Inselhalle

Conference Room 1–3

Moderator: Adam Smith
Nobel Prize Outreach, Sweden

In an article entitled Law without Law, Wheeler hypothesised that the laws of nature, instead of being independent of time as is normally assumed, come into existence through a process of ‘observer-participancy’ involving intelligent observers, but he did not give a clear account of how such intelligence would function. Insight into this can be gained through a biological perspective such as that of coordination dynamics, concerned with issues such as functional systems and their organisation. The explanatory power of such an approach is demonstrated by its ready applicability to the subtleties of human language, creating in effect ‘new physics’ including concepts such as meaning.

Integrating this kind of approach into conventional physics involves the use of mathematical concepts such as attractors, periodicity, and symmetry, the latter being significant on account of the clear parallels that exist between the mathematical concept of invariance, and the biological one of adaptability which is related to stability. More detailed analysis, in conjunction with computer modelling, could initiate a new era in physics.

References

Law without Law by John Archibald Wheeler, at
https://psychonautwiki.org/w/images/3/30/Wheeler_law_without_law.pdf

Systemic Grammar by T. Winograd, at
https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:rc130gx3117/rc130gx3117.pdf

Coordination Dynamics by Scott Kelso, at
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301949127_Coordination_Dynamics

Assembly Theory by Abhishek Sharma et al., at
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06600-9