The Sophistry of Assembly Theory
July 15, 2023 4 minutes • 761 words
Table of contents
Assembly Theory is a sophistry that tries to bridge Biology and Physics.
In a previous version of this post, we pointed out its error in confusing physical time with mental time.
In this revised post, we point out that it is actually a philosophical Theory of Change pretending to be scientific theory of evolution that combines Physics and Biology.
This we could do after actually simplifying its paper and converting science-jargon into plain English.
Basically, Assembly Theory tries to unify the evolution of Physics quantum particles with the evolution of life via natural selection.
It does this by applying the dynamism of living evolution to the static and chance-based evolution of nonliving particles.
It gets a log of changes and then makes an index for those changes. This index is really a pattern of changes that led to a successful evolution.
Evolved living things are necessarily more complex than less-evolved ones. Therefore, highly evolved organisms have a high index. Simple non-evolved things have a low index.
The index value shows the operation of some mechanism that decides change.
If, instead, certain combinations are preferentially used, it means that a mechanism exists that selects:
- the specific evolutionary operations and
- the specific target living things to be generated.
The paper does not explain this mechanism at all. Therefore it is useless and does not add anything new.
Instead, it mixes up the conscious evolution done by a living thing by itself, with the non-conscious evolution that happens to physical things, like how one molecule turns into a more complex one.
By this mixing up, it claims to unify biological evolution with physics evolution.
Within its paper, this becomes obvious when it applied this index to nonliving things that also ’evolve’, such as “polymers, cell morphology, graphs, images, computer programs, human languages and memes”, etc.
From there, it switched from biological evolution which is decided by the living thing itself, into physics evolution where the changes are decided not by the thing.
Then it decrees that it had unified biological changes with physical changes:
We unify key features of life with physics nonliving things by showing:
- how the generation of new things happen through natural selection through time.
- how measuring change identifies how much selection occurred*
We take phenomena and impose selection in our examples. This demonstrates the foundational principles of how change quantifies choice.
It then uses an experiment on nonliving polymers to apply the index. Of course, the results matches its assumptions because change is the necessary effect of choice.
This mixing up of internally-caused-changes with externally-caused-ones just produce something seemingly groundbreaking but is really false and confusing is similar to Einstein mixing up inertial mass (Newtonian) with electromagnetic mass (Quantum).
Einstein decreed that mass is energy and so now you have electrons suddenly having mass, as MeV, even if they are probabilistic and not even inertial. We assert that particle ‘mass’, measured in volts, should be renamed as ‘potential’ in order to separate it from Newtonian mass, measured in kilograms.
Similarly, natural biological evolution is decided by the mind of that organism, whereas natural physics evolution is decided by the external environment or factors or minds.
So What Is Assembly Theory Good For?
The unification of biological evolution with physics-evolution, as well as that of Classical Newtonian Mass and Quantum Electromagentic Potential, is done through the Aether, which is the highest Element in the 5 Elements or 5 Forces model.
In other words, the concept of the Aether unifies all sciences, whether Classical Physics with Quantum Physics, or Biology with Physics.
In fact, we began by unifying Economics with Physics by making a direct analogy of our new “Four Laws of Exchangeable Value” with the Four Laws of Thermodynamics. The price of a commodity is high and is therefore ‘hot’ if it is energetically desired or produced, just as a low-priced item is cold, having less aethreal desire for it, or needing low energy and aethreal effort to produce.
To have a high value in society, humans therefore need to be highly desirable or to have a high potential for aethreal effort and internal energy.
Assembly theory also picks up this intuition somewhat through its Assembly Index.
So it validates our aether model in the sense that evolution, complexity, and refinement correlate with a higher aether content. Low aether content organisms and things are less evolved and have less potential for a rich variety of experience and expressions.
