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

    Jim,

    Thanks again for the compliments in our address. Of course you are right pointing to some of dangers for humanity; I would just add, that within materialistic worldview individual life cannot value much. No surprise, that the two monstrous regimes of the last century were based on materialistic teachings, and Darwinism was an important part of the ruling ideology for each of them.

    I just rated your essay, good luck!

    Alexey.

    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 Michael,

        Thanks for reading and commenting our essay. If you have any question, you are very welcome to ask.

        Cheers,

        Alexey Burov.

        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 Rajiv,

        Thank you for the exquisite praise in our address and for your pithy questions which by the necessity can only be briefly addressed here.

        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.

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

        We never said that, especially with such a certainty.

        3. "what gives beauty the causal power?"

        We never said that the power of beauty is causal. Inspiration belongs to the kingdom of freedom.

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

        That's a wonderful question. Imagine that somewhere in another galaxy, billions years ahead, somebody, not too different from Einstein, after long contemplations discovered General Relativity. Wouldn't that be a new manifestation of the eternal beauty?

        5. "the universe must have certain degree (within limits) of indeterminism."

        We never denied that.

        6. "contemplating that imperfections have the causal power to create appreciation for perfection and the beauty in mathematics is again an Epimenidic error."

        We agree and appreciate your clear understanding of our Epimenidic instrument. What is missed in your consideration is 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.

        7. "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."

        Since we did not yet read your essay, we can only mention that "semantics" already implies mind, so this logic looks circular. We will read your essay and reply on your page.

        Thanks again and good luck!

        Alexey and Lev.

        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

        Dear Rajiv,

        We are touched by your response, with your ambition to disentangle some of our hidden meanings. Yes, we left some puzzles for our readers, and let us keep them not quite unveiled :) Now it's our turn to read your essay and try to pay you back.

        Thanks again and see you on your page,

        Alexey.

        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 Neil,

          Thanks for your kind words. We envision certain ideals as to what the language should be when it comes close to what great thinkers called Good and Beauty, and your compliments assure us that we have not gone too far past our mark. We'll read your old essay while waiting for the further comments you intend.

          Alexey and Lev

          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 Yehuda,

            Your essay shows the value of individual things, while most of others concentrate on the universal aspects of reality. Mathematics tells about latter, arts focus on the former, and each is ratified through its special beauty.

            Thank you,

            Alexey.

            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

              Alexey and Lev -

              You have given us a lovely essay, one which draws together physics, philosophy, literature and aesthetics. I like the point you make that trying to explain thought from the material is self-contradictory. Of course, I happen to agree.

              The interposition of the three spheres of physical, mental and mathematical (a la Penrose) also makes sense, although this model leave us in a "tri-ality". Penrose highlights the mystery by which these three are unified. The triune conceptualization may be a more accurate description of reality than Cartesian dualism, but still leaves us searching for unity.

              I'm not convinced beauty is the integrating solution. If, as you point out, the compelling attraction to beauty is simply a subjective reflection of the inevitability of cognitive and therefore evolutionary success, then beauty could be epiphenomenal rather than fundamental. Love, on the other hand (as I argue), is the defining feature of intention and integrates the "tri-ality" into a whole.

              In your reply comment on my essay (The How and the Why of Emergence and Intention), you asked me about my response to your initial comment --- I said "Ah, yes, the Demiurge strikes again." This was my attempt at humor. In your comment you referenced the "Demiurge" (Descartes' evil demon) as a theme in your current and previous essays --- my comment was a pun on "Demi" (meaning half part) and "urge" (meaning desire or intention), and "strikes again" (since it was a theme in both your essays).

              I also said "I'll be most interested in seeing how you can sail the empirical arguments through the treacherous shoals between the rocks of Godel and QP" This is a reference to Scylla and Charybdis (in Greek myth) - and my argument that empirical evidence and mathematical reasoning cannot overcome the paradoxes of quantum indeterminacy / complementary or Godellian incompleteness.

              My reference to "how the Upper Mind conceives of intentionality." is also a humorous play on words (you used the term "Upper Mind"). To the extent one believes in an Upper Mind (as I do - although in my essay I avoided extending the concept of cosmic intentionality to cosmic agency), one would, I think, agree that the conceptions of such a mind would constitute intentions in our world.

              Thanks again for your thoughtful comments on my essay, and for the excellent essay you have contributed. Good luck!

              -George Gantz

                Dear Lorraine,

                We are pleased to see you in our space; many thanks for coming and speaking!

                Both your compliments and criticism are very valuable for us, because of the independence, courage and will to the deepest truth we see in your thinking. Our responses to your objections follow.

                1.

                "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"

                Let's accept this as the main question, Lorraine. The answer seems obvious: the material objects do not have any ability to change fundamental laws of nature. It is unthinkable for the electrons to decide and agree about values of their spin and charge, photons cannot change Maxwell equations, galaxies cannot change the laws of gravity; neither animals nor humans can do any of that. However, one may try to express your question in a bit different way, as a question about thinking entity, existing within the universe and permeating it, sort of immanent Soul. Although I would not debate in favor of this hypothesis, but I have a sympathy to it, and it seems sufficiently reasonable to me. Let's assume it is true, that the World Soul does exist. I could assume then, as a reasonable follow-up, that the Soul is responsible for the origin of life, its evolution, and appearance of thinking beings on our planet and maybe not only. All these constitutes a worldview called panpsychism. The main problem of the panpsychism is addressed in the next item.

                2.

                "I assume a self-sufficient universe"

                In your essay, you also use a word "closed" for that. Here is the main problem of the panpsychism, which assumes, as you do, that the universe is self-sufficient. If the Soul is a part of the universe, how It can be responsible for the fundamental physical laws? To choose and hold them firm through the Big Bang until now, the Soul must be more than a part of the universe, It must be the Author, which authority cannot be shaken by whatever happening with the material world. Thus, the Soul must be either a part or an agent of the transcendental Creator. This constitutes the main argument against panpsychism with its closed self-sufficient animated universe.

                3.

                "I see mathematics differently. To me, mathematics is a purely human-derived study"

                That is clear from your essay and the special 'anti-Platonist' comment on your page. The question is if your anti-Platonic belief is true? I do not see on your page any reflection on the pro-Platonic arguments, so your denial of Platonism looks unjustified to me.

                One argument for the mathematical Platonism is historical: in the long history of mathematics, from the Pythagorean schools and up to now, none of high level mathematicians denied Platonism, as far as I know. The latest confirmation of that fact I saw right at this contest, on a page of George Ellis; he noted, "I talked with Andrew Wiles last year about the Platonic nature of Mathematics, and he strongly believes that good working mathematicians all agree they are exploring mathematical structures rather than inventing them." This argument should be already sufficient, I think, to accept Platonism, keeping in mind a sharp rationalism of the high-rank mathematicians, with huge variety of their cultural backgrounds and personal qualities, for all epochs. This historical argument can be complemented by a logical one. J. Dieudonne wrote in his last book, that Mathematics was formed by two core ideas of Greeks: the idea of proof and the idea of the World of Forms. The latter gave mathematicians the power of pure mathematical thinking, free from any care about possible loadings of the ideas by external contents of matter, nature or humanity. That is why Platonism was and is so important and inseparable from the pure mathematics, wherefrom all mathematical discoveries came. That is why the beauty of Mathematics, according to the top mathematicians, has nothing to do with specific features of our biology or even natural world, as we stressed in our essay.

                At the end, I'd like to thank you again for your interest to our text, your compliments and clear objections. I hope you will find useful this exchange of ideas. And yes, special thanks for your rating of our essay!

                All the best,

                Alexey Burov.

                Dear Lorraine,

                After Alexey and I have discussed his answer to you, we realized that you do, in fact, provide a reason against the Platonic world, whose consideration is missing in his post. In bringing that up, I also wanted to ask for a clarification on your essay and your other posts as regards a certain difficulty I'm having with them. I cannot seem to get away from a confusion between what you call the universe, a synonym of "all there is", and that which traditionally is viewed as only a part of "all there is," usually called material reality, determined (sans quantum chaos) by laws of nature. In the former sense, there can only be one universe, but in the latter we can envision many different worlds in different relationships with each other, not all of them material or even temporal, such as the Platonic world providing laws to the rest.

                In my conversations with "anti-Platonists," I seem to consistently come up to an underlying protest against realism's perceived overbearing perfection and determinism. Yet your objection seems to be different (although I cannot seem to find it now, so please correct me if I'm misinterpreting). You say that in postulating the Platonic world we express distrust to the universe to be self-sufficient. I'm not quite sure how to understand that. In light of the two definitions of "universe" above, would you say that the following quote from C.S. Lewis' Miracles is a criticism to your idea?

                "You must go a little away from her, and then turn round, and look back. Then at last the true landscape will become visible. You must have tasted, however briefly, the pure water from beyond the world before you can be distinctly conscious of the hot, salty tang of Nature's current. To treat her as God, or as Everything, is to lose the whole pith and pleasure of her. Come out, look back, and then you will see ... this astonishing cataract of bears, babies, and bananas: this immoderate deluge of atoms, orchids, oranges, cancers, canaries, fleas, gases, tornadoes and toads. How could you ever have thought this was the ultimate reality? How could you ever have thought that it was merely a stage-set for the moral drama of men and women? She is herself. Offer her neither worship nor contempt. Meet her and know her. If we are immortal, and if she is doomed (as the scientists tell us) to run down and die, we shall miss this half-shy and half-flamboyant creature, this ogress, this hoyden, this incorrigible fairy, this dumb witch. But the theologians tell us that she, like ourselves, is to be redeemed. The 'vanity' to which she was subjected was her disease, not her essence. She will be cured in character: not tamed (Heaven forbid) nor sterilised. We shall still be able to recognise our old enemy, friend, playfellow and foster-mother, so perfected as to be not less, but more, herself. And that will be a merry meeting."

                Lev

                Dear Alexey and Lev,

                To clarify, I contend that there is only one universe. It is self-sufficient and "all there is".

                I don't like C. S. Lewis's attitude towards "Nature". He doesn't believe that he is a part of Nature. He doesn't actually love Nature: it is merely an interesting object to him, he believes he is above it. He doesn't see that he himself is what Nature is, and that he is not more than what Nature is.

                Re "do the things of the universe have the power...?":

                I'm contending that reality is not Fate; I'm contending that living things genuinely have free will to navigate towards a goal. So what is free will? Free will is the ability of things to move themselves relative to the block universe. Moving "relative to the block" merely requires that one or more outcome variables are initialised to a new number, such as what clearly occurs in the outcomes of "quantum randomness". I'm contending that the outcome of "quantum randomness" is lawful because it is representable as a one-off local initial-value rule or equation having been injected into to the local system. So I'm saying that free will exists, and that it is all about generating a new local initial-value rule/law in order to move relative to the block universe. I'm claiming that we live in a different type of universe than what is commonly imagined.

                Re panpsychism, "the Soul", "the Author":

                Perhaps in the beginning, when law-of-nature rules were generated, the universe was one thing; and subsequent to that, the universe became many things.

                Re Platonism:

                The Platonic realm concept has a number of flaws. One is the sheer extravagance of a realm containing every possible number and rule. Another is the issue of what interconnects this Platonic realm with the universe: seemingly it would be a Law, representable as a mathematical equation that doesn't live in the Platonic realm. But I would question that a Platonic realm is necessary, if the universe is such that it generates its own rules.

                Regards,

                Lorraine

                Dear George,

                Thanks for your compliments and careful reading. Contemplating Being as a tri-ality of spheres, as thinks Penrose, or a tree-ality of systems, as you express in your essay, there hides a unifying mystery. Shall we argue whether the mystery is at the center or at the top? Love or Beauty, which unifies reality? Perhaps they are aspects of the same. But then again, how could the center be also the top?

                One common objection to Platonism is that relations have no meaning without the relata, that there have to be things before there can be relations between things, forms of reason being relations. So, if we defend Platonism, wouldn't we contradict ourselves if we question primacy of love on account of it being a relation? It seems Plato himself didn't see it along those lines, and to me also love seems to be of different kind.

                Perhaps it is a question to you more than to us, though, since you have made a stronger claim, it seems. Your essay concludes by stating that it "provided evidence that cosmic intentionality is a reasonable, consistent and complete inference about why the universe is the way it is," and that it is such through the cosmic principle of love. But, is it really that consistent and reasonable? Mathematics, even if conceived as consisting purely of relations, is quite thinkable as a standalone world; the word "abstract" seems to mean just that. But can you really claim that love is also abstract and would exist without conscious beings, whom it connects? Where was this cosmic principle before the second conscious being was born (for there to be at least two)? Or do you imply that multiple conscious beings have existed always, that there wasn't a "second"? If always, and assuming they are temporal, then time extends back into infinity, an idea apparently fraught with contradiction. On the other hand, if temporality is an illusion, so is free will and with it our existence as individuals, in which case, there no longer is a multiplicity of subjects to relate with love, thus no love itself. It seems that either you have to take back the cosmic principle you propose or its reasonableness and consistency. Or do you have something in mind for which I haven't accounted here? Have you changed your mind about the "ineluctable paradoxes" since your previous fqxi essay, "The Hole at the Center of Creation"?

                From this perspective, were we to claim, like Plato, that beauty is ultimately fully atemporal, the picture would appear to be quite consistent and reasonable. We do not. We don't say that "compelling attraction to beauty is simply a subjective reflection of the inevitability of cognitive and therefore evolutionary success." We point out an interplay between beauty that is objective and eternal and our subjective and temporal attraction and response to it. We say that "beauty breathes freedom" and "a belief that we are marionettes, even in God's hands, is incompatible with inspiration for a worthy response." In either case, however, while for evolutionary success beauty could be considered epiphenomenal, Epimenides forbids it be so for the cognitive success in mathematics.

                If beauty and love are more fundamental than reason itself, can we use the terms of reason, such as the term "fundamental", to show which one is more fundamental?

                I'll leave the hard questions for Alexey to answer. Thanks again and good luck to you as well!

                Lev

                Dear Lorraine,

                I feel that some more comments from my side might be useful.

                Re panpsychism, "the Soul", "the Author":

                I do not see your attention to the the fundamental laws of nature. They are very specific, as we stress in our essay, they are mathematically elegant, they are universal and anthropic. Altogether, they are discoverable. Panpsychism may stay only by means of disregarding this.

                Re Platonism:

                "what interconnects this Platonic realm with the universe" was never thought as one more equation or law. Traditionally this connection was attributed to the God's will, or its synonym, Mystery. The necessity of Platonic World is shown in my previous post on the ground of unanimous agreement of great mathematicians and the logic behind it.

                We agree that reality is not pre-determined, we believe in free will of humans, and even, in a reduced sense, of animals. The world is unpredictable even for its Creator.

                Cheers,

                Alexey.