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The Necker cube perceptual instability. The figure with the two connected, parallel squares on the left is interpreted by the brain as a view on a cube. However, there are two ways to “collapse” the ambiguous figure: either into a cube where the left square represents the front of the cube (top-right picture), and the right square the back, or a cube where front and back are switched (bottom-right picture)
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Quantum phenomena are notoriously difficult to grasp. The present paper first reviews the most important quantum concepts in a non-technical manner: superposition, uncertainty, collapse of the wave function, entanglement and non-locality. It then tries to clarify these concepts by examining their analogues in complex, self-organizing systems. These...
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... The Higgs boson becomes a massive particle resulting from jiggling uphill in the energy landscape [9]. Additionally, it is worth noting that Figure 1 has significant importance, as this energy landscape can be observed at various scales and in different processes [27,28], as discussed in the following subsections. It also highlights the possibility of finding more "particles" in one stable state than in the other, even when both states have equal energy. ...
Symmetry breaking is a phenomenon that is observed in various contexts, from the early universe to complex organisms, and it is considered a key puzzle in understanding the emergence of life. The importance of this phenomenon is underscored by the prevalence of enantiomeric amino acids and proteins.The presence of enantiomeric amino acids and proteins highlights its critical role. However, the origin of symmetry breaking has yet to be comprehensively explained, particularly from an energetic standpoint. This article explores a novel approach by considering energy dissipation, specifically lost free energy, as a crucial factor in elucidating symmetry breaking. By conducting a comprehensive thermodynamic analysis applicable across scales, ranging from elementary particles to aggregated structures such as crystals, we present experimental evidence establishing a direct link between nonequilibrium free energy and energy dissipation during the formation of the structures. Results emphasize the pivotal role of energy dissipation, not only as an outcome but as the trigger for symmetry breaking. This insight suggests that understanding the origins of complex systems, from cells to living beings and the universe itself, requires a lens focused on nonequilibrium processes
... The presence of a tail below zero implies that as the temperature T0 rises above zero, the relaxation of atomic coordinates from their lattice positions not only results in higher potential energy but also leads to an unusual phenomenon where the potential energy of some atoms becomes lower than their energy at 0K. This phenomenon resembles symmetry breaking, 30 where the symmetry of a lower energy state is lower than that of a higher state. ...
Temperature, a fundamental metric in thermal energy characterization, encounters intriguing exceptions during phase transitions, where it maintains a constant value despite significant internal energy alterations. Equipartition theorem also failed in interpreting these phenomena. In this study, we introduce a novel framework termed "potential energy temperature (T pot )" and associated degrees of freedom (D pot ) to provide deeper insights into phase transitions. Our investigations reveal that T pot diverges considerably from conventional temperature (T kin ) defined by kinetic energy, and D pot is influenced not only by dimensions in Cartesian coordinate but also by the number of interacting atoms. A noteworthy finding is the correlation between phase changes and increased D pot , which explains the observed increase in potential energy using the equipartition theorem. Additionally, we identify a sudden change in T pot during the phase transition, diverging from conventional descriptions. Furthermore, our study unveils unconventional concepts, such as the potential energy of an atom being significantly lower at higher temperatures than at absolute zero. These findings offer a fresh perspective on the phase changes of matter, challenging existing paradigms and providing insights into this complex yet fundamental natural process.
... The Higgs boson becomes a massive particle resulting from jiggling uphill in the energy landscape [9]. Additionally, it is worth noting that Figure 1 has significant importance, as this energy landscape can be observed at various scales and in different processes [13,14], as discussed in the following subsections. It also highlights the possibility of finding more "particles" in one stable state than in the other, even when both states have equal energy. ...
Symmetry-breaking is a phenomenon that is observed in various contexts, from the early universe to complex organisms, and is considered a key puzzle in understanding the emergence of life. The presence of enantiomeric amino acids and proteins highlights its critical role. However, the origin of symmetry-breaking has yet to be comprehensively explained, particularly from an energetic standpoint. This article explores a novel approach by considering energy dissipation, specifically lost free energy, as a crucial factor in elucidating symmetry-breaking. Through a thorough thermodynamic analysis applicable to enantiomeric systems at various scales, from elementary particles to aggregated matter like crystals, we present experimental findings that establish a direct correlation between non-equilibrium free energy and energy dissipation during formation processes. Results emphasize the pivotal role of energy dissipation not only as an outcome but as the trigger for symmetry-breaking. This insight suggests that understanding the origins of complex systems, from cells to living beings and the universe itself, requires a lens focused on non-equilibrium processes, ultimately facilitating the formation of non-racemic systems.
... The operational features that include negative feedbacks, feedforward links, equifinality, and flexibility toward external influences can be viewed as final causes (in the Aristotelian sense) in this evolutionary development. They represent the far-from-equilibrium attractors of a dynamical system, achieved with the participation of particular mechanisms, preventing possible deviations in development from various external perturbations [115][116][117]. For the emergence of novel genetic changes, the mobile genetic pool of all organisms serves as a source of horizontal gene transfer [118], and this genetic pool represents a part of the biosemiosphere that is common for all living beings. ...
Classical thermodynamics employs the state of thermodynamic equilibrium, characterized by maximal disorder of the constituent particles, as the reference frame from which the Second Law is formulated and the definition of entropy is derived. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics analyzes the fluxes of matter and energy that are generated in the course of the general tendency to achieve equilibrium. The systems described by classical and non-equilibrium thermodynamics may be heuristically useful within certain limits, but epistemologically, they have fundamental problems in the application to autopoietic living systems. We discuss here the paradigm defined as a relational biological thermodynamics. The standard to which this refers relates to the biological function operating within the context of particular environment and not to the abstract state of thermodynamic equilibrium. This is defined as the stable non-equilibrium state, following Ervin Bauer. Similar to physics, where abandoning the absolute space-time resulted in the application of non-Euclidean geometry, relational biological thermodynamics leads to revealing the basic iterative structures that are formed as a consequence of the search for an optimal coordinate system by living organisms to maintain stable non-equilibrium. Through this search, the developing system achieves the condition of maximization of its power via synergistic effects.
... In addition to our adaptive dynamical view in biology [2], there have been a plenty of papers reporting the analogy of biological and macroscopic phenomena with the quantum mechanics (see review [15]). The author of this review discussed such analogical behavior in not only biology but also in many complex systems including such as bifurcations and self-organization appealing a, revealing symmetry breaking as the common basic property. ...
... The analogy of quantum-like behaviors in the biological and macroscopic world with the quantum mechanics was discussed in many papers, (see, e.g., [2,15].]). By applying adaptive dynamics, we found that the quantum-like behavior came from the interactions with the environment [3,30] and proposed the following view: ...
Biological systems have been shown to have quantum-like behaviors by applying the adaptive dynamics view on their interaction networks. In particular, in the process of lactose–glucose metabolism, cells generate probabilistic interference patterns similarly to photons in the two-slit experiment. Such quantum-like interference patterns can be found in biological data, on all scales, from proteins to cognitive, ecological, and social systems. The adaptive dynamics approach covers both biological and physical phenomena, including the ones which are typically associated with quantum physics. We guess that the adaptive dynamics can be used for the clarification of quantum foundations, and the present paper is the first step in this direction. We suggest the use of an algorithm for the numerical simulation of the behavior of a billiard ball-like particle passing through two slits by explicitly considering the influence of the two-slit environment (experimental context). Our simulation successfully mimics the interference pattern obtained experimentally in quantum physics. The interference of photons or electrons by two slits is known as a typical quantum mechanical effect. We do not claim that the adaptive dynamics can reproduce the whole body of quantum mechanics, but we hope that this numerical simulation example will stimulate further extensive studies in this direction—the representation of quantum physical phenomena in an adaptive dynamical framework.
... This goaldirectedness is a natu ral phenomenon based on operational features that include negative feedback, feedforward links, equifinality, and flexibility toward external influences. Apparent goals in this development represent far-from-equilibrium attractors of a dynamical system (Busseniers et al., 2021;Heylighen 2014Heylighen , 2021; see also Heylighen, chapter 5 in this volume), which can be reached despite pos si ble deviations from the trajectory of development due to external perturbations. In a system reaching the equifinal teleonomic state, natu ral se lection does not necessarily act as the factor driving evolution, but it may play an impor tant role in the conditions of high selective pressure. ...
A unique exploration of teleonomy—also known as “evolved purposiveness”—as a major influence in evolution by a broad range of specialists in biology and the philosophy of science.
The evolved purposiveness of living systems, termed “teleonomy” by chronobiologist Colin Pittendrigh, has been both a major outcome and causal factor in the history of life on Earth. Many theorists have appreciated this over the years, going back to Lamarck and even Darwin in the nineteenth century. In the mid-twentieth century, however, the complex, dynamic process of evolution was simplified into the one-way, bottom-up, single gene-centered paradigm widely known as the modern synthesis. In Evolution “On Purpose,” edited by Peter A. Corning, Stuart A. Kauffman, Denis Noble, James A. Shapiro, Richard I. Vane-Wright, and Addy Pross, some twenty theorists attempt to modify this reductive approach by exploring in depth the different ways in which living systems have themselves shaped the course of evolution.
Evolution “On Purpose” puts forward a more inclusive theoretical synthesis that goes far beyond the underlying principles and assumptions of the modern synthesis to accommodate work since the 1950s in molecular genetics, developmental biology, epigenetic inheritance, genomics, multilevel selection, niche construction, physiology, behavior, biosemiotics, chemical reaction theory, and other fields. In the view of the authors, active biological processes are responsible for the direction and the rate of evolution. Essays in this collection grapple with topics from the two-way “read-write” genome to cognition and decision-making in plants to the niche-construction activities of many organisms to the self-making evolution of humankind. As this collection compellingly shows, and as bacterial geneticist James Shapiro emphasizes, “The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable.”
... Quantum mechanics has already made clear that observing some phenomenon, such as the position of a particle, is an action that necessarily affects the phenomenon being observed: there is no observation without interaction. Moreover, in general the result of that observation is indeterminate before the observation is made: the action of observing in a real sense creates the property being observed, through a pro cess known as the collapse of the wave function (Heylighen, 2021;Tumulka, 2006). For example, before the observation a particle such as an electron typically does not have a precise position in space, but immediately afterward it does. ...
A unique exploration of teleonomy—also known as “evolved purposiveness”—as a major influence in evolution by a broad range of specialists in biology and the philosophy of science.
The evolved purposiveness of living systems, termed “teleonomy” by chronobiologist Colin Pittendrigh, has been both a major outcome and causal factor in the history of life on Earth. Many theorists have appreciated this over the years, going back to Lamarck and even Darwin in the nineteenth century. In the mid-twentieth century, however, the complex, dynamic process of evolution was simplified into the one-way, bottom-up, single gene-centered paradigm widely known as the modern synthesis. In Evolution “On Purpose,” edited by Peter A. Corning, Stuart A. Kauffman, Denis Noble, James A. Shapiro, Richard I. Vane-Wright, and Addy Pross, some twenty theorists attempt to modify this reductive approach by exploring in depth the different ways in which living systems have themselves shaped the course of evolution.
Evolution “On Purpose” puts forward a more inclusive theoretical synthesis that goes far beyond the underlying principles and assumptions of the modern synthesis to accommodate work since the 1950s in molecular genetics, developmental biology, epigenetic inheritance, genomics, multilevel selection, niche construction, physiology, behavior, biosemiotics, chemical reaction theory, and other fields. In the view of the authors, active biological processes are responsible for the direction and the rate of evolution. Essays in this collection grapple with topics from the two-way “read-write” genome to cognition and decision-making in plants to the niche-construction activities of many organisms to the self-making evolution of humankind. As this collection compellingly shows, and as bacterial geneticist James Shapiro emphasizes, “The capacity of living organisms to alter their own heredity is undeniable.”
... In any case we avoid the paradoxes of wavefunction collapse with such a fold deactivation mechanism. For an interesting discussion of the relationship between disentanglement and wave function collapse, as well as looking at disentanglement as spontaneous symmetry breaking, see [490]. As fold kinematics and dynamics (and support domains), especially tear down, are pure speculation, it is hard to say more. ...
We start from a hypothetical multi-fold universe U_MF, where the propagation of everything is slower or equal to the speed of light and where entanglement extends the set of paths available to Path Integrals. This multifold mechanism enables EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) “spooky actions at distance” to result from local interactions in the resulting folds. It produces gravity-like attractive effective potentials in the spacetime, between entangled entities, that are caused by the curvature of the folds. When quantized, multi-folds correspond to gravitons and they are enablers of EPR entanglement. Gravity emerges non-perturbative and covariant from EPR entanglement between virtual particles surrounding an entity. In U_MF, we encounter mechanisms that predict gravity fluctuations when entanglement is present, including in macroscopic entanglements. Besides providing a new perspective on quantum gravity, when added to the Standard Model as (SMG), with non-negligible affects at its scales, and to the Standard Cosmology, U_MF can contribute explanations of several open questions and challenges. It also clarifies some relationships and challenges met by other quantum gravity models and Theories of Everything. It leads to suggestions for these works. We also reconstruct the spacetime of U_MF, starting from the random walks of particles in an early spacetime. U_MF now appears as a noncommutative, discrete, yet Lorentz symmetric, spacetime that behaves roughly 2-Dimensional at Planck scales, when it is a graph of microscopic Planck size black holes on a random walk fractal structure left by particles that can also appear as microscopic black holes. Of course, at larger scales, spacetime appears 4-D, where we are able to explain curvature and recover Einstein’s General Relativity. We also discover an entanglement gravity-like contributions and massive gravity at very small scales. This is remarkable considering that no Hilbert Einstein action, or variations expressing area invariance, were introduced. Our model also explains why semi classical approaches can work till way smaller scale than usually expected and present a new view on an Ultimate Unification of all forces, at very small scales. We also explore opportunities for falsifiability and validation of our model, as well as ideas for futuristic applications, that may be worth considering, if U_MF was a suitable model for our universe U_real.
... A simpler visual example of such a self-maintaining system is a single convection cell in a liquid heated from below (Bodenschatz et al., 2000;Heylighen, 2021). As depicted in Fig. 2, hot liquid here rises to the surface, flows sideways (e.g. to the left) while cooling down at the surface, then sinks down to the hot bottom of the container, and finally flows sideways in the opposite direction while heating up, after which it rejoins the initial upwards flow of hot liquid. ...
We characterize living systems as resilient “chemical organizations”, i.e. self-maintaining networks of reactions that are able to resist a wide range of perturbations. Dissipative structures, such as flames or convection cells, are also self-maintaining, but much less resilient. We try to understand how life could have originated from such self-organized structures, and evolved further, by acquiring various mechanisms to increase resilience. General mechanisms include negative feedback, buffering of resources, and degeneracy (producing the same resources via different pathways). Specific mechanisms use catalysts, such as enzymes, to enable reactions that deal with specific perturbations. This activity can be regulated by “memory” molecules, such as DNA, which selectively produce catalysts when needed. We suggest that major evolutionary transitions take place when living cells of different types or species form a higher-order organization by specializing in different functions and thus minimizing interference between their reactions.
... In any case we avoid the paradoxes of wavefunction collapse with such a fold deactivation mechanism. For an interesting discussion of the relationship between disentanglement and wave function collapse, as well as looking at disentanglement as spontaneous symmetry breaking, see [490]. As fold kinematics and dynamics (and support domains), especially tear down, are pure speculation, it is hard to say more. ...
We start from a hypothetical multi-fold universe U M F , where the propagation of everything is slower or equal to the speed of light and where entanglement extends the set of paths available to Path Integrals. This multi-fold mechanism enables EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) "spooky actions at distance" to result from local interactions in the resulting folds. It produces gravity-like attractive effective potentials in the spacetime, between entangled entities, that are caused by the curvature of the folds. When quantized, multi-folds correspond to gravitons and they are enablers of EPR entanglement. Gravity emerges non-perturbative and covariant from EPR entanglement between virtual particles surrounding an entity. In U M F , we encounter mechanisms that predict gravity fluctuations when entanglement is present, including in macroscopic entanglements. Besides providing a new perspective on quantum gravity, when added to the Standard Model and Standard Cosmology, U M F can contribute explanations of several open questions and challenges. It also clarifies some relationships and challenges met by other quantum gravity models and Theories of Everything. It leads to suggestions for these works. We also reconstruct the spacetime of U M F , starting from the random walks of particles in an early spacetime. U M F now appears as a noncommutative, discrete, yet Lorentz symmetric, spacetime that behaves roughly 2-Dimensional at Planck scales, when it is a graph of microscopic Planck size black holes on a random walk fractal structure left by particles that can also appear as also microscopic black holes. Of course, at larger scales, spacetime appears 4-D, where we are able to explain curvature and recover Ein-stein's General Relativity. We also discover an entanglement gravity-like contributions and massive gravity at very small scales. This is remarkable considering that no Hilbert Ein-stein action, or variations expressing area invariance, were introduced. Our model also explains why semi classical approaches can work till way smaller scale than usually expected and present a new view on an Ultimate Unification of all forces, at very small scales. We also explore opportunities for falsifiability and validation of our model, as well as ideas for futuristic applications that may be worth considering, if U M F was a suitable model for our universe U real.
