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Wandering Towards a Goal Essay Contest (2016-2017)
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From Nothingness to Value Ethics by Gavin William Rowland
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Author Gavin William Rowland wrote on Mar. 3, 2017 @ 16:02 GMT
Essay AbstractFoundational problems are often approached from the point of view of the current theoretical framework. That is, taking our current understanding of the universe, and attempting to rework that understanding to satisfy the gaps in our understanding. I propose that many foundational problems would be better approached by starting at the origin of the universe and finding a process that results in our observed reality. As a part of this process, we would need to be open to questioning our assumptions. In this essay I explain how existence, in terms of something from nothing, may be the consequence of a dimension of constructiveness. This requires a rethinking of the nature of fundamental dimensions. If this dimension is fundamental, it may be common to both the laws of the universe and our own aims and intentions. I aim to bring both aspects of this proposed dimension into sharper focus, through analysis of the available evidence and examples of some similar metaphysical proposals.
Author BioGavin Rowland is an Australian general medical practitioner. Outside of medicine, he has interests in consciousness, physics and psychology. He published his first book, Mind Beyond Matter in 2015.
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John C Hodge wrote on Mar. 3, 2017 @ 17:42 GMT
Start with the EXPERIMENTAL confirmation of current models, add EXPERIMENTAL evidence that are anomalies to current models, and fins a model that describes all. I ended his with the Scalar Theory of Everything (STOE). DO NOT consider current models as having a partial truth. The goal is to predict more than current models.
Hodge
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Branko L Zivlak wrote on Mar. 3, 2017 @ 20:00 GMT
Dear Mr. Rowland
Your essay is written with full confidence in contemporary misconceptions. If you know the 7 major mathematical operations make sure in my essay that the universe is much simpler and rational.
Regards,
Branko Zivlak
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Author Gavin William Rowland wrote on Mar. 5, 2017 @ 13:51 GMT
By the way, there is an error in the title - it should say "From nothingness to value ethics." I hope the rest is error-free.
Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 6, 2017 @ 20:44 GMT
Eckard Blumschein wrote on Mar. 8, 2017 @ 09:20 GMT
Dear Gavin William Rowland,
While you mentioned "value ethics" already in the title of your essay, you didn't get belonging comments. Why?
I would appreciate any hint to other essays that are addressing responsibility. So far I am only aware of Wudu.
Regards,
Eckard Blumschein
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Anonymous replied on Mar. 8, 2017 @ 10:03 GMT
Dear Eckard
My apologies, what do you mean by "belonging comments"?
When you say responsibility, do you mean moral responsibility?
Regards
Gavin
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Eckard Blumschein replied on Mar. 8, 2017 @ 17:14 GMT
Dear Gavin,
I meant comments that address "ethical values". Wudu's cry for help makes Boko (which includes science and belonging education) Haram (= this is a sin) understandable. In the near future I envision again and again periods of starvation and violence in Somalia, Southern Sudan, Ethiopa, and other regions.
I doubt that traditional moral is the appropriate solution to irresponsible growth of population. Help into a bottle without bottom has only one effect: Limitless exploitation of nature will globally destroy the environment.
While global warming could be repaired by suitable technology, reckless "We first" will not provide enough job perspectives to the overpopulation in slum-cities each with more than 20,000,000 predominantly young inhabitants.
Regards,
Eckard
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 9, 2017 @ 06:21 GMT
Dear Eckard
Thanks for your comments. I spent two pages on value ethics, but this mainly to argue the case for the mental dimension I propose. I defined value ethics as a regard for welfare of self, other and the wider world.
Ethics needn't mean old fashioned thinking. We need a shift in outlook from both government AND the general population. A scientific understanding of consciousness would help - particularly if my view of fundamental physics is correct.
Stephen Gardiner writes on environmental ethics - you may find his work of interest.
I am not aware of any other essays that cover ethics. I'll let you know if I find any.
Cheers
Gavin
Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta wrote on Mar. 8, 2017 @ 15:31 GMT
Nice essay Rowland,
You said in the beginning “since 1965, when Penzias and Wilson discovered the microwave background radiation, most have considered the evidence to be overwhelming. It appears as if the universe began in an explosion (the “Big Bang”) approximately 13.7 billion years ago, and has been expanding ever since”……………….
…………….In your opening ...
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Nice essay Rowland,
You said in the beginning “since 1965, when Penzias and Wilson discovered the microwave background radiation, most have considered the evidence to be overwhelming. It appears as if the universe began in an explosion (the “Big Bang”) approximately 13.7 billion years ago, and has been expanding ever since”……………….
…………….In your opening sentence ' …microwave background radiation, most have considered the evidence to be overwhelming… ' is not correct, as they have not accounted for the microwave radiation emitted from Galaxies, Globular clusters and stars etc… see the essay on CMB in previous FQXi... There was no provision to eliminate this radiation in the WMAP satellite. See my essay…
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1607
No Bigbang generated CMB detected; You can see Branko’s( another author in this contest) solution here. http://vixra.org/abs/1602.0095
I have another objection, you are considering this whole universe as expanding universe only. You are not considering 60 percent of Galaxies like blue shifted Galaxies and Quasars etc… Do you feel it is correct…
Even though Bigbang is popular, it is failing at experimental evidences….
For your information Dynamic Universe model is totally based on experimental results. Here in Dynamic Universe Model Space is Space and time is time in cosmology level or in any level. In the classical general relativity, space and time are convertible in to each other.
Many papers and books on Dynamic Universe Model were published by the author on unsolved problems of present day Physics, for example ‘Absolute Rest frame of reference is not necessary’ (1994) , ‘Multiple bending of light ray can create many images for one Galaxy: in our dynamic universe’, About “SITA” simulations, ‘Missing mass in Galaxy is NOT required’, “New mathematics tensors without Differential and Integral equations”, “Information, Reality and Relics of Cosmic Microwave Background”, “Dynamic Universe Model explains the Discrepancies of Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Observations.”, in 2015 ‘Explaining Formation of Astronomical Jets Using Dynamic Universe Model, ‘Explaining Pioneer anomaly’, ‘Explaining Near luminal velocities in Astronomical jets’, ‘Observation of super luminal neutrinos’, ‘Process of quenching in Galaxies due to formation of hole at the center of Galaxy, as its central densemass dries up’, “Dynamic Universe Model Predicts the Trajectory of New Horizons Satellite Going to Pluto” etc., are some more papers from the Dynamic Universe model. Four Books also were published. Book1 shows Dynamic Universe Model is singularity free and body to collision free, Book 2, and Book 3 are explanation of equations of Dynamic Universe model. Book 4 deals about prediction and finding of Blue shifted Galaxies in the universe.
With axioms like… No Isotropy; No Homogeneity; No Space-time continuum; Non-uniform density of matter(Universe is lumpy); No singularities; No collisions between bodies; No Blackholes; No warm holes; No Bigbang; No repulsion between distant Galaxies; Non-empty Universe; No imaginary or negative time axis; No imaginary X, Y, Z axes; No differential and Integral Equations mathematically; No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to General Relativity on any condition; No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models; No many mini Bigbangs; No Missing Mass; No Dark matter; No Dark energy; No Bigbang generated CMB detected; No Multi-verses etc.
Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true, like Blue shifted Galaxies and no dark matter. Dynamic Universe Model gave many results otherwise difficult to explain
Have a look at my essay on Dynamic Universe Model and its blog also where all my books and papers are available for free downloading…
http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/
Be
st wishes to your essay.
For your blessings please…………….
=snp. gupta
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 9, 2017 @ 11:46 GMT
Dear snp gupta
Thanks for your comments. I haven't found any steady-state-type universe models convincing, but I will have look at your paper.
Regards
gavin
Akinbo Ojo wrote on Mar. 11, 2017 @ 10:19 GMT
Dear Gavin,
Nice that we medical people are no longer leaving the task of apprehending reality to the physicists and mathematicians. They have been disappointing.
I am in full agreement with you that to apprehend reality we should start from the very beginning. This is a task I have taken up over the years. Haven read your essay, let me now pose some questions or give some food for thought from my standpoint, which may of course be biased.
Your description of ‘Nothingness’ was logical and brilliant. Indeed, there is no other option for a beginning from the quantitative information of the Big Bang as I show in
my essay.
Although, you discuss existence, and how it may have come to be, you did not examine whether ALL that exists as ‘what-ness’, was present right from the beginning or whether the ‘what-ness’ has been growing as the universe expanded. Since you agree on the flatness of the universe, I don’t think you will disagree with my own assertion that, along with its spatial extent, the matter in the universe has also being growing. This is what makes the universe flat and remain within the range of its critical density.
I agree with pretty much else in the essay. A very interesting contribution and I am rating it right away.
Regards,
Akinbo
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 12, 2017 @ 07:35 GMT
Dear Akinbo
Thank you very much for this review. And it is nice to meet a fellow medical doctor too.
Since I am proposing that the universe is engaged in an ongoing process of creation from nothingness, it is not unreasonable to consider the possibility that further matter and spacetime are being created as we go along. Hence the dark energy?
I suspect i will have to defer to the standard position of cosmology today, as this question is beyond my expertise, but it is an interesting proposal. I will have a look at your paper tomorrow.
Thanks again
Gavin
Paul R Martin wrote on Mar. 13, 2017 @ 19:17 GMT
Gavin,
I greatly enjoyed reading your essay. I think you are on exactly the right track. But, I have some suggestions that might be helpful.
You said, "In this essay I explain how existence, in terms of something from nothing, may be the consequence of a dimension of constructiveness. This requires a rethinking of the nature of fundamental dimensions."
I think you are exactly...
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Gavin,
I greatly enjoyed reading your essay. I think you are on exactly the right track. But, I have some suggestions that might be helpful.
You said, "In this essay I explain how existence, in terms of something from nothing, may be the consequence of a dimension of constructiveness. This requires a rethinking of the nature of fundamental dimensions."
I think you are exactly right and it is in that "rethinking" that I think I can help.
You began by making the tacit assumption that the "universe" is identical with the Big Bang and its consequences. I suggest that you enlarge your scope and consider the universe to be much bigger, and older, and that our visible "universe" that resulted from the BB is only a relatively small part of reality.
You said, "there is no special point from which the [BB-generated] universe originated." Using the familiar balloon-with-dots analogy to explain the anisotropy, this implies a large, extra spatial dimension in order for that balloon to exist. I would also point out in passing, that flatness vs curvature is different in kind from expansion vs contraction.
You are absolutely right when you say that "the universe is very,
very large." But there is a huge gap between "very,
very large" and being infinite. It seems more reasonable to expect that the size of reality lies somewhere in that huge gap. It seems likely that reality is very,
very much larger than our 4D BB-generated space-time continuum, and yet not be infinite.
You said, "Nothingness as a cosmic origin has a certain appeal." Agreed. But even more appealing might be "ultimate simplicity". That would at least allow for some minimal starting point in case nothing really can come from nothing, and ultimate simplicity would be "neat and tidy" too.
You said, "An underlying complexity dimension may be the trigger for the emergence of a very simple substance capable of information processing." Considering complexity as a dimension may be an error. What I would suggest is that the extra dimension(s) is (are) ordinary spatial and temporal dimensions exactly like the ones in which we find our phenomenal existence.
And, here, I will offer my two most important suggestions for you: 1) Read Edwin Abbott's
Flatland, or re-read it if you have already read it, and 2) look into the mathematical meaning of manifolds.
1) Abbott's small book is a delight and is easily available for free on the Internet. It is a quick easy read, well worth it simply for the critique of British society, which I think was its real purpose. But what you need to gain from it is an understanding of the psychological problem that people (I suspect this includes you, along with A. Square) have in accepting the possibility of the real existence of extra, large, inaccessible dimensions. You will also get a feeling for the mathematical concept of manifolds, although I don't think he ever uses that term.
2) The term 'manifold' has a very precise meaning in Differential Geometry, which is the study of calculus on manifolds, but I am not suggesting that you take a course in Differential Geometry (although it would be wonderful if you already have). The vernacular use of the term 'manifold' carries many of the important mathematical features, so there are many tangible examples of manifolds to make it easy for us to understand them. Here's the idea: A manifold is a special subspace that is embedded in a space of at least one higher dimension. A couple of characteristics make it special:
The manifold must be smooth and connected. Smooth means that if you zoom in on any point in the manifold, it gets flatter and flatter. Connected means that you could traverse from any point in the manifold to any other point in the manifold without leaving the manifold. So, for example, the inside surface of the intake manifold on your car is like that. A sheet of paper is a 2D manifold embedded in your 3D office.
The most important feature of manifolds for our purposes, is the fact that anything outside the manifold is, in principle, inaccessible to any structures or processes that are in the manifold. (You can't construct a plane figure on a sheet of paper that can reach into the room above the paper.) This is the real reason we can't see the extra dimensions, not because they are tightly curled up. It is what makes the extra dimensions inaccessible.
If we consider that our BB-generated 4D world is an embedded manifold in a 5D, or higher space-time continuum, there is an enormous expansion of the possibilities for structure and function. This would provide plenty of room for that "deeper constructive dimension in psychology" that you are trying to understand. It would also provide a place for that primordial, ultimately simple, origin of reality to take place, and it solves the problems of evolutionary psychology that you noted. Unfortunately, everything outside of our manifold is inaccessible to scientific experimental and observational apparatuses so it gets ruled out of consideration by Popper and most scientists.
You concluded your essay by saying, "I have argued that the universe could not have made a reality such as ours without a fundamental principal of constructiveness, and that this principle is best understood as a fundamental dimension comparable to space and time."
I think you are on the right track. I would suggest that you consider this new fundamental dimension to be exactly comparable to objective space and time: as additional spatial and temporal dimensions outside our 4D manifold.
In my essay, "A Proposal for an Expanded Paradigm", I have followed your lead but have gone ahead and done some speculating on how reality might have come to be in a higher-dimensional picture. I invite you to read it.
Paul Martin
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Author Gavin William Rowland wrote on Mar. 14, 2017 @ 09:46 GMT
Hi Paul
Thank you for your extensive comments. In the earlier part of your post you list several possible points of contention (or exploration). I agree these are possibilities - the universe may her finite, may be older (eternal even), and dimensions may be 'hidden', perhaps as manifolds.
Your ideas made me reflect a bit. Personally, i don't think of this complexity dimension as curled up in a manifold, and I'll explain why. I see the time, space and complexity dimensions as fundamental organising principles of reality. As the first steps in creating reality, i see them as necessarily prior to their expression, (which is in the form of the laws of the universe, and what we know of in our reality as space, time and complexity). So these fundamental dimensions are not actually these things - these things are their expression. The fundamental realities exist, to my mind, as a sort of Platonic level of reality. So we are in Plato's cave, and when we see the expressions of the dimensional reality, we are able to deduce the organising principles behind them, but will never actually see them. Does that make sense?
By the way, i enjoyed your take on this whole question. You have obviously put a lot of thought into it also. I think we were perhaps reading and commenting on each other's essays at about the same time.
btw I have added Flatland to my reading list/pile
Cheers
Gavin
Paul R Martin replied on Mar. 14, 2017 @ 15:44 GMT
Hi Gavin,
Your response to me was a delight. You are exactly the kind of person I hoped to find when I decided to enter the contest. Unfortunately, I am just about to head out the door to spend the rest of the week in the mountains. But when I return I will respond in more depth.
Before I run out the door, and to give you something else to think about while I am gone, I will send...
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Hi Gavin,
Your response to me was a delight. You are exactly the kind of person I hoped to find when I decided to enter the contest. Unfortunately, I am just about to head out the door to spend the rest of the week in the mountains. But when I return I will respond in more depth.
Before I run out the door, and to give you something else to think about while I am gone, I will send along my definition of 'consciousness' for what it is worth. This was part of my essay that got removed in order to stay within the character count limitation. I had regrets later that I didn't cut something else instead.
Anyway, here it is:
We begin with the structure of consciousness. Here is a list of some, perhaps not all, of the features or components of consciousness:
Awareness, experience, perception, the ability to notice, the self, thought, feelings, intentionality, attention, free will, purpose, imagination, conception, pattern recognition, memory, self-reflection, logical ability (reason), knowledge, comprehension, understanding, meaning, value, morality, wisdom.
The list is arranged in the order the components would appear in a narrative I might deliver to answer the question, What is consciousness like for you? I might say,
"I am aware that I have experiences, I perceive a world around me which just asked me a question about consciousness, and I notice that I need to use the word "I" frequently just to respond to the question. That "I" is my self.
"I experience thought happening and among the thoughts I experience are many feelings ranging from pain to various other sensations and urges. My attention seems to be focused on one mental aspect at a time. Among the feelings are intentions, which somehow urge me to take some action. I take those actions by exercising my free will to redirect my attention so that I may achieve some purpose.
"I can imagine counterfactuals by an exercise of will. I can recognize patterns and concepts among those counterfactuals. I can relegate those concepts, along with perceptions and other experiences to my memory and retrieve them later. I have the ability to consider concepts and infer new and different concepts as logical implications of the ones I am considering. I can reason.
"In my memory I have accumulated quite a store of concepts along with myriad percepts which, taken together, I count as knowledge. I comprehend many of the interrelationships among the percepts and concepts that I know. Thus, I understand much of what I know. I seem to understand some of the relationships between what I know and the world around me, which gives that knowledge some meaning. Some of those relationships are more important than others, which gives them value. Applying those values to the world constitutes morality. And understanding morality constitutes wisdom."
Warm regards,
Paul Martin
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 15, 2017 @ 08:28 GMT
Hi Paul
Yes it is good to talk to you too!
I like your last paragraph particularly. You track a group of interrelated capacities of the mind - these are very important, but often neglected in accounts of consciousness. I think you put this very well.
Enjoy your time away, and drop me a line with your reflections when you return.
Gavin
Alexey/Lev Burov wrote on Mar. 15, 2017 @ 05:11 GMT
Dear Gavin,
I consider your essay as a rare sober voice. Thank you. Indeed, as you said on my page, we have a lot in common, so our differences are rare and subtle. Let me focus on one of them. Your essay ends with "Thus our universal laws and our heartfelt intentions can be unified as expressions both of something from nothing." I am a traditionalist in that respect, I do not think that "something from nothing" is a reasonable idea, if this "nothing" is indeed a complete ontological nothing. I think the very special laws of nature is a clear signature of the upper Mind. Well, this is a rare disagreement, while I could quote many important places from your text, which I fully share. I consider you essay deep and to the point, so I score it high.
Good luck!
Alexey Burov.
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 15, 2017 @ 08:46 GMT
Dear Alexey
Thank you for your encouraging words. It's good to hear that we are generally in agreement. It is exciting to think that there is a possibility of science turning the spotlight onto value.
And yes, whether mind is present very early on or at the very beginning is a minor disagreement. My thinking is also compatible with an eternal cyclic universe in which mind persists from the last universe to the next.
btw Alexey, if you haven't done so already, don't forget to vote. I am a little anxious my essay and its ideas will be lost in the pile!
Best regards
Gavin
Giovanni Prisinzano wrote on Mar. 16, 2017 @ 15:47 GMT
Dear Gavin
I enjoyed reading your essay that concerns issues of great philosophical and scientific relevance. Thank you for submitting it to my attention!
Just a question. You say that to explain the universe from nothing is easier than to explain it from something, because any sort of initial condition presupposes a further condition as its cause (the turtle's tower), while "an original state of nothingness, by contrast, should require no further explanation of prior states." But this means, in my opinion, to replace a difficult problem with another no less difficult. It means namely to understand how can something come out from the absolute nothingness . Leibniz, great mathematician and philosopher you very appropriately mentions, said that the biggest problem of metaphysics can be summed up in the question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" The answer of Leibniz was roughly "Because there is God who chose to create the world", otherwise it would be much more logical that there was nothing at all, since, as the ancient Greeks had understood, from nothing comes out nothing. But God seems to be outside of science, and therefore Leibniz question seems destined to remain unanswered.
My best wishes for you!
Giovanni
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Author Gavin William Rowland wrote on Mar. 16, 2017 @ 21:12 GMT
Dear Giovanni
Thank you for your supportive comments. As you rightly point out, I have left the question of how something could come from nothing unanswered. Nobel prize-winning physicist Frank Wilczek has suggested that nothingness is very symmetrical, and so should be prone to symmetry breaking. I have a model in which the universe is created from nothing via symmetry breaking - you can read about it
here (look under table of contents). This model results in two types of dark energy - a contracting as well as an expanding one. As regards the net expansion/contraction of the universe, a contracting type dark energy would become less important with time. I think this could be the answer to a new controversy in cosmology, which you can read about
here. This is all rather speculative, however...
Best regards
Gavin
Giovanni Prisinzano replied on Mar. 18, 2017 @ 07:42 GMT
Dear Gavin,
thanks for your response and your suggestions. I will visit the websites!
Giovanni
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Ted Christopher wrote on Mar. 17, 2017 @ 17:08 GMT
Hi Gavin,
(Responding here as well as my page).
Just a quick response amidst business. I really appreciate your reading and commenting on my essay. This weekend I will download. print, and read your essay.
One quick disagreement. I think the place to look for the "credible hypothesis" it is to look at the failure of the scientific/materialist vision. This I tried to do in my book. I think the physics-side is too ambiguous and also far from meaning.
Thanks,
Ted
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Edwin Eugene Klingman wrote on Mar. 19, 2017 @ 22:37 GMT
Dear Gavin,
What an excellent essay! I agree with much of it. You say:
"
Within living things, there is no threshold of complexity at which consciousness can be said to begin."
That is key! If there were, consciousness would clearly 'emerge'. Also, you note 'learning' and 'decision' are all the way down to the cell, while "within the human brain there are perhaps...
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Dear Gavin,
What an excellent essay! I agree with much of it. You say:
"
Within living things, there is no threshold of complexity at which consciousness can be said to begin."
That is key! If there were, consciousness would clearly 'emerge'. Also, you note 'learning' and 'decision' are all the way down to the cell, while "within the human brain there are perhaps 100 trillion synapses."
So one must explain how, with no threshold of complexity, consciousness is everywhere abundant on earth, each becoming conscious without crossing the threshold. And explain how one hundred trillion synapses are 'integrated', capable of pretty well understanding other similar brains, (or even cat and dog brains!). Quantum entanglement is generally 'monogamous', occurring between two particles [if it occurs at all!] Are all the quantum 'wave packets' conglomerated to produce self-awareness and feelings of happiness, sadness, pride, shame? A field solves all of these problems [and feels right too.] You ask "what endows it with properties of mind? What endows gravity with the property "
Come here now!"? You say the consciousness field is ontologically separate from matter. Not so. It is a classical field, with energy, hence E=mc**2 equivalent mass or matter. I think that ideas of "determinism inherent in matter" are confused, but this is beyond the scope of a comment. A classical field is better understood ontologically than an "underlying complexity dimension".
You discuss "value ethics". But the fact that, over millennia, across all religions, "
Do unto others…" is what one would expect from a consciousness field, common to all, not from isolated, individual, 'emerged' minds trying to figure things out in a dog-eat-dog Darwinian world. In other words, a universal physical consciousness field that interacts with local biological flows [momentum density: ions in axons, vesicles across synaptic gaps] sensing and 'nudging', solves problems that are otherwise incomprehensible. The details of the physical field are scattered through the comments on my page, but for a taste of the physics involved look at
The Nature of Quantum Gravity.
The
idealist view that the universe is at base-level "just information" is simply confused, while Spinoza's 'substance' (that which stands beneath, under-standing) is very compatible with a consciousness field that spans the universe, as occasionally sensed directly by vast numbers of people. The primary drawback to the field today lies in misconceptions associated with the
Quantum Credo, but this too shall pass.
Thank you for participating in this contest and good luck!
Edwin Eugene Klingman
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 20, 2017 @ 07:59 GMT
Dear Edwin
Thanks for your reply, and for reading my essay. Many interesting points here! I think our two viewpoints are actually compatible in many ways. Beyond our agreement on a form of universal, primordial consciousness, your model proposes a classical mind-field while mine proposes a dimension of constructiveness. While value ethics isn't to everyone's taste, essentially what I am saying is that, were there a complexity dimension, any model of consciousness may be automatically imbued with a sense of purpose.(As I say on P9 "that is not to say that a constructive-destructive mental dimension is necessarily inexplicable in material terms")
Good luck with your essay too!
Gavin
Peter Jackson wrote on Mar. 21, 2017 @ 14:33 GMT
Gavin,
Nice essay, covering may areas missed by most and with unique insights, well set out and described.
You were straight up high in my scoring regime with your opening; "..many foundational problems would be better approached by starting at the origin of the universe and finding a process that results in our observed reality. As a part of this process, we would need to be...
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Gavin,
Nice essay, covering may areas missed by most and with unique insights, well set out and described.
You were straight up high in my scoring regime with your opening;
"..many foundational problems would be better approached by starting at the origin of the universe and finding a process that results in our observed reality. As a part of this process, we would need to be open to questioning our assumptions.I'm dismayed so few seem able to genuinely do so, but then 'one man's meat.." so basing fresh views on rigorously deep and sound foundations is crucial and very difficult. I suspect that's why old doctrines cling on regardless! (along with cognitive dissonance of course).
I agree with most points, but as an astronomer I should say you do cite some poorly supported theory. You write;
"wherever we may position ourselves – here, or a billion light years away – we would see the same pattern of expansion. It appears as if the universe began everywhere at once" where we've had recent good evidence that was a misunderstanding and flawed analysis. Indeed some excellent dynamic mapping has been done from Planck survey data (updating WMAPS) showing complex asymmetries, the so called 'axis of evil', large scale flows and a helical' background. One model fitting all that well is a version of the 'big bounce' recycling theory. I can give you links if interested.
Have you also considered the 'Higgs process' and so called 'dark energy' in relation to 'from nothingness'? The evidence of 'continuum energy' and it's magnitude is now well accepted and discussed in many branches. I prefer the term 'condensate' as the source of the condensed matter we find from local perturbation. All that may be trivial to and not in conflict with your point but may it help make 'nothingness' usefully less esoteric?
I also like the later sections, and identifying against common assumption that;
"Evidence of learning and purposeful decision-making is seen throughout biology, all the way down to the level of single-celled organisms" which many deny, though do you feel we need to find a point where 'higher intelligence' can be defined?
Finally I agree with the 'idealist' view you cite that
"all things are in some way mind-dependent". Do you agree the suggested parallels (I use) with subjectiveness and observer dependency?
I hope you may also study my own essay and give your honest views.
Best of luck
Peter
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 22, 2017 @ 04:48 GMT
Dear Peter
Thank you for this review. I very much enjoyed reading your comments. I love cosmology and would be very interested any links you can recommend - you mention complex asymmetries, axis of evil, etc. Just keep in mind my maths is high school level only.
One question about 'big bounce' theories - I thought they were outdated, as they would have to explain how the current...
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Dear Peter
Thank you for this review. I very much enjoyed reading your comments. I love cosmology and would be very interested any links you can recommend - you mention complex asymmetries, axis of evil, etc. Just keep in mind my maths is high school level only.
One question about 'big bounce' theories - I thought they were outdated, as they would have to explain how the current accelerating expansion would be able to turn around into a big crunch. On the topic of cosmic endings, my thoughts were that perhaps dark energy will finish things off in a Big Rip scenario, and that this could result in a nothingness state. (So our current universe might not be the first.) Any asymmetries we see in the CMB data could be caused by asymmetries in the creation of this state, and accentuated by the dynamics of the Quark epoch (up to CMB release)
No I don't have any thoughts about the Higgs process in relation to nothingness. I thought particle physicists were pretty confident that the complex range of particles and fields could be explained by a series of symmetry breakings from simpler and simpler states. Given that unification with the gravity force seems to be the main sticking point, I wondered whether setting aside gravity as the negative force which balances the positive energy of the particles/fields of QM might mean that, within a something from nothing model we can merely focus on unification of the non gravitational features. QM and gravity would then be unified under something from nothing as energy neutral in sum.
Regarding dark energy, my thoughts are that if the energy budget of the universe is ~72% DE and is also energy neutral in sum (as per flatness measurements), then there might exist a spatially contracting form of dark energy also. I asked Anthony Aguirre at a recent conference whether there was any reason why there couldn't be two dark energies and he thought there was no problem with this. On this topic, you will find a couple of links in my comments to Giovanni Prisinzano (above).
I have not heard of 'continuum energy' or how it might relate to the term 'condensate' so would be interested in any links on this.
How to define 'higher' intelligence? Well that is very hard - even between humans we have difficulty quantifying intelligence, and once we get to comatose states and other species, where communication is difficult, it is exponentially harder.
I'm looking forward to reading your essay and will get back to you shortly on it.
Best regards
Gavin
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Peter Jackson replied on Mar. 25, 2017 @ 21:18 GMT
Gavin,
'Big Bounce' theories are very much alive and well, most a bit MORE consistent than the BB but none so far complete enough to confidently replace it. Even Penrose admits his 'Conformal cosmolgy' version has ultimate limits.
Also don't forget that accelerating expansion is still only a HYPOTHESIS! Sure it was popular when the (unseemly!) 'race' to produce it from redshift...
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Gavin,
'Big Bounce' theories are very much alive and well, most a bit MORE consistent than the BB but none so far complete enough to confidently replace it. Even Penrose admits his 'Conformal cosmolgy' version has ultimate limits.
Also don't forget that accelerating expansion is still only a HYPOTHESIS! Sure it was popular when the (unseemly!) 'race' to produce it from redshift reported in with a winner, but that was hype. There ARE OTHER ways to produce greater redshift with distance, not generally adopted yet, but veracity in science is NOT a 'vote' system! This video explains one along with it's unique related wide consistency with OTHER findings.
Geometrical redshift from expanding helical paths. So we must always be careful not to assume any one theory as 'fact' to then preclude others.
On the matter of 'accretion' and recycling a widely consistent active galactic nucleus (AGN) model ('supermassive black hole' in old money) is able to reproduce the unexplained CMB asymmetries found. A published joint paper of mine describes it; though again with too many changes to old doctrine to be 'adoptable' as a new paradigm quite yet!
here, or HJ. Vol.36 No 6. 2013 pp.633-676. Recent science across many fields and a number of essays here discuss 'continuum energy' or the dozen other names and wide evidence we have for this 'sub matter' state. Sure it may still take 20 years to become 'standard science' as did everything!
I've tended to read around 20 of the latest papers a week, and find I need to do at least that to keep up and get a coherent picture. Most supercede the old stuff most still rely on! It's a shame apparently even many professors may only read 2 a month! I hope that may widen your horizons a bit and not confuse too much! Do ask questions on the attached as well as my essay.
Best wishes
Peter
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Ted Christopher wrote on Mar. 25, 2017 @ 20:17 GMT
Hi again Gavin Rowland,
I really appreciated your essay as well as your comments. You also mentioned two books that are of interest to me - yours and also Roger Trigg's.
You commented about the up-in-the-air state of contemporary physics. I just read the "Tangled Up in Spacetime" article in January's Scientific American. That "It from Qubit" effort is drawing a lot of attention from physicists, perhaps reflecting the current state.
I hope things go well with your work.
Ted Christopher
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 25, 2017 @ 21:39 GMT
Hi Ted
Just read the article you mentioned. I wonder whether some of the booming interest in this idea (which doesn't sound especially new) might be because the theoretical physicists involved are running out of ideas themselves.
Thanks for your comments.
Gavin
James Lee Hoover wrote on Mar. 25, 2017 @ 21:53 GMT
Gavin,
I can agree with your abstract statement: "I propose that many foundational problems would be better approached by starting at the origin of the universe and finding a process that results in our observed reality. As a part of this process, we would need to be open to questioning our assumptions. In this essay I explain how existence, in terms of something from nothing, may be the consequence of a dimension of constructiveness."
By the tone and details of your essay, you seem able to free yourself from accepted ideas and supplement them with others like "our universal laws and our heartfelt intentions can be unified as expressions both of something from nothing," the subjective time and space existing independently in the mental realm." Your essay seems to be an open exploration which invites the same openness with the reader.
In the same spirit essay speculates about discovering dark matter in a dynamic galactic network of complex actions and interactions of normal matter with the various forces -- gravitational, EM, weak and strong interacting with orbits around SMBH. I propose that researchers wiggle free of labs and lab assumptions and static models
I hope you can get a chance to read and comment on mine.
Regards,
Jim Hoover
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 30, 2017 @ 07:28 GMT
Thanks for your feedback Jim. Glad you enjoyed it.
Your essay sounds interesting. i will read it now and get back to you on your thread.
Regards
Gavin
Anonymous wrote on Mar. 28, 2017 @ 09:00 GMT
Dear Gavin;
I have read your essay with great interest and pleasure.
the fommowing remarks that are no critics:
Your "Nothingness" can in some way be compared to my "Total Simultaneity" that has no time and or space. It doesn't "exist" in our emerging reality.
Time and space are in my perception "restrictions" of our reality, they are needed for consciousness to become "aware" of the FLOW of time and space. However I think that time and space are not created BY our emerging universe but by "nothingness" or Total Simultaneity. This is the emerging of what you are calling "whatness".
I think that any "complexity" that should start for new again is not "destroyed" but stays available as probability (eternally) in what you call "nothingness".
I like very much your approach of consciousness on page 5.
You say "Our conscious experience is also characterised by a spatial continuum" I would like to say : "Our by time and space restrcted emergent consciousness" is part of Total Consciousness" in Total Simultaneity (nothingness ?)
"Emergence often yield novel and inexpected consequences" I fully agree with that , could have written it myself.
I was very pleased with your approach and gave it a high valid so I hope that the above remarks will lead you to read, leave your comment and also a rating to
my essay : "THe Purpose of Life"best regards and good luck
Wilhelmus de Wilde
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Wilhelmus de Wilde de Wilde replied on Mar. 28, 2017 @ 09:04 GMT
sorry I forgot to log in...
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Mar. 30, 2017 @ 07:33 GMT
Hi Wilhelmus
Many have proposed that consciousness and/or a platonic realm of all possibilities exist outside of conventional time and space. This is actually my opinion too, although i don't get there in this essay.
Thanks for your comments. i will read your essay shortly and get back to you on your thread.
Regards
Gavin
Wilhelmus de Wilde de Wilde replied on Apr. 1, 2017 @ 14:58 GMT
Hi Gavin,
Thanks for your attention.
The MWI (again an acronym) is different from my proposition. MWI is splitting up at each choice (in two realities) like mine but my proposition is not splitting up in two coexisting realities, it is splitting up in one ongoing life-line and one that is "becoming" an eternal availability (probability). I will make an illustration for my next article.
The many Minds that you indicate are the many available minds outside your own. YOU are experiencing one of them, the others (an infinity of them) are available as probabilities in Total Consciousness that is essentially the total YOU.
I am now thinking about the so called "availability" of all other "YOU's" in Total Consciousness. These availabilities are experienced as flows of reality by other YOU's. This could be because each Eternal Now Moment is the "cause" of the memory of a specific YOU. As an Eternal Now Moment is a pointlike entity in Total Consciousness and Total Simultaneity (both Time and Spaceless) this could mean that every YOU is experiencing its own reality (a FLOW because it is outside TC and TS) eternally. What we are experiencing as the FLOW of our reality in Time and Space is just an excitation. I would like to compare this thought with the hologrphic principle, a n dimensional entity can be the cause of an n+1 dimensional emergence. In this case an n+2 dimensional emergence.
It is a very difficult question you are asking me there about the unity of TS and TC. Total Consciousness is like a field in Total Simultaneity. The Total Consciousness I introduce is the totality of ALL forms of Consciousness. If we have Total Simultaneity without Consciousness it is just a complete set of information (data) without any goal a chaos of data. It is only there. The to be or not to be has only a reason with consciousness.
When we accept Consciousness as afield it could be the counterforce of entropy.
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James Lee Hoover wrote on Mar. 30, 2017 @ 17:23 GMT
Gavin,
"Regarding dark matter, my favourite theory is primordial black holes. Perhaps they would suck up a lot of plasma energy in a hot dense universe, if there were enough of them. You can read more about this here."
Got your second hyperlink. I have seen most dark matter theories but had not seen this before: An intriguing alternative view is that dark matter is made of black holes formed during the first second of our universe's existence, known as primordial black holes. I thought you were referring to dense gas directly forming into black holes rather than from massive stars. How does this relate to or explain the inflation theory during the first second after the big bang? Or does it?
Thanks for the link and thanks for your kind words.
Jim
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Author Gavin William Rowland wrote on Mar. 31, 2017 @ 00:02 GMT
Jim
You are right, there could be a connection between inflation and primordial black holes(PBH's).
The MACHO surveys in the early 1990's looked for massive objects (planets, black holes)that might explain the missing matter. They didn't find nearly enough, but the dark matter could still be loads of mini black holes somewhere between lunar mass and asteroid mass.
The...
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Jim
You are right, there could be a connection between inflation and primordial black holes(PBH's).
The MACHO surveys in the early 1990's looked for massive objects (planets, black holes)that might explain the missing matter. They didn't find nearly enough, but the dark matter could still be loads of mini black holes somewhere between lunar mass and asteroid mass.
The negative results of underground direct detection attempts and supercolliders suggest that WIMPs are also unlikely.
There is another line of evidence to watch for the PBH argument. The growth of supermassive black holes in the early universe seems to exceed all models that involve standard gas cloud collapse to supernova to black hole to supermassive black hole. The options would therefore seem to be supermassive stars that collapse to form supermassive black holes, or mergers of smaller PBHs. Although no supermassive stars have been seen in the early universe, we do not have strong enough telescopes to rule them out. If they are there they should be detectable within the next 12 months. If not seen, PBHs are the prime candidate.
There is no known mechanism by which PBHs would form, so we may need new physics. Inflation is also not understood, suggesting new physics. Some kind of inflation that expands some chunks of space but not others may result in PBH's
If you scroll up to my comments to Giovanni Prisinzano there are a couple of links. One is to a paper containing my theory on this problem wherein the universe begins with two different types of dark energy that separate from each other. Because like types of dark energy units don't separate, there is potential for the nuclei of PBH's to form during inflation.
Given all this, it will be interesting to see if there is any evidence of supermassive stars in the next 12 months, and also the data coming out in relation to the expansion history of the universe (see the other link I gave Giovanni to the New York Times article).
Cheers
Gavin
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Apr. 1, 2017 @ 23:09 GMT
Actually I was reading last night the Large Hadron Collider may have turned up evidence of axions
Vladimir Rogozhin wrote on Apr. 2, 2017 @ 14:19 GMT
Dear Gavin,
Thank you very much for reading my essay and your comment. I have read with interest your deep analytical essay, executed in the Cartesian spirit of doubt. It is this spirit of radical doubt that gives impetus to the search for a way out of the crisis of understanding in fundamental science. Fundamental science, including cosmology, needs today a wide competition of ideas,...
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Dear Gavin,
Thank you very much for reading my essay and your comment. I have read with interest your deep analytical essay, executed in the Cartesian spirit of doubt. It is this spirit of radical doubt that gives impetus to the search for a way out of the crisis of understanding in fundamental science. Fundamental science, including cosmology, needs today a wide
competition of ideas, concepts, theories .
These thoughts and conclusions are very important for overcoming the modern crisis of understanding in fundamental science and global society:
«Plato regarded his “form of the Good” as synonymous to truth, order and virtue. Plato’s Good is an organising principle of the highest order, since it is “what gives existence to things.”»
«…idealists believe that the ultimate measure of ideas is value, and thus decision-making should be motivated by the rightness or wrongness of a decision. idealists believe that the ultimate measure of ideas is value, and thus decision-making should be motivated by the rightness or wrongness of a decision. For idealists, writes W.J .Mander, “Values are certainly as real as other objects and events, arguably more real than them and possibly all that is genuinely real.” And “From Plato onward, idealists have traditionally defended the place of value right in the heart of reality.”»
«“Good, the final end of the world, has bein
g, only while it constantly produces itself.”(Hermann Lotz
e)»
«I have argued that the universe could not have made a
reality such as ours without a fundamental principal of constructiveness, and that this principle is best understood as a fundamental dimension comparable to space and time.»
The modern crisis of understanding in the foundations of knowledge is a deep metaphysical crisis - a comprehensive crisis of ontology, gnosecology, axiology, dialectics. The world picture of physicists, mathematicians,
poets and
musicians should be united and filled with meanings of the "LifeWorld" (E.Husserl).
Therefore, in order to overcome the crisis of understanding, it is very important to purposefully support various gnoseological paradigms and to introduce the Ontological standard of substantiation of fundamental theories
Best regards,
Vladimir
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Apr. 5, 2017 @ 10:32 GMT
Dear Vladimir
Thank you for your comments. I think we are very much in agreement.
Best wishes
Gavin
Patrick Tonin wrote on Apr. 4, 2017 @ 07:57 GMT
Dear Gavin,
Thank you for commenting on my essay.
I really enjoyed reading yours. We seem to share the same simple logic in the way we try to describe the Universe. I also think that one should take a bottom up approach and not the opposite.
I like your quote:
“In fact, true nothingness by its very definition should have no limit or boundary, or else it would be something rather than nothing!”
All the best,
Patrick
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Apr. 5, 2017 @ 10:38 GMT
Thanks for your comments Patrick.
I read in one of the other essays that if the problem doesn't make sense, one should expand the available set of factors until it does. With foundational problems, I think starting from the cosmic origin gives us the best chance of including all relevant factors. And therefore, we are likely on the right track.
Best wishes
Gavin
George Gantz wrote on Apr. 4, 2017 @ 13:57 GMT
Gavin -
Thanks for a very interesting essay! I was struck by the similarities between your "dimension of constructiveness" and the cosmic intentionality I discuss in The How and The Why of Emergence and Intention. Your allusion to our experience of flow is also, I think, an important clue to the functioning of the universe.
The question of something from nothing is an interesting paradox, one which I explored in the prior FQXi contest (The Hole at the Center of Creation). Nothing is as troublesome a concept as infinity. Even to mention nothing is to imply that it is something (if only the abstract null set - which is, even then, a set).
You stated - "I don’t think it is necessary to delve more deeply into what the nature of this state of decision-making would be, as it would be rather speculative to do so." I think this is actually the heart of the matter. Either there is decision-making (intention) or there is not (randomness). We may not be able to observe the difference - but the it makes all the difference in how we perceive the world and how we live in it.
Sincere regards - George Gantz
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Apr. 5, 2017 @ 10:44 GMT
Hi George
Glad yo got to read my essay. We seem to be thinking along the same lines...
In what essay contest was your essay "The Hole at the centre of Creation"? i would like to read it.
True, the question of what consciousness IS, is in a way the heart of the matter. It was really just a bit much to bite off in a 5000 word essay so I sidestepped the issue.
Best regards
Gavin
Ulla Marianne Mattfolk wrote on Apr. 6, 2017 @ 13:47 GMT
Dear Gavin.
I propose that many foundational problems would be better approached by starting at the origin of the universe and finding a process that results in our observed reality. As a part of this process, we would need to be open to questioning our assumptions.
This is indeed true, but also very difficult. When we change one small detail the whole frame will be changed too, so we end up with the plethora of theories we see today.
Cheers, Ulla.
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Author Gavin William Rowland replied on Apr. 6, 2017 @ 23:55 GMT
Agreed Ulla. It's a big metaphysical guessing-game.
Gavin
Dizhechko Boris Semyonovich wrote on Apr. 7, 2017 @ 08:52 GMT
Dear Sirs!
Physics of Descartes, which existed prior to the physics of Newton returned as the New Cartesian Physic and promises to be a theory of everything. To tell you this good news I use «spam».
New Cartesian Physic based on the identity of space and matter. It showed that the formula of mass-energy equivalence comes from the pressure of the Universe, the flow of force which on the corpuscle is equal to the product of Planck's constant to the speed of light.
New Cartesian Physic has great potential for understanding the world. To show it, I ventured to give "materialistic explanations of the paranormal and supernatural" is the title of my essay.
Visit my essay, you will find there the New Cartesian Physic and make a short entry: "I believe that space is a matter" I will answer you in return. Can put me 1.
Sincerely,
Dizhechko Boris
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