Moira and Eileithyia for Genesis by Alexey and Lev Burov

Dear Alexey

Once again, I repeat that I never said that I was even trying to explain how life began; what I am explaining is how molecules of the kind of DNA were produced. Between this and life is an enormous distance and I am surprised that you made such confusion.

Differently of your argumentation, the production of molecules of the kind of DNA has, at least, a reasonable property in the scenario I defined - this is not a guess, I calculated it.

Concerning life, even if one believes that it was created by God, one has to think that God did not created life from nothing. Or from clay. It is more reasonable to think that the material universe provided the material components of Life. For a believer in God, the role of God is to give life to matter, not to manufacture all life components.

So, you see, in nothing I said, God is put in question in any way - quite on the contrary. To put God in question is to pretend that the universe was made in seven days and life from clay. Would you disagree with me in this point?

I can say to you that during my life I had a set of experiences that I cannot explain by any known physical property, or by coincidences, etc; and one of them concerns precisely something that is written in the Bible - something of the utmost importance for the near future of mankind. Therefore, I know very well that the universe is much more than the description Physics can do. And this is not a "belief", its a knowledge from experience; and as I am an experienced empiricist, I am not in mistake when I state this. For me, "God" is a way to address everything that does not belongs to the material plane but I have no idea of what it might be because I have not enough data.

For us to know anything about any subject, we first have to be ready to accept all possibilities; if we are not, we will just be believers in something that pleases us. Jesus went to the desert to find the answer He was looking for. Only then He knew.

Although there are arrogant physicists that consider that Physics is able to explain everything, that periodically produce statements of the kind "to know all about the universe we are just missing this small aspect", they are just stupid and ignorant persons that not even have an idea of how far you are of understanding the universe. However, that is not the case of most scientists. Physics may conflict with "religious" explanations for physical phenomena but not with the essence of Religion, i.e., with the perception that the universe is not just matter. A bad physicist thinks that what he/her does not knows, does not exist; but that is not the methodology of science; a serious scientist analyses the data available and in relation to anything else he/her has only to assume ignorance. In this way there is no possible conflict between Science and Religion because they address different fields.

One thing that I assumed still a teenager is that to achieve some knowledge one has to drop the word "belief". Be it in Physics, Religion, whatever field. And drop it also in the negative form - we shall not "believe" or "not belief" in anything. I strictly follow Descartes method. That is a hard way, and with many problems, but is the only way for those that really want to know.

I hope that now, after this loooong message, you may understand me better.

All the best

Alfredo

Dear Alexey and Lev Burov,

On another thread [Robert Groess'] you made notice of a quote from P. Anderson:

"In fact, the more the elementary particle physicists tell us about the nature of the fundamental laws, the less relevance they seem to have to the very real problems of the rest of science, much less society."

The statement is not unlike Steven Weinberg's remark, that

"The more comprehensible the universe becomes, the more it also seems pointless."

David Berlinski, a mathematician, remarks

"He had a point. The arena of the elementary particles... is rather a depressing place, and if it resembles anything at all it rather resembles a florescent lit bowling alley seen from the interstate, tiny stick figures in striped bowling shirts jerking up and down in the monstrously hot and humid night. What is its point?"

I suspect the 'stick figures' are Feynman diagrams. [By the way, if you have not read Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion, I think you would enjoy it very much.]

Anyway, you then asked, "If it is so, what do you think is the value of the particle physics for the humanity?", and you discussed the high cost of particle physics research, questioning the payoff.

The Higgs candidate has been found, as was to be expected by anyone who has read Andrew Pickering's Constructing Quarks, and supersymmetry, once felt to be a requirement for the Standard Model, is nowhere to be seen. No other particles are predicted [only resonances]. As you know from my essay, I view physics, particularly quantum physics, as mathematical projections onto physical reality. Due to its appropriateness in many physical situations the statistical nature of quantum mechanics delivers the goods. In particle systems QFT is essentially a bookkeeping system, based on a simplistic 'creation' and 'annihilation' formalism. I believe it is primarily a way to fit theory to data.

In contrast, I've found over several years that the predominant model from which QM is often heuristically derived is Stern-Gerlach, and physicists, after approximately a century, still do not understand the physics of one silver atom in an inhomogeneous magnetic field. In fact, I am, with others, building an experiment that will significantly affect QM if our research results are positive. We're self-funded, and, if successful, will have more impact on "real world" physics than the next few years operation of the LHC is likely to. So I agree with your implied sentiment.

My very best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Alexey,

In reviewing the essays I have read, I noticed you are a scientist at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. I have been following the LHC news and noticed among other things they are looking for evidence of dark matter. I had mentioned in my comments on your essay the speculation I provided in my essay about dark matter, feeling it is a byproduct of the interactions of normal matter, its forces, and the SMBH in the center of galaxies. It is probably my amateur speculation that dark matter will only be found in the field. With your background, I would be interested in your thoughts.

Jim Hoover

Alexey,

Your essay effectively describes the ideal beauty that should be and can be the unifying source of discovery that brings stellar order of knowledge and survival that celebrates rather than shrinks humanity. Those who puff up their importance and act to shrink humanity are liars. I think we are among many experiments in humanity in the universe. Two weeks ago, I gave you high marks for how effective your words of inspiration are.

Thanks for checking out my essay:

I appreciate you mentioned "life's higher meaning". Don't you think that the biggest discoveries and inventions of humanity happened in following this meaning, not the goals of survival and comfort? If so, would it be correct to try to explain the core of human beings by means of entropy and survival? In our essay we are trying to show that this approach leads to the Epimenides paradox. One more question relates to the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics": how it can be accounted in the framework of your paper?

Life has a higher meaning but there are those who would destroy all life around them for their own glory. Perhaps you have more faith in this higher ideal being the imperative.

Jim

Уважаемые Alexei and Lev,

Taking Ancient Platonism seriously is usually considered as some sort of pre - pre - Kantian simplification in today's philosophy. Both Poincare and Einstein Relativity theories are based on Kant's heuristics, but not on Platonism. Mathematical intuitionists, Schrodinger and Dirac expressed similar attitude on Kant transcendental aesthetics as well. Club of Alternative Natural Philosophy Association ( neo - Kantian researchers ( Eddington, Dirac, Bondi,Bronstein )of fundamental constants as Kant's synthetic a priori judgments ) also attempted to find suitable aesthetic generalizations in the terms of neo - Kantianism but not Platonism. Weyl's " Pythagoreanism" was not also "pure Platonism " because Weyl was well- known neo Kantian.etc. In other words, philosophically, in order to use simplified ancient method of philosophizing in our 21st century is needed to prove that your method is suitable indeed.

In modern metaphysics "Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" is connected with fundamental question of Kant- how are synthetic a priori judgments possible ?

Dmitry Gawronsky brilliant Russian neo - Kantian mathematician and philosopher(1883-1949) Marburg school of neo - Kantian philosophy suggested that the philosopher must not rely on idle metaphysical speculations but has to know how synthetic a priori is actually applied in scientific practice (1912).

Some details of such sort of academic thinking could be found in my essay entitled " Kantian answers ".

С самыми наилучшими пожеланиями в не слишком постоватом мире философии

Michael

Dear Alexey and Lev Burov,

Ah! You make such valiant and passionate appeal to our senses of beauty that it becomes hard for us to even think of constructing any arguments that defies the centrality of beauty. Having apologized for this violation of beauty in the hands of rationality, let me commit that anyway.

Beauty has many forms, as you too captured in your essay, but you remained confined to the beauty of mathematics. As someone said, "Beauty lies in the eyes of beholder [i.e in the senses of the perceiver]", I see so many other forms of beauty that are equally magnificent and grand as mathematical beauty, that mathematics alone does not appeal to me as the sole source of the genesis. Of course, none other is eternal as mathematics. I will not find heart to ask -- what gives beauty the causal power?

Since you assert, "Eternal beauty calls to new manifestations; by evincing the contemplation of itself", I see a problem with eternity. If it is truly eternal, then what is still left to make 'calls to new manifestations' that has not already been called before? Genesis of universe in the hand's of mathematics has this problem too.

There is another dilemma that I run into: I see the emergence of senses via certain mechanisms that are not entirely deterministic. That is, the universe must have certain degree (within limits) of indeterminism. Mathematics cannot deal with imperfections, where its elegant forms break down. Therefore, contemplating that imperfections have the causal power to create appreciation for perfection and the beauty in mathematics is again an Epimenidic error. Atoms do not dance to the perfect tunes of mathematics.

You ask, "If the two branches of being were totally alien to each other, how could they interact? If they have a common ground, how can that ground be understood?". What if they do not interact, but are inseparable in such a manner that interaction of physical states constructs the semantics for another, as I have tried to work out. This way, the path to subjectivity is laid down with the processes of objectivity.

Please correct me if I exhibit certain misunderstanding of your essay, since I found it too abstract without much help to feel the ground below. Moreover, it also has certain elements tied to certain culture and history.

Rajiv

Dear Alexey and Lev,

Perhaps you will excuse me for being tardy in replying to your comment here. It is not easy to read several different essays and then engage in multiple discussions, in the midst of other projects and tasks as well. However, your remarks about metaphysics and ethics are very important. I have thought about what you say, and I would like to respond.

Let me begin by agreeing with you that "the beauty of the world" is an extremely important aspect of things. At the end of the Book of Job two components of this beauty are emphasized. The workings of nature, many of them at least, are immediately delightful upon perception, apart from intellectual examination of them. Furthermore, also according to the Book of Job, when we do think about natural objects and processes, they disclose to us additional aspects of intricacy and grandeur.

Leibniz agrees with the general approach of the Book of Job, but his position is importantly different. When Leibniz says that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds, his standard of goodness, like that of the Book of Job, involves a kind of beauty. For Leibniz, however, the beauty of the world is primarily a quasi-mathematical elegance. The world, Leibniz asserts, is at once very simple in its basic principles and quite rich in its detailed phenomena. This conjoint simplicity and richness is not as evident as the workings of nature mentioned in the Book of Job. Leibniz is talking about something which requires persistent investigation to detect.

Leibniz and the Book of Job do not contradict one another. They simply emphasize different aspects of the world's beauty. We can agree that the world is beautiful in various ways. Some of the beauty can be immediately apparent to conscious human observers. Other aspects of the beauty require effort to uncover. We can accept that nature is beautiful in several ways, and we can appreciate the different layers of beauty.

Nietzsche takes this line of thought in a different direction, but not in a direction necessarily antithetical to what we have just considered. Although Nietzsche may not talk much about beauty, he is interested in values above all else, and for him the primary values, and indeed the only ones he affirms, are those of aesthetic excellence. Nietzsche differs from the Book of Job and from Leibniz in that Nietzsche approaches aesthetic excellence from the standpoint of a creative artist rather than from the standpoint of a person who contemplates and appreciates excellence which already exists. In Nietzsche's view, the important thing is to create works of aesthetic excellence. Also according to Nietzsche, the most difficult task is to form oneself into a splendid work. If one can come close enough to succeeding at that, the result will be consequential and praiseworthy.

Once again, there is no contradiction here. We can agree that the production of excellent works complements the appreciation of various forms of beauty in nature.

At this point a serious error can enter the discussion with another theme from Nietzsche's philosophy. Not content with extolling creative excellence, Nietzsche spends much time and effort denigrating normative philosophies which differ from his. He attacks Kantian ethics and all forms of utilitarianism. More generally, Nietzsche seems to have nothing but contempt for what we might think of as humane values, such as justice, fairness, kindness, compassion, the relief of suffering, and the like. It is not too difficult to look beneath his words to his underlying motivation. Nietzsche sees that, if values such as these are the correct ones, then the world stands condemned, because the world does not operate according to principles of this sort. In the historical context of nineteenth-century philosophy, the opposition between Nietzsche and Schopenhauer is evident. In Schopenhauer's view, suffering is the chief fact to which we should attend and compassion is the core of ethics. Schopenhauer does condemn the world as a place of suffering. Nietzsche takes the opposite view. As theodicy is part of Leibniz's enterprise, so cosmodicy is essential to Nietzsche's philosophy.

(A search in Google shows that the word "cosmodicy" has been in use for some time, and that the topic has been discussed both in general and particularly with reference to Nietzsche's thinking.)

It is both helpful and interesting to look at what other people have thought and said, but of course the important question is what assessment we ought to make, all things considered. Suppose, then, we ask, "From the standpoint of conscious human individuals, is the world in which they find themselves a good place or is it not?" I do not think we can give an unqualified answer to this question. The beauty of the world in its various forms is genuine, and to the extent that people engage with it and (as Nietzsche advocates) add to it, the world is a good place. But Schopenhauer, and many others with him, are also correct. Suffering, like beauty, comes in various forms. The pain of existence is as real and as significant as the sublimity of existence. If there is some way to overcome this opposition, if there is some resolution in a higher synthesis, it is not now apparent how that could be done.

In your comments on the Web page for my essay, you mention the "paradoxical worldview," and you discuss the issue of how we should think about paradoxes in worldviews and perhaps in the world itself. I intend to add to that discussion on the Web page for my essay. I am not sure whether the idea of paradox is relevant to the present discussion of evaluations. Perhaps you would not count this kind of opposition between evaluations as a paradox. Maybe it is a kind of paradox. By whatever name the opposition might be called, it does seem to be the way things are, or at least the way they appear to be.

Obviously, more could be said about these matters, but additional thoughts will have to wait for another time.

Laurence Hitterdale

Dear Alexey and Lev,

Thank you for taking the discussion forward. This response is to express reasons of my ignorance as I had also said that even though I liked the persuasive arguments favoring the 'power of beauty', which I can feel within, but the essay was too abstract to make me feel the ground under my feet.

>> 1."mathematics alone does not appeal to me as the sole source of the genesis"

> We agree; you may find some arguments in support of that in our composition.

>> 3. "what gives beauty the causal power?"

> We never said that the power of beauty is causal.

I suppose, I formed the incorrect ideas from the following.

"It is with the power of beauty that the existing is connected with that which is only being summoned into existence: Being with intention and goal. The world was created for its beauty, and man--as one who may hear that and respond."

Essay ends with, "Beauty is the Moira and Eileithyia for birth", and its title is, "Moira and Eileithyia for Genesis". So, even though I did not know the background of ""Moira and Eileithyia", I presumed that you are constructing a rationale for the creation.

>> 2. "Of course, none other is eternal as mathematics."

> We never said that, especially with such a certainty.

No, you did not say that explicitly but I was looking for reasons why the beauty of mathematics is isolated from others to have such 'existential' powers. Though, you do say, "Eternal beauty calls to new manifestations; by evincing the contemplation of itself". Even though cosmos holds the beauty at such grand scale that can take the breath out everytime one contemplates its majesty, but cosmos may not be eternal.

>> 4. "If it is truly eternal, then what is still left to make 'calls to new manifestations' that has not already been called before?"

Thanks for appreciating it, but this confusion stemmed again from the the same presumption of 'beauty being source of existence'. In fact, I must have read 5 times, "Eternal beauty calls to new manifestations; by evincing the contemplation of itself, it beckons birth...", yet I had difficulty forming a picture of how beauty could 'evince the contemplation of itself'. Only now I understand that it is through an agent with 'aims and desires'. So now, it appears that 'aims and desires' are fundamental source of such beauty. In fact, it is very much in line with -- mathematics is creation of minds like ours, which may not have any limits.

> Cartesian implication of human ability to see clearly and distinctively perfection of mathematical ideas. That is where Descartes introduces his trust to God as a foundation of cognition. In this respect, our mentality is not fully foreign to divine's.

Can I presume that "our mentality is not fully foreign to divine's" is your determination, and therefore belief, from Cartesian argument, or is it just a reflection of what Descartes proposed?

> "Inspiration belongs to the kingdom of freedom."

My god, what nuggets! It can roil one into such recursive mental exercise, that one will begin to see beauty of abstract thoughts, if one has not seen already, which in fact could be the source of mathematical thinking.

And thank you for proposing to peruse my essay. I do hope that you discover why placing information, and semantics irrevocably in the domain of minds may have kept us from not making headway on the understanding of emergence of minds. Please do not hold anything in criticizing it plainly, all nuggets from you will be welcome!

Rajiv

Alexey and Lev,

Congratulations for this beautiful philosophical overview and your literate delving into the fundamentals. That is how a scientist and humanist should collaborate. It is true that the confrontation of the subjective sense of self, against the mechanical world supposedly revealed by physics, is the primary dilemma of thought as well as a source of discomfort to reflective persons. It is the intuitive absurdity of Leibniz's Mill, the idea that any machinery can give rise to our thoughts and feelings. I addressed that very dilemma in a past essay of mine:

Flashlights, Mirrors, Real Brains and Willpower: Steering Ourselves to Steer Our Future. I will have more to say later about the specifics of the issue and your answers to it, right now I wanted to make sure I gave proper credit to the arc of your effort.

Dear Alexey and Lev

Thanks for commenting on my essay and the interest in it.

As to your question: Mathematics define the relations that exists in the physical system, and the effectiveness of mathematics "is probable that there is some secret here which remains to be discovered" as you well quoted Wigner work. In my view the subjectivity is embedded in the uniqueness and singularity of every movement-phenomenon. This uniqueness is embedded in the qualities of its attributes. In every movement there are attributes like behavior, character, matter, form, communication-language, memory, aims (purposes) etc. As such the physical occurrence of the phenomena is not based on causality principle but rather on the process of selecting the subjective action that exits to the phenomenon in its relation to others.Causality is special case in the occurrence of a phenomenon. A mathematical model can and should be developed for such activity.

Ethics are not a higher level, or "above" ontological occurrence of the phenomenon, and it is embedded in the perception of reality by the subject.

Love is a degree of quality in the attribute of "character" of each movement or the assembly of movements.

It is all ontological and the beauty in reality stem from the eminent subjectivity and uniqueness of each movement which gives us the transcendental glory effect within reality. In the essay, I explained that reality is being continuously ratified itself as being a unique self organization though we continuously changing. "alexey" is ratifying "lev" and so on. There wasn't like you in the past nor in the future, you are unique and singular.

With great ratification and appreciation

Have a great weekend

yehuda atai

Dear Alexey and Lev,

I was inspired and impressed by your beautiful argument in the first part of your essay. It is very important to repeat this argument often e.g. "the hypothesis of aleatory or mechanical emergence of thought from matter should be rejected, and not even due to the significant hurdles of its scientific weakness and unfalsifiability but because of its Epimenidic character, its entailment of cognitive suicide."

But I hope you don't mind if I criticise the ideas in the second part of your essay. You asked me to be "as critical as you like"!

From my point of view, the main issue is: do the things of the universe have the power, or does the power lie outside the universe in a Platonic realm? By "the power" I mean: the ability to generate/create rules, to know rules, to implement rules. By "the things of the universe" I mean: particles, atoms, molecules and living things.

I assume a self-sufficient universe, which has very different implications for the nature of reality than a universe plus Platonic realm combination. Rather than abstract beauty (Kallone) "always deciding the fate" (Moira), I see the things of the universe as having the power to create new initial-value rules (e.g. the outcomes of "quantum randomness" can be seen as re-initialising one or more variables), within the limits of existing earlier-created law-of-nature rules. I.e. the things of the universe are free within limits.

Re "in its idea, mathematics is entirely detached from all that is specific to humanity and even to nature. It is a composition of pure, abstract, timeless reason, reason per se.":

I see mathematics differently. To me, mathematics is a purely human-derived study that creates representations of possible relationships and investigates their properties. So mathematics is about categories and relationships that together form new categories; and the conclusions that logically derive from such relationships; and the conclusions that logically derive from all possible types of relationships; and numbers. To me, what we call "logic" is like a property of relationships and assumptions: logic does not have a separate existence.

We human beings can understand representations of mathematical relationships/ rules because relationships/ rules represent the essence of the structure of physical reality. So to me: 1) the content of human (and animal and cellular) consciousness is reducible to categories and relationships, where categories are just transposed relationships, and categories are concepts i.e. they are subjective experience; and 2) law-of-nature rules are reducible to categories and relationships, where mass and charge are examples of categories, and where numbers (initial values, i, and even the non-algebraic number pi) found in nature must ultimately derive from real relationships where the numerator and denominator categories cancel out, forming a number, i.e. a thing without a category. I.e. reality has more underlying infrastructure than expected.

So, I see similarities, not differences, between consciousness, laws-of-nature and mathematics. Mathematics is "beautiful" because it mirrors something about reality, about 'Who are we?' (Schrodinger).

Regards,

Lorraine