Essay Abstract

Why is the universe comprehensible? How is it that we can come to know its regularities well-enough to exploit them for our own gain? In this essay I argue that the nature of our comprehension lies in the mutually agreed upon methodology we use to attain it and on the basic stability of the universe. But I also argue that the very act of comprehension itself places constraints on what we can comprehend by forcing us to establish a context for our knowledge. In this way the universe has managed to conspire to make itself objectively comprehensible to subjective observers.

Author Bio

Ian Durham is a physicist with Saint Anselm College who studies the foundations of physics, formal models of consciousness and free will, and relativistic quantum information. Incomprehensibly he has served as department chair for nearly a decade without committing a felony.

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Hello,

An interesting essay about the comprehensibility and its limitations. Like said Feymann indeed, if that does not respect an experiment and its results, it is wrong indeed. We must Always respect this pure universal rational logic determinism after all. What we observe, extrapolate , conclude, imagine must Always respect this determinism and be proved, by mathematical rigourous proofs or experiments, it is only simple than this. It d be very odd to affirm an assumption without proofs, I make the same for my theory I recognise an assumption and a proved law and so I accept my intuitions and assumptions, philophical ,physical if they are not proved, I don t affirm them simply, they are just maybe Food for thoughts. We must Always respect this determinism like I said .

You spoke about the metaphysics, I agree that it is not sciences rational in fact, it is just philosophical extrapolations and we can never affirm these things, in all case we cannot prove several things like these foundamental mathematical and physical objects at this planck scale even If I am persuaded that they are 3D coded spheres. I cannot prove , the same for the strings or points.And the same for the philosophical universal cause, I cannot affirm that we have an infinite eternal consciousness creating this physicality, the others theories, it is the same with its 1D main Cosmic strings or multivere or a mathematical universe created by accident from a kind of Energy. In fact that implies a kind of real humility , we have too much limitations and it d be odd to affirm these unknowns, that is why simply many things are not computable, decidable,comprehensible or predictable simply.

But the universe in general seems to show us its truths with an incredible simplicity , the details are very complex indeed but this generality is so simple.

If I can , I d like to have like I am curious your general philosophy about this universe and its main cause, what is the cause of this physicality for you ? me I consider an i9nfinite eternal consciousness beyond this physicality and this thing that we cannot define codes and transform the Energy and sent primordial finite coded series of 3D spheres, one for the space and two fuels, photons and Colds dark matter. And when they fuse they create the topologies, geometries, matters and properties. It is different than these strings wich consider that all is made of fields, I consider that all is made of coded particles in a kind of gravitational superfluid aether. So I d like to know what you consider like foundamental objects, is it strings and philosophically a main field and if yes why? Or a geonetrodynamics and points and geonetrical algebras like the lIe groups due to fields also or a pure mathematical universe and if yes what are these foundamental mathematical objects and why they create this physicality and how? All this is philosophical and we are limited but we can discuss after all generally. What also about your free will , do you consider that this free will is computable really ?

Regards

Dear Prof. Durham,

you've provided an intriguing exploration of the notion of comprehensibility that makes many subtle and interconnected points. I'm not sure I've grasped everything correctly, but in outline, you seem to start out by something not too far from Wittgenstein's anti-private language argument---there's no meaning to the arbitrary terms an individual observer, or experimenter, may assign to data. Meaning is intersubjective, as much of an objectification of the correlations between subjective experiences as is possible.

An interesting point one might explore, perhaps, is whether one could try to find some 'minimal' amount of intersubjective agreement to cement some meaning. For instance, you note the example of agreeing on a reference frame to establish a Bell inequality violation; but in fact, it's possible to violate a Bell inequality without agreeing on local directions. Hence, the removal of this condition entails that it wasn't instrumental in pinning down the meaning of 'Bell inequality violation' after all. Indeed, in a sense, it's the process of science to 'peel away' to these minimal conditions. But this is a side issue.

I have to say that I was initially somewhat confused by your 'principle of comprehensibility'. In some sense, it seems to me, that the fact that the answer to the question 'What is the color of your hair?' turns out to be something within the set {red, yellow, blue,...} is analytic, in the same sense that the answer to 'What is the marital status of any bachelor?' turns out to be one (i. e. the only) element of the set {unmarried}. The set of possible answers---{unmarried}, {red, yellow, blue,...}---is implicit in the terms themselves.

For the proper name 'my hair' under the functional expression 'the color of () is', the set of possible answers is {red, yellow, blue,...} in the same way as for the proper name 'any bachelor' under the functional expression 'the marital status of () is' it is {unmarried}. So, I wondered, in what way could the answer possible be something else? How could the 'principle of comprehensibility' be wrong? It seems like it's an analytic statement itself.

But I think maybe that's your point---this analyticity is precisely what hampers our inquiry into 'the things themselves', so to speak. To see at all, we have to don some pair of glasses, but which one we wear will color what we see. By asking for the color of hair, we implicitly specify the set of possible answers, but asking some other question, in some other way, might have provided a different set of possible answers, that map only imperfectly to colors. We could ask, perhaps, not for color, but for specularity and reflectance given certain wavelengths of light, and under most circumstances, the set of answers obtained that way will map well to that of color judgments. But given a different context than that which was implicitly specified in the way we asked our question, these answers may come apart---consider, for instance, the controversy regarding what color 'the dress' might have: asking one way, perhaps for RGB values of certain pixels, will yield a unique answer that, under ordinary circumstances, would map well on what a given person would answer if asked for color, while in this case, the color values diverge wildly between different observers.

Is this somewhat close to what you're saying?

Cheers

Jochen

    Hi ,

    Lol the universe is comprehensible Always when we respect this determinisn even for the color of hairs, even with an observation or many because we simply utilise all the parameter of deterministic observations and corrections, because after all the color blue is the color blue even if we see red. Now we can conclude that this universe is comprehensible at all scales with determinism if and only if we have analysed all the paramters and proved them with maths or experiments in respecting our foundamental axioms, laws equations, all the universe is rational, logic , comprehensible, deterministic and we have some limitations of course but when we can we prove. Now the humans are not really rational if I can and deterministic respecting a kind of universal consciousness, let s take the Vanity for example, is it deterministic and comprehensible, have you an equation or an algorythm to explain it you lol ? is it correlated with the dree will or is it a pure paramter correlated with the genetic, education, psychology and philosophy? so How can we consider the correlated choices and comportments in function of these parameters ? explain me Mr Durham or Mr Szangolies I am curious like I said, how can we explain the human conmportments like this Vanity for example because even in seeing a pure determinism, the choice can be odd due to this parameter, so that implies a conclusion, the humans are they deterministic in their free will and beleifs and what about the consciousness correlated ?

    In fact , what I say is very comprehensible about the non conmprenhensibity of humans. The physics, maths, biology, Chemistry are purely deterministic and comprehensible accepting our limitations. But not the human comportments and its psychology and so the correlated free will and so the choices. I return about this Vanity for the comprehensibility and acceptations if I can say. Maybe th most important is to correlate this paramter with an entire universal consciousness really humble permitting different choices because many can be very intelligent but not conscious understanding this universal altruism and the fact that all is linked. For example let s take the sciences Community and specially the theorewtical sciences Community, we know that it is probably the most vanitious Community, why ? maybe because we are all persuaded lol and also it exists a kind of individualism in the researchs and a need to be recognised. It is rare to find persons working in team and focusing on works, maybe that decreases the velocity of researchs, So we return at this free will, what is this free will really and how to consider it with relevances considering the psychology and its complexity. I insist on the fact that this consicousness is important, like the universal knowledges in sciences and philosophy, they permit to harmonise these comportments sometimes not rational and the choices. A free will can be universal if and only if this universal consciousness is understood like humble travellers of stars after all. So we can fight this Vanity, the others lacking of consciousness cannot unfortunally and cannot change their choices even. It is complex and so simple in fact but this Vanity , free will and choices must be correlated , and even that can imply odd comportments inside the sciences Community , maybe even this jealousy can be analysed and others coportments, so a real searcher universal intelligent conscious fights this Vanity to harmonise his choices and free will.The others don t make this , that is why so I insist on the fact that a minority in the human comportments are reall deterministic , the majority are not.

    ps dear thinkers, sorry for my English, I am french speaking and my grammar is not perfect. And I write too quickly without rereading, so sorry.I cannot reedit but you can understand what I tell. Regards, your essays were very well to both of you.

    I forgot to tell an important point about so this free will and the correlated choices, these choices can change in considering the encodings of informations and consciousness, because this evolution foundamental can be a reality, so the choices of a person also like his beleifs. It is due to the education foundamental if I can, a human and its psychology can change his free will and his comportments ven in studying , it permits to persons to be awrare of truths.The evolution is essential and the encodings of foudamental deterministic informations permit this evolution converging with this universal consciousness. The free will, the choices, the consciousness, the intelligence can evolve towards several things. Of course that does not consider several spheres of analysis like the tastes of food or the favorite colors or others, I speak about the perception of things and the psychology.

    Dear Ian,

    It is perhaps over simplifying to say that you begin with "Thus it would seem that comprehension is an inherently first-person, subjective act. Somehow the universe has conspired to make itself objectively comprehensible to subjective observers." And you conclude that " Comprehensibility is still the result of a combination of the mutual agreement between observers and the fact that the universe remains relatively stable."

    In between you focus on communication, semantics, interpretation, truth statements, and up to a hundred related terms and concepts.

    I am not sure that you would label it 'comprehension', but I would ask how you explain, for instance, the comprehension of space, and particularly how one understands a 3D box versus a 3D sphere? Aside from the arbitrary 'names', do any of those hundred terms come into play?

    John Schultz's essay suggests that non-algorithmic patterns do not impose the limitations on knowability that algorithmic patterns such as no-go theorems do. My essay focuses on ontology as a proper means of deciding physical issues, as opposed to purely math/logical means. One commenter stated that it is hubris to claim to know ontology. How does one comprehend ontology.

    These are issues that I deal with in my essay, rewritten to include info that became available in the last ten days. I invite you to read my essay Deciding on the nature of time and space, and hope you will comment on it.

    Best regards,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

      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