A common criticism of my essay is that is does not go into enough detail on some point. Of course I acknowledge the validity of that criticism without reservation. Your particular point about goals, intention and meaning is similar to what a few others have said. This is very useful feedback. I should write more about those things but it would require another essay. In fact to do this justice I would have to write a book. Perhaps if I can clear my workload I will even do that sometime.

I am glad you took the point about relative existence. Again there is a lot more that can be said. I like the points you make about it. In fact the different realities can be thought of as separate or as part of one greater reality. Understanding both these views may be important philosophically. I also tried to give the idea that the multiverse is really just one universe of different histories. We know from quantum mechanics that the "other worlds" are interfering with our reality so that we are not just following a classical path through one possibility. The connections between them are important. Again all this requires expansion.

Thank you for your comments that have made me think a little more about these things.

Dear Philip Gibbs,

Thank you for your time as regards your detailed reply. My motivation for asking the question is that I believe we can learn a lot about consciousness from such detailed considerations. So you are saying we do not even require that brain structure be replicated to the atomic level, just sufficiently well so that voltage gated pulse trains that flow through neurons in a similar brain topology will likely result in a system that we cannot distinguish by any physical experiments or interrogations from the original?

Thank you for your discussion and I appreciate the new perspective it has given me.

Regards,

Robert

Robert, I am not necessarily saying that this is the case. I am just posing the question. I don't think there is a definitive answer because the question is in the realm of philosophy rather than hard science. I agree that we can learn a lot from these types of question. We will learn even more when some of these things become technically possible. I think different people will react differently according to their philosophical point of view and there is no right or wrong approach. The moral implications will however make it a very serious matter and some legal measures may be required. This will be the time when philosophy of consciousness becomes an applied discipline.

Your arguments are well taken. Perhaps, I wrote my critique on simulation too hastily. I guess it is probably because I prefer empirical arguments a lot more. I tend to avoid arguments if they are purely logical and the empirical verification is unlikely to come about. But this doesn't look at the full picture since in many cases the empirical validation requires the development of rigorous logical models first. In many cases, those models resemble the simulation argument at first, but then develop into testable theories of reality. Thanks for triggering this thought process.

Best, Willy

6 days later

Dear Philip Gibbs,

For long I could not locate your response, and I was not sure if you did response. I saw it only today. There should be a link appearing on mutually related pages. Your statements are placed in double quotes below.

"I think the topic question "How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?" requires a big picture answer that covers a long sequence of arguments from mathematical philosophy up to consciousness." This is precisely I mentioned to Brendan. May be this contest should have been conducted in two phases. In the first, one submits only 12-15,000 char long essay and the selected ones with longer version. But again, people have very limited patience to read alien ideas.

It seems, I could not manage to get attention of many who could evaluate critically with deeper understanding.

Oh!, I see, you also left academia to carry on your research agenda without any institutional constraints. As you seem to suggest, you have written books too. Is that how you make your living? I see, you have a namesake who has written many books, nearly a century ago. I left academia a decade and half ago, which seems to be causing my extinction.

Rajiv

Dear Philip,

Congratulations for an ambitious, idea-packed essay! As our conversation in the last essay contest revealed, we share many common views about the fundamental nature of reality, and I found that you once again defended these views well. I find your ideas about the "great path-integral of the master theory" fascinating and intriguing, and I think they can play an important role in formulating a coherent "co-emergentist" ontolgy, where conscious agents and the laws of physics co-emerge from the infinite set of all abstract structures. (I elaborate on this hypothesis in my essay.)

My favorite part of your essay is the second half of the next-to-last page, where you explain why the hypothesis that we are living in a simulation does not make much sense if "we are observing the emergent properties of information being processed in the quantum ensemble of possible worlds". I tackle similar issues when I talk about "deluded observers" and the limits of our "patch of lawfulness" at the bottom of page 7 in my essay.

It is great to see you again in this contest, and I wish you at least as much success as last time!

Marc

    Hi, Philip.

    You say: consciousness can be bootstrapped into existence with a minimum number of random events ...

    But from what is consciousness made, or bootstrapped? What is the essence of the necessary memories, in this frame?

    Ulla.

      Hi Phil,

      Also this year, you realized an important contribution in FQXi Competition. I enjoyed very much in reading your Essay. In particular, I appreciated your focusing on cosmology and your stressing the importance of gravity in shaping the Universe. Finally, I agree with your positive final remark that "We have reached a rare level of intelligence on a rare planet in a rare universe." You deserve the highest score that I am going to give you. Congrats and good luck in the Contest, I hope you will have a chance to read our Essay on gravity-waves.

      Cheers, Ch.

      http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2862

        Thank you Christian. It is the last day of voting so I will be going round as many essays as I can today.

        Ulla, thanks for your question. It is good to see you here.

        My answer to your question is that everything up to consciousness emerges from its logical possibility. Nothing else needs to be added. I know this is a difficult philosophical position for some people but what else can the answer be? If consciousness or anything else arises from something else then that something else has to be explained too. Memories are of the utmost importance for consciousness but they are merely connections in the neural network that is our brain.

        Marc, it is good to see you here too. I commented last time round that I wanted to say something about consciousness so I made sure I kept some space for it this time round. It is very relevant to the topic. I am glad you noticed my argument about the simulations. You can see hoe this relates to your clone ideas which is why I was so excited about your essay last time.

        Your co-emergence idea adds more to this way of thinking. I like it a lot.

        Dear Sirs!

        Physics of Descartes, which existed prior to the physics of Newton returned as the New Cartesian Physic and promises to be a theory of everything. To tell you this good news I use «spam».

        New Cartesian Physic based on the identity of space and matter. It showed that the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of force which on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.

        New Cartesian Physic has great potential for understanding the world. To show it, I ventured to give "materialistic explanations of the paranormal and supernatural" is the title of my essay.

        Visit my essay, you will find there the New Cartesian Physic and make a short entry: "I believe that space is a matter" I will answer you in return. Can put me 1.

        Sincerely,

        Dizhechko Boris

        Rajiv, I left academia early in my postdoc phase because I knew other postdocs who had been doing it for ten years with no prospect of a permanent position. Being able to network well is as important as doing good research and I was bad at networking. It then becomes very difficult to start a new career outside academia.

        So I left and got a job in software engineering while I could and then worked hard at that for twenty years, doing maths and physics in my spare time, until I had enough financial security to stop and return to independent research full time. I now appreciate being able to follow my own research path without the need to impress others or follow the funding. I don't know anyone who can make enough money writing books or blogs to survive that way.

        20 days later

        Ah! I wish I was as clever. Congrats none the less !

        Enjoy your time with physics and maths, with family, with nature, with the creativity of humanity (movies, music, sports, arts, technology, sociology), and with the wonderment called universe. Accept my apologies for being envious!

        Rajiv

        7 months later

        Dr. Gibbs,

        FYI, there is a new FQXi essay contest.

        Best Regards,

        Gary Simpson

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