Hi Andrew,

Thank you for the interesting comments, which are complementary to the focus of my essay, in tandem, as you said.

> in terms of consciousness, there is demonstrably an AI analogue to this problem, which is in the interconnectivity of synapses in the human brain, i.e. in terms of the universe, the issue can be related to the density of neuronic pathways.

Certainly, there must be a structural side of the problem, the physical correlates of sentience. You propose a measure of this, the density of neural paths. Another one is the Phi proposed in Integrated Information Theory.

> It is, in a sense directly related to the problem of what makes an entity self aware.

Yes, self-awareness requires structure, to be able to include a self-representation. When I say "sentience" I mean the ontology of the structure, "what is like to be", whether self-aware or not.

I think the so called "easy problems", those related to structure, functionality, behavior, are not easy at all, not understood yet, but understandable in principle, and they are important.

Thanks again for considering my essay and for the comments! I'm looking forward to read yours.

Best regards,

Cristi

Dear Flavio,

I am happy to see you here again with an essay. Thank you for reading my essay and for the comments. Since you liked that passage, let me provide one from John von Neumann: you don't understand things. You just get used to them. It's a though I had independently, but I found out that he said it long before, referring to math. I think it applies much more widely. Perhaps most clearly it applies to the foundations of quantum mechanics :)

Thanks again, I am looking forward to read it! Good luck with the contest to you too!

Cheers,

Cristi

Dear Cristi,

I am just repeating this post please....

Thanks for your appreciation also, your essay is wonderful !!.

You are correct about negativism in science. This happens and continues to happen in Physics. I got my personal experiences in my life for the last 40 years or so. Whatever the Ethical Values I kept, whatever the foundational principles were used, whatever the physical cosmological philosophies were used, whatever the predictions that came true, for Dynamic Universe Model an N-Body problem solution, whatever I got is kicks on the back, never any back patting. I am sorry about this bla bla bla.... Now I got everything positively. I did this work on Gods guidance, I will leave everything on him, I did this work for the development of science and betterment of humanity. My problem is over....

I am requesting to see a paper on a universe model proposed by Dynamic Universe Model

https://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/2018/08/n

ew-paper-model-of-universe-as.html

Hope you will have a visit at my essay and leave a suitable comment....

Best Regards

=snp

    Dear Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta,

    Thank you for the comment. Because we moved the discussion here, let me also bring the paragraph where I mention science as a negative way.

    What I mean by negative way or neti neti in the context of my longer essay is mainly science as a negative way. Science allows hypotheses then rejects them. Most powerful results come as no-go theorems, which is also the theme of this contest. The body of science grows, which gives the impression that it's a "positive growth", an accumulation of knowledge. But positivism is no longer the way of science. In some sense the body of knowledge is growing, but the attachment to the accumulated knowledge is not in the spirit of science itself, which works by negation. All of the models and theories are to be seen as provisional hypotheses, always in search for contrary evidence. It's the way of skepticism, in the proper meaning of the word, which is the same as in negative mysticism, but applied to science.

    What I mean by science as a negative way is in the sense of via negativa, applied to the study of reality rather than theology. I didn't call science a negative way because it rejects people's novel proposals of theories in favor of the "mainstream" ones. I called it so because it keeps testing itself, or at least it is supposed to do so. And because it is never definitive, even though many think it's definitive, and many did so through the entire history of science. So, to make it clear, I didn't complain that it is negative in the sense you mention, although this may be true as well. If I would make a complaint against the scientific community, is that it is not negative enough, but in the sense I meant for the word "negative", not in the sense of rejecting new ideas.

    Most of those interested to contribute to science, both gifted amateurs and professionals, have difficulties to get enough attention. Few are those blessed with the attention. Not getting attention is not a proof that the theory is wrong, getting high positive attention and esteem is not a proof that it is right, although it's a proof that at least it's interesting enough to enough scientists. A sure way to be ignored is to not master properly the field, in the most technical details. But mastering it and even solving some good problem is not a guarantee of success. And nice words said by even some authorities don't guarantee success either. They have to cite the work, to join it and develop it in their own papers. Very few are lucky like this. Most published papers are read only by reviewers, and even so, sometimes only superficially. A lot of brain power is used to produce new research, very little of it receive the light of other conscious beings. Who knows what gems are hidden and lost forever in someone's drawer, or even published in a journal but never understood by others.

    Cheers,

    Cristi

    Dear Prof Cristi,

    I just cant under valuate your knowledge by calling you just Cristi!

    I am just replying your post above please.... Just because the reply posts are not visible directly. Thank you for replying me here.

    You are correct, the negative way of science has both the meanings, mainstream which is powerful will reject the new ideas, as well as science has the inherent way of testing the new theories in the negative way to see that if the theory withstands or not, as you discussed in your essay.

    Well supported theories may not be correct some times, as well as correct theories may not have the luck. You have well analyzed the present situation in a nut shell. Some people just dont have LUCK, like me!!

    I appreciate your essay and your way of writing in a best manner!!

    I want to see your well learned comments on my essay soon...

    Best

    snp

    Dear Eckard Blumschein,

    Maybe. My experience doesn't go back to those time. So for the original meaning I trust etymologists, and they say

    "observation as the source of knowledge; actual observation; an event which has affected one," from Old French esperience "experiment, proof, experience" (13c.), from Latin experientia "a trial, proof, experiment; knowledge gained by repeated trials," from experientem (nominative experiens) "experienced, enterprising, active, industrious," present participle of experiri "to try, test," from ex- "out of" (see ex-) peritus "experienced, tested," from PIE *per-yo-, suffixed form of root *per- (3) "to try, risk." Meaning "state of having done something and gotten handy at it" is from late 15c.

    Words evolve. Take for example the word "calculate" from the title of your essay. Its etymology goes back to "calculus" = "pebble stones", but now it's used in a much wider sense than counting pebbles.

    But I'll leave such debates to linguists. The way I use the word "experience" is closer to the way it's used here, and I don't tie it particularly to memories or expected future processes.

    Cheers,

    Cristi

    Dear Cristinel Stoica,

    I very much appreciate your "maybe". You wrote elsewhere:

    " As humans, very early in life we become aware that events that already happened cannot be changed, and that future events, although unpredictable, can be influenced by our present actions. This intuition is so deeply hardwired in our world view, that it seems unnatural to even question the idea that past and future do not exist, but only present does."

    What a mistake! Sorry, I am almost never using such emphasis.

    However, my concern is not linguistics, and I wrote "calculate" not as to consider the TND flawed as does Peter Jackson. As an engineer, I can only analyze a part of a growing "block" of more or less memorized data from past processes. The fuzzy notion present has no logical place between past and future.

    Cheers,

    Eckard

    Dear Eckard Blumschein,

    > As an engineer, I can only analyze a part of a growing "block" of more or less memorized data from past processes. The fuzzy notion present has no logical place between past and future.

    This makes sense. To connect it with my essay, the memories and the growth you mention happen at the coarse grained level.

    Cheers,

    Cristi

    Dear Cristi,

    I really enjoyed your essay. Thank you for submitting it. I really like your closing remark that the ontology of S could very well equal the ontology of P. It's surprisingly intuitive, though only after hearing your argument for it.

    I had a couple questions. You say sentience is the ontology of system S. Are you claiming that science can not make any progress explaining an ontology? Can the hard problem ever be explained through science in your view, possibly indirectly? You say P is a mathematical structure in search of an ontology, do you think it will ever get there?

    I try to avoid this type of soliciting, but if I may be so bold to ask, I would love your feedback on my essay. I am still a student, and you have experience thinking about the structure of reality as being mathematical in nature, which is a large part of my essay. If you have time of course.

    All the best,

    Ernesto

      Dear Ernesto,

      Thank you for reading my essay and for the feedback.

      > Are you claiming that science can not make any progress explaining an ontology?

      Yes, but I think I do more than claim, I also explain why it's the case: because science can only deal with relations, and the nature of things is not the object of science. It's just not provable in the way we consider things proven in science. Now, people use the word "ontology" in different ways. So statements like "the wavefunction is ontic" as in the PBR theorem make sense, but there the word "ontic" should be understood as an impossibility to have QM without the wavefunction or something equivalent to it, for example to replace it with just a statistical device.

      > Can the hard problem ever be explained through science in your view, possibly indirectly?

      Not if science limits itself to objective evidence. Now, this is a necessary limitation, which is the cause for the progress in science. But I can imagine that a "subjective science", as opposed to the "objective science" we do, can make progress, but I doubt that if we limit to objective evidence we can explain it. As for how this could be done subjective, I explained in the longer essay cited in the first footnote in the first page of my essay, in §7.2 and §7.3 how I imagine this to work.

      > You say P is a mathematical structure in search of an ontology, do you think it will ever get there?

      A possibility is that P=S, so the ontology of P is the same as that of S, and that of S is just what I call sentience. But I can't prove it or disprove it objectively.

      Thank you very much for the comment, and for mentioning your essay to me.

      Cheers,

      Cristi

      Cristi,

      Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I will take a look at your longer essay soon. That sounds very interesting.

      Best regards,

      Ernesto

      Dear Prof Cristi,

      Thank you for your well analyzing comments on my essay. This I posted on mys essay yesterday...........

      Basically i wrote point 6 , with a view that the results of the solution to the equations used should be tangible ones, If there is a meaningless result, or if the result is not understood by any person or even to the person who developed those set of equations, then what is the USE?

      Then how some body will do the experimental verification? Without any experimental verification how the theory will help to the progress of humanity or science? Is it sheer madness? Is it not a wastage well educated manpower? Is it only for earning a a degree? So NO Experimental verification required, is that so? Just going on developing on something, with a thinking that may be correct, but going nowhare.........

      I suddenly remembered OLD 'Two of Us'... Boney M. song

      Two of us riding nowhere

      Spending someones

      Hard earned pay

      You and me Sunday driving

      Not arriving on our way back home

      We're on our way home

      We're on our way home

      We're going home ....................

      Are we really going home?

      This is happening in science in general, not only quantum physics, but in Cosmology also. Complex equation resulting to results with infinities,and searching for infinities.....

      I also started thinking of working on quantum physics with straight forward equations already. Hope you will help me on some concepts....

      Thank you for giving me piece of mind!

      Best Regards

      =snp

      Dear Cristinel,

      Your essay is one of the most interesting. You have touched a lot of problems: limits of reductionism, materialism in science, consciousness etc. You are right that modern science is far from pure materialism but I think this eternal struggle between materialism and idealism, holism and reductionism, nevertheless, pushes it forward. Without reductionism and materialism we would not have modern physics. Ostwald considered matter as energy but denied atomism. He was right to some extent matter is energy. But if physics had taken this way then we wouldn't have quantum physics and all its results. It happens sometimes that one of the opposite standpoints in science takes over but the correct solution remains somewhere in the middle.

      I wish you good luck

      Boris

        Dear Boris,

        Thank you very much for reading and commenting.

        Of course I fully agree with what you said about how these debates advanced science. Here's a reason to continue them, but these days such discussions are just cut by statements like "you can't prove it in the lab, you should not talk about it", "shut up and calculate" etc. :) Now, my essay doesn't try to show how limited science is, just to understand if there is a boundary and where it is. And I do this for the main purpose of formulating the hard problem of consciousness. Which is one of the things that, when one mentions, one gets a dismissive reaction like the ones I mentioned above. I want the debates back :)

        Good luck to you too,

        Cristi

        Cristinel. I enjoyed your essay and I agree with your final conclusion. I think I also have a bottom up answer to the "hypothesis that consciousness is not fully reducible to physical processes or computation." As I try to explain in my essay there is one Successful Self Creation process that progressively creates/becomes all intelligence, the complete physical world and the SSC processing that interweaves all three into every progressive self creating unit. The "foundational" ontology of this process occurs in two phases (as you say in your essay they complete each other). The first phase is the C*s to SSCU transformation of chaos to order that I describe in the appendix to my essay. This phase produces the cardinality of the mathematics of the second phase, it produces/becomes the basic algorithm of SSC computations, it produces/becomes the variables/relationships of time, space, mass, speed and direction that produce/become the forms and functions of the physical/intelligent SSCU. The SSCU is a self replicator/self organizer that scales up digitally to become the physical world, its mathematics and its computations. The same SSCU acts as the basic "node" of self creating intelligence that is in every SSC unit. In the second phase the SSCU self replicates and the copies self organize to progressively create/become larger/more complex self creating intermediates which progress to become the intelligence/SSC/physical combinations that exist today. The two self creation foundational phases "operate together - they complete each other. As to the question of irreducibility. The consciousness, sentience, feelings reduce to the C*s activities in the C*s to SSCU transformation. Their combined activities are "hidden" in the digitalized scale up of the SSCU to become the physical world and its corresponding mathematics and computations. So consciousness, sentience, feelings do not reduce to the physical components of the SSC units. However, they do reduce to the intelligence activities in the SSCU. These act as "node(s)" that in the scale up self replicate and self organize to become the intelligence-networks of universal successful self creation. These act as self learning networks that learn how to create and recreate the repeating processes that we observe and measure in the physical world. I would appreciate your comments. John

          Cristinel. I forgot to add In the previous post: the SSC processing produces a quantitative progressive formation of the geometric points, lines, surface areas, volumes spheres, vortexes, etc. of the forms and functioning of the universe. In that process it redefines the currently accepted definition of a point in universal processing. Instead of a singularity (infinitely dense/ infinitely small point as a beginning of the universe or as the "internal Content" of black holes, the points in SSC have a finite precise density and size. also the hyperinflation and expanding sphere of the Big Bang is replaced by a finite measurable universal expansion to a finite size. Getting rid of the infinitesimals, infinities and 0 simplifies the math tremendously. mohn

          Hi John,

          Thank you for the comment, in particular for explaining the bottom up answer to the "hypothesis that consciousness is not fully reducible to physical processes or computation." It made me want to understand more about your "Successful Self Creation process". I look forward to find out more about intelligence and creativity in your essay.

          Cheers,

          Cristi

          Dear Cristnel,

          I read your paper and find it to be very interesting. It appears that you have the understanding that each thing has an internal structure or nature that gives rise to the types of interactions that it can have with other things and what the possible outcomes from those interactions can be. This internal structure is composed of two parts, which are the basic material(s) or substance(s) that the thing is composed of and the way that the material(s) or substance(s) are put or joined together in the thing to make it, so that it behaves in the way that it does in external interactions with other things.

          From observation, it is easy to see that the structure of the whole creation is composed of many structural levels joined together to form a complex hierarchical overall structure. As an example, at the highest hierarchical structural level of large scale things that we can see and manipulate readily, they are often composed of many smaller structures that we can see to be different from each other, such as a rock with a vein of iron rust in it, etc. all joined together into the single rock. You can define its structure at this level to be all of the different materials that you can observe in the rock. The rock as a whole or the materials that are contained within it can interact with other things at this level to produce various outcome results. With more detailed observation it can be seen that some of the materials in the rock can be broken down chemically into more simple material structures, such as iron rust can be broken down into iron and oxygen, etc., but the iron and oxygen cannot be broken down further chemically. The iron rust is, therefore, composed of two basic materials, which are combined or structured together in such a way as to produce the external interactional results that iron rust generates in interactions with other things. After performing many observational experiments, you can determine all of the basic materials that can't be further broken down chemically into simpler materials and can then make a table of them. At this hierarchical level, you could, if given enough time, determine all of the possible structures that can be made from them and learn all of their possible interactions with each other, etc. You can then call these composite structures (like iron rust) molecules and the smallest part of the most basic materials can be called atoms. Those who were in the science community at that time could easily consider atoms to be small balls of matter. The facts that there were over ninety different atoms and if you then try to break each of these most basic materials down to their smallest part, you find that the mass effect of the smallest part of the material is different for each of them, (they were of more or less of incrementally increasing mass) which implies that they may be made up of some still smaller structure(s) , but that could be easily ignored at that time.

          If you then crash heavy atoms together you find that they can be broken down into two lighter atoms, thus proving that all of the basic atoms are constructed of some more basic substance(s) that are the same in all of them. At this hierarchical level, you can call these more basic materials sub-atomic particles and you can begin to find ways that you can isolate them and see how they interact with each other, etc. As these sub-atomic matter particles were discovered it became apparent that generally all atoms and, thus all matter was basically composed of three sub-atomic particles, the proton, the neutron, and the electron. At this level you can see that these three particles are much fewer than the over ninety atoms at the previous hierarchical level of structure. Scientists still liked to look at these sub-atomic matter particles as very small balls of matter.

          Over time it became apparent that the protons and neutrons were composite particles composed of three more basic particles called quarks while the electron was a basic particle. This meant that all matter is basically composed of four basic particles at this hierarchical structural level. Even though these basic particles exhibit wave behaviors and various outcomes from interactions, etc. that indicate that they have internal structures containing internal motions within them that then affect their external interaction outcomes with each other, these indications have been mostly ignored by the current scientific community, so they can still look at them as little balls of matter.

          If you crash these sub-atomic particles together at very high speeds, you can observe that the interactional outcomes can destroy the particles and, in the process, several new matter particles can be produced that contain more rest mass than the amount contained in the two original sub-atomic particles. Energy photons can also be produced. The greater the linear speed of the particles before the interaction, the greater is the number and total mass of the matter particles and energy photons that are produced by the interaction. Since the only thing that differs is the amount of linear motion of the particles, it becomes apparent that some of the particles that are produced in an interaction are produced by the linear motion of the particles before the interaction. Since energy photons are also produced in these interactions, it is apparent that they are also produced by the linear motions that were contained in the matter particles before the interaction. From this we can observationally determine that at this hierarchical level matter particles and energy photons are composed of the material or substance of basic linear motion. Of course, if they are both composed of the same material or substance, that substance must be put together or structured differently in each of them so as to produce the different interactional output results of both entities. I have gone down one more hierarchical level than man in this world is generally familiar with, but I have done so in order to bring out some points that would not usually be easily understood otherwise.

          First you should see that at each hierarchical level there is a type of structural material that seems to be the acceptable understanding of what a basic structural material is to those who are at that level without any knowledge that material structure can be broken down farther than it is at that level. From this you can see that the concept of the basic structural material of things should include an understanding of what it means at all hierarchical levels. It also becomes apparent that what is considered a basic structural material at one hierarchical structural level can be much different than that of another level. One general pattern that becomes clear is that as you progress down into smaller levels, the total number of basic materials at each level tends to decrease. Notice that at the level of the structural material of matter particles and energy photons there is only one basic structural material, which is linear motion. At this level fields are also composed of simple linear motion field particles. It is, therefore, currently possible from analyzing current observational information to determine the most basic structural substance from which all things are made. The problem is that most people look at things from the current maximum hierarchical level about which information has been currently obtained and understood by them and try to build the next level using the concepts that are currently understood at that level when we live in a world that contains a whole range of levels in which differences exist between the levels. If you can change from just looking at the current level to looking at the whole range of known levels, your mind can be opened to see that the next level may be much different than you would otherwise be able to understand and accept. You can then look at the current experimental observational data in a whole new light, which will allow you to see obvious things that others pass up because they don't know how to fit them into their current theories. As an example, you can see that science is about understanding both the ways that things interact with each other and also understanding the nature of the things that interact with each other. The understanding of the nature of a thing at one hierarchical structural level comes when the next lower level becomes understood. At one hierarchical level atoms are things that can interact with each other, but you don't know the nature of the atom, but at the next lower structural level you know that the nature of the atom is that it contains sub-atomic particles that are located and move around in the atom in certain ways, etc. Things are much more dynamic than we like to think that they are because we like to think of things to be very simple when in reality, they make up a very complicated multilayer structure of motions. Right now, man wants to believe that matter particles are the most basic level of matter structure and don't have any internal working or moving parts, but all of the observational data says otherwise. The good thing is that matter particles, energy photons, and field particles are all explained at the next structural level to be composed of only one basic substance.

          Consciousness is another area where people limit themselves to what they currently understand. The first big assumption is that it is completely contained in the matter structure of the brain. When you understand that our minds are constructed of two parts, which are our spirits and our souls and understand that our spirits generate our intents of what we will do and send those intents to our souls, which translate the intents into the thoughts that our bodies can understand and then our bodies do the work to carry out the intents of our spirits you then have a good basis to build an understanding of what consciousness is and how it works. In the Christian Scriptures it says that "God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." We can easily see that our bodies are composed of the dust of the ground (matter), but the breath of life is mentioned as a separate thing outside of matter. Our spirits are also outside of matter. When our spirits generate intents the part of our souls that are the breath of life can receive and understand those intents and can translate them into the thoughts that our bodies can understand through the part of our souls that are composed of the dust of the ground (our brains) and send them to our body parts through our nervous system. Our bodies then act upon those thoughts to carry out the intents of our spirits. Because of this structure, any attempt to explain all of consciousness as brain functions will ultimately fail.

          The second assumption is that consciousness is limited to what our mind can directly observe and/or control. There are many processes that continually go on in our bodies that require interactions with our spirits and souls. We are aware of some of these things, such as the need to take a breath periodically. Our spirits and souls must be conscious of and work together to control these processes most of which we are not aware of at our higher hierarchical structural level of consciousness. When the spirit leaves the body, the intents needed to continue these processes no longer occur and the body dies. This is why God says "The body without the spirit is dead." At our hierarchical level of consciousness our minds work mainly at the level of our bodys' sense inputs to observe both our internal structure and operation, etc. and also the structure and operation of the world around us. Our minds have the ability to store records of our current sense inputs so that we can later recall them and compare them to the current sense inputs to see what has changed in the world around us since they were recorded. This is what gives us our sense of the past even though the past does not actually exist. After recalling many previous records and comparing them, we can see patterns of change that allow us to predict that some things will continue to change in specific ways. This gives us a sense of the future even though that does not really exist either. We live in a motion continuum. The conditions of all of the motions in the universe that existed, but no longer exist because motions have moved to new locations in space are the past, but the past does not currently exist, because the motions have now moved from those positions into their current positions. The conditions of all motions that will exist, but do not currently exist because the motions have not yet moved to those positions in space are the future, but the future does not currently exist because the motions have not yet moved into those positions. Only the present actually exists, which is the current positions of all of the motions in the universe. The only way that a complete past and future could exist, so that someone could go into any point in the past or future is if a whole complete copy of the universe exists for each movement of any motion in the universe from one point in space to any other point in space. This would mean at least an almost infinite number of complete copies of the universe would have to exist. This would certainly not be according to the Occam's razor principle. There are also a multitude of other problems with the concept of a time dimension, but I will not go into those now because this comment is getting big, so I will end it now.

          Sincerely,

          Paul

            Dear Paul,

            Thank you very much for providing your interesting views about these important problems. The first 2/3 of your comment, it appears to me, you argue that we can know the nature of things, because things are made of other things. I call this "structure" and I consider it to be relations, not relata. And by nature of things I mean relata, ontology. You seem to mean structure. So you are right, if you mean structure, then maybe we can know it, at least we managed to know a great deal of it so far. But this has nothing to do with what I mean by "nature of things". By the way, when you say "matter particles, energy photons, and field particles are all explained at the next structural level to be composed of only one basic substance", you mean that there is always a next structural level? Then if this never ends, how can we know the nature of things? If it does end, how can the nature of things be known by knowing the next level, when there is no next level?

            Then you talk about "soul" and "spirit", which you don't define, but quote from the Bible. If you'd try to define them rigorously, you would find that you can only talk about their relations and structures, as in what I mean by S. There is a part you can't talk about rigorously, their nature, which is the ontology of S. I tried to be as general as possible, and leave room for various explanations of consciousness, including dualism, which may be what you have in mind. In this case S and P are different. I tried to discuss various possible explanations, dualism included, in my longer essay The negative way to sentience. I tried to leave open all possibilities and see how they can make empirical predictions.

            As for your arguments for presentism, you missed the point again. What I said is that you can't prove it by science, which is only about relations, because there is no relational stuff that highlights the present. This doesn't mean that presentism is wrong. You seem to think though that you can prove by an Occam's razor argument that only present exists. For an Occam's razor argument in the opposite direction, check Theorem 6 in my longer essay The negative way to sentience. You'll see that trying to include it rigorously in a theory to make it presentist complicates it. Also note that people use Occam's razor to "prove" things, when they mean in fact that it would be simpler for their views that things are in a certain way and not another. For example, other people use Occam's razor to deny God, which I think you wouldn't like. Occam's razor is one of the most abused things, since complexity is often relative to one's world view (for example Chaitin-Kolmogorov complexity, but also the lengths of proofs depend on the axiomatic system and there are many other examples). Returning to the problem of time, I see you rely much on Christianity in some aspects, why not when it's about time? You can check the writings of St. Anselm of Canterbury and St. Augustine for this. Also, if you want to know what I mean by negative way, I borrowed this from theology, it's an idea that appears including in Christian writings. I didn't mean my essay to have theological implications, but I think that the method of science itself is a via negativa in a sense similar to that used in these writings. I think this is a nice idea which has implications that we know much little than we think, whether we're talking about God (which is the original place where the idea appeared), but also when we talk about the nature of things, when we judge other people, or in the scientific method.

            Cheers,

            Cristi