{"id":481,"date":"2008-01-22T14:02:37","date_gmt":"2008-01-22T22:02:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/22\/a-formal-proof-of-panpsychism-and-hylozoism\/"},"modified":"2008-01-22T14:31:30","modified_gmt":"2008-01-22T22:31:30","slug":"a-formal-proof-of-panpsychism-and-hylozoism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2008\/01\/22\/a-formal-proof-of-panpsychism-and-hylozoism\/","title":{"rendered":"A Formal Proof of Panpsychism and Hylozoism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been busy working on my novel Hylozoic<\/em>. I finally got into Chapter Seven<\/a>, my second chapter set in Bosch\u2019s home town<\/a>. (Part of the first chapter set in Bosch\u2019s town was in Flurb #4<\/a><\/em>). It\u2019s bawdy and medieval and funny and I\u2019m happy to be writing and polishing my words. But I\u2019m not having much time to blog.<\/p>\n


\n[A 200 pound yam on Ponhpei in Micronesia: objective correlative for my Chapter Seven.]<\/p>\n

Sooo, for today, here\u2019s a nine-step argument that everything is conscious (panpsychism) and that everything is alive (hylozoism). While getting ready for Chapter 7 I wrote up this argument for my paper for the published proceedings of the \u201cWhat is Life?\u201d\u009d conference <\/a>I went to in Kyoto in Fall, 2007. You can see a PDF of a draft of the full paper online<\/a>, or just examine the bare-bones outline of the argument here.<\/p>\n


\n[Nick Herbert at his house last week, wearing his \u201cindescribable hat.\u201d\u009d]<\/p>\n

(1) Universal Automatism. <\/em>Every physical entity is a computation. (See The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul<\/a><\/em>, scroll to Chapter 1 on p. 4).<\/p>\n

(2) Moreover, every physical entity is a gnarly <\/em>computation. (See my YouTube “What is Gnarl” video, below.)<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

(3) Wolfram\u2019s Principle of Computational Equivalence. <\/em>Every naturally occurring gnarly computation is a universal computation. (See A New Kind of Science<\/a><\/em>, p. 715.)<\/p>\n

(4) Consciousness = Universal Computation + Self-Reflection.<\/p>\n


\n[Nick\u2019s outdoor bathtub.]<\/p>\n

(5) Any complex system can be regarded as having self-reflection.<\/p>\n

(6) Panpsychism<\/em>. Therefore every physical entity is conscious.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(7) Walker\u2019s Thesis. <\/em>Life = Universal Computation + Memory. (See Walker’s online paper.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

(8) Every physical entity has memory via its interactions with the universe.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

(9) Hylozoism<\/em>. Therefore every physical object is alive.<\/p>\n

Q.E.D.<\/b><\/p>\n


\n[Professor Rucker demonstrates the \u201crolling buffalo\u201d\u009d yoga asana at Nick\u2019s.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been busy working on my novel Hylozoic. I finally got into Chapter Seven, my second chapter set in Bosch\u2019s home town. (Part of the first chapter set in Bosch\u2019s town was in Flurb #4). It\u2019s bawdy and medieval and funny and I\u2019m happy to be writing and polishing my words. But I\u2019m not having […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}