Dear Alexey and Lev

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

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

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

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

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

All the best!

Alfredo Gouveia Oliveira

    Dear Alfredo,

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

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

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

    All the best,

    Alexey Burov.

    Dear Alexei

    I thank your very kind words! I can see that "beauty" is something in which you live in... and it emerges in anything you do or think.. I will try to follow your example!

    You know, mathematics is a logic language, strictly logic; however, to where it leads depends on the hypothesis and assumptions on which it is applied. Because it is logical, it leads to "understandable" models provided that the hypotheses and assumptions are "understandable"; however, if those hypotheses and assumptions are not understandable or incorrect, mathematics leads to models of reality that are not understandable.

    If we accept that the universe is as simple as it can be, than hypotheses and assumptions must be understandable, no "magic" in them; and also the models mathematically obtained.

    From this point of view, a model that is not understandable implies that the hypotheses/assumptions made are not correct.

    Mathematics has also the possibility of fitting whatever set of data - it is just a matter of considering enough parameters. This is very important and is the first phase of discovery process because it allows having control over phenomena and organizing data. These mathematical models are usually "not-understandable", they present logical inconsistency and parameters that obviously cannot represent a physical entity. However, many consider that these models of data are correct models of reality; and so they consider that the universe is "not-understandable". That seems to be the case of Wigner, as expressed in the statement you cited: "mathematics is "the correct language", that is why it is "unreasonably effective" in physics".

    Therefore, while some (the mainstream) consider that the unreasonably effectiveness of mathematics in physics is the proof that it is "the correct language", for others, like me, it is the proof that the hypotheses and assumptions made are wrong because mathematics can only lead to "reasonable" models.

    Now, how do you know which approach is correct?

    If you take just a quick look to my essay, you will probably suspect that I may know unexpected things about the universe. How is that possible? By looking for understandable models of the universe. That is the ultimate beauty of mathematics, the fact that it allows us to go finding the nature of the universe by looking for models that are understandable. And one does one step in the correct direction, one feels the amazing beauty of it.

    All the best!

    Alfredo Gouveia Oliveira

      Dear Alfredo,

      You caught me in pondering over your essay. Before commenting it on your page, I'll try to answer briefly here. You are right, that mathematics allows to describe any process. However, if your formulas has nothing to do with reality, like in the Ptolemy model, the number of fitting constants increases with required accuracy and the span of parameters. The effectiveness of mathematics in physics is "unreasonable", because very simple formulas, with clear reasonable principles behind them, with very small number of fitting constants describe physical reality at huge range of parameters and with extreme accuracy. I cannot go into details here, you may read about that in the classical Wigner's essay "Unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics", or in the reference to R. Penrose in our essay. This was also one of the main points of Einstein's cosmic religion, which is brilliantly described in Max Jammer's "Einstein and Religion".

      Thank you,

      Alexey Burov.

      Dear Alexei

      Thank you very much for your comments and your vote. Your doubts are certainly the ones of others and your comments give me the possibility of clarifying important aspects. A Portuguese writer said "Do not affirm the error of a truth before changing its context. Unless it gives you joy to be stoned." Unhappily, the short size of this essay has limited my capacity of changing current context. So, allow me to try to do it now.

      The classic definition of Intelligence is just a useless description of human mind, grounded in the belief of our exclusive nature.

      Do you think your computer is "Intelligent"? I think your answer is "no". But why? A personal computer has memory, it can play music, make calculations, answer questions by finding the answers in the net - some can even talk with you. So why is not the computer "Intelligent"? The reason is that it cannot answer a question like: What killed the dinosaurs? (it can present current hypotheses, but that is not the answer, just hypotheses); or "does dark energy really exist or is just an ad hoc parameter?"; or "how to do a non-polluting and inexpensive car"?; or "how life was created?"; etc. That is the capacity computers do not have (yet).

      Now, lets see your questions

      About my definition of Intelligence you say:

      1 - It looks as a circular logic to me, since not only "mind" and "problem", but "database" already imply "intelligence".

      From the above I think that now you understand that what you say is wrong. Database is the content of memory; your computer has databases, a book can have databases. Intelligence uses them but they are not Intelligence, in the same that you use the computer but the computer is not you. And also a problem is not Intelligence, of course.

      2- about your mention of Poincare, of course that Poincare has influenced me. As it happened with Einstein, by the way. I read it more than 30 years ago. It is not only with Poincaré or Compton that you can find resemblances - also with Darwin, as I detailed explain. In this case, it is Darwin that has inspired me the most.

      3 - ""Is nature able to generate by itself something with new properties? The answer is yes, of course."

      This I do not understand. How can you know that with certainty? If you said that you believe in that, I would understand; however, if you wanted to claim it obvious, I would disagree. "

      I explain: take an electron and a proton; they immediately converge and form a Hydrogen atom. This atom is something new with new properties, is not so? And these atoms then can merge and form other atoms, with new properties. Therefore, the answer to the question is obviously yes, of course. I explained in the essay why I say that.

      4 - "The problem is that these long molecules are not just long, but they are specially ordered, and the order is important. They are like long meaningful texts, not just like long arbitrary sequence of letters."

      Again you are not correct and in two ways. One is that I don't claim to explain the creation of life, just the appearance of the long organic molecules it requires - molecules of the kind of DNA and with the capacity of auto-replication. The other is that the order is not so important as you seem to think because there are (or were) many thousands of different types of bacteria, presenting a huge diversity of DNA, and these are just the survivors of a still much larger set of previous cells. Now you have to consider the huge number of those large molecules that were produced in the described Earth early environment during near one gigayear - it's an astronomical number, making the possibility of obtaining specific sequences a reasonable value.

      When we see something different of what we are used to think, the first reaction is to consider that the author is wrong; the possibility that he/her is correct is so low that we do not consider that possibility. But it can happen.

      Once again, I thank you very much for your comments. I hope that I was able to clarify your questions, which are consequence of the short size of a text that had to analyze such a complex subject.

      I hope to ear from you again, this is a fruitful discussion.

      Alfredo Gouveia de Oliveira

      Dear Alfredo,

      1.

      Database is not intelligence, of course, but, as I said, it implies intelligence. That is why it seems circular to define intelligence through databases. The same is true for "problems", "solutions", etc.

      3,4.

      I would not consider a Hydrogen atom as something new compared to proton and electron, since at certain condition there must be a lot of these atoms as soon as you have enough electrons and positrons. This is not true for life: apparently probability for life origin, with all the required atoms provided, is so low, that it cannot be explained by the physical laws. Life can be considered as really new, and it is a big question if nature could produce it itself.

      Cheers,

      Alexey.

        Dear Alfredo,

        I wanted to add to Alexey's reply by noticing a very powerful assumption you make. "If we accept that the universe is as simple as it can be..." While working out scientific ideas, assumptions are one of the primary methods. There is no need to question them if they turn out to be supported by the results. Once the science is done though, and we step back to reflect on what it is that we've learned, assumptions themselves become the focus of explanation. This reflective thinking is the domain of philosophy.

        I know of no philosophical position that would allow for the extreme assumption that you make. Even the luminous theologies of the fathers of physics don't venture so far. Even Einstein used it only a sort of working philosophical hypothesis. Physics does make the assumption that the laws are simple (not simplest), and this assumption is justified with its success, but looking back, this is an incredible miracle that is not at all necessitated by any purely logical conclusion -- that's Wigner's point. It is, perhaps, the greatest contribution of physics to humanity's vision of the world, its greatest discovery. Don't you think that glossing it over as a mere assumption is the least appropriate way to treat it? Or did I misunderstand you?

        Our essay Genesis of a Pythagorean Universe is devoted to the philosophical consequences of this particular discovery.

        Thank you very much for your plentiful compliments and appreciation. Alexey and I will discuss your ponderous essay.

        Lev

        Dear Alexey & Lev Burov,

        Thank you very much for your enjoyable essay. Your perspective of beauty in what we perceive around us, including "mathematical beauty" is key consideration that many people ignore or choose to ignore when building abstractions to formulate problems to solve analytically. In many cases in the past, it seems they may not have been all that successful in this separation, being silently seduced by the beauty of mathematics in the first place. (For example the Copernican system insisting planets orbit in perfect circles.) I also love how you so eloquently put it in your conclusion that, "To see in mathematics nothing but a collection of all possible, value-neutral, formal systems is no better than to view the art of sculpture as a collection of all possible articles made of stone". Wonderful!

        Thank you again and I have in the meantime rated your essay too.

        Regards,

        Robert

          Dear Robert,

          Your compliments to our essay are especially pleasant, since you see the core of our text on the background of that strange blindness of the spirit of time. Thank you!

          I've learned something new from your composition and left my comments and a couple of questions on your page.

          All the best,

          Alexey.

          Dear Alexey and Lev,

          Congratulations for another strong essay! The subject of this year's contest truly called for an examination of the connection between thought and matter. In your view, thought is "cosmic, even super-cosmic", and you defend the need for a non-deceiving (Descartes), non-malicious (Einstein) God to make sense of our Universe and of the truthfulness of our thought processes. I too struggle with the search for a first principle that would ensure, among other things, the "lawfulness" of the Universe. I am willing to accept that, in the space of all possibilities, there are local domains that are shaped by god-like super-intelligences, but I cannot see how this explanation can be scaled to encompass all of reality. So I am still searching for a way to have All-that-Exists be a self-existing ensemble that is overall devoid of characteristics and information, and to have local minds and ordered worlds "co-emerge" within it. We do not share the same hypotheses about fundamental metaphysical axioms, but we do share the same yearning that made Schrodinger say that knowledge truly has value when it contributes to the synthesis toward answering the demand, "Who are we?".

          By the way, in my current essay, I refer to your "Pythagorean Universe" essay from the last contest, specifically about the difficulty in accounting for the stability of the universal constants of physics by simply invoking the Anthropic Principle. It's always a pleasure to read your essays, and I am already looking forward to the next contest. In the meantime, I wish you good luck in this one!

          Marc

            Dear Edwin,

            Thank you for the compliments and the detailed comment.

            Before Alexey and I respond to your interesting ideas, could I ask you to take another look at the way you quote me, namely, "Physics does not make the assumption that the laws are simple?"

            The original statement, I think, was exactly opposite, without the "not". Would you please confirm or correct your post in this regard?

            - Lev

            Dear Lev,

            I apologize for misquoting you. I read the several comments several times, and still managed to get it wrong. I do not know how to edit posted messages, but I apologize again for the inaccurate quote.

            We are therefore in even more agreement than I thought.

            Thank you for correcting my mistake, and thanks again for a most fascinating set of comments on your page. You seem to inspire more insight on your page than most of us can manage.

            My best regards,

            Edwin Eugene Klingman

            Dear Marc,

            Many thanks for your encouraging words and very clear reference to one of the most important ideas of our Pythagorean Universe. I just left my comments on your current essay at your page, with a hope that our compliments, supported by the score, will not be overshadowed by some criticism there.

            We wish you good luck too!

            Alexey Burov.

            Strangely for us, recent posts of Edwin Eugene Klingman disappeared from this place. Dear Edwin, if you did not intend this and wish to see there the same or updated version of your post, you are more than welcome to do that.

            Alexey.

              Dear Alexey,

              I managed to remove the post in which I misquoted you. As we seem to disagree on the Wigner issue, there is no need to revise and repost. However I've noted that there are some other issues which we do agree on that I may post later.

              Thanks for your gracious understanding, and your many meaningful posts, here and on other's threads.

              My very best regards,

              Edwin Eugene Klingman

              Dear Edwin,

              Thanks for the clarification. We are looking forward to see your new posts in our space. Please do not worry about possible disagreement with us expressed in your comments here; actually, we appreciate clear and distinctive criticism in our address, considering that as a help.

              Cheers,

              Alexey.

              Hi Alexey,

              It was refreshing and interesting to read your essay.

              I hold the view that thought and cognition are ontological and we are continuously ratifying our reality. (see my essay:"we are together, therefore I am")

              It is all embedded in the qualities of the Movements attributes, which make us unique and singular.

              Thanks again

              Yehuda Atai

                Hi Yehuda,

                Thanks for reading our essay and pointing my attention to yours; it sounds interesting, I will read it soon. Meanwhile, it would be a pleasure to see your specific comments, either critical or complimentary, and questions.

                Regards,

                Alexey.

                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 Alfredo,

                Thanks for the clarifications. I agree with you in many aspects, while the details can be discussed and specified. In particular, I would stress that the spheres of knowledge and beliefs cannot be fully separated; in some sense they need, support and critically help each other. To start a complicated experiment, one has to believe in its significance, in his own ability to do the hard and challenging job, in the abilities of his colleagues. Gaining knowledge requires a belief in the corresponding values. In our essay we quoted Descartes and Einstein beliefs in God who does not deceive and is not malicious; this belief is a key one for the fundamental science, notwithstanding that many scientists have no idea about that. From another side, knowledge can either support or shake beliefs. For instance, Galileo just believed that "the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics", while Wigner wrote about that as a fact of "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics". This fact supported the old Pythagorean-Galilean belief, but did not prove, of course, that humanity will succeed to describe the new levels of physical reality by means of elegant mathematical theories.

                Thanks again,

                Alexey.