From: jimruttshow8596
The concept of absence is a fundamental yet often unintegrated idea in scientific thought, influencing our understanding of physics, biology, and mental experience alike [00:06:26]. It refers to a range of phenomena, particularly purposes, meanings, and values, which are “about something that’s not present” [00:06:51]. This can be understood as a “constitutive absence,” where the very nature of a word, for instance, is linked to what it is not [00:07:33].
The Problem of Absence
Scientific theories struggle to incorporate what is absent from physical theories or mental experience [00:06:34]. For example, consciousness is always “about something,” but that “something” is not the physical “stuff” of consciousness itself [00:08:40]. This difficulty is akin to how reductionist theories may imply that intentions, which can cause significant physical activity, don’t truly exist [00:12:12]. Everything we do is often with respect to something that does not yet exist, reflecting an underlying absence [00:13:05].
Historical Context: The Story of Zero
The historical struggle in the West to accept the concept of zero mirrors the scientific difficulty with absence [00:09:03]. Arabic numerals, by providing a value for nothing, enabled the development of recursive number systems [00:09:15]. This problem also plagued early philosophy, as seen in Zeno’s paradox, where an arrow seemingly never reaches its target due to an infinite number of half-distances [00:09:50]. The resolution of Zeno’s paradox, leading to calculus, involved learning to work with infinitely small divisions [00:10:54]. This suggests that the problem of mind and other complex phenomena may also be rooted in our difficulty dealing with absences [00:11:37].
Absence in Living Systems and Thermodynamics
The essence of being alive lies in maintaining existence against an inherent tendency to break down and disappear [00:13:18]. This relates directly to the second law of thermodynamics, which states that regularities in the world tend to dissipate [00:14:20]. While living processes locally reverse this trend by maintaining order (e.g., a refrigerator staying cold), they do so by performing work that generates more entropy in the rest of the universe [00:14:56].
This distinguishes life from simple self-organizing processes (like whirlpools or snow crystals), which, while producing order by dissipating energy, also accelerate the dissipation of the very gradients that sustain them [00:17:11]. The key for life is not just to generate order but to prevent it from disappearing [00:19:01]. This requires a deeper level of organization that uses the “self-destructive” nature of dissipative processes against itself [00:20:21].
Absence as Constraint and Form
The concept of constraint is critical to understanding emergence [00:29:01]. Constraints refer to what is not happening or what is prevented [00:31:30]. A form or symmetry is understood not just by what it is, but by what variations or features are not expressed [00:31:40]. This “negative” thinking reveals that organization itself is an absence: “the absence of something” [00:27:57]. For example, in the formation of salt from sodium and chlorine, new properties emerge because certain relationships (like the individual atoms’ normal states) are no longer there [00:28:03].
This perspective implies a hierarchy of regularization, where anything less than full variety or chaos is “formed” [00:32:51]. This means that “new absences can be generated by relationships among previous absences” [01:01:54].
Orthograde and Contragrade Processes
To articulate how systems change, the terms orthograde and contragrade are introduced [00:33:58]:
- Orthograde: Processes of change that happen spontaneously, requiring no work or effort, like the increase of entropy or constant velocity in empty space [00:34:26]. This is “going with the flow” [00:35:09].
- Contragrade: Processes that go against the spontaneous flow, requiring work [00:35:17]. When two orthograde tendencies are not aligned, they act contragrade to each other, doing work [00:36:32]. Generating order in a thermodynamic context is contragrade to the second law [00:37:06]. Even thinking, especially logical or focused thought, is contragrade, while daydreaming is orthograde [00:37:40].
Three Layers of Emergence and Absence
This framework leads to three levels of emergent dynamics:
- Homeodynamics: Orthograde processes that tend towards homogenization or stable equilibrium [00:39:32]. Examples include constant motion or a gas at equilibrium, where the overall structure remains unchanged [00:40:06]. These are the most pervasive dynamics in the universe [00:46:26].
- Morphodynamics: Higher-order, rarer processes that generate order [00:42:07]. These arise from contra-grade interactions that balance each other to produce regularity, such as whirlpools, convection cells, or snow crystals [00:42:09]. However, they are inherently self-undermining, rapidly dissipating the conditions that create them [00:47:01].
- Teleodynamics: The highest and rarest order of emergence, characteristic of living systems and mind [00:47:19]. This involves juxtaposing morphodynamic processes that not only produce order but maintain and reproduce it [00:43:05]. Teleodynamic processes are directed towards an absent end, like self-repair or reproduction, constantly working against their tendency to go out of existence [00:43:40]. This is the only type of process that can truly amplify itself, as seen in the spread of life [00:47:43].
The Autogen Model
The autogen is a thought experiment to concretely illustrate a teleodynamic process [00:49:03]. It involves two molecular processes:
- Reciprocal catalysis: A system where catalyst A generates catalyst B, and B generates A, leading to a rapid, self-organizing (morphodynamic) increase in their concentration until raw materials are used up [00:50:53].
- Capsid formation: The crystallization-like growth of a protein shell (capsid) that consumes molecules from the solution, also a morphodynamic process [00:53:16].
In the autogen, the catalytic process produces molecules needed for capsid growth, while the capsid contains the catalysts, preventing their diffusion [00:55:01]. This creates a self-reinforcing system where the catalysts generate the container that preserves them, and the container ensures the catalysts remain localized to continue their reactions [00:56:12]. This allows for self-repair and reproduction, where the system of constraints (absences) is what is passed on, essentially transmitting information about how to maintain itself [00:59:10].
Information and Absence
Information, in this framework, is intrinsically linked to physical constraints [01:07:51].
- Shannon information: Measures the reduction in variety or the amount of constraint on a signal [01:03:54]. It doesn’t refer to meaning or usefulness, but to how much message can be transmitted [01:04:10].
- Boltzmann entropy: Represents physical entropy, the tendency for physical systems to degrade and lose constraints [01:08:49]. Noise in signal transmission, for instance, is due to these degrading effects [01:09:01].
The distinction between signal and noise is not intrinsic but dependent on an interpreter [01:09:25]. A physical constraint (like a snow crystal’s form) is information about the work that produced it [01:10:51]. This interpretation requires a teleodynamic process that can discern what matters for its own self-maintenance and future [01:14:10].
Gregory Bateson’s idea of information as “a difference that makes a difference” connects to this [01:13:38]. While a thermostat exemplifies a purely physical difference making a difference, in living systems, a difference “matters” if it’s necessary for the system’s continued existence [01:14:07]. This leads to a “normative character” where things are distinguished as good or bad, useful or dangerous [01:15:01].
Sentience and Consciousness
Sentience, in a broad sense, begins with the capacity of a teleodynamic system to be differentially reactive to its environment in a way that maintains itself and avoids damage [01:19:56]. An autogen sensitive to molecules that weaken its structure, breaking open only in supportive environments, exhibits a rudimentary form of sentience [01:18:41]. This establishes a self-other distinction, where the world is divided into what is “good for me” and “bad for me,” even without conscious knowledge [01:20:31].
This “vegetative sentience” (like in plants) differs from the “subjective sentience” of animals with brains, which involves a representation or model of the world’s possibilities [01:22:11]. Brains develop because motility requires prediction of what’s ahead, necessitating a concentration of sensory and processing devices at one end (the “head”) [01:29:19].
The nervous system itself is a nested teleodynamic process within the larger teleodynamic process of the body [01:31:25]. Every neuron is teleodynamic, trying to maintain itself while being disturbed [01:33:29]. Consciousness is a higher-order teleodynamics, where the teleodynamics of brains (making predictions and discerning good/bad) is about the teleodynamics of bodies [01:37:51].
Mental phenomena, such as feeling and thinking, are dynamic processes, not static states [01:42:59]. A representation is a dynamical form, a “melody” of activity in the brain [01:44:57]. Attention, which requires effort (“work”), involves balancing these morphodynamic processes—the brain’s self-maintenance against incoming stimuli or internal thoughts [01:46:04]. The role of consciousness is often to make things unconscious [01:49:04], pushing information into automatic processing to resolve contradictions and adapt efficiently [01:49:13].
The Hard Problem and Absence
The “hard problem” of consciousness (why does physical brain activity feel like something?) is likened to Zeno’s paradox [01:51:21]. The more physical details we know about the brain, the further away the subjective experience seems to be [01:51:59]. This perpetuates a dualistic view, separating mind from matter [01:53:14].
However, just as calculus resolved Zeno’s paradox by re-evaluating zero, the hard problem can be approached by recognizing the fundamental role of absences [01:54:16]. Consciousness and all emergent phenomena arise from systems of constraints (absences) that enable new kinds of work, which in turn produce new kinds of constraints [01:55:00]. Our identity is not the ever-changing physical stuff of our bodies, but rather the “dynamical system of constraints that keeps itself in existence” [01:56:39]. This suggests that “new absences” can emerge as fundamentally new phenomena, not merely hidden possibilities, explaining the unique nature of human cognition, morality, and ethics [01:58:37]. The essence of existence is “doing,” which is “work,” and work requires constraining energy dissipation, leading to the generation of new constraints and new capacities for work [01:57:05]. Ultimately, our experience is on the “side of those absences” [01:58:57].