Chance, Calculation and Life

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020952689

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ISBN 978-1-78630-667-8

The Centre Culturel International de Cerisy proposes, each year from the end of May to early October and within the welcoming context of a 17th-century castle, a historic monument, meetings to bring together artists, researchers, teachers, students, social and economical actors, as well as the wider public interested in cultural and scientific exchanges.

– Between 1910 and 1939, Paul Desjardins organized the famous “decades” in Pontigny abbey, to unite eminent personalities for debates on literary, social and political themes.

– In 1952, Anne Heurgon-Desjardins, while repairing the castle, created the Centre Culturel and continued, with her own personal touch, the work of her father.

– From 1977 to 2006, her daughters, Catherine Peyrou and Edith Heurgon, took the lead and brought a new dimension to the activities.

– Today, after the departure of Catherine and then of Jacques Peyrou, Cerisy continues under the management of Edith Heurgon and Dominique Peyrou, supported by Anne Peyrou-Bas and Christian Peyrou, also part of Cerisy castle’s Civil Society, as well as with the support of an efficient and dedicated team led by Philippe Kister.

– They receive, in a prestigious setting far removed from urban disturbances and for a relatively long time period, people who are animated by the same attraction for discussion, in order to, through communal contemplation, invent new ideas and weave lasting connections.

– The Civil Society graciously puts the premises at the disposal of the Association des Amis de Pontigny-Cerisy, with no lucrative purpose and recognized for its public interest, currently presided over by Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld, the inspector general of finances.

– The Centre Culturel, the main means of action of the Association, has organized nearly 750 symposiums broaching, through completely independent routes, the most diverse of themes. These symposiums have given rise, through various editors, to the publication of approximately 550 books.

– The Centre National du Livre ensures continuous support to the organization and publication of the symposiums. The territorial collectivities (Normandy Region, department Council of the Manche, Coutances Mer and Bocage) and the regional directorate of cultural affairs bring their support to the Center, which also organizes, alongside the Universities of Caen and Rennes 2, encounters on themes concerning Normandy and the Great West.

– A Cercle des Partenaires, circle of partners, formed of enterprises, local collectives and public bodies, supports and even initiates prospective encounters on the main contemporary challenges.

– Since 2012, a new modern and accessible conference room has allowed for a new formula: the “Entretiens de la Laiterie”, days for exchanges and debates, a collaborative effort from the partners of the Association.

Thierry GAUDIN

Marie-Christine MAUREL

Jean-Charles POMEROL

January 2021

Information:

CCIC, Le Château, 50210 Cerisy-la-Salle, France

Tel.: + 33 (0) 2 33 46 91 66

website: www.ccic-cerisy.asso.fr

email: info.cerisy@ccic-cerisy.asso.fr

During the Cerisy week that we organized in 2016, on the theme of Sciences de la vie, sciences de l’information (Gaudin et al . 2018; Life Sciences, Information Sciences ), many questions were raised about the role of chance in the development and evolution of living beings. With the aim of further investigating this very specific question, that is, the role of chance in life, we once again invited eminent specialists in life, evolution, physics, probability and philosophy to Cerisy, during the week of August 29 to September 5, 2019.

This book is a collation of the main contributions presented on this occasion. In the first part, “Randomness in all of its Aspects”, we will try to identify the concept in its various avatars. This part begins with a presentation by Cristian S. Calude and Giuseppe Longo who distinguish, from a scientific and philosophical point of view, the three generally recognized types of chance: “Common, Biological and Quantum Randomness”. We can define common chance as either: the meeting of two independent chains of causality; or, as an event for which we ignore the causality or for a law which we know is very sensitive to small disturbances, disturbances which as Calude and Longo discuss, may in fact exist below the sensitivity threshold of our measuring instruments. This sensitivity to small initial disturbances leads to chaos in the mathematical sense of the term, and was illustrated at Cerisy by the screening of Etienne Ghys’s videos, as commented on by Grégory Miermont. For his part, Gilles Pagès presents the point of view of the probabilist, who does not acknowledge chance, only probabilities. He also reminds us of the importance of the Monte-Carlo method, which consists of the creation of randomness through computer simulations, and shows us that the process by which mathematician-computer scientists “draw random numbers” is not so simple. Pagès goes on to echo Paul Lévy’s declaration: “Nature ignores chance”. In a very enlightening talk on the historical and etymological origins of words, Clarisse Herrenschmidt checks this statement by reminding us that many languages have made an allocation for the concept of chance and have found words to express it.

Niels Bohr’s interpretation of quantum physics has continued to engage, even scientists, by introducing what seems to be an intrinsic probability. This helped to inspire an article by François Vannucci on wave-particle duality: quantum randomness but statistical determinism. Einstein never really accepted indeterminacy and we see that the challenge to “Bohrian” indeterminism continues; this was illustrated by a disturbing presentation by Stéphane Douady. This indeterminacy extends to astrophysics and the theory of multiple universes, as we will discover from the inspired pen of Michel Cassé.

Does chance govern our decisions? Mathias Pessiglione explains how and why the brain does not maximize an expected utility. Nonetheless, reflecting on this further, he explains the mechanism of random decision-making in the brain, thereby posing the question of free will. Chance as divine intervention, as has often been suggested, could be another name for the hand of God when he does not want to reveal himself. This naturally leads to philosophical and poetic reflections before moving on to the second part of this account, devoted to biology and evolution. We will therefore focus on the meaning of life as captured by the poetic intelligence of Georges Amar, on a meandering path from Hölderlin to William of Ockham and Spinoza, passing many poets, including Rimbaud, Baudelaire and many others. “ Le hasard et le divin ” (Chance and the Divine) is the apt title chosen by Bertrand Vergely to share with us his thoughts on randomness, necessity and inner life, culminating in a passage on chance and Grace. This first part will end with a semantic exploration of the words “chance” and “creation”, as guided by Ivan Magrin-Chagnolleau who defines himself as an “artist-researcher”. Beyond semantics, he invites us to reflect on the links between randomness and artistic creation. Randomness is the only source of creation in genetics, as per Jacques Monod’s vision. However, forms may require subjectivity to exist in order for them to work. This brings us to the tipping point, or kairos , alluded to by Bertrand Vergely, a moment in which the artist and the researcher has but a split second in which to grab it by the horns .