Robots, Supply and Demand by Jeffrey Michael Schmitz

Michael,

If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, "It's good to be the king," is serious about our subject.

Jim

Hello Jeff,

Your essay was short and sweet, and your reference to René Descartes reminded me of a time when I was about sixteen. Walking through the local park I encountered a group of people surrounding a man standing on a soap box, and while his prognostications were unintelligible to me, they were of such force that he had most others entranced. In seeing that I was unimpressed, he turned his attention to me with the question "How do you know you exist?" Having no idea I stood there blank faced, and after a time which seemed like an eternity, he answered "I thing therefore I am!". I walked away bemused thinking "That's alright for him, but what about me?".

The Wikipedia reference is all well and good but I would recommend Descartes actual work titled "Methods & Meditations". I think my essay may change your mind in some respects.

Best Regards.

Zoran.

Jeffery,

As of 7-6-13, 2:23 am EST, the rating function for your essay is not available. Sorry I can't help you out right now by rating your essay.

Manuel

Dear Michael,

I welcome your essay in which you did not using any formula but clearly narrating your thought. It shows you are inclined to rightness of Einstein' vision - nobody can thinking (and talking) by formulas! I am sure on rightness of principle - thinking before then calculating as much as it will necessary! I like your work and inclined to appreciate it within time. I offer you my work Essay also hope it will in your interest, then we will continue talk (welcome my forum!)

Sincerely,

George

Jeffery,

I have sent an email requesting that FQXi extend to those of you who had their essay posted on July 5, 2013, be allowed additional days to compensate for the days of not being able to rate these essays.

My experience in conducting the online Tempt Destiny (TD) experiment from 2000 to 2012 gave me an understanding of the complexities involved in administrating an online competition which assures me that the competition will be back up and running soon. Ironically, the inability of not being able to rate the essays correlates with the TD experimental findings, as presented in my essay, which show how the acts of selection are fundamental to our physical existence.

Anyway, I hope that all entrants will be allocated the same opportunity to have their essay rated when they are posted, and if not possible due to technical difficulties, will have their opportunity adjusted accordingly. Best wishes to you with your entry.

Manuel

Jeff,

I suspect your question was rhetorical, but I can't resist answering. I suppose, in a way, I am saying that a better understanding of the nature of mediation can change the way you think about your own existence, but not the actuality of your existence for which no one needs proof of, or justification. I actually considered saying that between my work and a better understanding of meditation (not necessarily Descartes) you may change your mind in some respects on many of your observations. Meditation is one means to understand the nature of thinking, and while Descartes found his answers in meditation he failed to make metaphysics more scientific, but that wasn't his objective. Emmanuel Kant took things to a new level, he added structure to the metaphysical domain and gave philosophy a new foundation, a superior work and a new foundation for understanding the nature of space and time. I believe my work has added to that, and within the context of my essay, I think I can explain the nature of "meditation" and "thinking" in a way which most people can understand without having to sit atop a mountain, or resort to 2000 years of philosophy. But, that explanation is off topic, so someone who has read my essay must ask the question.

Zoran.

Hello Zoran

You said, 'Descartes found his answers in meditation he failed to make metaphysics more scientific, but that wasn't his objective.' I think that was his objective, which was made clear when he said:

"All the mistakes made in the sciences happen, in my view, simply because at the beginning we make judgements too hastily, and accept as our first principles matters which are obscure and of which we do not have a clear and distinct notion. (Search, AT 10:526)"

Unfortunately, he did not see that there are actually two necessary foundations that can be known, the first being that of your (I thought funny) story, and the second being the General Principle of Equivalence introduced in my essay. From it, the world. I hope you like it.

Best wishes

Stephen Anastasi

Hello Jeff

I enjoyed reading this. "Yay the robots," I say.

You say:

"A true proof of a theory would require something outside of science and at that point the "theory" would no longer be a scientific theory and could not be a part of the scientific method." Is this a problem if the theory is necessarily true, that it is not part of the scientific method? This seems to assume that Popper's fallibilism is the best case. In my essay you will see that I have stepped outside the scientific method, and replaced it with endpoint skepticism. Which of these is more trustworthy do you think? Please consider my essay in that light; I am confident you will find it interesting. Feel free to ask hard questions.

Best wishes

Stephen Anastasi

Dear Jeff,

I was attracted to your essay by its title. Robots competing with me in a game of supply and demand? I was alarmed. As a programmer by trade I know that robots have whatever desires a programmer decides they should have (yeah, this makes me weary of my own desires -- are they really my own?) Whether the universe has a purpose may be hard for us to tell, but this difficulty in itself does not strike me as a sufficient reason to deny such a possibility. What if the universe has a desire for novelty? So that it does not get bored, you know, in all that eternity. You speak of scientific method as of something solid and reliable, but what if it too is evolving? Everything changes, even the scientific method. I liked the quote in the end of Jennifer Nielsen's essay:

"A hundred years from now, people will look back on us and laugh. They'll say, 'You know what people used to believe? They believed in photons and electrons. Can you imagine anything so silly?' They'll have a good laugh, because by then there will be newer and better fantasies."

May I add, they will also have a new definition of a scientific method.

I liked your essay, but don't know how to rate it. You did not discuss information -?

Dear Jeff,

Thank you for presenting your nice essay. I saw the abstract and will post my comments soon. So you can produce matter from your thinking or from information description of that matter. . . . ?

I am requesting you to go through my essay also. And I take this opportunity to say, to come to reality and base your arguments on experimental results.

I failed mainly because I worked against the main stream. The main stream community people want magic from science instead of realty especially in the subject of cosmology. We all know well that cosmology is a subject where speculations rule.

Hope to get your comments even directly to my mail ID also. . . .

Best

=snp

snp.gupta@gmail.com

http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/

Pdf download:

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/essay-download/1607/__details/Gupta_Vak_FQXi_TABLE_REF_Fi.pdf

Part of abstract:

- -Material objects are more fundamental- - is being proposed in this paper; It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material. . . Similarly creation of matter from empty space as required in Steady State theory or in Bigbang is another such problem in the Cosmological counterpart. . . . In this paper we will see about CMB, how it is generated from stars and Galaxies around us. And here we show that NO Microwave background radiation was detected till now after excluding radiation from Stars and Galaxies. . . .

Some complements from FQXi community. . . . .

A

Anton Lorenz Vrba wrote on May. 4, 2013 @ 13:43 GMT

....... I do love your last two sentences - that is why I am coming back.

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 6, 2013 @ 09:24 GMT

. . . . We should use our minds to down to earth realistic thinking. There is no point in wasting our brains in total imagination which are never realities. It is something like showing, mixing of cartoon characters with normal people in movies or people entering into Game-space in virtual reality games or Firing antimatter into a black hole!!!. It is sheer a madness of such concepts going on in many fields like science, mathematics, computer IT etc. . . .

B.

Francis V wrote on May. 11, 2013 @ 02:05 GMT

Well-presented argument about the absence of any explosion for a relic frequency to occur and the detail on collection of temperature data......

C

Robert Bennett wrote on May. 14, 2013 @ 18:26 GMT

"Material objects are more fundamental"..... in other words "IT from Bit" is true.

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 14, 2013 @ 22:53 GMT

1. It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material.

2. John Wheeler did not produce material from information.

3. Information describes material properties. But a mere description of material properties does not produce material.

4. There are Gods, Wizards, and Magicians, allegedly produced material from nowhere. But will that be a scientific experiment?

D

Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jun. 16, 2013 @ 16:22 GMT

It from bit - where are bit come from?

Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 17, 2013 @ 06:10 GMT

....And your question is like asking, -- which is first? Egg or Hen?-- in other words Matter is first or Information is first? Is that so? In reality there is no way that Matter comes from information.

Matter is another form of Energy. Matter cannot be created from nothing. Any type of vacuum cannot produce matter. Matter is another form of energy. Energy is having many forms: Mechanical, Electrical, Heat, Magnetic and so on..

E

Antony Ryan wrote on Jun. 23, 2013 @ 22:08 GMT

.....Either way your abstract argument based empirical evidence is strong given that "a mere description of material properties does not produce material". While of course materials do give information.

I think you deserve a place in the final based on this alone. Concise - simple - but undeniable.

===============

Please try Dynamic Universe Model with some numerical values, give initial values of velocities, take gravitation into consideration( because you can not experiment in ISOLATION). complete your numerical experiment.

later try changing values of masses and initial values of velocities....

Calculate with different setups and compare your results, if you have done a physical experiment.

I sincerely feel it is better to do experiment physically, or numerically instead of breaking your head on just logic. This way you will solve your problem faster.....

Best

=snp

Dear Jeff,

I have down loaded your essay and soon post my comments on it. Meanwhile, please, go through my essay and post your comments.

Regards and good luck in the contest,

Sreenath BN.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1827

Jeff,

Thank you for the ruminations in which you cast pearls of wisdom.

"Evolution 
can
 give 
us 
no insight 
as 
to why 
something 
works,


but 
it 
can 
give 
working
 examples
 that 
might 
not
 be
 imaged
 by 
the
 human
mind."

Not sure where you are on the issue. The above and many other statements make me think you are a foe of the anthropic principle, but I gather you are still dubious.

I attribute the anthropic principle to humankind's anthropocentric tendencies.

Jim

Hello Jeff,

I am yet to read your essay, but it surely sounds interesting considering that from your comments above squirrels can also be considered scientists! However...

As the contest in Wheeler's honor draws to a close, leaving for the moment considerations of rating and prize money, and knowing we cannot all agree on whether 'it' comes from 'bit' or otherwise or even what 'it' and 'bit' mean, and as we may not be able to read all essays, though we should try, I pose the following 4 simple questions and will rate you accordingly before July 31 when I will be revisiting your blog.

"If you wake up one morning and dip your hand in your pocket and 'detect' a million dollars, then on your way back from work, you dip your hand again and find that there is nothing there...

1) Have you 'elicited' an information in the latter case?

2) If you did not 'participate' by putting your 'detector' hand in your pocket, can you 'elicit' information?

3) If the information is provided by the presence of the crisp notes ('its') you found in your pocket, can the absence of the notes, being an 'immaterial source' convey information?

Finally, leaving for the moment what the terms mean and whether or not they can be discretely expressed in the way spin information is discretely expressed, e.g. by electrons

4) Can the existence/non-existence of an 'it' be a binary choice, representable by 0 and 1?"

Answers can be in binary form for brevity, i.e. YES = 1, NO = 0, e.g. 0-1-0-1.

Best regards,

Akinbo