Dear Eckhard,

thank you for your comment. The big question is if there is any such 'thing' as a bird's view. This critically hinges on whether or not one assumes consistent logics to be more fundamental than inconsistent logics.

I differentiate 'inconsistent logic' (principle of explosion) from some consistent one by arguing that the former allows one to 'prove' everything, even itself to be consistent - and inconsistent - at the same time.

If one can 'prove' everything - then one can 'prove' nothing. Even that "nothing" I referred in my essay.

Since your comment was not about my essay, but about yours, I cannot comment on it, because I am not competent enough to judge it. I can only say something about my view on bird's and frog's.

If reality is rational and reasonable, these attributes necessarily have also to reside in a yet undefined realm that facilitated our universe in the first place. This is independent of our universe being eternal or only temporal, since both possibilities do not exclude a realm beyond our spatio-temporal universe.

If reality (whatever it is) has no objective reason to be like it is (and to be at all existent), then no infinity of arguments can make it rational or reasonable. It even could be then that parts of it spontaneously vanish into "nothing" or some other parts spontaneously emerge out of "nothing". Either way, a reality that is not considered by an observer as rational and reasonably facilitated is by definition an irrational universe and then there is no reason for us to demand its rational behaviour. This statement is surely inconsistent, since if the universe where indeed irrational, why should it allow at all rational thoughts about its irrationality?

Here is why I claim that a real bird's view is possible and that this implies a realm of fundamental truths - truths which do not irrationally change due to the universe being irrational itself. Even if such truths do not change within an irrational universe (due to the latter being irrational and therefore nothing can be predicted or deduced in it with absolute certainty), a human being equipped with some rational thoughts in such an irrational universe is forced to conclude that the very term 'truth' is only a fiction - as is the whole irrational universe, but cannot prove it, because it seems that he has captured a real truths by means of rational thinking. Hence, if one considers existence to be an irrational state of affairs (as is "nothing" too!), then every thought about something will at the end of the day turn out to be deeply irrational.

Surely i do not buy into such an irrational world view. The only premise for my claim that a bird's view is possible is the claim that deep rationality governs all of reality. By rationality I do not mean necessarily maths equations, determinism and such, but moreover that there are explanations for reality to be like it is - explanations that may or may not be understandable by human minds.

So, I regard explanations as being existent independent of observers that may or may not be able to catch them. If there are no unchangeable, eternal truths, then there aren't independent explanations out there - but all explanations are man-made delusions. Since the latter is a deeply unscientific and solipsistic point of view, I do not subscribe to it but make my case for a fundamental realm of truths.

If my lines of reasoning are correct, then I further conclude that the human ability to at least infer this realm of fundamental truth is itself possible due to the rationality of reality - and that rationality must have something to do with being able to meaningfully speak about truths. Surely, the latter is only possible because conscious observers are possible. But nothing in an irrational universe demands that these observers should at all be able to speak about 'truth' in an absolute, eternal sense. And surely, the assumption of an irrational universe together with a delusion that only mimicks its rationality might be possible logically.

But these are conspiratory theories which mix the rational with the irrational, the consistency with the principle of explosion and make every rational thought delusionary at the end of the day. In my view, rationality and reasonable behaviour aren't dividable. Even if there are no physical causes for some yet to be explained phenomena in nature, I would bet that there are nonetheless reasonable reasons for these phenomena. How could it be other for a scientific worldview, I am tempted to ask.

Since every final explanation for there being something at all rather than nothing must assume something that is no more further reducible to some other components, one is left with either a mechanical 'first cause' - what does not make any sense, because every mechanical cause needs a predecessor. Or one assumes existence as a brute fact, limiting rationality to an 'anthropic' realm, the latter understood as the realm of self-consistent systems. With that one states that self-consistence is at the bottom of all, leaving out the fact that there are many self-consistent systems possible other than reality being the way 'it is' (nobody really knows what reality 'really' is!, surely I too do not know).

The third alternative is to assume a non-mechanical cause which is also a brute fact. This would be the concept of God. For me it has the advantage to at least explain in a coarse-grained manner why the universe is like it is and is not of the kind of some other self-consistent system that is thinkable in mathematics. Surely, the existence of God must remain a brute fact, not furtherly decomposable into other factors. But this is the case with all explanations human beings can think of.

My minimal interpretation that I purported in my essay does not explicitely mention God, since this term is highly controversial as well as ambigous, depending on what religious background (if any) the reader has. I have limited myself to reduce the whole problem to that of rationality versus irrationality, of mechanical reasoning versus non-mechanical resoning (means mathematics versus non-formalizability).

I am absolutely sure that you subscribe also to rationality and that your essay develops along the lines of rationality and the law of non-contradiction. But I cannot vote or comment it, because there are other people that do understand your approach better than me, so it makes no sense to delf into it with my baggage of half-knowledge about your topic.

I nonetheless wish you all the best and that there will be people at the end of the contest that honor your results, since I believe that most of our essays consist of hard mental work and much time of processing ideas and carfully evaluating them.

Best wishes from germany,

Stefan Weckbach

Dear Stefan,

Please find a brief attempt to explain peculiarities of my essay at 3009.

Notice, I am distinguishing between pragmatic mathematical infinities and the logical infinity. Don't be a coward. We both will anyway not win the contest.

Greetings from Germany too,

Yours, Eckard

Dear Eckhard,

I read your essay and cannot see how you answer the question "what is fundamental". Since I am not clear about this, I may ask you, do you think that some fundamental truth can be found in mathematics itself or in physical theories themselves or in the existence of the universe itself, in matter or in the fact that matter can become conscious at some point in time?

Sorry, I simply couldn't find a clear statement in your essay regarding the contest's question. You mention many concepts and scientists, but your take on the main question remains unclear to me.

This does not mean in any way to me that you haven't said something important about some of the issues you raised.

Best wishes,

Stefan Weckbach

  • [deleted]

  • Post #65

Dear Stefan,

Because you did perhaps not what I wrote at 3009, I will -copy- it and extend it a bit:

-Stefan Weckbach's essay challenged me to better explain how I interpret the notions fundamental, frog's view, and causality.

As the title of my essay "semi-fundamental structures" indicates, my boss understood fundamental as do I and as does my dictionary too: "very important or basic" (as is the trunk of a tree structure in comparison with less fundamental branches and roots).

To me existence is not "the most fundamental 'fundamental' one can imagine. This is obvious to me in mathematics, see A infinity and B infinities. Does a real number really exist (it has zero extension)? Do transfinte cardinalities exist? ...

To me causality, except for Aristotle's fourth case, is most fundamental.

I see his causa finalis due to confusion of the basic Frog's view with the abstracted from it birds view.- end copy

In other words, there are quite different applications of the attribute of being fundamental. Although my boss is a muslim, he defintely didn't refer to belonging fundamentalsits. He and I did also not refer to putatively fundamental particles of matter. I repeatedly argued that increased degrees of seeming freedom from positive natural, rational, real, complex, quaternion, octonion, etc. numbers (deeper and deeper digging) tends to lack physical justification.

As an old engineer with manifold experience, I distrust in anything emerging ex nihilo. Instead I declared first of all causality and secondly the assumption of just a single world two most fundamental assumptions. Reality is to me synonym to a most reasonable frog's view conjecture that does not yet include the merely expected future. The bird's map is not the frog's territory.

In brief: "fundamental" is a relative to the trunk of any tree quantifier. Truth is absolute (TND) but not always applicable.

Why didn't you derive consequences from your definitions? My reasoning arose from honest search for explanations of undeniable inconsistencies. I arrived at what I consider revelations of most fundamental mistakes.

Best hopes,

Eckard

Dear Eckhard,

I derived the only single consequence that my lines of reasoning allow, namely to think deeper about what truth is and where it comes from. Some say truth is a moving target with some 'mechanics' in it that makes it impossible to ever hit it, others say the term truth should be only valid for the physical domain and this physical domain is the only truth.

Since my essay describes the problem how to accept or even to know some unknowns without some rigorous proof, the question about 'truth' seems to me to be an important one.

"As an old engineer with manifold experience, I distrust in anything emerging ex nihilo. Instead I declared first of all causality and secondly the assumption of just a single world two most fundamental assumptions. Reality is to me synonym to a most reasonable frog's view conjecture that does not yet include the merely expected future. The bird's map is not the frog's territory... My reasoning arose from honest search for explanations of undeniable inconsistencies. I arrived at what I consider revelations of most fundamental mistakes."

O.k., now i can see what you consider as fundamental and what not. The ex nihilo hypothesis is also not my cup of tea, but nonetheless I thought it has to be discussed, since there are many people that simply say - why not! Therefore I wanted to show that there are undeniable inconsistencies within such a viewpoint - compared and evaluated with what we have, namely with logical thinking.

On the basis of those assumptions, I concluded that a kind of bird's view must be possible to at all seriously tackle the question without arriving at inconsistencies. My definition of 'bird's view' is not to be confused with a view that knows everything about the how and why of the physical realm. It is merely a view that filters out its own necessary presuppositions for being existent at all in a non-solipsitic manner, means, if the formalizable ('physical') realm is all there is (the 'universe'), we end up with universal solipsism and with a universe that is what it is for no reason and facilitates some characters like us that must be considered as mere illusionary characters which merely believe that they are distinct from each other, but aren't, since they do not really exist but are merely epiphenomena. Or as Dennett may put it, these characters believe that they exist not merely characters within a thought-to-be existent universe. The point is, if I think that I am an illusion, I may well also thing that the universe is an illusion. These lines of reasoning do not make any sense to me.

"To me existence is not "the most fundamental 'fundamental' one can imagine."

Well, since ex nihilo explanations are also not my cup of tea, I would say that existence must inextricably be correlated with some other fundamentals. In my attempt, existence, truth and conscious awareness are these correlated fundamentals. I don't know how to precisely understand your statement above, but I assume that you speak about the dichotomy of mathematics being somehwat 'present' (in the sense of existent) and causally effective, whereas on the other hand this mathematics seemingly is time- and spaceless. If this is the correct interpretation of your statement, then the question implied in it would be that of the relation of a timeless world beyond space and time to a world of change, time and space.

"I repeatedly argued that increased degrees of seeming freedom from positive natural, rational, real, complex, quaternion, octonion, etc. numbers (deeper and deeper digging) tends to lack physical justification."

I would totally agree on that. And I would make a distinction between 'causes' and 'reasons' for something to be or to behave like it is / does. I am of the opinion that final causes - in the sense that there is a goal to achieve - cannot be denied by scientists. The all the day long follow such final causes which they have set to themselves by investigating mathematical and physical patterns. Even your initial comment on my page was governed by a causa finalis, since your goal was to force me to some statements about your statements. Now, the old argumentation takes again place whether or not a strict determinism is an ontological fact and your 'causa finalis' to get me to some comments was merely facilitated by this strict determinism. Albeit I would agree that some psychological dynamics can limit one's actions - if these dynamics is not examined and questioned and / or modified - I would say that not questioning those psychological dynamics and further stick to a causa finalis as you did with your initial comments on my page, are a deliberate decision of some kind of free will to achieve a certain goal. In your case, this goal seems for me to force me to make some statements about your statements.

I can say what I whole-heartendly do not believe. I do not believe that those who claim that a strict determinism must be the only valid option for reality (nature) do really believe that this is factually also the case for their own realm of thinking. What I believe, however, what those people do indeed believe is that they obviously think that the impression of an open future and the freedom of thinking must be facilitated by some huge, strictly deterministically acting complexity. In other words, the impression of some freedom of thought 'emerges' from untracable complexity. Some people, like for example Max Tegmark, go one step beyond this and claim that science will be able to trace this complexity and destilate a mathematical pattern out of it which then should be considered synonym with consciousness / freedom of thoughts.

As you are surely well aware, I doubt such an extrapolation of some lines of mathematics that has been found to reliably say something about the behviour of nature, maths that can express and compress some quite simple and uniform behaviour of unanimated matter (E = m x c x c; F = m x a; field equations etc.) in the same way into a mathematical pattern which is able to catch the complex inner worlds of conscious beings like us. I think that for establishing such a mathematical pattern, one had to measure every neuron in the brain (if neurons are indeed at all the main facilitators of consciousness) at the same time over a longer period of time. This seems to be impossible for me practically and moreover, if nonetheless possible, I would bet that such a global measurement would destroy the very 'thing' that one wants to measure, namely the integrated and dynamical patterns of consciousness. Measuring the brain in such a manner would moreover destroy or at least hugely deformate the Qualia one wants to correlate with such an assumed to be existent mathematical pattern. In short, I believe that every such attempt to compress consciousness into a well-defined mathematical pattern is an instance of the measurement problem - albeit in its more classical form: what should be measured is altered by the measurement itself.

The same is true for me for the attempt to 'measure' some fundamental truths about reality on the basis of contradictions like that of ex nihilio creations or 'truths' being fundamentally relative to each other. Those 'measurements' regularily produce just arbitrary, belief-dependent answers. The consequences for me are that there is obviously a natural limit in nature for what can reliably be measured and therefore formalized and what not. I only took Gödel into account because his results nicely reflect this limitation and confirm it. The escape from the option that reality - or at least mathematics - could be inconsistent rather than incomplete - is for me to realize that on the basis of inconsistency one cannot at all meaningfully speak about ultimate reality, but only compare some fractions of it with some assumed to exist other fractions. The reason why I presuppose truth, existence and consciousness as fundamental is that without these things, we give up everything and especially everything that should be present for every scientific endeavour. Excluding these things from one's worldview and continuing to make science seems to me like a solipcist who wonders about why he is 'he' and not some other character in his imagination and starts a huge scientific investigation with the help of other characters to solve this 'riddle'.

As always, a longer comment. Hope that solves some questions you had.

Best wishes,

Stefan Weckbach

Dear all,

I have the impression, Stefan Weckbach doesn't notice those who dare challenging something, e.g. Klingman, Traill, and Kadin. Shouldn't we try reading and digesting much more than writing?

In order to avoid misjudgement of such essays including mine, I would like to remind of suspected fundamental (in the sense of perhaps important) mistakes and their possible consequences.

What about me, as an advocate of conciseness, I have to stress that I nonetheless like using i, Nabla, and box as elegant "bird's" tools.

Eckard (not Eckhard)

    Dear Eckard,

    please excuse me for having mispelled your name several times!

    There are so many people in this essay contest who dare challenging something, "nothing" or everything. So please excuse me for being not motivated to involve myself in every challenge that is considered by someone as fundamentally important. It may be so, but surely I am not the final judge, nor does some abritrary voting alter the arguments involed in these multitudes of approaches.

    There are lots of people that read and commented on Klingman, Traill and Kadin, I prefer to comment on things that my own essay may necessarily imply or exclude to see where that may lead. Diving into the things I consider as important is hard enough for me, my concentration and motivation for evaluating all the assumed to be existent details of various approaches is indeed limited. Since there are over 250 entries (estimated), everbody's entry should receive a good portion of attention, if the author isn't permanently absent from his / her own essay commentary page.

    And I suspect that even the FQXi stuff and members are listening quite interestingly, so to speak, and indeed follow your advice for more reading and digesting instead of writing and commenting. According to the oppulent meal served by over 250 authors, the important readers of the FQXi memberships may well be not yet be finished with their digesting processes. I would just have some more patience, because anyways you can't force someone to be convinced of something.

    Best wishes,

    Stefan

    Dear anonymous 1-bomber, fear, anger and irrationality are not a healthy combination. Calm down and reflect your own emotions, before proceeding with further votings. Please! Thank you.

    6 days later

    Hi Steve,

    happy that you read and liked it!

    Thanks for your good wishes wich I want to reciproke!

    Stefan Weckbach

    You are welcome,

    I have always liked your lines of reasonings in physics and philosophy,

    friendly

    Dear Stefan,

    I highly appreciate your beautifully written essay.

    It is so close to me. «The laws of physics seem to imply exclusively only deterministical processes in nature, and thisautomatically suggests that nature obviously acts according to some fundamental rationality,tacitly suggesting that the principle of physical causation must be absolutely exclusive. Moreover, the assumption of the predominant deterministic behaviour of nature seems to be reassured by the very tool science operates with, namely by logic».

    I hope that my modest achievements can be information for reflection for you.

    Vladimir Fedorov

    https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3080

    I attach an addendum to my essay that can be read on page 9 of the attachment below. There I have summarized the main points I want to make with my essay about the contest's question. Its easy to read, since i used bullets to make these points.

    Best wishes and thanks to all the readers, commentators and raters of my essay!

    Stefan Weckbach

    17 days later

    Stephen Hawking died in the early morning hours. RIP Stephen Hawking.

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