Dear Prof. Grantz,

Thank you for reading my essay and commenting on it. In my essay I have called the following process `fundamental': how does the human mind convert the observed physical universe into laws about it? In answering this question, I take self-awareness as a given; I do not attempt to offer an explanation for its origin (except at the very end of the essay). In answering the question of `how minds makes laws' I find the thing-law extremely useful.

I look forward to reading your essay.

Kind regards,

Tejinder

Dear Terry,

Thanks again for your kind interest. I will address one point here, that of self-awareness, and return to the others later.

I do regard self-awareness as a very high level process: it is a property of the entire connectome or maybe the entire organism. It is not a property at the neural level.

Self-awareness and mind are distinct and different. Is this assertion the one you find problematic? Here I am not indulging in religion or spirituality. It can best be called a personal psychological experience and a great many people agree with it. [I in particular benefitted from the works of Eckhart Tolle, though there is much he says which I disagree with]. There are various ways to it. During meditation, with some practice, one can reach a thought-free state: there are no thoughts in the mind, there is only self-awareness. Then one can deliberately add thoughts, as if self-awareness controls the mind. These thoughts get added at the neural level.

Another way to see that self-awareness is different from the mind: the mind is evr-changing, but my awareness as I, never changes ...I am always the same I.

I hope we can sort this point out amongst ourselves.

Thanks and regards,

Tejinder

Dear Noson,

Thanks so much for your kind comments, and some very important remarks.

You say "One can imagine an AI computer programmed to come up with laws but not having self-awareness." I fully agree that an AI computer can do this without being self-aware. But I would lay emphasis on your word *programmed*. In other words, who wrote the program, and decided that one ought to look for the law in some data? I believe taking that decision requires self-awareness: to tell one's mind to do such as such. I would regard the mind as being subservient to self-awareness. An AI computer would not be aware / would not recognize that the law it has found is the law aspect of the thing (data) which was fed to it. To my understanding, it churns out the law without thinking any further about say its implications. I would say if an AI computer takes a decision to write a program [i.e. to program itself] to find the law in some data, it would be already self-aware. A self-aware being has the ability to program itself to find the law aspect of the thing-law.

Thanks for asking this important question. It clarified my own understanding.

I would say the behaviour of non-aware creatures such as bees and ants is programmed behaviour: the sensory response is governed by the feedback from the brain. But this does not involve associating laws with things - if it did, then there would be intelligent decision making [e.g. "stormy weather is predicted for day after, stay indoors"]. There seems to be no memory, no prediction.

Thank you for interest in the Collatz conjecture - I do hope one day we will find the proof :-) I agree there apparently is some chaotic behaviour, coming from a simple deterministic law: the behaviour is stochastic but the proof cannot be statistical because the evolution is the same for every number.

Thank you for your very nice essay too :-)

Best regards,

Tejinder

Dear Tejinder Singh,

I have read your essay and invite you to read EPR experiment and Linear Polarization at: http://vixra.org/pdf/1303.0174v5.pdf

I also request you to read my essay on wave-particle and electron spin at: https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3145 or https://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Rajpal_1306.0141v3.pdf

Kamal Rajpal

    Tejinder,

    First, I must apologize for my slow response. FQXi does not seem to alert me of responses on any thread except that of my own essay, so I am forced to search for such replies manually.

    Your distinction of self-awareness and mind is in no way a problem! I fully respect your personal experience, since after all we ultimately observe the world only though our personal perceptions. However much we may want to map those to perceptions "directly" to an external reality, that is the illusion, not the perceptions.

    The issue instead was that because I have never to the best of my knowledge had the same kind of personal experience you just described, my ability to follow your logic hit an abrupt barrier at point 4. It wasn't that I did not respect what you said; it was just that I could not understand from my own experience how you get from point A to point B.

    I suspect I'm not the only one who had that difficulty, since again, the kind of personal experience you have had is not necessarily part of other people's experience. At the same time, I must emphasize that not only do I have no problem with your experience itself, but I found it fascinating and intriguing. I will continue to try to understand it because I respect your description of it.

    In terms of the essay bottom line: If you can come up with a way to convey your perspective without a direct reference to your own personal experience, I think you would get more traction with more people for your intriguing (and it is!) overall argument.

    Sincerely,

    Terry

    Hello Tejinder,

    I liked a lot, and specially the not commutative interpretation of électrons in our space time, like Dirac said what is an electron really ? , it is a wonderful essay, good luck and friendly from Belgium :)

      Dear Tejinder,

      I like the aim of your essay, that tries to bring together our subjective experience of our self awareness and consciousness and the objective experience of the lawfulness of our external world. It reminds me a lot to Carl Friedrich Von Weizsäcker's work. He saw these two fields of experience never as contradicting each other but as a unity.

      Similar as in your essay Von Weizsäcker locates the emergence of self awareness, when primitive lifeforms did not just react to environmental inputs, but where able to just imagine their doings. The laws of mathematics are then located in the imagination of operations, that one can perform.

      The applicability of these operations to the external world is the central question of physics. I think the answer you provide is the laws and things are the same. I love that. However your explanation for that connection remains a bit unclear to me. The connection between the electron and its wave function remains dependent on the specific theory of space time you have. I cannot belief that. The validity of quantum mechanics does not depend on a specific space time theory.

      In my essay: The quantum sheep - In defence of a positivist view on physics I describe a thing that has two properties and is described in a 2 dimensional complex Hilbert space. I show that its observational properties depends critically on the laws of evolution and its symmetries. Additionally I show that a condition for a successful operational definition/observation of these properties, the system must be separable from its environment. In the model I present in my essay that the evolution on the reduced density matrix (which describes only the observable properties) is completely deterministic. I would love you could have a look and give me you opinion.

      Finally I searched a lot in Von Weizsäcker's books on how the material me of my body and brain is related to the self aware conscious me. I found a simple answer in his "Einheit der Natur": They are both the same!

      Best regards,

      Luca

        Dear Tejinder Singh,

        I really like your essay, it was great fun to read! I am also sympathetic to your conclusion that laws and things ultimately become the same. Perhaps one can also say, in favor of this view, that our intuitive picture of what a "thing" is becomes more and more inapplicable as we go down the "vertical fundamental", similarly as you describe in IV.

        Good luck with your essay!

        Best wishes,

        Markus

          Dear Kamal,

          Thank you for reading my essay, and for drawing my attention to your work.

          Best wishes,

          Tejinder

          Dear Steve,

          Greetings, and thank you for your kind remarks.

          Best regards,

          Tejinder

          Dear Luca,

          Thanks so much for your kind and insightful remarks, and for telling me about the work of von Weizsacker, which I will surely look up.

          Thank you also for telling me about the ideas in your essay, which I am now reading.

          My best wishes,

          Tejinder

          Dear Markus,

          Thank you so much for your kind appreciation.

          I like your emphasis that

          "our intuitive picture of what a "thing" is becomes more and more inapplicable as we go down the "vertical fundamental" ".

          Indeed, I agree with you, and perhaps this has interesting philosophical implications!

          Kind regards,

          Tejinder

          Dear Tejinder

          If you are looking for another essay to read and rate in the final days of the contest, will you consider mine please? I read all essays from those who comment on my page, and if I cant rate an essay highly, then I don't rate them at all. Infact I haven't issued a rating lower that ten. So you have nothing to lose by having me read your essay, and everything to gain.

          Beyond my essay's introduction, I place a microscope on the subjects of universal complexity and natural forces. I do so within context that clock operation is driven by Quantum Mechanical forces (atomic and photonic), while clocks also serve measure of General Relativity's effects (spacetime, time dilation). In this respect clocks can be said to possess a split personality, giving them the distinction that they are simultaneously a study in QM, while GR is a study of clocks. The situation stands whereby we have two fundamental theories of the world, but just one world. And we have a singular device which serves study of both those fundamental theories. Two fundamental theories, but one device? Please join me and my essay in questioning this circumstance?

          My essay goes on to identify natural forces in their universal roles, how they motivate the building of and maintaining complex universal structures and processes. When we look at how star fusion processes sit within a "narrow range of sensitivity" that stars are neither led to explode nor collapse under gravity. We think how lucky we are that the universe is just so. We can also count our lucky stars that the fusion process that marks the birth of a star, also leads to an eruption of photons from its surface. And again, how lucky we are! for if they didn't then gas accumulation wouldn't be halted and the star would again be led to collapse.

          Could a natural organisation principle have been responsible for fine tuning universal systems? Faced with how lucky we appear to have been, shouldn't we consider this possibility?

          For our luck surely didnt run out there, for these photons stream down on earth, liquifying oceans which drive geochemical processes that we "life" are reliant upon. The Earth is made up of elements that possess the chemical potentials that life is entirely dependent upon. Those chemical potentials are not expressed in the absence of water solvency. So again, how amazingly fortunate we are that these chemical potentials exist in the first instance, and additionally within an environment of abundant water solvency such as Earth, able to express these potentials.

          My essay is attempt of something audacious. It questions the fundamental nature of the interaction between space and matter Guv = Tuv, and hypothesizes the equality between space curvature and atomic forces is due to common process. Space gives up a potential in exchange for atomic forces in a conversion process, which drives atomic activity. And furthermore, that Baryons only exist because this energy potential of space exists and is available for exploitation. Baryon characteristics and behaviours, complexity of structure and process might then be explained in terms of being evolved and optimised for this purpose and existence. Removing need for so many layers of extraordinary luck to eventuate our own existence. It attempts an interpretation of the above mentioned stellar processes within these terms, but also extends much further. It shines a light on molecular structure that binds matter together, as potentially being an evolved agency that enhances rigidity and therefor persistence of universal system. We then turn a questioning mind towards Earths unlikely geochemical processes, (for which we living things owe so much) and look at its central theme and propensity for molecular rock forming processes. The existence of chemical potentials and their diverse range of molecular bond formation activities? The abundance of water solvent on Earth, for which many geochemical rock forming processes could not be expressed without? The question of a watery Earth? is then implicated as being part of an evolved system that arose for purpose and reason, alongside the same reason and purpose that molecular bonds and chemistry processes arose.

          By identifying atomic forces as having their origin in space, we have identified how they perpetually act, and deliver work products. Forces drive clocks and clock activity is shown by GR to dilate. My essay details the principle of force dilation and applies it to a universal mystery. My essay raises the possibility, that nature in possession of a natural energy potential, will spontaneously generate a circumstance of Darwinian emergence. It did so on Earth, and perhaps it did so within a wider scope. We learnt how biology generates intricate structure and complexity, and now we learn how it might explain for intricate structure and complexity within universal physical systems.

          To steal a phrase from my essay "A world product of evolved optimization".

          Best of luck for the conclusion of the contest

          Kind regards

          Steven Andresen

          Darwinian Universal Fundamental Origin

            Dear Steven,

            Thank you for telling me about your essay. But honestly, this barter thing, ``you read and rate my essay, and I will do the same for yours'', makes me uneasy :-) I am not for it. We read, comment and/or rate those essays where we have something useful and

            interesting to say.

            My best wishes to you in this contest,

            Tejinder

            Dear Tejinder,

            I enjoyed reading your essay. You beautifully discuss the nature of consciousness and the connections between the physical and biological domains. I however find that the reductionist layers of reality as you discuss may not be able to fully grasp the intangible nature of consciousness. You may also have alluded to this vaguely by referring to "the consciousness seems confined to the spatially localised body". The complexity and dynamical systems of the biological world cannot be simply entertained by a confined mathematically consistent basis, an exercise of human imagination. The interrelatedness of macromolecular scaffolding and functionality of biological systems would need another level of framework beyond these confines. I will add that the complete comprehension of consciousness will entail a deeper journey into the worlds of biological and physical evolutions. I believe they intricately co-exist, co-evolve and are co-dependent to define what we term "fundamentalness/absoluteness/consciousness".

            Best regards,

            Anil

              Tejendra, further to Anil's comments above,duality is part of life itself. The connect between QM and gravity bothers me too! Artificial Intelligence is nothing but intelligence itself as it deals with communication with aliens who may have followed a different route to understanding the nature.Whatever little i know of cosmology and particle Physics0, these two stands apart as two pillars at the ends. What lies in between remains poorly understood. Just shows how difficult it is to have a singlr theory to explain every thing in nature. The essays by Karen and you are ontop of lsit with the community of authros. However, i feel the scenario in nature permits us to look at our basic concepts and revise them as inadequate if we wish to work towardss a single theory for everything. To me estalished scientific methodolgy as eveloved thus far may not provide us the way to follow. Nature desires simplcity and humility to explore it rather than complicated assumptions and postulates. Complexity can only be handled with simplification rahter than further complexity!Human bias is our wrost enemy and we need to become selfless and free thinkers

                Dear Anil,

                Thank you for your valuable comments. I respect your differing views on matters related to consciousness.

                Kind regards,

                Tejinder

                • [deleted]

                Hi Singh,

                I fully enjoyed the way you put things together it and I think further words are useless.

                Rate it accordingly.

                If you would have the pleasure for a short axiomatic approach of the subject, I will appreciate your opinion.

                Silviu