In evolutionary biology, we have a relatively good understanding of how all life forms came to be, once we assume the LUCA as the starting point. But explaining how LUCA came to be is still a puzzle? LUCA itself is extinct now. Its existence was inferred from genetic and evolutionary evidence.
Science has many such explanatory gaps which often feel like a large gap from what was before and what came after—a sense of "this was not inevitable from what came before".
I think such gaps remain in explaining consciousness and life, and maybe in other areas as well. Once we jump that gap, we have methods that work well—evolution once we assume LUCA, and modern neuroscience once we assume consciousness. There is a discontinuity at the point where those entities or capacities first appear.
I think such gaps remain in explaining consciousness and life, and maybe in other areas as well. Once we jump that gap, we have methods that work well—evolution once we assume LUCA, and modern neuroscience once we assume consciousness. There is a discontinuity at the point where those entities or capacities first appear.
The transition does not feel inevitable but rather underdetermined by what came before.
This does not imply: supernatural intervention—yes, it does not imply those. But there is also no logical guarantee that those gaps would be filled; we can only hope. I think hope is based on a 'universe as a closed mechanical device' kind of view, and that view has been useful, but it is not necessary.
It's perhaps even possible that nature does, in the middle of its history, insert axioms that cannot be derived from the past and we can still retain a naturalistic view of things, in the sense that once those axioms are assumed there is no arbitrariness thereafter.
What that means is that there are two possibilities for the future:
1) if nature inserted axioms halfway through at some time t in the past, it can do so in the present or future too, assuming symmetry in time for such occurrences. I hope this thought experiment is plausible: Imagining an experimenter who was probing and manipulating nature that came into being until time t, may not have had the control to create or anticipate the axiom that came at time t.
Likewise, what we control and manipulate nature today may not even in principle anticipate or create the axioms that nature may 'insert' in the future: a limit to our control.
2) If nature does not insert axioms halfway through, we can, in principle, control and independently create everything that comes later, from what came before, up to limits allowed by computability and quantum mechanics, for example (but wait, maybe it is these lack of control that lead to novelty in 1)).
This does not imply: supernatural intervention—yes, it does not imply those. But there is also no logical guarantee that those gaps would be filled; we can only hope. I think hope is based on a 'universe as a closed mechanical device' kind of view, and that view has been useful, but it is not necessary.
It's perhaps even possible that nature does, in the middle of its history, insert axioms that cannot be derived from the past and we can still retain a naturalistic view of things, in the sense that once those axioms are assumed there is no arbitrariness thereafter.
What that means is that there are two possibilities for the future:
1) if nature inserted axioms halfway through at some time t in the past, it can do so in the present or future too, assuming symmetry in time for such occurrences. I hope this thought experiment is plausible: Imagining an experimenter who was probing and manipulating nature that came into being until time t, may not have had the control to create or anticipate the axiom that came at time t.
Likewise, what we control and manipulate nature today may not even in principle anticipate or create the axioms that nature may 'insert' in the future: a limit to our control.
2) If nature does not insert axioms halfway through, we can, in principle, control and independently create everything that comes later, from what came before, up to limits allowed by computability and quantum mechanics, for example (but wait, maybe it is these lack of control that lead to novelty in 1)).