1. Self-organised Reality
Brian Josephson
Department of Physics
University of Cambridge

2. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Main theme
Classical picture: fixed fundamental law
This alternative: emergent laws
Need to think in very different ways to the usual!
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

3. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Sources
Maturana and Varela (autopoiesis)
Steve Rosen (emergent order, phenomenology)
Stu Kauffman (self-organisation and life)
Ilexa Yardley (circular theory)
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

4. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Main themes
Edge of chaos, order-disorder balance
Life as intermediate level of order: chance, necessity and intelligence
Cycles, attractors, ambiguity
Mutual support, observation
Circular thought, ‘post-explanatory reasoning’
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

5. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Edge of chaos
Deterministic chaos: sensitive dependence on initial conditions, effective unpredictability
‘Edge of chaos’: boundary between order and chaos
Rapid evolution
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

6. Order-disorder interplay
Order creates order out of disorder
(through ‘intelligent’ observation)
Disorder introduces noise into order
Systems form and disintegrate
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

7. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Life itself
Between order and disorder
Too much order, not alive
Too much disorder, not alive
Life shapes itself (autopoiesis)
Confines itself to a limited range of possibilities
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

8. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Restricted range
Range must be enough to be able to embody resources needed to be able to shape itself under all conditions
Must act in a precise way, hence requirement for restriction
Analogy: computer programs
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

9. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Cycles
Cycles are a universal phenomenon associated with restricted range
Too simple to be considered life, but perhaps essential component of life
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

10. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Subsystems and models
Biosystems contain subsystems whose behaviour can be related to models
Models show how parts work together
With complex systems, all models are limited; there is always something outside a given model, possibly ‘intelligent’
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

11. Chance, Necessity and Intelligence
By chance, parts that can work together come together
Working together is a necessity for continued existence of the collection
The fact of continued existence can be deemed a manifestation of intelligence; thus intelligence naturally exists
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

12. Observation and information
Effective action is the effective use of information based on observation
Triadic mechanism: one system coordinates the behaviour of two others (example: actions involved in walking)
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

13. Significant interrelations
These processes lead to systems becoming related to each other in a significant way
Accumulation of parts leads to complex biosystems
1, 2, 3, many; emergent communities
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

14. Dynamic systems perspective
Model system as point in many-dimensional space
Rigid system, minimal motion
Chaotic system, roaming widely
Intermediate case: roaming in a restricted region (e.g. simple or extended cycle, attractor situation)
Forming and disintegrating
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

15. Evolution/development
Roaming limited by homeostatic shaping mechanisms
Evolution/development from alternating conservative and active phases
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

16. Conservative and active interplay
End up with organisations most resistant to destabilisation: destabilisation in the interests of stability
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

17. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Joy of Approximation I
System does not have to fit a specific model to be able to be functional (nature uses empirical approach)
Advance via approximations
Evolution finds good, combinable approximations
Problematic for scientists!
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

18. Joy of Approximation II
A subsystem works ‘roughly like model X’
Then something happens and it starts working roughly like modification Xso it goes on
Life uses approximations but is not bound by them (open system)
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

19. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Observation
Observation = key process: information processing with some meaningful outcome
Develops to extract useful information
Two systems can exchange information to assist in acting as one highly integrated system for specified tasks (assisted by 3rd member of a triad?)
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

20. Achievement and potentiality
Life continues till something works, what does not work gets discarded
Chance observation of what works in a given context leads to progress
Reality involves a field of potentiality, things that worked in some context in the past
Emergence cannot be captured in a formula
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

21. Potentiality and meaning
The meaning of something is what may come of it, its potential
Intelligent observer systems can take account of potentiality, thus connecting the real with the unreal
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

22. History, known and ‘dark’
The past affects present probabilities, in ways we cannot know in detail
‘Dark’ history; intelligent design?
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

23. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Objective reality
[speculative] According to C S Peirce, ‘thirdness’, involving knowledge of the relationships between things, is the basis of objective reality
Hence(?) a group of 3 observers can create something objective, which can be taken up by others
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

24. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Objective Space
By extension, something with the characteristics of a space of a particular kind can be created by a group of observers acting in coordination with each other
cf. flocking of birds
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

25. What is this all about, anyway?
Ideas have been extracted from both biology, and physics (order-disorder component) to get something that may be more general
By making unclarity an integral part of science we may be getting closer to the truth
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

26. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Application
We have abducted principles from biology in order to apply them elsewhere (fundamental physics)
Characteristic quantum properties such as wholeness, indeterminism, the role of the observer in deciding between alternatives, come out naturally within this approach
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

27. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
Application to psi
Intelligent observation systems can take account of meaning and potentiality
They discover meaningful possibilities, and develop relationships with them so as to help realise them (cf. Schoenberg on musical creativity)
Space is a constructed phenomenon and action is possible outside it, so not limited by space (observers can be outside space-time)
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

28. Application in conventional physics
Something to do for string theorists out of a job (?)
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson

29. Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson
THE END
Utrecht II, Oct. 17, 2008
Self-organised reality/Brian Josephson