On the surface, the world we inhabit is a messy and chaotic place. It is a bit like a busy intersection in Kathmandu: a foreigner’s first impression will be that of complete chaos, with all sorts of vehicles and pedestrians coming from seemingly every direction at once. But stepping back, one realizes that there is a sense of order to the swirling motion, and what felt like bedlam actually obeys a set of rules not at all evident to the uninitiated. Science aims to make sense of the messy reality of our world from within, without the luxury of being able to step back as a passive observer. Luckily, we can rely on the work of thousands of scientists before us and millennia of accumulated knowledge. In this essay, we explore different perspectives on the accumulation of scientific understanding and the striking success that mathematical theories have had in describing nature. We speculate on the feasibility of achieving an ultimate theory of nature and reformed approaches to scientific activity with an emphasis on a Kuhnian approach.

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Hello MalachitePony. Your essay was a comprehensible explanation of the current state of science with its accumulated understanding of the natural world as well as the current limitations. What was clear to me were 1. the gaps in the fundamentals of science, math and logic 2. the incompleteness of the current explanations of nature 3. a current belief that some realms of understanding may be beyond human comprehension 4. to successfully progress science needs a new paradigm and 5. science must have an open mind to new ideas and concepts. There is an essay in this competition that introduces a new paradigm that needs exploration by other scientists. How can we make this happen? The essay claims there is a previously undiscovered fundamental level of existence that solves the “fundamental gap” problems of math, science, philosophy, religion, intelligence, creativity and consciousness. It claims that one process converts chaos to order and creates/becomes “all of the order in existence” - including everything previously mentioned. This is a new paradigm that science needs to investigate with an open mind. Can you help make that happen? The essay is: Could Science Be Different and Improved? Yes. A Specific Proposal.

Congratulations, I liked the essay. Best wishes for a great final result.

Aleksandr Maltsev
To overcome the conceptual - paradigmatic crisis in the metaphysical basis of fundamental science, which manifests itself as a "crisis of understanding" (J. Horgan "The End of Science"), it is necessary to continue to "dig" to the most remote depths of the Universe being as an holistic process of generating more and more new meanings, forms and structures. And through a joint interested global brainstorming, to make the Big Ontological Revolution in the foundations of knowledge, the result of which is the model of a "Self-Aware Universe" (mathematician and philosopher Vasily Nalimov, 1996), the semantic core of which is Ontological (structural, cosmic) memory, "soul of matter", its measure .
Otherwise, we, Earthlings, will not be able to overcome the total crisis of understanding and mutual understanding, to save life on planet Earth. This is the main goal and task of fundamental science for today.

      Aleksandr Maltsev
      Yes, the "sawing" must be continued even deeper, to the most remote semantically distinguishable depths of the existence of the Universe, and in philosophical and historical terms - to the beginning of the "second Archimedean revolution", and deeper - to Heraclitus and the "origin of Geometry". Here "Shura" alone will not cope. Earthlings need a global brainstorming of interested "sawyers" ... 🙂

        The trouble is that those who understand the shortcomings are interested in changing and improving science. The interest is to preserve the existing state, those who are in the comfort and control of physics.

        Hello contributors to this forum. As I mentioned in my initial reply to MalochitePony, there is an essay in this contest that claims “… one process converts chaos to order and creates/becomes all of the order in existence. It is a new paradigm for science to consider. It’s claims satisfy the requirements to be the Ultimate Theory. For some reason people do not believe successful creation is possible. It is too far removed from normal science. I wrote the essay in question. So let me clarify some aspects about the successful creation theory, how it came about and how that fits with the discussions of Malachite’s essay.

        The current science - 25 years ago- was not producing the Ultimate Theory and a new paradigm was needed. I had just retired. What I like to say is that I left the world of consensus reality. I could do what I wanted- by myself. My incentive was to accomplish something no one else had been able to do. I wanted to discover/produce the Ultimate Theory - not only a scientific theory but one that goes past science and includes everything we sense, feel, observe, experience, think, etc.. First I explored the assumptions of science, philosophy, religion, mathematics, etc.. The one assumption I found in all of the disciplines was that intelligence has always existed and it is in effect everywhere, all of the time and it never changes. However. the physical world had a beginning and a progression. There was no suitable evidence that the intelligence assumption was true. So, I focused on those assumptions and I found that both were created in conjunction with each other.

        What I eventually discovered was the lowest level of existence and the progressive process introduced in my essay. This could not have been accomplished without the independence to do what I wanted. Anyway, successful creation fills the fundamental gaps, shows why math and physics correlate and, most of all, provides a complete and comprehensible theory - at least in my mental and mathematical models.

        Now for the problems. When I left the realm of consensus reality, I cut all of my ties.Now that I have discovered the Ultimate Theory, I have no one to help validate the theory (beyond my own validation). Also, as in the development of any new product, the initial development was not expensive. I did everything myself - a lot of time, little money. Now it needs “scaling up”. It needs to spread through the different disciplines- sciences, religions, philosophies, mathematics etc. and that takes time, money and capabilities that I do not have. That is why I asked Malachite “How can we we make this happen?” Also, PurpleYak, in my essay, I provided the first steps that science could do to test and improve both the theory and science. Also, Vladimir, the theory does go to the remote depths (beginnings and progressions) of the universe. For this theory to be tested and spread through the disciplines, there must be an acceptance by those that regulate and promote science to test the theory. Successful Creation is a theory that is ready for scientific scrutiny. When it passes the scrutiny, it will revolutionize science. Regards to all contributors to this forum

        Admin Comment Thank you for flagging this comment. Commenters please keep on topic

        7 days later

        Hi MalachitePony
        Following is a summary and review of your essay performed by AI Chat GPT 4. I've provided it for you to demonstrate the theme of my essay, that AI will play a role in the future of peer review. My essay is titled "Age of Knowledge"
        I hope you enjoy this review of your **work.

        Admin Comment: Please keep your comments on topic, this is borderline as point is to advertise your own essay and was not written by you. Please be courteous and respect fellow forum users by keeping on topic.**

        Chat GPT 4
        The essay "The Accumulation of Understanding" explores the accumulation of scientific knowledge from two different perspectives: Popper's linear view and Kuhn's model of scientific revolutions. Popper's approach suggests that scientific understanding progresses through falsification, with each disproved theory leading to the development of a more accurate one. On the other hand, Kuhn's model views scientific understanding as progressing through paradigm shifts, with normal science and puzzle-solving leading to periods of crisis, which then results in a new paradigm that better explains the problematic data. The author argues that Kuhn's model better represents scientific progress, and likens it to mountain climbing rather than climbing a ladder, with different groups arriving at the summit through different routes. The essay concludes by questioning whether an ultimate theory of nature is possible, and if so, whether it would be the result of the linear accumulation of knowledge or a paradigm shift.

        The essay provides a clear and concise explanation of Popper's and Kuhn's perspectives on scientific progress, and the author's argument is well-supported with examples. The analogy of mountain climbing is effective in illustrating Kuhn's perspective and the non-linear nature of scientific progress. The essay's conclusion opens up an interesting debate about the possibility of an ultimate theory of nature and the different approaches to scientific activity. Overall, the essay is well-written and insightful, and the author's arguments are well-supported.

        The essay discusses the ideas of Wigner and Popper regarding the possibility of a mathematical ultimate theory that describes reality. The essay argues that while it is challenging to imagine an ultimate theory not based on mathematics, Gödel's incompleteness theorems and quantum mechanics place limits on the predictive power of physical theories. Furthermore, the connection between mathematics and a description of reality is far from obvious, and it is not clear that there must be an ultimate theory, that it will take a mathematical form, that it will be deterministic, or even unique. The essay also examines the question of how scientists can achieve their scientific agenda, given the largely successful paradigm, and the unfortunate rise of unproductive scientific activities like predatory journals, self-citations, and publication of conference papers. The essay concludes that science is an activity performed by humans, and while motivations range from egoistic to financial to scientific, no one motivation is necessarily best for furthering a scientific agenda. The essay encourages scientists to be grateful for the miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics and hope that it will remain valid in future research. The essay is well-written and makes valid points, and therefore, it receives a quality rating.

        Chat GPT 4

        The essay provides a very good understanding of the Kuhnian view of evolution and structure of science. Indeed, a very elegantly written article. I like the discussions of the two questions. Regarding the 2nd question, I have attempted to give an answer in my essay, titled "A Robust Community-Based Credit System to Enhance Peer Review in Scientific Research". You might want to take a look if interested.

        Thank you for writing such a remarkable essay. You present an inspiring view that reads in a riveting fashion! I seldom read something to completion, but enjoyed every word of yours.

        Your descriptions of the motivations for paradigm shifts seemed 'spot on'. There is one missing piece in your essay regarding an ultimate theory. Finding such a theory may well be close to impossible, but communicating it may be even more challenging.

        In the real world I would love to meet with you, but suspect the feeling might not be shared.

          ChampagneEgret Thank you for the kind words! I completely agree that communicating the prospect of an ultimate theory would be extremely challenging, since our scientific system is rooted so deeply in the notion of falsification. I tried to address this point with my hypothetical future scientists wondering if they have finally achieved such a theory, and tried to reframe it as a practical question of what route they could pursue to prove their potential ultimate theory is flawed. In other words, judging it to be "ultimate" or not may well be beyond our capabilities, but I believe this is distinct from the question of whether it would be a worthwhile scientific program to attempt to falsify it when a functional understanding of all natural phenomena has already been achieved.

            This is a beautifully written essay! A joy to read. The only thing I wish you wrote more about is the last part -- how we could follow our agenda. I felt that your suggestions in this were -- I hope you won't consider me rude for saying this -- fairly general statements which are mentioned in many discussions, not concrete enough to be implemented.

              Optimism is much needed these days. I hope I also transmitted this feeling in my essay, entitled ""More diversity and creativity for a different science". I invite you to take a look at https://qspace.fqxi.org/competitions/entry/2330#control_panel.

              Admin Comment: Please respect other entrants and don’t just reply to advertise your own essay. Please keep on topic.

              This essay is eloquently written and reflects a broad knowledge of how science works and the history and philosophy of science. But it is profoundly conservative. Instead of answering "How could science be different?" the essay answers "Why should science continue to be the same?".

              Of course, there are many achievements that science can claim. I'm proud to be a scientist, and proud of the community of scientists. There has never in the history of humanity been a more reliable arbiter of truth than the world community of scientists.

              And yet, there are big questions that science has not answered. Some of these are not just missing pieces in the puzzle -- some of them seem to imply that we have reached dead ends. We need new foundations, new paradigms, new ways of understanding how the world works.

              A few examples...

              • Monica Gagliano has demonstrated that plants sense sound in the environment without ears or even a nervous system. Plants learn and remember. Plants strategize and make educated guesses about the future. We associate all these activities with synapses and neural networks. Plants do these things in a fundamentally different way.

              • The 30-year legacy of Robert Jahn and Brenda Dunne demonstrates with 6-sigma certainty that human intention in the abstract can influence events at the quantum level. Why are there no physicists seeking to incorporate their experimental results into a new formulation of QM?

              • The study of life's pre-Darwinian origin has made much progress in synthesizing biochemical precursors from abiotic starting materials, and yet it is becoming clear that a self-reproducing system ("hypercycle") is elusive. This is the prerequisite for the beginning of a Darwinian process, so we can't attribute it to natural selection. We may have to face the fact that our current understanding of physics and chemistry is incompatible with life's origin.

              • There are dozens of labs around the world that have demonstrated cold fusion, and yet their research is excluded from mainstream publications in physics and engineering. Understanding cold fusion as a new bulk quantum phenomenon has the potential to offer solutions to most major environmental problems, and a new perspective on many-particle quantum phenomena. But the subject remains a backwater because of scientific taboos.

              • The Pyramids of Giza could not have been built by any technology we know today. Full stop.

              There is a compelling need for new scientific paradigms. We need to re-establish the open-minded attitude that Niels Bohr epitomized when he said, "We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."

              Amitabha Lahiri Thank you for your comment!
              I readily accept your criticism that my suggestions in the latter half of the essay (regarding how we can best pursue a scientific agenda) were a bit vague. I believe we require a restructuring of how we (both scientists and the public) approach normal science, to eliminate the misconception that only revolutionary science is a worthwhile pursuit: revolutions only result from a breakdown of a paradigm developed to its breaking point, making normal scientific activity absolutely critical for progress. I mainly wanted to emphasize this shift in perspective, which can then be implemented in a number of different ways (e.g., a restructuring of the hierarchy in research institutions or a rethink of publication practices).

                  Yaakov Fein
                  You are absolutely right that normal scientific activity is critical for progress. However, I believe science administrators are fully in favour of the normal research -- indeed, research grants are given almost exclusively to "normal" research, you would be exceptionally lucky to get a grant for doing something that no one (including yourself) has done yet! The public hopes for, and notices, revolutionary research, but scientists keep doing what they have always done, only occasionally straying out. Funders almost never support the unknown. In my essay "Efficient funding produces better science" I have tried to suggest a solution that would help both kinds of research -- just in case you might be interested.