Fundamentally limited by Xavier Derkx

Dear Xavier,

Thank you for an interesting essay.

I like your heirarchy of different realitieis. It is an interesting way of thinking about things.

You might like my book "The Outer Limits of Reason: What Science, Mathematics, and Logic Cannot Tell Us" (MIT Press 2013). There are common themes with what you are saying.

Please take a look at my essay.

All the best,

Noson Yanofsky

Dear Xavier,

thank you for this engaging essay. The idea that it is eventually a human nature, and its limitation to be fundametal is interesting indeed.

All the best,

Flavio

Xavier,

Top job. I think your 'bias/limits' section is excellent and may if anything be to limited or understated. The seven steps nicely rationalise the mess and confusion surrounding reality, observation and measurement. (I addressed this from a process analysis view in my 2012 essay - top 10 but no chocs!).

It reminds me of the 'messy' galaxy type classifications. Some years ago I found & published a cyclic evolutionary sequence that fits beautifully. Yet as you identified, the limits of our, as I term it 'intellectual evolution' prevent most such advancement in understanding nature. But do you really think we'll "never" be able to understand much more than now?

I also ask what you think of the idea of turning your steps into a cycle by feeding back the models into the beginning as hypothese. You did touch on such 'testing'. Is that not the whole business of scientific discovery?

That brings in your; "Several sets of theories are currently co-existing without being reducible to an encompassing theory." So true, but I've employed that model feedback to useful and even shocking effect, one model (this yrs essay) seeming to reproduce QM predictions with classical mechanisms! (See Declan Traill's short essay with check code and Cos^2 plot) Do read & test it if you can. Yet of course even if correct the chances of it replacing embedded beliefs however spooky seem rather low!

So yes, I agree about all you write, it was interesting, fundamental and nicely constructed. I much enjoyed and applaud it and will score it accordingly.

Best of luck.

Peter

Dear Xavier,

I highly appreciate your well-written essay in an effort to understand. «We reach the conclusion that the hiatus between Reality and its representations are a consequence of biasses from the very nature of human beings».

It is so close to me. «Physics aims to study natural phenomena (i.e. not made by any will or conscience), with a particular focus on their structures and causes. Somehow, physics could be seen as the fulfilment of the ambitions of metaphysicians. Both fields of study can be bridged by a common quest: the research of the most fundamental constituents, which could be, but not limited to, elements, processes and hypothesis».

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

Vladimir Fedorov

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

Dear Xavier

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

Xavier,

Interesting. Thanks. Glad you enjoyed mine. I've now scored yours.

Best of luck

Peter

Hi Xavier,

You wrote a very nice essay. I would like to add a few comments from the perspective I take in my essay, which also ask the question of what we can know.

The uniqueness classification might also depend on a cognitive bias: we might project the perception of our self as unique to the exterior world. This perception certainly is evolutionary useful, but might just be an evolutionary product, that helped us to survive. But then the question remains, what it could mean, that the effective and perceptible reality is not unique.

The classification of the effective and perceptible reality as unique seems to me to correspond to the realistic world view. Which not only leaded to very successful physical models, but also might be a condition for the survival of our species. Again the question remains, how to think the effective reality otherwise.

A condition for the possibility for experiencing the outside world as real seems to me that the effective reality is lawful. A condition for such a lawfulness to be possible seems to me, that the subsystems can be separated from the rest of the world. Let me explain this with the class of fundamentalParticle. In order to be able to define fundamental particles (their properties such as mass and spin) they must be free particles: their representation depends on the symmetry of the evolution. And these symmetries, depend on the symmetry of the environment and on the separability of the evolution of the free particle from the state of the environment. So there is a sort of cosmological bias on what fundamental classes can be defined, that serve to model complex composite systems.

So the laws itself might depend on cosmological conditions. And the dependence of the modelling of fundamental classes on conditions under which such models are possible to formulate might be an indication, that the effective reality us such might not be that unique as we would like to think it.

Again, I think you write a wonderful essay. Thanks.

Luca

Hi Xavier,

"It helps not to confuse the map (what we think we are) with the territory (what we are). Our limits are what defines us as individuals and as human beings. These limits, by defining what we are and what we think we are, are the most fundamental things."

I believe you need to add master of high philosophy to your bio.

Thanks for the excellent essay,

Don Limuti