Objective Bayesian Reality and its Darwinian Evolution

John Campbell

2nd edition - February 4, 2009

Conclusion

The notion of an objective reality demands point-of-view invariance in the sense that the experience of all observers must be predicted by valid scientific law when those observers are interacting with a given entity regardless of the circumstances or type of observer. The term 'observer' should not be understood here in an anthropomorphic sense but rather in the same sense that Einstein used 'test particle' or Zurek uses 'environment as witness'. All of the interactants in the web of reality are in this sense observers.

At its most basic level and in its totality soon after its beginnings this web of reality consisted of fundamental particles interacting through quantum processes. Although many complex structures have since evolved, all actual information transfers still occur through quantum processes.

Underlying the web of interactions that compose reality is a quantum reality. This quantum reality emerges into our reality through the process of quantum decoherence. The vast range of quantum potentials is narrowed, in our reality, to those that can survive the rigors of quantum information transfer into the environment of our reality. This process, described by Wojciech Zurek, selects those pieces of quantum information that can successfully replicate themselves in our web of reality through a process he has named Quantum Darwinism.

Zurek’s work reveals that the predictive model provided by quantum mechanics is inherent in the wave function of entangled quantum systems. This implies that the predictive laws of quantum mechanics are not a scientific creation but rather a scientific discovery of a modeling performed by nature. Sophisticated models within the web of reality predicting what one entity will know of another exist even at the level of the quantum.

Bayesian probability describes the plausibility of knowledge concerning entities in the web of reality. In all events it describes how this plausibility should be formed from prior data and updated with new data. Knowledge from this perspective is an evolutionary process.

This method of knowing is not constrained to humans. The laws of quantum mechanics, as refined by Zurek, provide the degree of plausibility that fundamental particles should assign to the outcome of their interactions with other fundamental particles.

Quantum Computation also provides a startling vantage point on the nature of quantum interactions: all quantum interactions are computations and what is computed is the result of the interaction. If we hybridize this interpretation with that of the formally equivalent Quantum Darwinism we arrive at an understanding that the future of the universe is constantly being computed or selected through a Darwinian process.

Many complex structures have emerged from our web of reality including most of scientific subject matter. These emergent features represent a local decrease in entropy which according to the principal of Maximum Entropy must be explained by the existence of scientific laws constraining the system from reaching states of higher entropy. The pertinent scientific laws can be considered the design details of the state, causing it to remain in states of lower entropy. Such designs are exceedingly rare and are not easy to find. Darwinian processes operating in the subject matter of atomic physics, chemistry, biology, populations genetics, behavioural and neuroscience and culture have been shown to be responsible for locating and instantiating those rare designs composing their subject matter.

The direction in which these complex entities evolve, at least those of biology and subsequent forms, might be understood in terms of adaptive systems to conform to the model:

 

 

 

The common direction in which these models or systems evolve is towards a reduction in the 'surprise' provided by new data or experience.