From: adegrey@abcl.co.uk (Aubrey de Grey)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: second-order causality
Date: 10 Apr 92 16:03:54 GMT
Organization: EO Computer Limited, Cambridge, UK

Apologies for resending this, from a few weeks ago: our news feed broke just
afterwards and by the time it recovered the group had been cleared.  So if
you replied, please repost it; and if not, please reply now!


Dear newsgroup,

I'd be really grateful for any feedback on the following line of thought,
which I developed many years ago but have failed to find parallels with in the
literature.  Any comments or suggested reading will be very much appreciated.

My proposition is probably best described in terms of the computational model
of causalism, whereby the predictability of experience is explained by
thinking of experience as a window on an endless, aimless computation, which
is being executed according to a program.  The program is an unchanging set
of laws, towards which science (and particularly fundamental physics) is
forever converging.  This model goes furthest, it seems to me, in clarifying
the innate appeal of causal explanation, because the concept of "algorithmic
compressibility" makes the causal/non-causal choice into one of simplicity,
just about identical to the choice between two competing scientific theories.
(A set of data is AC if it could be generated by an algorithm that's much, or
even infinitely, smaller than the data, so eg random real numbers are not AC
but pi is.  The simplest explanation for a given AC phenomenon, eg (to take the
best known example) a Mandelbrot set on a poster, is to guess that it was
produced by following an algorithm -- ie, a causal explanation.  This line of
reasoning applies whether or not you have actually seen the data growing.)

My modification of this, staying with the computer model, is that the
unchanging program is in fact one level further removed from experience than
is normally presumed.  A computer program is stored in memory, just like its
internal data, so it is possible (and in fact not particularly rare) for
programs to write and run "daughter" programs.  The important thing is that
this arrangement has exactly the same "evolutionary" potential as do normal
programs: that is, it is possible to write a program which progressively
refines and complicates its daughter program by reference to that daughter's
existing state, in the same sort of way that a Mandelbrot set is incrementally
elaborated by a very small program.  My proposal is that the real "Universe
program" is this sort, a program-refining program, rather than a straightforward
data-refining program.  This constitutes an extra level of complexity, of
course, and can be justified only by an AC argument, ie if it is possible to
postulate a VERY SMALL such program which seems to fit the facts, to be able
to generate experience as we know it.  My idea constitutes just such a program.

Various philosophers have discussed the idea that there exists a sort of
collective world view, which is an amalgamation of the beliefs of individuals.
A good example is Henry Margenau, in "The Nature of Physical Reality".  I
suggest that this world view exists in the physical world as well as the mental
world.  Put another way, the constructed reality of our theories feeds back into
the physical world as subsequent observed reality.  I am not getting at anything
psychological here, I mean reality proper, in whatever sense you like.  Going
back to the computer model, our constructed reality is my daughter program, and
my unchanging, parent program is the single rule: Alter the daughter program,
whenever no contradiction results, in accordance with any changes that occur in
an individual's beliefs.  The belief systems of individuals are, like matter,
parts of the daughter program's internal data, so they change according to the
rules that make up the daughter program.  This makes the system causally closed.

Does this work?  A proper analysis of that requires a much more precise
statement of the parent program, particularly the meaning of "contradiction",
but at first sight it certainly seems to accord well with everyday experience.
Changes to the daughter (ie, to "the laws of science") would not occur as a
result of new beliefs born out of ignorance of some fact known to someone else,
and therefore to the daughter program, because such beliefs are effectively
conditional on a false premise, so don't refer to reality.  Changes would occur
with exploration, either of uncharted places or by experiment, and also with
genuine revision of established understanding, like the quantum theory, because
new theories normally account well for why their predecessor was as good as it
was.  The objects that comprise the daughter program's data must also be able
to be enhanced, such as by introducing neutrons in 1932.

The theory is attractive for reasons other than its simplicity.  I have dwelt
so far on the areas of experience with which science copes adequately, but
there are three varieties of second-class explanation to which science is
sometimes forced to resort and this theory is not.  They are: the Anthropic
Principle; rejection of evidence on the grounds of incompetence or fraud on
the part of the observer; and rejection on the grounds that the observer cannot
reproduce the phenomenon on demand.  The Anthropic Principle is never needed,
as there are no fundamental constants on whose values our existence depends.
As for rejection of evidence, a good area for study may be the phenomenon of
precognition/prophesy, which is clearly banned by the usual causally closed
model, but which is actively predicted by this theory on the basis that the
prophet's expectation of the event, based only on the (irrefutable) belief that
God told him about it, is accepted into the collective world view and duly
causes the event at the appointed time.  This is not to say that God did tell
him about it, or even exists, but only that no one knows otherwise.  It is
similarly easy to see that one would expect paranormal phenomena to be
unreproducible, if they occur due to fleeting and unreasoned thoughts which
momentarily coonstitute acts of faith, free of any refutable qualification.
And so on -- but you get the idea.

Thanks in advance,  Aubrey
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc