Objective Bayesian Reality 1

Scientific understanding has come to regard objective reality as a 'point of view invariant' realm where information that can be known about any entity by an observer or other entity must be consistent with what can be known by any other observer. Scientific law must provide consistent explanations and predictions for each observer or entity regardless of its circumstances.[i] The standard model of particle physics tells us that one entity within objective reality may influence, interact with, or be detected by another entity only through one of the three fundamental physical forces: electro-weak, strong and gravitational forces. This formulation suggests boundaries for a physical arena of objective reality.

Recent research by W. Zurek and others delineates the boundary between quantum reality and classical objective reality. This boundary is formed by a Darwinian process that selects information that is adapted for survival in the classical reality from the vast number of potential quantum outcomes. Zurek has named this process Quantum Darwinism and it effectively forms a boundary for objective reality.[ii]

Zurek’s work reveals that there exists an inherent knowledge mechanism within quantum wave functions that serves to model the environment of quantum entities and the information they may potentially exchange. Surprisingly this knowledge mechanism has many similarities to those utilized by other emergent forms of matter.

From our understanding of the history of the universe it is clear that near its beginning the web of interactions between fundamental particles joined through quantum forces composed the extent of complexity existent in the universe. Later emergent levels of complexity appeared forming the scientific subject matter of atomic physics, chemistry, biology, population genetics, neuroscience and culture. These emergent structures in reality display reduced local entropy suggesting they are highly improbable and require explanation.

The principle of Maximum Entropy tells us that systems will evolve to states of lower entropy only when they are constrained to do so by scientific law. Explanations of these low entropy states must entail a statement of the scientific laws responsible for constraining them from visiting higher entropy states.

Many low entropy states in the realm of atomic physics and chemistry are well explained by the operation of fundamental forces and particles in a cooling universe and other specialized environments without the need for additional scientific laws. Explanation of the evolution of life on earth and its subsequent evolution into more complex forms requires additional scientific law.

These explanations and their attendant scientific laws might be understood using the concept of adaptive systems. Adaptive systems, as defined by Friston and others, involve the dynamics of systems which act to optimize their relationship with their environments in order to retain their low entropy states. Central to Friston's analysis is the conclusion that adaptive systems must contain models of their environments and of causes within those environments. The optimality of an adaptive system results from its ability to minimize its free energy, in an information sense, or to reduce the discrepancy or 'surprise' it experiences in interactions with its environment.

In this light we might consider much of the ontological subject matter of genetics, population genetics, behavioural and neuroscience and culture as adaptive systems driven through Darwinian processes to optimize internal models in a manner leading to minimal free energy or 'surprise' when interacting with their environment.

In these areas of science Darwinian processes are responsible for having developed internal models from prior experience through a process of inference. This interpretation treats the internal model building as an algorithm that is substrate neutral and has been instantiated in many forms including genetics, neurological models and scientific hypothesis in the realms of biology, neuroscience and culture respectively.

Much of scientific law associated with these fields might be understood as the design details inherent in each adaptive system that were discovered and evolved to their present state through the operation of Darwinian processes.

[i] Stenger V.J (2006). The Comprehensible Cosmos, 2006, New York: Prometheus Books

[ii] Zurek W, 2007, Relative States and the Environment: Einselection, Envariance, Quantum Darwinism and the Existential Interpretation, arXiv:0707.2832v1, http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0707/0707.2832v1.pdf

[1] Gravity is not usually considered a quantum theory but it has been shown that a quantum formulation is equivalent to General Relativity in the classical limit. This is the same limit in which General Relativity has been shown to be valid. It is in trying to extend the theory of Gravity to non-classical situations, including extreme energies and time and space resolutions on the plank scale, that both formulations fail. As noted in Wikipedia's article on the graviton: 'In this framework, the gravitational interaction is mediated by gravitons, instead of being described in terms of curved spacetime as in general relativity. In the classical limit, both approaches give identical results, which are required to conform to Newton's law of gravitation.'

Introduction