This site is about how non-reductionism, i.e., holism, works technically. It is about strong emergence arising in millions of natural phenomena. More specific, it is about how consciousness and feeling emerges in neural networks. Emergence is based on a physical principle that I call “reductive freedom.” Reductive freedom arises when parts of a system do not fully determine the state of that system. This naturally happens when a system as a whole is stable or persistent but reacts on input, i.e., when it shows a certain behavior, as if the system ‘waits for’ or ‘reacts on’ input, i.e., when input and output mathematically have some symmetry. This naturally happens with millions of systems: While feedback mechanisms stabilize a system, modifying such feedback typically alters the state of the system without destroying it. The changed state is its ‘output.’ The connection between ‘input’ and ‘output’ is its behavior. When such systems interact, then, partly at least, reductionism ends and a new system or being emerges, witch may have its own time and space, though the time and space of its constituents is not lost, e.g., our thoughts (mental time-space) living in our brain (physical time-space). For a starter, read my article “To Emerge or Not To Emerge.” For physical examples see my article “The Freedom Law” — this was published in a physics journal (“International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer” (ICHMT)).

 

A prerequisite to understand my writing is understanding life in a physical sense, as defined by Adrian Bejan. In essence any system that has internal feedback mechanisms, which make it (partly or fully) persistent, is such life: Life is a flow-system of finite size that persists and evolves in time in its existence. So, “life” can refer to both animate and inanimate existences. The prototypical example is a meandering river. At some shape of a river the deposition and the taking away of sand will be such that the river stays in place. So the river flows freely but its shape or (self)design remains roughly the same. So, a flow-system is alive when and because it flows, and when it persists through or because of this flowing. The work of feedback mechanisms, or life, makes that reality is not determined by the forces of the smallest particles, but by larger, composite systems as a whole. All this is best described and explained in my article “To Emerge or Not To Emerge,” with some adjustments in “Bejan 2.0: Toward a More Refined Constructal Law.” My work shows the truth of emergence to reductionists.

 

In physics, dead, inanimate, ‘not-alive-anymore’ life, plays an important role. For instance, new atoms are alive and come into existence in heavy stars and in the big bang. Yet they are rather dead or ‘bricked’ at lower temperatures. But not completely dead, since chemical reactions are still possible. Our whole existence is or has been alive and evolving in this sense.

Such fixation is essential to most life. For instance, in a living creature, its DNA is rather fixed or ‘dead’ (ontogenetically). But DNA does evolve and is physically alive evolutionary, at a species level (phylogenically). Regarding the example of a river being alive, the fixation of its design is largely due to to the earth that it flows in. So, ‘death’ is, as source of persistence, (almost?) always part of life. DNA and rivers need flow and live to not disappear from earth, while most atoms do not need such processes.

 

I like to see my writing as ‘truth-art.’ For me, science provides the paint that I create with. This is much like what a theoretician does, but an artist works alone, finding out-of-the-box newness by being ignorant of that very box. Truths, laws, predictions, terms, and concepts (i.e., language, theories, words, and mathematics) show the freedom (i.e., the possibilities) of reality. They refer to systems, things, or beings that have and use behavior or energy, and which themselves consist of other systems. When what the words describe indeed exists, then they bring the universe to life in our minds and intuition, and then much of reality can be intuitively and logically deduced. Most satisfying, after having acquired lots of knowledge, is the magic of putting one’s (clear or flawed) intuition into words; learning from one’s own knowledge and mistakes; making one’s intuition more exact; often starting from a spark from someone else. One goes from intuition, through rigorous wording, while listening well to any doubt or voice, back to intuition. To forget is more important than to know, in order to gain an ever growing, living intuition and pleasure in life.

 

 

Subtitle: Reductive Freedom creates Life, Being and Death

(PDF on this site here) (Dutch PDF on this site here)
Published as a preprint at https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/dy69c_v2.
(Dutch version: https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/yn7jx_v2.)

Compared to the newer article “The Freedom Law,” mentioned below, this article explains Adrian Bejan’s constructal law. Also, it delves deeper into the idea of dead physical structures, and what that means. It contains a highly speculative and surely wrong theory of how gravity and general relativity could have emerged out of the quantum mechanical ‘realm.’ I am not a physicist so I cannot do much better than what I wrote, but I left it in because I think most physicists will not see this option to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity.

 

This article explains strong emergence in reductionist terms. Two laws are introduced which predict the structure of reality from general relativity to consciousness. The freedom law predicts (in a reducible way) how and when a new system, ‘life’, or even new ‘matter’, can emerge and where reducibility ends. Here life is defined physically as a flow-system of finite size that persists in time in its existence (and that provides ever easier access to the imposed currents that flow through it). The law of life, or Bejan's “constructal law”, predicts how this system or life will evolve or die. If it persists then it is either dead in the sense of being ‘bricked’, or it is alive in the sense that it persists in its “design” while being a process. The evolving structure entails and explains Ellis’ Evolving Block Universe. Mostly these “blocks” have been ‘alive’ at least physically. But there exists much more emergence than these blocks. As an illustration and elaboration these laws are applied to brain and consciousness, and to the unification of quantum mechanics and general relativity – to universal life, and to the life of the universe.

 

Published in “International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer” (ICHMT) on June, 2024.
Direct link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icheatmasstransfer.2024.107516.
If you do not have access to that, you can read it here as a pdf.
This article follows the speech I had to give at the 12th Constructal Law Conference in Torino, Italy, in 2023. You can view the presentation slides here, and the slides with my intended speech here.

New and interesting with regard to my previous article (mentioned above) are the thermodynamical examples, plus a more detailed explanation of how and why consciousness arises in specific neural networks. The thermodynamical examples give a good insight in how the freedom law works in relatively simple systems. Consciousness, and especially feelings and qualia, are to be even more fully explained in a new book.

 

 

This article explains (strong) emergence in reductionist terms. Two laws predict the structure of reality from the smallest particles to consciousness. The freedom law predicts (in a reducible way) how and when new systems, life and even new matter will emerge and where reducibility ends. The law of life, that is Bejan's “constructal law,” predicts how this life will evolve or die. If this being or system persists then it is either alive in the sense that it persists and evolves in its “design” while being a process, or it is dead in the sense of being “bricked” after having been alive. But ‘to predict’ is not ‘to understand.’ This article is about understanding. As an illustration and elaboration the laws are applied to heat and fluid flow examples, and to the emergence of consciousness.

 

Submitted: April, 2024, last revised: November 2025.
(PDF on this site here)
Published as a preprint at SSRN: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4991994.

 

Other than Bejan's constructal law predicts, evolution of flow-systems (or life) may go with ups and downs. Essential for evolution are physical processes of trying. The better access ‘only’ needs to come before death or extinction. The process of dying gives time for this. Lowering access may even need to precede the better access. This has to do with freedom. New systems and life emerge through reductive freedom. Reductive freedom itself evolves, and is co-created top-down, because of higher life-forms needing it for their survival. In the case of DNA this works through top-down selection of the ‘fittest,’ given an ecosystem. In neural networks, knowledge is helped to adapt to reality through trying random, ‘out of the box’ options. Reductive freedom is not always ‘accessed’ immediately. I suggest an evolved version of both the constructal and the freedom law:->

 

[^]Published as a preprint at https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/skphf_v5.
Submitted: April, 2025, last revised: November 2025.
(Not published here yet. Please read this on the Open Science Framework preprint server.)

 

This is a relativistic and non-statistical reinterpretation and generalization of Clausius' concept of entropy and the second law. Something hot has, within itself, no accessible energy at all. ‘Heat’ is only usable or accessible in a configuration where it can flow to somewhere cold. Equal to any natural force, entropy is given in Joule per (momentary unavailable) relevant difference; in case of heat this is a difference in temperature. In a configuration this ‘becomes’ (potential) energy from the moment that this difference is actual. Relative entropy is (relatively) inaccessible force, meaning that it is not part of a relevant configuration. All forces, such as gravity and charge, can be or become inaccessible, and thus may also ‘be’ ‘high in entropy,’ either temporally, as ‘relative entropy’ (‘anexergy’), or eternally, as with Clausius' ‘absolute entropy’ (‘inexergy’). For example, masses orbiting in space prevent them from collapsing (which would release lots of energy). Energy or exergy ‘becoming’ relativistic entropy (=anexergy) is energy ‘moving’ from a relevant, configurational, physical difference to an irrelevant, potential, temporal difference, i.e., losing relevant configuration, becoming like a single pole of a battery. This happening ever more is another formulation of the second law. I believe this November 2025 version of this article (https://osf.io/preprints/osf/skphf) is the best to date explaining entropy to anyone understanding high-school physics, without needing to refer to ‘chaos,’ ‘disorder,’ or ‘internal energy’ (=aggregation error), and really integrating the basic laws and concepts of physics.

Keywords: entropy, configuration, force, heat-force, energy, second law, first law, system, freedom law, constructal law

 

 

A book yet to be published. This is what all the articles written above started with.

 

Your feelings, your mind, your consciousness, and your happiness exist, but not as matter. Knowledge and feelings live within you and reveal themselves when you need them. This life is you, and I hope it is peaceful. Emotion starts from instinct, but feelings are shaped by thoughts, either self-made or copied from others. We have all kinds of feelings for and against each other. There are also less emotional forms of feeling or intuition, such as the cyclist or car-driver within you. Without all this free-flowing knowledge in the form of feelings you are not.

Life is characterized by persistence. Like a dog hunts rabbits, we hunt truths. Few people can stop the chatter in their minds. If we cannot step out of our truths, we even wage wars over them. Our life is good and happy when we continually improve our truths through embracing the unknown.

This book ends with a design of a neural network in which feelings and consciousness live; a machine that experiences pain, happiness, and itself. Mechanics used to be part of philosophy; there need not be a big difference between them.

 

I began writing this work around 1987, and ‘dumped’ it online in 2001. For those who read Robert Pirsig’s book “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”: this was my ‘Phaedrus-experience,’ though luckily not as bad as with Pirsig. As Pirsig solved much of his challenges in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” so I will do in my book-to-be published “Matter of Feeling; Moral Neural Mechanics” – which, however, unlike Pirsig’s book, is ‘just’ non-fiction.