Great Problems of Philosophy and Physics SOLVED? Bob Doyle The Information Philosopher “beyond logic and language” This book on the web informationphilosopher.com/problems/ and metaphysicist.com Great Problems of Philosophy and Physics SOLVED? Bob Doyle The Information Philosopher “beyond logic and language” First edition, 2016 © 2016, Bob Doyle, The Information Philosopher All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by electronic or mechanical means (including photo- copying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without the prior permission of The Information Philosopher. Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data (Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.) Names: Doyle, Bob, 1936- Title: Great problems in philosophy and physics solved? / Bob Doyle, the Information Philosopher. Other Titles: Great problems - solved? Description: First edition. | Cambridge, MA, USA : I-Phi Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: ISBN 978-0-9835802-8-7 | ISBN 978-0-9835802- 9-4 (EPUB) Subjects: LCSH: Philosophy--Textbooks. | Philosophy and science--Textbooks. Classification: LCC BD21 .D69 2016 (print) | LCC BD21 (ebook) | DDC 100--dc23 I-Phi Press 77 Huron Avenue Cambridge, MA, 02138 USA Dedication To the hundreds of philosophers and scientists with web pages on the Information Philosopher website. After collecting and reading their works for the past six decades, I have tried to capture their essential contributions to philosophy and physics, as much as practical with excerpts in their own words. Special thanks to many who have sent suggestions and corrections to ensure that their work is presented as accurately as possible for the students and young professionals who use the I-Phi website (nearly a thousand unique new visitors every day) as an entry point into some great intellectual problems that they may themselves help to solve in the coming decades. As a scientist and inventor, the author has contributed some modest tools to help individuals and communities communicate, to share information. So he would like also to dedicate this work to some of the creators of the world’s fundamental information- sharing technologies. Alexander Graham Bell, Alan Turing, Claude Shannon, John von Neumann, Norbert Wiener, Steve Jobs, Tim Berners-Lee, Mark Zuckerberg, Jimmy Wales, Larry Page, Sergei Brin. Information philosophy builds on the intersection of computers and communications. These two technologies will facilitate the sharing of knowledge around the world in the very near future, when almost everyone will have a smartphone and affordable access to the Internet and the World-Wide Web. Information is like love. Giving it to others does not reduce it. It is not a scarce economic good. Sharing it increases the Sum of information in human minds. Information wants to be free. Bob Doyle Cambridge, MA September, 2016 vi Great Problems in Philosophy and Physics - Solved? Contents Contents vii Table of Contents Preface xi How To Use This Book With The I-Phi Website 1 1. Introduction 3 The New Ideas of Information Philosophy 4; The Three Worlds of Information Philosophy 9; Information Creation in the Material World 10; Information Creation in the Biological World 11; Information Creation in the World of Ideas 12; What Does Creation of Information Mean? 13 2. Metaphysics 15 Possibility and Possible Worlds 22; Naming and Necessity 24; Actual Possibles 25; Actualism 28; Identity 30; Criteria 30; Coinciding Objects 33; Composition 38; Aristotle Essences 45; Modal Logic Is Not Metaphysics 47 3. Ontology 55 The Metaphysicist’s Approach 56; Continuous or Discrete? 58; Meta-Ontology 61 4. Free Will 63 The Two-Stage Model of Free Will 64; Neuroscientific Evidence for the Two-Stage Model 66; History of the Free Will Problem 69; The Standard Argument Against Free Will 74; Possible Worlds and Alternative Possibilities 76; Free Will and Creativity 77 5. Value 79 An Information-based Moral Code? 84; A Minimum Moral/Political Message? 85; An Information-based Social Contract? 87; Information and Negative Entropy as Objective Values 89 6. Good and Evil 91 Information (Negative Entropy) as Objective Good? 92; Evil 93; A Statistical Comparison with Societal Norms 95 7. God and Immortality 97 No Creator, But There Was/Is A Creation 98; Theodicy (The Problem of Evil) 98; Omniscience and Omnipotence Contradictory? 98; The Ergod 99; The Problem of Immortality 100 8. Epistemology 103 The History of Epistemology 104; The Search for Knowledge Turns Inward 109 9. Universals 119 The One and the Many 122; Philosophical Triads 126; Three Sources for Authoritative Knowledge 128; Types of Triads 128; A Few Tetrads 129 10. The Problem of Induction 131 Induction and the Scientific Method 137 11. The Problem of Meaning 139 Meaning in the Theory of Information 142 12. Mind 147 The Scandal in Psychology 147; Mind as Immaterial Information 148; Information Evolves to Become Mind 149; An Information Mind Model 150 viii Great Problems in Philosophy and Physics - Solved? 13. The Mind-Body Problem 155 Interactionists 156; The Mind-Brain Identity Theory 158; Eliminative Materialism 159; Mind/Body and the ERR 163 14. Consciousness 165 The Binding Problem 166 15. The Self and Other Minds 171 Mind Over Matter? 172; The Problem of Other Minds 173 16. Mental Causation 177 The Problem of Mental Causation according to Kim 179; The Emergence of Life from Matter and Mind from Life 179; Ribosomes Select Randomly Moving Amino Acids 181; Ion Pumps in Neurons Select Individual Atoms 183; Information Solves the Problem of Mental Causation. 185; “Bottom-up” Physical Processes Are Not Deterministic 186; Molecular Machines 187 17. Information Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics 189 The “Possibilities Function” 194; Possibilities and Information Theory 196; Other Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics 198 18. The Measurement Problem 201 Von Neumann’s Two Processes 205; Designing a Quantum Measurement Apparatus 207; An Irreversible Example of Process 1 208; The Bound- ary between the Classical and Quantum Worlds 210; The Role of the Conscious Observer 211; Three Essential Steps in a “Measurement” and “Observation” 214; Quantum Collapses Can Produce New Information 215 19. Determinism 217 Indeterminism 219; Determination 220; The Emergence of Determin- ism 222; The History of Determinism 222 20. Collapse of the Wave Function 225 What is the Wave Function? 225; Information Physics Explains the Two-Slit Experiment 227; Where Is Information About Probabilities Embodied? 230 21. Entanglement 233 Einstein’s Discovery of Nonlocality and Nonseparability 235; The Importance of Conservation Laws in Entanglement 240; Can a Special Frame Resolve the EPR Paradox? 242; Do We Need Superdeterminism? 245; EPR “Loopholes” and Free Will 246 22. Decoherence 249 The Decoherence Program 251; The Measurement Process 257; The Measurement Problem 259; What Decoherence Gets Right 261; What Decoherence Gets Wrong 263; Quantum Interactions Do Not Create Lasting Information 263; The Transition from Quantum to Classical World 263; Decoherence and Standard Quantum Mechanics 264 23. Schrödinger’s Cat 269 24. The Arrow of Time 277 The Thermodynamic Arrow 277; The Historical Arrow 281; The Radiation Arrow 282; The Cosmological Arrow 283 25. Microscopic Irreversibility 285 The Origin of Irreversibility 287; Detailed Balancing 290 Contents ix 26. The Recurrence Problem 293 Zermelo’s Paradox 293; The Extreme Improbability of Perfect Recurrence 295 27. Emergence 297 Emergence or Reduction? 297; History of the Idea of Emergence 298; Three Kinds of Information Emergence 302; Emergence in the Body 305; Emer- gence in the Brain 306; The Emergence of Immaterial Information Process- ing 306; The Emergence of Determinism 307; There Was a Time with No Determinism 308; Emergence Denied 309 28. Origins of Life and Information 311 History and Evolution in the Universe 312; The Origin of Information 316; Information in Biology 317; Biological Machines 319; Ribosomes 321; ATP Synthase 323; The Flagellum 324; Chaperones 326; Motive Power? 326; Life, Love, and Death 327; Working Backwards in Time 327 A. Information 331 Information in the Universe 334; Information and Entropy 342 B. Entropy and the Second Law 345 Discrete Particles 345; The Second Law of Thermodynamics 349; Entropy Flows in the Universe 354; Positive and Negative Flows 356 C. Quantum Physics 361 Basic Quantum Mechanics 366; The Principle of Superposition 367; The Axiom of Measurement 368; The Projection Postulate 369; Dirac’s Three Polarizers 371; The Wonder and Mystery of the Oblique Polarizer 374; The Quantum Physics Explanation 375; Einstein and Quantum Physics 376 D. Chance 379 The Calculus of Probabilities 381; Chance and Free Will 392 E. Experience Recorder and Reproducer 395 The Binding Problem 398; Speed and Power of the ERR 399; How the ERR Works 400; The ERR and Consciousness 401; Four “Levels” of the ERR 403; What It’s Like To Be A... 404; Mental States? 405; Summary 406 F. The Cosmic Creation Process 409 The Fundamental Question of Information Philosophy 409; The Two Steps in Cosmic Creation 411; The Flatness Problem in Cosmology 414; The Problem of Missing Mass 416; The Horizon Problem 417 G. Biosemiotics 419 Will Biologists Accept Biosemiotics? 420 Bibliography 423 Arrow of Time 423; Biology 423; Chance 424; Consciousness 424; Cosmology 424; Decoherence 425; Einstein 425; Emergence 426; Entanglement 426; Epistemology 426; Free Will 427; Information in Biology 428; Information 428; Meaning 428; Metaphysics 429; Mind 429; Origin of Life 431; Philosophy 432; Physics 432; Psychology 433; Quantum Mechanics 434; Theology 435; Value 435 Index 437 Image Credits 450; Books by Bob Doyle 450; Colophon 450 x Great Problems of Philosophy - Solved? Preface Preface Preface xi Preface If I am right that information philosophy is a new method of philosophizing, if by going “beyond logic and language” it can provide new philosophical insights, it should be tested, applied to Preface some of the great problems in philosophy and the philosophy of science. But what are the great problems? A survey of several popular textbooks on philosophy produces a remarkable consensus on the problems facing philosophers from ancient to modern times.