I keep thinking about David Spivak’s discussion of hylomorphs, entities which are simultaneously matter and pattern (originally Aristotle’s term). David attempts to relate this concept to evolution— namely the continual formation of hylomorphs in nature.
Language works in the sense of basic physics: it directs energy transfer, leading to the displacement of material objects in space. Abstractly speaking, language includes the DNA that directs biological life, natural languages like English that direct our social interactions, and the high-level programming languages that direct our technology.
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Matter and pattern are two of the most profound distinctions in the English language. Etymologically, the word matter comes from mother (mater) and the word pattern comes from father (pater).1 Like two parents, matter and pattern represent a fundamental dichotomy: matter is the pure material, embedded in the world and unconcerned with our ideas about it; pattern is pure structure, abstracted out of the world and unconcerned with what substantiates it.
The transistor is an excellent example of where matter and pattern meet.
A picture of an NPN transistor and its circuit diagram.
Is a transistor matter or pattern? On the left of Fig. 1 we see the transistor as matter, a thing in the material world. On the right we see the transistor as pattern, a logical idea. There does not seem to be a perfect English word for this sort of fulcrum or janus-point which—like a transistor—is simultaneously both matter and pattern, but we will use the term hylomorph, a term which combines matter and form.
Mathematics is very much on the “pattern” side of the dichotomy, and it is reasonable to almost equate math and pattern: mathematics is something like the articulation of pattern. So we are equally interested in how math and matter relate.
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Besides transistors, there are other examples of hylomorphs, i.e. condensed instantiations of both matter and pattern.
DNA: As an acidic molecule embedded in 3D space that acts according to physical laws, DNA is matter; but as an ordered sequence of four letters whose three-letter words code for amino acids, it is pattern. Reading the DNA and elaborating its meaning involves many other parts of the cell, and we could consider that whole complex to be both matter and pattern, but DNA is more condensed, more symbolic. Is DNA matter or pattern?
Signature: As the process of moving a pen across paper to form an ink stain, a signature is matter; but as a token of people’s agreement to regulate their behavior, it is pattern. As we sign a contract in good faith, we’ve set up our internal state in such a way that we think it’s likely that our actions in the material world will follow the pattern dictated by the contract. Is signature matter or pattern?
There are many such examples, and what is perhaps most striking is that there appears to be some process by which examples are perpetually being created: hylomorphs keep getting formed and condensed in our world…In each case the hylomorph came to exist by way of some sort of natural push or process urging the formation of smaller, more concentrated symbols to instantiate pattern as matter or bind matter to pattern.
We are not interested in these examples per se, but rather in the fact that there appears to be a natural process by which hylomorphs are continually being formed and condensed, and the fact that this process seems to work at all scales and regardless of substrate.
