Andrei Kirilyuk
When it comes to world affairs or science, or any other area, how would you know if events were moving in a “positive direction”? I’m always noticing that what I and others might think is a positive direction, is not necessarily a positive direction from the point of view of other groups of people.

Only individual subjects can estimate what seems to be a positive direction, from their individual point of view. Only individual people can summarise their own knowledge and experience and agree or disagree that there are “massive tendenc[ies]” in world affairs or science or other areas. These tendencies are merely a type of summary knowledge or conclusion, about the state of the world, that subjectively exists in the minds of individual people observing the world. (I have explained in my essay what I think are the necessary characteristics of things that can actually exist in the world, and what can only exist in individual imaginations. “Science could be different” if science examined this issue.) But are you claiming that tendencies are a type of objectively-existing emergent lawful force that has power over the world, and that people might need to resist?

I’d say that “one person's actions” can’t “change a massive tendency” because tendencies are only a conclusion or an idea that exists in the minds of e.g. researchers; and this conclusion would refer to surveys examining what is going on in the minds of masses of individual people, or the actions of masses of individual people. To change a tendency, it is seemingly a matter of somehow interacting with individual people in the hope of incrementally changing individual people’s minds: this is what e.g. advertising tries to do.

Looking at the world and its origins, change is about individual jumps, in numbers or laws, where laws are difficult to change because they are structural relationships between categories as opposed to tendencies perceived by observers of a system. Living things literally have to jump their own numbers, otherwise no change can occur in a system.

      Lorraine Ford However, all those individual jumps are closely related, due to omnipresent and multilevel interaction, and this permanent interaction changes the whole picture. Individual jumpers are always looking at each other's motions and asking questions, both about their individual jumps and the resulting general motion. Too often, it takes the form of occasional and superficial "consensus" of opinions and jumps (or "self-organization"), but other results are also possible, including more collective and less predictable jumps of progress or degradation. Today, on the background of lasting stagnation, we'd need a collective jump of progress, in science and elsewhere, but for the moment, it looks more like a quickly progressing degradation…

      I agree that the clear definition of "positive" development tendency is absent in the conventional knowledge framework, while it becomes increasingly needed in the modern world of strong and large interactions, in particular as a basis for the missing progress. If we say that "positive" tendency is that of progress (understood as a general "better life"), it becomes somewhat less ambiguous, although still remains intuitive. A sustainable, lasting progress is a yet better explanation of "positive" tendency (when each "success" opens real possibilities for further successes). As to the truly rigorous definition of "positive" result or development tendency, or "progress", the causally complete description of unreduced interaction processes I defend leads to such definition in terms of optimal (the largest possible) growth of unreduced dynamic complexity (the latter also rigorously defined as interaction product diversity, if I try a verbal expression).

          Andrei Kirilyuk
          You seem to be saying that the world is such that: automatic processes in the whole system, or automatic processes in small, localised parts of the system that exist in the context of the whole system, cause smooth number change and/or number jumps. It doesn’t matter if is labelled “self-organization” or not, it is still automatic processes, that occur as the system automatically unfolds, that cause all numeric outcomes.

          In other words, you seem to be saying that the pilots who flew the planes into the twin towers in New York were just as much victims of an automatic system as were the thousands of people killed or injured when the twin towers collapsed. All people, and indeed the whole world with its natural environment and weather, are victims of an automatic system as it unfolds.

          Whether it is labelled “self-organization” or not, you seem to be saying that we live in a type of world where people are/were deceived by the superficial appearance of pilots flying planes into the twin towers: people mistakenly believe that the pilots themselves were responsible, when it was actually just automatic processes that occur as the system automatically unfolds. You are saying that everything is/was caused by automatic processes: the pilots themselves, the pilots’ actions, and the environment in which the pilots existed.

          Both you and most physicists are saying that we live in a sham, fake world. Why are you and most physicists unable to face the idea that we live in a type of world where the pilots themselves caused their own numbers (that apply to their own bodies) to jump. Why do you and most physicists have a philosophical aversion to the idea that we live in a type of world where people are genuinely responsible for their own outcomes, i.e. for jumping their own numbers?

            5 days later

            Andrei Kirilyuk
            Very relevant and powerful essay with important ideas and conclusions:
            <<...we concentrate here on the logical necessity of such knowledge extension today, without which the already visible degradation of science and society becomesirreversible and catastrophic (with the opposite tendency of unlimited progress within the extended knowledge paradigm).>>

            <<By contrast, it should not be surprising that causally complete knowledge provides the exact and consistent version of world objects and properties in a naturally unified way of both the physically unified world structure and the universal law of its dynamics and development (unifying the causally extended versions of known laws).>>

            A very strong conclusion for the entire system of world science and human civilization:

            <It becomes obvious that now, after the complexity threshold, all usual, largely achieved social purposes of “prosperity” and “wellbeing” lose their guiding role of previous epochs, together with the related traditional forms of “political” (tribal-ierarchical) social organization, and the only real candidate for the new, truly sustainable social order of superior efficiency is the reason-based governance and self-aware structure development that should rely on the essential application of the causally complete knowledge of unreduced interaction dynamics described above. >>

            But what kind of revolution is needed - the "Revolution of complexity" or the "Big Ontological Revolution" if we recall the philosophical testament of John Archibald Wheeler:
            “We are no longer satisfied with insights only into particles, fields of force, into geometry, or even into time and space. Today we demand of physics some understanding of existence itself."?

                Thank you, Vladimir. Referring to your question, what I mean by "revolution of complexity" (or "causality revolution") would be analogous to a "Big Ontological Revolution" in its results because the unreduced complexity/causality approach involves progressive derivation of all really existing structures and processes in their causally complete version, without any essential simplification or omission. This hierarchy of complexity levels includes, in particular, the open hierarchy of life and consciousness and eventually any related, maybe yet unknown and not directly measurable, "meta-material" structures.

                A most entertaining essay, but I have a few nits
                A. First of all in terms of Causal structure, its creation in terms of space - time is even now debated . As an example at the start of the big bang what introduced Causal structure in the first place. What is its genesis
                B. As to completeness, we have to go to this one
                quote
                What does Gödel's incompleteness theorem say?
                Can you solve it? Gödel's incompleteness theorem ...
                In 1931, the Austrian logician Kurt Gödel published his incompleteness theorem, a result widely considered one of the greatest intellectual achievements of modern times. The theorem states that in any reasonable mathematical system there will always be true statements that cannot be proved.
                end of quote
                In effect what it says that we as an example may NEVER be able to really prove the existence of conditions which are a precursor of causal ordering. If so we may have to accept that we will, no matter what we try to do about it, harness different models of space-time evolution to give INITIAL conditions for the formation of causal order
                If that is true, then the next problem is of complexity, and how complexity is utilized. As an example , elementary inflation is very harmonious and at least nearly a perfect fluid. We have to make assumptions about causual structure (Godel's theorem) and then if we understand a branching of causal structure intuit what lead to inhomogenious structures forming. The starting point will probably be doomed to a partial arbitrariness and this also frustrates model builders to no end whom use the Zeldovich relationships as to the introduction as to the CMBR structure.
                Meaning that we have to make judgement calls. All the carefulness of the world will not minimize that judgement calls have to be made and that it will be ALWAYS the devil in the detail work to reverse engineer back to initial conditions. We need to accept this and not try to go beyond some of the necessary incompleteness of some of what we choose for our own research findings.

                  Hi, I disagree with all the negative criticisms above and commend your well presented and argued view that a 'causally complete' understanding of nature and the universe is possible, if only we can overcome the societal issues that took us to this 'barrier to further progress'. I hope my own essay demonstrates that you're correct in most every way, relating the results of an alien science that avoided that barrier! If particularly shows that a 'causal' derivation of QM experimental data is possible (recent 'Nature' paper cited) once the original error is identified. Few have yet understood it due to embedded belief in NON causality! Do study and comment.
                  The only question I have is on an apparent dichotomy. You agree to Chaos and 'unknown complexity levels', which is what Godel's theorem is mainly about, yet include and dismiss Godel with the worse parts of isolated mathematical fantasy! I suspect your view of Godel differs, or do you see the dichotomy? A good score none the less.

                    Vladimir Rogozhin
                    I believe that this is the problem of ontological justification /substantiation of the entire system of knowledge and cognition, and above all, the solution of the "millennium problem" No. 1 (not only for mathematicians) - the ontological justification /substantiation of mathematics (ontological basification).
                    Philosophical precepts have given us great minds.
                    "Philosophy is written in a majestic book (I mean the Universe), which is constantly open to our gaze, but only those who first learn to comprehend its language and interpret the signs with which it is written can understand it. It is written in the language of mathematics, and signs her - triangles, circles and other geometric figures, without which a person could not understand a single word in it; without them, he would be doomed to wander in the dark through the labyrinth "(Galileo "Assay Master").

                    Why in the first place "triangle"? Let us also recall Plato's "celestial triangle" (equilateral).
                    Fields Prize winner Vladimir Voevodsky (1966-2017): "What we now call the crisis of Russian science is not only a crisis of Russian science. There is a crisis of world science. Real progress will consist in a very serious fight between science and religion, which will end in their association."
                    I think there will be a "serious fight" here: Meta Axiom "In the Beginning was the Logos…/ Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος" VS. Hypothesis "In the Beginning was a" Big Bang ..."
                    where LOGOS is a META-LAW that governs the Universe (in the spirit of Heraclitus)
                    [http://baaltii1.livejournal.com/198675.html]
                    How to draw the LAW in the language of mathematics?
                    This is an equilateral triangle (since ancient Egypt).
                    On the other hand, to interpret in the modern language of physics (taking into account all the problems in its metaphysical / ontological foundations) the dialectical-ontological triad "being - nothing/otherbing - becoming" and draw it. By the way, G. Hegel tried to do this...
                    What is your attitude to the covenant of the mathematician Vladimir Voevodsky, the developer of the univalent foundations of mathematics?

                    "Truth should be drawn..." (A. Zenkin "SCIENTIFIC COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN MATHEMATICS")
                    [http://www.ccas.ru/alexzen/papers/ng-02/contr_rev.htm]

                    Understanding is "events of grasping the structure" (G. Gutner "Ontology of Mathematical Discourse"). So we need to grasp the "structure" (super-structure, primordial generating structure).
                    And the central problem: What holds, develops and directs this generative "super-structure"?

                    Therefore, here it is also necessary to take a fresh look (understand) matter: matter is that from which all meanings, forms of structure are born.
                    Good tips from A. Einstein:
                    “I like to experience the universe as one harmonious whole. Every cell has life. Matter, too, has life; it is energy solidified" and his famous metaphysical maxim: "God does not play dice with the Universe." How can this maxim be understood, taking into account the fact that quantum theory and the theory of relativity are phenomenological (parametric, operationalistic, "effective") theories without ontological justification (ontological basification)?
                    Tradition gives us the answer: God created the Universe according to the Logos (Law) (In the Beginning was the Logos..."
                    By the way, according to the ancient Greek dictionary, the word "Logos" has 34 clusters of meanings, that is, more than a hundred meanings. The main one for the "sciences of nature", "sciences of the spirit" and theology "Logos" = Law.
                    Here are its invariants to consider and draw an ontological frame, frame, foundation of Knowledge. By the way, the concept of "meta-law" is used by Lee Smolin in "Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe".

                      Dear PinkJunglefowl,
                      Certainly, your essay deserves the highest marks. I subscribe to almost every word you say.
                      In my essay, I drew attention to the fact that the generally accepted concept does not see new phenomena in experiments, due to its abstract representations.
                      If you do not pay attention to the obviously biased imposition of distorted experimental results (for example, in the experiments of Michelson and the Pioneers), then, in my opinion, words will remain words, while facts may remain recognized facts and the basis of new theories of reality. Hope to see your comments.
                      I wish you success!

                        Andrew Beckwith Thanks for your attention, MagnoliaCentipede. To answer your Question A, as I mention in the essay (page 4, 2nd paragraph), our "postulation" of the initial, simplest possible (practically structureless) world system configuration is not a problem as it includes physically and logically inevitable interaction components, while all the observed world structures and dynamical laws are progressively and rigorously derived due to the unreduced interaction analysis (hence its crucial advantages). As to the causal, physical origin of that starting configuration itself, we can only make some reasonable guesses that can hardly be clearly confirmed, since the real world we obtain and can measure doesn't depend on those processes before it was born (we would obviously obtain here an infinite and practically senseless sequence of queries about what was before each past stage).

                        Question B, about "Gödel’s incompleteness" and other uncertainties: See page 3, 1st paragraph and page 4, 2nd paragraph in the essay. Gödel’s theorem is correct, but physically it is even "too correct", i.e. trivial, because in real-system translation it means that you must know the initial system components to make any definite judgement about further system development, or in other words, that every structure has irreducible links to other structures. This is true, but in reality nothing prevents us from knowing the initial system or interaction process components, especially with the modern technology power. It is not always a trivial, but always feasible task. By contrast, the key point is to correctly obtain interaction products, without any simplification of the process. It is at this point that the essential extension of conventional science results is obtained within the causally complete interaction analysis. Another source of uncertainty that you may have in mind is the dynamically random, unpredictable behavior of real systems, but here again, it's not a problem if we can consistently derive all possible interaction outcomes and their respective probabilities, which is precisely the general result of the same unreduced interaction analysis. We cannot (and I think should not) avoid the probabilistic character of existence, but we must and can know the exact details in all those uncertainties (all real-interaction results and their probabilities). There should be no ad hoc guesses of usual science, in the form of its horribly simplified and abstract "models", but only totally consistent, causally complete analysis of each next interaction level, starting from the provably simplest (and thus inevitable) "primordial" interaction configuration.

                            Peter Jackson Thank you for your positive attitude, ThistleLion. There seems to be a real problem with those Gödel’s theorems. 🙂 Too many people are inclined to think that they encode some mysterious and omnipresent "gap" in the knowledge we can acquire or maybe even obscure influences from unknown realities. As I explain in the above answer to another comment, the physical meaning of those purely abstract theorems is quite trivial: every real system or interaction level has irreducible links to other structures (typically by its components), and if we don't know those real interaction contributions, we can hardly obtain the correct interaction results. However, we practically can know all the necessary links and interaction components, using the power of modern technologies etc., up to the natural limits of our empirical capacities (like the "observable universe"), which do not create the essential knowledge incompleteness but only mark its permanently moving and quite causal border. In other words, all the "quantum mysteries" and other "dark matters" are not due to some fundamental science limits (as if encoded in Gödel’s theorems), but result only from artificial restrictions of the standard science framework (involving huge interaction simplification and ad hoc abstract models).

                              Andrei Kirilyuk
                              What is your view of “the provably simplest (and thus inevitable) "primordial" interaction configuration”? Does it involve a relationship (represented by an equation)? If so, where did the operators and the operands come from (or more correctly, the things that are represented by the operators and the operands)?

                                  Vladimir Fedorov Thank you, CeruleanJackal. Yes, irrespective of details, it seems we see the real possibility of modern science problems solution in the same direction of a much more "honest", i.e. truly consistent, analysis of real interaction processes involved in the world structure formation and evolution.

                                    Lorraine Ford You can find a reference to this simplest interaction configuration in the lowest paragraph of page 5 of the essay. It is both physically and logically inevitable and then does produce all the observed world structures and dynamical laws, if we use the unreduced interaction analysis. This interaction is certainly described by a quite general formalism (well-known in its usual, empirically guessed and restricted interpretation), which involves no limits or special assumptions and represents a truly universal law self-consistently derived within the same interaction analysis. All the participating quantities or "operators" acquire now their essentially extended and universal meaning, applicable to any kind of system at any complexity level. This self-confirming universality and totally consistent problem solutions it provides form the intrinsically complete science framework that can be further tested and constructively used for any system of interest.

                                        Andrei Kirilyuk
                                        Your essay does not explain where categories/ operands (like energy, mass, momentum, position) come from. These categories only exist as relationships (represented via the use of operators) between other such categories. Relationships (categories, operators, equals signs) are fundamental. Numbers, that apply to these categories, are also fundamental.

                                        These are specific aspects of the world. Can I pin you down to specifics? Specifically, are you saying that relationships and numbers are not fundamental?

                                            incompleteness of a result, in terms of say proving all of its particular moving parts goes with the territory as what Kurt Goedel was trying to present. I.e. in the case of boundary value problems of physics, there are certain situations in which one has multiple solutions to a set of equations
                                            quote
                                            I’ll assume for now that by “answer on a math problem” you mean the solution to an equation or a set of equations. In this case, there are certainly instances where there are multiple solutions to a set of equations. For example, if I asked you to find the solutions of x2−4=0
                                            , you would say x
                                            could be either 2
                                            or −2
                                            , and both of these would be correct if I put no more restrictions on the problem. However, even with this problem there is a single, well-defined solution set. In this case, the solution set of x2−4=0
                                            is given by {2,−2}.

                                            For a similar example from calculus, consider finding the anti-derivatives of f(x)=x.
                                            The solution set is any function of the form x2+C
                                            where C
                                            can be an arbitrary constant. Although this shows that infinitely many solutions to the problem exist, there is still a single solution set.

                                            There are also many examples of problems which have no solutions. For example, find all real numbers, x,
                                            such that x+5=3
                                            and x+5=4
                                            . The first equation shows us that x=−2
                                            , and the second that x=−1
                                            . Since these are not equal to one another, this set of equations has no solution. However, it still has a single, well-defined solution set. In this case, the solution set is the empty set, which is typically denoted {}
                                            or ∅
                                            .

                                            For a problem to be considered “well-posed” there should be a single solution set, but this set could contain many solutions, a single solution, or no solution at all. Many algebra or calculus textbook examples are constructed so that there is exactly one, or only a few answers. However, with more interesting problems it’s often a challenge just to prove that a single solution exists, even if you can’t explicitly write that solution down.

                                            In fact, many of the biggest unsolved problems in mathematics come down to questions about the existence of solutions to certain equations. For example, the Riemann hypothesis can be phrased as a question about whether or not any zeros of a (complicated) function exist which are away from a certain line in the plane. The Navier-Stokes problem can be phrased as a question about the existence (or non-existence) of badly behaved solutions to a set of partial differential equations. P vs NP can similarly be written as an existence question. In all cases, a single solution set should (hopefully) exist, but whether it is empty, filled by one element, or filled by many elements is a very difficult question. It just so happens that solving any of these problems can win someone a one million dollar prize.
                                            end of quote
                                            In a word there are many times in which evolution equations have MULTIPLE solutions but due to physics rules, assumed, we only take a few of them . I .e. I saw a liquid Helium Laboratory where only a few of the known Navier Stokes equations were implimented
                                            We simply do not have the time in a lot of cases to generate ALL known solutions, and if several equally plausible solutions exist, we will focus on ONE particular solution, and that is the best we can do

                                              Lorraine Ford Yes, sure, since I insist that all interaction details are important, this means that all relations and quantities matter. Everything is expressed in suitable mathematical form with extended interpretation and unrestricted universality. However, as I mention in the essay, this particular paper is not about those mathematical details but rather about the related general approach, which is essentially different from that of conventional science. This appears to be important too, as previous experience shows. When I use seemingly convincing mathematical arguments, they often remain without any reaction. The probable reason for that is the absence of a (desirably "accepted") abstract "model" from the start in my approach, while I'm trying to derive all the relations from scratch and in close contact with their reality-based meaning. Figuratively speaking, a "state-function" is a real-system configuration for me, rather than an abstract element of a mathematical "space" of state-functions. That is why there is a sense to discuss this difference in general science approaches (methods): it leads to qualitatively different results and thus a different kind of science, which is the theme of this competition.

                                                  Andrew Beckwith You say: "We simply do not have the time in a lot of cases to generate ALL known solutions, and if several equally plausible solutions exist, we will focus on ONE particular solution, and that is the best we can do." Apparently, you're approaching the truth by denying it.🙂 Why not, it's a known and quite efficient way, seriously. The point is that we can generate all the solutions, and we must take them all into account, which gives new science and the new, totally realistic picture of the world. I can't go into details here, but even intuitively, our real world is rather like that, isn't it? Many permanently, randomly changing solutions, everything's evolving, getting older, and the time irreversibly flowing. Those obvious features which conventional science can never properly explain, with its "necessary" (artificially imposed) uniqueness of solution.

                                                    Andrei Kirilyuk
                                                    In your above replies, you wrote about “the provably simplest (and thus inevitable) "primordial" interaction configuration”. However, to derive a “state-function”, either you or a computer need to perform not only conventional mathematical operations (involving lawful relationships with their associated categories, and numbers), but more importantly, you or the computer need to perform algorithmic steps. Are you saying that the “primordial” world is performing these algorithmic steps? After all, state-functions don’t just appear from nowhere: there are procedures that need to be followed to derive them. A “state-function” is hardly a primitive, “primordial” thing.

                                                        Lorraine Ford "Primordial" refers just to the initial, practically structureless (but already interacting and potentially rich) state of our world and its state-function describing that real-world configuration at that starting moment. Then the system interaction leads to progressive emergence of our world structures, transforming it from that "primitive" initial configuration to ever more complex structure always described by its respectively more complicated state-function (including ourselves analyzing that state-function configuration🙂). Yes, all those ultimately complex structures of modern world emerge progressively from the deceptively simple initial interaction configuration, if only we do not neglect any "algorithmic steps" in this interaction development. The high structure-creation potential of the starting system configuration (not only this one) is also due to its many-body content, with its own internal interaction between elements (not resolved here, just constituent elements of an originally smooth material). It's basically about high structure-creation power of almost any real, unreduced interaction, ruthlessly "killed" by the technically "convenient" reduction of conventional theory. (However, it was semi-empirically emphasized in "self-organization", or "synergetics", but again within the fatal limitation of the standard description, just the empirical intuition about how external "simplicity" can contain and give rise to eventual complexity.) So, I just follow that unreduced "algorithm" of real-system development described by its respectively evolving state-function. I use analytical methods, but some computer application could help with further details. (In general, however, any real system dynamics is "noncomputable", as opposed to usual computer operation: one more source of usual science problems.)