Dear Philip Gibbs,

you say: ''He thinks temporal causality, space and time must be fundamental because they are how our mind perceives the world.''

Kant distinguished between the reality as it is in itself (noumena) and the world as it appears to us (phenomena)!

According to Kant, space, time and causality are NOT fundamental to the reality as it is in itself!!! Space and time are just pure forms of sensible intuition in which we receive sense-data (intuitions) and perceive phenomena. They are fundamental to the way our brain creates our experience of the world (phenomena). Causality is the product of our understanding (look at Kant's table of the categories and the second analogy of experience). The understanding prescribes laws to the appearances in space and time. But causality is not the property of things-in-themselves. Kant build his philosophy using Hume, Locke the rationalists. He agreed with Hume in some sense.

you say: ''Relativity and quantum theory have shown us that the intuitive instincts that are programmed into our mind are not the way the universe works.''

I don't see any problems with 20th and 21st century physics and Kant. Actually Kant's philosophy predicted modern physics and is compatible with it. Just look at ''the Postulates of Empirical Thought'' in the light of quantum physics. You probably hold space, time and causality to be the properties of things-in-themselves. That's completely wrong.

''If it turns out that finishing requires us to return to concepts of absolute time and space with deterministic realism then Kant will be vidicated.''

It seems you have never read Kant. First of all, according to Kant space and time are NOT CONCEPTS but intuitions (original German word for that is Anschauung).

12 days later

Darius,

Thank you for providing an interesting essay. I have only one concern regarding the suggestion that logic is the fundamental aspect of nature and not mathematics. It would appear we need mathematics to define a statement of logical. Therefore, it would be logical to state mathematics is more fundamental than logic since it is a derivative of logic. It is almost a "chicken and egg" comment, but we must compare a statement in an argument which in effect is an equation whose validity can be proven through comparison or logic. I am afraid it is logic that branches from mathematics.

In any case, thanks for the good read!

Best Regards,

D.C. Adams

    6 days later

    I think your remark is the same as asking what is the purpose of doing metaphysics, ontology and epistemology? You can study nature bit by bit, as an animal tries to investigate his environment. But you can be smarter and ask questions such as: what is the nature of my experience of the world? why can I understand nature? how much can I understand in nature? how can I understand things in nature? Only humans (self-conscious beings) can ask such questions, and only humans can understand nature completely. You can build a systematic epistemology, a metaphysics from which you can derive your theories. All our theories come from our brain, from our mind. So if we want to understand nature completely and form an ultimate theory we must understand how our mind understands things in general. It is our brain which generates our experience of the world and it is our mind which forms theories about the world such as relativity, gravity and black holes... I was looking for a universal framework underlying all our theories.

    The Leech lattice forms a large error correction code, which can operate on the quantum level. This could form the basis for the ultimate encryption/decryption system. If we should have contact from extraterrestrial intelligence it could be that we decipher their messages using this. If so this would gives some weight to the idea that how our minds operate, or math-linguistics of human thought, is tied to a universal structure. The Leech lattice is a spatial subgroup for a theory of the 26 dimensional bosonic string.

    LC

    5 days later

    Hello Darius,

    I enjoyed the excursion into Kant's world. There are a couple of areas where my model shares similarities, such as building up our framework from time and space, and for the unit to have binary/ contradictory states. We differ in that while you prefer the unit circle, I prefer the extended point (Pythagorean monad) as the unit.

    Having said that, may I ask if your Unit circle can perish or is it an eternally existing thing?

    May I also ask that when you say for example, 7 + 5 = 12 is true, that is to say when you put 7 apples in a basket and add another 5 apples, you get 12 apples; that the truthfulness of your equation and mathematical statement contains an unstated and taken for granted assumption that none of the apples can perish. But suppose, things can perish. Then, if you put 7 apples in a basket, and later add 5, then it is possible that when you count to find the sum 7 + 5 тЙа 12. My essay is partly about this possibility. You may want to take a look.

    All the best in the competition,

    Akinbo

      5 days later

      Hello,

      Pythagorean monad is similar to my monad (unit cell). A point expresses pure consciousness (or pure Reason) which is outside space and time and is eternal. When pure consciousness starts to think it acquires a boundary, that is becomes a unit circle. Time parameter moves around the unit circle which creates the vibration of the unit cell. This vibration (spontaneity - motion of the time parameter) is the process of thinking.

      In the beginning 1 circle appears. Dialectic is the fundamental law of our reason. To be self-conscious it needs something other - the 2 circle appears and limits the first. They vibrate at opposite phases. That's the Big-Bang.

      I will take a look at your essay when I have time.

      7 5 = 12 is true because it follows from the fundamental structure of our mind which is at the same time the fundamental structure of space and time. But it is true only for objects in space and time.

      Personally, I may not attribute the property of consciousness to a fundamental entity like a 'point' or 'monad'. I believe consciousness is a property of composite things.

      Then in saying, "7 5 = 12 is true", the assumption is that during the mathematical procedure of summation, none of the things to be summed up can perish. This is only very highly probable but not a certainty particularly on the quantum scale. The probability of not perishing during summation is not the same for the classical and quantum scale. If one electron perishes in an apple, it remains an apple that can be counted. But when you go further down you may get virtual and other particles that can pop in and out of existence during counting.

      Anyway, that is what I think. May be wrong.

      Regards,

      Akinbo

      Darius,

      I did enjoy reading your essay although I lack a deep understanding of the philosophical references in the essay.

      I view the search for understanding as a process involving all the tools we have at our disposal including, logic, mathematical models, scientific observations and descriptive models.

      I think your analysis goes deeper that this in a search for meaning.

      I think your approach to a theory of everything is too ambitious: You say a Theory of Everything should synthesize philosophy, cognitive science, natural language, information theory, mathematics and physics into a single framework or system of reason itself.

      I think that some of the above are more easily dealt with separately as disciplines in themselves and a Theory of Everything in physics is attainable in isolation.

      This Theory of Everything in physics would be a complete and comprehensive description of the physical universe with a description of properties and a set of mathematical equations that model the physics.

      The philosophical underpinning of the logic of the physics can be dealt with as a separate exercise.

      Regards

      Richard Lewis

        6 days later

        Hi,

        I agree with you. Physics remains physics, maths remains maths, epistemology remains epistemology, etc. They remain in their own field and do their own job.

        However, it is one human reason which understands physical reality. Human reason is not separate for each discipline. If human reason one day achieves a final theory of everything in physics with models and equations, it would be absurd that this theory would not touch other fundamental disciplines at all. When we will understand the physical reality completely all fundamental disciplines will be aspects of one model/system/framework - the framework of our reason since all our understanding comes from our reason. This is what I have tried to do with my framework. We have to understand how consciousness gets to experience physical world (phenomena in space and time) and how it gets to understand the physical world through science such as mathematics and physics.

        I have found that the structure known as ''flower of life'' is the fundamental structure of our mind and what Kant calls the synthetic unity of consciousness (apperception). It is the structure where our thoughts are formed as waves. It is the invariant structure underlying all our theories. Mathematics is based on this structure. Logic connects unit cells together. Natural language (universal grammar) is based on this structure. This structure is also the fundamental structure of space and time. Unit cell (unit circle) is the fundamental building block of physical reality and expresses pure consciousness. It is equivalent to string in string theory or loop in quantum loop gravity, etc.

        Mathematics provides the framework for objects in space and time. Physics moves energy within this framework. Different modes of vibrations of cells and their groups gives different particles. Unit cell is a unit of sensory information. The framework is synthesized by the imagination and this yields experience of 3D world. So we can see how consciousness, human cognition, physics, mathematics, natural language, information theory relate together in one system of human experience of the phenomenal world.

        Yes, philosophy is often quite hard to understand. Not because it is really difficult, but because philosophers often write in very confusing style and reading them is time consuming. Nevertheless, such philosophers as Kant are really worth studying.

        Dear Darius Malys,

        Nice work on your essay. You and I are clearly on the same page regarding your view of space and time: "Space is the form of all appearances of outer sense (A24, A26). Time is the form of inner sense (A33) and is the form of all appearances whatsoever (A34). Therefore a unit cell of our framework must have two forms of receptivity - inner (time) and outer (space)". In fact, I think I have a good model, which I posted at http://vixra.org/abs/1402.0045 called the space-time-motion model, which represents space as outer potential that is transformed into actual (past) as inner time. You may enjoy it if you get a chance to read it.

        I went a different route for this essay and wrote what I consider a more entertaining twist - sort of a blend of Knights of the Round Table and Lord of the Rings (See Doctors of the Ring - The Power of Merlin the Mathematician to Transform Chaos into Consciousness). It is based on my space-time-motion model, which I invite you to read and let me know what you think (email to stjohntheodore@gmail.com). Of course, I also invite you to read and rate Doctors of the Ring if you get the chance.

        Respectfully,

        Ted St. John

        17 days later

        Excellent paper. I love the diagram. Can't resist throwing this into the mix. Kant could be eloquent:

        "In order to prevent any misunderstanding, it will be requisite, in the first place, to recapitulate, as clearly as possible, what our opinion is with respect to the fundamental nature of our sensuous cognition in general. We have intended, then, to say that all our intuition is nothing but the representation of phenomena; that the things which we intuite, are not in themselves the same as our representations of them in intuition, nor are their relations in themselves so constituted as they appear to us; and that if we take away the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time, but even space and time themselves disappear; and that these, as phenomena, cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. What may be the nature of objects considered as things in themselves and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us."

        This could have been Bohr, who was fundamentally a Kantian. And really, nothing that the Sage of Köningburg wrote has been much improved upon. You mention Wittgenstein. Here he is, the only time I know of talking largely about quantum physics and sounding pretty Kantian actually:

        "The views of modern physicists (Eddington) tally with mine completely, when they say that the signs in their equations no longer have 'meanings', and that physics cannot attain to such meanings but must stay put at the signs. But they don't see that these signs have meaning in as much as -- and only in as much as -- immediately observable phenomena (such as points of light) do or do not correspond to them.

        "A phenomenon isn't a symptom of something else: it is the reality. A phenomenon isn't a symptom of something else which alone makes the proposition true or false: it itself is what verifies the proposition."

        17 days later

        Dear Mr. Malys,

        I thought that your engrossing essay was exceptionally well written and I do hope that it fares well in the competition.

        I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein was wrong about abstract space/time, and Hawking was wrong about the explosive capability of NOTHING.

        All I ask is that you give my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL a fair reading and that you allow me to answer any objections you may leave in my comment box about it.

        Joe Fisher