About this free will Mr Durham, I have answered this to bloggers on your blog about this free will.

Hi To both of You,

All this is very complex. The free will seems a thing deterministic and non deterministic considering the human psychology, we have so many paramters to take into account if we can to create a kind of free will for an AI, it is even philosophically speaking a Deep problem correlated with this consciousness. The parameters are numerous, the genetic, the Environments, the sociology, the education, the philosophies, ideologies, the characters,....in fact it is even a thing evolving and able to change considering the choices possible, there is things wich don t change like the tastes or favortite things but it exists things wich can change in fucntion of encodings of informations and Learnings , and even the consciousness improved can permit different choices, and points of vue. An AI is deterministic and under specific algorythms of comportments and it is different, they are not conscious in fact, we mimate comportments. These compportments even can be even non deterministic in function of encodings and algorythms, this AI must be utilised by persons conscious because it can dangerous even. The humans them are totally different, it exists a Little bit of all and the complexity is more than complex. I have explained to Ian Durham that the personalities and so the free will and correlated choices can evolve in function of Learnings but also in function of an optimisation of this consciousness, maybe the ideal is to have an universal consciousness, a determinism in the intelliegence and so a feee correlted permitting the good choices when it is about universal questions. Let s take a simple example, a favorite music can be second if we prefer an other in the time but the determinism is different and does not chamge, that said the conscious can change, it becomes very complex.

Dear Ian Durham

To quote one participant in this contest:

"The absence of mathematics is the absence of clarity."

Who would be Newton with his extraordinary comprehending without his clear mathematical account of what he understands?

I agree with your view: The universe is a vast and interconnected place. Mathematically clear predictions should follow.

Regards, Branko

    Hi to both of you, I continue about this free will ,I have put this on your blog Mr Durham, lets analyse deeper this philosophy of this free will with humility.

    Dear Ian Durham , Let s take the Newcomb Paradox and this experiment of beleifs. And the problem is mainly philosophical for me and of course that divides the sciences Community about the choices, the predictions and the human comportments and so this free will. The theory of decisions so become very complex when we consider the determinism and the consciousness more all the other parameters correlated with the decisions and perceptions of our reality and so the conclusions taken. The freedom and thios determinism cannot be dissociated from this consciousness for me and the choices are correlated and like I said evolve. This paradox of Newcomb so becomes indeed intriguing but can we consider the game only and the predictions and strategies when we consider an universal consciousness and a pure correlated determinism? all is there. Without a consciousness, the predictions are different and so the dominances and the strategy loose its meaning when we are aware of a pure universal altruism without Vanity. This paradox looses its real meaning because the life is not a game simply even if I like Von Neuman, maybe after all the only one relevance is the point of equilibriuem like in the disuasion , so the strategy has no meaning because it ios not necessary to play. So the decisions are not relevant but it is just my opinion of course. All this to tell that the competion and this darwinism does not exist when the consciousness is a reality, the same for the games even if the business men don t agree, we don t play, we live and evolve and our consciousness also. Is it a paradox so when we consider this evolutive dterministic consciousness and pure altruism ? no .

    Interesting the number utilised in binary system, you can put these numbers on the spheres and after insert my reasoning about the 2 fuels made of spheres , one for the photons and one for the cold dark matter, the main serie is for the space, utilise also the same number than our cosmological finite serie of spheres and see that the space disappears , and play with the oscillations and nmotions rotations of these spheres.....And nor rank, sort, superimpose, synchronise the different phasis, and consider the Clifford algebras also and the Ricci flow , you shall reach interesting things even for the quantum computing.

      all this to tell that these pi digits seem important correlated with the spheres and specially these finite primordial finite series of 3D spheres, there is an important thing to know about this at my humble opinion, it is like a pure universal harmonical distribution but of course we have limitations in the calculations of these digits tending to infinity. Alexander Yee makes 5 trillion digits available via bittorrent. He also has a lot of other large numbers. I have calculated approximatelly the Number of cosmological spheres , the quantum finite series for me are the same, this finite number seems important and oddly the Dirac large number seems on this road, why I don t know but we approach it.

      In all humility , I beleive that the secret for a quantum computing is there, we must mimate the universal computing and its foundamental objects, if the 3D coded spheres and their finite series are the answer and that pi digits are important , so we must converge, if not we cannot create a quantum computer simply, for me with the Waves, fields, strings only we shall never reach it because the foundamental mathematical and physical objects must be correct, Points and geonetrodynamics, strings and geonetrical algebras or 3D spheres, all is there.

      Now , if my reasoning is correct about these 3 main finite primordial coded spheres of 3D spheres, one for the space with the main codes and two fuels, the photons and the cold dark matter to have a balance , universal permitting these emergent topologies, geonetries and properties of matters and their particles and fields, like a balance between order disorder, negentropy entropy, heat and cold, electronagnetism and gravitation, matter and anti matter , so we can consider simple the binaries 1 and 0 and so correlated with the cold and heat, so the cold dark matter and photons encoded in nuclei and the relevance is to consider two different senses of rotation for these 3D spheres in motions and oscillations.These pi digicts correlated with 1 and 0 so can permit to reach this quantum computing simply.

      Dear Ian. In your essay you mentionedEinstein's statement --the eternally incomprehensible thing about the world is its comprehensability. In my essay I mention Einstein's elaboration on that comment in his "Letters to Solovine" New York, Philosophical Library, 1987. From that reply one can see that Einstein considered the conversion of chaos to order (the overcoming of entropy) to be the "miracle" that makes the world comprehensible. In my essay, I introduce a self creating process that converts chaos into order. In its originating process, it created the foundations for the creation of intelligence, the physical world, mathematics, computations, life, humanity etc. - in the originalSuccessful Self Creating Unit (SSCU). Progressive scale-up by self replication and self organization then produced those entities. The point I am trying to make is that the SSC process created everything needed for us to comprehend the universe. You will find mere specifics in my essay. Let me know what you think (leave a comment or questions) and I will respond. John D Crowell

      Hi Ian, in your examination of the question of whether a falling tree makes a sound if nobody is there to hear it, you do not examine what it means to 'make a sound'. Is producing pressure waves enough to qualify as sound? Or is to make sound the processing of pressure wave sensory input into the heard experience necessary? Without the decision over what the phrase means it is ambiguous. I'd say the falling tree only produces potential sensory information that may or may not be received by an observer; that processes it into heard sound. Two observers might agree that there is an objective source of the sound, external to them, in the forest. However that objective by corroboration does not mean a true truth value can be given to the 'yes' answer. It only applies if you count sound wave production as sound. If not (sound is heard qualia),'no' has the true truth value.

        Your point about consistency of reality is good. To reality check the second observer must generate the same observation product. Did you see that? may give a negative or positive response, if 'that' is for example a moving hare. Not having seen it does not mean there was not a hare in the first person's viewpoint. A subjective, uncorroborated viewpoint is not necessarily wrong. Replicating experiments many times helps by getting many corroborating results, if the experiment works, which minimizes the impact of erroneous ones. As you point out consistency of the meaning of language is also very important. That is where the issue of ambiguity comes in. The language of Physics does not usually distinguish between potential sensory information in the environment and the product generated by an observer. eg. Light, sound, smell, frequency.

        Hello, indeed it is sure that the mathematics are important and essential like the experiments to prove our assumptions, works, extrapolations, physical works and papers, but they can also imply confusions and false roads also.

        I beleive strongly that the physics are the pure deterministic road and the maths a Tool wich must ne utilised with the biggest wisdom mathematically, physically and philosophically. The maths for me are not the main essence of this universe, but the physics yes.

        Regards

        I will begin by quoting Wolfgang Pauli (in a letter from Pauli to Niels Bohr, quoted from Wolfgang Pauli: Writings on Physics and Philosophy):

        "..., it seems to me quite appropriate to call the conceptual description of nature in classical physics, which Einstein so emphatically wishes to retain, "the ideal of the detached observer."

        It appears that this debate is on-going because it seems like many, if not most, physicists still emphatically wish to retain this conceptual description and call it objective reality.

        You wrote: "If the Principle of Comprehensibility is valid it would seem to imply that there might exist problems that are undecidable for physical reasons. That is, if Wheeler is right and all that exists derives its very existence from "apparatus-elicited" answers to yes-or-no questions, then there are elements of the physical universe that are simply unknowable. Furthermore, the origin of that unknowability is both logical and physical. Some aspects might be unknowable because we cannot construct an algorithm that is guaranteed to lead to a correct truth value for some truth-conditional statements. Other aspects might be unknowable because the universe's fundamental fabric is such that no machine can be constructed to produce a correct truth value for some truth-conditional statements. These are distinct points unless the universe itself is a Turing machine."

        That certainly is the question, is it not?

        You wrote: "Any attempt to comprehend it must necessarily depend on the fact that we are a part of it. Indeed the very act of comprehension is itself a part of it and is thus shaped by it."

        And this is the answer to the question, but is really an answer or is it just an unsubstantiated statement; a means by which to attempt to comprehend reality?

        Certainly a very interesting and insightful essay. My only complaint is that it does not go far enough. I wish you the best in the contest.

          Hi Ian,

          This is the good essay while the essay contents themselves feel to be different from the contest title. I would like to ask you about the relationship between this context and anthropic principle.

          Best wishes,

          Yutaka

            Your central question seems to me among the most important in all of science! Did the universe have to be comprehensible? I don't think it did, since physics allows us to conceive of all sorts of crazy alternatives (many of which do not include us); this makes us quite lucky.

            I also wonder about whether science can really be reduced to sharply worded and contextualized questions. I am inclined to believe that it can, for the most part, but it's hard to think of a way to test a philosophical claim like this.

            Great point about it being important for observers to have some kind of consensus (for example, on the meaning of a question and whether a given test is appropriate for determining an answer); this is something I never thought about before, possibly due in part to physics thought experiments tending to only consider one or two observers at a time. If you had to define scientific knowledge, would it be something like a collection of 'justified' consensus beliefs among some particular group of people?

            John

              Dear Ian,

              thank you for an(other) excellent, very enjoyable essay.

              I particularly liked your lapidary concluding remark "The universe has fundamental limits baked into it. But it is these very limits that allow for the universe to be comprehensible."

              Best of luck for the contest!

              Cheers,

              Flavio

                5 days later

                Dear Jochen,

                My apologies for taking so long to respond. I have been busy wrapping up the semester and trying to hire a new faculty member, all while stuck in my house. Anyway, I agree with much of what you said.

                "But I think maybe that's your point---this analyticity is precisely what hampers our inquiry into 'the things themselves', so to speak. "

                Exactly!

                Thanks again for your great comments!

                Ian

                Thanks for your comments, Jason. I agree that I probably could have gone further, but I was pushing the page limit as it was and had to cut several references just to fit that on a single page. Perhaps in a future form I will expand on it.

                Hi Yutaka! It's great to hear from you! I think the contents of my essay are directly related to the contest though, since I am essentially presenting a physical analogy of Gödelian incompleteness. But anyway, as for the anthropic principle, that's a good question. I do personally think that there is an objective reality outside of human existence and perception. That is, I absolutely believe that the universe will continue to be here once humans are long gone. But I think my aim with this essay is, rather, to say something about the limits of human knowledge, which is entirely different from the limits of objective reality.