Dear Tejinder,

thank you also for your reply.

To make sense out of the supposed dichotomy of timeless mathematics and a world of time, one could well say that the very concept of time is timeless, in the sense that there is no static state of things. So, in this sense, there will always be some dynamics irresolvably linked with existence.

I guess when you speak of mathematics being timeless, you mean that the truths that are expressed by mathematics should be timeless, but the concrete arrangement of some mathematical relationships must not. I am not sure whether or not this is also true for you for a timeless consciousness.

But I am led to conclude that it must be in some way true, since if mathematics and the neural pathways in the brain turn out to be identical, then what we have is a dynamical conscious pattern (mind) that is only and only possible due to the fact that mathematics has a time-dependent part.

I think what you have done is to assume that a certain subset of mathematical truths are able to generate a dynamical process that is timeless exactly in the sense that it was, is and will forever take its dynamical course. A result of this dynamical course is a human self-aware mind. Although these lines of reasoning are somewhat coherent, I have a problem with them.

Since mathematics is defined as timeless truths and consciousness being possible at all within the framework of pure mathematics as also a timeless truth, nothing in the form or in the substance of a human brain or even in the whole evolution of brains seems to indicate that its mathematical grounding must result in exactly the architecture of brains as we know them.

Surely, it would be thinkable that in the infinite realms of mathematics, there exist other mathematical patterns that also have the dynamics to generate consciousness, on the basis of some other architecture of some clumb of matter than the brains as we know them. But either way, I would consider such identities of a certain clumb of matter with some mathematical pattern that is capable of self-awareness as either arbitrary or anthropic. Arbitrary for the case that one presupposes an infinite - and therefore somewhat infinitely powerful - realm of mathematics, or anthropic for the case one claims that consciousness is only and only possible within such clumbs of matter as we know them - namely human or animal brains.

In a very real and unequivocal sense, the terms 'law', 'thing', 'thing-law', 'law-time' and 'thing-time' are encodings that intertwine certain aspects and by decoding disentangle them again. In another real sense this is indeed an algorithmic process on the basis of an algorithm. Since the mind is aware of this fact, it may conclude that itself must entirely be the result of algorithms. But as I outlined in my own essay, such a conclusion does only close a circle, means it is consistent. If I look into the world, and especially into psychiatry, I see that the mind does not exclusively operate on the basis of consistency, but also can operate on the basis of inconsistent, irrational 'algorithms', even madness.

The big question is why mathematics should prefer consistency over inconsistency to facilitate minds at all and should be destined to do this in the form of brains. Making an analogy with the famous Boltzmann brain, such brains may well give one the impression of a lawless, chaotic, irrational external reality. So the big question for me is whether or not it is sufficient for a rational mind to notice that itself operates according to some stable rules to come to the conclusion that it is entirely based on algorithmic processes that are at the end pure mathematics (although in dynamical clothes). I suspect that this is only a kind of self-confirmation where a certain circle of reasoning is closed and additional reasons are excluded a posteriori.

Anyways, I highly appreachiate if you like to further engage in this discussion, since these are very important, yes, fundamental questions I think. Moreover, I would like to know how your approach differs from Max Tegmark's approach, the latter i consider as an hypothesis that intertwines many fundamental questions and therefore, albeit being highly controversial, deserves more discussion - and of course also critics.

Hope for your reply.

Stefan Weckbach

Respected Prof Tejinder Pal Singh sab

You have nicely integrated consciousness into Physics, your words are really great... " How does the human mind convert things in the observed universe, into laws? What role does our consciousness play in this conversion process? We propose that the dynamic pathways connecting the neurons in our brains have a dual interpretation, as a thing-law. The pathways are things, by virtue of their material nature. However, our consciousness also accords a pathway the interpretation of a law, which could be a thought, an idea, an emotion, a number, a geometrical figure, a physical law, or a mathematical theorem. The mind's conversion of things into laws is what we call the horizontal fundamental." Wonderful analysis sir ji...

Here in my essay energy to mass conversion is proposed................ yours is very nice essay best wishes .... I highly appreciate hope your essay and hope for reciprocity ....You may please spend some of the valuable time on Dynamic Universe Model also and give your some of the valuable & esteemed guidance

Some of the Main foundational points of Dynamic Universe Model :

-No Isotropy

-No Homogeneity

-No Space-time continuum

-Non-uniform density of matter, universe is lumpy

-No singularities

-No collisions between bodies

-No blackholes

-No warm holes

-No Bigbang

-No repulsion between distant Galaxies

-Non-empty Universe

-No imaginary or negative time axis

-No imaginary X, Y, Z axes

-No differential and Integral Equations mathematically

-No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to GR on any condition

-No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models

-No many mini Bigbangs

-No Missing Mass / Dark matter

-No Dark energy

-No Bigbang generated CMB detected

-No Multi-verses

Here:

-Accelerating Expanding universe with 33% Blue shifted Galaxies

-Newton's Gravitation law works everywhere in the same way

-All bodies dynamically moving

-All bodies move in dynamic Equilibrium

-Closed universe model no light or bodies will go away from universe

-Single Universe no baby universes

-Time is linear as observed on earth, moving forward only

-Independent x,y,z coordinate axes and Time axis no interdependencies between axes..

-UGF (Universal Gravitational Force) calculated on every point-mass

-Tensors (Linear) used for giving UNIQUE solutions for each time step

-Uses everyday physics as achievable by engineering

-21000 linear equations are used in an Excel sheet

-Computerized calculations uses 16 decimal digit accuracy

-Data mining and data warehousing techniques are used for data extraction from large amounts of data.

- Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true....Have a look at

http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/p/blog-page_15.html

I request you to please have a look at my essay also, and give some of your esteemed criticism for your information........

Dynamic Universe Model says that the energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation passing grazingly near any gravitating mass changes its in frequency and finally will convert into neutrinos (mass). We all know that there is no experiment or quest in this direction. Energy conversion happens from mass to energy with the famous E=mC2, the other side of this conversion was not thought off. This is a new fundamental prediction by Dynamic Universe Model, a foundational quest in the area of Astrophysics and Cosmology.

In accordance with Dynamic Universe Model frequency shift happens on both the sides of spectrum when any electromagnetic radiation passes grazingly near gravitating mass. With this new verification, we will open a new frontier that will unlock a way for formation of the basis for continual Nucleosynthesis (continuous formation of elements) in our Universe. Amount of frequency shift will depend on relative velocity difference. All the papers of author can be downloaded from "http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/ "

I request you to please post your reply in my essay also, so that I can get an intimation that you replied

Best

=snp

    Dear Tejinder Pal Singh

    Just letting you know that I am making a start on reading of your essay, and hope that you might also take a glance over mine please? I look forward to the sharing of thoughtful opinion. Congratulations on your essay rating as it stands, and best of luck for the contest conclusion.

    My essay is titled

    "Darwinian Universal Fundamental Origin". It stands as a novel test for whether a natural organisational principle can serve a rationale, for emergence of complex systems of physics and cosmology. I will be interested to have my effort judged on both the basis of prospect and of novelty.

    Thank you & kind regards

    Steven Andresen

      Dear Prof. Gupta,

      Thank you for your kind comments. Please give me a few days. I will get to your essay.

      Best wishes,

      Tejinder

      Dear Steven,

      Thank you. I look forward to reading your essay. Please give me a few days. If I have anything useful to say, I will leave comments on your essay page.

      My best wishes,

      Tejinder

      Tejinder,

      I agree with you, so we can skip that. Scored. Done.

      So I'll address the people who do not agree with you. Terry Bollinger has an obvious bias against philosophy in science, and I understand that--I've been a technical editor, too. I've thought like that, too. We apply a strict demarcation, and the subjects shall never communicate.

      You rebutted that perfectly, with point # 9. It may be philosophy that drives " ... the search for unity in hidden likenesses ..." in J. Bronowski's words, though the binary choice is incomprehensibility, a choice not available to we who undertake the search.

      Jackson asked Dickau in this forum " ... isn't the real question; what is the Mandelbrot set, and matter, 'made of'?" Easy to say the Mandelbrot set is made of z --> z^2 c. Easy enough to say that matter is made of particles.

      I agree with you that the last mystery, spacetime, is the beginning of a greater one. How do we comprehend? That question is not equivalent to the philosophical, "Why do we search"? My essay: https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3124

      Best,

      Tom

        Dear Professor Dear Tejinder Pal Singh,

        I am deeply appreciative for your detailed and thoughtful response, and I am so sorry for the long delay in my reply! I was caught up in the Malwarebytes update disaster back on Jan 27, and ended up bricking my laptop with my own attempts to fix what they had done to it. I am now back up and running.

        I will right now spend some serious time reading over your well-structured response. Your response is again nicely readable... have you considered writing a book or two in fact? Looking... ah, I see you have already written one short book: "Sikhism: An Introduction", 24 pages. It is print only, so I put in an Amazon vote to get it onto Kindle.. Sikhism is a truly fascinating religion with a fascinating history, and one that I respect deeply for its emphasis on personal integrity in particular.

        Thomas Howard Ray, you are quite correct that in terms of essays such as these that I very strongly prefer arguments that adhere more closely to the concept of experimental validation and falsification, under whatever label one might wish to assign to that. But on the other hand, both historically and at its roots the scientific approach is nothing more than a philosophy, and so is not that different in kind from both other philosophies and (can be honest here?) well-structured, philosophical religions, with Sikhism being I think a pretty good example of that kind of analytical thoughtfulness in religion.

        This leaves me divided, because I have a sincere and deep regard both for well-thought-out philosophies and religions. My difficulty here is instead my perception that the goal of this particular essay contest -- and perhaps I was simply wrong on this -- was to explore the more scientific, experimentally strongly attached side of this question, rather than the more philosophical or religious side of it.

        Thus if I had read Tejinder's essay in a different context, I would have reacted very differently to it, because I would have interpreted it under a different set of exploratory rules that would have made it more appropriate to explore issues that may never be capable of being deeply and directly tied to physical experimentation.

        Enough. Professor Singh, I'll respond as soon as I can (it may be tomorrow EST) to your thoughtful long response. Hopefully I have made clear in my comments in this reply that my concern is linked deeply to my understanding of the intent of the FQXi question itself.

        Cheers,

        Terry

          Professor Singh,

          What an interesting quantum theory you have proposed your ref [6]!

          As it happens, I find the idea that there is a very deep relationship between space and matter to be very plausible, though in my case I would suggest that it is a dualism that emerged at the time of the "big bang" due to the emergence of both classical time and classical information, which I would describe as two sides of the same coin. I'm not sure that this fused reality is all that distant, either, since my quick explanation of quantum physics to novices is "physics for which history has not yet been set," that is, physics for which the Feynman path integral and all of its possibilities remain open.

          I note that in your approach you took what I call the Deep Leap, that is, the drop down to the Planck level of space that is shared by quantum gravity and string theory. I would respond that despite the the extreme popularity of the Deep Leap, it has this intransigent little problem of invoking absolutely astonishing energy levels that, well... maybe aren't even real? After all, observable physics doesn't seem to like actual point objects nearly as much as it does the ability to approach point objects as closely as you want... but only at a high cost in terms of energy.

          Physicists began doing the Deep Leap in earnest in the 1970s due to the amazing success of the Standard Model, as a way to bring super-weak gravity into the quantum boson-mediated fold of fundamental forces.

          But to me the most amazing and perplexing Deep Leap, one far more faith-like rather than scientific, was the one that Joel Scherk and John Schwarz took in 1974 to create string theory. They grabbed the experimentally very real hadron and meson level Regge trajectory work, with its at least vaguely graviton-like proton-sized string-like vibration implications, and decided somehow that these hypothetical but experimentally plausible proton-sized spin-2 vibrations were ... actually gravitons? ... projections of gravitons? ... instances of something graviton-like? ... I never quite could understand the link, seriously. To me it just looks like they took a simple numeric coincidence and used it redirect 40 years of funding away from experimentally verifiable physics and into a domain whose energy levels are so high that they not only are inaccessible experimentally, but literally may not exist anywhere in the universe.

          But the point there is just that not everyone in the world agrees that the Deep Leap was such a great idea.

          Regarding your mention of mesoscopic quantum systems... well, you are of course at this very moment relying on an absolutely lovely example of a macroscopic room-temperature, extraordinarily robust quantum system to read this text.

          That would be your eye corneas and lens, which require every individual photon to use their their history integrals to "view" the entire large shapes of your lenses to figure out where to land on your retina. The only reason we don't think of light as macroscopic examples of very robust quantum wave functions is that we have so many nice "classical" approximations that provide a lovely illusion that photons are little billiard balls shooting through space. If that was really true, we'd all be blind, since no such point particle could ever make it through the tangle of atoms and molecules that form our lenses.

          Back to your response: I kind of lost the thread of your argument at point 4, which I gather with your deep background in this area must feel very clear to you, but was a bit of head-scratcher for me? The problem is I think was with the phrase "self-awareness", which is an amazing topic (my day job included working with cognitive scientists) that to me invokes the highest level of brain function. The very fact that I see it as high-level makes your assertion that it is a dual-purpose, more neural-level entity very difficult for my poor mind to interpret meaningfully. So, my apologies, and I'll try again, but I honestly do not think that the clarity you see on this point is as readily available to all readers as you might think.

          Regarding maths, here's a different thought for you: Might maths simply be the most refined forms of physics, the rules that emerge from the underlying simplicity of the universe? Things such as translation and rotation are, after all, deeply reflective of how our most fundamental rules of physics operate, so wouldn't the constructs the we as biological being use to live in that world also be deeply reflective of that physics? A rock in the world rotates, and if we can model that rotation in our neural systems, wouldn't that give us a huge advantage for finding something useful or valuable under a rock?

          So I tend towards a more mundane view of maths: Just as language is a latticework that enables humans to explore and organize simpler perceptions and and ideas in far more detail, maths use that same symbol system to organize and expand on our innate ability to model existing physics to our advantage.

          By that view, some maths, such as those of translation and rotation, are more fundamental than others, just as some sentences (e.g. those that describe real situations) are more "attached" to reality than other (e.g. novels).

          And my point overall? Well, just that there are many other interpretations of much of what you are looking at... and I think that that reason some care is needed in levels of confidence.

          As for your argumentation, which is the issue for the essay, I like the more specific hypotheses of your reference materials, and find them a lot more understandable. And again, I particularly like the idea that there is a very deep connection between space and matter, even if I lean towards more of a dualism interpretation of that issue.

          But the kernel of your essay argument still seems to be this idea that there is a self-awareness component to biology at a very low level, and for the life of me I can't figure out how to make that leap along with you. I am sorry that I don't "get it", but also I suspect others may have trouble following that part also.

          Cheers,

          Terry

            Dear Stefan,

            Sorry for my slow response [I am travelling until another week] - your post has many important issues, and I will try to give my response in parts, in the coming days.

            I was thinking, maybe self-awareness is a better word than consciousness, in the present context?

            I have been making a distinction between mind and self-awareness; the former to me is time dependent, the latter is not. Is the following a helpful analogy? : self-awareness is the thoughtless I state (ground state), which when excited with thoughts, generates the mind. The ground state never changes, but thoughts change, hence the mind is time-dependent.

            The brain evolved over time to help an organism respond better to the environment. In the evolutionary process, there comes a stage where the brain responds to the environment by starting to recognise its law/mathematics aspect. I am suggesting that the emergence of this phase is linked to emergence of self-awareness. Since I do not know what the scientific basis of self-awareness is, it is hard to prove this. But I do believe that timeless self-awareness is essential for thinking.

            I have read your essay - it is very deep: I need more time to react to it - please bear with me.

            Regards,

            Tejinder

            • [deleted]

            • Post #89

            Dear Thomas,

            Thanks so much. I will definitely read your essay before ratings close.

            Terry has replied below - maybe the three of us can discuss together.

            Best,

            Tejinder

            Prof Singh -

            Having read your essay snd some of the comments, I find the very premise of a Thing - Law structure to be inherently limiting. Another duality in a long line of dualities. I would characterize this as a foundational axiom - a tenet of faith - yet not something that can be proven - and not something that I would define as "fundamental".

            There is a very strange mystery inherent in self-awareness that you fail to address. It does not explain - rather it confounds. As I point out in my essay"Faith is Fundemantal", self-awareness (consciusounes) invites Godellian incompleteness - and all truth is necessarily incomplete and inaccessible.

            Sincere regards - George Gantz

              Dear Tejinder Singh,

              I really like your essay. It is very clearly written. Thank you.

              I have two small points.

              Firstly I do not see the connection between self-awareness and coming up with laws. You state that self-awareness is necessary to come up with laws. But you do not say why. One can imagine an AI computer programed to come up with laws but not having self-awareness. Also, certain animals come up with some pretty sophisticated models in their head about the universe around them. While I agree with you that they cannot put them in symbols, they can communicate them. (I am thinking of bees and ants). I do not think that these animals have self-awareness. (I agree with you that some neurological sophistication might be necessary for both self-awareness and the ability to make laws, but that does not mean that one is necessary for the other.

              I like your presentation of the Collatz conjecture. To me it shows that there is a certain chaos in mathematics. The fact that 27 is so different than 26 and 28 means that the chaos is really there and it is hard to get a handle on this problem. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was never a proof of the Collatz conjecture. It is simply just true.

              Again, thank you for your wonderful essay. Please take a look at mine.

              All the best,

              Noson Yanofsky

                Dear Terry,

                Greetings, and thanks again, for this interesting and important conversation.

                By the way Terry, I am not the author of that book on Sikhism :-) In Sikhism there is not much variation in names, so lots of Sikhs have exactly the same name.

                I would say that in my essay I have kept religion/God/Creator completely out of the picture.

                My motivation was to treat processes as fundamental, and in that spirit I asked `how does the mind convert experimental data into laws'? I thought this is one fundamental process without understanding which our search of fundamentals is incomplete. And then one thing led to another. I immodestly confess that pursuing this question has helped me gain some insights, which I doubt I would have had but for this contest. In that sense I feel grateful towards FQXi that they asked this question.

                I whole-heartedly agree that asking what is fundamental in the context of experiments and falsification would lend itself to a precise scientific treatment of the question. But I think this question is important in philosophy too, and as we see, we have many philosophers participating. So I think we have a difference of opinion here, as to the scope and reach of the contest question.

                I will try to reply soon to your next message.

                My best regards,

                Tejinder

                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