Hi Harry
I enjoyed reading your essay. At the introduction I was sceptical, but I agree with your argument about the inability of mathematics to explain the aims and intentions of nature. I think you will find my essay interesting in this regard. We are on the same page, because we ultimately believe the explanation to be something along the lines of God, although i have more faith in the scientific method.
That is not to say that I have a lot of faith in most of the people who do science! I think if we had the evidence we have today, with the minds and mindsets of those who lived a hundred years ago, we would be doing a lot better. It seems as if the key measure of scientific credibility these days is how well one's ideas steer clear of the idea of a universal consciousness or God.
Back to your essay, I like your emphasis on aims and intentions. Only a minority of the essays seem to have embraced this part of the question with any seriousness. As your example of the bear illustrates, we need to understand the conscious reasoning behind aims and intentions. Since we don't have an adequate understanding of consciousness, science falls short.
I particularly enjoyed your paragraph "this works fine as long as we deal only in the primitive physical universe of matter and energy....[and ending]As it stands now these tools are inadequate for the proposed task." I totally agree, but I also realise that often the only way to get people of conflicting interests to agree is through measurement and mathematical analysis of those measurements. It is up to us who are not blinkered by an exclusively materialistic view to push on and create valid 'theories of everything' that can potentially trump the current disjointed mainstream model of reality. We must of course start with the evidence, and be open-minded about the idea of God.
Overall, well done - I'll be reading your ideas and references again to give me further leads for study.
Best regards
Gavin
