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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