Your essay is an interesting reading. It segues in part with physics because of quantum mechanics that, as you illustrate with contextuality, does not conform to a purely objective perspective on the universe. We are then in a funny situation with respect to the measurement or phenomenology of quantum mechanics an inability to completely divorce the observer from the subject of observation. Various quantum interpretations are set up to work around this problem, from "shut up and calculate," which amounts to don't worry about this, to ψ-epistemic interpretations that render the wave function unreal to ψ-ontoc interpretations that confer reality to the wave function by in effect fragmenting the observer. The Copenhagen interpretation is ψ-epistemic and the many world or Everettian interpretation is ψ-ontic. Personally I think quantum mechanics is not any of these.

The Wheeler cycle or strange loop is in effect a form of Godel's theorem applied to physics. We could think of a quantum measurement as a case where quantum states encode some quantum states. This loop can never be complete which is one reason maybe that quantum measurement is not understood by any physics. By corollary we have no clear understanding of how the classical world emerges from the quantum world. We can say it does emerge, which would be more ψ-epsitemic, or that it is a complete illusion and manifested in an observer, which would be more ψ-ontic. The apparent self-referential nature of this would lead to an inability to know which type of interpretation holds, and far less which interpretation holds.

Since this is physical we may think more according to Turing machines, which may be thought of as computing existing symbol strings. In this way was have a physical system prior to the computational incompleteness of any putative universal Turing machine. With pure mathematics what is prior or subsequent to what is not important. With physics we have more of this sense with respect to time. Of course this now takes us into deep questions on what we mean by the nature of time. My essay in part touches on this with issues of quantum state entanglements building up spacetime.

It is then my sense that whether matter or mind is primary is not fundamentally decidable. I remember years ago reading Isaac Asimov quip about this:

Matter over mind doesn't matter

Mind over matter, never mind.

This question leads us into a contact region between physics and metaphysics. Metaphysics is something we usually prefer to have a minimum of in physics. However, we seem unable to completely eliminate metaphysics.

Cheers LC

    Dear Markus Mueller,

    instead of endlessly theoretizing about "what is fundamental?" you encapsulate your quest about what eventually could *not* be fundamental into a prequel and a sequel, both being very emotional. I hope that you haven't invented Nadine's story, for if it would be true, there would be a kind of hapiness within a rather abstract analysis of the orthodox worldview of hard science.

    "If the ideas above contain a grain of truth, then the mind may ultimately be more fundamental than the world. And more than that: the mind may ultimately not be a prisoner of the body, or of the world, since the latter is only a convenient fiction. But then there may be hope of a kind that we have almost given up, and freedom of a kind that we have never imagined."

    I think your attempt would have profited much more (not on the basis of scores, but on the basis of arguments) if you had mentioned that there are strong hints to support what you would wish to be true in the citation above. These hints are called 'near-death experiences' and are trivialized by 'hard science', despite the fact that they are able to show that conscious awareness isn't necessarily bound to the human brain / organism.

    Since these are valid phenomena, i wonder why nobody in this contest takes them into account, but rather circumvent them by loosely using wordings like 'consciousness field' and other abstract things like that. At least you were brave enough to question all these abstract musings at the beginning and the end of your essay.

      Markus,

      An ambitious undertaking, very well executed and quite uniquely interesting. Whether I'm convinced or not is another matter, not relevant or falsifiable! I certainly agree your comments on the cosmological issues.

      My own essay does comment on some key matters, partly in agreement as an SR friendly QM emerges, yet both mind and matter also emerge from the simplest underlying mechanism. I hope you'll read and comment.

      So yes, I think physics IS all about what's really going on in the world (universe) as John Bell did! You seemed uncertain so perhaps say if you agree after reading mine.

      Nice job.

      Very best

      Peter

        Dear Edwin Eugene,

        thanks very much for reading and for your comments! I'm going to read your essay once I'll be back from vacation.

        To respond to what you wrote above, I think it's interesting to thjnk of consciousness as some kind of "self-interaction". Still I don't see why this would have anything to say about simulatability. As soon as you talk about axons and neurons, you talk about physical systems that, as far as we know, are subject to computable laws of nature.

        But I'll look at your essay to see the arguments in more detail.

        Kind regards, and good luck to you too!

        Markus

        Dear Francesco,

        thanks very much for your kind words.

        I'm on vacation now, but I'll surely look at your essay once I'm back.

        Regarding your final question/comment, in a way I agree -- both are "on par", which is what I also write in the last section. I would say, both viewpoints (world being more fundamental than mind, or vice versa) are suitable for different kinds of questions that we may ask. For the question implicitly raised in prequel/sequel, I'd say that the latter (not the former) is the more relevant viewpoint.

        Thanks again,

        Markus

        Dear Tejinder,

        thanks very much for your kind comment!

        Regarding the question that you raised, I'd argue as follows. First, in the example of non-commutative geometry, the non-commutative version of spacetime that we get (in particular if it correctly describes physics) will still look pretty much like an "ordinary" spacetime, in some regime (where we don't see any quantum gravity effects) resp. after some coarsegraining.

        The idea is that the mind->matter arrow will give us something that still, in most "ordinary" regimes, looks like the physical world we are used to. Only in some extreme cases will we see differences. I don't know how experimentally accessible these would be; instead, they might manifest themselves in more subtle ways. An example in the essay is the "Boltzmann brain" issue, where the usual physics argumentation (intuitively, cosmologists simply "counting brains") would be replaced by a different argumentation based on algorithmic probability. Another example might be Wigner's friend-like scenarios, which are obviously extremely difficult to address experimentally.

        I've just seen you have submitted an essay too. I'll have a look as soon as I have time.

        Best wishes,

        Markus

        Dear Andrew,

        thanks very much for your interest and for the comment.

        Unfortunately, I have some trouble understanding your argument. Especially, when you write: "You are assuming that the process of measurement is inheriently dependent upon the algorithm of investigation is not fundamental."

        It's not clear to me what you mean. Maybe you can clarify?

        Thank you,

        Markus

        Dear Marcel,

        thanks for reading and for your comment! Good luck to you too!

        Markus

        Dear Lawrence,

        thanks for your comment! I agree with your skepticism of whether any of the interpretations of QM, or any of the viewpoints on the fundamentality of mind or world, is the "true" one. I think I'd just personally go one step further, and say that it's not only undecidable for us, but that there is simply no "matter of fact" to any of the alternatives over the other ones.

        Best,

        Markus

        Dear Stefan,

        thanks for reading and your comment!

        No, the story of Nadine is not invented. It is true -- I've worked for a year at a day care place for blind and multiply disabled children.

        You are raising an interesting point. I still think that there is a good reason that nobody mentions the experiences that you talked about. Namely, they correspond to subjective experience. Everybody should feel free to use their subjective experience (or that of other people they trust) as a guidance to this world. But scientific knowledge is still of a different kind: it is either empirically testable in a way that makes it more reliable in a specific sense, or it is based on mathematics and thus logics (if A and B are true, then C cannot be true etc.). The experiences you mentioned do not seem to be of that kind.

        Otherwise, who distinguishes claims of near-death experience from simple illusions that we also sometimes encounter?

        Best,

        Markus

        Dear Peter,

        thanks for reading and commenting!

        I'll make sure to read your essay when I'm back from vacation. We will see if I agree that "physics as all about what's really going on in the world". :-) I guess my answer will depend very much on the details of what this statement is supposed to mean. But I'm curious and will have a look.

        Cheers,

        Markus

        Dear Markus,

        thanks for your reply. I would not say that near-death experiences correspond to subjective experience. If you take a couple of people that had similar experiences, they can communicate their experiences, as well as we can communicate our subjective experiences of, say, sadness, happiness, fear, anger etc.

        What distinguishes such experiences from 'simple' illusions is that they have some key features that repeat - but more important, that what was experienced and seen / heard etc. could it many cases be verified, although the experiencer's brain / senses / heart were at this time not functioning at all. These are objectiviable circumstances, checked for correctness by scientists, indepdendent of whether I was a direct witness or not. I surely wasn't neither a direct witness when Einstein's GR or SR was tested, but I trust the reports and results.

        The key point here is that people don't trust those experiences because they simply don't like them, they don't fit into their conception of the world. There are things in the world that aren't reproducible, but they are nonetheless true. For example a geniously idea (like Einstein had some). But even Einstein couldn't reproduce such a revelation of an idea to come to grips with QM or with what a photon is.

        I cannot accept your arguments for another reason. What does science when single events are not reproducable? It takes statistics into account. Exactly this has been done in the case of near-death experiences. Only one case is enough to falsify a pure materialistic and reductionistic worldview. That's the real reason why a majority does not mention such experiences too much. For relying on simple illusions, one had to disprove every case where verifiable information was brought back from the experience (for example about a person who died in the same minutes and was meet in some transcendental realm, or tons of other such facts). To statistically disprove them, one had to find experiences, where such information could be falsified - but there are none (except for one or two cases). This is an obviously statistical misbalance that has something to say, I think. And i think one cannot say that all those researchers have tweaked their cases to come to a certain conclusion. The same argument could be made for other scientific theories as well.

        I really do not understand after having read your essay, how and in what sense the mind should be more fundamental than 'the world' - other than that this is simply a tautology, since all we have are our senses and our consciousness (until we die). When we are dead, what is left of such a fundamentality of the mind over the world?

        Dear Peter,

        I strongly disagree.

        Of course I believe that these people *have the experience* of something that is common to many people in similar near-death circumstances. But all that this tells us is that there are similar processes in their brains that produce these experiences. It doesn't tell us in itself that our most naive interpretation of it ("looking beyond death" or something like that) is true.

        In fact, people under drugs have similar experiences, and reliably so.

        When you write "checked for correctness by scientists", then this is deeply misleading. No scientist can check that these experiences are a correct view into some afterlife-world. What they can check is, again statistically, that many people under similar circumstances report similar experiences.

        All it tells us is that similar things are going on in their brains. It certainly does not "falsify a pure materialistic and reductionistic worldview". It shows us exactly nothing.

        If you give a large number of people alcohol, many of them will report that they experience that the world is spinning around them (when they had too much and feel drowsy). This doesn't mean that the world is really spinning around them in any sense, it just means that their brains produce these experiences for biochemical reasons.

        Certainly none of my arguments rely on any of those reported experiences that you mention.

        Best,

        Markus

        Dear Markus,

        i am not Peter...

        Well, people had their experiences while brain-death for more than just a few minutes (yes!).

        You do not want to engage in the arguments i gave, but finally this is no problem, since i do not intend to convince anybody, but only want to present arguments.

        Best,

        Stefan Weckbach

        Dear Markus,

        thank you for your answer. Yes, that's the "strange loop" you quoted in the 5th paragraph, I agree - also with what you say about the prequel/sequel question.

        All the best!

        Francesco

        Dear

        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 Markus P Mueller

        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

        Respected Prof Markus P Mueller

        Nice philosophical thinking sir...... Here I propose that we should consider a similar reversal in our understanding of the relation between the "mind" and the "world", and take the idea seriously that some notion of the former is more fundamental than the latter. I argue that such a view, if properly analyzed, leads to a surprising kind of "strange loop": even though it is ultimately more fundamental, the mind can still consistently be regarded as causally supervening on the world....... It will definitely a helping point sir....

        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 Markus,

        thanks for a highly original perspective on the notion of what's fundamental. Your illustration using noncommutative geometry to show how the arrow of fundamentality can be reversed is very insightful, as is the rest of your essay. I will certainly check out the papers in which you develop the toy theory further.

        You get a lot out of relatively few assumptions. I'll have to have a look at your further papers---I'm especially interested in the 'tests' you're using. I assume they're something like the Martin-Löf tests for effective randomness, and you're essentially just saying that any 'typical' sequence will pass almost all (?) of such tests? One might wonder if this isn't a bit strong---after all, very many regularities of experience don't actually persist. I'm asleep sometimes, awake at other times. I was a boy once, now I'm a grown man. There is a lot of change---albeit, of course, one may say that the 'fundamental' level stays the same. Gravity works today the same way it did in those halcyon days of my youth, even if I may feel its effects more severely now.

        But what is 'fundamental' in experience? Does gravity really hold a special place over youth, there? In a sense, you're engaged in a phenomenological project, and an important technique in phenomenology (as per Husserl) is bracketing: leaving out assumptions about what the world is 'really like'. For instance, are you entitled to the Church-Turing thesis, which in this context (as you note) is essentially a physical stipulation, if you're putting experience first?

        I found this one of the more stimulating works (of those I've read) in this contest. Wishing you the best of luck!