Hi Tommaso

Here is my long answer I wrote to you in my essay site, and I decided to paste it here so you get a notice.

I am glad to remind you some ideas of Teilhard De Chardin which I don't know him well @ deeply. It seems, that he was both Dualist - body vs spirit and held to the principle of Causation, and the Cartesian belief in the total existence of perfect God.

I am a philosopher that relate more to phenomenology of consciousness; Building a philosophical "floor" on the works of Husserl, Bergson, Ponti etc. My philosophical work is a positive cosmology, (not deconstructionist) a general work in all aspects from ontology through phenomenology to ethics. So I also address to the whole cosmos but in this restricted essay I limit myself to 25000 characters.(it seems I was not clear on that)

My view is ontogenic and with it when I zoom into the nano level into the Movement-phenomenon itself (regardless whether it is a particle or a wave) I found that the subjectivity, the uniqueness of each movement whether its a grain of sand or a person or galaxie is in the quality of the movement in each of them. The movement (non movement is also an option of the system that consume energy) has attributes like "character", "memory", "structure", "material" etc, and the sum total qualities of the attributes are unique to each movement-phenomenon.

In this essay I tried to show that reality is continuously being ratified to us internally and externally. Without this ratification we would not possess the assurance that we are unique though we change continuously.

I showed how the ever changing preset continuous, hold us as self organization and explain the inner self what Ponti or Heidegger and others did not.

What makes the ever changing present? or in other words of Bergson : what makes the Ever duration, Homogeneous Duration works that Bergson did not solve? He sensed and wrote that Causality does not give enough explanation and could not find the answer.

Causality is a special case in the occurrence of Phenomenon and in reality phenomena are occurring based on the natural language of Movements. The language of the attributes of Movements.

As to your last question, since It is all potential information of the possible actions in the relations of each "existent" in the relation, there is a choice of actions (conscious or unconscious) for each of them. This choice I define as "natural choice" bound by the environment. Since each Movement-Phenomenon is finite, the relationships always change the potential choices of action. Once a potential action is chosen the relation change again, and in this way you get a perpetuum mobile of the duration of the ever changing present.

I think that the Mathematics of physics needs a modeling breakthrough. Its Time to philosophy to challenge science and open our horizon. Maybe string theory will be able to calculate the existents of attributes to a movement smaller than 1 in power of -34 to ratify its existent. We today, ratify the existence of quarks at a nano level of 1 in the power of -24. So, there is a way we have to go.

I hope I explained some of your questions and our essay are exposed to large (relative) potential readers through this relationship with FQXi.

Thanks again

Yuda

Hi Tommaso - I enjoyed reading your essay - first because it started with a beautiful painting, and second because all your arguments were embedded in elementary Cellular Automata (ECA), a concept that is central to my Beautiful Universe Model . Moreover you start with a quote by Wolfram, one of my heroes!

Having said that I must say that the mechanisms in my brain are not that well-versed in the actual mathematics you use, and the details (but not the conclusions) of your arguments were lost to me. Its OK - your essay tried to answer the essay contest Question and seems to have done so very elegantly.

In my fqxi essay I also start out with a river scene, but one more joyful than yours! Poor Boltzmann. Cellular Automata do appear in the very last section, but they are not Elementary - rather than on-off or three-state 2D cells they are spherically orientable dipolar units that act as qubits acting on their adjacent neighbors. As I mentioned Gerard 't Hooft has just proven that Quantum Mechanics can emerge out of CA!

Wishing you all success in your work and in the contest,

Vladimir

Tomasso,

Good essay. But I'm not sure the man in the tailcoat didn't further confuse a rather complex construction of what is surely a very simple, if important, truth; 'The universe consists of (hierarchical interacting) mechanisms, and a 'goal' is just a convenient lower order description.'

Does that not abridge the story? I don't criticize the hypothesis but agree entirely, including with it's central importance. But I felt that when clear analysis of how small scale mechanisms could produce the effect was about to emerge the dark and confusing fog, abundant in these parts, seemed to close in. Perhaps I missed some important other point?

Does what we call an 'aim' not simply emerge as an upper level 'decision', or choice informed by running scenario's from (memories & imagination) giving feedback, with implications on lower level choices (all using the same feedback)?

I anticipate you agree as it employs the "universal architecture of emergence" you refer to. But, if not, can you elucidate?

None the less I think you hit some fundamental salient points, right on topic, and very nicely written in plain English. For me those points alone should put the essay rather higher than it is and my score should help.

I hope you'll read and comment on mine which I see as compatible and complimentary. I link the upper problem of cognitive operations with the smallest 'quantum' scale, identifying a real classical mechanism able to reproduce the 'choice' complexity required.

very best

Peter

    Dear Peter,

    your essay is one of the very few left in my folder, and I will certainly read and rate it before the deadline of April 7.

    I am not sure I understand precisely your first remark, ending with: 'The universe consists of (hierarchical interacting) mechanisms, and a 'goal' is just a convenient lower order description.' (Looks like a quote, but I did not find this in your text, nor in mine.) What do you mean by 'lower order'?

    I first tried to understand the difference between 'mechanism' and 'goal' by viewing both of them as computations. A first attempt to discriminate between them purely in terms of computational complexity (they would compute the same function but with different efficiency) miserably failed.

    But I could retain the software-engineering-inspired view that the (mechanism, goal) pair corresponds directly to an (implementation, specification) pair, with implementations expressed in a *programming language* and specifications expressed in *logics* - both potentially affected by undecidability limitations. More importantly: the mechanism exists, it is ontological stuff; the goal does not, it is epistemological baggage, created for convenience, as expressed in the opening quote by Wolfram - a high-level description. (The illusory nature of goals is then quite clear in darwinian evolution.)

    Do you imply that a compact logical characterisation of a mechanism is a 'lower order description' of it?

    In your subsequent remarks you hint at top-down causation. My familiarity with top-down causation in the context of simple computational systems (thus, outside the realm of traditional biology) is still poor, although I am convinced that this powerful trick could greatly boost the emergence of complexity in simulated digital universes, as already suggested by Ellis, much beyond what can be obtained by plain Wolfram-type experiments.

    Indeed, I wonder whether the system of six interacting Elementary Cellular Automata that I have presented, with their ability to locally reduce entropy, could not be seen as a possible rudimentary example of top-down causation, with the whole influencing the local parameters of the parts (as evidenced by comparison with the non-cooperative scenario).

    In conclusion, I may agree with you that the night was foggy, but the conversation with the man in the tailcoat gave me an opportunity to ponder on a number of issues reasonably related (I believe) to the Contest Theme, although I myself would not be able to choose and distill a unique take-away message, or answer (but, given the difficulty of the theme, who could?).

    Thanks, and keep in touch in your page!

    Tommaso

    Hello Tommaso - It is a pleasure to read another of your essays The most entertaining of the bunch, I have to say. Although, the apparently bad end of the object of your story may not bode well for the success of your theory.

    As I understand it, the all-in-all is driven by mundane mechanism, and grandiose goals are just algorithmic short-cuts. In the language of my essay (The How and The Why of Emergence and Intention), this would put you in the camp of those seeing meaning and purpose as epiphenomenal. I must be looking at this from the other end of the micro/telescope - where you see epiphenomenon, I see cosmic intentionality!

    I submit that we both have achieved "proof of concept" - but the fact that two mutually exclusive speculations are both plausible may not yield much wisdom. Before we make our final choices, perhaps you would be willing to dismount the parapet and join me at a nearby cafe for a cappuccino...

    Sincere regards - George Gantz

      Dear Tommaso,

      I finally got a chance to finish reading your very interesting essay. I enjoyed reading it a lot and also appreciated the poetic story around it.

      Is the fact that a random input fed into a randomly chosen algorithm tends to produce more orderly outputs a consequence of the probability distribution of possible algorithms? I.e. that algorithms with biased outputs are more likely than algorithms with maximum entropy outputs? For example there are 70 (?) elementary cellular automata with 4 outputs = 1 and 4 outputs = 0 (if I'm not mistaken), but, in any case, many more rules with an uneven distribution of 0s and 1s in their outputs.

      It's something I didn't really think about yet, but it makes a lot of sense. Thank you for making this point.

      All the best,

      Larissa

      Dear Tommaso Bolognesi

      I appreciate your essay. You spent a lot of effort to write it. If you believed in the principle of identity of space and matter of Descartes, then your essay would be even better. There is not movable a geometric space, and is movable physical space. These are different concepts.

      I inform all the participants that use the online translator, therefore, my essay is written badly. I participate in the contest to familiarize English-speaking scientists with New Cartesian Physic, the basis of which the principle of identity of space and matter. Combining space and matter into a single essence, the New Cartesian Physic is able to integrate modern physics into a single theory. Let FQXi will be the starting point of this Association.

      Don't let the New Cartesian Physic disappear! Do not ask for himself, but for Descartes.

      New Cartesian Physic has great potential in understanding the world. To show potential in this essay I risked give "The way of the materialist explanation of the paranormal and the supernatural" - Is the name of my essay.

      Visit my essay and you will find something in it about New Cartesian Physic. After you give a post in my topic, I shall do the same in your theme

      Sincerely,

      Dizhechko Boris

      Tommaso,

      Thanks for the response and comment on my page. I'll respond here to those here.

      Re; "The universe consists of (hierarchical interacting) mechanisms, and a 'goal' is just a convenient lower order description." means; At the smallest scale (highest 'order') EVERYTHING is made of quanta, interacting, so ALL bigger things & concepts are emergent, in the 'levels' we both identify, as your 'narrative trick'. I identify PDL (or quantum 'modal' logic) as the consistent logical system, which expands on my 'bracketing rule' analysis last year.

      A " compact logical characterisation of a mechanism is indeed then a 'lower order' or 'one larger scale up' (yes, 'higher order' as in maths can confuse things!). Like trying to describe the true workings on a computer by just summarising whats on the screen and how the mouse and keyboard affect it. The description may be 'compact' but everything's relative!

      " you hint at top-down causation Only as 'aims' in the 'strata'; i.e. You have a choice A or B. run an imaginary scenario, trigger biochem releases etc. which give feedback, so you choose B. You then have a cascade of consequential choices of how best to meet B (so looping back each time) B has become what we call an 'aim'! The 'upper' strata has dictated lower level choices (and responses) right down to the quantum level 'switches' I identify. Does that not work for you?

      That 'hierarchy of levels of emergence' and 'feedback' are consistent with many of the better essays here and gives a consistent overall mechanism producing what you term as the 'trick' of goals.

      Sure you have a different way of looking at it and expressing the structure, we all have, so penetrate the mist to different depths and reach different conclusions. Isn't that how we evolve!

      Best

      Peter

      Tomas -

      Thanks for the extended reply which you provided in the comment thread for my essay. I have replied there. I am just letting you know here - because I assume you also only get emails when items are posted on your own essay and not when replies are posted to your comments...

      Regards - George

      Dear Tommaso,

      After meeting you last summer at the FQXi conference, it was nice to read another great essay of yours in this contest. I love how you always frame them inside a story, even if this time, since you had a lot of ground to cover, the story was kept more in the background! I liked how you framed the concept of goals within "the upper level of the universal architecture of emergence" and used elementary cellular automata as examples. I agree with you that "mechanisms exist in nature as the fundamental building blocks of External reality: they enjoy the most respected ontological status. Goals don't." That's why, as a physicist who likes to tackle foundational issues in terms of ontology and metaphysics, I found this year's essay topic quite challenging --- but I finally found a way to address this year's question by exploring the possibility of "co-emergence" between mindless mathematical laws and conscious agents possessing goals and intention.

      Thank you for your very substantial, level-headed and perfectly on-topic approach to this year's essay question. I wish your essay does at least as well as last time!

      Marc

        Thank you Marc.

        A very challenging theme indeed, this time. Yes, I have a tendency to add stories, but I think these ingredients should really be kept to a minimum... Anyway, YOU did a tremendous job! See my comments at your page.

        Arrivederci

        Tommaso

        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

        Thanks Tommaso..

        This is interesting. I greatly enjoyed your essay, except for the tragic end for the title character. You appear to be saying we actually see mechanisms not goals, for the most part, but goals are an easier way to store and remember what we are supposed to do. I like the notion that cooperation of ECAs results in higher survival rates and an apparent decrease in entropy. I would love to discuss the directionality of the Mandelbrot Set as an example of extreme compressibility of a goal-like structure. But only after the rating period has expired perhaps.

        All the Best,

        Jonathan

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