Dear Alexey,

I see, thanks. You say: For instance, if all the world with all our knowledge about it were only a dream or a computer simulation of a joker from the upper level, this "knowledge" would not value much, would it?

Let me call this position (V). I'd actually challenge (V). If all the knowledge obtained by observation and thought were not knowledge about the world but about a dream or a computer simulation, I see two possibilities:

(1) If it were in principle possible to find out, by means of observation and thought, that our knowledge is not about the actual world but just about a dream or a computer simulation, then we could eventually reach this point and start to peer behind the curtain ('escape from the matrix').

(2) If it were not possible at all to find out, by means of observation and thought, that our knowledge is not about the actual world but about a dream or a computer simulation, then so what. We would simply continue to increase our knowledge about this dream or computer simulation. Actually in this case, we might as well call that dream or computer simulation "world" instead, because that would just be a matter of nomenclature.

You employ an argument similar to (V) in the next step, when you conclude that thought (and also goals?) can't emerge from some lower level, mechanical or aleatory, don't you? I'm asking, since in my essay I do actually explain how goals might emerge at macroscopic scales.

Cheers, Stefan

Dear Stefan,

The problem of (V) is that there is no reason to consider our observations and thoughts as knowledge about anything, since they would be parts of the dream/trickery. There would be no reason to trust or value them. Perhaps you may want to search the article for the word "pumpkin." If that situation sounds appealing to you, then we'd find it hard to argue. Any reliance on the thoughts and observations would require belief that they are more powerful than the dream or the trickster, and this belief would require a corresponding ontology, as you may find in Descartes' Meditations. We are showing that the naturalistic "atoms of brain" are similar to the trickster in this respect; both lead to the Epimenides paradox.

Cheers,

Alexey.

Dear Alexey, what you call pumpkin is my alternative (2) above. If the thoughts and observations are not "more powerful than the dream or the trickster", i.e. if I can't reach beyond the dream, then this dream is my reality. Then there is nothing but this dream for me. Consequently, I wouldn't call this dream "dream", since that would require an ontology beyond the dream. Instead it would be rather natural to call this dream "world" or "reality". Cheers, Stefan

Our point, Stefan, is that acceptance of (V) as a possibility is incompatible with the value of fundamental science. That is what Descartes showed with his evil demon. Of course, it is possible to work in the normal science (Kuhn) and to not care about all these issues, which is typically the case. However, what later became normal science would not exist without revolutionary efforts of its founding fathers, who were very sensitive to the issues of meaning. To refute our statement about value, it would be necessary to point out at least one founding father of physics who expressed his disagreement with Descartes in this matter. I can tell you that there are none, but you may do your own historical research of course.

Best,

Alexey.

Dear Colleagues,

this is an interesting threat. I think the argument with the trickster is the reformulation of a point of view many people hold: Existence per se and the origins of our universe are not explainable, they cannot meaningfully traced back to a fundamental truth. Surely, these people say that they have indeed traced back all of existence - back to the 'fact' that all that exists came into being from literally *nothing* (not even from an empty set as some researchers here claim). But this 'explanation' does not carry any meaning with it other than at the end of the day all there is must be considered as intrinsically meaningless (since there is no reason why order and meaning should be more meaningful at a fundamental level than 'nothing'). So the true meaning of meaning and of existence per se could be termed as 'meaningless'. In this sense, existence is just a 'lucky fluke', but one without quantum mechanics at the beginning, but one without any precursor to cause it. Obviously this would be nihilism at its best.

The difference between a trickster and 'nothing' is, that the trickster seems to have a goal and therefore one can ascribe to the results of the trickster - namely the universe - a certain meaning (although it would be some kind of mean intention). In both cases, the trickster and the 'nothing', an ultimate explanation of the origins of existence is not available. In the case of the trickster because its tricks may be to hideous to be transcended by human beings, in the case of 'nothing' because there simply wouldn't exist any explanation (by definition) other than existence can come from nothing.

So, what to do with these two alternatives? If existence can come from nothing, the question arises why our existence seems to be so ordered, law-like and connected via logical chains. If existence can come from nothing, i would expect some huge anomalies in the course of events from time to time, means lawless behaviour at the macroscopic scale. None of these anomalies has been observed so far.

So i have the impression that, if there is indeed a trickster, what he would do is to force people into believing that all existence can come from nothing! this should be his main trick to obscure that he indeed does exist! Now we are at a point where we must ask where the trickster came from - how did he come into existence? Since we presupposed such a trickster, there is no need to explain how he came into existence. He simply may not exist. But for the case that he exists - and that is our field of investigation - we should answer this question. Here we leave logical thinking and must make a leap into metaphysics and religion. Traditionally the trickster is identified with an evil entity, passionately liking to entrap people into their own disaster. the trickster would be a kind of antagonist to the almighty God. What he wants to achieve is to guide people off from the truth. So in the case of the trickster (if there isn't only a trickster existent but also God - what is probable because the trickster has obviously not the power to produce the anomalies i spoke of above) there is objective truth in all of existence, because God is the absolute truth.

If one buys this scenario, then one must ask why people are separated from God and why there is no direct interaction with our creator. I would like to stop here and leave it to you how to answer these questions (but i personally think that we can transcend the matrix, so to speak). If one does neither believe in a trickster nor in God, the question remains how something can come from absolutely nothing or alternatively, from something other [what then poses the same question at another level and does not resolve the puzzle of finding the absolute truth about our existence, since a mere physical explanation of consciousness presupposes that we have figured out completely all the origins of the physical world to rule out some other origins than just the physical ones].

Best wishes,

Stefan Weckbach

Dear Stefan,

Thank you for your interesting comments to the important problem. I appreciate your conclusion that "If existence can come from nothing, i would expect some huge anomalies in the course of events from time to time, means lawless behaviour at the macroscopic scale. None of these anomalies has been observed so far." This idea in some more details is described in our essay as the Discoverability Principle, which constitutes the great contribution of physics into ontology. The idea of the trickster as the author of the universe cannot be refuted by the special character of the physical laws, but, as I already stressed in this thread, it contradicts to the values of fundamental science: the latter looses its meaning and inspiration with that belief.

All the best,

Alexey.

Dear Peter,

Thanks for your compliments and the detailed comment, and thank you for your explanation of entrevoir. Untranslatable words are such curious creatures!

You bring up an interesting observation that Epimenidic analysis can be applied to cumulative selection. I look forward to reading your elaboration on it. Epimenides seems to me the most common error in self-referential structures in danger of being paradoxical. Since philosophy is particularly concerned with self-referentiality, it should be part of the standard philosophical toolbox. We've been using this thought instrument for a number of years now, and it seems to pop up just about everywhere. In this article, though, we described a different dimension to it, the one of ethics.

It is hard to see how any metaphysic can proceed without considering ethical implications. Ethics considers those values that are most important, and without importance any metaphysic (tautologically) ceases to matter. It is our main charge to the majority of contemporary philosophy, that the value is taken out of the picture, as if in some slavish fear of science. It is particularly on this ground that we reject the possibility of mathematical laws leading to human thought, and with it some extreme branches of Platonism.

You say that you "do not find 'mysterious' the unity of mathematics." I think we use the word "mystery" differently, Peter. We have a few sentences in GPU about it. To me, mystery is like a wellspring of knowledge and culture. It is full of value and may very well extend to infinity. In pointing to mystery as connection between the three worlds, or the connection between time flow and atemporality, we imply three things. The first is that we are not dealing with a simple problem, for example of declaring one or another thing an illusion, the second, that it is a source of knowledge, possibly infinite, and third, that ontologically this point must be grounded in highest value.

A common objection to the "Cartesian dualism" is that the two substances are not unified. While it has some truth, it is naive. Through experience we know of three kinds of entities: thought, ideas and matter. These kinds of entities are as different from each other as anything can be, so different, that we call them separate "worlds". Yet reality itself is one. Descartes didn't make up this contradictory view out of thin air. It is contained within reality itself. But how are we to understand this? Two ways seem open. The first is to think of a substance that is more fundamental than the three worlds. The other is to show that one of the worlds is more fundamental and thus contains the other two. Exploring the latter, materialism is the least satisfactory. But neither can we describe thought -- the essence of temporality -- in atemporal terms, reason. Thus, this question lies in the domain of mystery, where reason can make discoveries, but never encompass. That beauty is the link between being and becoming is to say the same thing. Eternal beauty calls, and we respond in time. Perhaps beauty belongs to what Plotinus called the One.

Kind Regards,

Lev

Hi Alexey and Lev Burov,

I appreciate your efforts to delve deeply into the question at hand. I have a few minor quibbles with your conclusions but I will not quibble here.

I have an essay which takes a look at some under-appreciated behavioral phenomena and the challenges they pose for the scientific vision that is the foundation for that same question. That material might be of interest to you.

//fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2783

I hope things are going well for you.

Ted Christopher

Rochester, NY

    Hi Ted,

    Thanks for the encouraging words. We appreciate all sorts of responses, quibbles are our favorite :)

    Cheers,

    Alexey.

    Dear Alexey and Lev

    I loved your essay, and rated it highly. Your prose is elegant, and I will re-read your words again after this contest is over in the hope that I will find more interesting avenues for exploration.

    I had to laugh to myself several times, such would seem to be the similarities in our philosophical positions. Too many to discuss here, but I noted in particular that both our essays went to Value as a core feature of reality. I do hope you get a chance to read my "From Nothingness to Value Ethics", if you haven't already.

    Best regards

    Gavin

      Hi again Alexey,

      I am back here on your comment over at my page. I might be a bit more clumsy than usual as I am stuck in a noisy house amidst a snow storm (I exit occasionally to some quiet shoveling for acoustic relief).

      I thank you for your consideration. Your essay is very thorough and was quite helpful for me. Other than computer programming my intellectual background is rather limited. You cover a lot of ground and lean towards an underlying presence of God which is fine. One quibble with your essay was with regards to the claim about the mystical nature of many great mathematicians and physicists. My sense of being a mystic is that it mostly entails a sustained inward commitment or awareness, and that tends to place the intellect in the backseat. In my book I talk a little about David Bohm who was an unusual person and scientist, and was apparently somewhat of a mystic my nature. I also made somewhat of a sweeping reference to the difficulty of his approach but that is not unusual - serious mysticism is difficult.

      In my limited essay space I included some rare emphatic examples (although the transgender phenomena is pretty common). My book goes on to discuss a number of more general challenges to the scientific vision (including of course the huge heritability challenge). There really are a number of under-appreciated mysteries with regards to our lives. These challenge science as well as the prevalent overconfidence with regards to our current state of knowledge.

      If you decide to read my book please feel free to toss questions or comments my way.

      You talk a lot about the significance of intellectual beauty. On the hand I suggest that a lot of progress (intellectual/spiritual/whatever) is derived from the obstacles and suffering we encounter.

      Finally, on an issue skirted by many modern intellectuals, I think people should be mulling over religious views in light of scientific impasses. My book takes a critical look at both religions and science (easy for an outsider like myself) but I think that the underlying reality is that religions were on to something real and science should be open to that possibility.

      An extra finally, the bottom-up (or soul) religious orientation should be paired with the top-down (or God) orientation. I think that both are valid but the latter is much more subtle and hard to argue for.

      Take care,

      Ted

      Dear Gavin,

      Thank you so much for your compliments and support. I just finished reading your essay; it is one of the best at this contest, I think. Perhaps, you have already read my comments on your page.

      All the best,

      Alexey.

      Dear Alexey and Lev,

      I was really pleased to see this angle in the batch. With some collaborators, I've been doing work on mathematics as a cultural process, driven by taste and aesthetics and group norms as much (or even more than) by utility. Michael Harris has written a lovely book on the question, an autobiography as well as a response to Hardy, called "Mathematics without apologies", and it was intriguing to see such a high-level mathematician talk so frankly about the aesthetic (and social) prejudices that drive him.

      It's a value-laiden process, in other words, and it is just really weird that it ends up producing the raw material for physics. The "Unreasonable Effectiveness" that Eugene Wigner wrote about seems even more mysterious. And I think it provides either a challenge, or a bizarre next step, for someone who signs on to the standard Platonism that most physicists walk around with (or the hypertrophic version in Max Tegmark!) You're forced either to say that it's doubly weird that mathematics works so well despite the "contamination" by values, or, conversely, that of course value-laiden mathematicians do so well: the universe is values through and through.

      Yours,

      Simon

        Hi Ted,

        I think all your 'quibbles' are important, giving me a chance to focus on some of our key issues.

        1.

        "One quibble with your essay was with regards to the claim about the mystical nature of many great mathematicians and physicists. My sense of being a mystic is that it mostly entails a sustained inward commitment or awareness, and that tends to place the intellect in the backseat."

        The historical fact is that essentially all those great people who deserve to be called 'fathers of physics' were mystics. This is true not only for Pythagoras and Plato, but also for Galileo, Kepler, Descartes, Leibniz, Newton, Euler, Gauss, Faraday, Maxwell, Planck, Einstein, Schrodinger, Heisenberg, Pauli, older Dirac, Wigner... You may read about that, for instance, in a wonderful recent historical treatise of Wagner and Briggs, "The Penultimate Curiosity", or enjoy "Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists", collected by Ken Wilber, or in "The Music of Pythagoras" by Kitty Ferguson, to name just a few.

        2.

        "You talk a lot about the significance of intellectual beauty. On the hand I suggest that a lot of progress (intellectual/spiritual/whatever) is derived from the obstacles and suffering we encounter. "

        The high importance of the intellectual beauty is not my arbitrary claim; I am finding that in writings of those highest rank mathematicians and physicists who cared to express their worldview. Moreover, I think everybody with sufficient mathematical experience knows that in his/her heart. Mathematics is loved by many people, and it is loved for its beauty. Obstacles and suffering may play an important role in ways that beauty is revealed to us, as, for example, one may read in the book of Job.

        3.

        "I think that the underlying reality is that religions were on to something real and science should be open to that possibility."

        I do not think that science, as a special mode of cognition, can be open to religious reality. Science is limited by its strict exclusion of all subjective, which makes it so effective. I would rather say that scientists should not be as closed to the religious, as science is.

        4.

        I am not sure that I fully understand your last paragraph. I would say that the God-soul relation is extremely subtle both bottom-up and top-down.

        Thanks again for your extensive and thoughtful comments. Stay warm and please do not forget to rate our essay.

        Good luck, Alexey.

        Hi Alexey,

        I thank you for your note. You can respond at your leisure to this if you wish.

        1. "Mystics" apparently has multiple meanings then. In a philosophical sense you (and those authors) might be right. In what I would term a meditational sense I don't think those individuals were mystics (very few people are). Books like "And There Was Light" or "I AM THAT" were written my individuals who somehow got a deeper perspective on things (i.e., a mystical perspective) and that is exceptional and I don't think intellectual in nature (the latter author was completely uneducated).

        3. The deeper point of my book is that you can get coherent objective traction across a number of life mysteries from a premodern religious perspective. In any case in the pending wake of DNA's failure people are going to want to comprehend individual innateness and the associated challenges. I doubt scientific approaches will find traction.

        Thanks again,

        Ted

        Dear Simon,

        Thank you for the good words in our address. We are glad to see a rare person who shares with us understanding of a necessity for ontological conclusions from the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics', and the problem of values in that respect. Many thanks also for the info about Harris' book; I already ordered it. The ending of your post "You're forced either to say that it's doubly weird that mathematics works so well despite the "contamination" by values, or, conversely, that of course value-laiden mathematicians do so well: the universe is values through and through" looks as a possible epigraph to our previous fqxi paper :) I am going to respond to your captivating essay on your page.

        Good luck at the contest,

        Alexey.

        Alexey and Lev,

        A nice purposeful combination of prose and poetry, uniting the material and the mental with the bridge of mathematical beauty, which almost poetically describes the natural world.

        I try to display the birth of hypothesis with a speculation regarding dark matter in my essay, bringing together thoughts of others, mathematical laws, and an intensely perturbed material world. I hope you have time to read it and provide your thoughts.

        Jim Hoover

          Jim,

          We are specially flattered by your truthful compliments to our blend of the romantic prose and rational poetry (now imagine my artistic bow and :)). Thank you! Your essay is in my short list; you will see me soon on your page.

          Best,

          Alexey.

          5 days later

          Dear Alexey and Lev

          I read with great interest your beautiful essay. It was a real pleasure, there is a kind of luminosity that emerges from it - I think you understand what I mean.

          The res cogitans of Descartes corresponds to mind but now we know that most of mind functions depend on matter - for instance, memory: a damage in the brain can cause a lost of memory. If we compare what can be achieved by Artificial Intelligence with ourselves, it seems that our sole characteristic that we cannot, by now, consider that depends on matter is consciousness. It may depend but by now, we do not know how.

          In my essay, I exclude consciousness from my analysis; but I give a contribution to explain everything else, i.e., how, from the simple properties of matter, can the universe evolves as if guided by an intelligence towards a goal (a surprising contribution of my essay is to explain "intelligence" from matter properties).

          Note that in the above phrase I excluded "mathematics"; because mathematics is just a tool, a language. When I was young, I was marveled with mathematics, but along my life I learned to consider it as a tool - a powerful one, essential, but a tool; like language is a tool for communication. Of course that it can be a source of the feeling of beauty - like it happens with language. And, like language, it can be it in two ways, the formal one and through the ideas it represents. Nowadays, I don't use an equation that I cannot replace by plain text (excluding the quantifying aspect). The reason is that mathematics has no goal, we cannot let be driven by it, we have to always understand the road in which we are because mathematics can follow any road. Like language.

          As you seem to have an open mind, I dare to say that along my life I had a set of personal experiences that I cannot explain by coincidences or hazard; although I try to explain everything from matter properties, and to some extend I feel that I do it better than anyone else (my essay is just a minimum demonstration of it), I know that there is a level on the universe that in no way can be explained by our present conception of it at the Physical level.

          All the best!

          Alfredo Gouveia Oliveira

            Dear Alfredo,

            Thank you for your kind words in our address. Beauty is in the focus of our essay, and this obliges. We are glad to know that some of our readers appreciate aesthetic side of our text.

            Certainly, it is true that mathematics is a language. However, it would not be correct to attribute it solely to humanity, as we tried to show. Galileo stressed that it is the language of the "book of nature" itself, and the same idea was expressed by Wigner: mathematics is "the correct language", that is why it is "unreasonably effective" in physics. The discoverability of the laws of nature (in the meaning of our essay) can not be attributed solely to the inventiveness of the human mind; it also has its objective counter-part, related to the nature itself.

            Your post above sounds both intelligent and friendly, convincing me to read your essay attentively. I will do this soon, leaving my comments on your page.

            All the best,

            Alexey Burov.