In physics we tend to stick to asking what happened, how did it happen? We like to describe, usually in minute details. We like to use the smallest possible components, "building blocks", "unit cells".
But there are other ways to think about physical reality. We can ask why did it happen? Was there a reason, or a reason it seems to have a reason? We can go beyond describing and try to explain, motivate. We can see beyond parts and think in terms of systems and wholes.
This shift in thought brings us to the next $40,000 FQXi essay contest, brought to you with our partners at The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation!
This year's theme is: Wandering Towards a Goal - How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intentions?
One way to think of physics is as a set of mathematical laws of dynamics. These laws provide predictions by carrying conditions at one moment of time inexorably into the future. But many phenomena admit another description - sometimes a vastly more useful one - in terms of long-term, large-scale goals, aims, and intentions.
The motion of the most basic particle can be described by the action of forces moment by moment or as the attempt to extremize an action integral, calculated over the particle's entire path throughout time. Many-body systems can seem hopelessly complex when looked at in terms of their constituents' detailed dynamic motions, but neatly elegant when viewed as attempting to minimize energy or maximize entropy. Living systems efficiently organize their simplest components with the intricate aims of survival, reproduction, and other biological ends; and intelligent systems can employ a panoply of physical effects to accomplish many flexibly chosen goals.
How does this work? How do goal-oriented systems arise, and how do they exist and function in a world that we can describe in terms of goal-free mathematical evolution?
Relevant essays might address questions such as:
* How did physical systems that pursue the goal of reproduction arise from an a-biological world?
* What general features -- like information processing, computation, learning, complexity thresholds, and/or departures from equilibrium -- allow (or proscribe) agency?
* How are goals (versus accomplishments) linked to "arrows of time"?
* What separates systems that are intelligent from those that are not? Can we measure this separation objectively and without requiring reference to humans?
* What is the relationship between causality - the explanation of events in terms of causes - and teleology - the explanation of events in terms of purposes?
* Is goal-oriented behavior a physical or cosmic trend, an accident or an imperative?
We are accepting entries from now until March 3, 2017, with winners announced in June. The contest rules will operate as in past contests. Please read the contest pages for instructions and full rules.
The contest is open to anyone, so please share this info with everyone. Good luck and good writing!