An indestructible Cosmos striving to attain self-realization by Jose P. Koshy

Dear Koshy,

Every real thing has a real surface. This real surface did not emerge from anywhere.

One real Universe must have only one reality. As I have thoughtfully pointed out in my brilliant essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY, the real Universe consists only of one unified visible infinite surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light. Reality am not as complicated as theories of reality are.

Joe Fisher, Realist

Dear Jose P. Koshy,

you state that the mathematical laws make the physical world deterministic. Also you state that in this world there is something like a selection action possible among a few different options. I identify this possible selection action with some observer like me, having the choice to leave a comment on your essay page or not.

How can this choice come about at all if the physical world is deterministic, based on necessary mathmatical relations? I would conclude from mathematics being the foundational governing basis of the cosmos that it was determined by mathematics to leave exactly this comment on your essay page that i indeed did.

If we indeed live in a strictly deterministic world, this would have consequences for your whole theory. Because if the cosmos goes through an infinite loop of pulsations, thereby regularily facilitating some consciousness, then free will, intelligence and life are not embedded in matter, but in the very mathematics and its set of allowed actions. This set of actions remarkably must then be such, that it encompasses very special initial conditions at the beginning of each pulsation for it to lead to the meaningful correlations we see all around us - including me determined to write something on your page that you accidentally can understand - thanks to the initial conditions which arranged it at the beginning of the pulsation.

It seems to me that there should be an explanation for all these meaningful correlations within every pulsation, caused by mere mathematics. It further seems to me that if your theory meets reality, that these meaningful correlations look like they have been installed intentionally via the initial conditions by some conscious agent. If not, then i must conclude that the regular appearance of consciousness with every pulsation of the cosmos is just a happy fluke within an infinite series of random events or is an in-built feature of mathematics. But if randomness rules the world, then we surely cannot attribute an objective meaning to the cosmos (other than simply being 'randomness') like you do with your theory of everything (which then couldn't be a theory of everything, because it excludes randomness).

Although your theory does nicely explain some core features of reality, it cannot explain why it should be solely based only on structured mathematical relations. For me it is a leap of faith to assume that some kind of principle of emergence does the whole job. Because for this to meet reality, the different side-effects of emergence must be fine-tuned, in order to leave to the desired result. Why should it be excluded that different side-effects do counteract on each other and let one or the other that is needed vanish because of such an interaction? Or, if this would be indeed the case, why taking this as an indication that consciousness must arise out of these complicated interactions rather than some other sort of emergent property? Surely, per definition emergence is used to exclude negative side-effects which could lead to the impossibility for cousciousness to emerge. But the fact that consciousness does indeed exist is not sufficient to assume that some kind of emergence alone did produce it. So, here we do indeed wander in the dark towards a goal. If the cumulative results of various side-effects in nature lead in an 'orchestrated' way to the emergence of consciousness (in every pulsation of the cosmos), then once again the properties of 'matter' (whatever matter is in its essence) and the rules of mathematics show some remarkable orchestration in the interplay between the fine-tuning of emergent side-effects and the constraints of maths; which in my opinion would cry out for a deeper explanation. Alternatively one can label such an orchestration as merely random, but this is in conflict with your main assertion of the pulsating cosmos, regularily enlightening itself.

Dear Jose, thanks for your anwer. If mathematics does not decide the fundamental properties of matter, what then does? Matter is not a given Ur-stuff, but according to our best theories we have, matter itself emerged from some deeper reality at the point of the big bang. If the properties of matter came about randomly at the point of the big bang, then the cosmos cannot be overall deterministic and governed exclusively always only by the same set of mathematical rules.

You seem to suggest that this set of mathematics is a brute fact without further explanation, together with the known properties of matter being also a brute fact. I would not a priori exclude this to meet reality. But until now, i also cannot see why this view of things should necessarily meet reality other than reassuring it by the brute fact of existent intelligent life which assumes that the Cosmos is programmed to attain the goal of self-realization. If the cosmos was not created some time in the past due to some initial goal to fulfill, what does it then mean that it is 'programmed' to attain the goal of self-realization? Programming something means to choose from a large variety of possibilities whereby each possibility would lead to a different result. Otherwise there would be no need for programming something.

Stefan Weckbach,

Any explanation of the physical world starts from some arbitrary assumptions. If everything can be explained based on those, then the assumption is justified. If matter emerged from a 'deeper reality', then the deeper reality is arbitrary. This arbitrariness regarding the basic can never be removed. We can only reduce the arbitrariness to the minimum.

The so-called "best theories" do not even provide an overall picture of the physical world. Each of the best theories is at loggerheads with the rest, and explains only some part. It is far from an ideal model. The model I propose gives an overall picture from particles to the cosmos. It starts from assuming that fundamental particle of matter have some finite properties. The step by step integration of such particles into a system we call the universe is explained based on mathematically viable models. So the initial assumption is justified.

'Mathematical laws' and 'properties of matter' are unchangeable. Even an omnipotent creator has to obey mathematical laws if he is to create a programmed universe. Otherwise he will have to interfere every now and then if it is to work. However he can create something other than matter, having some other properties (let us not worry about that). Here the programming requires just one step: select the fundamental particle having the given mass, volume, energy and force; leave a very large quantity of such particles in the three-dimensional space. The rest follows, mathematical laws deciding the integration in each step. However, once a universe is formed, it cannot revert back into particles, and it remains programmed. Based on observations and rational thinking, we can never know whether it started out as particles, or as a programmed whole.

If we say that a creator did all that, then logic requires that we have to answer the question, 'Who created the creator?', and this will turn into an infinite loop. So we have two arbitrary options from which we can select: (i). A creator who exists forever created this cosmos (ii). The Cosmos exists forever (like a creator). Any answer is 'arbitrary' because we can never prove it.

The goal of physics is limited to explaining 'how the cosmos works' and not 'why the Cosmos exists'. So we have to be satisfied with 'brute' matter and 'brute' mathematics. I started with matter and completed the explanation. If somebody starts with something different, he has to show that he can complete the explanation.

Jose P Koshy

Dear Jose, thanks again for the answer. I agree with you about basic assumptions necessary to come to a conclusion. But i do not agree that mathematical laws and properties of matter, if they are indeed unchangeable and work like a deterministic clockwork, can enable living creatures to have some kind of free will. The mathematical laws together with the properties of matter alone do then define what happens next and free will would be just an illusion. So i don't agree with you that you have explained how free will can come into play for the course of events in a cosmos that is already sucessfully determined by mathematics and the properties of matter.

Jose,

Thanks for an interesting read.

You seem to imply that the Thermodynamic Law of Entropy is the result of the expansion of the universe. I have sometimes thought this myself. You also seem willing to abandon the "arrow of time". If so, you might find my essay to be of interest.

I am not clear as to why there are emergent properties and why time and a large scale causes them to be. This seems to be a shared line of thinking presented in several of this batch of essays, but it is not clear to me why it should be the case.

I was not aware of the factor of 20 increase in velocity that you mention regarding velocity for each of the cosmic structures. That does place an upper limit on the structures that are available. I definitely agree that "free will" and choice are only meaningful concepts if there are more than a few available options. Therefore, your emphasis upon medium sized structures is correct I think.

Best Regards and Good Luck,

Gary Simpson

Dear Jose, thanks again. Now you have clarified your definition of free will and i understand what you mean when using the wording. I may annotate that your definition of free will implies that human beings have no free will at all, since their actions are all determined by external and internal physical inputs into the system that generates consciousness and 'decisions'. These inputs are, according to your theory, determined by physics and a human being is just like a computer, a data processing device. Computers and all turing machines do not select from allowed actions, not because there are no allowed actions, but because there is no selection. The only 'thing' that could select something, is the user at the interface who gives a certain input (instead of another allowed input) and with this the computer is determined to follow a strictly deterministic path to output a predetermined result (may the latter be known to the user or not).

Stefan Weckbach,

Determinism does not mean that there is only one end result. The number of end results depend on number of variables. To me, throwing dice gives deterministic results. If the dice has six sides, the number of possibilities is always six; if it has 64 sides, then there are 64 possibilities; only that you cannot predict the result in individual cases. The result becomes random only if you get infinite possibilities. The word 'deterministic' can have different shades of meaning.

Another example is the crisscross paths in a town. Each path joins two junctions, and all paths are deterministic. A person selects his path at each junction and reaches his destination. He refers to the Google-map to decide which path is to be selected. Similarly, a computer driven car selects the path with the help of Google-map and reaches the destination. Both have freewill.

If in the above case, if the path leads to a different junction each time you pass, we can say the paths are random. With random paths, chance decides whether you can reach your destination; freewill has no role there. In the case of a dice having six sides, there are six paths only, the paths are deterministic, but we cannot know which path we are going, until we reach the end of the path.

Jose P koshy

Dear Jose,

A bio is a bio. An ad is an ad. A thesis is a thesis. See, I can write like you! This is to say that a few words about yourself would have been more welcome than the self-promotion you offered for your Author Bio.

A cosmos in self-realization is an interesting idea that has been in the literature ever since Carl Sagan, to whom we owe so much, controversially publicized this view in the 70's I believe. (Not that I disagree.) You pushed it further and expounded a story line about how the internal constraints between the two ends of the spectrum of matter create the conditions for structure, simple and complex, and for life as well. You credit the mathematics with the regency of the Laws and deny such to the physics.

This is all well taken, except that you should agree that your theory pertains instead to the philosophy of physics. It is manifestly not a Physical Theory per se. If you claim primacy of the Laws of mathematics, you at least owe it to the Theory a mathematical formulation of your views, which unfortunately is nowhere to be seen.

We then find ourselves hard-pressed to qualify your theory as the long-sought Theory of Everything per your claim, and have to fall back to the story line of Gauge Theories instead, because they, more reliably and despite incompleteness, offer mathematical discipline at their core. Don't you agree?

Nevertheless, you showed imagination, effort for consistency, offered some interesting points of cosmological data, while giving us a clear and clean presentation.

Good luck!

Joseph

Hello Jose.

You are probably too much on the defensive. On Author Bio, if I see someone with prestigious credentials, yet delivering an essay with many commonplaces in their field of science, with little contribution to the subject at hand, I am not going to be sympathetic in my grading. However, to someone with not many credentials or none, but with an essay that is well structured, well argued, with fresh ideas, and moreover to the point of the essay, I am going to be very generous in my grading.

So I do not at all value "who you are" over the merits of your essay. This is open science here, that is the whole point of this contest. Gathering fresh ideas from the public to perhaps feed the too closed world of academic thinking. This is at least my view of the contest.

I do not disagree that philosophical essays are part of the contest call. However I tend to favor essays that address the gist of the problem at hand: deliver a mathematical approach to cognition.

I tend to see myself as a fair and honest individual. You will see that I have ranked your essay, even with a passing grade, which many if not most authors here do not do (no ranking at all) for reasons that are easy to understand. So I mean what I say, and did not make any comment just "to make you feel good".

On Vixra, that may be another conversation. I would just say it's a mixed plate. It would have been better to include in your essay contest here whatever mathematical support you have in store.

Relax and have fun!

Joseph

Dear Koshy,

Your words that Quantum Mechanics and Relativity are mutually exclusive in first page 3 rd para are very correct. It is nice essay. And the concept ...." there is a 'set of allowed actions', and structures having freewill have to select actions from the 'allowed set'.... Is nice idea, Good essay!

Probably I have to mention here for your information...that "Your motion at speed C " to be a theory of everything is having a problem, there was recent CERN experiment finding super luminal neutrinos... How will you explain that...?