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Sylvain Poirier: on 5/11/15 at 14:40pm UTC, wrote "why not let the memory process in our mind be a normal information storage...

Luca Valeri: on 4/22/15 at 14:05pm UTC, wrote Dear Sylvain, Thanks for commenting in my forum. Indeed I think our views...

Gordon Watson: on 4/20/15 at 21:57pm UTC, wrote Dear Sylvain, Many thanks for your detailed analyses and exchanges as well...

Sylvain Poirier: on 4/19/15 at 20:07pm UTC, wrote Thanks for explanations. But I dismiss as irrelevant the claim that it...

Gordon Watson: on 4/19/15 at 11:57am UTC, wrote Thanks indeed for your helpful and comprehensive reply. I'll continue my...

Sylvain Poirier: on 4/19/15 at 8:47am UTC, wrote Thank you for your thoughtful message and interesting questions. ...

Gordon Watson: on 4/19/15 at 5:30am UTC, wrote Dear Sylvain, Drawn to your essay by your clear (and often very accurate)...

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FQXi FORUM

October 15, 2019

CATEGORY: Trick or Truth Essay Contest (2015) [back]
TOPIC: A Mind/Mathematics Dualistic Foundation of Physical Reality by Sylvain Poirier [refresh]

Author Sylvain Poirier wrote on Jan. 16, 2015 @ 21:34 GMT

Essay Abstract

In a refined version of Wigner's interpretation of quantum physics, the Universe is explained as a part of the mathematical world (a specific history inside Everett's many-worlds) that is distinguished by the event of being consciously perceived. Physics focuses on the mathematical side of this combination, that is a Platonic mathematical realm slightly less than infinite. Consciousness provides the substance of time and randomness (beyond their mathematical forms as 4th dimension and probability laws).

Author Bio

Sylvain Poirier (Le Havre, France) is fond of mathematics, theoretical physics and philosophy since teenage. Not finding sense in current official science curricula and teaching systems, he left institutions after a math PhD (UJF, Grenoble) and one year teaching as assistant professor of mathematics, to focus on the development of his Web sites, first in French, then in English : settheory.net offering a new design of the undergraduate foundations of mathematics and physics.

Download Essay PDF File

Harlan Swyers wrote on Jan. 17, 2015 @ 15:41 GMT

Sylvain,

I enjoyed reading your paper because it touches on some of the same concepts I have been thinking about. I am particularly interested in your thoughts on algorithms and whether they can or can not explain human behavior. From your paper it suggests you do not believe this is possible, but are we necessarily tied to the motive of the human that leads to the action of a human or the simply the action? The actions are at least observable and measurable, and from that point of view, if we take the sequence of actions in a humans life time, while certainly some patterns exist, is it sufficiently complex to declare it random and interpretable as an algorithm?

Curious as to your thoughts,

Best

Harlan

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Author Sylvain Poirier wrote on Jan. 17, 2015 @ 21:20 GMT

Hello. I tried to be clear that I speak about the actions, and that they cannot be correctly simulated if the needed stuff (feelings) is not really there behind.

As I also tried to explain, it makes no sense to declare something random in the absolute, but only relatively to a specific framework or "explanation" in which we analyze a file, and only by comparing it to a range of other candidate "explanations" (such as the range of all possible algorithms that can be written and operated with given computing resources). The usual kind of framework is that of some specific algorithm (a computationally defined probability law or equivalently a compression algorithm). The file is random for an algorithm if the compressed version of the file with this algorithm is still big (as such an amount of entropy was expected with this law), and cannot be better compressed with other algorithms we can find (unless we cheat by using a more complex algorithm, which must be corrected by adding the size of the program to that of the data, a detail that also depends on the programming language, but this correction becomes insignificant as the file of observation expands), so that this optimally compressed file is "purely" (directly) random.

In my view, human behavior cannot be well "explained" (compressed) by any algorithm. As long as we only try algorithms, we only get inefficient compressions (big size of compressed files). There needs not be any favorite algorithm either : more and more complex algorithms might be found to be relatively more and more efficient, but the point is that they all remain inefficient compared to the true non-mathematical understanding of "psychological laws". We only observe "pure randomness" in the sense that it conforms to the probability law of quantum physics (without any better explanation even by psychological laws), when we analyze not human behavior but "purely physical" phenomena, where psychological preferences happen to be absent.

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Edwin Eugene Klingman wrote on Jan. 18, 2015 @ 03:23 GMT

Dear Sylvain Poirier,

You and I have significant differences in our global understanding of reality, but I admire any serious, informed effort to formulate a theory of everything. And, of course, as we share conscious existence in a complex world, we overlap in many particulars.

I'm glad you feel free to include consciousness as a (the!) major point of your scheme. I do also, but often suppress mention of it in specific areas, as it can prove too distracting. While you ask how a 'thought' can exist without the fundamental addition of an immaterial soul inside the brain, I view consciousness as the fundamental essence of the primodial physical field, so local organisms represent high density/complexity but not "addition of a new thing" to a local structure, more a matter of degree.

Whereas I see the physical field behavior as governed by laws, the aspects of awareness and volition (free will) are not described mathematically, in agreement with your statement that a purely mathematical world with deterministic laws... would fail to include free will.

I also like your statement that "what a "probability law" rigorously does is to exclude zero-probability cases from the range of probabilities, all other cases remain possible by definition." Very nice.

And I agree with you about Penrose's and others' ideas of "quantum consciousness". I don't agree about waves and particles as dualistic opposites. I see particles as inducing waves, therefore: particle and wave, not particle or wave.

I admire that you even consider the problem of evil. I don't believe anyone has done so (explicitly) in any previous contest. Finally, you deal with a point I touched on in my 2014 essay, which is "not to understand our economic and political systems as they are, but to redesign them." Bravo! I will look at your ideas ("How to change the world..."). I especially agree that the ability to handle money (or its equivalent?) online is key. As any serious attempt to displace corrupt governments and powerful educational establishments would be opposed with both feet, my belief is that a workable system would first have to evolve as a 'game' until it became powerful enough to work as a real system. Even then it would have to run in parallel with the in-place systems for an indeterminate time. It is a terribly tough problem, but for the first time in history, the technological means are present, or almost so. By the way, Bob Shour's essay is probably relevant to this problem.

In short, I very much enjoyed your (first?) FQXi essay. I hope you do well and decide to enter more contests. I invite you to read and comment on my current essay and I think some of my previous essays may be of interest to you.

My best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Jan. 18, 2015 @ 20:33 GMT

"I view consciousness as the fundamental essence of the primodial physical field, so local organisms represent high density/complexity but not "addition of a new thing" to a local structure, more a matter of degree."

This is the definition of Panpsychism, it seems. I looked at this concept but I cannot agree with it, as it cannot account for the presence of totally unconscious materials, which does exist as it is what physics precisely describes. As you agree that volition is not mathematically described, you have to admit the presence of the fundamentally different "purely physical systems" on which the mathematics of quantum physics is an amazing success. What do you mean by "consciousness as the fundamental essence of the primodial physical field" ? I do not see any kind of field of consciousness spread in space and underlying the physical fields. Instead, I would see physical space and its contents like objects of divine imagination or conceptualization.

You wrote "I don't agree about waves and particles as dualistic opposites." There is nothing here to agree or disagree about, and there is no sense in trying to specify things such as your phrase "I see particles as inducing waves". Such a debate occurred about the nature of light before the discovery of quantum physics. Now it is over, understood as an empty debate that does not belong to physics. You can check for example that is has no place in wikipedia's list of unsolved problems in physics. Remember Plato's cave allegory. Concepts of "waves" and "particles" are mere shadows, or projections, of the deeper reality of quantum fields on the wall of scientific popularization. The ghost of that former debate is only resurrected somehow by the followers of Bohmian mechanics, which I see as a bad idea.

I don't see any sense trying to make a game version of the new network first, as I consider that any implementation is necessarily directly a real implementation (hum... I'd say unfortunately, as it can be a problem to test the money system avoiding risks of failures due to initial bugs in the code).

I don't see any sense to fear opposition from any existing powers, as I consider them to be mere shadows of power with no ability to stop the new system once done. You may fear them as you look at them and how powerful they seem; I have my conviction as I look at the concept of the project and how its qualities will make it unstoppable once done. The only risk I fear is the risk of never finding any programmer accepting to make that software, not because of any fear, but only as they may be too lazy to care understanding the concept before they see any visible success.

I looked at your previous essays but did not find them interesting, since, sorry but I see you plainly ignorant about modern physics. And I see no chance for meaningful contributions to serious debates on the foundations of physics from such people.

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Edwin Eugene Klingman replied on Jan. 19, 2015 @ 23:10 GMT

"There is nothing more righteous than a 17-year-old."

You may chronologically be a few years past 17, but not socially. And yet you want to redesign social networks. You say in your essay, "I describe the sketch of such a new social network, but could not find anyone else to care understanding it..." I suspect you will find that someone who has not yet learned the art of polite conversation will have a hard time convincing others that they can or should redesign society. But you're young, and have lots of time to figure out how much you don't know.

Good luck in life, with your attitude you'll need it.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Jan. 20, 2015 @ 07:55 GMT

Quite funny, and, I'd say, usual.

My language is neither that of polite nor impolite conversation, but the language of reason and honesty.

I do as I can to not be impolite, but when people define "politeness" to mean pretending that their view is wise when it clearly isn't, then even though I wish I could do otherwise I cannot escape this dilemma : either being honest, or being mistaken as "impolite".

No matter if you like to believe it or not, the fact I hardly learned in my life is that essentially all the troubles I went through resulted from trying to trust people, assuming they were wise and trying to work with them or following their advice, while they were in fact dumb or mad. I am just too naive and confident towards people in order to manage. Many things would have gone better for me if I just understood from the start how mad they were, however the problem for me is that such an assumption is extremely unnatural, so that despite all experience I continue falling in more troubles by trying to give people undeserved trust over and over again.

I am aware of the huge troubles resulting from the domination of this world by hypocrites who have so big ego problems (the ego problem of assuming that the biggest evil in the world consists of any hypothesis that someone might think better than themselves, which they misinterpret as the sin of inflated ego of others, since it puts a shadow on their own), which I have to cope with if I want to try bringing some contributions on this planet. However the crude fact is here: the effective progress of science requires to use the language and care for truth and reason, not that of hypocrisy.

If you reply that sciences do not need impoliteness either, well of course, scientists usually do not seem impolite as long as their discussions remain between scientists all able of reason, where nobody has the crazy idea of misinterpreting truth as an insult. But this happens precisely because discussions take place in a community of selected rational people where hypocritical idiots (cranks) were left out. The only way to find useful partners for genuine work, does not consist in attracting crowds of hypocrites who unfortunately aren't able to contribute any good work anyway, no matter if I wish it or not, but it would consist in finding a nonzero number of people who are actually serious thinkers, and who therefore are not in need of any sweet lies and hypocritical language to understand and find the motivation to do the work. Such people may be unfortunately hard to find indeed but even if I wished to, there would be no way to make things work otherwise.

More comments on this topic here, there and there.

And if you think that by being "more polite" it would be possible to better succeed attracting useful partners to do works that can change the world, well, what are you waiting for ? Just go and do it, I'll be very pleased to see the world changing for the better without having to bother working on it myself. You are even free to choose between stealing my plans if they may be good, or developing your own otherwise.

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Author Sylvain Poirier wrote on Jan. 23, 2015 @ 10:14 GMT

In reply to Eckard Blumschein's "objection to the neglect of the distinction between past and future" as he asked in another thread.

I agree there is indeed such a distinction to make between the past which is fixed and the future which is not determined yet, as I did in my essay.

The problem was to specify the source of this distinction that gives the concept of time its special substance, and what role it plays. As I explained, I see 2 kinds of time which are independent but similar to each other. One is in the foundations of mathematics, and the other is in consciousness which is the source of existence of the physical universe. Only the latter is related to the time of physics but it only parallels it, not being directly involved in its fundamental laws.

In your writings, you presented this as a topic of divergence between (for example) Einstein who ignores this subtlety of time, and Shannon who takes it into account. In my viewpoint there is no real opposition here, only the fact that not the same concept of time is relevant to different aspects of reality. Both Shannon and Einstein are right in their respective fields of study.

Einstein focuses on fundamental physics. In fundamental physics, time only appears as a geometric dimension among others indeed, with no need of any distinction between past, present and future. Why would it be a problem ? The amazing success of theoretical physics shows that there is no problem with its block model of time. But this "only" concerns theoretical physics, which does not account for all aspects of reality.

The time of thermodynamics and information theory, considered by Shannon, belongs to another aspect of reality, outside the strict scope of theoretical physics. It is a time of finite mathematics, which is rebuilt at a higher structural level of the universe (away from its foundation) from a combination of finite mathematical data (physical states) and conscious time. See the diagram on page 7 of my essay to see what I mean.

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Eckard Blumschein replied on Jan. 26, 2015 @ 09:52 GMT

"different aspects of reality"? Doesn't reason compel us to trust in the uniqueness of the reality of just one universe? I cannot blame somebody who is at the beginning of his life in science if he at least pretends trusting in G. Cantor, Einstein, and possibly God. Incidentally, I already distrusted Stalin. To me being a reality is a reasonably conjectured property that we may attribute to the entity of something particular, even to a feeling, a thought, a chance, and a risk. While an existing plan of a building must not be confused with the building itself, both may belong to reality but not to different aspects of it.

We are already agreeing on that past and future are reasonable notions. I repeatedly added that the present is not a state in between, and I hope you will agree on this too although the idol spoke of “past, present and future”.

I don’t belittle the distinction between past and future as just a subtlety. I agree on “2 kinds of time which are independent but similar to each other”. I disagree if you are attributing one of them to “the foundations of mathematics” and the other one to “consciousness which is the source of existence of the physical universe”. I don’t see any justification for the latter speculation. What about the foundation of mathematics, I dealt with many facets of the belonging history of paradoxes and got aware of brutally ignored deficits. Even if most mathematicians hesitate admitting these deficits; the putative foundations of mathematics are only partially self-consistent. Comprehensive self-consistence is obviously still missing in mathematics and consequently in speculative physics, too.

You are using the notion “fundamental physics” instead of theoretical or mathematical physics. Some prudent experts compared mathematics with a solid building that apparently levitates. They meant set theory did not contribute to the work of those including Cauchy, Galilei, Gauss, Kant, Leibniz, and Newton who were listed by Cantor himself as enemies of his actual infinite and nonetheless distinguishable from each other numbers. We may add the contributions by Archimedes, Euclid, Euler, and virtually all other important ones who definitely did also not use set theory.

Aren’t measurement and compelling reasoning the true foundation of physics? My distinction is quite clear; only past time can be measured.

You seem to belong to those who still consider scholastics as foundational. Otto de Guericke's attitude led to steam engine and electricity.

Eckard

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basudeba mishra wrote on Feb. 5, 2015 @ 15:51 GMT

Dear Sir,

We thoroughly enjoyed your excellent essay. Here are certain elaborations of your concepts.

The halting problem (what can/cannot be computed) arises due to a wrong question: “How long are you willing to wait”? We are familiar with irrational numbers, which are mostly non-computable. Yet, we know that they hover around a limited range. We choose as precise a value we want and proceed with it. Thus, the right question should have been: “How precise we want to be”?

The other problem is equating language to a set of strings over an alphabet. In our essay in this forum, we have defined language as the “transposition of information to another system’s CPU or mind by signals or sounds using energy (self communication is perception). The transposition may relate to a fixed object/information. It can be used in different domains and different contexts or require modifications in prescribed manner depending upon the context”. In our 2013 essay, we had said: “In perception, these tasks are done by the brain. Data are the response of our sense organs to individual external stimuli. Text is the excitation of the neural network in specific regions of the brain. Spreadsheets are the memories of earlier perception. Pictures are the inertia of motion generated in memory (thought) after a fresh impulse, linking related past experiences. Voice is the disturbance created due to the disharmony between the present thought (impulse) and the stored image (this or that, yes or no). Video is the net thought that emerges out of such interaction. Software is the memory. Hardware includes the neural network. Bytes and bits are the changing interactions of the sense organs (including sound that produces words - strings) with their respective fields generated by the objects evolving in time.” The problem arises when we treat the language as a set of strings. The elements of a set have fixed value. But the words in a sentence can have various meanings depending upon the context.

The unpredictability of behaviors arises from our method of measurement, where we can measure only limited aspects over limited time, even though everything perpetually evolves in time due to interconnectedness and interdependence of everything with every other thing. Because of these limitations, a physical universe has to be described by a probabilistic law. You are correct also regarding past and future. Please note that future is strictly ordered in a sequence based on present. But past can be related to present in various random ways. This signifies the arrow of time. Your reference to the bigger set is interesting. We have also used the same concept along with Russell’s paradox in our essay in this forum.

You have correctly described that mathematics is only the quantitative description of Nature, whereas physics describes its qualitative aspects. You are also absolutely correct that “Consciousness can explore mathematics, but mathematics cannot describe consciousness”.

However, there are many problems with relativity and there is no standard interpretation of quantum physics. Many of its interpretations are contrary to observation elsewhere. Thus, there is a need for introspection and review of the present theories based on the presently available information. Unfortunately, most papers are building on “established theories” even though the latest observations prove it to be not true.

The points you raise at page 7 are interesting and important. We can explain it all. But this is not the forum for that. Just to give one hint: pain may be in the legs or hands, but it is experience in our brains just like a tiger may be confronted in the jungle, but fear in our mind induces reactions in our body. Thus, the cognizer is different from the physical cause. The content of cognition as “I know …” remains invariant in all cognitions. That it is universal is proved from the fact that language conveys the same information to the other. By this we are not talking about religion or God, though we are hinting at a universal meeting point which you may call Scientific God.

Regards,

basudeba

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Feb. 11, 2015 @ 23:40 GMT

You wrote : The halting problem (what can/cannot be computed) arises due to a wrong question: “How long are you willing to wait”?

This is not a wrong question. At first sight it may look not very serious, like the liar paradox or the Berry paradox, but further examination of the foundations of mathematics shows that it is crucial and cannot be eliminated. Namely, once added up Goedel's completeness and incompleness theorems, we discover that the provability of some formulas happens to be undecidable, as the question of their provability, that is the "existence of a finite proof", begs the question "what is finiteness ?" which cannot be defined in the absolute as there are mathematical "universes" where a given formula (that we can write !) is "provable" but the length of its shortest "proof" is a nonstandard number, that the system mistakes as finite according to its definitions but which is actually infinite. In this universe, the proof "exists" but "the time we need to wait" to find it is infinite. If we wait long and do not find it, it may be because the time we need to wait has non-standard length, i.e. is infinite, so that we are right to stop searching and conclude we have no proof (as we are sure to do it before non-standard times) instead of taking the abstract "existence of a much longer proof" as meaningful, whose truth value in a non-standard universe does not conform to the real truth about provability.

Then, your remark about irrational numbers and precision is a particular of computation that does not answer the halting problem in its generality, in case we were interested with the halting problem in its generality.

The precise properties of quantum physics refuted since long ago the naive classical expectations that unpredicability only came from the limited precision of measurements. Such explanations cannot account for the precise form of quantum randomness which turned out to be irreducible in such terms.

"mathematics is only the quantitative description of Nature, whereas physics describes its qualitative aspects" This is not what I meant. I mentioned the hypothetical concept of a universe with only qualities and no quantities, but this is not the one where we live.

"there are many problems with relativity" : it depends. There are many people who imagine much more problem with relativity than there really are because they failed to understand it.

"there is no standard interpretation of quantum physics. " If you paid attention to my text you would have seen that I offer a precise interepretation of quantum physics, which seems to me by far the most coherent, and in agreement with observations.

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Akinbo Ojo wrote on Feb. 11, 2015 @ 19:17 GMT

Dear Sylvain,

I have not read your essay but I saw your comment elsewhere and I suspect it would have a geometric flavor. It is therefore a must read for me in the next one or two days. Then intellectual missiles may follow :)

Regards,

Akinbo

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Feb. 12, 2015 @ 08:39 GMT

I have ideas in geometry indeed and how to use it to understand theoretical physics, but this was not the topic of my essay, as I had more important and on-topic things to put there instead. You can find in my site some of my ideas on geometry and its axiomatization, and how to understand Special Relativity and quantum physics in geometric terms. There are also algebraic aspects of geometry, such as more deeply using duality in linear algebra, seen as a particular case of a much more general concept of duality in algebra involving the concept of polymorphism, and giving a clean introduction to the formalism of tensors. Long ago I also wrote other things on geometry in French (on affine, projective and conformal geometries, and geometries with a constant curvature). Unfortunately, I am still far from completing and cleaning up all things I wish to write on the topic, as I had many other things to write on, such as in the foundations of maths and in philosophy.

Akinbo Ojo wrote on Feb. 12, 2015 @ 09:59 GMT

Dear Sylvain,

I was thinking the focus of your essay would be geometry based on your comments elsewhere. A thought provoking piece destined to do well in the competition.

Just one question based on the essay's focus: Is very, very, very high probability the same as certainty? If not, i.e. if 99.9999% is not 100% then should this not be of some relevance in mathematics and physics?

Is it very, very, very probable that 2 + 3 = 5 or is it a certainty?

When adding 2 and 3 apples together, can any of the apples perish as you go about doing your summation to see what you get?

When adding 2 quantum particles to 3 of same, is it more or less likely the results you will get will be same as for apples? Give this a thought.

All the best in the competition.

Regards,

Akinbo

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Feb. 12, 2015 @ 18:04 GMT

"Is very, very, very high probability the same as certainty?" : it all depends on context and how accurately we need to discuss. For example in a star, colliding atoms have every time a very low probability of undergoing some nuclear reaction, however there are so many collisions and each reaction releases so much energy that it suffices to provide the power of stars. Similarly, the chance of winning at Lotto is very low, but so many people are playing that the chances of existence of a winner becomes significant. Also, as free will operates by deviations from physical probabilities, it can make happen some possibilities that had very low "probability" as defined by quantum physics.

"Is it very, very, very probable that 2 + 3 = 5 or is it a certainty? When adding 2 and 3 apples together, can any of the apples perish as you go about doing your summation to see what you get?"

Of course, the formula 2 + 3 = 5 is a certainty but what is uncertain is whether its correspondence with apples is a valid one, in case an apple might perish.

"When adding 2 quantum particles to 3 of same, is it more or less likely the results you will get will be same as for apples?" Again, it all depends on the specific kind of particles you work with; and on the time passing between when you introduce the particles and when you count how many are still there. We cannot seriously go anywhere with such childish pseudo-examples. It is of course very easy to "prove that science isn't valid" by introducing some ridiculously naive way of pretending to do some experiment and apply a mathematical model, and victoriously failing to do so properly. The validity of mathematical theories to describe physics has been verified with an amazing degree of accuracy, but of course this requires to have done the very hard and professional work of finding out which theories are applicable and in which conditions. And generally I don't buy any "argument against reason" such as "it is possible to victoriously fail to reason (or experiment something) correctly, thus all reasonings (or experiments) must be incorrect as well". More comments on this topic here.

"Give this a thought." Do you think I waited for your invitation to do so ?

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Member Tommaso Bolognesi wrote on Feb. 12, 2015 @ 15:52 GMT

Dear Sylvain,

your essay contains a number of stimulating ideas, although after a first reading they are still poorly ordered in my mind, leaving me still doubtful about your main intended message. In particular, I find the closing part as more related to the topic of the 2014 Essay Contest (on the future of humanity). I hope I’ll have the time to read it again anyway, to better grasp the flow of your reasoning.

I like very much the idea to start by asking how a non-mathematical world would look like. In this respect, I have a remark on your attributing a low mathematical content to an algorithmic world . My view is that an algorithmic world may well have islands of (deterministic) randomness, mixed with islands of complex but mathematically accessible phenomena (e.g. particle interactions), mixed with very regular structures, easily described in math. So, imaginative tips may help shortcut a non trivial portion of the computation, I believe.

Another point I found very interesting is the responsibility you assign to consciousness to give substance to a part of the mathematical world - I point I also tackle in my essay, although under a totally different, humorous narrative key. Consciousness illuminates a portion of the mathematical world, making it ‘real’. Then, I wonder what is your take on the three interconnected spheres (platonic ideas, material world, consciousness-thought) in the opening chapter of Penrose’s Road to Reality - did you see that? Maybe you could have yourself provided a drawing of that sort, that would have helped summarising your view?

(Penrose presents actually two variants of that figure - I can’t point to the page number unfortunately, since I do not have a copy of the book at hand.)

Best regards

Tommaso

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Feb. 13, 2015 @ 07:47 GMT

Hello. By "lowly mathematical" I meant "of a low mathematical kind" though it remains 100% mathematical. Moreover, not all algorithmic worlds are equal. Some, like Conway's Game of Life, have a low density of interesting possible behaviors lost in an ocean of chaotic ones, as I once verified by systematically testing hundreds of initial configurations, so that imaginative tips are most often impossible.

Indeed I concentrated here lots of ideas, so it may be hard to follow. It may look clearer reading the longer exposition of my interpretation of quantum physics from which the main ideas here are extracted, and maybe other texts on other aspects (introduction to quantum physics, problems with other interpretations, foundations of maths)

The last part touches last year's contest that I missed as I was busy trying to get people implement my project (but I actually failed to do so). But I stayed here at such a level of generality that I still see it on-topic: rather cosmological and related with the rest of ideas of the essay, without entering the details of how things can work. But for last year I am not sure what I could have explained in 9 pages. Maybe just a few key ideas and cases of functions, longer explained in my site. As a substitute, I undertook in the last few weeks to write a much longer comment on many ideas found in other essays of that contest.

About the relation between the "spheres" of the mathematical, the physical and the conscious, I think I was clear already in the title, and more details are expressed for example by the diagram on page 7.

Sujatha Jagannathan wrote on Feb. 16, 2015 @ 09:24 GMT

"Time and tide waits for none"

is exceptionally perceived and written by you in this work.

Yet the probabilities and questions still remains unanswered.

Sincerely,

Miss. Sujatha Jagannathan

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Ted Erikson wrote on Feb. 26, 2015 @ 22:10 GMT

My title, "Duality, the War for Existence:" identifies the "mysterious connection" as panpsychism. My expertise in swimming, geometry, and thermodynamics are merged to construct a model to guide "all wars". It focuses the chaos of my 2012 submission, "To Seek Unknown Shores".

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Ted Erikson wrote on Feb. 26, 2015 @ 22:15 GMT

Sorry, meant to compliment you on considering "panpsychism". Therein is the mysterious connection between "all things" , hidden centrally and only viewed distally.

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Feb. 27, 2015 @ 21:27 GMT

Sorry, while my view may be considered not far from panpsychism, it is different.

I may admit the idea of panpsychism as an a priori possibility, maybe true in other universes, but I do not see it compatible with the facts of our universe, namely the data of quantum physics which admits the presence of material systems that keep quantum superpositions as they are not observed, and are thus totally unconscious. As I explained, I consider the deep nature of such systems as not "material" but mathematical ; still they "are something", in the sense that they occupy space as we usually conceive it, they have mass, undergo physical reactions, etc.

Branko L Zivlak wrote on Mar. 3, 2015 @ 14:20 GMT

Dear Sylvain Poirier,

I suggest three main candidates for the mathematical concept , which seem naturally suited to describe features of the physical world:

bit (it was the subject of the competition FQXi 2013);

exp(x) (You know the unique features of this function);

Euler's identity.

There are other useful functions, but of less importance.

Suitable use of pervious can to describe features of the physical World.

What are your main candidates? If you agree with me, part of the solution can be found in my essay.

Best Regards,

Branko Zivlak

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Mar. 3, 2015 @ 16:57 GMT

The mathematical systems best suited to describe the physical world are well-known. There is no wonder what they are. Much of the competition is already past and now over. Possible candidates were already reviewed, and the ones that best fit were selected and very well verified. They are of course the established theories of physics : as far as we can tell now, they are the theories of General Relativity (with the Least Action Principle), Quantum Field Theory with the Standard Model, and the concept of density operator. Or, to take the main effective theories respectively resulting from them that more directly appear in practice : Newtonian gravitation, electromagnetism and thermodynamics. For more details on these lists, see in my essay, and in my site.

Christine Cordula Dantas wrote on Mar. 18, 2015 @ 13:13 GMT

Dear Sylvain Poirier,

I have replied to your questions on my essay over at my post page. I will read your essay opportunely. Thanks.

Regards,

Christine Cordula Dantas

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Vladimir Rogozhin wrote on Mar. 20, 2015 @ 10:47 GMT

Dear Sylvain,

Very deep analytical essay in the spirit of Cartesian doubt and interesting thoughts about "consciousness" and "law". I think that in order to overcome the "crisis of understanding" in basic science must be a deeper ontology and dialectic in the spirit of Nicholas of Cusa - "coincidence of opposites" and dialectics of "eidos" and "logos". Fundamental knowledge, mathematics and physics, requires a deep ontological justification (basification). In fundamental physics is necessary to introduce an ontological standard justification (basification) along with the empirical standard.

I invite you to see and appreciate my analysis of the philosophical foundations of mathematics and physics, the method of ontological constructing a new basis of knowledge and new unifying paradigm - the basic generating structure, "La Structure mère" as the ontological framework, carcass and foundation of knowledge, the core of which - the ontological (structural, cosmic) memory... I began to read your site.

Kind regards,

Vladimir

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Janko Kokosar wrote on Mar. 22, 2015 @ 13:40 GMT

Dear Sylvain

You have interesting approach toward physics. You do not look all with some physical laws, but every correlation, every information is like a physical law. Thus, all lack of information about uncertainty principle or about chaos, or about entropy are very similar, according to you.

You have a huge web page about quantum consciousness, I will read it more precisely, when it will be enough time.

We agree about panpsychism and about quantum consciousness. Although many scientists think that this is crackpot, Tononi and Koch also agree with this.

We disagree about entangelment at quantum consciousness. As I understand, by you, time arrows are causes of wave function collapse and not entagelment? I need to read you more, but by me, entangelment time means time of decision. What is your motivation for this claim, maybe because entagelment times are very short?

I like your statement, that checking by measurement is necessary, where mathematics is not enough.

My statement that »QG will also tell more about quantum randomness, what can be connected with free will« is not very confirmed intuitively, others are more.

You have very interestiong argumentation of FQXi points with a blog and I hope that this will happen more often by other contestants. A year before I also gave some proposals for more fair estimations.

My new statement in this essay is that consciousness and free will are connected, consciousness does not exist without free will. In prolonged version and in 2013 essay I described also thought Turing experiment on this topic.

We both also find Peter Woit's as an interestiong essay.

I gave comment about U(1) symmetry. Peter Woit.

What is your opinion about U(1) symmetry?

My essay.

Best regards Janko Kokosar

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Mar. 31, 2015 @ 21:18 GMT

The word "entanglement" may be ambiguous. The formalism of quantum physics makes no fundamental distinction between entanglement and classical correlations. Usually, classical correlations are entanglements that macroscopically behave as mere classical correlations due to decoherence (that destroy the practical ability to measure observables not commuting with a specific one). And decoherence is an emergent phenonenon.

In my opinion, wave function collapse is caused by conscious observation (a non-physical condition) which requires decoherence (an emergent condition from physics). And time arrow is a property of consciousness, which causes the time arrow of thermodynamics.

Yes, not only entanglement times (i.e. before decoherence) are very short, but I see the idea of letting decoherence a precondition for observation (or free choice) a more logical way to articulate physics with metaphysics, for the reasons I explained in my site.

See my reply about U(1) symmetry in comment to Peter Woit's essay.

Best regards

Sylvain

Joe Fisher wrote on Mar. 31, 2015 @ 15:14 GMT

Dear Professor Poirier,

I thought that your engrossing essay was exceptionally well written and I do hope that it fares well in the competition.

I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein was wrong about abstract space/time, and Hawking was wrong about the explosive capability of NOTHING.

All I ask is that you give my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL a fair reading and that you allow me to answer any objections you may leave in my comment box about it.

Joe Fisher

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Author Sylvain Poirier wrote on Apr. 2, 2015 @ 15:16 GMT

Dear Joe Fisher,

Sorry for you but I have several reasons to consider the review of other essays a higher priority than yours, and one of them is your ridiculous claim to think that all essays in this competition are exceptionally well written, and that you do hope that they all fare well in the competition.

Joe Fisher wrote on Apr. 3, 2015 @ 16:20 GMT

Dear Sylvain,

Due to the fact that I think I had a relapse of my Asperger's Disorder, a comment I posted on some of the esteemed essayists sites was woefully contemptuous. The recipients rightfully complained about the inappropriate nature of the comment and the Moderator removed some of them. Unfortunately, the Moderator classified the useful part of the comment as Obnoxious Spam. I have proven that Newton was wrong about abstract gravity, Einstein was wrong about abstract space/time, and Hawking was wrong about then explosive capability of NOTHING.

You hate that proof. That is your option.

Admirably

Joe Fisher

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Apr. 3, 2015 @ 19:36 GMT

You cannot have proven anything, since you don't even have a clue about logic.

I don't hate any proof, I just don't have time to waste with pure nonsense.

I cannot take seriously a "proof" that 2+2=5 and I do not consider it worth looking at the details because I have good reasons to know it must be false and worthless, no matter what the details may be. Where is the hate ? Just a reasonable time management. It is clear that you cannot be having a clue at the things you claim to refute. You are trying to make up claims of problems where there is no problem except the problem of your own failures to grasp things that were successfully discovered. That's only your personal problem and science is not concerned. Now that's enough.

Asperger? Haha. To be called so, people ought to be intelligent, which you are not, or maybe a little more than average (yeah I often forget where the average is) but nowhere close to what is need to discuss physics. You already proved quite enough that all your thoughts are nonsense, by the absurdity of you first comments to me. You insulted me and treated me like idiot right from the start, and now you would like me to dedicate work to examine your... nonsense ? And argue with you until when ? Until your majesty is satisfied and convinced that my replies are good enough and that you are convinced ? Are you crazy or what ? Now please go play elsewhere and don't disturb those who have serious stuff to discuss, thanks.

Member Marc Séguin wrote on Apr. 5, 2015 @ 23:01 GMT

Dear Sylvain,

Following the conversation we already had on my essay's page, I am now going to comment your essay in detail.

The way I understand it, your system is based on the twin entries at the bottom of your table on page 7: Mathematics and "The Matrix", which encompasses all relevant aspects of "reality" that are not mathematical. That's why you begin your essay by arguing for...

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Apr. 7, 2015 @ 09:18 GMT

Thanks. I just added your essay in the top list of my general review of essays in this contest. Despite our efforts, it seems the ratings (both community and public) remain nonsense as I explained. About "too big to be stored in a computer - do we really know what is the theoretical limit that a computer can achieve ?", I think I already explained. Reminds me of "the unit of distance (meters, m) is specified strictly for decorative purposes" in William T. Parsons essay. But the main point here was, more than an exact measure of this complexity, the fact that the source of this complexity is non-mathematical (unlike anything that this universe can produce, which logically results from its relatively simple physical laws).

The "slightly less than infinite" is explained in p.5 as concerns the physical observation that it goes so (it is a character of quantum physics). Or are you asking for a philosophical motivation why it should be so ?

Laurence Hitterdale wrote on Apr. 10, 2015 @ 19:33 GMT

Dear Sylvain,

One significant feature of your essay is the fact that the two poles of your dualism are mind and mathematics. This is unusual, because, as you are well aware, the two poles for an ontological dualism are generally stated to be physical and mental existence. Without trying to enter into the mind-body problem, I can say that your positioning of mathematics as fundamental is well worth considering.

I find it also important that you bring issues of good and evil into the picture. In your discussion of the problem of evil, you state clearly and concisely a relevant fact when you say, “It is very strange indeed that psychological laws (free will) only physically operate at the level of individual minds.” We are so used to the individuation of consciousness that we do not notice that it is at least logically possible that consciousness in the cosmos might have been organized differently. Moreover, as you say, the world would be a different and better place with either superordinate co-ordination or effective application to smaller-scale details. Nonetheless, as you also indicate, people have to start with the world as it is, not with the world as people might have wished it to be. Probably the main thing for readers to retain from your essay is this emphasis on values, and the call to action to make the world a better place.

Best wishes,

Laurence Hitterdale

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Janko Kokosar wrote on Apr. 11, 2015 @ 09:04 GMT

Dear Sylvain

Thank you for extensive explanation of gauge U(1) symmetry in Woit's theme. It will help.

But I am thinking about photons, for instance in the Feynman's book ''QED, the strange theory of light and matter''. Photon's wave function behaves like circular U(1) structure, but at the same time it seems that its circular structure is a consequence of Maxwell's equations. I see this as a quick explanation, why photons are gauge particles. Is this correct and how you say this better?

Best Regards

Janko Kokosar

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Alexey/Lev Burov wrote on Apr. 11, 2015 @ 21:19 GMT

Dear Sylvain,

Your essay is one of the very best in this contest: you are touching those levels of the problem, which are not even seen by so many participants. You surely deserve one of the highest ratings and I wish the jury to notice your essay and let it be among the finalists.

Good luck!

Alexey.

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William T. Parsons wrote on Apr. 14, 2015 @ 16:40 GMT

Hi Sylvain--

I enjoyed your essay very much. Wow! You covered an immense amount of ground. Your essay must hold the record for substantive subject areas. In this regard, your Abstract is superb. It clearly and succinctly outlines your position. I especially enjoyed your analysis of the Problem of Evil. In my opinion, your views are spot on.

As to the rating system for this contest, I have no comment ... other than to say that I hope my rating of your essay has pushed it in the right direction!

Best regards,

Bill.

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Gordon Watson wrote on Apr. 19, 2015 @ 05:30 GMT

Dear Sylvain,

Drawn to your essay by your clear (and often very accurate) comments in other places here, your essay then drew me to the "new social network" ideas in your other writings. Especially re trust!

It's in this context that I'd like to address an issue that has applicability to your essay and your trust-forum ideas. An issue that is already troublesome at FQXi; as you have...

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Apr. 19, 2015 @ 08:47 GMT

Thank you for your thoughtful message and interesting questions.

"differing as to means" : which ones do you think of ?

"How is it that, in public and semi-public fora, non-science receives so many top rankings ?"

I gave a sketch of explanation in my review of this contest, section "What is obscurantism and why is it so popular in the world". The requirement of...

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Gordon Watson replied on Apr. 19, 2015 @ 11:57 GMT

Thanks indeed for your helpful and comprehensive reply. I'll continue my studies via your links; noting for now only that "morality" gave a 404 error message.

So there follows here my response to your return question, "differing as to means" : which ones do you think of ?

1. As an engineer, and as a carefully-defined common-sense local-realist (see my essay), I see myself as a...

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on Apr. 19, 2015 @ 20:07 GMT

Thanks for explanations. But I dismiss as irrelevant the claim that it would be "opinion against opinion". Imagine you meet a child, or a member of a primitive community, who strongly believes that the Earth is flat and steady at the center of the Universe, and that the Sun revolves around it in one day. What can you tell him ? If you try to just report what is scientifically known, he would dismiss your views as "just your opinion". We can say about it exactly what you tell here : the opinion that the Earth is round, rotates on itself in one day, and around the Sun in one year, is "based on broadly accepted science, which is commendable" ; however it is just a strong opinion. Indeed, from reporting the known scientific facts to "making a strong case" for them, there is a long way. It would be a lot of work for you to build a complete solid proof. Can we say, then, that, as long as you did not make the work of presenting a complete proof, the evidence for the scientific view is lacking, and the belief in it is "just a strong opinion" ?

My point is, complete proofs just need to be found once. As soon as scientists discovered solid proofs once, there is no sense eternally pretending all over again at every generation that it remains speculative, that "a strong case remains to be made" as if it was not sufficiently made already.

Just imagine that whenever 3 people meet with "different opinions", 2 of them have unscientific views as they are just ignorant about science, and the one defending the scientific view is not ready to provide in the next 5 minutes the full logical content of the 2-years scientific course that would be needed to explain all the details of the amount of scientific evidence for the Round Earth Revolving Around the Sun theory so as to convince the other people in the meeting, we would have to consider the case for the Round Earth as doubtful all over again, a mere "strong opinion", and a strong rational case for it remains to be made. Would that make any sense ? I don't think so. It may be true that it is a hard problem, and that those who believe in the Steady Flat Earth have lots of thoughts and are struggling with conceptual subtleties. So what ? Of course there are conceptual subtleties to struggle with in these issues! This is no news ! There is no point to deny this. Still, at the end of the day, it does not change the fact that the Flat Earth believers, no matter the subtleties of their thoughts, just have absolutely no chance of being right, this is clear and there is no point to waste time all over again to "discover" this.

Now it's up to you to take it as your life mission to go struggle with the details of difficulties that some people face as they did not understand science and they think they have arguments to reject scientific conclusions, in case you would see this as the best thing you can do of your life. As for me I consider that I have some much more urgent and useful things to do for the world with my intelligence than care that much for the psychological problems (lengthy educational paths) of this precise kind of people, since anyway I do not expect them to become as useful to mankind with their re-educated intelligence if I care to teach them those lessons, than I can be useful to mankind with my intelligence directly by myself in other ways.

(Actually, all my above reply is almost redundant with my text on irrationality, especially with the remark "the situation is rather symmetrical", so please care following my links to not make me repeat things too much)

"many famous physicists (and former opponents; eg, David Mermin) are now rejecting nonlocality": well, just like religious people see a mounting evidence against Darwinism, climate-skeptics see mounting scientific evidence against man-made global warming, and Muslims see a growing amount of scientific evidence for the divinity of the Koran. Whatever your opinion you are free to believe in the existence of a growing amount of scientific evidence and number of scientists supporting it. The only problem with such beliefs is that they are not themselves scientific.

"For my work focuses on the elimination of nonlocality from physics. And surely, for you, that would be no bad thing?" You are welcome to focus your work on eliminating the roundness of the Earth from science, I have no problem with it :-p but personally for me the simple fact is that, as I explained in my essay and my more detailed page, I do not see non-locality as a paradox at all, so that I do not see it as a "problem in need of a solution", that would make a newly discovered locally realistic theory of physics anyhow "needed" or "more plausible in principle".

(404 error corrected, I was not careful writing the url, thanks for the note)

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Luca Valeri wrote on Apr. 22, 2015 @ 14:05 GMT

Dear Sylvain,

Thanks for commenting in my forum. Indeed I think our views are very similar. What I do not understand in your essay is the need to introduce two different time structures. If the time structure manifests itself in the irreversibility of thermodynamics, then why not let the memory process in our mind be a normal information storage process? Why introduce non mathematical memory?

Then also in quantum mechanics, why not let a irreversible process let do the reduction of the density matrix? (The collaps, when then one event has been registered is another story).

That's all so far. Hope to have more time soon to read your interesting web site.

Best regards

Luca

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Author Sylvain Poirier replied on May. 11, 2015 @ 14:40 GMT

"why not let the memory process in our mind be a normal information storage process ?" Robots can work like this, but our memory is essentially different, in the following way : you can always erase, replace or modify the memory of robots in any way you wish, they will have no way to measure the faithfulness of their memory with respect to what really happened.

On the contrary, what would you think of the claim that some sophisticated robots have just made you up 2 minutes ago together with all your memory of what you are taking as your past life but which never really happened ? Can you refute it ? If your memory was nothing else than a "normal information storage process" then you would not even have a reason to believe that any event that you remember ever really happened, since, what the heck would this claim be supposed to mean anyway ? Only the present would exist ; what the heck would the idea of the past be supposed to be about ? You would only have an arbitrarily modifiable memory to play with.

"why not let a irreversible process do the reduction of the density matrix?" : the practical reduction to a diagonal form is done by the well-known physical process of decoherence, which I include in my view ; then I see the selection of one possible measurement result as done by consciousness (as there is no natural candidate equation for it). Not sure what was your question on this issue.