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Why do we exist? For centuries, this question was the sole province of religion and philosophy. But now science is ready to take a seat at the table. According to the prevailing scientific paradigm, the universe tends toward randomness; it functions according to laws without purpose, and the emergence of life is an accident devoid of meaning. But this bleak interpretation of nature is currently being challenged by cutting-edge findings at the intersection of physics, biology, neuroscience, and information theory—generally referred to as “complexity science.” Thanks to a new understanding of evolution, as well as recent advances in our understanding of the phenomenon known as emergence, a new cosmic narrative is taking shape: Nature’s simplest “parts” come together to form ever-greater “wholes” in a process that has no end in sight. In The Romance of Reality, cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian explains the science behind this new view of reality and explores what it means for all of us. In engaging, accessible prose, Azarian outlines the fundamental misunderstanding of thermodynamics at the heart of the old assumptions about the universe’s evolution, and shows us the evidence that suggests that the universe is a “self-organizing” system, one that is moving toward increasing complexity and awareness. Cosmologist and science communicator Carl Sagan once said of humanity that “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself.” The Romance of Reality shows that this poetic statement in fact rests on a scientific foundation and gives us a new way to know the cosmos, along with a riveting vision of life that imbues existence with meaning—nothing supernatural required. Table of Contents PRAISE FOR THE ROMANCE OF REALITY 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS 9 INTRODUCTION 13 PART ONE: ORIGINS 19 A NEW BEGINNING 20 Darwin Explained How Life Evolves, Not How It Emerged 21 Life Is Not a Fluke 22 Energy as the Fundamental Organizer 24 ENERGY, ENTROPY, AND THE PARADOX OF LIFE 26 Entropy: A Complex and Confusing Term 26 Boltzmann Entropy: A Measure of Statistical Disorder 29 Microstates Versus Macrostates 30 The Birth of Statistical Mechanics 31 The Way to Evade a Disordered Fate 32 Schrödinger Solves the Paradox of Life 32 UNRAVELING THE MYSTERY OF LIFE 35 Extending Thermodynamic Theory 35 Spontaneous Self-Organization and the Second Law 36 Attractors Create Order by Constraining Chaos 38 The Birth of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics 38 A New Paradigm for Understanding Life 39 Collective Autocatalysis Catalyzes Creation 41 THE EMERGENCE OF LIFE ON EARTH 44 Energy Flow, Organization, and Metabolism 44 Life: The Universe’s Great Balancing Act 46 Phase Transition Theory and the Origin of Life 47 Questions and Conclusions 48 The Game Changer Is Agency 50 The Unreasonable Robustness of Biology 51 BIOLOGICAL INFORMATION AND COMPUTATION 53 What Is Information? 54 Information According to Shannon 54 Living Systems Are Informational Systems 56 Living Systems Are Computational Systems 59 PART TWO: EVOLUTION 62 NATURAL SELECTION AND KNOWLEDGE CREATION 63 Characteristics of Agency 63 The Need for Knowledge 64 A Unifying Theory of Reality 66 The Problem of Epistemology 66 Karl Popper’s Epistemological Epiphanies 68 Adaptive Learning = Hypothesis Testing 71 Evolution Is a Knowledge Creation Process 72 Evolutionary Epistemology: A Unifying Paradigm 73 Adaptations Encode Knowledge 74 Nature Selects the Most Stable Configurations 75 Universal Bayesianism Updates Evolutionary Epistemology 76 Life Is a Signal Among Molecular Noise 77 Putting All the Puzzle Pieces Together 78 Origins Finally Explained 80 Evolution as an Inference Engine 82 A UNIFYING THEORY OF REALITY 84 Unification over Reduction 85 Life Is Not a Fleeting Moment 86 The Universe: A Work in Progress 87 Demystifying Evolutionary Progress 89 Naturalizing Cosmic Teleology with Natural Selection 90 The Case Against Evolutionary Progress 92 Making the Case for Evolutionary Progress 94 THE INTEGRATED EVOLUTIONARY SYNTHESIS 96 The Power of Prediction 97 Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Learning 97 Weeding Out Unstable Energy Flow Channels 98 We Are a Way for the Cosmos to Know Itself 99 Evolution’s Arrow Emerges from Knowledge Accumulation 100 The Laws of Life 102 Redefining Fitness in Thermodynamic Terms 103 Evolution Increases Empowerment 105 The Relationship Between Entropy and Uncertainty 105 The Good Regulator Theorem and the Law of Requisite Variety 106 Niche Emergence Drives Complexification 108 Energy Flow as a Measure of Complexity 109 A New Measure of Complexity 110 HIERARCHICAL EMERGENCE 112 A New Spin on the Second Law 112 One Cohesive Cosmic Story 113 Poetic Meta-Naturalism 115 We Are Loops 115 Self-Reference 117 We Have Levels 118 Evolving Beyond Earth 121 Blind Variation and Selective Retention 122 The Meaning Is in the Metaphor 123 The Biosphere Is an Autocatalytic Set 124 Synergistic Collective Configurations 125 All Species Matter 127 Steps on the Cosmic Ladder 128 The Gaia Hypothesis 129 The Biosphere Becomes an Organism 131 Meta-Evolution 132 PART THREE: TRANSCENDENCE 134 THE MIND-BODY MYSTERY 135 The Self-Organizing Universe Wakes Up 136 What Is Consciousness? 137 What Is Real? 137 I Think, Therefore I Am 138 The Logic of Laplace 140 The Slow Death of Determinism 141 Laplace’s Demon Is Truly Evil 142 Cognitive Science Saves the Day 143 Consciousness as Integrated Information 144 Integrated Information Theory’s Panpsychism Problem 146 CAUSAL EMERGENCE AND FREE WILL 148 The Many Meanings of “Mind” 148 Levels of Agent Causation 149 Unconscious Agency: The First Level of Control 152 The Macrostate Is What Matters 154 How Brains Bring About Observers 157 THE STRANGE LOOP THAT SPAWNS THE SELF 159 The Unprovable Paradox 160 The Mind Is Not a Turing Machine 161 Self-Reference as the Source of Self 162 The Neural Correlates of Consciousness 163 Feedback Loops Create Consciousness 164 Global Neuronal Workspace Theory 165 Integrated World Modeling Theory 166 Clearing the Confusion About Free Will 168 The Curious Compatibility of Destiny and Free Will 170 TRANSCENDENCE AND ENLIGHTENMENT 173 The Global Mind Wakes Up 174 Loops + Levels = Lift Off 175 A Happy Ending Means No Ending at All 176 Reaching a Maximal State of Complexity 178 A Natural Worldview for the Spiritual and the Secular 179 The Fine-Tuning Problem 181 Fine-Tuning Solutions 182 The Multiverse Conundrum 183 Cosmological Natural Selection 185 Making Sense of Quantum Mechanics 187 Refuting the Many-Worlds Hypothesis 189 The Quantum-to-Classical Transition—A Form of Natural Selection 190 What Does a Self-Organizing Universe Mean for Humanity? 191 The Road to Omega 192 NOTES 196 Chapter 1 196 Chapter 3 196 Chapter 4 196 Chapter 5 196 Chapter 6 196 Chapter 7 197 Chapter 8 198 Chapter 9 198 Chapter 10 199 Chapter 11 199 Chapter 12 199 Chapter 13 199 "In The Romance of Reality, cognitive neuroscientist Bobby Azarian explains the science behind this new view of reality and explores what it means for all of us. In engaging, accessible prose, Azarian outlines the fundamental misunderstanding of thermodynamics at the heart of the old assumptions about the universe's evolution, and shows us the evidence that suggests that the universe is a "self-organizing" system, one that is moving toward increasing complexity and awareness"-- Provided by publisher