What are the deep questions? And what makes a question truly foundational?

Ian Durham summarises some of the metascience questions addressed at FQxI's last retreat in York, in his latest blog post, and ponders how FQxI may be most effective in catalyzing foundational research around the world.

6 days later

There seems to be so much written about quantum physics. I don't think its the be all and end all of everything. Reduction doesn't necessarily produce clearer understanding. of existence. We have'fabricated a quantum physics''realiy 'using a particular mathemsatical procedure ,with particular assumptions. For a start maths is abstract, the real world is not.

17 days later

So are you suggesting a shift in emphasis to funding other topics for FQxI?

I think it is not so much a matter of doing more metascience to increase the quality of scientific research, to ensure research conclusions are more trustworthy. It is more a matter of looking at the context of science. As Ian Durham said: “in order to really get at the heart of many of the deepest questions in physics and cosmology, a more holistic view of science [is] needed.”

Human experience/ consciousness and agency/ free will is the context in which science is done; they are the things that make science possible.

This issue is discussed in a very interesting recent article by science writer Amanda Gefter, where she interviewed the authors of a new book The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience:

Science has been missing something. Something central to its very existence, and yet somehow just out of view. It is written out of papers, shooed away, shoved into laboratory closets. And yet, it’s always there, behind the scenes, making science possible.

“Lived experience is both the point of departure and the point of return for science,” astrophysicist Adam Frank, physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson write in their new book, The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience. We use the fruits of our experience—our perceptions and observations—to create models of the world, but then turn around and treat our experience as somehow less real than the models. Forgetting where our science comes from, we find ourselves wondering how anything like experience can exist at all. … (1)

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  1. “What Science Forgets. Human experience must be factored into science. The authors of a new manifesto argue why”. By Amanda Gefter, 23 May 2024, https://nautil.us/what-science-forgets-604648/ .

    Lorraine Ford
    So, what represents the physics of the world is not a collection of symbols (words, equations, and numbers).

    What more correctly represents the physics of the world is human consciousness, plus human free will, plus the collection of symbols (words, equations, and numbers) that human beings are conscious of, and that human beings freely manipulate.

    What would more correctly represent the physics of the world would be symbols that represent consciousness, plus symbols that represent free will, plus the existing collection of symbols (words, equations, and numbers).

    So, in order to represent consciousness and free will, the questions are: what essential role does consciousness play in the world; and what essential role does free will play in the world? The logical connective symbols used in computer programs already provide the type of symbols that represent the essential roles of consciousness and free will in a system.

    These are the metascience issues that need to be properly “fleshed out”.

      Lorraine Ford
      Re:

      “So, in order to represent consciousness and free will, the questions are: what essential role does consciousness play in the world; and what essential role does free will play in the world? The logical connective symbols used in computer programs already provide the type of symbols that represent the essential roles of consciousness and free will in a system.”:

      This is not about devolving responsibility to pie-in-the-sky, deterministic, Wolframesque algorithms running the world, or devolving responsibility to a turtle stack of pie-in-the-sky, deterministic, Wolframesque algorithms written by algorithms, written by algorithms, … written by algorithms running the world.

      (Who or what external entity was ultimately responsible for writing these Wolframesque algorithms? Who or what external entity was ultimately responsible for this Wolframesque masterplan for the world? In fact, by definition, there is nothing external to the world/ universe.)

      This is about using symbols to represent necessary, INTERNAL, “buck stops here”, on-the-spot aspects of the world. These necessary, INTERNAL, “buck stops here”, on-the-spot aspects are primitive and advanced consciousness and primitive and advanced free will.

        Lorraine Ford
        Even the bible bashers seem to believe that the current wars in the world were foretold by the ancient texts in their bible. But then there are the physicists, philosophers and mathematicians who believe that current events, all events, are inevitable, given the deterministic laws of nature. And now we’ve got a more advanced form of deterministic lunacy: the nerds who believe that a type of computer program is running the world, and determining every event that happens, in the same way that a computer program is deterministic.

        Clearly, the equations and numbers of physics can’t represent a standalone viable system on their own; these equations and numbers can’t “fly” (1) on their own; to more correctly represent a standalone viable system, one needs to add the type of logical connective symbols used in computer programs.

        Basically, computer programs represent symbolic ways of analysing and responding to symbolic representations of current situations, where “current” situations are situations that are symbolically found to be “TRUE”.

        The whole computer program concept was devised by people, and the concept was implemented by people. So, it is no accident that computer programs are analogous to people, and other living things, who respond freely, in a more or less considered way, to current situations that they consciously feel to be true.

        But computer programs, once written and uploaded to computers, are deterministic, and respond deterministically to every data input. The human computer programmers, i.e. the masterplanners who wrote the computer programs, are the only free aspect of a computer program.

        So, is the world, that we see and experience, the result of an externally devised, deterministic computer program; OR are we inside the system and, in effect, freely writing our own computer program on the spot, as we go?

        Can physicists, philosophers and mathematicians move on from their primitive beliefs in the magical power of equations and numbers, and start to look at SYSTEMS in a more rational way?

        ……………..

        1. Apparently, the late physicist John Archibald Wheeler once said to his students: “You see, these equations can’t fly. But our universe flies. We’re still missing the single, simple ingredient that makes it all fly.” https://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/John+Wheeler

          Lorraine Ford
          Another metascience issue, an issue that ironically seems far, far, too difficult for physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, and nerds to comprehend, is the issue of the human invention and use of physical symbols: human beings using one thing to represent, or stand in for, another completely different thing.

          E.g. a pencil line on a piece of paper standing in for the human conception of the number one; or an array of voltages in a computer standing in for the human conception of the number one; or a similar array of voltages in a computer standing in for a human word; or, in turn, a written or spoken human word standing in for a human thought.

          It is a simple enough idea, but I guess that it is a bridge too far to expect physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, and nerds to be aware that there is a difference between a thing and the symbolic representation of a thing.

          Discussion of this issue inevitably invites a vast amount of absurd, convoluted and enervating philosophising.

            Lorraine Ford
            Who knew that physical symbols themselves don’t carry any meaning whatsoever?

            Who knew that symbols CAN represent meaning, CAN stand in for meaning, but ONLY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF some human beings, the very same human beings who have been laboriously taught in schools, or self-taught, a meaning to associate with the symbol?

            A physical symbol itself, e.g. a letter of the alphabet, or a word, or a numeral, physically represented on paper or screen, or represented by the voltages, transistors and circuits in a computer, or represented by physical sound waves, carries no meaning whatsoever.

            Well, apparently physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, and nerds never knew.

            This is another example of human beings who are totally oblivious, in this case oblivious to their all day, every day, use of written and spoken physical symbols. Who ever knew that these physical symbols are a man-made invention, an all day, everyday tool?

            What hope is there for physics when physicists are just rote learners who can’t do the most basic analysis of situations, and in this case, can’t do the most basic analysis of the man-made physical symbols that they are using all day, every day?

              6 days later

              Lorraine Ford
              Re the importance of understanding that symbols are man-made tools:

              A lot of what the AI doomers say (e.g. on Shtetl-Optimised) is totally irrelevant because of the fact that computer programs/ AIs are man-made things that have been deliberately made to shuffle man-made symbols, where the actual meaning that human beings have given to these symbols (e.g. written and spoken words, numbers, sentences etc.) can only ever be known/ experienced by human consciousness.

              Despite their education, intelligence and achievements, many people have fallen into the trap of believing that man-made symbols literally carry their own meaning.

              Let’s hope that these belief-affected physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, nerds and others can wake up out of their stupor, before this embarrassing lapse in human intelligence spreads any further.

              And it is not a matter of an AI intelligence somehow miraculously emerging from the man-made symbols, because it’s the reverse that is true: the symbols were created by/ emerged from HUMAN intelligence. And of course, the actual meaning that human beings have given to these symbols can only ever be known/ experienced by human consciousness.

              But the trouble with beliefs is that they are impervious to reason: the AI Armageddon brigade reminds me of the fundamentalist Bible-believers with their Bible-sourced belief in an Armageddon, which is currently conceived as a final war between human governments (and their supporters) and their God.

              The joke is that their Bible is a just another man-made book, filled with man-made symbols, which have no meaning except the meaning given to the symbols by human beings.

              This meaning doesn’t float in the ether, or objectively exist in the world: the meaning of the symbols only exists subjectively, from the point of view of individual human beings.

                Lorraine Ford
                So, while voltages in computers, sound waves in the air, and squiggles on sheets of paper actually exist, the fact is that these voltages, sound waves and squiggles are being used by human beings to represent something entirely different from what they actually are.

                What they actually are is voltages, sound waves and squiggles.

                But human beings have invented systems whereby voltages, sound waves and squiggles are made to symbolically represent other things: words, letters, numbers etc.

                The meaning that human beings have assigned to these symbols doesn’t float in the ether or objectively exist in the world: the meaning of the symbols only exists subjectively, from the point of view of individual human beings.

                While physical particles and molecules, for example, DO carry an inherent meaning, as is seen by their interactions with their surrounding environment, man-made physical SYMBOLS do not interact with their surrounding environment.

                When O when will physicists, philosophers, mathematicians, nerds and others WAKE UP and notice that man-made physical symbols (e.g. arrays of voltages in computers) do NOT carry the meaning that human beings have assigned to them??

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