|
|
The Value of MEST and MESTI Concepts in Understanding Universal Change
© 2002-2008, John Smart. Reproduction, review and quotation encouraged with attribution.
|
Outline |
||||
|
|
|
These five concepts may not describe all the important elements of universal change, but they are at least among the fundamentals, a place to begin in our journey of understanding. It is not surprising then that they are also ancient insights into the basic features of the universe. Perhaps their earliest written roots as a coherent system come from Indian Jainist cosmology, perhaps originating circa 800 BCE. Surprisingly modern, Jain philosophy does not posit an independent God as a creator, survivor, or destroyer of the universe. Instead, it asserts that the universe encompasses countless cycles of origination and destruction, but at the same time has always existed and will always exist in strict adherence to the laws of the cosmos. It is a philosophy of both permanence and change, where time is considered as infinite, both in the past and in the future. Jainism, a reaction to Brahmanic and analog of Buddhist religious philosophy, proposed six immortal, cycling, and continuously changing real "dravyas," or universal substances:
Note that the Jainist scheme of five "nonliving" substances (excluding the first "living" one) can be collapsed to the familiar MEST of the Newtonian universe. Furthermore, we can recognize their first substance as information, considering the universe as womb for the creation of intelligence, and thus MESTI is fully represented. Not bad for almost three millennia ago! Over this period, Western philosophy of science has also converged, in what may be a natural developmental process, on this useful, if approximate,"MEST" characterization of the basic physical features of the universe. The MEST characterization excludes of course such features of the standard model of our physical universe as fundamental parameters, gauge fields, elementary particles, even the forces that affect MEST systems. Some of these forces, like gravity and electromagetism, have effects that are directly observable by humans, but for all practical purposes, we can characterize them by measuring changes in MEST systems. As a result, we can use the term MEST as a reasonably useful "shorthand" for the observable physical world (sans Information), which is the way we use it in this paper. Concepts of matter have evolved from Aristotle, Democritus, and the Alchemists to modern chemistry, relativity, quantum mechanics, and astrophysics. Our understanding of energy has likewise advanced through thermodynamics, free energy, relativity and quantum mechanics. Space has been reformulated from Euclid and Newton's concept of absolute space, to our present non-Euclidean, relativistic models (e.g., Friedman, Reimann, Einstein). Time, perhaps the least well understood of these four, like gravity among the fundamental forces, has progressed from our Greek concepts of transience and eternity to Einstein's and Minkowski's space-time continuum and the physics of black hole singularities. Within the latter special environment time, from our own reference frame, loses universal meaning. Finally, in Albert Einstein's general relativity, we see a further compression of these concepts into matter-energy (a precipitation from more elemental gauge fields), and space-time (an apparently fundamental universal continuum). Today, string and M-theory are now attempting (with little success at present) to represent all the features of the universe in a common mathematical landscape (a more popular one uses 10 fundamental dimensions of space and one of time). Greek and medieval science, thermodynamics, chemistry, Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics and relativity have all greatly improved our understanding of MEST in recent years. But perhaps most significantly, Einstein's advances in special and general relativity in the 1920's brought a profound and surprising developmental convergence to MEST concepts, exposing both matter-energy equivalency and the topology of the space-time continuum in one grand synthetic model whose long-range implications have still not been completely explored. This convergence has not yet provided us with a complete understanding of the way MEST evolves over time, but it has provided an excellent beginning. Most specifically, we are missing a deep understanding of how MEST changes can be characterized as Informational changes, and the way that informational evolutionary development can be characterized as constraining the future of MEST activity. Modern human culture is still missing our "Einstein of information theory," a concept we will return to several times in our discourse. Nevertheless, we can begin to make several claims as to the general shape that this theory must take. One of these, the concept of "MEST compression", is briefly outlined below. For good introductory surveys of each of these five MESTI properties of physical systems, you might investigate the following generalist works. Matter: The Magic Furnace, Marcus Chown, 2001; Energy: The Refrigerator and the Universe, Martin Goldstein, 1993; Space: Concepts of Space, Max Jammer, 1954/93; Time: About Time, Paul Davies, 1995. To sample some of the more grounded speculation on MEST's relationship to information, there are a range of interesting books available. Erwin Schrodinger's What is Life? 1944/92, Paul Churchland's Matter and Consciousness, 1988, and Wolfgang Hofkirchner's The Quest for a Unified Theory of Information, 1999, are all excellent places to start.
|
| |
|
MEST Compression: A Brief Introduction The developmental history of the universe, of life on Earth, and of human technological civilization may be briefly and elegantly summarized as doing more (universal computation, or processes of matter-energy transformation), better (more intelligently, morally, or in a more self-aware manner) with less (physical resources, or MEST per standard computation). Here on Earth, this process has gotten so advanced that it sometimes seems that a few decades (centuries?) hence humanity's descendants will be capable of doing "almost everything" with "virtually nothing" in terms of physical resources. I call this process MEST (Matter, Energy, Space, and Time) -compression, -efficiency, or -density, and it appears to be an unrealized attractor for the leading edge of complexity development, of emergent hierarchical intelligence, in the universe. The earliest scholarly writing I've been able to find on this concept comes from Buckminster Fuller, who in 1938 (Nine Chains to the Moon) described the process of "etherealization", a move of nature away from physicality and toward informational abstraction, and specifically, the use of less energy, volume, time, and mass "per each given level of functional performance." The latter terms, MEST density or MEST efficiency (per standard computation or physical transformation, however we define it) allows us to measure the resource reductions that we claim emerge with more developed systems. MEST "compression" then is the general and nonscientific label for this collection of observations. As a consequence of MEST compression, I believe we can say the following.
Here we mean inner space both in terms of 1) computational complexity (eg, the human and computer "minds" are where complexity and processes of change increasingly "go"), and 2) increasingly more localized zones of space and time being the ideal ecological niches for Earth's future intelligence. A black hole-equivalent transcension, not lightspeed expansion, seems likely to be the developmental destiny for the future of intelligence on all Earth-like planets. For more on this quite speculative concept, see the developmental singularity hypothesis on this website. Let us quickly look at MEST compression from each of the four MEST perspectives, to get a rough understanding of the process. 1. Matter Compression: Life's DNA and Drexler's Nanotechnology As Eric Drexler first explored in Engines of Creation (1986) technological systems (his example was the "rod logic computer") have tremendously greater capacity to compute and do physical processes (sensing, storage, fabrication, disassembly) than biological systems. As with artificial intelligence, which has exceeded human capacity in only very narrow ways today, our technologies have exceeded human physical capacities also in many narrow ways. But the most powerful and intelligent of all technological capacities will come from a program of miniaturizing them as effectively as possible. Likewise, we can understand the human organism, and the DNA guided protein synthesis and other molecular machinery on which we are based, as the most effective product yet of billennia of encoding of evolutionary intelligence in highly miniaturized molecular systems. Much more biologically inspired technology, and miniaturized technology, lies ahead for the future of our planet. In brief, we may consider both the emergence of DNA-based life and the putative nanotechnological systems to come as examples of the "Matter Compression" trajectory for universal intelligence development. 2. Energy Compression: Chaisson's Phi Eric Chaisson, in Cosmic Evolution (2001) has described universal development in terms of hierarchical levels of emergent complexity, each of which employs orders of magnitude greater free energy rate density (Phi) than the previous system from which it emerged. Chaisson's work provides a very helpful quantitative measure of energy flow density acceleration over time in dissipative structures. This "Energy compression" trajectory appears statistically directional, or developmental. 3. Space Compression: Locality Consider the history of of universal development of "hierarchical substrates", or physical systems which are both somewhat causally decoupled from and clearly more structurally complex than the systems which came before them. First, consider galaxies, which are a local subset of the universe. Second, consider replicating complex suns, which are a local subset of special galaxies. Third, consider biogenesis, the emergence of life on Earth. It once looked like life emerged in a warm pond and expanded outside its original computational environment into a larger spatial envelope. But more recent evidence (read Paul Davies, The Fifth Miracle, 2000 for an accessible account) strongly suggests that the cooling Earth, in toto, is best thought of as a catalyst for the emergence of archaebacteria, presumably in geothermal vents. Sulfide using life sprung forth as the Earth's crust itself was cooling, implying the entire planetary system was a geological catalyst primed for this emergence. Exactly where did life emerge in this complex adaptive geophysical system? In a local subset of Earthspace, specifically on the "sliver of surface," between magma and vacuum, that we call home. Fourth, consider the emergence of plant life. In another popular misconception, plants (and then tetrapods) "pioneered" the Earth's crust. But in reality, aerobic, anaerobic, and archaebacteria were there long before them, running perhaps miles deep all across the planet, as well as miles into the atmosphere. So where did these computationally accelerated new forms arise? Within a further restricted subset of the original developmental space. Fifth, consider the emergence of human civilization. In perhaps the most obvious misconception, we sometimes think of humans as spatial "pioneers" in comparision to the biota that spawned us. But intelligent humans have not, and if I am right, will never venture beyond the biosphere in an autonomous fashion. In each case, we see the next emergent substrate occupying a tiny spatial subset of the previous one. So it will soon be with tomorrows artificially intelligent technology, which will model the birth and death of the universe using highly miniaturized, energy efficient, and local technology. These are all examples of what we might call the "Space compression" trajectory of universal development. 4. Time Compression: Sagan's Cosmic Calendar Carl Sagan observed in his groundbreaking Cosmic Calendar metaphor (Dragons of Eden, 1977), that when we look back over our own evolutionary development in informational terms, we are struck by the clearly accelerating succession of information processing emergences (e.g., galactic, stellar, planetary-molecular/chemetic, cellular/genetic, neurologic, cultural/memetic, and technologic/technetic "intelligence" eras) in universal time. Experts may disagree on boundary definitions, or specifically, what physical-computational structures represent the next important emergence at any point in the chain. But while boundary definitions are abitrary, the accelerating temporal pattern of emergence is not. These are all examples of what we might call the "Time compression" trajectory of universal development. Explaining this accelerating succession may be the most important challenge of our era. We live on the threshold of a coming singularity in these successions, as observed from our unmodified biological perspective. As evidence of this, technological change has already become near-instantaneous at the circuit-electron level in a variety of our silicon sytems, and in coming years is sure to become effectively (never actually, of course) instantaneous at progressively higher levels of machine intelligence. It is now becoming clear that that technological acceleration is simply the latest manifestation of a universal developmental trajectory of continually increasing MEST compression (MEST efficiency, or MEST density of computation and computation-related physical transformation) within each new substrate emergence in universal history. An important generalization of MEST compression observations is what I have called a "Law of Locally Asymptotic Computation", the ideal that all computing becomes increasingly local and increasingly asymptotic, terminating at the event horizon of a black hole. I'll explore these processes, and their implications for our near-term future, in greater detail in my forthcoming book.
|
|
MEST vs TSEM: A Nomenclature of Preference The illustrious science-fiction author Damien Broderick has helpfully noted that a more appropriate order of presentation of these four classic observables might be the more awkward "TSEM," ("MEST" in reverse) given that first Time, then Space (inflationary theory), then Energy, then hadronic and finally regular Matter apparently precipitated out in a sequential pattern into our particular universe during its early development. Yet I prefer the alliterativeness and modularity (matter-energy (M-E) and space-time (S-T) of the MEST acronym, and it has some history of use by systems theorists, so I will continue to use it as such. Finally, I must admit that I like the "tangibility" bias of the MEST acronym. On first approximation, it seems to me that special forms of Matter (human beings, and even more so, their technologies), are using Energy ever more efficiently, to further localize themselves and their informational constructs in Space (miniaturization), and do more physical transformations and computation in less Time (instantaneity) per standard process or computation, in a fascinating pattern of continually accelerating technological change. I realize this is probably a bias (I am as much a "time being" as a "material being", yet it is a bias I am comfortable with nonetheless. Let us hope it is a relatively benign one, in terms of generating useful insight into the world at large.
|
| |
| Information as a Special Perspective on MEST Change In our modern materialist worldview, we don't generally consider Information as a separate substance or entity from the physical MEST that encodes and generates it. Instead, scientists usually propose that information theory is essentially another, more holistic way to view the evolutionary developmental changes that occur within our physical MEST universe over time. This view of information-processing as another, perhaps more holistic perspective on the evolutionary development of the MEST universe, might be diagrammed as something like "MEST = I", in a yin-yang relationship, using two different filters to view the same process, if we were to represent the relation in an acronym. An increasing number of systems theorists (see, for example, Wolfgang Hofkirchner, The Quest for a Unified Theory of Information, 1999) consider the flow of information, and the increasing value or meaning of emergent information, as the most fundamentally useful way to understand reality. This has been called the "infopomorphic" paradigm. In other words, the most fundamental bias in this world view is not anthropomorphism (the specialness of the human form) but infopomorphism (the special function of information in controlling and describing the universe). Both are clearly biases, but there appears to be much more evidence for the latter than the former in universal structure and process. From the infopomorphic perspective, humans constitute a brief and transitional phase at the leading edge of the local development of cosmic intelligence--no strong anthropomorphism there. But the same time, there appears to be good reason to have mild anthropomorphic bias (e.g., humans are special, in the sense that they are currently the most complex local form of information processing, and anthropic parameters in universal design appear to be tuned to cause the developmental emergence of humanoid forms). Nevertheless, it is very easy to take this anthropomorphism too far, as is done, I feel, among those humans who think that the universe was designed for humanity as an end product. A strong and unjustified anthropomorphism also surfaces among those feel that humanity's destiny is to some how stay in control of, and superior to, exponentiating technological development, a wish, as we will discuss later, that seems entirely unsupportable given both the past history of substrate emergence and the recent history of technological development. A lot more remains to be understood on the interrelationships between matter, energy, space, time, and information. It is most common today, given the fantastic success of reductionism, to consider parameters, forces, physical laws, and bodies of scientific theory as the "root elements" of universal change. That clearly remains the most effective investigatory approach within any scientific discipline. But to gain a broad qualitative and intuitive understanding of the impact of physics on universal change, to understand the way that human will influences physics, and the way that cosmic intelligence is itself constrained by physics, to understand the global features, properties, trajectory, and perhaps even the teleology,or purpose of the entire system, as a whole, we need to move beyond MEST into MESTI conceptualizations, tentative as they are at this early stage of our science. Today, we find that contemplating which changes are induced in the "MEST" of the universe by information (both our scientific laws and the less quantifiable forms of information in the domain of living systems) remains the most useful and concise conceptual approach to understanding the future that is presently accessible to human thinkers. As systems theorists, it appears that the Jainists discovered this strategy almost three millennia ago. Yet information can also be considered in its own right. Like modern information theorists, early Jainists proposed there was a universal substance that deserved its own unique class, a "knowing substance." And they saw a duality between these two forms more than two millennia before Descartes. Today, many systems theorists would call this first concept information, or computation, or complexity. Like the Jains, we know that information is also "something special." It apparently arises out of, and constrains the further evolutionary development of MEST structures over time. As Daniel Dennett observes, while it is at least grossly true that we may accurately describe a human being as a "complicated washing machine" using our most intricate physics, at the same time we know that such a reductionist description, however detailed, misses the subjective perception of one's own consciousness, an emergent informational property. This perception may still be entirely constrained by and representable within MEST physics (or not), but it also demands to be considered as a special perspective on MEST reality. Therefore, trying to understand change from a MESTI perspective engages us in a dance that employs both the Cartesian duality of mind and matter, and a smaller number of nondualist approaches (as in Taoist cosmology) that refuse to separate the two. As we learn the interrelationships between MEST and information, it is likely that both dualistic and holistic approaches will continue to be necessary. Note also that the informational perspective on the universe has, on its own, a great explanatory and simplification power. All our oral and written conceptual history, for example, could be considered one crude window on informational evolutionary development, without considering the details of the MEST that this information "lives within." Does information, or constraining pattern, have its own unique existence? It certainly appears so. For example, modern reductionist neuroscience attempts to explain humans in terms of localized action potentials and synaptic activity, e.g., MEST. Yet we know that this is not enough. Humans are also motivated by goals, deductive and inductive thinking, emotions, intuitions. Much of this is in the realm of information. Our reductionist sensibilities tell us that all our motivating information must also be encoded in specific physical structures. Yet we always find it inordinately powerful to say, for example, that I did a good deed for her because I love her, or because she said so-and-so to me, each compact bits of communicated information, a vastly efficient shorthand for all the brain states that affect my thoughts and behaviors. The specific MEST states in that situation are so complex it will take an AI to eventually model them (for its own purposes, not ours) and so humanity has permanently moved to this plane of informational shorthand to do our computations of human motivation. Note also that this shorthand has its own motivating capacity--if I hear someone has poorly treated a friend, another compact piece of information, I engage in shock, anger, and other MEST-based responses. It is true that it always takes MEST to communicate information, so there is no need for invoking a vital substance, as we never lose a materialist connection. But even MEST encoding gets significantly more efficient with time, in a process apparently directed by information flow, as allowed by the physics of the universe we inhabit. Something curious is afoot. Can we say that information, like space and time, is a dimension of the universe? Such speculation is certainly interesting, but lacks conviction at the present time. On the supporting side, consider that we can move to environments of greater and lower information, or lower and higher meaning levels, just like near and far, or past and future events. Furthermore, we see a particular accelerating trajectory to local information-processing, just as we see a particular arrow to one of the spacetime dimensions (e.g., the forward flow of time). Alternatively, rather than (or in addition to?) a dimension, we can consider information a particular pattern, or restricted arrangement of MEST. Information can thus be understood as a constraint on MEST, and physical law a more fundamental form of such informational constraint. Matter and energy constrain space and time (e.g., warp it or shrink or dilate it in high-matter zones). Information may primarily constrain matter and energy, and only secondarily constrain space and time. Thus we get I-->M-E-->S-T for our acronym of hierarchical emergence and constraint. This is alluringly simple, but we can also envision ways that space and time constrain matter, energy, and information, depending on what we mean by "constraint." As William James so carefully observed more than a century ago in Principles of Psychology, 1890/1995, the maddening dualism between mind (information) and body (MEST) will likely be with us for some time to come. Another careful observer, Timothy Ferris, has proposed that a fundamental advance in our understanding of information theory is perhaps both the most needed and the most expected new breakthrough on the horizon for twenty-first century science. As a scientific concept, information (and its correlate--meaning, or value) is even more nebulous than time and gravity, truly one of the outstanding riddles and challenges for materialist description. Nevertheless, we should be on the lookout for a future "Einstein of information theory." As the likelihood and trajectory of the coming singularity (generally human-surpassing technological intelligence) become clearer to scientific observation in coming decades, such a simplification may finally be reasonably expected to emerge.
|