Return of the Law of Forms
Not idealistic though
The idea of a Law of Form is ancient.
For example:
"...The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; The name that can be named is not the eternal name. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth..." (Tao Te Ching).
"I am; that is who I am." (Exodus 3:14)
"The Father and I are one." (John 10:30).
"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may also be one in us: that the world may believe that thou has sent me."
"All creatures derive from God and from nothingness. Their self-being is of God, their nonbeing is of nothing" - Leibniz
And lots more in that vein.
People haven't thought that way in a while.
Interestingly, in a recent book What Darwin Got Wrong Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini (henceforth F-P) argue that natural selection is not finding those solutions - it is driven to them by a law of form of some sort. They see this as somehow a refutation of natural selection.
What would the saw of form they are talking about be like? Let's try to see.
Cellular automata provide an interesting tool for philosophers because they enable 'toy universes' where things can happen according to a set of rules that can be completely understood.
A cellular automaton (CA) space is completely determined.
I have written my own programs that create them but today I played with a free one called Golly.
If I make a random squiggle on the screen and run then there is an explosion of seemingly random flashing pixels that would a few shapes on the screen.
It's those shapes I'd like to consider - why are they there?
Basically they are the few pixel arrangements that are stable over time.
Every once in a while, at random, a stable shape would be formed, and when most pixels were off those shapes persisted.
Perhaps we can use this as an abstract example of a rule of form. A form that exists because it can.
We find rules of form often in nature. There is quite a clear relation between bone size and animal weight for instance.
Or think of the fractal vascular structure so common in nature. Many many biological systems have vascular systems that obey. exactly the same math.
Why are these structures there?
For reasons very similar to the persistent shapes in the CA - because they can and once found they persist.
The mechanism at work is difference of course.
Vascular systems work under two constraints; to serve as many cells as possible as efficiently as possible. The mainstream view is that Natural Selection will SORTA search a huge possibility space to find optimal solutions to situations. The mainstream view of Natural Selection is also that it's not limited to one mode. It doesn't just work by causing mutations that are selected. Any change, whether at the level of phenotype or ecoysystem or climate or asteroid strikes or laws of form is grist for Natural Selection's mill.
Perhaps we could soothe Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini's fevered brow by offering this olive branch.
Natural selection has selected a particular form because that form really is the best.
But it's still natural selection doing the choosing.
What do you think?
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.