Dear Frank,

Thank you for your comment. I have read your essay. What we mean by our universe being Pythagorean is reflected in "Starting with Pythagoras, it was a matter of faith for sparse groups of few people and lonely individuals that 'fundamental laws of nature are described by beautiful equations.'"

It's not the fact that the laws of nature are expressed by mathematics that's most mysterious, but that they're "rather simple in presentation and extremely rich in consequences," and that the Pythagoreans somehow knew that!

I do not see what would be a thought, the mental world, in that sort of basis of knowledge, Vladimir. Don't you consider a creative thought as a mathematical structure or physical phenomenon, do you?

Alexey! When you build a primordial generating structure, then the question arises: what it holds? This ontological (structural, cosmic) memory. Matter is that from which everything is born, and the ontological (structural) memory is what gives rise to all. Ontological (structural) memory - the measure of being of the whole, "the soul of matter", qualitative quality of the absolute forms of existence of matter (absolute states). Ontological (structural, cosmic) memory - the core of the world picture of Information age.

Vladimir, if I understand you correctly, you are following Plato's vision that the new knowledge is in fact nothing else but reproduction of what atemporally is in the "ontological (structural, cosmic) memory." Is it correct?

Yes, Alexey, such an interpretation is possible. But it's not just new knowledge. The main thing is the process of generating new material structures in Nature. Ontological (structural) memory - something that generates, keeps, maintains and develops. It permeates all levels of Universum. Remember the "Matter and Memory" Bergson. But Bergson's a lot of psychology and little ontology and no dialectic, at least in the spirit of Cusa - "coincidence of opposites." In fundamental physics and cosmology must enter ontological standard along with an empirical justification.

Dear Alexey and Lev,

Congratulations ! I found your essay to be among the few best in this contest. I already rated it 10 last week (but did not take the time to comment it then). I find it terrible to see that the best essays get so low rates, while nonsensical ones are rated among the highest, because the majority of authors here giving ratings are ignorant about science and the wonders of physical theories and they will only approve views that please their ignorance.

Please don't give these materialists the honor of having their position called "Scientism", as if their attitude was anyhow a scientific one. I just wrote an exposition of the conflict of ideologies in this contest, where I classify you among scientists, and the materialists in the opposite category of obscurantists. I also put there a list of essays I found most interesting, so as to help the authors of intelligent essays to find each other.

You are welcome to comment here my page, so that we can reach a sort of agreed view, such as completing the list of best essays (I will keep exploring essays, so I may update this list later).

    Dear Sylvain,

    Thank you for your high esteem of our submission.

    I'd like to present a somewhat different point of view on the usage of the term scientism. It was coined by Hayek and defined as a misapplication of the scientific paradigm toward humanities. Later the definition was broadened to an absolutization of science to be the most fundamental knowledge. This absolutization can not be scientific because the claim that "science is the the most fundamental knowledge" is no longer a scientific but a metaphysical one.

    In this manner, scientism is no longer a scientific attitude, to use your phrase, but a "deadly shadow of science," to use Alexey's. Seen this way, it doesn't seem to matter whether one is an accomplished scientist or someone who can't prove the Pythagorean theorem; as long as one is convinced of the omnipotence of a scientific explanation, one is under the irrational spell of our scientistic zeitgeist.

    Alexey has made a series of lectures devoted to the subject, titled Faith of Fundamental Science, which I think you could appreciate. I recommend watching the latest one: Value of Fundamental Science, which is a sort of summary of scientism and that which it is a shadow of.

    Thanks also for your careful review and organization of the other essays, it will certainly help us not to miss the important ones, including yours.

    Lev

    About this use of the term "scientism", I want to distinguish between what a term should mean, i.e. when it is the best term to name a real concept that deserves to be considered, vs. what it may accidentally happen to mean at a given time, due to its misuse.

    Actually, while I consider consciousness as fundamentally non-algorithmic, I still consider the scientific method (as inspired from my familiarity with maths and physics) to be relevant to some parts of humanities, but of course, just like in maths and physics, a great care is needed to avoid any misapplication. It is possible that some claims of applications happened in a misguided manner, which could lead to the general rejection of any try to do so under a label of "Scientism" which thus became pejorative. I'm sorry that I did not actually look at what such attempts could be. What I know of course is that the "skeptic" movement with its materialistic prejudices (Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) has badly misrepresented science, with its methods and views that claimed to be scientific but actually weren't.

    But my concern is not to claim or deny in the abstract any abstract claim such as "science is the the most fundamental knowledge", but to go to effectively do my own rational exploration of a number of issues of humanity's problems, and I consider that I had some success in rationally understanding a number of human problems and possible solutions, including with the use of some mathematical concepts.

    For example you can look at all the elements of rational analysis which I exercised in my philosophical sites of criticism of religion and some social injustice, as well as how to built optimal online political and monetary systems, and humanity's failures to steer the future properly. I even see some mathematical concepts needed for the optimal design of an online dating system to be included in my project of decentralized online social network.

    So I reach a concrete version of the claim, that is "Can it be efficient to use rational intelligence to understand some crucial problems and solutions about psychological, economic or political issues" that is no more a metaphysical claim but a genuinely scientific claim that can be directly verified by the experience of succeeding in such investigations.

    I'm sorry I cannot watch any videos now, do you have any text version ?

    All right I just read your slides "Value of Fundamental Science" and I noticed that you have nothing to say here beyond what I'm used to : all your opposition to "scientism" remains contained in the bubble of obscurantist Christian propaganda which you just blindly admitted, without any care of reality check. That is, pretty much what I would classify in the category "Religion" of my table, thus in the column of obscurantism. Do you not know how terrible can be this Christian anti-scientism propaganda that can even turn physicists into idiots ?

    To understand what is wrong with this propaganda, I would recommend, first my criticism of essentialism, then, well, much of my anti-spirituality site, but also things by other authors, I would particularly recommend Fundamental misconceptions of science and Greta Christina's Atheists and anger article and video. Would you also ignore that science refuted the Biblical story ?

    The term scientism was coined, defined, and traced through history by F Hayek as the "abuse of reason" and "counter-revolution of science." In the articles that you've liked his name isn't mentioned, which leads me to believe that the requisite material to discuss this subject has not been researched. I recommend reading Road to Serfdom and The Counter-revolution of Science if you'd like to know more about scientism.

    I consider that the real abuse of reason is to discuss an ideology that is entirely coined and defined not by any supporter but purely by its opponents, without any concrete reference of who are the supporters of the ideology they are opposing, who would actually formulate and defend the claims of that ideology.

    Moreover I dismiss all this "debate" you talk about as absolutely futile, thus not worthy any attention. Indeed I consider economic systems as something that go their own way, and that any proper or improper methodology that some economists may have adopted in the history of that discipline is just an insignificant, imaginary problem that only concerns what is in the heads of that very small minority of people who study economics, and has most of the time no significant impact on reality because most people just go their own business without caring about any ideology. Instead, I develop my own understanding of economics independently of anything ever taught in academic circles.

    Or when some ideas have an impact on reality because the "large masses of people" happen to follow an ideology, then I can consider it, but it is a different situation. In particular for the Soviet Union, that resulted from Marxism, I regard it as a religion just similar to Christianity. And I have good reasons for this.

    In particular I saw 2 absurdities in your anti-scientism slides.

    The first absurdity is that you claim the impossibility to rationally understand or analyze consciousness, and at the same time you claim to bring rational arguments to draw some conclusions about consciousness, in particular issues of "cognitive dissonance". These 2 claims contradict each other.

    The other absurdity is that your rational approach to psychological issues remains a purely theoretical speculation disconnected from any care of observational check of the conclusions of your abstract reasoning. In particular you claim the ability to conclude that the belief in chaosogenesis would be a cause of cognitive dissonance. For such considerations in such subtle matters of psychology to not be purely speculative and possibly completely wrong (or fall into the fault of ridiculous irrelevance), would require that this possible cause of cognitive dissonance, as you present it, was observationally confirmed to be the main cause (or at least the main ideological cause) of cognitive dissonance that can be observed in real life. But where are your observational confirmations of this claim ? The actual facts are:

    As explained in the article and video by Greta Christina I referenced in a previous post, atheism does not lead to any nihilism, as there are many atheists finding full sense of life and not coming to any nihilism. This may be a mystery to you but it is nevertheless a fact and thus has to be accepted as such.

    My own experience (as I have been evangelical Christian in the past) points to the opposite conclusion to yours, which is that among ideologies that may cause cognitive dissonance, Christian faith can be devastating, much worse than any atheism. As a personal experience, it would be senseless to try arguing in theory whether it is correct or not, and no philosophical treaty can change anything to this reality. No amount of arguments could convince me of the non-existence or impossibility of my own life. Now as a fact, it can also be explained, as you can see other authors doing, following my links "About the psychological damages of Christian faith".

    In conclusion, your own victorious failure to make correct theoretical guesses about psychological issues, still does not suffice to validate your belief in the impossibility of any rational understanding in this field. Now why should I be interested about treaties that you read and that led you to such absurd standpoints as you are putting forward ? Such treaties are likely to be quite misleading. A real abuse of reason and a serious source, maybe not of cognitive dissonance, but at least dissonance between beliefs and reality. Thus, no thanks.

    10 days later

    Dear Alexey and Lev,

    I really enjoyed your essay, and it helped further my own thought processes about the consequences of Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis. I liked the identification you make between the totality of mathematical forms and "some sort of mind, but a mind totally indifferent to the forms it contains".

    I like the way you frame the issue of "chaosogenesis" within the context of "fine-tuning":

    "Does the universe indeed have no clear signature excluding any possibility of it having been randomly selected from the totality of all possible structures?"

    Your distinction between "minimal observers" and "cosmic observers" is interesting: our world indeed seems "theoretizable", and I agree with you that if we can show that the laws of our universe are much, much more regular than the "minimally stable" laws that could support our kind of observers, it would seriously undermine the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (or make it necessary to think about possible selection factors that make universes with regular laws have a higher "measure" than universes with fluctuating laws). Your arguments convinced me (contrary to what I state in my essay) that the Mathematical Universe Hypothesis (in its simplest form) does make predictions, and can be considered a scientific hypothesis.

    I agree with you when you say that "chaosogenesis, being limited only by the anthropic principle, is the only option for a completely scientific solution to the problem of cosmogenesis". You say that chaos and mind are opposites, but maybe Ultimate Mind, being the sum of all modes of existence, contains by itself zero information, and is somehow equivalent to Ultimate Chaos...

    In my opinion, your essay is one of the most thought provoking in this contest, and I hope your make it to the finals. Good luck!

    Marc

      Dear Mark,

      First of all, many thanks for such an inspiring response!

      Your pondering about a deep relation between Ultimate Mind and Ultimate Chaos reminded me the first lines of the Hegelian "Science of Logic":

      "Pure Being and Pure Nothing are the same, and yet absolutely distinct from each other. This contradiction is resolved by their immediate vanishing, one into the other. The resultant movement, called Becoming, takes the form of reciprocal Coming-to-Be and Ceasing-to-Be."

      The Ultimate Mind is not just a "sum of all modes of existence", but rather an inexpressible potentiality of being, where each constituent is granted its own special significance, whereas chaos grants no significance to anything. An example of such significance, as we underlined in the article, is theoretizablilty of the laws of nature.

      I'd like to also note that, in contrast to our article, you are reserving some uncertainty as to the theoretizability of the Universe, saying that it only seems to be. We are pointing it out as a fact.

      As to the "possible selection factors", I'd like to stress here as well, that such a factor cannot be just one more law, as for example the law of measure you mentioned. In that case the question of John A. Wheeler would remain unanswered. That selection can only be based on something above all the laws.

      Alexey

      Dear Dr. Burov,

      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

        5 days later

        Dear Joe,

        I am considering your post as a warning for myself. Thanks.

        Alexey & Lev,

        Excellent essay.

        It seems, though, that we are on opposite sides of Max Tegmark's hypothesis -- though for much the same reasons. To explain:

        You approach chaos theory as if it were dependent on the disorder of random events. In fact, though, chaos is deterministic -- and while I agree with you that on any particular scale of activity, chaotic behavior is "limitless and structureless," in a hub-connected network in which local information is distributed laterally (theory of multi-scale variety ~ Bar-Yam), rather than hierarchically, self-organized global order is evident.

        We agree fully on the important point: randomness is not a fundamental property of the universe.

        Highest mark from me, and I hope you get a chance to visit my essay.

        Best,

        Tom

          Hi Alexey,

          Several years ago I came up with my theory without knowing about Tegmark and upon checking the net(I couldn't believe what I have discovered) by googling "reality math" the search came up with MUH. I was so exited, contacted Tegmark and he replied favorably. However since, I have developed my theory and have arrived at many results BUT he refuses to comment. I think he is either not convinced of my system or the results look too grand and he does not want to be associated with a "crackpot".

          Checking your Bio I see that you are a physicist with programming background and you believe in MUH. You should be the perfect candidate for reviewing my theory. Please do not get discouraged by the claims, spend some reasonable time running some of the simulations, I hope you will see that I am not making up the results, the results are just coming out of the simulations and I have no control as such.

          It is also interesting that my theory is similar to Armin's in this contest but he still has hard time connecting both of us, understandably so.

          Maybe you have browsed my essay but I hope you spend more time on it, I think toy will like it, in general at least.Any comment is appreciated.

          "Reality is nothing but a mathematical structure, literally"

          Thanks and good luck

          P.S. please read some of the first comments in my thread for more information on running the programs. the running times are indicated on the programming pages which you can go to by clicking on the "program links" at the end of the sections.

            I hope that Lev will help in the running of the simulations. Thaks Lev.

            Dear Tom,

            Many thanks for your highest mark, which is especially impressive in view of our disagreements. It is very generous from your side indeed. I agree with you that in a sense Tegmark's Multiverse IV is determinisitic. What is random in his picture is our incarnation in this specific universe. With his 'mathematical democracy' hypothesis, everybody might find himself in any anthropic universe with the same probability. Since this conclusion contradicts to our (humanity) success as cosmic observers, we conclude that his multiverse hypothesis is refuted.

            Many thanks and all the best,

            Alexey.