Reality-simulation: a feedback loop

Abstract

An old dictum in biology asserted that ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’; that is, the embryonic development of the individual organism goes through the stages of its evolution. More recently, the dictum has been paraphrased to read ‘ontology recapitulates philology’; that is, our conception of what exists in fact is guided by what exists in our lexicon. More generally, our language does our thinking for us. So it has been with the venerable metaphysical categories of Cause and Effect. Since the concept of cause is fixated by language, causes of events are sought and eventually assigned. Moreover, the cause-effect relationship is typically conceived as an asymmetric one. Since the flow of time is unidirectional, causes must precede effects.