In a recent episode of MinutePhysics, Max, the
storyteller-producer, asks, Is the universe entirely mathematical? He thinks Yes.
He concedes that people fall in love and call sheep ‘cute’ and experience other properties that aren’t mathematical, but, at the end of the day, a sheep’s electrons don’t care if it is cute or if they are cute.
True, but you know who cares? Other sheep. Yes, they are electrical too, but, unlike the directives of an electron, they are called on by biology to survive. They are called on by the chemical rulebook of the initial replicators whose activities included protection and reproduction to sustain their existence as long as possible and as well as possible.
In this survival directive lies the crux of why, despite being strictly physical, life does not feel that way. If we didn’t need to live on, we wouldn't need to eat or to see food as good (tasty). We wouldn't need to make friends (protection) or avoid enemies (danger). If living on was not a sought-after outcome, none of the subjective characteristics with which animals imbue their surroundings would exist. There would not “love,” “cute,” “mean,” or “tasty.”
If you don’t care what happens to you, you are mathematical. If you care what happens to you, you are mathematical with a feedback loop. The questions the loop tests for are:
1.) Are you in homeostasis? (Are you living?)
2.) If you are, in which direction is the rate of change of the condition? Is homeostasis destabilizing or increasing?
Any event that would decrease homeostasis is perceived by creatures sensitive to the state as negative, and any event that would stabilize decline or increase robustness is perceived as positive: food, water, shelter, friendship, mates.
The world is full of “cute” and “ugly” for mathematical forms with the sustainability directive because having a cause like survival requires gauging surroundings. An electron which cares whether it is free or bound would need to decide whether an object is positive or negative for it based on the needs of its directive result. .
Biology, in asking for longevity from its structures, must ask for value judgments. Heavy, complicated, endless value judgments. And there we have the world of people. The world of “Too late!” “Hurray!" and "Ouch."
Outside of biology, math works everywhere - no problem. Inside biology, math is on a bicycle, headed in a direction. It’s still Math but it has to not fall off and so it pays special attention to the road.
