Interior Dialogue

II. Change, interaction and observation Friday, 26 March, 2010

As argued elsewhere on this site, once one accepts the fact that nothing that we have so far known (ideas) or observed (objects) is outside of time, once one accepts that change is the one truly universal feature of our world, then there is no way to avoid coming to the conclusion that whatever the mechanisms underlying our experience, they are, one way or another, mechanisms of evolution. The debate may then be formed around the question of how, or even, perhaps, why things evolve. That they evolve, is evident.

As the various thinkers, philosophers, scientists, have investigated the various phenomena, another remarkable fact has come to light. Change requires interaction. When some simple object undergoes a change, it is because it has come into interaction with some other object. When some isolated composite object undergoes a change, it is because its components are interacting with each other. No object has been observed that may change without some interaction being involved. And conversely, no object is observed that may interact without changing. Change and interaction seem to be inseparable.

This holds elegantly together. It is consistent, for observing something requires interacting with it, which leads to change, so we can never observe something that does not change, which explains why time is a universal feature of our world. Here, “world” is defined as everything that is observed.

So far so good. Let us summarize. We have here a trio of ideas which seem to be so closely related as to be completely interdependent, dare I say symbiotic? Change, interaction, and observation. Obtaining knowledge requires interaction, which inevitably leads to change. Thus everything we know changes.

But we can add more concepts to this dance. For instance reciprocity. It has been observed not only that change and interaction go together, but that both participants in an interaction are changed. No interaction has been observed where one of the participants is changed, while the other is not. Thus change, interaction, and therefore also observation, are reciprocal. We now have a quartet of ideas in symbiosis. Moreover, observation is in the eye of the beholder, so to speak, and just as the state of the observer is changed by the observation, so the state of the observed is changed, in a reciprocal fashion. So, strictly speaking, which of the two is designated the “observer” and which the “observed” is quite arbitrary, and basically comes down to a convention.

This is an example of a memeplex, a set of ideas which rely on each other, which shed light on each other, and which evolve together. Once our understanding of one of them changes, the others must change immediately as well. Once again, this is consistent, and goes to show that these ideas are so general as to be illustrations of themselves! “Interaction”, “change”, “observation”, are memes which are themselves subject to change, interaction, and so forth. This is meant as a heads-up to GEB fans (Gödel-Escher-Bach).

The importance of the memeplex idea comes from the fact that the correct view of any given concept hinges fundamentally on the memeplex in which it operates, and the role it plays therein. Analyzing a concept in itself, outside of its conceptual “environment”, so to speak, is like trying to understand the anatomy, physiology, and biology of a fish independently of the fact that it lives in water. It is an utterly meaningless exercise.

In the following entry, I will consider the concept of change through the lens of the successive memeplexes in which it played a role, or rather, the successive memeplexes that humans have built around it. This will lead to a more coherent and clearer view of other related concepts: predictability, uncertainty, information processing and finally computation (the most recent memeplex we have built around change). The fact that our modern understanding of change is becoming increasingly interwoven with the concept of information processing, or computation, is what lies behind terms such as “computational universe”, “the physics of information” or “emergence”. Shedding light on these ideas is the main motivation of this series of posts.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Alexandru Ioan Căbuz 2010.