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Current Essay Contest
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Previous Contests
Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability Essay Contest
December 24, 2019 - April 24, 2020
Contest Partners: Fetzer Franklin Fund, and The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss
What Is “Fundamental”
October 28, 2017 to January 22, 2018
Sponsored by the Fetzer Franklin Fund and The Peter & Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss • winners
Wandering Towards a Goal
How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?
December 2, 2016 to March 3, 2017
Contest Partner: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Fund.
read/discuss • winners
Trick or Truth: The Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics
Contest Partners: Nanotronics Imaging, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, and The John Templeton Foundation
Media Partner: Scientific American
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How Should Humanity Steer the Future?
January 9, 2014 - August 31, 2014
Contest Partners: Jaan Tallinn, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
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It From Bit or Bit From It
March 25 - June 28, 2013
Contest Partners: The Gruber Foundation, J. Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
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Questioning the Foundations
Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?
May 24 - August 31, 2012
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, SubMeta, and Scientific American
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Is Reality Digital or Analog?
November 2010 - February 2011
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation and Scientific American
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What's Ultimately Possible in Physics?
May - October 2009
Contest Partners: Astrid and Bruce McWilliams
read/discuss • winners
The Nature of Time
August - December 2008
read/discuss • winners
Current Essay Contest
Contest Partner: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Fund.
Previous Contests
Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability Essay Contest
December 24, 2019 - April 24, 2020
Contest Partners: Fetzer Franklin Fund, and The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss
What Is “Fundamental”
October 28, 2017 to January 22, 2018
Sponsored by the Fetzer Franklin Fund and The Peter & Patricia Gruber Foundation
read/discuss • winners
Wandering Towards a Goal
How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?
December 2, 2016 to March 3, 2017
Contest Partner: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Fund.
read/discuss • winners
Trick or Truth: The Mysterious Connection Between Physics and Mathematics
Contest Partners: Nanotronics Imaging, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, and The John Templeton Foundation
Media Partner: Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
How Should Humanity Steer the Future?
January 9, 2014 - August 31, 2014
Contest Partners: Jaan Tallinn, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, The John Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
It From Bit or Bit From It
March 25 - June 28, 2013
Contest Partners: The Gruber Foundation, J. Templeton Foundation, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
Questioning the Foundations
Which of Our Basic Physical Assumptions Are Wrong?
May 24 - August 31, 2012
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, SubMeta, and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
Is Reality Digital or Analog?
November 2010 - February 2011
Contest Partners: The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation and Scientific American
read/discuss • winners
What's Ultimately Possible in Physics?
May - October 2009
Contest Partners: Astrid and Bruce McWilliams
read/discuss • winners
The Nature of Time
August - December 2008
read/discuss • winners
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RECENT POSTS IN THIS TOPIC
Dizhechko Semyonovich: on 4/7/17 at 3:13am UTC, wrote Dear Sirs! Physics of Descartes, which existed prior to the physics of...
Peter Jackson: on 3/31/17 at 17:17pm UTC, wrote Ben, Great read! I'm a more common than garden physicalist but our essays...
David Pinyana: on 3/24/17 at 18:10pm UTC, wrote Too philosophy essay... but you ask direct the main question: How can...
Jeffrey Schmitz: on 3/20/17 at 22:33pm UTC, wrote Ben, A good magician never shows how a trick is done. If someone saids the...
Ben Tolkin: on 3/20/17 at 14:53pm UTC, wrote Thanks! This essay contest has been interesting to watch; I make no...
Jeffrey Schmitz: on 3/19/17 at 22:30pm UTC, wrote Ben, I see essays that have nothing to do with the topic do well and I see...
Satyavarapu Gupta: on 3/17/17 at 14:44pm UTC, wrote Nice essay Tolkin, Your ideas and thinking are excellent for eg… ...
Joe Fisher: on 3/16/17 at 16:05pm UTC, wrote Dear Benjamin Tolkin, Please excuse me for I have no intention of...
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click titles to read articles
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Investigating how quantum memory storage could aid machine learning and how quantum interactions with the environment may have played a role in evolution.
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Dizhechko Semyonovich: on 4/7/17 at 3:13am UTC, wrote Dear Sirs! Physics of Descartes, which existed prior to the physics of...
Peter Jackson: on 3/31/17 at 17:17pm UTC, wrote Ben, Great read! I'm a more common than garden physicalist but our essays...
David Pinyana: on 3/24/17 at 18:10pm UTC, wrote Too philosophy essay... but you ask direct the main question: How can...
Jeffrey Schmitz: on 3/20/17 at 22:33pm UTC, wrote Ben, A good magician never shows how a trick is done. If someone saids the...
Ben Tolkin: on 3/20/17 at 14:53pm UTC, wrote Thanks! This essay contest has been interesting to watch; I make no...
Jeffrey Schmitz: on 3/19/17 at 22:30pm UTC, wrote Ben, I see essays that have nothing to do with the topic do well and I see...
Satyavarapu Gupta: on 3/17/17 at 14:44pm UTC, wrote Nice essay Tolkin, Your ideas and thinking are excellent for eg… ...
Joe Fisher: on 3/16/17 at 16:05pm UTC, wrote Dear Benjamin Tolkin, Please excuse me for I have no intention of...
RECENT FORUM POSTS
Kevin Pryor: "You are right that the particles would need a electromagnetic homuncular..." in Consciousness in the...
Lorraine Ford: "Kevin, I have replied below." in Consciousness in the...
Janko Kokosar: "I propose a simple addition for more honest voting. These steps can help..." in Undecidability,...
Satyavarapu Gupta: "What should be the Foundational basis of an Alternative cosmological theory..." in Alternative Models of...
Catalina Curceanu: "I would like to inform you that next week, starting 30th March, we shall..." in INSPYRE 2020 -- Please...
Jochen Szangolies: "Hi there, I'm not sure it's such a good idea to make current votes visible..." in Undecidability,...
Joe Fisher: "Unbelievable, after failing to build a visible computer containing visible..." in Think Quantum to Build...
Joe Fisher: "The only reason it would be physically impossible to manufacture a visible..." in Think Quantum to Build...
RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles
Think Quantum to Build Better AI
Investigating how quantum memory storage could aid machine learning and how quantum interactions with the environment may have played a role in evolution.
Outside the Box
A proposed quantum set-up that could predict your game-playing strategy resurrects Newcomb’s classic quiz show paradox.
The Quantum Agent
Investigating how the quantum measurement process might be related to the emergence of intelligence, agency and free will.
First Things First: The Physics of Causality
Why do we remember the past and not the future? Untangling the connections between cause and effect, choice, and entropy.
Can Time Be Saved From Physics?
Philosophers, physicists and neuroscientists discuss how our sense of time’s flow might arise through our interactions with external stimuli—despite suggestions from Einstein's relativity that our perception of the passage of time is an illusion.
FQXi FORUM
March 29, 2020
CATEGORY:
Wandering Towards a Goal Essay Contest (2016-2017)
[back]
TOPIC: Aiming the Arrow of Time by Benjamin Tolkin [refresh]
TOPIC: Aiming the Arrow of Time by Benjamin Tolkin [refresh]
Essay Abstract
An attempt to establish a reasonable working definition of intention. An intention is a causally relevant link between want and action; one that takes into account the mental model of the world present in the actor; the actor must believe they have the capacity to have a different intention; and the actor must not be certain if the intention will be successful. Then things go off the rails.
Author Bio
Ben Tolkin doesn't believe in bios. His background is in neuroscience and philosophy. He wrote half of this essay sober.
Download Essay PDF File
An attempt to establish a reasonable working definition of intention. An intention is a causally relevant link between want and action; one that takes into account the mental model of the world present in the actor; the actor must believe they have the capacity to have a different intention; and the actor must not be certain if the intention will be successful. Then things go off the rails.
Author Bio
Ben Tolkin doesn't believe in bios. His background is in neuroscience and philosophy. He wrote half of this essay sober.
Download Essay PDF File
Benjamin,
Excellent essay. You’ve addressed the question of the contest directly, which is rare. Looks like you’re suffering from a lack of attention as contestants with low ratings drift away. I’m giving you a 7, which may put you in the lead, but watch out for the trolls who will being you down with several 1’s.
We disagree on several points, which you assume would make your essay “not for me.” But I like your take that it’s likely “intentions do exist as relevant parts of our mental processing, and our consciousness simply picks them up on a delay.”
And I like “intentions are specific, capable of being mentally analyzed and altered, and perceived as controllable. Wanting to have food is not the same as intending to get food.” And “Intentions require the possibility of having a different intention.”
Where we disagree (I consider myself a “naturalist”, not a “physicalist”) is your devotion to causality: “Free will may emerge from physical systems, but only deterministic free will: it is you who decides, but since “you” is made up of deterministic parts, there was only ever one way you could describe.”
I hope you’ll have a look at my essay, where I contend that causality is emergent of a fundamentally spontaneous Nature.
Regardless, your essay is well-written and a pleasure to read. (At what point did you get drunk?) I hope it gets more attention.
report post as inappropriate
Excellent essay. You’ve addressed the question of the contest directly, which is rare. Looks like you’re suffering from a lack of attention as contestants with low ratings drift away. I’m giving you a 7, which may put you in the lead, but watch out for the trolls who will being you down with several 1’s.
We disagree on several points, which you assume would make your essay “not for me.” But I like your take that it’s likely “intentions do exist as relevant parts of our mental processing, and our consciousness simply picks them up on a delay.”
And I like “intentions are specific, capable of being mentally analyzed and altered, and perceived as controllable. Wanting to have food is not the same as intending to get food.” And “Intentions require the possibility of having a different intention.”
Where we disagree (I consider myself a “naturalist”, not a “physicalist”) is your devotion to causality: “Free will may emerge from physical systems, but only deterministic free will: it is you who decides, but since “you” is made up of deterministic parts, there was only ever one way you could describe.”
I hope you’ll have a look at my essay, where I contend that causality is emergent of a fundamentally spontaneous Nature.
Regardless, your essay is well-written and a pleasure to read. (At what point did you get drunk?) I hope it gets more attention.
Dear Benjamin Tolkin,
Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.
I merely wish to point out that “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.
Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.
The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.
A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.
Joe Fisher, Realist
report post as inappropriate
Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.
I merely wish to point out that “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.
Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.
The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.
A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.
Joe Fisher, Realist
Nice essay Tolkin,
Your ideas and thinking are excellent for eg…
‘What is an intention? In practical terms, this question is the same as: how do we know that intentions exist?’
A Good idea, I fully agree with you, see how intensions and goals are generated as discussed in my essay……………………………I want you to ask you to please have a look at my...
view entire post
Your ideas and thinking are excellent for eg…
‘What is an intention? In practical terms, this question is the same as: how do we know that intentions exist?’
A Good idea, I fully agree with you, see how intensions and goals are generated as discussed in my essay……………………………I want you to ask you to please have a look at my...
view entire post
Ben,
I see essays that have nothing to do with the topic do well and I see your essay, which has a sense of humor and insight into the topic, doing (at this date) poorly in the rankings. I wish I could change that.
I like how you use a river as an example and as a reoccurring theme. When I cover extra-terrestrial life in Astronomy class, I start out with the question "is fire alive?" You found a topic and covered it from everyway possible and had fun doing it. What else can you ask of an essay?
Best of luck in the contest,
Jeff
report post as inappropriate
I see essays that have nothing to do with the topic do well and I see your essay, which has a sense of humor and insight into the topic, doing (at this date) poorly in the rankings. I wish I could change that.
I like how you use a river as an example and as a reoccurring theme. When I cover extra-terrestrial life in Astronomy class, I start out with the question "is fire alive?" You found a topic and covered it from everyway possible and had fun doing it. What else can you ask of an essay?
Best of luck in the contest,
Jeff
Thanks! This essay contest has been interesting to watch; I make no pretensions about my essay being anything but terrible, but yeah, a good majority of submissions are completely unrelated rambles. On the other hand, I'm really not sure what I was talking about with the river; I think the title of section 3 comes from the river being the third of three turns in Texas Hold 'em.
Ben,
A good magician never shows how a trick is done. If someone saids the river part was good, say you carefully planned it. You have a writing style and use examples, there are a number of essays that just throw equations at the poor reader.
Jeff
report post as inappropriate
A good magician never shows how a trick is done. If someone saids the river part was good, say you carefully planned it. You have a writing style and use examples, there are a number of essays that just throw equations at the poor reader.
Jeff
Too philosophy essay... but you ask direct the main question: How can mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intention?
report post as inappropriate
Ben,
Great read! I'm a more common than garden physicalist but our essays have much in common, coincidentally I wrote the other half of mine sober! We also both point out we must; "keep in mind that we cannot be certain how much we’re influenced by our own intuitions, even if we’d tried to remove assumptions." though you're far more succinct!
I found it more readable than 2/3rds here, and you hit many salaient points. These must be salient as I hit them too; "Intentions require the possibility of having a different intention. I call them simply DECISIONS, then cascading to other consequential ones. Also; All Logic ends in paradox. I invoke hierarchical 'propositional dynamic logic' (PDL) which almost eliminates that! (shown in my last yrs essay too).
Also that "things go off the rails"! Like the nonsense of QM. You "doubt there are people who perceive the world flowing backwards in time" yet most who accept QM do, backwards causality is implicit! So we agree; "it seems really dubious and essentially taken on faith to suppose that quantum mechanics is the avenue by which free will enters the universe."
I do then go on to show that a PHYSICAL solution to QM is possible!! But of course few can overcome the influence of their embedded intuitions!
Do read mine (and score it!) It's mainly quite different to yours but it has not a single calculation! and I'm sure you'll like its realism. Then see if you can guess which half was sober.
Thanks for yours. It's made me smile and made my day.
Very best
Peter
report post as inappropriate
Great read! I'm a more common than garden physicalist but our essays have much in common, coincidentally I wrote the other half of mine sober! We also both point out we must; "keep in mind that we cannot be certain how much we’re influenced by our own intuitions, even if we’d tried to remove assumptions." though you're far more succinct!
I found it more readable than 2/3rds here, and you hit many salaient points. These must be salient as I hit them too; "Intentions require the possibility of having a different intention. I call them simply DECISIONS, then cascading to other consequential ones. Also; All Logic ends in paradox. I invoke hierarchical 'propositional dynamic logic' (PDL) which almost eliminates that! (shown in my last yrs essay too).
Also that "things go off the rails"! Like the nonsense of QM. You "doubt there are people who perceive the world flowing backwards in time" yet most who accept QM do, backwards causality is implicit! So we agree; "it seems really dubious and essentially taken on faith to suppose that quantum mechanics is the avenue by which free will enters the universe."
I do then go on to show that a PHYSICAL solution to QM is possible!! But of course few can overcome the influence of their embedded intuitions!
Do read mine (and score it!) It's mainly quite different to yours but it has not a single calculation! and I'm sure you'll like its realism. Then see if you can guess which half was sober.
Thanks for yours. It's made me smile and made my day.
Very best
Peter
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
report post as inappropriate
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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