FQXi Community

If you are aware of an interesting new academic paper (that has been published in a peer-reviewed journal or has appeared on the arXiv), a conference talk (at an official professional scientific meeting), an external blog post (by a professional scientist) or a news item (in the mainstream news media), which you think might make an interesting topic for an FQXi blog post, then please contact us at forums@fqxi.org with a link to the original source and a sentence about why you think that the work is worthy of discussion. Please note that we receive many such suggestions and while we endeavour to respond to them, we may not be able to reply to all suggestions.

Please also note that we do not accept unsolicited posts and we cannot review, or open new threads for, unsolicited articles or papers. Requests to review or post such materials will not be answered. If you have your own novel physics theory or model, which you would like to post for further discussion among then FQXi community, then please add them directly to the "Alternative Models of Reality" thread, or to the "Alternative Models of Cosmology" thread. Thank you.

Contests Home

Current Essay Contest

Guidelines

FAQ

Read, discuss, and vote on essays

Latest FQXi news

Contest Partner: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Fund.

Previous Contests

Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability Essay Contest
December 24, 2019 - April 24, 2020
Contest Partners: Fetzer Franklin Fund, and The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss

What Is “Fundamental”
October 28, 2017 to January 22, 2018
Sponsored by the Fetzer Franklin Fund and The Peter & Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss • winners

Wandering Towards a Goal
How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?
December 2, 2016 to March 3, 2017
Contest Partner: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Fund.
read/discuss • winners

Trick or Truth: The Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics
Contest Partners: Nanotronics Imaging, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, and The John Templeton Foundation
Media Partner: Scientific American
read/discuss • winners

How Should Humanity Steer the Future?
January 9, 2014 - August 31, 2014
Contest Partners: Jaan Tallinn, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners

It From Bit or Bit From It
March 25 - June 28, 2013
Contest Partners: The Gruber Foundation, J. Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners

Questioning the Foundations
Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?
May 24 - August 31, 2012
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, SubMeta, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners

Is Reality Digital or Analog?
November 2010 - February 2011
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners

What's Ultimately Possible in Physics?
May - October 2009
Contest Partners: Astrid and Bruce McWilliams
read/discuss • winners

The Nature of Time
August - December 2008
read/discuss • winners

Forum Home
Introduction
Terms of Use

Posts by the author are highlighted in orange; posts by FQXi Members are highlighted in blue.

By using the FQXi Forum, you acknowledge reading and agree to abide by the Terms of Use

RSS feed | RSS help

RECENT POSTS IN THIS TOPIC

Peter Jackson: on 4/6/17 at 13:26pm UTC, wrote Malcolm, Interesting essay, nicely written, and I agree swarm responses...

George Gantz: on 4/5/17 at 12:56pm UTC, wrote Malcom - I found your essay to be a nice surprise! I agree that the...

Satyavarapu Gupta: on 3/19/17 at 7:26am UTC, wrote Dear Malcolm Macleod, Thank you for nice analysis. Best wishes to your...

Willy K: on 3/14/17 at 6:07am UTC, wrote Hi Malcolm It is great to see swarm intelligence mentioned so prominently...

Dizhechko Semyonovich: on 3/12/17 at 11:59am UTC, wrote Dear Mr. Macleod! I invite you to familiarize yourself with New Cartesian...

Steve Dufourny: on 3/9/17 at 13:24pm UTC, wrote Hello Mr Macleod, In having studied on this Platform the generalities of...

Steve Dufourny: on 2/24/17 at 7:56am UTC, wrote Youn are welcome Mr Macleod, It is relevant if your inTegrate and derivate...

Malcolm Macleod: on 2/22/17 at 7:01am UTC, wrote Dear Steve, Thanks for the comment. >PS They turn so they are these...

RECENT FORUM POSTS

Lorraine Ford: "Information about carrots, peppers, tweeting birds and roaring lions does..." in Measuring Free Will: Ian...

Lorraine Ford: "Carl, Instead of focusing on examples like carrots and peppers, we need to..." in Measuring Free Will: Ian...

Lorraine Ford: "To many, consciousness doesn’t make sense: why isn’t the world a zombie..." in Consciousness in the...

Lorraine Ford: "The thing about consciousness, as opposed to laws of nature, is that..." in Consciousness in the...

Janko Kokosar: "I propose a simple addition for more honest voting. These steps can help..." in Undecidability,...

Satyavarapu Gupta: "What should be the Foundational basis of an Alternative cosmological theory..." in Alternative Models of...

Catalina Curceanu: "I would like to inform you that next week, starting 30th March, we shall..." in INSPYRE 2020 -- Please...

Jochen Szangolies: "Hi there, I'm not sure it's such a good idea to make current votes visible..." in Undecidability,...

RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles

Think Quantum to Build Better AI
Investigating how quantum memory storage could aid machine learning and how quantum interactions with the environment may have played a role in evolution.

Outside the Box
A proposed quantum set-up that could predict your game-playing strategy resurrects Newcomb’s classic quiz show paradox.

The Quantum Agent
Investigating how the quantum measurement process might be related to the emergence of intelligence, agency and free will.

First Things First: The Physics of Causality
Why do we remember the past and not the future? Untangling the connections between cause and effect, choice, and entropy.

Can Time Be Saved From Physics?
Philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists discuss how our sense of time’s flow might arise through our interactions with external stimuli—despite suggestions from Einstein's relativity that our perception of the passage of time is an illusion.

read & discuss all articles

FQXi FORUM

April 7, 2020

CATEGORY: Wandering Towards a Goal Essay Contest (2016-2017) [back]
TOPIC: On the Art of Programming an Intelligent Universe by Malcolm Macleod [refresh]

Author Malcolm Macleod wrote on Feb. 3, 2017 @ 21:12 GMT

Essay Abstract

The topic “How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?” combines 2 thesis that would appear to be mutually exclusive; that a random physical universe operating according to impersonal mathematical laws somehow meshes seamlessly with a non-random intention found in the organic world. We may reconcile these 2 positions if we accept that what is observed as intention is an illusion, a monkey, given a typewriter and enough millennium could type the complete works of Shakespeare (or an essay for this contest) but that the appearance of intelligence is statistical, the monkey at no time can be said to have actually considered a plot for Hamlet as it randomly hits the keyboard. Somewhat arrogantly however I claim an intelligent intention to write this essay, this essay then becomes evidence of that intent and I thus can reconcile the above-noted contradiction best with the argument that the separation between the organic and the physical is artificial, that the laws of physics are a subset of the laws of nature. The analogy would be of the physical laws as the operating system upon which the organic world functions as distinct programs or apps but with the laws of nature as the underlying programming language from which both are constructed. In this essay I present the thesis that the universe could have been programmed according to a set of rules that were preselected such that a swarm intelligence would emerge. I then give an example of a virtual (mathematical) universe that uses expansion applied to geometry to simulate a dimensioned (physical) universe. Using formulas for circular forms, Pythagoras theorem and wave addition, I show how we might simulate electrons, dimensions, relativity and the forces within a mathematical framework.

Author Bio

radio engineer turned philosopher

Download Essay PDF File

Joe Fisher wrote on Feb. 4, 2017 @ 15:59 GMT

Dear Radio Engineer Macleod,

Please excuse me for I do not wish to be too critical of your fine essay.

Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

One real visible Universe must have only one reality. Simple natural reality has nothing to do with any abstract complex musings about imaginary invisible “simulation.”

The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and comment on its merit.

Joe Fisher, Realist

report post as inappropriate

Author Malcolm Macleod replied on Feb. 6, 2017 @ 04:46 GMT

Thanks Joe,

I will study your essay.

Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta wrote on Feb. 5, 2017 @ 22:43 GMT

Hi Malcolm Macleod,

Thank you for presenting a Nice essay, You started with the monkey example. You are correct nothing is random. Here you assumed all electrons are Blackholes in addition to Bigbang. Expansion you considered, wave particle duality you used, good.

Some more confusions left…..

1. Black holes are singularities, electrons have finite mass , finite volume in their particle state. Nothing is infinite to say it is a Blackhole.

2. You did not consider the blue shifted Galaxies and Quasars which are coming near, you considered only red-shifted Galaxies ( which are only about 40 percent of all the Galaxies in the Universe), for explaining expansion and hence Bigbang (singularity)….

3. How will you relate this essay to FQXi contest is also not very clear…..

report post as inappropriate

Author Malcolm Macleod replied on Feb. 6, 2017 @ 04:45 GMT

Hi Satyavarapu,

>How will you relate this essay to FQXi contest

Swarm intelligence is an example of mathematical rules used by organic systems to solve problems. I use the ant colony example. I extrapolate this with the thesis that our neurons are also an example of swarm intelligence (a neuron colony). This is why AI also often refers to the ant example. Our self-awareness would then derive from these overlapping mathematical rules (via our neurons).

If these mathematical rules did not appear by chance then they were embedded into the universe itself. In other words the universe could have been programmed according to these rules such that atoms and galaxies and self-awareness would eventually appear.

I then demonstrate how, using simple rules, dimensions, forces etc (aka a 'physical' universe) could be simulated within a virtual environment (a computer program) such that they would appear real. Complexity arising, as with organic systems, over time (iterations).

In summary I try to demonstrate that it is possible for a Mathematical Universe not only simulate a physical universe but also from this self-awareness could evolve. In other words, there could be a solution to the Mathematical Universe.

>. You did not consider the blue shifted Galaxies and Quasars

I had to shrink my essay significantly to fit the guidelines. If you are interested, there is a lot more information on this site planckmomentum.com.

>Black holes are singularities

I am attempting to reproduce our physical universe within a virtual (dimensionless) environment. The analogy being a computer game (and we are inside the game).

Cheers,

Malcolm

Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Mar. 19, 2017 @ 07:26 GMT

Dear Malcolm Macleod,

Thank you for nice analysis. Best wishes to your essay.

By the way...

………………………… I Want you to explore one more model for the Universe, where ……………reproduction of Galaxies in the Universe is described. Dynamic Universe Model is another mathematical model for Universe. Its mathematics show that the movement of masses will...

view entire post

report post as inappropriate

Andrew R. Scott wrote on Feb. 8, 2017 @ 00:05 GMT

I quite enjoyed going part-way through this, then I got lost - probably my fault (I get lost a lot). I tried again after a few days. Got lost again. Turned back, still uncertain about whether or not I had any true freedom to make that choice.

report post as inappropriate

Author Malcolm Macleod wrote on Feb. 8, 2017 @ 04:04 GMT

Cogito ego perii, ergo sum (I think I am lost, therefore I am), -Rene Descartes, French philosopher (1596 – 1650)

Branko L Zivlak wrote on Feb. 11, 2017 @ 20:06 GMT

Dear Mr. Macleod

I agree “Our external physical reality is a mathematical structure.”

So I also do not believe in mere coincidence.

You say “There are 6 principal dimensioned physical constants; (G, h, e, c, me, kB)”

If you carefully read my 2015, 2017 essays, you will see that some dimensions are unnecessary.

About: Fine tuning cosmology ... You can also see my hypothesis about: fine-tuned for living planet. http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Research%20Papers/View
/5752

You say. „In physics, theories sometimes express the values of dimensionless physical constants as combinations of mathematical constants like pi or e.“

So, there is nothing new in my Theory because I get all the results thanks to the understanding of the role exp(2pi).

Regards,

Branko

report post as inappropriate

Author Malcolm Macleod replied on Feb. 12, 2017 @ 09:55 GMT

Hi Branko,

>You say “There are 6 principal dimensioned physical constants; (G, h, e, c, me, kB)”

I meant that these (or variants of them) are the most common dimensioned constants used in physical equations

>I agree “Our external physical reality is a mathematical structure.”

I read your essay, may I make a comment, a mathematical universe must be solved using mathematical (algorithmic) structures and it must be shown how these can project an image of dimensionality from which a physical reality can then be perceived. We cannot solve mathematical structures using physical structures, perhaps it was my mistake but I felt that you had not clearly separated the mathematical from the physical. Can I seek your comment?

Cheers,

Malcolm

Branko L Zivlak wrote on Feb. 12, 2017 @ 10:40 GMT

Dear Mr. Macleod

I did not separate the mathematical from the physical. This is the reason that I have formulas that allow prediction. I cannot comment the better than that shown in my article. Formula (17) shows the relationship between the mathematical and physical. I would appreciate if someone finds errors in my formulas.

Regards,

Branko

report post as inappropriate

Steve Dufourny wrote on Feb. 20, 2017 @ 07:21 GMT

Hello Mr Macleod ,

I loved your creativity and generality.Congratulations for your essay.

PS They turn so they are these 3d spheres Inside this 3D sphere....

Good luck and best regards

report post as inappropriate

Author Malcolm Macleod replied on Feb. 22, 2017 @ 07:01 GMT

Dear Steve,

Thanks for the comment.

>PS They turn so they are these 3d spheres Inside this 3D sphere....

I am trying to demonstrate that we could by software simulate dimensioned physical phenomena using simple mathematical rules. Therefore for my thesis the physical must be a projection of the mathematical, for example where the physical 3D sphere derives from the mathematical.

The physicist explains phenomena within a physical environment, mine is the perspective of a programmer using a virtual environment to simulate a physical environment.

Did you submit an essay, I could not find

Cheers,

Malcolm

Steve Dufourny replied on Feb. 24, 2017 @ 07:56 GMT

Youn are welcome Mr Macleod,

It is relevant if your inTegrate and derivate the serie of spherical volumes it seems to me humbly.The simulations could permit to better understand these encodings of évolutions and informations.The convergence with strings, the mathematical singularities and thysical singularities, the main central codes, the main central sphères in logic,so become very relevant when we superimpose with the correct geoetrical algebras.I am persuaded that your results shall be relevant.

About this contest,no I have not made it,I have difficulties to resume my theory of spherisation.I am not good for pappers,I am a bad writers.In french ,I write poems but in English ,difficult.

all the best and good luck in this contest.

report post as inappropriate

Steve Dufourny replied on Mar. 9, 2017 @ 13:24 GMT

Hello Mr Macleod,

In having studied on this Platform the generalities of physics and some détails since some years.I have found in my humble reasoning that gravitons had a problem to explain this quantum gravity.You are going to understand me.We know that we have an unkwnown withnthis quantum weakest force tending to infinity,the quant gravit.We know also that dark matter exists and that we have BHs alos bad understood.I beleive strongly that in fact this quantum gravity cannot be an emergent electromagnetic force.This gravity is probably linked with this matter not baryonic the dark matter.Now imagine that supermassive BHs produce particles of gravitation being correlated with the zero abosolute and cold balancing our thermo photonic electromagntic interactions.Now imagine that we have a respect of principle of equivalence about the particles of gravitation and the BHs.Now imagine also that we have quantum BHs with forces them stronger than nuclear gluonic forces and that the particles of gravitation, I named them the spherons are encoded with forces weakeer than electromagnetic forces and photons.We see that our standard model at all scales is encircled by this matter not baryonic,and this particles waves are not relativistic.If the cold and this gravitation are correlated,that balances our standard model and we have a road towards our singularities in considering a centyral BH for all serie of uniquenss.The central cosm singularity so the biggest BH producing the speedest spherons implies a gravitational aether instead of a luminiferous aether.This quantum gravitation seems really not baryonic not relativistic.That is why I beleive strongly that the MONDs are in the error in forgetting this matter and in changing the newtonian laws.The spherical volumes seem to be the keys.I search the serie of uniquenss with primes.But it is not easy.Here are my two équations imrpoved ,the second has a problem with the 3 motions of 3D sphères.E=m(b)c²+m(nb)l² and mlsoV=constant the second intrigues me but we see that the spherical volumes are proportional for the particles of gravitation in their linear velocity.A photon seems a spherons coded with a serie of uniquenss finite where cold and heat are balanced in a simplistic vue.Now of course how can we check these spherons and correlarted waves ,they are speeder than c.What a big puzzle in fact.:)

Regards

view post as summary

report post as inappropriate

Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich wrote on Mar. 12, 2017 @ 11:59 GMT

Dear Mr. Macleod!

I invite you to familiarize yourself with New Cartesian Physic

I appreciate your essay. You spent a lot of effort to write it.

If you believed in the principle of identity of space and matter of Descartes, then your essay would be even better.

I wish to see your criticism on the New Cartesian Physic, the founder of which I call myself.

The concept of moving space-matter helped me:

- The uncertainty principle Heisenberg to make the principle of definiteness of points of space-matter;

- Open the law of the constancy of the flow of forces through a closed surface is the sphere of space-matter;

- Open the law of universal attraction of Lorentz;

- Give the formula for the pressure of the Universe;

- To give a definition of gravitational mass as the flow vector of the centrifugal acceleration across the surface of the corpuscles, etc.

New Cartesian Physic has great potential in understanding the world. To show this potential in his essay I gave The way of The materialist explanation of the paranormal and the supernatural . Visit my essay and you will find something in it about New Cartesian Physic. Note my statement that our brain creates an image of the outside world no inside, and in external space. Hope you rate my essay as high as I am yours. I am waiting your post.

Sincerely,

Dizhechko Boris

report post as inappropriate

Willy K wrote on Mar. 14, 2017 @ 06:07 GMT

Hi Malcolm

It is great to see swarm intelligence mentioned so prominently in an essay, since I too base my write up on its importance in the domain of intelligent systems. You go on to mention Cellular automata after that and I had to smile with some regret on seeing that. I was within a hair’s breadth of including cellular automata and Game of Life in my essay, as they are areas worthy of serious study as far as this FQXi theme goes.

You make a sharp observation, “And so perhaps I am not a ‘me’, I am the collective ‘me’; I am a neuron colony, my ego comes from this neuron swarm intelligence”. I agree with your take, but I go further and suggest that this structure is being used by humans to order their social lives as well. I think the Constitutional nation state has also been built using the principle of swarm intelligence, but the precise laws that were used in the build-up may have been different from neurons and ant colonies. The commonality between the different forms of intelligence comes in at the higher levels of the build-up when we can clearly invoke the top down functionalities of the model.

Regards, Willy

report post as inappropriate

George Gantz wrote on Apr. 5, 2017 @ 12:56 GMT

Malcom - I found your essay to be a nice surprise! I agree that the universe appears to have been programmed so that swarm intelligence would emerge (e.g. in cells, in multicellular beings and in ant or human colonies). This also, I would agree, is a very nice surprise, something which a team of typing monkeys would never have been able to achieve! :)

So the question is --- who or what is responsible for the programming?

I hope you get a chance to read my essay (The how and The Why of Emergence and Intention). I do not "do the math" so to speak, but end up with what I hope you will think is an interesting conclusion.

Regards - George Gantz

report post as inappropriate

Peter Jackson wrote on Apr. 6, 2017 @ 13:26 GMT

Malcolm,

Interesting essay, nicely written, and I agree swarm responses must emerge from sets of rules. I see you'd re one short of the 10 scores to qualify so will add mine now, also raising it.

One point. If two boats are 'drifting' on a flowing river, one whose helm is straight and the other at an angle, they will not drift apart! (or together). Only if a boat is anchored or sailing, so in motion with respect to the inertial rest frame of the water, will rudder angle have any effect. Sorry to quibble but that's a very important fundamental to relativity often misunderstood! (none the less it had no effect on your score)

I haven't seen you over at mine and hope you get the chance to read it.

Very best

Peter

report post as inappropriate