Mr. George Gantz

Great conclusion!

This essay provided evidence that cosmic intentionality is a reasonable, consistent and complete inference about why the universe is the way it is. We can see that emergent processes exhibit intention, that systems are attracted to particular states while component units behave collaboratively in selecting those states, and that the entire process across and within levels is reciprocal. These qualities define the operative cosmic principle as love. We have the opportunity to embrace and reciprocate this love, with gratitude, joy and delight, and to believe that we are a meaningful part of a grand purpose.

However, where in our current standard model of the universe is the structure required to support cosmic intentionality? I think a greater structure is required to support your idea of a cosmic intention. At the risk of sounding self-promoting, my Reflective Field Theory may provide such a structure. At least, it provides a starting point and structure to expand your ideas. I think you would find my essay Our Emergent Universe interesting. You have my vote of a 10, great explanation of the issues. Philosophical questions need to be addressed like, "Exactly where and how do laws of nature exert influence and order?" I think my model points in the right direction. I would like to read your reaction.

Thank you, Graham

    Hi George,

    Having enjoyed your previous fqxi essay quite a lot (Lev said it should've taken the first place), we've been particularly looking forward to our exchange in this round. So, this is just a little reminder, since the time for that is coming to a close. In that regard, your questions above aren't quite clear to us. Please feel free to clarify them on our page.

    Good luck!

    Alexey.

      Jonathan-

      Thank you for your detailed attention and kind remarks. I am presently in Colorado celebrating the birth of another grandson (one more beautiful reason to believe in love as primary intentionality), so a bit behind in my reading, but I will tackle your essay as soon as I can.

      While I claim no knowledge of higher math beyond my academic studies, which ended in 1975, I am leery of any claim that math constructively imposes directionality --- except to the extent it has picked up the intentions of its observer/discoverers. I agree however, that there is mystery in math, as your quote suggests: "One, open, as multiplicity and formless nothingness, finds peace in true relation and knows all as self." This statement is quite consistent with the metaphysics of creation I explored in my 2015 FQXi essay The Hole at the Center of Creation. Something strange and mysterious happens when the One is distinguished from the void. At the same time, that distinction is not intention - it is the consequence of intention.

      As for the 100 monkeys, let's let them keep typing. Perhaps we will eventually find out who is right...

      Robert - Thank you, I have achieved my aim if I have given one reader a new perspective. Of course, the point of the 100 monkeys analogy was not to suggest we can tell the difference between mere randomness and intentionality on the basis of statistical tests. Any such distinctions become quite treacherous when we are dealing with infinity. Rather, the metaphor is simply trying to point out the absurdity of a metaphysical commitment to randomness. It's a terrible way to live - and a terrible way to think.

      Many thanks - George

      Graham - Thank you for the vote of confidence and enthusiasm. I look forward to tackling your essay soon. At the moment I am in Colorado welcoming a new grandson - another fabulous reason to believe in the primacy of love as cosmic intentionality!

      One of my goals in the three FQXi essay contest I have participated in has been to bring the philosophical issues to the fore. As Maimonides said: "he who wishes to attain to human perfection, must therefore first study Logic, next the various branches of Mathematics in their proper order, then Physics, and lastly Metaphysics." Math and physics, in particular, have failed to come to terms with the metaphysical implications of the end of the Newtonian worldview. See: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2381

      Regards - George

      Dear George Gantz

      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

        Dear George,

        You are a poet, from the flock of starlings , the dancing waves and shimmering surfaces, the sunflower's artihmetic, also the 100 monkeys (I should take a minimum of hundredthousand) and the cause that makes a ball rolling, all these examples are an everyday beauty inviting us to like our life.

        Then you continue indeed as a poet: "Galaxies emerge in a cosmic gravitational dance" their goal is to minimalise local entropy... that minimazes avaerage energy losses. But.... how did entropy get this height. Our perceptions of this reality indicate a certain "goal" like you indicate, but this also means that in an earlier point of the time dimension this goal has already been achieved...

        Then you mention :"self-reflective conscious beings is the pursuit of science"

        Here we are touching the essence "Consciousness" Here you indicate that consciousness is searching for the whatness. Maybe however it is the other way around and Consciousness is the origin of the emerged reality as we are aware of.

        We humans are reciprocally connected, I fully agree with you, surely when you add : "a history of emergent threads weaving connections to all living things, to all times and places,and to the universe as a whole." This is the essental phrase for me in your beautiful written essay.

        "Love flowing through the Universe" Our emergent reality has given us not only love but also hate and war. These two "feelings" are the origin of natures way to survive and its procreation. Reality is not only poetic dear George...but you are indeed a grandfather which I am not despite my four children and age of 71, and I think that that experience could make a man more optimistic.

        You are ending with a question, the same question I am posing myself since years, this question has given me some answers that I am after the same search as yours am giving in my essay : The Purpose of Life".

        I hope that you will find some emergeing time to read it, leave an esteemed comment and maybe a rating.

        best regards and thanks for your essay.

        Wilhelmus

          Dear George Gantz,

          Thanks for a wonderful essay. My eyes watered at your description of the starlings, and related it to your bicycle racing days. "Wild and crazy fun." Today my wild and crazy fun is mental, but you reminded me of my younger, physical, days of wild and crazy fun.

          You place things in perspective. The "crucial difference between intentions and agency. Intentions are behaviors that can be observed. Agency is a quality that must be inferred." Perhaps a slight redefinition of "intention", but the point is that agency must be inferred. Your 'Shakespeare in the monkey gibberish' nicely illustrates that, "it is correspondingly impossible to determine if this universe was written by randomness or by intention." That is key. So how do we decide? I address that in my essay, which I hope you will read and comment on. I loved your "Hole at the Center of Creation", but this year you have surpassed yourself.

          You have probably the best thought I have found in this contest:

          "The universe has given us life, beauty, joy and self-reflective consciousness - it has loved us. In turn, it is possible for each of us to reciprocate this love."

          It is reciprocal. Your grandson "loves the world ... and the world loves him back." And so for your new Colorado grandson (where my grandsons live.)

          "Choose as you will, but I believe the Universe is meant to be lived in, to be explored, and to be loved."

          Yours, in gratitude,

          Edwin Eugene Klingman

            Thank you Wilhelmus - Poetry (in prose form) is a vehicle to convey ideas that reason alone may not be able to convey. It is a beautiful and loving world to me. It was my intention to share this, and I am pleased that you like the effort.

            I did read your essay - I did like the poetry of TS Total Simultaneity and TC Total Consciousness!

            I wish you well in the contest!

            -George

            Edwin - Thank you for the kind comments! I enjoyed reading your essay and found it profound and a bit beyond my technical capabilities to absorb completely. IT does look like you are doing well in the contest - good luck in the race to the finish!

            -GEorge

            Dizhechko -

            Descartes is one of my heroes - I wrote a senior thesis on Descartes, Hume and Wittgenstein, but Descartes is the one who continues to fascinate and resonate. Have you read "Descartes Bones"?

            I look forward to reading your essay!

            -George

            Dear George,

            the topic left room for interpretations, you went for the cosmic scale. You argue clearly, why you prefer to see intention whenever you have the choice. Your essay is nice to read and comforting. I like your pictures, especially the flocking of birds! Myself, I went for the question whether goal-oriented behavior on macroscopic scales is at all compatible with "mindless mathematical laws" on microscopic scales. I answer this question positively and I wonder whether you'd find this conclusion comforting. I'm leaning towards the naturalist side, in particular methodologically, but I also find joy and delight in exploring the universe. We started with different questions and cover different aspects of the topic, but concerning the attitude resulting from the choices you offer at the end of your essay, we do not end up all that different.

            Cheers, Stefan

              Dear George,

              Thank you for the comment on my essay. Indeed there is a resemblance between your topic and mine. But I think while I went to a more evolutionary point of view, you went to a very beautiful poetic route. It indeed touched my heart seeing how, indeed, everything seem to self organized, despite the aparent lack of purpose in the universe, and that there is a sense of flow in all of that. This gives a reason to see purpose and not chaos to those who wishes to find a reason to exist, that our life has some value.

              When you gave your grandsone as an example of the huge flow of love, as part of the universe's purpose in minimizing entropy, while exploring the environment, did made me a drop a couple of tears. It made me see through your eyes how something so simple can be an atom of the huge large scale principles of the universe.

                Thanks Stefan - I enjoyed your essay, which nicely threads the needle between intention as epiphenomenon and intention as a cosmic essential. I have always admired, but never fully accepted, compatibalist arguments. I suppose I'm just an absolutist at heart...

                Cheers - George

                Daneil - Thank you so very much for your kind remarks. I shed a tear writing about my grandson, too. Even better, I now have another grandson - one week old - and have been spending time with him as he slowly wakes to the wide world into which he was born. Yes, one can believe the world is deterministic, or completely random, or that our conscious sense of purpose, appreciation of beauty and experience of love is all epiphenomenal. But what a hollow waste that seems to be when we have the opportunity to embrace with all our hearts and our so very rational minds a delightful and joyous experiential and purposeful wonderland.

                Many thanks - George

                Dear George,

                Following up on your invitation to comment, I want to say first of all that I like your writing style, which is both friendly and economical. I know that your larger interest concerns the interface between science and religion (or spirituality), and I share that interest.

                I find that the notions of 'randomness' and 'intentionality' are not well defined in the science/math/philosophy community. Perhaps that is unavoidable, since they are essentially human-centric notions. (What does 'random' mean but something whose 'cause' cannot be determined by a human observer? What does 'intention' mean but something imputed by a human observer?) So, the choice between a view of the world as random or intended seems to me artificial. As your essay progresses, there is increasing reliance on mentalist vocabulary (choice, guidance, attraction, disposition, top-down, aspirational, dance, embrace...) culminating in a cosmic vision of "love." While poetic, I don't find that using these terms supports your basic aim--which in more physicalist terms seems to be to reconcile the emergence of order with the 2nd Law. It simply restates the scientific problem in "folk" terms. (In fairness, I could be equally critical of the notion of "symmetry-breaking" as a causal force.)

                I agree with many points you make (e.g. that the choice of worldviews is logically and empirically undecidable; that "everything is connected to everything else in a limitless web of reciprocity"), and with the spirit of the whole. On the other hand, I cannot make sense of the statement (or definition?) that "intentions are behaviors that can be observed." I don't see that the billiard ball and the human manifest intention in any comparable or common way, other than a definition imposed by the human. Humans can certainly read what they know as intention into observed behaviors of animate or inanimate matter. (Cf. Daniel Dennett's "intentional stance".) If intentions are to be understood simply as behaviors that can be observed, then why not stick with ordinary space-time description (Dennett's "physical stance")? Similarly, I do agree that human consciousness is NOT epiphenomenal, but serves downward causation in the human organism. But that is because there is a "top" to a human being, which performs an executive function. What is the top level of the physical cosmos? If we have recourse to something standing outside nature to fill that (executive) function--God, the "mathematical laws of physics," or some meta-system of dispositions)--then it is no longer science.

                I hope this is helpful and not too harsh, for I did indeed enjoy reading your paper. Wishing you all the best in your philosophical inquires,

                Dan

                  Dan - Thank you for the thorough read and excellent comments. I agree that one can perceive any particular event as random or intentional - but I do not agree that the difference is artificial or, as you seem to suggest, a matter of semantics. It is a real distinction that matters.

                  To be clear, my aim is not to reconcile emergence with the 2nd law in physicalist terms. I am rather, trying to highlight that the universal process of emergence points to causal influences extending beyond the physical, hence the increasing use of what you call "mentalist" terms. This is intentional on my part, as are the two stories that bracket the essay.

                  My definition of the word "intention" may be unusual, but it is critical to illuminate the correspondence of emergent processes across the spectrum of physical, chemical and biological systems. I left it to the end to connect the resulting flowing process across levels to a fundamental causal influence - love. This is, indeed, the "top." I am perfectly comfortably ascribing this causal "top," and the mathematical forms which constrain its flow, to divine influence - but I avoid using theological terms because of the antipathy that many have to religious language. Indeed, you suggest that such ideas would "no longer be science." I agree. The question posed in this contest in a metaphysical one. It cannot be answered from within science. See also my 2015 essay - The Hole at The Center of Creation.

                  Regards - George

                  Dear George Gantz,

                  Descartes I read a long time ago, when I was 20 years old.

                  In philosophy I was looking for an answer to the question: "What is the matter?" The answer I not found. Then I went to the principle of identity of space and matter of Descartes, which allowed me to say that space is the body of God who works wonders. Moving space-matter became the basis of the New Cartesian Physic, which explained the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of which force on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.

                  This and other achievements make me ask you to help me to develop it further in FQXi. Rate my essay.

                  Sincerely,

                  Dizhechko Boris

                  George,

                  Hello again. As the contest is ending, I see that I have not commented or scored your essay ...

                  Flocking birds are amazing. In the Houston area, there are sometimes flocks as you describe. There are also migratory birds such as ducks that travel to and from the coastal area. They fly in V shaped flocks.

                  Monkeys and typewriters are a favorite topic for the question of randomness. In actual practice though, monkeys tend to hit a single key repeatedly and then make those screaming noises:-) A true random alpha-numeric generator might be a better choice for that example ... if there is such a thing. Once Shakespeare has been created though, you are correct in stating we don't know if it was intentional or not.

                  Many of the essays use the ideas of entropy and open & closed systems plus information. There might even be a consensus regarding these ideas..

                  The narrative of the billiard ball and the pool cue is good. A point that I don't think I have seen in any of the essays is the making and the use of TOOLS. A tool has no agency but its creator and its user certainly do.

                  The idea of an attractor in the solution space is presented in several of the essays. It seems reasonable to me.

                  Cooperation is definitely an advantage ... AND ... the ability to cooperate and the choice to cooperate are definitely signs of agency.

                  Regarding reciprocity, it seems like a reasonable idea. I believe that your essay is the only one that I have read that presents this idea. This allows a constraint to move up or down through the hierarchy to all the levels .... if we were in sufficient harmony with the universe, this might even be a way to have one's "will" expressed as an event.

                  All in all, this was an excellent effort on your part. Well done.

                  Best Regards and Good Luck,

                  Gary Simpson