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From Physics To Biology And Society : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR

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In the rich and novel Galilean relationship between experiments and theories,
physical theorizing is meant to provide intelligibility of phenomena as well as
predictability: one first observes and measures, then the theory should produce a
prediction capable of confirming it.
The scientifically expected future was set at the core of the understanding of modern
science. And prediction is done in the space and time of physical events,
mathematically described by the Cartesian analytic representation of space enriched
by Galileo's relativity: the modern space-time of phenomena is born by an analysis on
how to go from one (Cartesian) reference system to another and preserve the physical
laws, inertial movement in particular. In the pre-given space-time of possible
trajectories, the invariants are described as symmetries by Galileo's group.
I would ascribe, though, the turning point towards the myth of a scientific expectation
of a possible (and predictable) future to the early Italian Renaissance.
The rational insight into the future, within a given space of possibilities, goes back to
the appreciation of progress, and of possible estimates of it, in Italy, in the XIV and
XV century. This is when both modern technologies began to change the world and
bankcredit was invented.
Lending money was finally allowed, in particular under the form of the "letters of
credit" or early paper money. No more a sin, one could bet on possible future
progress, obtain money from a bank, then invest, expect the return of the money, plus
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From Physics To Biology And Society : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR

interest, and also obtain personal gain.

It was an economic and a conceptual revolution.
There was no magic in the expectation of progress and a foreseeable future, but
rational knowledge. Of course, hazards are possible, but within a perfectly pre-given
space of possibilities: like throwing dice it is a risk, but within the six possible
outputs, no more, no less. betting is rational: one can compute the probabilities and
evaluate the risk.
And the society of an expected future progress, in a predeterminedlistof possible
worlds, begins. The society where one can dare to borrow and lend money as well as
construct scientific knowledge within mathematically pre-determined space-time; a
science, where it is possible to predict, by a scientific theory, the output of an
experiment.
Later on, as Stuart Kauffman observed in last week's blog post, Newton and Laplace
gave us the mathematics of modern "state determined systems". Indeed, by solving
equations, Laplace says, "one must be able to predict all future event of mechanics"
(celestial mechanics, but he thinks to the entire physical world).
Pascal's and Laplace's analysis of probabilities scientifically deal also with
unpredictability, but randomness is extraneous to the mathematical determination.
Anyway, for them, unpredictable events happen within the pre-determined Cartesian
space of all possible trajectories and facts.
Much later, quantum mechanics will integrate randomness in the theory, under the
form of intrinsic indetermination. Yet, the space of possible trajectories and events
will still be mathematically predetermined, whether they be infinite or even infinite
dimensional Hilbert and Fock spaces. By a finite axiomatization we give them a
priori and they may accommodate the most unpredictable quantum event. Now, the
finitedescription of these possibly infinite spaces, from Descartes to quantum spaces,
is made possible by their regularities: they are given in terms of mathematical
symmetries (as sets of invariants and invariant preserving transformations).

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From Physics To Biology And Society : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR

I think that this is where we are stuck now: in the analysis of the living, both as
biological and as societal entities, we are understanding that there is no way to
(mathematically) pre-determine the very space of possible evolutions, an idea hinted
at 11 years ago by Kauffman (and proposed also in 2006, in my book with Bailly,
following a different conceptual path). Let's try to further specify this intuition.
The randomness of dice or coin flipping, of a quantum event, as I said, takes place is a
pre-given spaces of possible dynamics and symmetries govern these spaces. In
contrast to this, there is no way to predetermine the space of possible future
phenotypes (biological forms) along evolution.
In no way was there a sign of the nose of mammals in the bacterial DNA of 600
million years ago. But even next century's list of possible biological events,
eukaryotes' forms for example, is not in mathematically pre-given spaces: along
evolution, phenotypes and ecosystems coconstitute themselves and jointlyproduce
space of possibilities.
The symmetries that beautifully ruled physics, are continually changed: biology is a
neveridentical iteration of a morphogenetic process, which simultaneously shapes
the ecosystem. Structural stability preserves some global symmetries (eg. basic bodily
bauplans), but each mitosis is a symmetry change: the two novel cells are never
identical, not even to the mother cell. And this is fundamental to understand
variability and diversity that are at the core of evolution and ontogenesis. The
permanent change contributes to the very robustness of life, as adaptability and as
modifying force of the very ecosystem.
Mathematics is a science of invariants and invariant preserving transformations, thus
of symmetries. Shall we be able to invent new mathematics to deal with continual
symmetry changes? Why not? The founding fathers invented their tools, the
mathematics of invariance. Anyway, we need to dare, in order to deal with life as well
as with economics, far away from the absurd theories of equilibrium. It does not exist
in an ecosystem nor in a society, unless everybody is dead. And the need for a change
comes also from the crisis of the bank lending system which started the whole story
six centuries ago.
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From Physics To Biology And Society : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR

These audacious and once fruitful bets on a foreseeable future, in a mastered list of
possibilities, have now become the pure transfer of richness towards the richest, by
the refined mathematics of finance. Its aim is not prediction, but to construct new
possibilities for bets, to shape the unforeseeable markets and to distribute the risk
maximally, so that the Chinese workers will buy the debts of the bets on a totally
unpredictable risks taken by American finance.
The theoretical challenge is thus to invent tools for understanding, not necessarily for
prediction (Darwin's evolution predicts nothing yet it is knowledge). Qualitative
estimates on the effects of an activity may allow us to act on the world, if these
estimates are grounded on criteria of robustness of development, as (increasing)
diversity and adaptability. These words, in a societal context, mean democracy and
justice.
As for biology, in a book and in several downloadable papers, with Bailly and
Montvil, we hinted at novel conceptual (and mathematical) structures which aim at
a better understanding of the physical singularity of the living state of matter: the
change of perspective on symmetries is at the core of our scientific proposal.
Predictability, not even of the space of possibilities, is no longer at the center of
knowledge construction. This construction aims at the understanding of the historical
contingency of life (and, eventually, society), at the awareness of the role of our action
in a totally unpredictable world, where we judge for the better, by making explicit the
perspective (and values) that guide our acts.
GiuseppeLongohasbeenaprofessorofmathematicallogicandofComputer
ScienceattheUniversityofPisa.HeiscurrentlyDirecteurdeRechercheCNRSat
theEcoleNormaleSuprieure,Paris.HeiseditorinchiefofMathematical
Structures in Computer Science.Herecentlyextendedhisresearchinterestsand
worktotheepistemologyofmathematicsandtheoreticalbiology.

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