Essay Abstract

Mathematical laws can be powerful tools for explaining past regularities we have discovered about our universe--but timeless, deterministic laws are not compatible with the sort of personal free will I believe in. I contend that for beings like us--continually forming intentions, and seemingly with the capability of choosing between different future paths in pursuit of those aims--to arise requires a reality not bound by immutable 'laws of nature'. Furthermore, I assert that a way forward (for the progression of research and understanding in cosmology and fundamental physics) can be provided by recognising that the passage of time is real, and change (unpredictable and irreducible) forms a fundamental part of nature. Corollaries include that: the future is not fully determined; quantum mechanics has to be reformulated to include objective wave-function collapse (e.g. allowing for maximal information densities to not be exceeded); space is emergent from a discrete, largely stochastic pre-space; mathematics is not able to fully capture the contingent nature of reality; and that the universe is best viewed as the product of a lengthy historical process, probably shaped by Darwinian-like evolution. This evolution, by cumulative selection on distinct universe spaces, involving the gradual emergence of complexity, has allowed the eventual production of algorithms able to scan the various possibilities of an uncertain future and choose a preferred path to follow.

Author Bio

David C. Cosgrove, Principal Research Scientist at an Australian federal research bureau, is a physicist whose career has focussed on mathematical models of transport activities and their impacts on society and the environment. Published works summary: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6813-5276 Some of his other areas of interest include: fundamental physics and the philosophy of science (such as interpretations of quantum theory); the study of evolutionary principles or systems; the engineering principles of renewable energy technologies; ethics and social cohesion.

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Re: "...with the sort of personal free will I believe in"

A scientific analysis should surely be based on evidence, not belief. With everything else we observe beings based on either determinism, perhaps chance (if it exists) or some mixture of these, where do you see any evidence to support a belief in personal free will, with no mechanism for it apparent in our understanding of physics?

    Dear Mr. Cosgrove,

    Thanks for the well written and insightful essay. I am not a scientist but was well able to follow your train of thought. Thanks for making the effort to keep it accessible to folks like me.

    I found your ideas about our universe being characterized by "constant change" to be sympathetic to my own.

    You write;

    "Simple structures (strings of such basic information) randomly arise, with most extinguished quickly by the tides of change; but in time more stable structures emerge (compound messages either encoded on or transmitted between the pre-space loci)8, perhaps utilising algorithms that have evolved to partially shield their configuration from the underlying chaos."

    Is this not just a way to state that 'complexity happens'? However, I would suggest that evolving stable structures don't utilize algorithms that have "evolved", rather, that they necessarily build upon a fundamental algorithm that includes both randomness and complexity. This algorithm describes the nature of 'change' itself and might/should be identifiable within all expressions of change.

    In any event, i would appreciate your thoughts on my own essay as I've only received two comments of the 'cookie-cutter-spammer' type that some individuals here seem to be generously doling out.

    http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2790

    Thanks again for an enjoyable essay.

    Yours,

    William Ekeson

      Dear Mr. Cosgrove,

      Thank you for the insightful and nonconventional ideas that you put forth in your essay.

      In your abstract, you state "I contend that for beings like us--continually forming intentions, and seemingly with the

      capability of choosing between different future paths in pursuit of those aims--to arise requires a

      reality not bound by immutable 'laws of nature'". I whole heartedly agree with you to that extent that purpose cannot arise from these so-called "immutable 'laws of nature'".

      However, I do not agree that any formalism of mathematical physics is to blame; I hold that when one formulates using mathematics, he is choosing to describe things "immutably", even if he uses stochastic processes, and thus can never describe purpose.

      I explore this idea further in my essay http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2828 , I hope that you might be interested in reading it, and that we could continue a discussion on this important and interesting topic.

      Regards,

      Attay Kremer.

        Andrew, thanks for commenting - and I take your point, since the extent to which we actually have 'free' will is a very contestable part of my thesis.

        Though I note this is not a 'belief' in the sense of having faith in something unobservable or going against existing observations. I am just taking the evidence we observe every day - of seemingly having the ability to make conscious choices - and therefore choosing to ignore the anti-freewill implications of standard mathematical laws (e.g. deterministic dynamical equations, even if unpredictable, which I take to not tell us much about the base nature of reality anyway! - as opposed to the logical structure of mathematics, which might possibly tell us a little something??)

        This essay is basically just my personal view of how the long historical process - that resulted in conscious us - possibly transpired, along with the provisional nature of mathematical laws. Though mathematical dynamical laws are obviously very successful at describing parts of the universe that surround us, and how they work, they don't really say anything about why they work that way. And I doubt that a mathematical law approach will ever tell us much about many basic mysteries of reality (e.g. the origin of the universe, why we exist? etc)

        Though in one puzzling area, what gives rise to consciousness, I feel we will eventually have some decent understanding of (not anytime soon though - given the current state of perplexity!)

        Regarding a particular physical mechanism for free will, well that is something that I have already thought about for years, and occasionally keeps me up at nights - but so far eludes me. I suppose I am hoping to eventually show the feasibility of some sort of futures-assessment process (like a decision matrix optimisation?), to be appended to the existing mathematical formalism?

        I think getting objective wavefunction collapse sorted out would be a good start at least!

        Perhaps something I read amongst the papers of this competition will give me some fresh ideas/perspective? Or perhaps we will never figure it out. Still gives us plenty to think about...

        Thanks William - glad you enjoyed the essay. I had aimed, at least, to try telling an interesting story

        (of the possible path of universal evolution) while keeping the content generally accessible.

        In that paragraph you quote, dealing with structure preservation, I was not just getting at the eventual emergence of any complexity - but chiefly the need for some basic way of early structures (however they should occur, even if randomly) to be protected from the tumult of change, if the underlying change/randomness is as ceaseless and turbulent as I have presumed...

        Perhaps this is not that dissimilar from your conception of a "fundamental algorithm that... describes the nature of 'change' itself" ? Though I have yet to decide if such an algorithm would have to be an integral part of reality (all the way 'down', so to speak) or whether it could possibly arise at some later, intermediate stage (more like a required heuristic rule, that would be necessary before any higher order structure could then follow?)

        I look forward to having a read of your essay soon.

        Regards,

        David C.

        Attay,

        Thanks for your kind expressions of interest, and your perceptive remarks.

        And I think we are actually more fully in agreement over the topic you raise - i.e. not only am I sure that immutable (fixed or deterministic) mathematical 'laws of nature' are incompatible with the existence of actual purpose, but have also become more convinced that no mathematical expression/description can adequately give rise to intentionality (and the freedom to act on those intentions in time).

        Having been a mathematical physicist most of my life, that could be considered a bit of a setback, I suppose! But the more I think about the issue, I do not see how truly purposeful behaviour (and the ability to make choices) can manage to develop from lower level forms unless some element of intentionality is also intrinsic to those more fundamental levels (just as I fail to credit arguments that attempt to explain the emergence of entities with free will from fully deterministic physical substrates).

        You say in your essay, "A world ruled by a mechanism is, by its very definition, a world in which purpose is only an evolutionary illusion" - and in my essay I discuss how an evolutionary perspective can help explain why the universe might be expected to have some of the features it does, but I also concur that this alone is incapable of explaining (non-illusory) purpose; and something else is required for understanding it (or what brings about some underlying spark of intentionality, and the breath that flares it to life...)

        Regards,

        David C.

        Dear David,

        I seem to be quite bit more pessimistic than you, as I believe that the project of understanding purpose is bound to fail, while you - if I understand your argument properly - believe that something might arise that could provide an explanation of purpose.

        I certainly agree that evolution can forge an understanding of particular features of the universe, and in fact, I believe these features to be many; however, I cannot see how purpose could one of them.

        Hello David,

        I read your essay and enjoyed it as well as you have written we should not be bounded by 'laws of Nature' for intentions. And the best part I liked was:

        "a crucial aspect is change" and yes it is absolutely correct.

        But here I could not understand this completely "In the beginning there was nothing

        and no change was possible." If no change was possible from the beginning or absolute nothing then how did the existence of universe continue? Or how did the universe formed out of nothing?

        But anyway the essay was very interesting, also when you gave light(1) and dark(0).

        Also, checkout my essay on "Our Numerical Universe" where I have compared universe with numerical patterns and mathematics.

        http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2815

        Best Regards from Himalayas

        Ajay

          Dear Mr Cosgrove

          Thank you for this excellent essay. I find our perspectives to be quite similar in several areas.

          I wholeheartedly agree with your assertions that

          - we need to seek some kind of unifying complexification scheme - probably encompassing consciousness, and that mathematics is of limited utility in this area.

          - that we should entertain models that are not entirely deterministic, leaving room for free will.

          - and that the universe in some way "strives" to exist, (from nothing perhaps).

          the essay question is difficult and I enjoyed your cautious yet open-minded approach. If you have time, please have a look at my essay "From nothingness to value ethics" - somewhat similar yet different...

          Best regards

          Gavin Rowland

            Ajay,

            Thanks for reading and commenting. Glad you found the essay of interest.

            Note that the paragraph you mention, talking about how we really do not know much about the origin of the universe, was actually saying that "In the beginning there was nothing and no change was possible" is an impossible option, since otherwise we would not be here to talk about it...

            I look forward to reading your essay.

            Regards,

            David C.

            Hi David -

            I find your essay on cosmological evolution very interesting, though I don't agree with the proposition you use to tie this into the theme of the contest - that "timeless, deterministic laws of nature are not compatible with individual aims and the free will to independently pursue those aims." On the contrary, it seems to me that if the indeterminacy of quantum interaction were not constrained in some way to give precisely uniform and predictable statistical behavior at the atomic level, nothing like life or human "free will" could possibly have evolved. We need deterministic physics in order to exist, just as we need biological self-replication. But I agree that absolute deterministic laws are not just "built in" at the basis of everything. In fact, though it's not the main theme of my essay, I suggest that the result of natural selection in physics is to make the universe as changeless and deterministic as it can be. This is hardly incompatible with the emergence of many higher levels both of randomness and order.

            I'm most impressed that you've not only taken Smolin's idea seriously, but have developed it much further, in a very original way. I agree with his argument that only something like evolution via natural selection can ultimately explain the finely-tuned complexities of physics. But the notion that universes replicate themselves never seemed at all convincing to me. At best, it's pure speculation that new universes emerge from black holes, and that heritable information about laws of physics somehow gets passed on through this process. In biology, even before we had any notion of genetics, it was always obvious that organisms reproduce and inherit traits, and everything they do has direct relevance to this process. Whereas hardly anything in empirical physics is obviously relevant to cosmological self-replication.

            My solution was to consider that reproduction is not the only way information can get itself passed on, so as to evolve through selection. Both in quantum measurement and in human communication, new information is constantly being defined and passed on as the basis for defining further information, in new contexts. And unlike cosmological self-replication, the processes by which things get measured involve every aspect of known physics, one way or another. So this may be a different way of implementing the same intuitions that lie behind your argument. I hope you'll look at my essay and tell me what you think.

            In any case, thanks for submitting an unusually intelligent and creative piece of work. I hope we can discuss it further.

            Conrad

              Hi Conrad,

              I was very pleased to read your generous and considered comments - and really appreciated you having taken the time to suitably deliberate on my essay's line of reasoning.

              I have started reading your insightful essay - and I feel our respective world-views probably have a reasonable amount of correspondence (or at least resonance).

              I will respond more fully when I have had the time to mull over some of the connections between our discussions of universal mysteries...

              Thanks,

              David C.

              Dear Dr. David C Cosgrove,

              Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.

              I merely wish to point out that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.

              Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

              The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

              A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.

              Joe Fisher, Realist

              Nice essay Cosgrove,

              Your ideas and thinking are excellent, some good quotes are...

              1. In the abstract..... "I assert that a way forward (for the progression of research and understanding in cosmology and fundamental physics) can be provided by recognising that the passage of time is real, and change (unpredictable and irreducible) forms a fundamental part of nature. Corollaries include that: the future is not fully determined;......."

              2. In page 2 ".....in revealing details of over 13 billion years of spatial expansion, pushing back the established history of the observable universe to within a minute fraction of a second after a hot Big Bang, whose remnants we detect as the cosmic microwave background. Mathematical treatments of this Big Bang, ...."

              ............ Don't you think by considering only 40 percent of Galaxies which are redshifted, to Universe is expanding and there is Bigbang.... Probably you will have to consider the other 60 percent also.... What do you say?

              For your information Dynamic Universe model is totally based on experimental results. Here in Dynamic Universe Model Space is Space and time is time in cosmology level or in any level. In the classical general relativity, space and time are convertible in to each other.

              Many papers and books on Dynamic Universe Model were published by the author on unsolved problems of present day Physics, for example 'Absolute Rest frame of reference is not necessary' (1994) , 'Multiple bending of light ray can create many images for one Galaxy: in our dynamic universe', About "SITA" simulations, 'Missing mass in Galaxy is NOT required', "New mathematics tensors without Differential and Integral equations", "Information, Reality and Relics of Cosmic Microwave Background", "Dynamic Universe Model explains the Discrepancies of Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Observations.", in 2015 'Explaining Formation of Astronomical Jets Using Dynamic Universe Model, 'Explaining Pioneer anomaly', 'Explaining Near luminal velocities in Astronomical jets', 'Observation of super luminal neutrinos', 'Process of quenching in Galaxies due to formation of hole at the center of Galaxy, as its central densemass dries up', "Dynamic Universe Model Predicts the Trajectory of New Horizons Satellite Going to Pluto" etc., are some more papers from the Dynamic Universe model. Four Books also were published. Book1 shows Dynamic Universe Model is singularity free and body to collision free, Book 2, and Book 3 are explanation of equations of Dynamic Universe model. Book 4 deals about prediction and finding of Blue shifted Galaxies in the universe.

              With axioms like... No Isotropy; No Homogeneity; No Space-time continuum; Non-uniform density of matter(Universe is lumpy); No singularities; No collisions between bodies; No Blackholes; No warm holes; No Bigbang; No repulsion between distant Galaxies; Non-empty Universe; No imaginary or negative time axis; No imaginary X, Y, Z axes; No differential and Integral Equations mathematically; No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to General Relativity on any condition; No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models; No many mini Bigbangs; No Missing Mass; No Dark matter; No Dark energy; No Bigbang generated CMB detected; No Multi-verses etc.

              Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true, like Blue shifted Galaxies and no dark matter. Dynamic Universe Model gave many results otherwise difficult to explain

              Have a look at my essay on Dynamic Universe Model and its blog also where all my books and papers are available for free downloading...

              http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/

              Best wishes to your essay.

              For your blessings please................

              =snp. gupta

              "With only limited data supporting even the tenuous possibility of multiverse existence, all such 'multiple worlds' reasoning thus remains highly speculative."

              Consider 3 questions: Is Professor Milgrom of the Weizmann Institute the Kepler of contemporary cosmology? What is relativistic MOND? What is the meaning of MOND in terms of the foundations of physics? For my speculations on the 3 preceding questions, google "milgrom effect david brown".

              Khoury and Weltman suggested the existence of chameleon particles that have variable effective mass depending upon the energy-density which is nearby the chameleon particles. Gooogle "chameleon cosmology khoury weltman". There might be MOND-chameleon particles that have variable effective mass depending upon the gravitational acceleration which is nearby the MOND-chameleon particles. There might be several plausible explanations for the empirical successes of MOND, but some kind of multiverse explanation is worth considering as part of the explanation for these empirical successes of MOND. Google "kroupa milgrom".

              Dear David Cosgrove

              I invite you and every physicist to read my work "TIME ORIGIN,DEFINITION AND EMPIRICAL MEANING FOR PHYSICISTS, Héctor Daniel Gianni ,I'm not a physicist.

              How people interested in "Time" could feel about related things to the subject.

              1) Intellectuals interested in Time issues usually have a nice and creative wander for the unknown.

              2) They usually enjoy this wander of their searches around it.

              3) For millenniums this wander has been shared by a lot of creative people around the world.

              4) What if suddenly, something considered quasi impossible to be found or discovered such as "Time" definition and experimental meaning confronts them?

              5) Their reaction would be like, something unbelievable,... a kind of disappointment, probably interpreted as a loss of wander.....

              6) ....worst than that, if we say that what was found or discovered wasn't a viable theory, but a proved fact.

              7) Then it would become offensive to be part of the millenary problem solution, instead of being a reason for happiness and satisfaction.

              8) The reader approach to the news would be paradoxically adverse.

              9) Instead, I think it should be a nice welcome to discovery, to be received with opened arms and considered to be read with full attention.

              11)Time "existence" is exclusive as a "measuring system", its physical existence can't be proved by science, as the "time system" is. Experimentally "time" is "movement", we can prove that, showing that with clocks we measure "constant and uniform" movement and not "the so called Time".

              12)The original "time manuscript" has 23 pages, my manuscript in this contest has only 9 pages.

              I share this brief with people interested in "time" and with physicists who have been in sore need of this issue for the last 50 or 60 years.

              Héctor