By Mathew Goldstein
In his 2016 book “The Big Picture: On the Origin of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself”, theoretical cosmologist Sean Carroll skillfully elucidates a modern, empiricist anchored, philosophy of “poetic naturalism” that starts with, is guided by, and fully embraces, the relevant knowledge we have accumulated to date. Purely rationalistic philosophy is a subject without an object which is OK when the subject is mathematics but is otherwise mostly useless sophistry. Sean Carroll, an empiricist who has studied philosophy in addition to physics, clearly recognizes this distinction.
A big picture philosophy starts with the Core Theory which is ekinological. The Core Theory consists of the Standard Model that describes quantum particles and fields plus the Theory of Relativity that adds non-quantum spacetime gravity. It can be operationally represented with a single equation for “the amplitude to undergo a transition from one configuration to another in the path-integral formalism of quantum mechanics”. The amplitude translates into a probability of transitioning to a particular next configuration. The causes and effects, reasons why, purposes, and goals of teleology are all absent from the ground level Core Theory. Yet causes and effects, reasons why, purposes, and goals have central roles in our day to day lives.
Sean Carroll argues that we are rationally compelled on the available evidence to reconcile these discrepancies by adopting a pluralistic, multi-level, description of our universe. At the ground level is the Core Theory. The higher level phenomena emerge from, and can be mapped back to, the Core Theory. The emergent properties are distinct and real, their secondary status as higher level phenomena does not diminish the centrality of emergence as a substantial and important component of how the universe operates. The Core Theory does not by itself provide a complete description of reality. Higher level emergent properties are as essential to our understanding of the operation of our universe as the ground level Core Theory.
Therefore, when we describe how our universe operates, the appropriate language to use depends on the “domain of applicability” where the topic being discussed resides. Terminology that describes the Core Theory ground level context should not be intermixed with language that describes the higher emergent level contexts. Nor, for example, is terminology that is applicable at the emergent levels of chemistry, or cellular biology, always appropriate when the context is the level of a multi-celled organism, etc. This overlaps with Daniel Dennett’s perspective: “First, materialism reigns, and the major philosophical problems of consciousness, meaning, and free will all have accounts that owe more to biology than to physics. The beginning of life is the beginning of reasons and meaning and information (in one of its most important senses);” [I Have Been Thinking, p. 390].
The conventional meanings and connotations of some commonly utilized words conflict with a poetic naturalism perspective. Therefore, to communicate accurately, we will sometimes be better off either avoiding some potentially misleading words or adding clarifications. In his book Sean Carroll includes clarifications, and selects words, to avoid miscommunication. Yet he does not directly discuss this general communication complication. This is a significant and unfortunate omission.
We need to be careful to ensure that our higher level context descriptions are consistent with the lower level context descriptions in the sense that we can map what happens at the higher levels back to the lower levels. At the same time, we should avoid mistakenly insisting on a one to one, bidirectional, mapping. There can be many lower level configurations that map to the same higher level phenomena. Emergent properties that are absent at the lowest level, such as the arrow of time, can very much impact our experiences and interactions. The difference between past and future is an example of an emergent property that is too fundamental for us to ignore even though it is absent from the ground level Core Theory.
It also needs to be said that not everyone is onboard to the notion that time is an emergent property. Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin, while he recommends this book, disagrees with that and various other arguments found therein. It is worthwhile to read his counter-arguments in his review of this book https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/science-big-picture-mysteries-remain/. For example, Smolin argues that “We know exactly how to make a robot, but have no idea how to design or construct a human being (except the old fashioned way). How can we confidently claim that they are the same? The argument seems to be that the universe is a machine, so humans and robots — as subsystems of that universe — must be machines too. This begs the question, because different machines operate by different principles, and the principles needed to make our minds comprehensible remain unknown.” On this particular point I am inclined to agree with Smolin.
Unlike Smolin, Sean Carroll rejects David Chamber’s argument that unconscious zombies that are physically identical to conscious people and that mimic the behavior of conscious people are conceivable which Chambers then claims implies consciousness is a property of the universe. Sean Carroll says consciousness is an emergent property of particular physical systems and therefore is an inevitable property of such physical systems, so such philosophical zombies are inconceivable. I am inclined to agree with Carroll’s perspective here, along with most of what Carroll argues in his book. But to be fair, I have not read a book by Smolin, if I did then maybe he would convince me otherwise.
The central disagreement appears to be whether matter has additional, fundamental, irreducible properties beyond those described by the laws of physics as they are understood today. Smolin says yes, Carroll argues no. After reading Carroll’s book, it is my opinion that Carroll has compelling arguments that the known laws of physics are incompatible with the existence of such additional, fundamental, irreducible properties. Smolin is no doubt right to point out that our current understanding is still cloudy, giving us some reason to think we may be missing significant details which, if eventually found, could substantially revise our big picture understanding. However, citing such a possibility is not a particularly strong refutation of Carroll’s arguments.
