Introduction

About the Author: The author started his career with studies of engineering that provided familiarity with basic physical science. This was followed by ongoing independent study of debates about science and the philosophy of science. His career also involved a long study of the social sciences which are characterized by a much lower level of determinism than the physical sciences (see CV). He was involved in 'strategic management' processes (ie stimulating systemic change) in both government and economic contexts. He also had an opportunity to 'reverse engineer' the intellectual foundations of East Asian economic 'miracles - which various Asia experts suggested yielded significant results.  This led to understanding of civilizations in which Western assumptions about the relevance of rationality and deterministic laws in human affairs (which Western social sciences seek to discover and rely on) simply did not exist - and in which economic 'miracles' were achieved by changing (rather than understanding) causal relationships. Those methods were very familiar as they had paralleled the 'strategic management' methods the author had used and studied over many years. When the limitations in the ability of Newtonian science to account for the changes in the information state of physical systems that was implied by the Second Law of Thermodynamics were recognised in the 1980s, he started exploring what this might imply for 20th century physics. And in the context of the post-911 environment, he identified differences between major civilizations - which amongst other things resulted in recognition of the importance and complementarity of Western societies' Judeo-Christian and classical Greek heritages to the achievement of rapid progress in recent centuries. The former allowed the emergence of a social economic and political environment in which the use of abstract concepts as models of reality (ie rationality) could be effective. However it became clear that Western economics suffered a major defect in that tried to be a 'real' science like physics (ie to understand rather than to find ways to change causal relationships in economic systems). The feasibility of changing causal relationships in social / economic systems led to the exploration (recorded here) of whether similar processes might occur in physical systems - and thus that there might a need to review assumptions about the simple determinism of such systems. 

The first version of the following ideas was presented in the context of Ethical Renewal being a key requirement for the development of a more effective international order (in Competing Civilizations , 2001+). It followed a suggestion in the latter that:

"The radical individualism which has threatened to make individual liberty (and its political and economic advantages) unsustainable could be abated if the Christ-ian put-God-and-others-first ethical foundations that Western societies have tended to lose in the 20th century were rediscovered - and expanded into the international arena.

One reason to suspect that this is possible is that the philosophical objections to those ethical foundations are themselves in trouble. In particular 19th century science's ideas of a 'clock-work universe' have lost credibility. Moreover the basis of scientific worldviews that are seen to make metaphysical speculations futile are also suspect because it seems that many (and perhaps all) of the 'deterministic' causal relationships in nature which science seeks to identify (ie scientific laws) are both changeable and an inadequate basis for explaining such change. "

Some years ago it was suggested that it is now bad taste for philosophers to even raise the question of God's existence (Freeman P., 'No God in the Detail', Bulletin, 12/12/00). Moreover science is claimed to explain things so well that there is only room for a 'god of the gaps' (ie the areas where science has not yet quite got everything sorted out).  This, it can be noted, is the opposite of a view reportedly expressed in a different context by Christianity's founder about the limits to human knowledge (Matthew 11:25).

The ‘gaps’ in what can be known through science are massive because conventional science does not explain the 'indeterminism' that is needed to account for the origin / maintenance of order (even the origin of the order implicit in the laws of physics), and as outlined below this suggests that there really is 'something out there' which is the ultimate source of 'indeterminism' and order.

The assumption that ‘God has been removed [presumably by human science] as an explanation of the various mysteries and unexplained phenomena’ science now confronts is arguably a by-product to some extent of a failure to recognise a key limitation in conventional science, namely its search for complete determinism in the material universe (ie the view that the future state of a system depends only on its initial state and the laws of nature / physics that apply internally to whatever system is being studied).

Thomas Huxley (who invented the idea of 'agnosticism') suggested that: “The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.” Because of the limits to what can be verified by science, it is impossible to scientifically rationalize moving further from faith than Huxley's agnosticism.

Despite this it is clear that some have religious objections to considering the possibility of God's existence under any circumstances.

Some Prominent Scientists Have Religious Objections to Considering God's Existence

A prominent scientist, Stephen Hawking, has argued that it is necessary to avoid the notion of a 'singularity' (eg in cosmological theories about a 'big bang' origin for the universe) because a singularity would imply the breakdown of the laws of physics, and thus make it necessary to consider the possibility of God's existence to explain the universe's existence. However others argue that the notion of a singularity seems unavoidable (Grossman L., 'Death of the Eternal Cosmos', New Scientist, 14/1/12).  Moreover it was suggested in 2015 that recent observations suggest that the creation of the universe was a singular event and that the universe has been 'running down' ever since.

The universe has lived through many phases but new research shows that it has passed it peak. When universe was less than a second old and over 1bnC exotic particles could pop into and out of existence. As it cooled, it no longer can do that. After a few seconds it was a dense sea of protons and neutrons and after a few minutes a dense fog of hydrogen and helium - then little changed for 400,000 years. Then matter and radiation suddenly decoupled - and photons could stream across universe for the first time. Also hydrogen and helium became able to hold electrons to create neutral atoms. This has a role in origin of life - as neutral hydrogen is needed for molecular hydrogen - and this is needed to allow pockets of gas to cool and form stars. And stars are needed to form hevy elements. When universe was some hundreds of millions of years old, it was heating itself up as stars started irradiating adjacent material. Stars were blowing themselves up and dumping large quantities of heavy atomic species into space - producing many of the heavier elements we see today. Some may have collapsed into black holes - at the core of massive galaxies. Then structures resembling modern galaxies emerged in messy / violent forms - and for the next billion years they smashed together to form more massive systems. This continued for 3bn years - at which stage the peak of start formation was past. Since then the universe has been slowly dying. Star formation is infrequent. Dark energy started to dominate the energy content of universe.  The universe started cooling. GAMA survey investigated stars' energy output. Study of stars over past 5bn years shows that energy output is declining. Stars will last for bns of years. There is uncertainty about tole of dark energy. Universe is likely to continue to cool forever - and structures will move away from each other. The universe will cease converting mass to light - and become totally dark. The current phase involves the death throes of the universe [1] [CPDS Comment: Definitive statements about the first seconds / billions of years after creation of the universe are likely to based on theory rather than observation]

Many scientists have also speculated (apparently in the absence of evidence or any real prospect of getting evidence) about the possibility of a 'multiverse' (ie a series of parallel universes with different properties) primarily because our universe seems fine tuned to allow the emergence of conscious life.  If physical constants were not exactly what they are a universe could not have lasted long enough to (say) allow heavier elements to be developed probably through several solar cycles and conscious life to evolve on a remote heavy-element planet. The odds against this are huge. Thus those who do not wish to contemplate the possibility of deliberate creation speculate about a virtually infinite number of parallel universes in order to explain why one would have the requisite properties. And, explaining the 'strangeness' associated with quantum systems apparently now also requires speculating about the possible interaction between universes (see Something 'out there' gives rise to the strangeness that quantum mechanics identifies, 2014)

These examples are noteworthy not only because they say something about the 'objectivity' of some science (ie some scientists only consider theories that conform to their religious assumptions), but also because (as argued below) the notion of fixed deterministic laws of physics may be the strongest argument against creation / evolution / change emerging simply from within the material universe - because such laws don't explain where information (order / non-determinism) comes from (including the particular information / order that is embodied in those laws themselves).

Why Material Reality Does Not Seem Self-sufficient

Scientists and philosophers may need to recognize that material reality is not self-sufficient as it seems likely that 'indeterminism' (ie something that counteracts determinism) from outside any given system is needed to explain the source of any order and / or change within it. The deterministic time-reversible laws of physics that conventional science aspires to identify can never in themselves be a sufficient explanation of order and / or change.  

Everything that exists (apart, perhaps, from the most fundamental particles) involves a system of relationships amongst its elements. An atom involves a system of relationships amongst protons, neutrons and electrons - and the protons / neutrons in turn involve a system of relationships amongst quarks. Molecules involve systems of relationships amongst atoms. Water and rocks involve systems of relationships amongst molecules. Planets involves systems or relationships amongst water, rocks etc. Living cells involve very complex systems of relationships amongst simpler elements. Bacteria involve systems of relationships amongst cells.  Human beings involve systems of relationships amongst their organs - and those organs in turn involve systems of relationships amongst their elements right down to cells, molecules and atoms. Human society involves systems of relationships amongst people and social-subsystems.

The behaviour / properties of any system is determined not only by the fundamental laws of physics (eg gravitation and electromagnetism) that apply to the simplest components of its elements (eg atoms and their constituent elements) but also by the nature of the relationships that exist amongst its elements. The nature of those relationships can't be predicted from the laws of physics or the properties / nature of its sub-systems.

Non-living / inorganic systems have quite stable relationships (ie will continue to exist for a long time even when the system is subjected only to the laws of physics). However living / organic systems are unstable in themselves - and thus provide more insight into the process of creation. At the most basic level living systems depend on an ongoing inflow, not only of the materials their elements are made of and 'free' / accessible energy, but also of 'something' that has the character of information (ie like the genetic instructions in DNA) that reinforces (or encourages changes in) the system's otherwise unstable order. That 'something' can't be just (say) energy - as energy arguably stimulates activity but not complex relationships.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics highlights the fact that any closed system (ie one affected only by the deterministic laws of physics) decays into its most probable state (ie so-called 'entropy’ increases; and ‘order’ disappears). The unstable order of living / organic systems disappears (almost) immediately, while more stable inorganic order breaks down over more slowly (eg consider the emerge of dust in a closed room). Though the decay of order in a closed system is a highly simplified situation compared with the huge complexity of the universe as a whole, it is in fact proof that, on their own, the deterministic laws of physics can not drive the creation of either unstable organic or stable inorganic order. 

An inflow of 'indeterminism' (order / information) from outside any system is needed to create order in the first place and prevent subsequent entropic decay. The dependence of living / organic systems on a constant inflow of neg-entropy (whose effect is clearer if it is called 'indeterminism') is well recognised. However the Second Law of Thermodynamics (ie the decay into disorder of closed systems that are only subject to the deterministic laws of physics) also applies to non-living / inorganic systems.

The inability of the mechanistic 'Newtonian' science of the 19th century (which involved, for example, gravitation and electromagnetism) to account for the emergence / maintenance of order has long been recognised by scientists. Identifying that limitation in ‘Newtonian science’ and thus the need to explain emergence of order some other way (because of the incompatibility of 19^th century physics' determinism with the Second Law of Thermodynamics) earned a Nobel Prize for Prigogine in the 1980s. And Prigogine later argued that 20^th century advances in science (eg general and special relativity and quantum mechanics) all suffer the same limitation.

Conventional science’s search for ‘determinism’ within the material universe limits it as a way of understanding change (eg creation, evolution). Evolution, for example, is conventionally assumed to be the result of random changes within a (say biological) system that make it more or less adapted to its environment and thus more or less likely to survive / reproduce. However deterministic science has no room for randomness. To the extent that non-deterministic changes originate internally in a system, this has to be the result of the delayed breakdown of order that was created by the earlier inflow of neg-entropy / order – or of the cessation of an ongoing inflow which had created / maintained order.

Notes on The Limits of a Mechanistic / Deterministic Science (working draft)

There are reasons to doubt the adequacy of mechanistic / deterministic assumptions about the behaviour of the universe - even in terms of modern science. Moreover increasing indicators are emerging from scientists that limits are being encountered:

• the Newtonian science of the mid 19th century (when Darwin's evolution proposals were advanced) had a critical defect in that it assumed a simple determinism (ie that outcomes depend on the existing state of a system and fixed causal relationships which could equally run backwards or forwards in time).

It can be noted that:

• in closed systems order always breaks down (ie 'order' is improbable and closed systems tend towards their most probable state under the influence of the laws of physics). The Second Law of Thermodynamics expresses this by saying that entropy (ie disorder) always increases in closed systems. This phenomenon can most easily be understood by considering 'living' systems. Such systems exist in a state of stable disequilibrium - because a constant flow of neg-entropy (ie free energy / information) from their environment (which is contained in (say) the food that they eat or solar radiation) allows that dis-equilibrium to be maintained. Cut off that flow of neg-entropy and the organism will die (ie order will break down). The Second Law of Thermodynamics indicates that this decay applies also to inorganic (ie non-living) systems. The latter embody order that is relatively stable (ie does not depend on an ongoing inflow of neg-entropy as living systems do). However when subject only to the influence of the deterministic laws of physics (ie in a closed system) that relatively stable order will decay but not be created;
• Newtonian science (which involved purely mechanistic laws of nature) could not account for the fact that irreversible changes such as the breakdown of order could occur (see Prigogine I., Order out of Chaos). Prigogine won a Nobel Prize for pointing out that something other than the laws of physics must be involved to result in the loss of information that increasing entropy (disorder) revealed. He also argued that neg-entropy needed to be imported from systems' environments to counter the tendency towards the breakdown of order that the second laws of thermodynamics required - and that this could not be explained by deterministic physics;
• A broader contention in Prigogine's work was that disturbances / flows emerge in far-from-equilibrium systems, and these translate into stabilizing feedbacks and thus explain how new order can emerge. However, while this is presumably valid, it does not in itself explain where new order comes from because:
  •  no system can get into a far-from-equilibrium state merely under the internal influence of deterministic physical laws which drive the decline in entropy / order. Inputs of neg-entropy / information from a system's environment are needed to get into a far-from-equilibrium condition in the first place. And:
    •  while such inputs can be provided by other adjacent physical systems this does not explain: (a) where the external neg-entropy / information inputs came from for the universe as a whole (eg at the time of presumed 'big bang'); and (b) how that external neg-entropy / information emerged in adjacent systems in a universe governed only by the deterministic laws of physics;
    • while far-from-equilibrium conditions in a particular system might generate feedbacks that resulting a stable order (eg a carbon atom), there is a need to consider how an identical stable order comes to exist in huge numbers of systems. This depends on the existence of components of such a system (eg the protons, neutrons and electrons that make up a carbon atom) that, when driven into a far from equilibrium state, can only form a limited number of stable orders (eg various different types of atoms). Prigogine's explanation of the emergence of order gets messy as one starts to consider what is being learned about the components of (say) protons. The further down one goes the more the components of 'things' like protons cease to be 'things' and (like electrons) are recognised to be fluctuations in fields;
    • the fact that external influences are required to account for the emergence / maintenance of order, means that there are limits to the presumed-universal laws of physics - as the latter do not yet include recognition that the outcomes they predict can be (and presumably usually are) distorted by inputs from outside whatever system that is being analyzed;
  • while inputs of energy can generate flows (eg consider the circulation in a pond or saucepan if the lower levels are heated from below). However it is difficult to see such flows as the basis for generating feedbacks that give rise to complex relationships. It will be suggested below, that economics provides a useful way of thinking about the process of generating order - because change happens over short periods and is thus observable. There is a major difference between introducing inputs to an economic system which have the effect of stimulating activity (eg investment) and those that have the effect of stimulating change in the way economic systems are organised (ie information). Introducing energy is equivalent to 'investment' in economic terms. What is probably needed to fully explain the development of order (and which scientists have never sought) is inputs of something that has the character of information;
• Though Prigogine did not point this out, his primary conclusion also implied that the time-reversible determinism of Newtonian science was inconsistent with the view of evolution theory (and the Genesis account of creation) that things experienced qualitative changes;
• Though the limitations of deterministic physics is most obvious in relation to 'living' (eg social / biological / ecological) systems (see below) similar problems also arise in relation to non-living systems because the latter can also suffer entropic decay and the effect of deterministic laws of nature within such systems can never explain where the order / information (whose collapse rising entropy indicates) actually came from;

• though major scientific advances have since been made, mainstream emerging understanding still ideally assumes the internal determinism associated with Newtonian physics (which Prigogine asserted had merely been extended by Einstein's relativistic views of space-time and Schrödinger's' contributions through quantum mechanics). However this seems inadequate.

Purely materialistic theories see evolutionary change as the result of random internal variations, which produce features that better suit the current environment. However true randomness (and irreversibility) is incompatible with Newtonian physics and is not explained by recent developments such as chaos theory (which is also deterministic - see also The Benefits and Limits of Chaos Theories) any more than by quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics shifts determinism from physical 'things' to a wave function (and implies that small (apparent) 'particles' such as electrons and photons are a 'smear' on space-time rather than points / things whose position / velocity can be clearly defined). This implies that information about 'particles'  is not available, rather than that it changes over time. Though quantum mechanics is complex and rapidly advancing field of knowledge, the limitations on its ability to contribute to an understanding of creation / the emergence of information seem to be advancing at the same rate (see also Does Quantum Mechanics Explain Creation?).  Some physicists seem to believe that the only way in which the information locked into the atomic states of particles can be lost (ie true randomness can arise) is if they are sucked into a black hole [1] - and this is hardly an everyday occurrence. Others appear to believe (see below) that demonstrating the determinism of quantum systems improves science's ability to explain observed reality - whereas all it really does is eliminate quantum mechanics as the source of the indeterminism that must be coming from somewhere;

• the development of systems (ie of relationships between elemental 'things' that are, separately subject to the time-reversible laws of physics) involves the emergence of new order / information / neg-entropy (because the behaviour of such systems - about which new information could be obtained by observation - depends on the relationships amongst their elements, and is not explainable simply in terms of whatever laws govern the behaviour of their elements). Creating or changing the relationship amongst elements results in the emergence of, or change in, the causal relationships (information / laws) that those relationships imply.

Elaboration: Thus it might be found (as an illustration only) that for some system an output x is initially governed by the relationship x = 3a + 2b but after relationships within the system change it might be that x= 4a + b + 2c. Such a transition in the causal relationships implied by the relationships within a system can't be explained in terms of time-reversible fixed laws that are supposed to determine the behaviour of the elements of the system.  The emergence of such new order requires that neg-entropy (free energy / information) be introduced from the system's environment, because the Second Law of Thermodynamics (which does not have any proven exceptions that the present writer is aware of) requires that the 'order' within any closed system decays over time (ie entropy increases);

• there has been a long debate about whether or not the human brain is merely a computer. To deny this has been seen to require assuming that there is entire new world of physics that needs to be discovered. [CPDS comment: the view that the brain must be like a computer rests on the assumption that the universe must be computable as a whole because it is influenced only by deterministic laws. However as suggested below that assumption is likely to be wrong]

There has been debate for decades about whether the human brain in merely a computer. Outlandish thinking is required to suggest that it is not.  Scott Aaronson (MIT) argues that because brain exists inside the universe and because computers can stimulate the entire universe given enough power, the brain can be simulated by a computer (ie consciousness must be entirely logical and computational). The alternative view (eg as put by Roger Penrose) is that consciousness emerges from mysterious / exotic physics within neurons (see blog). He sees computers as algorithmic and logical - though human mind (he believes) transcends this, Computers are bound by physical and logical rules of universe. If the brain can transcend this it must interact with systems that exist outside the logical, algorithmic universe - and quantum world could be how this happens. Michael Shermer (Scientific American) argues that this is unlikely. Penrose believes that brain is so outlandish and bizarre that it can't be explained by current understanding of the universe. [1] 

• a lack of reproducibility in efforts to advance scientific understanding is being seen as a crisis for science. [CPDS Comment: it may be that problems are arising in reproducibility because scientists are now exploring systems in which the effects of external 'indeterministic' influences on the relationships in any given system can no longer be simply ignored]

Traditional science may have outlived its usefulness. Reliance on empirical evidence may be too restrictive and cumbersome. Some now prefer clean computer models to messy / uncooperative nature - and this results in pseudo-science. There has been a flood of recent articles on the failure of modern science. It is believed that dubious laboratory practices (eg tweaking statistical analyses to get 'significant' results) are common. Real science must have results that can be repeated by different researchers - but in psychology reproducibility is often not achieved. And this is not the only field where that problem arises. Reasons have been suggested to believe that 50% of medical research yields invalid results. Others see the same problem in physics - because of getting rid of 'noise' in data sets to find valid new conclusions. Some see the problem as: (a) political - ie seeking only expected results; (b) overuse of statistics. The replication crisis in science is gaining public recognition - especially in relation to climate science [1]; .

• it was seen as desirable to identified methods to most readily spot 'dodgy' scientific claims [1];
• it was claimed that mainstream climate science has be accepted as true because it was the view of  the majority of scientific organisations. 'Appeals to authority' are logically invalid and have been discredited every time major paradigm shifts occur (see Scientific Debate on Climate Change);
• in order to account for the 'fine tuning' of the properties of the universe it is often seen as necessary to assume the existence of a multiverse (ie huge numbers of parallel universes with randomly different properties). However this is not the only possible explanation - see below. Likewise the strangeness that is observed in quantum physics has been argued to require assuming that our universe is colliding  with another - an hypothesis that is not the only possible explanation (see below);
• it has been suggested that there might be limits to science's ability to gain understanding because the laws of physics (related to the strength of the Higgs Field and the strength of 'dark energy') make this impossible [1]

It is noted further that:

• as noted above living systems exist in a stable non-equilibrium state because they have a continual inflow of neg-entropy  from their environment - but cease to do so (ie die) in the absence of such an inflow;
• though inorganic / non-living systems are not apparently held in stable disequilibrium by a constant inflow of neg-entropy / free energy, the formation of such systems can't be associated with any internally-driven increase in information / neg-entropy / free-energy without contradicting the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Thus if inorganic elements and compounds exist in states which are not their most probable this presumably reflects the importation of information / free energy from their environments at some time in the past. Furthermore quantum mechanics involves the notion of a 'wave / particle duality' whereby elementary 'things' (eg particles) have a wave-like character and thus perhaps (like sound and water waves) involve relationships between other apparent 'things'. If so, such elementary 'things' could be the product of a process of creation / evolution / development similar (though not identical) to that which apparently applies to social / biological / ecological systems;
• the laws of physics (which are insufficient to predict or explain their own existence) might themselves also be the result of creative qualitative changes over huge timescales - perhaps by an external ‘something’. Both the precise values which various universal constants required for the universe to have attained its presumed (say 15bn year) age, and reported indications of changes to those constants over cosmological timescales [1] have interesting implications;
• the decay of order in either living or inorganic systems that increasing entropy reflects, is likely to be the result of the termination of earlier neg-entropy inflows from the system's environment;  
• suggestions by Richard Dawkins (in Climbing Mount Improbable) that improbable outcomes (eg complex biological systems) can be the result of huge numbers of incremental steps over long periods of time don't overcome the problem that none of those steps can be explained if the systems involved are merely being affected by time reversible physical laws.

Craig Venter, who first mapped the humane genome, argued that blind randomness can not explain evolutionary changes [1]

A disconnect has been seen between science as a means for gathering experimental evidence about the world and efforts that are made to develop mathematical models that allow the future to be predicted (see CPDS comments The Gap Between Experiment and Prediction).

The physical sciences comprise two elements: experiments to gather data about the universe around us and the theory that tries to make mathematical sense of those observations. Education in science involves sometimes incomprehensible mathematical theories combined with laboratory time with equipment that never quite works properly. There is a need to ask how well mathematics accounts for noisy information. Science is seen as a process of progressing by developing / falsifying theory. The key question about scientific prediction is whether it holds up against the data. 'Predictions' against past data is the first step - followed by its ability to predict the world as new data comes in. Current models in physics are robust - but they can't explain dark matter or the origin of the universe.  [1].

 

Creative qualitative changes seem always to depend to some extent on a system’s environment. Living systems (ie biological, ecological and social systems) are flow systems, and as they develop (both as a life starts and as life generally evolves) respond to their environment. A constant inflow of neg-entropy (information; free energy associated with matter in non-equilibrium states) from such systems' environment appears to be essential to maintain them in stable non-equilibrium states. Such inflows also drive change in internal (feedback) relationships which subsequently have a new 'causal' effect on the behaviour of the system.

This implies that:

• the reductionist view (ie that the behaviour of a system follows from the characteristics of its components and natural laws) may often be incorrect;
• Ockham's razor (a philosophical test that always prefers a simpler explanation to a more complex one) may be unreliable and bias those who use it towards 'reductionist' interpretations;
• not only are variations within a system selected in accordance with whether they are adapted to their environment, but the variations themselves must reflect either the start or ending of information / neg-entropy flows from their environment. While genetic material is unstable, that instability does not seem likely to arise internally but rather from the breakdown of unstable equilibrium conditions that originated with information from its environment which could not be maintained without ongoing introduction of that information;
• the assumption that genetic mutations are the raw material of evolution (eg Pomiankowski A., 'Evolution: 5 big questions (2); New Scientist, 14/6/03) may be an oversimplification of a far more complex reality;
• it may ultimately be necessary to take account of information from the ‘environment’ of the material universe (eg of an external 'something') and of the 'Word of God' (if God is viewed as the 'environment' of the physical universe) as a feasible source of creation (and of trans-natural phenomena). Moreover knowledge about that 'something' would be intrinsically inaccessible through reason or science (both of which are simply derivatives of a given set of causal relationships in the natural environment - and thus not a way of dealing with changes in those relationships). The only way information about that 'something' would be accessible would be if it was super-naturally revealed in some way;

It is noted also that:

•  At least some causal relationships in the material world seem to be able to be intentionally changed by introducing information / neg-entropy . For example, the main way in which knowledge impacts on economic systems so as to achieve growth /span>may involve changing the production function - by stimulating changes in the organization of economic systems (see Transforming the Tortoise, 1993  and Fixing Economics, 2012 which equate economic development with changes in causal relationships; and Amplification which relates this to economists' traditionally-unsuccessful efforts to develop theories of growth and development).  
• there is frequently a 'factor x' which renders rational expectations or analytical predictions about human affairs invalid.

And one version of quantum mechanics suggests that (external) observers can have a role in determining the actual state of a system subject to a quantum wave function - based on what they choose to observe. Moreover the need for external ('analog') support to enable quantum systems (which can store vast amounts of information) to 'evolve' seems to be part of emerging / leading edge understanding of these phenomena.  (see below)

While the above does not suggest how neg-entropy from a system's environment can produce an 'evolutionary' change within it it is noted that:

• there is likely to be order / neg-entropy in any system's environment a continuous flow of which could be able to maintain the system in a stable disequilibrium (this being the essential requirement to maintain living systems);
• the breakdown of previously established internal order (due to the interruption of of the required flow of neg-entropy from the systems environment) would appear to involve a 'random' change (ie one that was inconsistent with the time-reversible laws of physics);
• while one can not be certain, it seems most probable that a 'universe-creating' / 'miracle-producing' divine ability to create order would have something to do with an ability to directly, simultaneously and coherently influence the state of large numbers of quantum systems.

Any system that simply operated in the way that the conventional scientific laws of nature / physics on their own require would have been on a path to entropic decay a few seconds after the creation of the universe. It is only the periodic / constant inflow of neg-entropy / indeterminism from the system’s / universe’s environment (whose origin conventional science does not seek to explain) that prevents that decay.

What scientists primarily strive to do (namely develop internally deterministic laws on the basis of observations which project the future state of a system on the basis of its initial state), can never explain how things develop or are created, because such laws never takes account of the indeterminism / neg-entropy from outside the system which is critical to the emergence and sustainability of any order. Thus, while an internally-deterministic view of science can often be useful in explaining how the universe currently works, it seems to be out of its depth in explaining how it came to be that way or in fully accounting for how it evolves.

The gap in what science can explain is particularly significant for living systems. 

The limits of conventional science in dealing with living systems

The laws of physics predict the behaviour of the physical components of any system, yet they reveal little about the behaviour of complex living systems (ie biological / ecological / social systems) because the latter are much more influenced by higher order relationships that arise from feedbacks within such systems (eg how a society is organised). And, as noted above, the way in which living systems are organised depends always on information from the systems' environment, and on ongoing inflow of neg-entropy (ie information, free energy) to maintain the living system in a stable disequilibrium state.

Science has no way to take this into account - either in terms of the laws of physics (which don't on their own predict or explain the emergence of higher order systems) or in terms of the behavioural laws ascribed to those higher order systems (which can't predict the way in which they themselves will be changed by information from their environment).

The laws of physics, for example conserve information - ie under those laws information about any system is neither lost, nor gained (except under extreme conditions such as matter being sucked into a black hole). Yet real living systems don't behave that way.

The same problem applies in reverse to the question of how new order can emerge within any system to allow it to be become better adapted to its environment, as the laws of physics don't permit the loss of information that the randomness that is supposed to drive this requires.

Evolutionary change seems to emerge from external influences that an internally deterministic view of science has no way to get to grips with.

Towards Another Revolution in the Philosophy of Science

The above implies the need for another revolution in the philosophy of science.

There are many limitations on what can be known through science that have been well recognised in the philosophy of science (see The Limits to 'science, reason and critical thinking', 2010). For example induction (ie determining universal laws on the basis of limited observations) is logically invalid. And because of this it was recognised in about 1960 that scientific theories can never be proven true, merely not yet be proven false (thus giving rise to the notion of falsificationism’).

Now, at the very least, there is a need to recognise that conclusions reached about the future state of any system on the basis of conventional deterministic science will almost always be at least slightly wrong because of influences from outside that system that deterministic science does not take into account. Moreover such external influences are critical to the emergence, maintenance and change of the order within any system - because a closed system (ie one subject only to the deterministic laws of physics) will always collapse into disorder. And those 'external influences' will probably have the character of information (ie a complex structure) rather than simply being something like energy which merely increases the level of activity in a system. Moreover, when a serious effort is devoted to identifying and studying external sources of indeterminism, it may emerge that external indeterminism has reflected a creative intent (ie has exhibited a sense of direction) at some level. It might even emerge that the laws of physics themselves are the product of an intentional process - in which case the cosmological 'fine tuning' problem would be solved without any need to hypothesize 'parallel universes'.

The pursuit of another revolution in the philosophy of science (related to the limits of determinism) is probably overdue. It may be that it would be useful  to look at social systems (where it is possible to observe how change occur in economic systems and thus in causal relationships over short time scales) to get some understanding of what may happen in physical systems (and thus perhaps to the laws of physics) over cosmological time scales.

Should Physics Seek to Become a 'Real' Science Like Economics Should Be?

Physics has been seen as the most fundamental / ideal science because it deals with systems that are subject to fixed / discoverable laws (eg involving laws of motion, gravity, electromagnetism) - even if the process of discovering those laws (ie causal relationships) is still incomplete.  And with fixed physical laws it is possible to apply rationality / reason / analysis to try to reach conclusions about the combined effect of those various laws.

However, as noted above, the time-reversible internally-deterministic laws of physics do not explain how they were created, or even where the information content of those laws and of the physical systems that they apply to came from. Physics deals with systems that have been created by some process, stabilized and exhibit behaviours - but those behaviours can't reveal how those systems / behaviours came to be. Scientific 'laws' are are very useful in enabling partial understanding of the reality we observe. But they are limited.

Though there is clearly a need for care in drawing analogies, a case can be made that social systems (rather than physics) may provide useful insights into the process of 'creation' of the material universe also - because (as noted above) it is possible with such systems to make real-time observations of the emergence of new order / causal relationships (that are analogous to both the causal relationships embodied in material systems and the 'laws' of the physical sciences), rather than speculating about what might have happened billions of years ago when the universe was formed or gradually changed since then over immense time scales.

Changes in causal relationships (which parallel the laws of physics) are a recognised feature of ecological, biological and social systems. Indeterminism (eg information) from a social system’s environment often plays a key role in stimulating such changes, and the latter occur fast enough in social systems to see what is happening. Similar changes in causal relationship (ie the laws of physics) could well occur in much the same way in ‘physical’ systems but this would occur over cosmological time scales and presumably never be observable by scientists. Thus physicists face the ‘fine tuning’ problem of trying to explain why the universe has exactly the right physical properties to have reached its current state – and, despite Occam’s Razor, many resort to ‘multiverse’ theories (ie that there have to be an infinite number of universes so that one has out current universe’s properties - for which there is no actual evidence) to explain what we observe.

Economics has long sought to be a 'real science' like physics (ie sought to identify laws of behaviour of economic systems that could be used to predict future outcomes). This is economics' greatest weakness (ie the source of its inability to develop useful understanding of economic growth and development) - see Probable Breakthrough in Understanding Economic Development (2004) and Fixing Economics.

'New' economic growth theories (ie those advanced in the late 20th century) recognise that knowledge is the primary driver of economic growth. However economists generally seem to continue to ignore this because of their preference for quantities analysis of presumably fixed causal relationships in economic systems. Adding more 'energy' into economic systems (eg through fiscal or monetary policies) continues to be seen by mainstream economic as the key to improving economies' performance - though adding more knowledge would seem likely to make the greatest difference.

The key to better economics is not to seek fixed economic laws (like physics), but to focus on how the relationships that determine an economy's causal relationships can most constructively be changed by increased knowledge.

In order to now be respected as a 'real science', physics perhaps needs to be more like economics (and other social 'sciences') should be (ie recognise that causal relationships / order can be created, but that this can't arise merely from the existing elements and causal relationships within any system). Moreover introducing energy (to increase the level of activity within a system) is likely to be a very ineffective means of developing new order. There is arguably need to hypothesis and seek evidence of the introduction of 'something' (ie indeterminism) that has the character of structured information.

The Benefits and Limitations of Chaos Theories: In 2013 an economist suggested that a revolution in science had occurred because meteorologists recognised that weather forecasting involved unstable systems which critically depended on initial conditions.

Weather forecasts have improved over the last 40 years. Model predictions are regularly changed by experienced meteorologists, but they start with models which are accurate in assuming that the weather is unstable.  Weather forecasters used to just extrapolate current trends. Edward Lorenz then developed a system of three time-varying equations, starting from models of fluid dynamics, that, though simple (just three equations and three parameters), were nonlinear. Their behaviour was quite different. His paper, “Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow”, revolutionised not just meteorology but science as well, because it introduced the concepts of chaos, complexity, and “sensitive dependence on initial conditions” into science. [1]

However, while such models better reflect the behaviour of complex systems, they remain deterministic and so do not explain how information can be gained or lost.

Another point of interest is the above observation that the predictions of unstable meteorological models need to be adjusted when they seem to predict what are seen to be unrealistic outcomes. It needs to be considered whether this is an artefact of such computer models (which necessarily don't reflect all of the variable and influences involved), or whether unstable weather systems themselves also need such adjustments, and if so how this occurs. There seems to be no reason to assume that minor influences on weather systems would be the source of their conformity to 'realistic' outcomes.

Does Quantum Mechanics explain Creation? [preliminary notes]

Some physicists seem to believe that quantum fluctuations can explain the creation of the cosmos. However there seem to be problems with this view - quite apart from the question of where quantum systems themselves came from.

Information from Nothing? - email sent 20/2/13

Dr Jake Hebert

Re: A Universe from Nothing, Institute for Creation Research

I note with interest your critique of Laurence Krauss’s recent book (A Universe from Nothing). One suggestion you made was that quantum fluctuations can only be assumed to create a universe that has zero net energy.

“Theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss presented in a recent book his claim that the laws of physics could have created the universe from nothing.¹ Likewise, other physicists offer similar arguments.

They appeal to the well-known phenomena of “virtual particle” creation and annihilation. The spontaneous (but short-lived) appearance of subatomic particles from a vacuum is called a quantum fluctuation. These subatomic particles appear and then disappear over such short time intervals that they cannot be directly observed. However, the effects of these virtual particles can be detected; they are, for instance, responsible for a very subtle effect on the spectrum of the hydrogen atom called the “Lamb shift.” The short lifetimes of these virtual particles are governed by the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (HUP), which says that a short-lived state cannot have a well-defined energy.

The HUP places a limit on the time that a quantum fluctuation can persist. The greater the energy of the fluctuation, the shorter the time that it may last. It is for this reason that virtual particles appear and then disappear after very short intervals.

Krauss and other evolutionary physicists argue that the universe itself is the result of such a quantum fluctuation. However, the HUP itself presents an apparent difficulty for this claim. One would intuitively expect the energy content of the entire universe to be enormous. Hence, even if one were to argue that the universe did “pop” into existence via a quantum fluctuation, the energy content of the universe would be so large that the corresponding time would be vanishingly small, and the newly born universe would then immediately vanish. It is, therefore, difficult to see how our enormous universe could have resulted from such a fluctuation.

Evolutionary physicists argue, however, that if the total energy content of the universe were exactly zero, then a universe resulting from such a fluctuation could persist indefinitely without violating the HUP. This is admittedly a clever argument. Have the “new atheists” found a genuinely convincing way to explain our universe’s existence apart from God?”

While I have no post-graduate physics qualifications and have not yet seen Professor Krauss’s book, I have an interest in a parallel issue related to the origin (not of energy) but rather of information / order / neg-entropy in the universe – and my attention was drawn to a TV debate in Australia (ABC TV, Q&A Series 6 / Episode 3) in which Professor Krauss was involved, so I looked at your commentary.

I should like to suggest a way of approaching another suggestion in your commentary (ie about whether the laws of physics can explain evolution).

“While the laws of physics and chemistry in our universe do indeed allow life to exist, they do not allow life to evolve. The laws of physics and chemistry simply are not favorable to the evolution of life.”

My speculations about this are referenced in How solid are 'science, reason and critical thinking'? This is the result of a lot of work in relation to change in ‘soft’ (eg social / economic) systems (which Professor Krauss suggested on TV is a much ‘harder’ area than physics) and then an attempt to consider the implications for biological / ecological systems and ultimately for physics. The basic point is that it seems that any laws of science that involve time reversible determinism (which definitely applies to most physical laws and, I suspect, even includes quantum mechanics which otherwise would not be a ‘scientific law’) are not in themselves sufficient to explain changes in the information state of any system. Thus at all levels (presumably including the universe as a whole) there is probably a need for outside information / neg-entropy to explain change / development in a system. Moreover it is possible to exploit this to arrange genuine ‘miracles’ in social and economic systems (ie outcomes that are not explained by or even compatible with the ‘laws’ that previous governed the behaviour of those systems). There is nothing particularly original about the latter as some traditional methods for problem solving that are used in East Asian societies with an ancient Chinese cultural heritage are based on ways of using information that: (a) achieve this effect; and (b) are radically different from the way Western societies use information in accordance with the rational / logical epistemologies that were inherited from classical Greece.

There may be a need for another revolution in the philosophy of science to recognise the limits of what can be explained by scientific laws. My speculations also include reference to parallel limitations in rationality that may perhaps require a revolution in philosophy also.

I would be interested in your response.

John Craig

Scientists seem to regard the explanatory power of quantum mechanics as improved (rather than impeded) by demonstrating that it is deterministic.

A quantum experiment shows that particles follow well defined trajectories - something denied by standard quantum theory. This might support Einstein's view that "God does not play dice with the universe'. Scientists have been befuddled by the quantum world for a century. Unlike classical world's clockwork precision, the quantum world in rife with randomness. This is illustrated by weird result of famous 'double slit' experiment. Bohm suggested in 1952 that quantum world only seems weird because not enough is known about it - and the reality would prove to be orderly. He argued that a photon is both a wave and a particle with a definite trajectory governed by the wave the particle rides on. This view was seen to have been discredited in 1992 by double-slit experiment where photons were fired at two slits. Bohm argued that photon would go through one slit or the other - yet it emerged that though a photons' waves should send it through top slit, it actually came through bottom slit. However experiments with pairs of entangled photons in Canada restore Bohm's view. One was sent through a slit (which slit being determined by its polarization) - and its trajectory followed. The other photon was kept outside the apparatus as a way of checking the polarization of the other (with which it was entangled) .  At the start the outside photon's polarization mirrored the path of its partner. But its polarisation kept changing - so that the probability of going through either state eventually became equal. The travelling photon is seen to have changed its partner's polarization. The trajectory of the moving photon is real - but the detector and the partner photon are unreliable witnesses. Bohm's theory is now being taken seriously again.

Moreover it appears to be believed that quantum systems can contain vast amounts of information, but would not be able to reproduce themselves or evolve without external intervention. Moreover the expectation that quantum computers would be capable of manipulating vast amounts of information implies that quantum particles retain, rather than creating, information.

Digital information (ie 1s and 0s) is black and white / yes and no. Analog information is richer - eg can take an infinite number of values. Whether digital music is better than analog remains uncertain. DNA is digital information about life - with three letter 'words' forming a four letter alphabet - and each word referring to an amino acid and sentences describing proteins (consisting of long strings of amino acids). Though DNA encodes life, it is not alive. The genetic basis for life is digital, but living beings are analog creatures (made of plasmas / tissues / membraces controlled by chemical reactions. DNA only comes to life in the right environment. New DNA sequences arise from mutations / reshufflings that are partly environmental and partly quantum mechanical. Variation and selection are not digital. The main characteristic of DNA is its persistence. One could say that DNA is fundamental basis of life - with living bodies as servants to preserve / reproduce DNA. But it is also possible to see life as fundamentally analog and uses digital memory simply to ensure accuracy in reproduction. Nerves and brains may seem digital - but they are more complex than digital processors. Analog information can always be mimicked by sufficient digital bits, but analog information is richer. Quantum information is richer again. In a quantum computer information is not stored in bits that can take just two values (ie 1 and 0) but rather as qubits. Quantum theory suggests that qubit is a superposition of 1 and 0 simultaneously - and the amount of 1 or 0 in the state indicates how probable it is to get 0 or 1 when the qubit is read. The state of a qubit is a continuous quantity - which shows that it can store infinitely more information than a classical bit. Increasing the number of qubits, increases the number of values needed to describe them exponentially. A 300 qubit computer (eg 300 atoms in a row) could contain more information than the position of every particle in the universe. The ability of physical particles to contain information has other consequences because of entanglement (ie particles that remain related in their spin even when separated by large distances). Materials have been found since the 1980s in which electrons exhibit this entanglement. A German physicist showed that suspending a piece of semiconductor in a strong magnetic field caused its electrical conductance (a measure of how easily electricity flows through it) to be quantised (ie only take on values that are multiples of a base unit). This unexpected result showed that quantum effects could arise in large objects. More examples of systems in which quantum particles behave in ways that would be classically impossible have been found - so the traditional view of electrons carrying charge through material now seems simplistic. Quantum matter can take infinitely greater variety of forms - which creates scope for quantum electronics and quantum devices capable of doing things never seen before. In early 20th century atomic nucleus was smallest matter know, while galaxy was the largest. Now microscopes and telescopes have expanded our vision down to 10,000 th the size of nucleus and 100,000 times size of galaxy. The visible universe out to 14 billion light years has been mapped - and infant universe can be seen emerging from big bang at 100,000 th of its current age. It was extremely smooth / uniform, though the density varied slightly. This primordial variation seems like quantum fluctuations of fields like electrometric field in vacuum. These were the seeds of galaxies, stars, planets and life. Quantum effects were vital to the origin of everything now visible. In future it may be possible to identify a universe before the big bang. Recently the Large Hadron Collider has allowed matter on tiny scales to be probed and confirmed the famous Higgs mechanism which determines the properties of elementary particles. Going further its may be possible to find another layer of organisation (eg new symmetries connecting matter particles and forces). Studies of quantum matter on more everyday scales reveals entanglements that are more subtle than previously seen - and which will come to dominate society. Digital computers have changed the world. However we are analog creatures - and using digital information is regressive (even though it can be cheaply / conveniently stored and copied. It is the 'dead' blueprint of life, rather than a living analog element. Quantum information is deeper / more subtle - though very fragile. The laws of quantum mechanics imply that it can't be copied. Quantum computers can't replicate themselves - and can't evolve without us or some other partner. A relationships between ourselves as analog beings and quantum computers may be of great benefit - and perhaps lead to the next great evolution of life. We can provide the definiteness and persistence, while quantum computers embody the more flighty, exploratory / wide-ranging component. We will ask the questions and the quantum computers will provide the answers. Just as digital genes encode our analog operations, we can be the operating system of quantum life. Just as DNA is surrounded by analog machinery to make us alive, so with analog computers we may be able to monitor, repair or even renew our bodies. Smart systems will be able to be developed to energy and resources are used optimally. New materials (eg carbon fibres for space elevators and antimatter technologies for space exploration) would seem possible. Quantum life would seem to have the qualities needed to explore / understand the universe (Turok N., 'Quantum future a great leap for analog beings', The Australian, 9/3/12)

Sydney University scientists have made progress towards the fundamental challenge of quantum computing by learning to predict and pre-empt the decay of these weird sub-atomic particles.  Quantum computers (currently only theoretically possible) harness the quantum properties of atomic particle (which can become 'entangled across vast reaches of space and exist in many states / locations simultaneously) to perform calculations that are well beyond current computers. The big problem is that the quantum bits are fragile and almost anything will cause them to break down (ie to lose their 'quantumness'. Big data and machine learning have been used to predict the life and decay of qubits - which matters because it overcomes the problem of trying to observe qubits when they are decaying.  [1] 

An hypothesis was advanced in 2014 that the interaction of parallel universes would explain all of the observed features of quantum mechanics without any need for uncertainty / probability.

Parallel universes are a science-fiction staple - but are they real. It is hypothesized that parallel universes are real - but they are not quite parallel and can thus collide.  This would explain all the bizarre features of quantum mechanics that are revealed by experiment. The idea of parallel universes has been part of quantum mechanics since 1957 as part of the many-world-interpretation' (MWI). Though quantum mechanics is a successful physical theory it requires interpreting because: (a) its formalism is remote from everyday experience (ie it involves a wave function in an infinite dimensional space; and (b) so-called Bell correlations involving quantum systems from a common source violate the usual laws of local cause and effect. Thus wavefunction formalism can't be replaced by anything in ordinary space. There are many ways of interpreting quantum mechanics - but each is strange in some way because of the weirdness of quantum mechanics itself. The MWI postulates that any time a quantum system is observed it branches into a bunch of new universes - one for each possible outcome of the observation. The MWI view has attracted criticism. A new theory would involve many worlds, but now otherwise be like MWI. That theory involves a gigantic number of world which exist continuously without branching. Each is not 'fuzzy' but has precisely defined properties (ie there is no Heizenberg uncertainty principle). If there were only one world it would evolve exactly in accordance with Newtonian mechanics - not quantum mechanics. Interactions between worlds is seen as the source of quantum mechanics effects - and includes a repulsive force between worlds with nearly the same configuration that prevents them ever coming together. Each world is equally real. Probability only arises because an observer can not be sure what world they are in - and only discover which it is after conducting an experiment. Under this theory there is no wave-function, no special role for observation and no fundamental distinction between the macroscopic and microscopic. This approach can reproduce all the standard features of quantum mechanics, including twin-slit interference, zero-point energy, barrier tunnelling, unpredictability and Bell correlations [1]

This implies that influences from outside any given 'universe' could account for the features associated with quantum mechanics - without actually requiring that those influences be other 'universes' (see below)