Diagram of everything (DOE) [updated]

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I'd say almost everything loves a good Theory Of Everything (TOE). I do. I even like a good Theory Of Theories Of Everything, and accordingly have started formulating one. It is inspired by the brilliance of David Deutsch's The Fabric Of Reality. Deutsch, an Oxford physicist, was "the first person to formulate a specifically quantum computational algorithm," but surprisingly and happily to me, his TOE is not anchored solely in physics.

A person's TOE is his or her religion, in a real sense. In fact, the religions I'm familiar with all purport to be TOEs, including atheism. They are explanatory with respect to their own limited vocabularies, and they either "cherry pick" their data to avoid paradoxes or try to resolve the paradoxes without substantively revising the core TOE. Deutsch's thesis departs from the single-principle approach: he believes that homo sapiens have now collectively formulated sufficient knowledge to prepare a very rough draft of a TOE, at least to the extent that we know approximately the theoretical ground it must encompass. Quantum physics (including Everett's many worlds interpretation) seems essential to any truly explanatory TOE, but so are (in Deutch's view) the fields of epistemology, computational theory, and evolutionary theory. My Theory of TOEs is that Deutsch is about right, except that I would consider substituting the term information theory in place of computational theory, because I suspect that the former may sufficiently encompass the latter while also leaving room for due consideration of aspects of consciousness such as memes and psychological archetypes. These last two items, among many others no doubt, should be important if core human phenomena like consciousness and religion are ever to be scientifically understood to any significant degree beyond their superficial mechanisms.

I am not educated or intelligent enough to contribute anything as sweeping as a TOE to the knowledge of the world. But I grow increasingly interested in sketching a Diagram Of Everything --- a DOE. As a Simple Country Editor, I am a generalist who finds it more interesting and useful to try diagramming the universe than to diagram sentences. I also have some smart friends who are good at both humoring me and, more importantly, helping me to test and evolve my DOE. So, to summarize, my Theory Of TOEs is characterized by the core conviction that, as Deutsch believes, a TOE must incorporate great swathes of information from multiple, partially exclusive domains of knowledge. A corollary to that conviction, for me, is that generalists may be in the best position to synthesize knowledge from the semi-separate domains without being distracted by the prejudices of scientific, academic, or philosophical specialization. Therefore, my shot at synthesis will take the form of a DOE, not a TOE. Specialists are as important to drafting a TOE as generalists are --- they are the ones who have to do the heavy lifting after outlier ideas start becoming more plausible in the face of implausible new scientific discoveries that don't fit our current conceits.

The hypothesis that drives the emergence of my DOE is that there are far fewer bright lines in the universe (i.e., multiverse) than we now assume. First and foremost, I am convinced at a deep intuitive level that there is no bright line between living and nonliving matter at any scale. If that hypothesis were testable and found to be verifiable, the implications would be staggering for theories of physics, evolution, and consciousness. The general hypothesis is, of course, not my own original formulation. But there are not currently many members of the scientific community (for understandable reasons) who are extended out on that limb, NSF-grantwise, to investigate StuporMundi's putatively crackpot hypothesis. I actually do not even find that discouraging.

I intend to use this blog to develop my DOE in the form of quanta (i.e., stand-alone tasty morsels) of speculation, cross-referenced to scientific literature. There will be no order to the presentation, but I will try to develop uniform keywords that may in good time be used to unify and edit the emerging diagram. And cheer up: I intend for the posts to be much shorter than this introductory one.

To close for now, for your consideration, here are two tasty morsels:

1. An NYROB review of The Superorganism, coauthored by Edward O. Wilson, in which ant colonies are revealed to have evolved essential aspects of civilization (namely agriculture and ranching) tens of millions of years before Zinjanthropus was even a gleam in his dad's eye. And even more awe-intriguing, the individuals coordinate their activity in a mode that a top-drawer giant like Wilson insists on referring to as a superorganism.

2. A BBC science and nature article on a new paper in the journal Current Biology which provides evidence that a cunning and aggressive chimp at a Swedish zoo has premeditated hundreds of instances of attempted assault and battery on zoo patrons. This unpleasant simian, named Santino, calmly stockpiles rocks before visiting hours, apparently anticipating his need to fling them at zoo visitors later when he knows he'll be all cheesed-off and territorial.

Both of the reviews linked above report findings which feed my conviction that the bright lines drawn by science --- maybe even all of them --- are myopic and smell of false pride. And one of them hints at why I am afraid that the Specialists Of The World (scientific and religious) are trained to stockpile rocks.

Update: I see in the AP version of the BBC chimp article, via this guy's blog, that zoo officials ended up castrating Santino in an effort to thwart his seasonal stone-throwing. The blogger, Mithras, notes his bemusement that "premeditated violence is the hallmark of human-like behavior". Zoo management had better hope that Santino isn't a capable enough planner to jack a chef knife and hunt down the motherfucker who ordered his sexual mutilation.