"At least one physicist ... considers that dark matter (so far undetected) may have been invented to explain away an anomaly of General Relativity. ... Verlinde, Eric (2016). arXiv:1611.02269v2 ..."

Are dark matter particles very similar to luminiferous aether? I say that Milgrom is the Kepler of contemporary cosmology -- on the basis of overwhelming empirical evidence. Google "kroupa milgrom", "mcgaugh milgrom", "sanders milgrom", and "scarpa milgrom".

According to Milgrom and Sanders, Verlinde's theory does not give a satisfactory model of the MOND phenomenology.

Milgrom, M., & Sanders, R. H. (2016). Perspective on MOND emergence from Verlinde's" emergent gravity" and its recent test by weak lensing. arXiv preprint arXiv:1612.09582

    Dear John Philip Clive,

    thanks for an inspiring essay! 'Damasio's patient' is indeed an interesting case telling us something about how we make decisions. I believe, however, that there is some (widespread) confusion regarding the meaning of 'rational'.

    To begin with, most pre-modern cultures see the heart as the seat of Vernunft, ratio or reason. Then there are three body areas involved in leading our lives.

    a) the stomach - emotion

    b) the heart - reason, understanding, comprehension, sound judgement, etc.

    c) the brain - logic, intellect, smartness, etc.

    Now, neurologically speaking, emotion and intellect seem to be associated with the frontal lobe. The core of intellect though is not reason, but logic. Logic has nothing to do with reason. Already 20th century Vernunftkritik (criticism of reason) factually attacked logic (e.g. technologisation) while calling it reason. But reason (following Kant: die Vernunft geht nie auf die Dinge...) doesn't deal with things or processes, but with invariant principles. Reason is thus a-temporal, though ironically located in the temporal lobe. The frontal lobe is a late development and is believed to process emotion and intellect. This makes sense inasmuch logic deals with temporal if-then constructions, which, as you rightly say, have no singular objective solution and are thus decided by emotion. Hence the collocation of logic and emotion in the frontal lobe makes much sense. Maybe this is why Damasio's patient was absolutely reasonable in recognizing the world, his own situation, photos, etc., but unable to make logical=temporal=procedural decisions.

    Reason is a censorial not a creative function, letting pass what is reasonable and blocking everything else. Since logical decisions inevitably open up an unknowable future, the impairment of Damasio's patient to deal with logic may well have made him the most rational man on Earth.

    good luck for your essay,

    Heinz

    Thank you Heinz,

    I found your observations useful and stimulating. Particularly resonant was your comment that "Reason is thus a-temporal." A key area of interest for me is the primordiality of aspatiotemporal ratio in nature.

    I believe it is self-evident that any expression of ratio cannot be ratio. Human rationality as recorded in the products of physics, mathematics and philosophy can only exist as a representation and, as my essay attempts to show, it is the conflation of the expression/representation with the actuality that produces the paradoxes that the intellectual disciplines are currently facing. This is the aporia that the essay competition seeks to investigate.

    For Wittgenstein, "an irrational number isn't the extension of an infinite decimal fraction, ... it's a law" - Philosophical Remarks- (1919-1930).

    Thank you again for your comments.

    Best,

    John

    Dear John

    Have you ever reported on TV about things that didn't happen;

    Have I, as a meteorologist, ever predicted weather that I don't think will happen.

    But, someone imposed a topic that does not exist, because it is an undefined case.

    I even have my "conspiracy theory" why this is so.

    I find that moving downhill coincides with the departure of Fred Hoyle from the stage. But let's not be naive to someone everything is moving up the line.

    Your start:

    "This is an exploration of some of the paradoxes known to existat the foundations of Western physics and mathematics - viewed from a viewpoint outside of those disciplines. My excuse for this impertinence is that Edifice's foundations are no more visible to her occupants than to an outsider. "

    Many occupants see the same as you, and even those who just pretend to have sided with the mainstream. I don't even want to use that word on S that you mentioned countless times in the essay, although I still used it in my essay. Given your profession, you know that mentioning something promotes, whether in a positive or negative context.

    Of course, the universe is simple, without paradoxes, miracles, mysteries and undefined mathematics.

    Regards,

    Branko

    11 days later

    Dear John,

    I greatly appreciated your work and discussion. I am very glad that you are not thinking in abstract patterns.

    While the discussion lasted, I wrote an article: "Practical guidance on calculating resonant frequencies at four levels of diagnosis and inactivation of COVID-19 coronavirus", due to the high relevance of this topic. The work is based on the practical solution of problems in quantum mechanics, presented in the essay FQXi 2019-2020 "Universal quantum laws of the universe to solve the problems of unsolvability, computability and unpredictability".

    I hope that my modest results of work will provide you with information for thought.

    Warm Regards, `

    Vladimir