Essay Abstract

Reality presents to us in multiple forms, as a multiple level pyramid. Physics is the foundation, and should be made as solid and complete as possible. Suppose we will find the unified theory of the fundamental physical laws. Then what? Will we be able to deduce the higher levels, or they have their own life, not completely depending on the foundations? At the higher levels arise goals, life, and even consciousness, which seem to be more than mere constructs of the fundamental constituents. Are all these high level structures completely reducible to the basis, or by contrary, they also affect the lower levels? Are mathematics and logic enough to solve these puzzles? Are there questions objective science can't even define rigorously? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the world made of?

Author Bio

Theoretical physicist. Research interests: foundations of physics, gauge theory, foundations of quantum mechanics, singularities in general relativity. Interested especially in the geometric aspects of the physical laws. ArXiv: http://arxiv.org/a/stoica_o_1 Blog: http://www.unitaryflow.com/

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Dear Christi,

welcome back! I have to read your essay, it sounds very interesting. My essay used quantum gravitational methods to get a qualitative model of our brain.

More later

Good to hear from you

Torsten

    Dear Cristinel Stoica,

    the content and the writing style of your essay are very appealing to me. You present the problems in a very understandable language, show pros and cons and come to a conclusion. You take into account many of the relevant fields of investigation and many aspects of reality. And you have a well balanced judgement about different / possible answers to the questions posed in your essay. I think you try to tackle these problems as objectively as possible, what especially means to not forget the subjectivity of the agents who undertakes these considerations. I will mark your essay therefore with a very high score.

    Allow me to make some annotations to your essay. The question "why is there something rather than nothing?" can be answered in an alternative way. You answered it by a necessity-argument: Maths is necessarily as it is - eternally. I would add a possibility-argument: there cannot be 'nothing' in the radical sense, because this nothing obviously has the potential to produce something. So 'nothing' is a misnomer, it has at least one feature and therefore it can't really exist as something that has no properties.

    If we find the complete set of physical laws, these laws would not tell us how they came about or have been selected. They would just build up a consistent overall explanatory scheme where these laws can be thought of as being necessary *from the perspective within the system*, because these laws would heavily relate to each other. Even if mathematics would be the bottom layer of ultimate reality, i doubt that mathematics would be able to explain why this set of mathematical laws should be reserved to correlate with some physical stuff, or stated more precisely, be that physical stuff. Tegmark does explain it the way that all mathematical structures which have some delicate properties *are* indeed physical stuff. This exludes i think a part of mathematics which hasn't these properties, otherwise all inconsistent or contradictory axiomatic systems do also exist as physical stuff. Or think of all infinite series: Does there exist a kind of Hilbert-hotel physically somewhere (as a universe or some other physical instantiation)? I think the MUH demands a certain kind of filtering and for this filtering i know no mathematical law that should govern it (please see my remark on the implications of Gödels theorems in my own essay). So the question for the MUH to be necessarily true seems to remain somewhat subjective to me, because there doesn't exist a metalaw (other than by human definitions) which could decide what mathematical structures are physical by necessity. Why not include all inconsistent mathematical descriptions and let there be an inconsistent (chaotic) universe (or infinitely many of them)? And if so, how can we know that, at the end of the day, we don't live in exactly such a universe (with some delicately hard to detect inconsistencies)? Or even worse: maybe the measurement problem is an indication that we indeed live in such a universe? Maybe the multitude of different interpretations of QM is a hint that we live in a system which is inconsistent at some point and therefore can prove everything, especially all the different kinds of QM interpretations to be somewhat all equally sound and all seem to be equally rational? Surely, if one takes the MUH serious and takes the quest for ultimate reality serious, one should demand consistency as a main property. But does reality necessarily follow this demand? I would strongly answer with yes, but there are enough people out there who would say no, reality is absurd and irrational. Similar to assume ultimate reality to be strictly deterministic and therefore at odds with human experience, these people would argue that existence per se is irrational - and therefore could well be considered as inconsistent (inconsistency therefore would be just another word for them to say that existence is irrational).

    So, the MUH demands a kind of filtering of mathematical structures and i see no metalaw which could dictate this filtering. A natural metalaw should be 'consistency', but *how natural* is this in the light of the existence and the possibility of the existence of 'inconsistencies'? Is this demand of consistency only a fluke due to the accident that our universe *seems* to be overall consistent? I would again answer no, but how to prove it? I think the only way out here is to assume that mathematics - and logic - itself are not necessarily eternal facts, but brilliant *ideas* of a higher state of consciousness i would call God. We only think that these ideas are eternal (and in a certain sense they indeed must be - because God itself is eternal and operates beyond space and time), but they could turn out to be only some tiny aspects of such an eternal God. Surely, whether maths and logics are 'temporal' ideas or eternal aspects of such a God depends on how eternity is structured and whether there is a kind of other-dimensional time within it or not. Who knows.

      Dear Torsten,

      Thank you for the welcome! I am glad to see your essay here, and I look forward to read it!

      Best wishes,

      Cristi

      Dear Stefan,

      Thank you for your annotations, they bring some useful alternatives.

      > "Even if mathematics would be the bottom layer of ultimate reality, i doubt that mathematics would be able to explain why this set of mathematical laws should be reserved to correlate with some physical stuff, or stated more precisely, be that physical stuff."

      It is true that there is no known reason why a particular mathematical structure corresponds to our universe. Tegmark tries a sort of anthropic reasoning, which I explain why I didn't find convincing here.

      About MUH, I avocate a similar position as Tegmark, but with less restrictions. I would include any mathematical structure.

      > "Why not include all inconsistent mathematical descriptions and let there be an inconsistent (chaotic) universe (or infinitely many of them)?".

      In my previous essays The Tao of It and Bit and And the math will set you free I advocate to include only a simple contradiction, and use it to derive all possibilities out of it. I add a condition of logical consistency to select the consistent universes. For some reason, I think that one should try first to find a mathematical structure, hence consistent description, for our universe. If it will turn out that only an inconsistent description can work, then that would be strange, and would include all other possibilities, including the consistent ones, into an all-inconsistent mix.

      > "there are enough people out there who would say no, reality is absurd and irrational"

      It clearly appears irrational to us, at least for the moment. In fact, I think we are irrational as a species. We are easily fooled by visual illusions and cognitive biases. But even if we would be perfect, it may take us long time to fully make sense of the universe. But I wouldn't blame the universe for irrationality yet, given that our brains are not so optimized to rationality as we would like to think.

      I think the only chance we have to make sense of the universe is if it is consistent. It is a bit like Dr. Gregory House choosing the only diagnostics that is curable, and apply that treatment, and ignore the other possibilities with the same symptoms, because they can't be cured. We choose consistency because it is the only hope to understand the laws and the metalaws.

      Best regards,

      Cristi

      Dear Christinel,

      Your paper is interesting. It reminds me of an idea I had years ago of their being this levels or a hierarchy of being. I also thought is had some basis with the Godel-Turing thesis. I am not quite so concerned with these questions any more. It is not clear to me how something like Tegmarks mathematical universe hypothesis can ever be tested.

      I do delve into issues of Godel's theorem in my essay. I used this essay contest as a way of displaying something I had worked on. This does involve spacetime singularities, but as you see the singularity is physically a monodromy more than anything. I remember you were quite concerned about showing that spacetime singularities do not exist as such.

      Anyway, good job here. Your paper is better than most. I will score this to raise it out of the doldrums.

      Cheers LC

        Dear Lawrence,

        Thank you for your comment. I look forward to read your essay, I think it contains some stuff that I am interested in.

        Best wishes,

        Cristi

        Dear Christi;

        Good to meet again here and thank you for a very understandable and informing piece of work, I have read it with great pleasure.

        You say : "The universe knows how to build atoms", if atoms a constructions of an architect, this why you mention perhaps that "Because of our limitations (compared to the architect), it is possible that some phenomena are not comprehensible to us".

        Of course he title architect is aiming at a power outside of ourselves, in my perception I argue that this is not a "power" or "personality" but a timeless and spaceless Hilbert space that I call Total Simultaneity.

        I very agree with you that "The tablet of the metalaw includes emergence, metatheorems, the relative interdependence and independence of various levels of reality"

        So I hope that you will find some time to read and comment on my "subjective experience" The Purpose of Life. I should be glad if gave it also the rating you think it deserves.(yours deserves for me an 8)

        best regards and good luck

        Wilhelmus

          Dear Wilhelmus,

          Thank you for your feedback. I didn't have in mind an architect when I wrote that "The universe knows how to build atoms", rather that the universe behaves like doing difficult calculations, which we are unable to do. And if we want to say the universe has a purpose, then the purpose seems to be that of behaving according to its own physical laws. If we want to see this as something like a primitive form of information processing or even thinking, this is also what builds us. Maybe there are no fundamental differences, even if you look at it as physical law or following a goal in a primitive way. I think what you said about the spaceless and timeless Hilbert space captures something very interesting, and I look forward to read your essay.

          Best wishes,

          Cristi

          Dear Cristinel,

          I always look forward to your entries and greatly enjoyed your latest.

          I especially liked the section comparing physics to negative theology:

          "We can only find out what the laws are not, through the no-go theorems - similar to apophatic theology.."

          Please be so kind to check out my own much more literary essay entitled "From Athena to AI" when you get the chance.

          Best of luck,

          Rick Searle

            Dear Cristinel,

            Thanks for a very nice essay. It was enjoyable to read and understand. I was hoping to clarify a few things.

            "Science is by definition objective - all definitions and inferences are objective, and the experiments have to be reproducible by anyone who follows the specifications. All easy problems of consciousness fall within the objective nature of science. But the very notion of subjective experience seems to escape any objective definition."

            I was curious if you have come across John Searle talking about the fallacy of ambiguity and what you think about it. He contends that it is possible to have an epistemically objective science of something that is ontologically subjective, like conscious experience. Here is a youtube link to a talk he gave at google discussing these ideas in greater detail.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHKwIYsPXLg&t=1393s

            "Maybe subjective experience emerges from the organization of matter, or as a property of information, like integration. Then, since matter is always structured and always processes information, we arrive at a kind of panpsychism reducible to the structure and information of matter."

            Do you think it is possible to avoid this type of panpsychism, if there is good reason that constrains the type of matter organization and external conditions, under which the matter might have a subjective experience.

            Looking forward to your thoughts and comments on this.

            Cheers

            Natesh

              Hi Christi ,

              Happy also to see you again on FQXI.

              I liked also your papper like the papper of Don Limuti.The free will and this determinism.How can we rank the importance of informations.How to consider this determinism and antideterminism and the encodings.It is about the reductionism also and the roads towards our singumlarities after all.Hilbert indeed was very relevant and Nother also.The works of Mr Van Leunen are interesting also.The AI could appear with determinism.

              Good luck in this contest

              Best from Belgium

                Dear Rick,

                I am glad to meet you again at this contest, and that you liked my essay. I plan to read your essay as soon as possible, it seems very appealing judging by the title and abstract.

                Best wishes,

                Cristi

                Dear Natesh,

                Thank you for the comments, and for the interesting questions.

                I didn't come across John Searle talking about the fallacy of ambiguity. I just started watching the video you sent me and I watched so far 30', and I like the idea of having an epistemically objective science of something that is ontologically subjective. It definitely is something to think about, thank yopu for sending me the link. Regarding the question about panpsychism, I think that if there is a way to see what is the level where subjective experience emerges, we may be able to decide it. I am not sure if this would be possible. I will read your essay, I feel there may be some connections.

                Best regards,

                Cristi

                Hi Steve,

                I'm glad to see you too again. Thanks for the comments and the recommended lectures. Hilbert and Noether rock! Have fun at this contest!

                Best regards,

                Cristi

                Dear Cristi,

                Very profound essay and ideas that show the real direction of the output from the crisis of understanding in the fundamental science.

                This is strong: «The Tablet of the Metalaw»!

                I invite you to read and evaluate my ideas.

                Kind regards,

                Vladimir

                  Dear Vladimir,

                  I am glad you liked the essay. I am looking forward to read your essay, which I think is interesting judging by the title and the provocative abstract.

                  Best wishes,

                  Cristi

                  Dear Natesh,

                  I finished watching John Searles' video. I like it, and there are many points in which I agree with him. I hoped that I can cast my arguments for a subjective science in terms of Searles' epistemically objective science of ontologically subjective things like consciousness, but I think it doesn't improve them. His idea of epistemic/ontological subjective/objective fit well with his view that what is something special about subjective experience is reducible to the biology (idea which I don't think is enough to explain subjective experience).

                  Best regards,

                  Cristi

                  Hello Cristi

                  Your essay reveals an open and inquisitive mind, which is most enjoyable to read.

                  To the question about "nothing" I don't think you go far enough. Any sort of universe is a "something." Vacuum fluctuations, the string landscape, etc., are all something. Nothing = no universe. No universe = no mathematics.

                  I believe you were on track when considering how profound subjectivity is than with "we are just substructures of ... a mathematical structure."

                  You may be interested in my essay "Quantum spontaneity and the development of consciousness" where I try to validate our subjective experience without reducing it to matter or mathematics, or vice versa.

                    I am pleased that you liked it. I know that you have worked to dethrone spacetime singularities. Of course in my essay they are really physically relevant of monodromies, which have topological consequences. This is in some ways a part of a program I have for understanding how we might renormalize quantum gravity.

                    LC