated from Shrdinger's wave function.Some of these attributes (for example mass and charge), are considered static and may be thought of as fixed and always belonging to the particle. They provide, in effect,immutable evidence for the existence of the particle. But other attributes of a particle arecomplementary in that the determination of one affects the ability to measure the other.These other attributes are termed dynamic attributes and come in pairs. Foremostamong the dynamic complementary attributes are position, q, and momentum, p. In1927 Werner Heisenberg introduced his famous uncertainty principle in which heasserted that the product of the uncertainty with which the position is measured, Dq,

and the uncertainty with which the momentum is measured, Dp must always be greaterthan Planck's constant. That is, Dq Dp h. In other words, if you measure one attributeto great precision (e.g. Dq is very small) then the complementary attribute mustnecessarily have a very large uncertainty (e.g. Dp h/Dq). A similar relation is true ofany pair of dynamic attributes. In the early days of quantum mechanics it was believedthat this fact could be attributed to the disturbance of the attribute not being measuredby the measuring process. This view was necessitated by the desire to view quantumparticles as objects that conform to the normal human concept of objects with a realexistence and tangible attributes (call such a concept normal reality). Obviously, ifHeisenberg's principle was true and the quantum world possessed a normal reality, thedetermination of a particle's position must have altered the particle's momentum in adirect manner. Unfortunately, as will be discussed below, the assumption of normal

reality at quantum levels leads to the necessity of assuming faster than lightcommunication among the parts of the measured particle and the measuring device.The idea that quantum objects conform to a normal reality is now out of favor withphysicists (though not discarded). In any case, the principle was not intended asrecognition of the clumsiness of measuring devices. Heisenberg's uncertainty principlearose from considerations concerning the wave nature of the Schrdinger equations andresult directly from them.

14 All things at the quantum level (even forces) are represented by particles. Some of theseparticles are familiar to most people (e.g. the electron and photon), others are less familiar(muons, gluons, neutrinos, etc.). Basically, quantum particles consist of Fermions andBosons. The most important Fermions are quarks and leptons. Quarks are the components

of protons and neutrons, while leptons include electrons. The Fermions then, contain allthe particles necessary to make atoms. The Bosons carry the forces between the Fermions(and their constructs). For example, the electromagnetic force is intermediated by photons,and the strong and weak nuclear forces are intermediated by mesons, and intermediatevector bosons respectively. Quantum physicists have found it convenient to speak of all ofthe phenomena at the quantum level in terms of particles. This helps avoid confusion thatmight arise because of the wave/particle duality of quantum phenomena. It givesnonphysicists a comfortable but false image of a quantum level populated by tiny billiardballs.


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so strong and unequivocal in normal reality, is qualified at the quantum level asindicated above. Worse, if the quantum mechanics equations are to be interpreted as amodel of the quantum level of existence then the inhabitants of quantum reality consistof waves of probability, not objects with attributes (strange and quirky though they may be). As Werner Heisenberg said "Atoms are not things." The best one can do is toconjure up some version of an Alice in Wonderland place in which exist entitiesidentifiable by their static attributes but in which all values of dynamic attributes arepossible but in which none actually exist. Occasionally the quantum peace is disturbedby an act that assigns an attribute and forces a value assignment (e.g. a measurement orobservation occurs). Nick Herbert in his book Quantum Reality (Herbert, 1989) hasidentified eight versions of quantum reality held by various physicists (the versions arenot all mutually exclusive):

1. The Copenhagen interpretation (and the reigning favorite) originated by NielsBohr, Heisenberg, and Max Born is that there is no underlying reality. Quantumentities possess no dynamic attributes. Attributes arise as a joint product of theprobability wave and the normal reality measuring device.

2. The Copenhagen interpretation part II maintains that the world is created by anact of observation made in the normal world. This has the effect of choosing anattribute and forcing the assignment of values.

3. The world is a connected whole arising from the history of phase entanglements ofthe quantum particles that make up the world.That is, when any two possibilitywaves (representative of some quantum particle) interact, their phases becomeentangled. Forever afterward, no matter their separation in space, whateveractuality may manifest itself in the particles, the particles share a common part.Originally the phase entanglement was thought of as just a mathematical fictionrequired by the form of the equations. Recent developments (Bell's theorem, see

below) lend credence to the actuality of the entanglements in the sense that thoseentanglements can explain, and in fact are needed to explain, experimental data.Phase entanglement was originally posed by Erwin Schrdinger.

4. Their is no normal reality hypothesis (normal reality is a function of the mind). John Von Neumann felt that the problem with explaining the reality behind theexperimental observation arose because the measurement instruments weretreated as normally real while the particles being measured were considered aswaveforms in a quantum reality. He undertook to treat the measurement devicesas quantum waveforms too. The problem then became one of determining when aquantum particle as represented by a wave of all possible attributes and values,collapsed (took a quantum leap) to a particular set of attributes and values. He

examined all of the possible steps along the path of the process of measurementand determined that there was no distinguished point on that path and that thewaveform could collapse anywhere without violating the observed data. Sincethere was no compelling place to assume the measurement took place, VonNeumann placed it in the one place along the path that remained somewhatmysterious, the human consciousness.

5. Their are an infinity of worlds. In 1957, Hugh Everett, then a Princeton University


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graduate student made the startling proposal that the wave function does notcollapse to one possibility but that it collapses to all possibilities. That is, upon amoment requiring the assignment of a value, every conceivable value is assigned,one for each of a multitude of universes that split off at that point. We observe awave function collapse only because we are stuck in one branch of the split.Strange as it may seem this hypothesis explains the experimental observations.

6. Logic at the quantum level is different than in normal reality. In particular thedistributive laws in logic do not apply to quantum level entities, that is, A or (Band C) (A or B) and (A or C). For example, if club Swell admits people who arerich or it admits people who come from a good family and have good connections,while club Upper Crust admits people who are rich or come from a good familyand who are rich or have good connections, then in normal reality we would findthat after one thousand people apply for membership to both clubs the samegroup of people will have been accepted at both clubs. In the quantum world, notonly will the memberships be different but in club Upper Crust there will bemembers who are not rich and do not come from a good family or are not well

connected.7. Neo-realism (the quantum world is populated with normal objects). Albert

Einstein said that he did not believe that God played dice with the universe. Thisresponse was prompted by his distaste for the idea that there was no quantumreality expressible in terms of the normal reality. He didn't want to exceptprobability waves as in some sense real. He and DeBroglie argued that atoms areindeed things and that the probabilistic nature of the quantum mechanics is justthe characteristic of ensembles of states of systems as commonly presented instatistical mechanics. John Von Neumann proved a theorem that stated thatobjects that displayed reasonable characteristics could not possibly explain thequantum facts as revealed by experimental data. This effectively destroyed the

neo-realist argument until it was rescued by David Bohm who developed aquantum reality populated by normal objects consistent with the facts of quantummechanics. The loophole that David Bohm found that allowed him to develop hismodel was the assumption by Von Neumann of reasonable behavior by quantumentities. To Von Neumann, reasonableness did not include faster than lightphenomena. In order to explain the experimental data in a quantum realitypopulated by normal objects, Bohm found it necessary to hypothesize a pilot waveassociated with each particle that was connected to distant objects and that wasable to receive superluminal communications. The pilot wave was then able toguide the particle to the correct disposition to explain the experimental data.Unfortunately for the neo-reality argument faster than light communications putsphysicists off. As discussed below, the acceptance of a variety of that concept, at

least for objects in the quantum world, may be required by recent findings.

8. Werner Heisenberg champions a combination of 1 and 2 above. He sees thequantum world as populated by potentia or "tendencies for being." Measurement isthe promotion of potentia to real status. The universe is observer created (which isnot the same as Von Neumann's consciousness created universe).

Albert Einstein did not like the concept of a particle consisting of a wave of


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probabilities. In 1935, in collaboration with Boris Podowski and Nathan Rosen heproposed a thought experiment that would show that, even if quantum mechanicscould not be proven wrong, it was an incomplete theory. The idea was to create ahypothetical situation in which it would have to be concluded that there existedquantum attributes/features that were not predictable by quantum mechanics. Thethought experiment is known as the EPR experiment.

The EPR experiment consists of the emission in opposite directions from some source oftwo momentum correlated quantum particles. Correlated particles (correlated in allattributes, not just by the momentum attribute) may be produced, for example, by thesimultaneous emission of two particles from a given energy level of an atom. Call thepaths that the first and second particles take the right hand and left hand pathsrespectively. At some point along the right hand path there is a measuring device thatcan measure the momentum of the first particle. On the left hand path there is anidentical measuring device at a point twice the distance from the source than the firstdevice. When the particles are simultaneously emitted along their respective paths,according to quantum theory, they both consist of a wave of probability that will not be

converted into an actuality until they are measured. At the point of being measuredtheir probability wave is collapsed, or the momentum attribute is forced to take a value,or the consciousness of the observer assigns a momentum value (e.g. a human ismonitoring the measuring device), or the universe splits, or some other such event takesplace to fix the momentum. Now consider the events of the experiment. The particlesare emitted at the same time in opposite directions. Soon the first particle (on the righthand path) is measured and its momentum is fixed to a particular value. What is thestatus of the second particle at this point in time? According to quantum mechanics it isstill a wave of probability that won't become actualized until it encounters themeasuring device (still off in the distance). And yet it is known that the left handmeasuring device will produce the same momentum that the right hand device hasalready produced and when the second particle finally gets to that measuring device it

does show the expected momentum. Two possibilities present themselves, either theresults of the measurement of the first particle is somehow communicated to the secondparticle in time for it to assign the correct value to its momentum attribute, or thesecond particle already 'knows' in some sense, which actual momentum to exhibitwhen it gets to the measuring device. The particles are moving at or near the speed oflight so the former possibility requires superluminal communication and must berejected. But then the quantum particle must contain knowledge that is not accountedfor by quantum theory. In fact it must contain a whole list of values to assign toattributes upon measurement because it can't possibly know which attribute will bemeasured by the measuring device it encounters. So, Einstein concludes, quantumtheory is incomplete since it says nothing about such a list.

Einstein's rejection of superluminal communication is equivalent to an assumption oflocality. That is, any communication that takes place must happen through a chain ofmediated connections and may not exceed the speed of light. Electric, magnetic andgravitational fields may provide such mediation but the communication must occurthrough distortions of those fields that can only proceed at subluminal speeds. In 1964John Stewart Bell, an Irish Physicist attached to CERN, devised a means of using a realversion of the EPR thought experiment to test the assumption of locality. He substitutedtwo beams of polarity correlated (but randomly polarized) photons for the momentum


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correlated particles of the EPR experiment. All photons possess a polarization attribute but a light beam is said to be unpolarized if its photons, when measured for thatattribute, show no special orientation. The measuring devices were located at equaldistances from the source and could test arriving photons for polarization in any direc-tion. The object was to compare the records of polarized photons produced by the twomeasurement devices for various combinations of direction of polarization. Theassumption of locality leads to an assessment as to the similarity between the recordsproduced at each device that does not agree with quantum mechanics. The following isa variation of an experimental setup that could be used to investigate the problem. Itshould make the disagreement between quantum mechanics and the assumption oflocality more understandable.

The correlated beams are emitted in opposite directions from one of a number ofsources and are unpolarized. This can be implemented, for example, by using a cesiumsource. A cesium source can generate unpolarized but correlated light beams becausecesium emits separable twin state photons (i.e. two photons are emitted together fromthe same energy level of a cesium atom). The measuring devices on each path are calcite

crystals backed up by a pair of photon counters. Calcite crystals act as a filter passingonly photons that are polarized in one of two directions. They allow light polarized inthe particular direction of the crystals' orientation, say Q , to pass through normallywhile light polarized at right angles to that orientation (i.e. Q+90) is refracted andpassed through at an angle. Obviously, for a given orientation of the crystal, manyphotons don't get through at all. Behind each crystal are two photon counters. One ofthe photon counters counts the photons polarized along the crystals orientation and theother counts the refracted photons. The results are combined to produce a record ofphoton polarizations for a particular crystal orientation. Such a record might look like'1100100101010010010' where 1 indicates the measurement of a photon polarized at Q,and 0 represents the measurement of a photon polarized at Q+90. No matter whatangle of polarization is tested the sequence of ones and zeros will have a random nature

because the light beams are unpolarized. When the two calcite crystals at the end ofeach path are oriented in the same direction the record produced by each device isexactly the same. However, when one of the crystals is offset by some angle then therecords produced at each device begin to differ by a percentage based on the differenceof the two orientations, call the difference in orientations (Qd) = (Q1) - (Q2). A simple

calculation in the quantum mechanics predicts that the records at each measuringdevice, having a difference in orientation of (Qd) , will differ by an amount calculated

as sin2(Qd). On the other hand, the assumption of locality means that the difference

must change in an essentially linear fashion to the angular difference. To see this,suppose that, crystal one is rotated by a and a difference in records of, say, a% is

observed. Denote this by O(a) = a. Then crystal one is returned to its originalorientation. Crystal two is rotated by -a and O(-a) = a, is obtained. Then crystal two is

returned to its original orientation. Now consider the case when crystal one is set at aand crystal two is set at -a simultaneously and then the comparison of records is made.The assumption of locality means that the effects of the measurement made at crystalone cannot effect the measurements made at crystal two and vice versa. The maximumnumber of changes between the two records when (Qd) = 2a must be just twice those

observed when (Qd) = a except in the case that a change from the old record was


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observed for a particular photon at both devices (in which case the changes will canceleach other and the two records will agree on the polarization of that photon). That is,under the assumption of locality, the difference in records when (Qd) = 2amust be

less than or equal to twice the differences observed when (Qd) = a. In the notation of

observations, O(2a) 2O(a). Quantum mechanics predicts the difference in records

for one crystal rotated a and the other crystal rotated -a will be sin2(2a). Bothassertions can't be true as the following argument shows. Assume the quantummechanics calculations are correct so that the differences in the record due to anyorientations of the measuring devices is correctly calculated by the quantum mechanics,

i.e. O(Q) = sin2(Q). Then the assumption of locality implies sin2(2a) 2sin2(a) for all

a. But, for example, at a = 30 , sin2(2a) = .75, while 2sin2(a) = .5, so the inequalitydoesn't hold. One or the other of the assumptions must be false. But all of this is adescription of an experiment that can be performed and which can determine whichassumption is false (quantum mechanics is valid, locality is a valid assumption).

By 1972 John Clauser at University of California at Berkeley, using a mercury sourceand a variation of the above inequality verified that the quantum mechanics predictionswere correct. One loophole in the experiment was due to his inability to switch thedirection of polarization to be tested while the photon was in flight. The failure to do soallows for the possibility of subluminal information leaks between devices. The problemcould be overcome by providing multiple measuring devices (at different settings) andswitching rapidly among them during the experiment. In 1982 Alain Aspect of theUniversity of Paris made the corrections and performed the experiment. The validity ofquantum theory was upheld and the assumption of locality in quantum events shownto be wrong. That quantum reality must be non-local is known as Bell's theorem. It is astartling theorem that says that unmediated and instantaneous communication occurs between quantum entities no matter their separation in space. It is so startling that

many physicists do not accept it. It does little to change the eight pictures of quantumreality given above except to extend the scope of what might be considered ameasurement situation from the normal reality description of components to includevirtually everything in the universe. The concept of phase entanglement is promotedfrom mathematical device to active feature of quantum reality.

Of course, we see none of this in our comfortable, normal reality. Objects are stillconstrained to travel below the speed of light. Normal objects communicate atsubluminal rates. Attributes are infinitely measurable and their permanence is assuredeven though they may go for long periods of time unobserved and uncontemplated. Wecan count on our logic for solving our problems, it will always give the same correctanswer, completely in keeping with the context of our normal world. But we are

constructed from quantum stuff. How can we not share the attributes of that level ofexistence? And we are one of the constituents of the Milky Way, (although we neverthink of ourselves as such); what role do we play in the nature of its existence? Doessuch a question even make sense? It might help to look more closely at the nature oflevels of existence.

1.5.3 The new scale of being

Biologists, physicists, astronomers, and other scientists, when describing their work,


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often qualify their statements by specifying the scale at which their work occurs. Thusit's common to hear the 'quantum level', the 'atomic level', the 'molecular level', the'cellular level', the 'planetary level' or the 'galactic level' mentioned in their work. Andthey might further qualify things by mentioning the time frame in which the events oftheir discipline occur, e.g. picoseconds, microseconds, seconds, days, years, millions ofyears, or billions of years. The fact that such specifications must be made is not oftennoted; it's just taken as the nature of things that, for example, objects and rules at thequantum level don't have much to do with the objects and rules at the cellular level, andthe objects and rules at the cellular level don't have much to do with objects and rules atthe galactic level and so on. A bit of reflection however, reveals that it's really quite anextraordinary fact! All of these people are studying exactly the same universe, and yetthe objects and rules being studied are so different at the different levels, that anignorant observer would guess that they were different universes. Further, when thelevel at which humankind exists is placed on a scale representing the levels that areeasily identified, it is very nearly in the center (see figure 1.2). Three reasons why thatmight be, come immediately to mind: 1) we're in the center by pure chance, 2) theuniverse was created around us (and therefore, probably for us), or

radii of proton or neutron

radii of electron shells of atomsmolecules

macro-molecules(DNA etc.)virusesbacteriablood corpusclesvegetable and animal cells

atomic Nuclei

manmouse

whale

snowflakes

small town

radius of the Earth

radius of Solar System

large city

radius of galaxy (Milky Way)

radius of the Sun

radius of largest structures (clusters of galaxies)

range of strong nuclear force

range of weak nuclear force

distance to nearest star

10-25

25

-20

-15

-10

- 5

0

5

10

15

20

10

Meters

Meters

Figure 1.2. New scale of being


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3) it only looks like we're in the center because we can 'see' about the same distance inboth directions.Is our perception of these levels, embedded in the scale of being, just anartifact of our inability to see an underlying scheme (i.e. the universe can be explained by a few immutable object types together with their rules of interaction, so that thedifferent objects and rules that we perceive at different levels are simply a complexcombination of those primitives), or do these levels (and their objects and rules) have areal and, in some sense, independent existence? The answer we give is part of thehypothesis made in this thesis: levels exist and contain rules not derived from surroundinglevels of existence, and the further removed any two levels the less the one can be interpreted orexplained in terms of the other. If accepted, this answers the question as to why we seem tobe at the center of the scale of being; the further removed a level from the human levelof existence, the less that level has in common with the human level and the lesshumans are able to interpret what occurs at that level in familiar terms. For sufficientlyremote levels, no interpretation can be made. We cannot 'see' beyond what our mindscan comprehend. So, for example, we don't understand quantum reality because it is onthe very edge of that to which we as humans can relate. For the same reason, at theother end of the scale, we can't conceive of all that is as the universe, and at the same

time, the universe as all that is, nor do our minds comfortably deal with infinity andeternity. If we were a quantum entity, we would undoubtedly express the same wonderat the impossible nature of the strange subluminal world populated by unconnected,virtually uncommunicative, objects with frozen attributes, that exist at the very edge ofthe ability to comprehend. But we shall pull back from such tempting speculations. Ourpurpose is not to investigate the concept of levels in general. We will leave manyquestions such as "what parameters participate in the emergence of levels (e.g. energy,scale of being, etc.), how fast do levels emerge, and what governs the interactions at alevel including such phenomena as life, procreation, etc?" We are mainly interested inthe fact of the existence of levels and the effect of that on what we call intelligence. Wetake up that problem in section 1.7 and subsequent sections of this part.

1.6 Mathematical considerations

1.6.1 The progress in mathematics

Unlike philosophers who were in a state of turmoil at the beginning of the twentiethcentury, mathematicians were reaching a state of great contentment. The state was notto be long lived. Rene Descartes had started the age of analysis with the invention ofanalytic geometry (early seventeenth century), this was followed by the invention ofthe calculus by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (early eighteenth century).Later (early nineteenth century) the invention of non-euclidian geometries by NikolasLobatchewsky shook mathematicians, who had considered geometry to be the mostsound of all the mathematical systems. But, by the beginning of the twentieth century

geometry had been put back onto a firm foundation by David Hilbert. In fact, the scarethat the discovery of non-euclidean geometries had caused, had a beneficial effect inthat other branches of mathematics were inspected. The calculus was found wantingand was repaired, principally by Augustine Cauchy by founding it on the concept oflimits. The attempt was made, largely successfully, to ground the largest part ofmathematics in arithmetic. And Giuseppe Peano had managed to produce arithmeticfrom a handful of axioms about the whole numbers. Mathematics seemed very secureand was certainly the most powerful tool ever invented (or discovered, depending upon


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your point of view). In the eighteenth century Leibnitz had proposed a calculus ofreason in which all of human knowledge based on reason could be derived from basicconcepts, so that, if any disputes should arise it would only be necessary for thedisputants to sit down and calculate the truth. Developments in mathematical logic(Gottlob Frege had essentially completed the first order predicate calculus by the latenineteenth century) seemed to make that statement plausible. Pierre-Simon Laplace hadclaimed (in the early nineteenth century) that given the initial conditions (position,velocities and forces applying to all of the particles in the universe), and sufficientcalculating power the future and past course of the cosmos could be calculated. It waseasy to be

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