A book about mathematics, physics and spirituality. Spiritual instincts have evolved to connect us with the creative aspects of biological evolution which are crucial to long term survival.
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Science and technology, through the objectivity of experiments, are expanding human power at an accelerating rate. In contrast, the growth of our spirituality and values remains haphazard. This widening gap is at the core of the multiple crises we face.
What is and what will be integrates science with values and meaning by making the simplest possible assumption about the connection between physical structure and conscious experience. The implications are not just philosophical. They extend to the foundations of mathematics and physics suggesting that Einstein's intuition near the end of his life was correct.
I consider it quite possible that physics cannot be based on the field concept, i. e., on continuous structures. In that case nothing remains of my entire castle in the air gravitation theory included, [and of] the rest of modern physics. -- Albert Einstein
The enormous implications for mathematics and physics of no continuous structures are explored in detail. More important are the wider implications of connecting conscious experience with physical structure. This book argues that spiritual instincts have evolved to connect us with the creative aspects of biological evolution which are crucial to long term survival. In this view God is the unlimited evolution of consciousness. This is a physical process that can be measured and directed. For it to expand without limit requires ever expanding diversity. No single path approach will work. If the evolution of consciousness is allowed to expand without limit, then whatever ecstatic wondrous experience any being ever experiences is the merest hint of a shadow of what can be and that will always be the case. This follows from Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem and the assumptions of this book.
Paul Budnik is a consultant in Silicon Valley. He has a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Illinois and has taught computer science at UCLA. His web site (www.mtnmath.com) is highly ranked by Google on many topics including "Schrödinger's cat", "formal logic", "developing intuition" and "universal consciousness".
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What is and what will be is available with and without color images of nature interspersed throughout the text as visual poetry at Lulu.com. |
What is and what will be at Amazon.com 19.92
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An earlier draft of this book is still available as a free download here. The images in the free downloads have a much lower resolution than the download for purchase and the printed version.
A five minute video poem, The Erotic Universe, touches on one of the fundamental themes of this book.
A twenty minute video poem, Surviving the Singularity, develops the fundamental themes of this book in the light of Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity is Near.
A thirty minute video, Mathematical Infinity and Human Destiny (transcript), gives an overview of the major technical and philosophical themes of this book.
What is Mathematics About? (HTML)
(PDF) in
Philosophy of Mathematics Education,
number 22, November 2007.
Justifying and Exploring Realistic Monism (HTML) (PDF) gives an overview of some of the philisophical issues discussed in the book.
Diversity and the Limits of Reason (HTML) (PDF) discusses why Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems imply that diversity
must be a complement to reason for unbounded creativity.
Beyond Matter and Spirit to an Objective Spirituality through the Totality Axiom (HTML) (PDF) gives an overview of the philosophical ideas of this book.
A poster presentation "Immediate experience and existence" gives an overview of the philosophical ideas.
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