Thanks Irek -

Yes, consciousness is an enigma - and so is the relationship between math and physics and the foundations of each.

Yes, my 2015 essay took a step too far in highlighting a particular religious tradition. At the same time, the theological roots of all religious traditions provide context for humans to fathom the unfathomable. These FQXi questions take us to core beliefs and suppositions that have been addressed poetically or mythologically in the various traditions. Science may have helped free us from empirically unfounded and irrational dogmas inherited from religious traditions - but on the frontiers it has come face-to-face with its own. That was the subject of my 2017 FQXi essay - Faith is Fundamental.... https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3045

Cheers - George

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  • Post #23

The door that has no key, as well as walls without any doors of predigital linguistic perceptions have effectively been transformed to the frame work of mathematical, self noetic and physical as you have outlined. All three of those as well have been further condensed to Minkowski spacetime, ad Sitter and Ad Sitter. In my view the self and the non-self effectively permeate the realities for the foreseeable future.

    Bela - Thanks for the comment. Yes,. One could say that the self and the non-self are staring at each other - and both are blind. Omar Kayyam has a verse that reaches to that:

    Then of the THEE IN ME who works behind

    The Veil, I lifted up my hands to find

    A lamp amid the Darkness; and I heard,

    As from Without--"THE ME WITHIN THEE BLIND!" XXXIV

    Cheers - George

    Hello George,

    I greatly enjoyed how you applied the poem of Omar Khayyam to the problem of the limits of knowledge.

    This line in particular:

    "Self-reference leads inevitably to the limit of incompleteness. Entanglement implies that the whole cannot be understood solely through an understanding of its parts. Additionally, since we are ourselves entangled in the world, we can never truly observe the whole."

    I believe with all of my heart.

    Best of luck in the contest!

    Rick Searle

      Dear George,

      What a beautiful essay. I love the analysis of the poem also.

      My favorite line: "I recommend that we embrace the idea that these limits are not flaws in the system -they are features. The limits of incompleteness, entanglement and agency enable complexity, evolution and free will. They make the world and life interesting."

      Beautiful!

      Thank you!

      Noson

        Dear George,

        Using twelfth century poem as the framework for your essay is a bold move, but it worked well. You humanized as well as explained concepts. Placing intelligence on a high mysterious pillar is opposite to the direction I took, but it does fit with your theme. Overall one of the best essays I have read.

        I would like to know what you think of my essay. The rating of my essay puts me out of contention, so you can look at it after voting has closed.

        Sincerely,

        Jeff Schmitz

        Noson - Thank you. I am humbled by your kind remarks. BTW this is my favorite "matheamtical" quatrain from the Rubaiyat - not very good advice but just fun:

        "LVI. For "Is" and "Is-not" though with Rule and Line

        And "UP-AND-DOWN" by Logic I define,

        Of all that one should care to fathom, I

        was never deep in anything but--Wine."

        Best - George

        Good to read your work again George...

        As always, you have made me think. But in fact; your essay weaves together a number of things I've been thinking a lot about - both on and off the contest forum. In some sense the Mandelbrot Set is a 'door that has no key' because the only way to see it is to try one spot after another to find out where it converges.

        One can actually calculate precise locations for a handful of spots by hand. But the Galois method tops out before you get very far, and won't even give you an outline. On the other hand; the Mandelbrot Set is like a key or index to a large family of Julia Sets.

        I enjoyed the way you wove in the three levels from Penrose connected to the three levels of metacognition from Metcalfe and Son, and then concluded with 'entangled, purposeful, and self-referential.' I could say a lot more, but I'm hoping to read more essays before the bell. You get high marks from me.

        Best of Luck,

        Jonathan

          Thanks, Jonathon - There is so much that can be said about Mandelbrot Set - an infinite number of things if you had the time. ?

          Peace - George

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