Dear Laurence,

Your response is more than encouraging; it is inspiring. Thank you so much! We are glad to know that you share our belief in the deep entanglement between ethics and metaphysics, which is a cornerstone for us. Your question about relation of ethics and aesthetics requires at least a special essay (maybe for the next contest :^)). However, I would not like to weasel out of your question like that. The most important thing which I can briefly note is that at its depth morality takes power from the beauty of the soul and its profound feeling of beautiful, which is tragic at the same time. Without this feed from the beautiful, the good would be much weaker than it is. Thus, in the depth, beauty is more fundamental than morality. Somebody might object to that, recollecting the legend about Nero enjoying the view of the burning Rome. Well, even if the burning Rome contained some harrowing beauty, Nero was not beautiful in that act; he was abominable. One more support to primacy of the beautiful is suggested by the Book of Job: it was the beauty of the world that atoned for its tragedy in his eyes.

One day we should talk more on many issues.

Yours, Alexey.

Two Burov(s)

Excellent essay. Sufficiently excellent to inspire the following ramble:

I had a different interpretation of "cogito ergo sum" as no mention of any physical (external) reality. Thinking and being resolved into separate entities. But this just goes to show how many ways the investigation can unfold. The "blind spot" metaphor is an insightful one. Some of us are (perhaps dimly) aware of this feature as something we can't see directly but yet, on some level, we are aware of it. Do we understanding that this "blind spot" is obfuscated by "logical self-refutation"?

Somehow natural selection cannot be an intentional search for its own cognizance and this is opined as fact. As if fishing (a random search) should have nothing to do with any intention to catch fish. The spontaneous emergence of self-organizing entities from stochastic particle interaction manifests intention (may be subject to interpretation). To think otherwise belies our curiosity as something outside of this process and relegates us to an inconsequential side effect of entropy. From my frame of reference, most obvious to me, is the observation that the stochastic universe is weighted in such a way, to provide me with time to sit here, and receive the honor of your acquaintance, and discuss such matters, while the necessities of my survival run in the background. Or else our interaction is accidental and I am simply lucky and in no way loved by that from which I have emerged. We imagine many things are so. That physical reality exists aside from our imagination is unimaginable to my experience. Instead we have a correlation between experience and mathematical relationships. I fall into my self-referential pit of 'no understanding without interpretation and creativity'. (Is this statement an interpretation? fact? creation?) I have not encountered Epimenides Paradox before. It looks like Russel's paradox. You must have been amused by my cognitive suicide at the end of my essay. Actually I died during a religious experience in 1976, and have understood nothing universal since. So I imagine.

You point out a most fundamental feature of cognition central to my own pet theory; "For each correct solution to a problem competes a myriad of possible errors". The truth floats in a sea of falsity. I note further the resolution of any object, identification, symbol, attention, relation ... as singling out a particular perception from the background i.e. resolution of superposition (my pet theory). This is so basic that it escapes our notice. The "swarm of everything else" is an allusion to what I call the Superposition, which has connotations to quantum mechanics, wave theory, mechanics, electromagnetism, and everything else, and especially the nature of self (ego, God...)

My impression of your essay is the objectivity of mathematics and the subjectivity of its application to observables as two sides of the same coin. If you agree then we have both arrived at the same place from different approaches. Such a coincidence validates us as parallel expressions of the universal intention we recognize. That would be a beautiful thing.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and the proliferation of life (change) manifests intention, then beauty is made for us and we are made for beauty. A significant step towards the unspoken Unity neither of us mentioned yet.

This essay, especially the closing paragraph, will live in my study from now on.

Vik

P.S. I don't get the Title

    Vik,

    Thank you for such generous compliments.

    One can imagine a philosophical axis, with utter logicists at its one extreme and ultimate irrationalists at the other. I imagine you in the company of the mystical latter, while most of the contest's participants are concentrated at the opposite end. This makes your acquaintance particularly pleasant. We are somewhere in between, I think, with our high appreciation of both reason and its mother, mystery. The title of our essay refers to Diotima's vision on who helped that birth and who decided the fate of the wonderful baby.

    All the best,

    Alexey.

    • [deleted]

    Hi Alexey and Lev,

    Wonderful essay. I particularly liked "Only those moved mathematics ahead who loved it not for some other aim, however good and important, but for its own sake, for its eternal, super-human beauty."

    For my own pleasure I would change it just a bit: "Only those moved humanity ahead who loved it not for some other aim, however good and important, but for its own sake, for its eternal, super-human radiant beauty."

    Esthetics and a bit of emotion go a long way toward a goal. Appreciate your work.

    Don Limuti

      Hi, Alexey and Lev.

      Congratulations on wonderful work! The beauty of mathematics and the unity of deep emotional reactions of multiple mathematicians in all the times and countries reveal the objective connection between the impersonal mathematical ideas and "mathematical needs" of personal human intelligence.

      Like knows like. Like loves and enjoys like. Like consumes like. Thus, mathematics is the "food" for the mathematical, logical, rational nature of the humans. Human nature is not just biological and material, it is logical and mathematical. Mathematics show us the immaterial intentions of this immaterial part of the human being, of the human mind.

      The beauty of mathematics attracts human consciousness like voice of Moira and pulls it out of animal existence like Eileithyia to the birth of pure human mindfulness and happiness. Your essay shows this with indisputable clarity!

        Hi Don,

        It's a pleasure to see our statement played with in a new way. I will read your essay and leave my comments on your page tomorrow.

        Thank you!

        Alexey.

        Hello Andrew,

        We enjoyed reading your poetic response; many thanks!

        We fully agree: mathematics is indeed a wonderful, delightful food cooked by and prepared for human rationality.

        Yours, Alexey and Lev.

        Dear Alexey

        First of all thank you for a very insightfull essay. It was great reading, so I rated you an 8.

        I fully agree with you that "Thought from matter" is an error, it is like searching for the announcer in the radio, or like the wolf I have at home who is looking at the flatscreen TV, sees a duck and directly goes to look behind the TV. (she is very intelligent).

        The second part of your essay about the beauty of mathematics I can fully underwrite, but you know it is like listening to music, you hear the beauty but in my case I cannot play the instruments.

        You are (like me) one of the researchers for truth who is not afraid to use metaphysics bravo.

        So I invite you to read/comment and certainly rate my contribution: The Purpose of Life" that gives another perception of the THOUGHT that is often translated with the word God and is called Total Simultaneity.

        best regards

        Wilhelmus de Wilde

          Dear Wilhelmus,

          I am glad you like our text. I imagine you sitting together with your charming she-wolf, sharing philosophical opinions with each other, and I hope she agrees with your high rating of our essay :) Somehow I missed your essay so far, but you convinced me to read, comment and score it ASAP.

          Thank you so much!

          Alexey Burov.

          Dear Alexey;

          Thank you for reacting on my thread, I post my reaction also on your thread so that you get a message when received.

          Sorry that you did not quite understand my perception of the emergent phenomenon that is called reality. So I hope that I can explain it more clearly and answer your questions.

          Indeed I accept that TC is the "source" of everything, everywhere from any time restricted reality. TC is time nad spaceless.

          I argue that time and space are both restrictions from Total Consciousness in TS to create "realities".(without consciousness TS would only be just a singularity that didn't exist.

          ALL created Realities together (also those we don't understand) are represented as "availabilities in TS.

          These "availabilities" (available life/time lines) are forming you could say the "ALL". This ALL cannot be a complete set when any of the life-line availabilities are missing. So the specific life-line reality that you are experiencing NOW is essential for the completeness of ALL.

          TS is not a meaningless dream because it harbours the Completeness of Total Consciousness. In one of my articles in The Scientific God Journal The Consciousness Connection I compared TS to the Christian Holy Trinty : "The Father : TS (the ALL), Jesus Christ : the emergent human being with its causal part of consciousness and the Holy Ghost : Total Consciousness creating order out of chaos.

          All our efforts in our specific life-lines (originating from the ALL) are part of this ALL. A life-line is in TS only an excitation. Through the addition of time and space we seem to experience a "FLOW".(between a beginning and an end)

          In my essay I mentioned already that at each NOW moment the time-restricted consciousness is offered a choice out of an infinity of crossroads. This free-will choices seem to be made in the past (we are living in the past) here in our life-line, but don't forget that the moment of choice of your part of Total Consciousness in TS, timeless, eternal.

          The "confidence I am getting with this world-view is :

          1. Every creature is an essential constructive part of the "ALL".

          2. Even when your life seems useless it still counts as being an important part of a totality we cannot understand, without you the Totality is NOT a Totality.

          3. Birth and Death are two points on a by Total Consciousness created restricted beginning, end) life-line. There is at any moment the availability of an infinity of ME's. The Total ME is eternal. Death is only one of an infinity of ends of an infinity of availabilities.

          4. The "poal in my perception of time-restricted consciousness is coming closer to the Total ME, part of Total Consciousness and part of Total Simultaneity.

          (come closer to God ?)

          I quite understand the confusion because what I am proposing is a scientific approach of the essence of our emergent reality, the only thing I hope is that it will not be explained as a BELIEF.. 5Religions are always misused for Power).

          Don't hesitate to ask me more if you need to.

          best regards

          Wilhelmus de Wilde

          more articles I published :

          Reality out of Total Simultaneity. Scientific God Journal , volume 2 issue 4, june 2011

          A metaphysical Concept of Consciousness, Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research. november 2012

          The Quest for the Origin of Created Reality. Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research, vomume 4 issue 9, november 2013

          Dear Wilhelmus,

          Thank you for your attention to my questions; your answers are really helpful. However I need to ask you a bit more to understand you better. Your essay is very different from others, and I highly appreciate this difference. Soon you will find my response with a couple of new questions on your page.

          Best,

          Alexey.

          A beautiful essay, extolling the beauty of mathematics. And yet, as I'm sure you know, Gödel has pointed out that mathematics is inherently incomplete. We humans, in recognizing that fact, are thereby able to actually transcend mathematics.

          In our appreciation of mathematics, which being ultimately imperfect in its self-enclosure, and being abstract and lifeless, is unable to reciprocate and appreciate us -- are we not the more beautiful? Alive, transcendent, and more beautiful?

          I would appreciate your review of my essay, particularly for your appraisal of whatever beauty there is in its comprehension.

            Hi James,

            I do not agree that incompleteness of mathematics makes it imperfect; on the contrary, its completeness would make it claustrophobically terrible. Godel's theorem saves mathematics for eternal mystery.

            To answer your question, I would not contrapose human's beauty to mathematical one; instead, I would say that the former is stressed by the latter, discovered by the best of us.

            I'll try to read and comment your essay soon.

            Cheers,

            Alexey.

            Dear Alexey,

            I will try to explain what I meant with ALL and the completeness of the Total YOU. (and put this post also on your thread)

            I introduced the TOTAL Consciousness, including the Total Consciousness of ALL agents.

            An emergent agent in an emergent reality is just ONE life-line of that specific agent. The agent there is an individual because he is not the complete Unity. The emergent agent is furthermore restricted through time an space while the Totality is time and spaceless.

            The Total YOU could be described (in our restricted way) as the totality of ALL possible (and the impossible : the ones you did not yet think about) and available time/life-lines.

            So YES, all the bad ones are available too. But also the "best of all worlds" is an availability.

            During the FLOW of a specific time/life-line each NOW moment decisions are made and your specific time/life-line switches, the time/life-line you left still is available in TS.

            This process of continually switching and the coexistance of availabilities of the time/life-lines that are not chosen, I described as the origin of FREE WILL.

            In this specific emergent reality the time/life-line you are experiencing as a FLOW may exist as a singularity in TS, this doesn't mean that also your future would be concrete for this specific FLOW. Each Eternal Now Moment represents its own time/life-line. The emergent FLOW that we seem to live in can be compared to a time and spaceless singularity in TS.

            The complete YOU could be described as a complete set of singularities in TS.

            best regards and I like the exchange of thoughts with you.

            Wilhelmus

              Dear Alexey, dear Lev,

              I read your very impressive article several times, there are so many things to say.

              First, it is highly pertinent to recall Descartes' dualism while showing that the "refutation" of the latter would need a lot of farfetched, hypercomplex and self-refuting presuppositions. The established mainstream thinking says that dualism is "scientifically outdated." Well, let us accept that "the human brain is a set of neurons, the consisting of molecules and so of atoms." In other words, let us accept that "the brain is matter." Yes, but we do not need be great neuro-scientists to see an obvious problem neurosciences en vogue, despite its obviousness or rather because of it manifestly do not want to consider: even if neurons are "matter" - nobody denies it - the relations between these neurons making that a brain is a brain and not just an fortuitous conglomeration of matter , these relations are governed by an immaterial logic. So, far from showing that dualism is "scientifically outdated", a functioning brain in turn expresses dualism in a particularly intuitive way difficult to deny. It would be hard to deny the immateriality of logic, given that the the latter is interpreted by immaterial data as well as by very different material phenomena. The mainstream argument that logic - immaterial or not - "is created by the human brain" leads to circularity: the functioning of the brain being governed by a logic created by the brain logic governs. Of course, logic is just a restrictive aspect of the functioning of brains, but even this point remaining reducing per se shows that there is a gap between matter and immaterial preconditions for the occurrence of mind and thought. So, saying that the emergence of life and the emergence of mind/thought from matter cannot be considered as the same, you are absolutely right. Indeed, the mainstream conception of evolution according to the schema "inert matter 竊' living matter 竊' human mind comprising self-consciousness" manifestly is undermined by grey areas and misses the essential.

              Your analysis in terms of Epimenidic structure - a striking formulation; with your permission, I will quote you in a paper on serious lacks in evolution theory I am finishing - is really impressing. I think, under a given criterion leading to Platonism, Epimenidic self-refutation is equivalent to circularity used in my own paper as an argument going in the same sense. (i) By definition, circularity, to be broken, needs references exterior to the considered system. It is the same for Epimenidic self-refutation. It is the same for circularity. Stated by a on-Cretan, the proposition "All Cretans are liars" - true or false - would be formally consistent. The the non-consistency of the liar paradox results from the fact that Epimenides is a Cretan and so belongs to the "considered system." In our context, this first equivalence leads to Platonism required in the name of consistency. As I tried to explain it in my own paper, within a historical process, the sole way to escape the circularity of laws occurring "with" the first phenomenon governed by them is to admit the objective existence of immaterial laws preceding ontologically the phenomena expressing them. The immaterial aspect of these laws per se is underlined by the fact that these laws can govern materially different phenomena. Now, it is the same for Epimenidically self-refuting systems. Breaking the Epimenidic self-refutation of this system requires an logically external reference, and if the system in question is a "historical" one, this logically external reference in turn must precede ontologically the system to explain.

              Your article and mine, beyond their differences, are complementary, and further discussions certainly will confirm it.

              Here I would just highlight that both papers, each one in its own way but in an equivalent manner go against mainstream evolution theory founded on presuppositions which never would be tolerated in any other scientific area.

              Concerning Epimenidic self-refutation, you know that since Gテカdel's second theorem, a plethora of voices evoking "Turing machines" and so on abundantly recall that the consistency of a system cannot be founded on the sole resources proper to the system to be founded. This familiar refrain certainly is right, and even so obvious that it seems not necessary to repeat it in all occasions. Hence it is all more surprising that mainstream evolution theory is the great exception neglecting the foregoing and the cognitively and otherwise absurd consequences of this choice you describe so well in your paper.

              My own approach ultimately is based on irreversibility, knowing that the latter - certainly "familiar", but "familiarity" does not necessarily mean "understanding" - generates philosophical problems probably unsolvable. The issue whether irreversibility is law-like or only fact-like remains controversial, but until further notice irreversibility is a fact and must be accepted as such. There is no way to way to escape irreversibility. The principle of generalized irreversibility says that for any system which apparently violates irreversibility, there is a wider system reestablishing irreversibility in its standard form. Here the notion of "wider system" can denote very different, divergent configurations. The impossibility of building a perpetuum mobile represents a good example summarizing all the extent of the issue. Whatever could be the - per se unpredictable - attempt to construct perpetuum mobile, there will be in one way or another a detail preventing the system from functioning. Or, if the system apparently does function, there is still in one way or another a detail connecting it with a wider system so that irreversibility is reestablished.

              Usually, a given "scientific" approach whose consistency requires a "functioning perpetuum mobile" or any other form of absolute violation of

              never is taken seriously.

              So, once again it is all more surprising that mainstream evolution theory is the great exception presupposing absolute violations of irreversibility as the very foundations of the approach.

              In my own paper, I show that "cumulative selection" categorically defended by Richard Dawkins, far from circumventing irreversibility, does confirm in it generalized formulation, but in the context of our discussion here, it is not the most important point. The main issue is: why does evolution theory join so farfetched adventures like the denial of Epimenidic self-refutation as well of generalized irreversibility? And I think, in both cases, it is to avoid at all costs Platonism, i.e. to avoid at all costs the idea of immaterial factors behind the material expression of biological evolution.

              I suppose, above we agreed that the unique way to escape Epimenidic self-refutation within a historical process passes by Platonism, and it is the same if you want to escape generalized irreversibility. Indeed, since (i) any material system apparently going against irreversibility must be supported by a wider system, and (ii) a circularity-free explanation of a historical process refusing the idea of laws occurring "with" the phenomena they govern,

              necessarily implies immaterial laws preceding ontologically the corresponding phenomena.

              It would be hard to grasp the significance of the concept of mathematical beauty without referring to Platonism. From a Platonist standpoint, it is easier, I think, you agree. Here the best way probably is to come back to Plato's original thought, even if it often had been said that Plato would not recognize himself in modern mathematical Platonism. Perhaps it is true, but anyway, according to Plato himself, beauty is nearly the same as truth. In fact, it is a triad with a moral dimension, but here we can neglect this point. By contrast, it is important to point out that for Plato beauty as well as truth are on the top of immaterial, immutable and eternal "ideas" which, existing objectively, independently of human thought, constitute the "intelligible world" or "heaven of ideas", knowing that our material world we take for "reality" or "world" tout court is just a rough and imperfect representation of the "intelligible world" as the authentic reality. So, on the one hand, "beauty" according to Plato has nothing to do with material objects common sense finds "beautiful".On the other hand, Platonist beauty must be seen in relation with truth and eternity. Your quote of Dieudonnテゥ is highly significant. The unity of mathematics mysteriously half-seen ((I am trying to translate "entrevoir"; not being satisfied by "to half-see" found on Linguee", I appeal to your intuition focusing on "mysteriously.")) through partial but consistent and so distortion-free discoveries necessarily presupposes the existence of an absolutely consistent global mathematical edifice preceding ontologically any perhaps contingent human discovery, in other words, the transcendent existence of a perfect mathematical edifice beyond space and time, so inscribed in eternity.

              But now there is a further question. The contest subject concerns "aims" and "intentions", so something essentially temporal. Between eternity and temporality, a gap opens up. The standard discourse sees problems how to imagine the passage from "familiar" temporality to eternity. Personally, I think that in the eyes of convinced Platonists should not feel troubles with eternity. The real problem is the inverse: how to position a temporal/contingent world in respect of eternity? (Always, from my personal standpoint, I do not find "mysterious" the unity of mathematics.) Christian theology with its essentially Platonist roots rightly considers the relations between eternity and temporality - implying de facto matter or equivalent - as a fall. But in the context of the fqxi subject, we have to try to explain how eternal mathematics can lead to temporality. At the end of your essay, you quote "Beauty is the Moira and Eileithyia for birth.", whereas your own words "As

              we cannot conclude from "stoneness" about the essence of a sculpture, so from the formality of mathematics, its mere material, one cannot deduce its ontological essence or espy that essentially it is the universal beauty of all worlds." express in an impressive way the gap between eternity and temporality. But how to explain the threshold crossing of between eternity and temporality having nevertheless led to humans like you and me able to discuss about temprality and eternity?

              Looking forward to further discussions,

              All the best

              Peter

                Dear Alexey, dear Lev,

                let me see if I got this straight. You write:

                If we are, then, told that the adequacy of one's view is guaranteed by agreement of theory and experiment, the problem is still the same: how do we know what lies behind this agreement? Is it not a dream, Matrix, computer simulation, Boltzmann brain or the demon of Descartes? (...) God is not a deceiver, is the credo of Descartes.

                Do you thus say, that we have to posit a non-malicious god, in order to be sure that we can gain knowledge about the world by observation and thought?

                If yes, then let me raise two questions:

                (1) Instead of positing (G) a non-malicious god, who makes sure that we can gain knowledge about the world by observation and thought, couldn't we directly posit that (R) we can gain knowledge about the world by observation and thought?

                (2) If we posit neither (G) nor (R), would you say that we can't be sure that the knowledge we gain is about the world, but that it could instead be about a dream, Matrix, computer simulation, Boltzmann brain or the demon of Descartes?

                Cheers, Stefan

                  • [deleted]

                  Dear Alexey:

                  Sorry for my later rection but I had work to do.

                  Your last question was

                  quote

                  As you may know, the fundamental laws of physics are very special (see Discoverability Principle in our essay). I think this fact is too important to be disregarded by ontology. Why do you think the laws are what they are? How can this fact be understood within your worldview?

                  unquote

                  In my worldview the "LAWS" of Physics are rules that were discovered in the past of our emergent reality. The "flow" of the emergent reality we are experiencing right now is based on the social memory of this (emergent)specific time/life-line. (We experience each NOW moment as a flow from the past to the NOW).

                  The past with ALL his available data (history, scientific laws etc) is just ONE time/life-line. We think that we are flowing into a future that is a logical continuation of this past.

                  However it is also possible that when changing time/life-lines we also can enter a NEW past with different data and "Laws", this is possible at any Eternal Now Moment. So the word FACT is highly uncertain, see also the remark from banks : "PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE FOR FUTURE RESULTS" that I used on page one of the essay.

                  I hope I cleared this question, and hope that you will be rating my essay soon.

                  best regards and happy future

                  Wilhelmus