Nice essay Gantz,

I am quoting few words from your essay……

Imagine 100 monkeys typing (presumably randomly) on 100 typewriters for a limitless period of time. Eventually, hidden somewhere in the seemingly endless streams of nonsense, they would produce a perfect replica of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. How can you tell the difference between nonsense and a work of art created...

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Nice essay Gantz,

I am quoting few words from your essay……

Imagine 100 monkeys typing (presumably randomly) on 100 typewriters for a limitless period of time. Eventually, hidden somewhere in the seemingly endless streams of nonsense, they would produce a perfect replica of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. How can you tell the difference between nonsense and a work of art created intentionally? .................... Whatever the monkeys type, from the random typing to get a replica of Shakespeare’s Hamlet I s virtually impossible, probability may be 1 part in 10 ^{1000000000000}

According to our modern cosmology, the universe unfolded in a cascade of transitions and broken symmetries from the primordial state of the Big Bang. ……………….. For your information, in Dynamic Universe Model there is no Bigbang.

From your abstract I am quoting the first and the last sentences …. “Over the past few decades, considerable progress has been made in explaining how complex, intelligent behaviors emerge in dynamic systems” … &… “I make an argument for cosmic intentionality.” This is exactly what I am doing in my essay. Universe is a Dynamical System and I am showing the intentionality. Here I am also proposing a fundamental property of Universe. It is reproduction of Galaxies in the Universe. As you are interested in fundamental questions , I request you to please have a look on my essay with a different type of fundamental ideology…

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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Hi George

You messaged me earlier, me being the author for (Dirty Wet Chemical Universal Awakening) however I have been away camping and hadn't had opportunity to properly respond. I read your essay the other day while on camp, and so briefly revised it again just now. I much enjoyed your ideas, questionings and contemplation's and will be rating your essay generously, in the minutes...

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Hi George

You messaged me earlier, me being the author for (Dirty Wet Chemical Universal Awakening) however I have been away camping and hadn't had opportunity to properly respond. I read your essay the other day while on camp, and so briefly revised it again just now. I much enjoyed your ideas, questionings and contemplation's and will be rating your essay generously, in the minutes before voting closes to maximize its benefit for you.

I appreciate opinions that confront the complexity problem, and clearly you are very thoughtful on the subject. You even mention within your intro the prospects for an evolving purposeful universe, which you might recall why I would find that notion of interest (Darwinian Physics). You go on to express the opinion that this is undecidable, and will likely remain that way. Which leads you and I to a point on contention which no doubt would make the basis of a very interesting discussion.

Within your conclusion you ask the question, "do you believe the universe in an expression of randomness within mathematical forms, or do you believe there is a cosmic intentionality that provides generative guidance for the emergence of our universe in its unique specific configuration? My answer is, "intentionality implies intellectual choosing, and my theme for a Darwinian universal emergence cannot be said to be compatible with that notion. Evolutionary progression and direction is not chosen intelectually. But neither are the results of natural selection random chance, hence the selection component. So although I cannot answer yes to either of your questions, I have put forward a hypothesis that prospectively can provide decidability on the subject of why and how of universal nature, order and complexity.

I respect your reservations for the multiverse theory. It promises to solve a problem while adding nothing new and tangible to the conversation. Drawing at straws.

And a fun and joyful piece of writing. Thank you for sharing it with us.

I will form a reply to your message on my page tomorrow, so hopefully if you dont have to many other distractions going on right now, you will join me there?

Steven Andresen

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Dear George,

You are a poet, from the flock of starlings , the dancing waves and shimmering surfaces, the sunflower's artihmetic, also the 100 monkeys (I should take a minimum of hundredthousand) and the cause that makes a ball rolling, all these examples are an everyday beauty inviting us to like our life.

Then you continue indeed as a poet: "Galaxies emerge in a cosmic...

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Dear George,

You are a poet, from the flock of starlings , the dancing waves and shimmering surfaces, the sunflower's artihmetic, also the 100 monkeys (I should take a minimum of hundredthousand) and the cause that makes a ball rolling, all these examples are an everyday beauty inviting us to like our life.

Then you continue indeed as a poet: "Galaxies emerge in a cosmic gravitational dance" their goal is to minimalise local entropy... that minimazes avaerage energy losses. But.... how did entropy get this height. Our perceptions of this reality indicate a certain "goal" like you indicate, but this also means that in an earlier point of the time dimension this goal has already been achieved...

Then you mention :"self-reflective conscious beings is the pursuit of science"

Here we are touching the essence "Consciousness" Here you indicate that consciousness is searching for the whatness. Maybe however it is the other way around and Consciousness is the origin of the emerged reality as we are aware of.

We humans are reciprocally connected, I fully agree with you, surely when you add : "a history of emergent threads weaving connections to all living things, to all times and places,and to the universe as a whole." This is the essental phrase for me in your beautiful written essay.

"Love flowing through the Universe" Our emergent reality has given us not only love but also hate and war. These two "feelings" are the origin of natures way to survive and its procreation. Reality is not only poetic dear George...but you are indeed a grandfather which I am not despite my four children and age of 71, and I think that that experience could make a man more optimistic.

You are ending with a question, the same question I am posing myself since years, this question has given me some answers that I am after the same search as yours am giving in my essay : The Purpose of Life".

I hope that you will find some emergeing time to read it, leave an esteemed comment and maybe a rating.

best regards and thanks for your essay.

Wilhelmus

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Dear George,

Following up on your invitation to comment, I want to say first of all that I like your writing style, which is both friendly and economical. I know that your larger interest concerns the interface between science and religion (or spirituality), and I share that interest.

I find that the notions of ‘randomness’ and ‘intentionality’ are not well defined in the...

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Dear George,

Following up on your invitation to comment, I want to say first of all that I like your writing style, which is both friendly and economical. I know that your larger interest concerns the interface between science and religion (or spirituality), and I share that interest.

I find that the notions of ‘randomness’ and ‘intentionality’ are not well defined in the science/math/philosophy community. Perhaps that is unavoidable, since they are essentially human-centric notions. (What does ‘random’ mean but something whose ‘cause’ cannot be determined by a human observer? What does ‘intention’ mean but something imputed by a human observer?) So, the choice between a view of the world as random or intended seems to me artificial. As your essay progresses, there is increasing reliance on mentalist vocabulary (choice, guidance, attraction, disposition, top-down, aspirational, dance, embrace…) culminating in a cosmic vision of “love.” While poetic, I don’t find that using these terms supports your basic aim—which in more physicalist terms seems to be to reconcile the emergence of order with the 2nd Law. It simply restates the scientific problem in “folk” terms. (In fairness, I could be equally critical of the notion of “symmetry-breaking” as a causal force.)

I agree with many points you make (e.g. that the choice of worldviews is logically and empirically undecidable; that “everything is connected to everything else in a limitless web of reciprocity”), and with the spirit of the whole. On the other hand, I cannot make sense of the statement (or definition?) that “intentions are behaviors that can be observed.” I don’t see that the billiard ball and the human manifest intention in any comparable or common way, other than a definition imposed by the human. Humans can certainly read what they know as intention into observed behaviors of animate or inanimate matter. (Cf. Daniel Dennett’s “intentional stance”.) If intentions are to be understood simply as behaviors that can be observed, then why not stick with ordinary space-time description (Dennett’s “physical stance”)? Similarly, I do agree that human consciousness is NOT epiphenomenal, but serves downward causation in the human organism. But that is because there is a “top” to a human being, which performs an executive function. What is the top level of the physical cosmos? If we have recourse to something standing outside nature to fill that (executive) function—God, the “mathematical laws of physics,” or some meta-system of dispositions)—then it is no longer science.

I hope this is helpful and not too harsh, for I did indeed enjoy reading your paper. Wishing you all the best in your philosophical inquires,

Dan

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Hi George (addressing both the cyclist and the grandfather),

very well written essay, well structured, a pleasure to read!

Now, following your comments in my page: if you wanted to really force me into one of the two branches of the choice:

1. Universe (or multiverse) from randomness within mathematical forms — intentionality as epiphenomenal, OR

2. Universe from...

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Hi George (addressing both the cyclist and the grandfather),

very well written essay, well structured, a pleasure to read!

Now, following your comments in my page: if you wanted to really force me into one of the two branches of the choice:

1. Universe (or multiverse) from randomness within mathematical forms — intentionality as epiphenomenal, OR

2. Universe from cosmic generative intentionality - humanity as part of a purposeful process,

I would choose option (1), if not for other reasons, for the fact that, in my opinion, it defines a much more attractive research agenda: trying to explain away the magic of goals and intentionality. This can be done so well w.r.t. biology, as mentioned by several essays here. (It is always a pleasure to reveal the trick behind the magic, for example showing that the specific distribution of word lengths in a printed western language does not reflect a ‘magic’ universal feature of human intelligence, but simply derives from attributing some probability to the blank (word_separating) character.)

At the other side (2) I see a much higher risk to mix a scientific approach with other perfectly respectful… aims and intentions. Some of your passionate passages in support of choice (2) reminded me of the visions by Teilhard de Chardin, in content, style, and tone.

It seems to me, however, that the two choices you describe are just the black and white extremes of an interesting spectrum (I see the narrative benefits of this setting), and I would gladly sit somewhere in the middle. For example, I am absolutely convinced of the important role that emergence, enriched with top-down causation, can offer to the growth of complexity in the universe, and I would not see this feature compatible only with choice (2), but also with choice (1).

In fact, one of the abstract pictures I prefer is that of a deterministic universe, mathematical in the sense of computational, with emergence and top-down causation as possibly the most fundamental drivers of evolution.

I would even accept terms such as ‘sacred’ (as in S. Kauffman’s ‘Reinventing the Sacred’) in connection with these driving forces, but would stop there. In your essay, on the other hand, I perceive the need to describe a physical universe that naturally supports the most transcendental human aspirations, and that reveals divine intentions behind the scenes. Maybe it’s a wrong impression. But if it is wrong, then our views may not be that different.

You write: “I believe this question is, and always will be, from an empirical standpoint, undecidable.” Is this not unreasonably pessimistic? How can we exclude that some day, maybe in the near future, some computer experiment will generate an artificial dynamical system evolving according to simple algorithmic rules, yielding an ecology of agents that resemble the biosphere, and that develop forms of cooperative symbiotic, ’altruistic’ or moral behaviors, without need for a priori design and goal? How would you feel, in this case? Progress in this direction is under way. Wouldn’t this count for you as an empirical way to rule out a grand design and ultimate purpose?

You write: "science is a wonderful and intensely collaborative adaptation that serves to minimize discrepancy between theory and reality and maximize information - effectively exporting entropy to the larger world in the process." Do you have a precise form of exported entropy in mind, for this interesting example?

A rather trivial remark: obviously, the universe does not love us back. This is clear, for example, to all the children that were killed yesterday, in Syria, by chemical weapons.

Finally, in case you'll find yourself revising the text for publication (e.g. in the Springer Frontiers Series), I have two minuscule editorial suggestions (pleasing my taste — you may well disagree!):

“On at least one planet, Earth, some of those chemicals reacted” —> remove “Earth”.

“One species, humans, was able to build civilizations and science.” —> remove “humans”.

Sorry for the length. Bye!

Tommaso

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Tomas -

Thanks for the detailed response - is I am drinking my morning latte, I will pretend we are in a virtual coffee shop, intentionally sipping and conversing.

I'm wondering if one might make alternate choices in alternate contexts. For example, choosing (1) for its research implications reflects a reasonable intention to pursue intellectual challenges. This is, of course,...

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Tomas -

Thanks for the detailed response - is I am drinking my morning latte, I will pretend we are in a virtual coffee shop, intentionally sipping and conversing.

I'm wondering if one might make alternate choices in alternate contexts. For example, choosing (1) for its research implications reflects a reasonable intention to pursue intellectual challenges. This is, of course, somewhat self-contradictory, but if we can extract the motivations of the observer from the phenomenon being studies, looking into the box from the outside, so to speak, then that works. ZFC math and observer independent physics? This is fine, but in my view does not address the big picture - which naturally involves self-reflection and all the paradoxes thus entailed.

I do appreciate the simplicity of the deterministic view - I see it promulgated in many different scientific fields - but I confess it has no appeal to me. It see it as a dead-end, and its premises dull the mind as well as the heart.

As to undecidability, I believe that is unavoidable - a consequence of Godel, Turing, QP and the rest - this was the thesis in my prior essay. Of course, my presentation had some holes in it.....

I do not have a good model for how scientific research exports entropy - but perhaps one can imagine the energy required in the brain to support the orchestrated oscillations in the neuronal microtubules as a scientist arrives at a new theoretical formulation base on experiment -- duplicated in others each time the paper is read...

As to the universe loving us back -- yes, this may be an unfortunate metaphor in light of the tragedy that pervades the human condition. In the case of human caused tragedy, I can point to the disruptive, non-loving choices of other human beings and forgive the universe per se. But tragedy also comes from so-called natural causes - tectonic shifts, asteroid collisions, etc. The problem of evil, theodicy for the believer, is a very deep issue deserving of its own FQXi essay. There is a short answer --- evil is an unfortunate side-effect of free will. The beautiful gift is free will - but, like Pandora's box, once it is open (in my metaphysic - at the beginning) then there is space for evil to flow, even as the universe flows with love.

Thank you for the editorial suggestions!

With regards and affection - George

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George.

An excellent essay, interesting, beautifully written, original, easy to read and with a well argued hypotheses. They were the scoring criteria. But I struggled to rationalise it on first read so didn't comment until perhaps you'd read mine. I'm not sure if you have, but the second read was better, and it's time to chat.

First I firmly agree and conclude undecidability. But...

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George.

An excellent essay, interesting, beautifully written, original, easy to read and with a well argued hypotheses. They were the scoring criteria. But I struggled to rationalise it on first read so didn't comment until perhaps you'd read mine. I'm not sure if you have, but the second read was better, and it's time to chat.

First I firmly agree and conclude undecidability. But the semantic door opened with "a selection was made" on divergence or interactions. That may or not imply conscious intent so definition was needed, but you introduced "cosmic intentionality", transferring ball interactions to a player or 'the rules'. Certainly behavioural rules exist for cosmic particles, i.e. field alignments. But I struggle to assign conscious intent to the infinite angular relationships between particles and incoming waves, viz;

Take an interaction and momentum exchange between simple rotating spheres or a wave ('function') and a sphere). They may, entirely by chance, meet at any point on the surface. In the centre of mass rest frame; At the equator, one side finds motion LEFT, and the other RIGHT. Near the N pole is anticlockwise, the S pole clockwise (-/+) The combinations vary inversely by the cosine with latitude. Now with standard absorption and re-emission the 'arriving' energy is requantized by the spheres momenta but varies entirely with that tangent point. So certainly a range of outcomes is possible, a semantic leap may admit 'a selection' (with conditions), but considering the full 'Bloch sphere' of attitudes possible could we rationally then make another leap to invoke 'intent'?

I also ask do you think causality 'must' imply determinism? (Tangent points are indeterminable) Can we answer this; Would you find + or - polarity on an equator? Is that not too undecidable or 50:50?

Interestingly I identify how the scenario above classically reproduces QM's predictions, but is humankind yet quite ready for such heresy!?

I should confess I have published a model of an apparently well evidenced recycling cosmology with a fractal mechanism (evident in quasars), which DOES imply a greater repeating pattern. We would then have one universe (at a time, here) though maybe infinitely many nearby and previously!

Very well done for yours and I'm honoured mine is nearby and hope you'll comment honestly on it (the likelihood it'll be passed over for placings yet again is less important).

Best wishes

Peter

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Peter (I assume Peter Jackson – it seems you may not have been logged in when you commented) –



Thank you for the careful read and excellent comments. Yes, I did read your essay – I found it difficult to follow but I am in general agreement with key points. Specifically, I would agree that “Nature may meet the conditions for a mathematical universe but it also does so for...

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Peter (I assume Peter Jackson – it seems you may not have been logged in when you commented) –



Thank you for the careful read and excellent comments. Yes, I did read your essay – I found it difficult to follow but I am in general agreement with key points. Specifically, I would agree that “Nature may meet the conditions for a mathematical universe but it also does so for most physical and meta-physical universes and a 'creator'. All have infinite recursion, in both directions.” An excellent and profound observation. I did stumble on the following sentence – “Maths or matter may imply a creator, who must be created.” This implies infinite regress, which of course one is free to follow – although a single infinite (recursive) first creator is a much simpler speculation.

I cheerfully agree as well with your final conclusion: “No conclusion is possible as to whether or not a cosmic architect created our or any universe.”

In your comment above, I am struck by a thought I had not articulated in my essay. Perhaps the undecidability of the nature of cosmic architecture (random vs. specific) that I discuss in some detail extends down to fundamental QM events at the point of interaction. A billiard ball (simple model of a spinning moving sphere) connects with another billiard ball --- is that precise interaction exactly the one required to send the second billiard ball into the pocket? As we conceptually dive down past the macro-particles to the QM level where the contact is instantiated, do we perhaps not find a choice point --- a single quantum interaction, fundamentally indeterminate, where a 50:50 probability ultimately decides the fate of the second billiard ball? By such interactions the fine tuning constants may have emerged in our universe.

It is a pleasure to converse with you! Perhaps through more conversation we will be able to meet Einstein’s criteria – “we should be able to be explain physics to a barmaid” – or bartender as we should say in the 21st century…

Cheers – George Gantz

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Dear Dr. Gantz -

Thanks for your comments over my way ["Causality and Teleology"].

Reading your essay felt like a humanistic version of my own views! What follows is headline-type description of this using your own [well-crafted] words.

"Do you believe that what exists is fundamentally an expression of randomness within mathematical forms? Or do you believe in a cosmic...

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Dear Dr. Gantz -

Thanks for your comments over my way ["Causality and Teleology"].

Reading your essay felt like a humanistic version of my own views! What follows is headline-type description of this using your own [well-crafted] words.

"Do you believe that what exists is fundamentally an expression of randomness within mathematical forms? Or do you believe in a cosmic intentionality that provides generative guidance for the emergence and evolution of our uniquely specified universe?"

I guess that I'm saying that one has both of these simultaneously - my discrete combinatorics generate a unique generative model. This is our only large-scale disagreement, I think.

"... local structure and order emerges by exporting entropy to the larger environment."

Yes. Both of our [very similar] views rest nicely on Jeremy England's argument for life's emergence via its drive to maximize entropy creation [ie. growth].

"Phillip W. Anderson ... maintains that the hierarchical structure of increasing complexity arises as a function of symmetry breaking, and the resulting whole is more than, and different from, the sum of its parts."

I claim that the mechanism of emergence is to be described by the co-boundary operation, which is the topological version of the "integration" operation in Calculus. [I've not seen this thought elsewhere.] The erection of a new 'integrated' hierarchical level is entropically driven.

"The system searches through available configurations, constrained by mathematical laws and prior history, attracted to one that achieves that goal." This is the hierarchical bubble-up / trickle-down mechanism I describe.

"Self-reflective consciousness emerges, perhaps in the synchronous coordination of quantum behavior ... ." Indeed! 'Quantum behavior' is what I call space-like computation [versus Turing's time-like ditto].

"There is an additional feature to the cascade of emergent processes - they are reciprocally interactive. Reciprocity at the component level enables the system to seek adaptive solutions. Reciprocity between component and system levels is inherent in the dynamic of emergence --- components enable the system to search, and the system attraction to pointer states drives the selection. These relations flow up and down the emergent cascade. In the emergent history of our universe, everything is connected to everything else in a limitless web of reciprocity."

Oh yes! I say that the web is made out of gravity, which is space-like, not time-like, not causal.

"Cosmic intentionality is love flowing through the universe, guiding the emergent cascade. Each prior state evolves and moves towards a higher state, one reflecting a greater degree of intention, attraction, cooperation and reciprocation." Whether the evolved state is "higher" depends though on the degree of organization it represents in its newness. Not all evolution is progress - extinction is also a possibility, but this is a detail.

"While we can observe the actions of the entity ... we cannot observe his/her/its interior state." Right. But:

"From an empirical standpoint, there is no answer. The q
uestion is undecidable." I disagree: If the observer's consciousness is time-like, yes, but if it's space-like [eg. meditative state], this *is* the interior state, and you *are* the intention! Also, re Undecideability, since my view of computation exceeds Turing's formulation, this weakens arguments from this basis.

My conclusion is that the intentionality you mention can be properly identified with entropic gravity - the tendency for all things without distinction to attract each other. My mod4 construction, with the chakra system in mind, then directly and easily identifies gravity with love.

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Dear George,

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to respond to your fine and evocative essay. The problem seems to be that I’m stuck on the horns of your dichotomy. You ask in the Introduction whether I believe that existence is randomness within mathematical forms – I would say yes, at a physical level. But I certainly would not argue that intentionality is an illusion… quite a...

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Dear George,

I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to respond to your fine and evocative essay. The problem seems to be that I’m stuck on the horns of your dichotomy. You ask in the Introduction whether I believe that existence is randomness within mathematical forms – I would say yes, at a physical level. But I certainly would not argue that intentionality is an illusion… quite a few of the essays here trace the various stages of its emergence in interestingly different ways; it's evidently real and not incompatible with its physical foundations. (You make some quite eloquent statements about this in your essay too.)

As to whether the universe is generated and guided by a cosmic intentionality – that’s also complicated, for me. While I tend to think of God in more personal terms, I do try every day to imagine the world and my own life as the result of divine providence – that seems to me a very healthy way of coping with things.

You say the question is undecidable, and I agree… although not because I can’t tell whether a copy of Hamlet was written by monkeys; I can be pretty sure it wasn’t. But our world, as marvelous as it is in so many ways, isn’t like that at all. The evolution of life, for example, is beautifully explained in great detail in terms of accidentally emergent processes, and I’ve tried to show in my essay that the physical world and the human mind can eventually be understood in a similar way.

It may seem strange to you, but I don’t see any contradiction between seeing the world as a series of random accidents and seeing it as created and guided: these are just two ways of relating to the same set of facts. Believing in God is a good way of expressing my sense of the meaning of things, but it’s not a good way of explaining anything.

And it seems the world is explainable, to an amazing extent. I love trying to understand how things work and why: where all these dimensions of meaning come from. But to say they come from cosmic intentionality doesn’t help me; it seems too abstract and reductive. What I focus on instead is how new kinds of relationships can emerge in which random events make a difference in new ways – as you summarize in your section on Reciprocity. This happens very differently on different levels.

So I’m more than sympathetic with your feelings about our unique universe, but I don’t think there’s really an either/or here, between a meaningful world and a world that emerges by accident. I agree that the “multiverse” is a terrible idea, but that’s because it explains so little, not because there’s any danger that my choices and decisions might not matter.

At any event, I appreciate your adding your distinctive and heartfelt viewpoint to this strange brew of essays – and best wishes to you and your family from another grateful grandfather.

Conrad

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George Gantz,

Thank you for reading and commenting on my essay, and I would particularly like to thank you for the question about teleological bias (T-bias). This is a term that I am not altogether satisfied with. First off, the word teleological carries a certain amount of religious or spiritual baggage I wish to avoid. In its most basic definition, I intend it to convey the subjective...

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George Gantz,

Thank you for reading and commenting on my essay, and I would particularly like to thank you for the question about teleological bias (T-bias). This is a term that I am not altogether satisfied with. First off, the word teleological carries a certain amount of religious or spiritual baggage I wish to avoid. In its most basic definition, I intend it to convey the subjective feeling or goal within a sentient being, no matter how primitive, to survive and flourish.

In reading your well-written essay, I noticed my own internal definitions of many of the T-biased words we both use have substantially different meanings to the way you use them. I think I would need to construct a George-Jim Rosetta Stone to translate between them. I find it useful to slightly redefine several of the most common words used in these discussions. These are phenomenal definitions. A sentient being is nothing more than an individuated organism, which is connected to and reacts to the variations in its environment by way of receptor and proprioceptor nerve endings. By this definition a worm can be sentient. Intelligence is the quantitative and qualitative capacity to process and organize information. By this definition, the computer Watson is highly intelligent. Consciousness is the subjective phenomenal experience of the qualia of sentience as a first-person observation of the present moment. An agenda somehow comes out of this and presents itself directly to the subject.

It would occur to us in retrospect that the veracity, completeness and therefore the predictive power of this internalized observation of reality would serve an organism well. But this would beg the question: how, on the evolutionary trail, did an organism’s acquisition of an agenda to extract meaningful and relevant information for survival arise? Somehow, it must be connected to existential threat. But how does the organism come to sense that existential threat? My simplistic answer is that an organism's nerve endings, no matter how primitive, provide the initial feedback. All sentient beings have skin in the game. But there still remains the problem of how that feedback might be converted into consciousness and the sensation of jeopardy.

{Insert hand waving here}

Once the sense of jeopardy has been detected, the obvious back reaction would be a teleological bias to fulfill the dual agendas: stay in the energy flux and avoid destruction. This would require the organism to choose a path through phase space that would provide the requisite energy flux or reservoir needed to maintain the dissipative state of the organism in order to be able to selectively navigate this evolutionary landscape. Adaptive response to the environment occurs over a temporal spectrum from real-time to the life of the species. This would go for the tubeworms living near a steam vent or, as more neural circuitry is thrown at the problem in service of this agenda, an investment banker competing for her share of the billions in bonuses available to maintain herself far from equilibrium.

I generally try to avoid the use of the word ‘intentional’ as it can be confused with the less descriptive philosophical term of art denoting the content or object of consciousness. This definition is unfortunate. Here, I will attempt to provide you with a more complete picture of what I'm trying to get at with the term T-bias as it applies to sentient beings with intelligence and consciousness but it does not apply to any systems or processes that do not have these attributes. It is exclusively a property of life.

Which is to say, I agree with your essay up to the point where you introduce cosmic intention. When you assume the existence of that which is to be explained, then all further explanation stops. Indeed consciousness is mysterious. They don't call it the hard problem for nothing.

Self-identity and self-interest progress in stages. Right after I am born, with my first inklings of self-awareness my identity and my self-interest stop at my skin. Then as I discriminate myself from my immediate surroundings and the active agents within it I soon come to the awareness of my dependence upon these other active agents for my well-being: my family, my friends and my community. I develop a feeling of what is good for these extensions of myself are good for me. And as I extend my self-definition outwards to my school, the company I work for, my country and finally, if all goes well, the entire globe with its social, economic and political connectivity, and with its ecology and environment, it is in my enlightened self-interest to become one with everything. The greatest good for the greatest number might become the end of this outward self-definition, but this is only half the story. This final step is too easily perverted. Utilitarianism has been used for human sacrifice. The final step of enlightened self-interest is to bring back a balance to what I call the I-thou symmetry. If I do not value and protect my own being as an individual then the whole point of my being is lost. This concept is beautifully contained in the Golden rule and in Kant's contrapositive formulation of the categorical imperative: “do not do to anyone else what you would not have done to you.”

As you noted, we have the standard model of particle physics. Just think, if the sciences had been properly funded we could have had the deluxe model!

Best regards,

Jim Stanfield

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A clearly written, accessible, essay. I like that you have presented your view as an option and not the certain truth. I also like that you have considered top down influence. I like the personal touches such as, how your grandson subjectively considers the World. I love watching starlings flock too. There were amazing displays in the evening where I grew up as a child. It is a lovely connection...

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A clearly written, accessible, essay. I like that you have presented your view as an option and not the certain truth. I also like that you have considered top down influence. I like the personal touches such as, how your grandson subjectively considers the World. I love watching starlings flock too. There were amazing displays in the evening where I grew up as a child. It is a lovely connection you made between bike riding and their flight. Perhaps we do witness their daily exhilaration, as they have a limbic system enabling emotion. It is a very nice thought. Overall, I like what you have done but here are some places where I disagree.

” The goal is not to create spiral or other specific shapes but to minimize local entropy. The system searches through available configurations, constrained by mathematical laws and prior history, attracted to one that achieves that goal.” G. Gantz. I don’t think there is any evidence for or mechanisms for the system to search through all available configurations. It is, as I see it , a matter of mechanics; the principle of least action, Newtons first law and conservation of energy.

“There is a critical difference between intentionality and agency. Intentions are behaviors that can be observed.” G. Gantz. Your definition of intention is wrong. It is not a behavior that can be observed but a prior aim, goal or objective. Action/behavior that is observed may or may not be intentional, that is goal driven. Outcomes do not have to be results of prior goals just because they are outcomes. People do sometimes look back and see events as purposeful in hindsight but that is rationalization.

“In this case, the intention (motion and direction) of the billiard ball was imparted to it by the intention (a decision to impart motion and direction) of the conscious human agent. In this example, both the billiard ball and the human have intention.” G. Gantz. Intention is not motion and direction, that would more correctly be called momentum. The latter use of intention, pertaining to the human decision, is the correct usage.

“…We are like the third person discovering a Hamlet manuscript, trying to decide if it was intentionally produced or if it is just an unusual but totally random coincidence…”. G. Gantz. I think it is incorrect to assume that if something is not random it must be intentional and vice versa. Natural processes can be sequential and orderly without an external prior plan. The instruction for reach next step being within the existing configuration of the system and Object universe. Development falls in between being random and planned: controlled, constrained because of physics and chemistry, and macro feedback on the system, sequential because of the foundational sequential passage of time, with an outcome that may be functional but nevertheless not purposely constructed (ie it is without prior goal).

“Cosmic intentionality is love flowing through the universe, guiding the emergent cascade. Each prior state evolves and moves towards a higher state, one reflecting a greater degree of intention, attraction, cooperation and reciprocation.” I’m not sure what you mean by “state “ in this context, I don’t see relentless ‘upward’ progress. It is evident that more complex states are also broken down or destroyed. There is deposition and erosion, crystallization and dissolving. Growth of galaxies and their destruction. Cycles of growth and death and decomposition. As well as development of biological structures there is also atrophy. There is evolution and diversification of species and there is extinction. Growth of civilizations and collapse. How does highly evolved competitive “arms race” of species such as toxin production, and parasitism and predation fit into your vision of cosmic development?

Sorry if these points gave already been raised and discussed. You have received a great deal of feedback, congratulations, and I haven’t the energy to read it all. Kind regards Georgina

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