A Letter from God by Richard P Dolan

Hey Richard!.. I mean Dick (Breakfast Club... get it? ;)...

Loved the paper! especially the ending... just wait until you see my paper...;)

Will I AM Walker

Dear Richard P Dolan,

Good essay on Freewill...

Your (Gods) words are nice... ""What about free will? Don't humans have free will?" Well, since I never change, free will is meaningless to me. "

Have look at my essay also...

Best Wishes..

=snp. gupta

Dear Dick Dolan,

Very, very nice essay. You are right, of course, but on a higher level than is typically the content of these essays. If you haven't read Alan Watts (This is It, The Book, etc.) you might enjoy him. He wrote your essay in the 70s.

I think you say just about all it's possible to say, but since people here are looking for math or physics explanations, you probably won't win the big prize!

A number of us agree that "mindless mathematical laws don't give rise to anything", but a surprising number don't.

Welcome to the fray (or play as you more wisely put it.)

I invite you to read my essay, but you won't learn anything you don't already know.

Thanks for most informative and entertaining essay.

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Editor Dolan,

Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.

I merely wish to point out that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate."

Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.

Joe Fisher, Realist

Dear Richard,

Yes indeed absolute consciousness is the GOD. Know thyself to know it all.

Love,

i.

Oh my GOD, absolutely brilliant letter, loved it, i hope you will love this one too from your alternate self, GOD there are no goals it's all play.

love,

atemporal i aka GOD.

Hello. I see this as the best essay I saw so far in this year's contest; still in details I have some disagreements (so yes this means I generally see others I looked at as rubbish; I won't even care to comment on details).

- It is a pity you just simply dismissed the topic of mathematics, hardly saying any word about the nature of mathematics and whether and how math may have anything to do with our universe, why or why not. Math was found to have some success in describing physics didn't it ?

- Among the 3 main candidate concepts of time : presentism, eternalism and growing block, you propose a combination of the first 2, but the reasons for this and the question of what belongs to the one, what belongs to the other and how do they articulate with each other, remains unclear (at least I did not find it well explained in your essay). As for me I reject both of them and adopt the third one instead : growing block. More precisely I regard it as separately describing each of both fundamental substances of reality : mind and mathematics, while "physical reality" emerges as a composite of them : a projection of the growing-block timed conscious reality on a section of the mathematical universe which behaves as timeless (eternal).

- You visibly believe that there is a fundamental difference between human and animal consciousness. I don't.

- You claim "the existence of everything that can possibly exist" but "if one exists the others are impossible", don't both claims mutually contradict, or did you only mean the second claim in a relative sense while the first was meant as absolute ? How is your "huge flock of possible universes" conceived:

-- How huge can it be ? See ideas of very large numbers of universes (or of locations inside the universe) discussed in both 2015 essays by Marc Séguin and William T. Parsons (even though they conceive universes as mathematical systems which you don't).

-- How does it relate with the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics ? As you wrote "universes like this one (...) overwhelmingly outnumber any other kind", are you aware of the trouble with the many-world interpretation of quantum physics, about how to make sense of its "probabilities", and particularly that these cannot match any kind of numbering of possible universes ?

Now I won't write any essay here this year. I invite you to read my essay of the last contest, which contained my views on quite the same issues (I improved it a little compared to what I initially sent here). Also I just looked at your 2008 essay (on the nature of time), so I think you will be interested with my view on time in mathematics: philosophical sections of my work on the foundations of mathematics.

I just looked a little further at your writings and found your conception completely incoherent (in the light of what I know): you claim "Mindless mathematical laws don't give rise to anything" and yet your theory of everything is all about purely mathematical entities giving rise to everything. By lack of expertise in the foundations of mathematics you assumed that the ideas of "existence" "concepts" or even "self-reference" were things on the side of consciousness beyond mathematics and thus could suffice to characterize consciousness beyond mathematics. They are not. More precisely, the words "existence" and "concept" are ambiguous. Indeed there are completely mathematical versions of these: ideas of "mathematical existence", "mathematical concepts" and even some kind of self-reference, can be studied as purely mathematical structures as I did it my work, thus just like any mathematical structures they are devoid of any consciousness in themselves.

The conscious version of "existence" and "concepts", on the other hand, have their own independent source. They have always been, since the "very beginning" (which isn't anything clear) existence and concepts of non-mathematical stuff (at least, non purely mathematical stuff).

Just now I stumbled on a seemingly true revealed description of the creation. It confirmed what I said, that is, there is no such thing as atemporal existence (only somehow mathematical objects, and also any remembered event aquired a sort of permanent existence as part of memory once it occurred).

It seems the people who received this revelation are not scientists but I find it very coherent with my rational analysis of metaphysics, the foundations of maths, and quantum physics which I explained in my essay.

Hi Dick,

Nice refreshing essay. I like it very much even though I find the term God awkward.

Personally, I like the triplet of Shankara:

1. Brahman alone is real 2. This world is an illusion 3. The individual person is no other than Brahman. Loopy enough to allow mathematics :)

Yes, you get a very good rating.

Thanks for your essay,

Don Limuti

My new favorite quote from god:

"As I said before, if it's possible, there's a good chance I'll create it. That's what I do. If you don't want to deal with something, you'll have to make it impossible, or at least unlikely. Sorry, but that's the way it is."

He/she doesn't seems like the kind of person who will get you out of bind, but more like a straight-shooting parent that prepares you for the real world. In fact, based on that last line about calling home, I'm guessing my mother actually wrote this letter just posing as god!

Please check out my essay and film. One is available on Amazon Prime and iTunes, and the other is available in this essay forum.

Thanks!

Jon

Dear Richard,

It's a lovely essay, suggesting a nice introduction to some Vedanta ideas, I would say. Since introduction to great ideas is the hardest part of showing them, I am giving you a good credit for that. As to the critical points, I have two of them: apparently, neither ethics, nor aesthetics play any role in your picture. It looks too tautological. I will discuss your composition with my son Lev and then come back with our score. Meanwhile, you are cordially invited to read and comment our essay.

See you on our page,

Alexey Burov.

Richard,

Nice approach and a welcome relief from the ever deeper confusion arising from looking the wrong way, which I agree most of science does. Particular favourite truths?

"it's not mindless mathematical laws that give rise to everything, but consciousness" and "existence self-organizes".

I also identify self organization as causal in my essay, and also conclude we can't scientifically exclude a God or greater intelligence. I wouldn't have minded one that COULD grant 3 wishes, but we can't have everything... ..can we??

Best

Peter