Hi John,
i enjoyed reading your essay. Your lines of reasoning are easily tracable in a systematic manner, since you define 'fundamental' as systematically, deterministically evolving processes of nature.
However, I cannot see why the anthropocentrical demand of knowing as much as possible together with the fact that there could unknowable things beyond our complete reach - which are at least equally fundamental than mathematics - should logically lead to the conclusion that physics has to be strictly deterministic at its very core.
If nature would be strictly deterministic at its core, you had no chance to write your essay the way you did - and I had no chance as to read it and comment it like I did. I think this is an inevitable implication of a deterministic worldview.
You now state that nature allows purposeful behaviour. In light of strict determinism, this would be a false statement, because there can be no purposeful actor which could be able to selectively controll some causal factors - in your framework all is deterministic and there is no choice for anything to select something (until you would introduce some causa finalis - which you want to eliminate with your approach).
If determinism would be equal to fundamentalism, your insight into that must have been given exclusively only by a deterministic natural process (facilitated by your brain and some environment).
Albeit it is true that your deterministic framework is, if ontologically true, a causally closed system and indeed has a self-confirmative dynamics, it would only seem to us that we have some choices which axioms about the fundamental level of reality we want to adopt, since they are all predetermined (and surely also the *change* of some of our axioms are predetermined).
Let's now presuppose that you change your view on an actor (observer) that should be able to selectively controll some causal factors - by realizing that this false induction was just a result of a deterministic (albeit highly complex) process in your brain - and no 'actor' really can change the course of events. Then this change in insight was not brought about by you, selectively controlling something, but again by nothing more than strict determinism.
The fact that you believe you can really make choices in this world is in contradiction to what your framework supposes. I think you can't have the cake here and eat it too. If nature is strictly deterministic, then you would have to re-interpret what we traditionally understand as mathematics. You had to presuppose that mathematics is a somewhat dynamical network, able to become aware of itself at some point of its evolution (or always was to some extent conscious) - and begins to somewhat discriminate between some consistent and some inconsistent parts of itself in a mechanistically manner - realized by for example *you*.
For arriving at a consistent scheme, you had to equal consciousness with at least some part of mathematics - to eliminate any real causa finalis. But this would only be an ad hoc assumption for the 'purpose' of eliminating such a real causa finalis. Stated differently: in your scheme, mathematics is able to be conscious and deterministically strives towards the conclusion that consciousness has no causal role. Hence, this kind of mathematics strives towards the conclusion that there doesn't exist any causa finalis within itself.
This would mean that the very dynamics of mathematics to become aware of itself and that there aren't any causa finalis happens itself without any causa finalis.
This is no wonder, since 'causa finalis' is defined as a free choice between some mutually exclusive alternatives. Mathematics has no such choice, it is a strictly deterministic system (albeit hard to trace in its details).
I think that albeit there could indeed well be some top-down mechanics and some emergent properties in nature, in your framework these terms only express our hitherto incomplete knowledge of the involved relationships. I cannot see how these terms are able to justify that dead matter is able to think about itself, other than just presupposing it due to the fact that there is consciousness that is indeed able to think about dead matter. The 'brute fact' that there is such consciousness is incorporated into your approach as a hint that determinism must be fundamental. However, I cannot see how subjective Qualia could be reconciled with dead matter other than stating that obviously dead matter, together with mathematics, is able to transcend itself.
If it is true that something can transcend itself, the question remains wether or not systems per se are able to transcend themselves in the sense that they can realize that they are only systems, built from axioms, inference rules and logics to come to an unequivocal output. I understand your statement that an emergent structure can purposeful control some causal factors in the sense that systems per se are able to transcend their own 'mechanics' (correct me if I misinterpret you in this regard). Nonetheless, if such a transcendental dynamics would be possible, this real purposeful behaviour in the sense of some ability to freely decide between some mutually exclusive alternatives doesn't anymore need to know and trace all relevant causal factors consciously to decide what suits its needs - otherwise it would again merely be a deterministic unconscious process, a process which does not 'trace' anything but merely evolves in a strictly deterministic manner.
So, if strict determinism is true, consciousness can never determine all the causal factors that lead to a conscious decision. It seems to me that such a strict determinism, contrary to the claim that it is able to identify and therefore know all causal factors that lead to a certain result, at the same time states that this can never be proven in principle (because tracing *all* causal factors by a causal observation changes the whole causal dynamics).
Finally, I conclude that your approach for complete knowledge contradicts itself, since such a complete knowledge is by no means achievable by the very framework you presuppose. Therefore I consider your framework as a coarse-grained description of what nature really does, a description which runs into difficulties when one tries to fine-grain it in the manner for example the different attempts to properly interpret quantum mechanics try to do it. Therefore I would say that reliable knowledge is another expression for the impossibility to gain an objective view on the fine-grained structure of nature. Reliable, complete knowledge about all causal factors involved in a certain dynamics is for me just an idealization, albeit a possible one, but not necessary.
It is thinkable that kinds of causa finali' are involved which we never can detect in principle, since there are many entropy states thinkable which are consistent with our hitherto known physical laws, but nonetheless we never can test whether or not a certain entropy state is the one and only that deterministically fits into the previous state of the examined system. Stated differently: how can you know that the entropy state of your coffee in which you put some milk, is, after having mixed both fluids, is indeed the one and only - in every detail - that has to follow a previous state of the mixed drink. The same seems true to me for the entropy of the brain. Since we don't know whether or not some causa finalis can in all cases be reduced to some physical causes - and we also do not know what physical causes are and how they operate at the most fundamental level - I think that until we finally have reached the level where we are able to exactly determine how causes work in detail to influence some entities, we should be open to the possibility that 'physical causes', intuitively understood in the traditional sense (particle exchange without further forces etc.), are not the whole story.
I generally tend to write longer comments, since I think that merely some lines of text do not suffice to fathom the essay contest's theme in a rigorous manner. Hope you nonetheless enjoyed my lines of reasoning.
Very good essay, since it operates systematically to at all being able to pin down some fundamentals amongst a plethora of rather subjective guesses, or at least shrink such a plethora down to a few coherent options.
