http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/kauffman08/kauffman08_index.html

This incapacity to foresee has profound implications. In the physicist Murray Gell-Mann’s definition, a “natural law” is a compact description beforehand of the regularities of a process. But if we cannot even prestate the possibilities, then no compact descriptions of these processes beforehand can exist. These phenomena, then, appear to be partially beyond natural law itself. This means something astonishing and powerfully liberating. We live in a universe, biosphere, and human culture that are not only emergent but radically creative. We live in a world whose unfoldings we often cannot prevision, prestate, or predict—a world of explosive creativity on all sides. This is a central part of the new scientific worldview.

Let me pause to explain just how radical this view is. My claim is not simply that we lack sufficient knowledge or wisdom to predict the future evolution of the biosphere, economy, or human culture. It is that these things are inherently beyond prediction. Not even the most powerful computer imaginable can make a compact description in advance of the regularities of these processes. There is no such description beforehand. Thus the very concept of a natural law is inadequate for much of reality. If this radical new view is correct, it challenges what I call the Galilean spell, the belief that all in the universe unfolds under natural law.

I disagree. Take a very simple system like a ball being dropped inside a container from which all gases have been removed. The container sits on the surface of the earth at a specified altitude above sea level. Lets assume for the sake of argument that all other variables ( temperature, pressure, the wobble of the earth etc.) are controlled and accounted for. The natural laws of physics allow us to describe very precisely what will happen to that ball when we let it drop.

If you ask a 3 year old to describe what will happen he will only be able to give a general idea and will not be able to tell you anything about the why, but just because a three year old doesn’t understand the system doesn’t mean the system isn’t governed by a set of laws.

Just because we don’t fully inderstand the universe and may never be able to build a computer that can account for every force doesn’t mean the laws that governt he system don’t exist.

jholt - 21 April 2008 04:21 PM

My claim is not simply that we lack sufficient knowledge or wisdom to predict the future evolution of the biosphere, economy, or human culture. It is that these things are inherently beyond prediction. Not even the most powerful computer imaginable can make a compact description in advance of the regularities of these processes.

How does he know this? Chaos theory? Newtonian mechanics are chaotic, and yet follow very simple laws.

Stuart Kauffman -

Let me pause to explain just how radical this view is. My claim is not simply that we lack sufficient knowledge or wisdom to predict the future evolution of the biosphere, economy, or human culture.

Not a surprise to me, why is this radical?

Stuart Kauffman -

It is that these things are inherently beyond prediction. Not even the most powerful computer imaginable can make a compact description in advance of the regularities of these processes. There is no such description beforehand.

I presume Stuart is arguing as a chaos/complexity theorist. So?

Stuart Kauffman -

Thus the very concept of a natural law is inadequate for much of reality.

Or is he making demands on reality that cannot be met. This does not mean that this “much of reality” is not entirely consistent with the “natural” laws” we do have

Stuart Kauffman -

If this radical new view is correct, it challenges what I call the Galilean spell, the belief that all in the universe unfolds under natural law.

No it does not. None of what we cannot predict undermines the “natural laws” that we know of.

I am guessing that Kauffman is responding to an argument not quoted by the OP?

I had debated whether or not to place that quote in my OP. I see that it is was a mistake, I apologize. The reason I offered that quote, which is about 3/4 through the essay, is because I like it.