Origin Gaps and the Eternal Sunshine of the Second-Order Pendulum

TL;DR

This paper explores how the mathematical properties of self-reference and renormalization in physics give rise to the unpredictability and complex transitions observed in life, mind, and societal structures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel perspective linking self-reference in physics to the emergence of complex, goal-oriented phenomena in the universe.

Findings

Self-reference creates fundamental gaps between different levels of reality.

Renormalization transforms basic physics into a self-referential, complex world.

The universe's mathematical structure enables the emergence of intention and purpose.

Abstract

The rich experiences of an intentional, goal-oriented life emerge, in an unpredictable fashion, from the basic laws of physics. Here I argue that this unpredictability is no mirage: there are true gaps between life and non-life, mind and mindlessness, and even between functional societies and groups of Hobbesian individuals. These gaps, I suggest, emerge from the mathematics of self-reference, and the logical barriers to prediction that self-referring systems present. Still, a mathematical truth does not imply a physical one: the universe need not have made self-reference possible. It did, and the question then is how. In the second half of this essay, I show how a basic move in physics, known as renormalization, transforms the "forgetful" second-order equations of fundamental physics into a rich, self-referential world that makes possible the major transitions we care so much about. While the universe runs in assembly code, the coarse-grained version runs in LISP, and it is from that the world of aim and intention grows.