APPENDIX Z64: Q4P & Natural Selection

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APPENDIX Z64:
Q4P
∞
& Natural Selection
Q4P
∞
& Natural Selection
The Mechanism/Criteria
Quest for Potential is basically
three-fold/nested.
Survival ( Potential ( Extraordinariation
To the extent that Natural
Selection is correct,
Q4P
∞
“selects” among so-to-speak mutations
and impacts evolution basically via the following
3
fundamental nested criteria:
1) Survival of the ttest/ablest to pass on their
genes
2) Deploying an ever-greater
Potential array
3) Seeking potential routes/denouement of
Extraordinariation.
However, note clearly that
Q4P
∞
is assessing on a
universe-basis and on planetary-basis as well, and
not
just at the local level. Even though the local level
is the
key component.

for the scientist reader: I know you want a
mechanism;
but, that would literally require Q4P
∞
power. Am not
evading the issue; rather I am explicating that it
would
require a quasi-supra-organic-super-processing entity
spanning the entire universe – and getting feedback
in
real-time across its far
reaches…
meaning, Q4P
∞
itself
[ see in parallel Seth Lloyd of MIT XQIT, Programming the
Universe, Knopf, 2006 ]
Note that Q4P
∞
does not limit itself to tweaking Natural
Selection. The complete and multi-faceted answer
is
respectfully beyond our ken.

APPENDIX Z63: Paradigm Challenges

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APPENDIX Z63:
Paradigm Challenges
Comments on Wikipedia
review of the 1962 classic, The
Structure of Scientic Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn
(Univ. Of Chicago Press)
[Note that Birnbaum proposes a new paradigm
metaphysics, not a new paradigm scientic theory;
however, the Birnbaum metaphysics fully wraps-around
and integrates-with science.]
Note to reader:
We are going to present
six excerpts from the Wikipedia
article, followed by the Birnbaum “take”.
Excerpt (A):
“…Kuhn argued for an
episodic model in which periods
of such conceptual continuity
in normal science were
interrupted by periods of
revolutionary science. During
revolutions in science
the discovery of anomalies leads
to a whole new paradigm
that changes the rules of the

game and the “map”
directing new research, asks new
questions of old data,
and moves beyond the puzzle-
solving of normal science….”
(A) The Birnbaum “take”:
A proposed paradigm shift “raises the stakes.”
If the new paradigm is more authentic than the prior, the
entire eld emerges more
dynamic and overarching. If
the new paradigm is less authentic, the entire eld
is set
back.
Excerpt (B):
“…Kuhn’s book argues that the evolution of scientic
theory does not emerge
from the straightforward
accumulation of facts,
but rather from a set
of changing
intellectual circumstances
and possibilities….”
(B) The Birnbaum “take”:
For my part, I would call this “a conceptual
breakthrough”
Excerpt (C):
“Coherence”
One of the aims of science is to nd models that
will
account for as many observations as possible
within
a coherent framework….”

THE TRANSCENDENT DYNAMIC
(C) The Birnbaum “take”:
With an important caveat:
With no serious aws or glaring
gaps.
Excerpt (D):
“…As a paradigm is stretched to its limits, anomalies
— failures of the current paradigm
to take into account
observed phenomena —
accumulate…. But no matter
how great or numerous the anomalies
that persist, Kuhn
observes, the practicing
scientists will not lose faith
in
the established paradigm
for as long as no credible
alternative is available….”
“…In any community of scientists, Kuhn states, there
are some individuals
who are bolder than most. These
scientists, judging that
a crisis exists, embark on
what
Thomas Kuhn calls revolutionary science, exploring
alternatives to long-held,
obvious-seeming assumptions.
Occasionally this
generates a rival to the established
framework of thought…
The majority of the scientic
community will oppose
any conceptual change….
Those scientists who
possess an exceptional ability
to recognize a theory’s potential will
be the rst whose
preference is likely to shift in favor of the challenging
paradigm. There typically follows a period
in which
there are adherents of both paradigms.
In time, if the
challenging paradigm is
solidied and unied, it will
replace the old paradigm, and a paradigm
shift will have
occurred….”

(D) The Birnbaum “take”:
Note that typically the contemporaneous ‘scientic
community’ refuses to acknowledge the objectively
unacceptable limitations of the old paradigm.
Excerpt (E):
“Incommensurability”
“According to Kuhn,
the scientic paradigms preceding
and succeeding a
paradigm shift are so
different
that their theories
are incommensurable — the
new
paradigm cannot be
proven or disproven by
the rules of
the old paradigm, and
vice versa…. The paradigm shift
does not merely involve the revision or
transformation of
an individual theory, it changes the way terminology is
dened…. The new
theories were not, as the
scientists
had previously thought,
just extensions of old
theories,
but were instead completely new world views….
It is
simply not possible,
according to Kuhn, to
construct an
impartial language that
can be used to perform a
neutral
comparison between conicting
paradigms, because
the very terms used
are integral to the respective
paradigms… The competition
between paradigms is
not the sort of battle that can be resolved
by proofs.”
Scientists subscribing to
different paradigms end up
talking past one
another….”
(E) The Birnbaum “take”:
I might say slightly differently:
201 APPENDIX

The new can effectively challenge the old.
On the merits.
The old is unable to
challenge the new on the merits.
The new cannot ‘prove’
the new – yet.
Excerpt (F):
“…Kuhn saw that for a new candidate for paradigm
to be accepted by a scientic community…
1) the new candidate must seem to resolve some
outstanding and generally recognized problem that
can be met in no other way.
2) the new paradigm must promise to preserve a
relatively large part of the concrete problem solving
activity that has accrued to science through its
predecessors.
3) overall Kuhn maintained that the new paradigm
must also solve more problems
than its predecessor,
which therefore entailed
that the number of newly
solved problems must be greater
than those solved in
the old paradigm….”
(F) The Birnbaum “take”:
All three are true in
Summa’s case.

APPENDIX Z62: 2010: Cosmologist Haisch Clones Summa I

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APPENDIX Z62:
2010: Cosmologist Haisch
***
Clones Summa I
(copyrighted & published 1988)
“The purpose I propose that life has is a grand one,
and
even, I think, a logical one. We are the means whereby
God experiences his own potential, and this is why
the
Universe has some of the amazing properties
conducive
to life that it has….” (p. 20)
“The purpose of life is to let God make his own
potential
real. And of course this cannot be limited to
human
experience. God in this view seeks the experience of
all
living things on this planet and wherever else life
might
exist and whatever else it might be like….” (pp.
20-21)
“Back to the question of evil. If we are to
believe
in a God, we would surely like for him or her to
be
benevolent and merciful in addition to all-knowing
and
all-powerful, omniscient and omnipotent. How could
he or she tolerate the cruelty that some inict on
others
(including on animals) and still merit our respect
as a
kind and loving God?
What I am proposing—and it is no original idea of
mine—is that God chooses to deliberately stay off
the

playing eld in order to let freedom of choice create
the new and original experiences that the Universe
affords
and that God seeks through us….” (p. 23)
“The idea of an innite conscious intelligence with
innite
potential, whose ideas become the laws of physics
of our Universe and others, makes sense to me. The
consciousness providing purpose can be called God,
who transforms potential into experience and gives
our
universe a purpose….” (p. 85)
“…God desires to experience his potential….
Because
we are the incarnations of God in the physical
realm, God
experiences the richness of his potential through
us….”
(p. 86)
“The Godhead has innite potential, innite
power, innite
ability…but that is all sterile perfection. In The God
Theory the Godhead chooses to convert potential into
experience….” (p. 122)
“…God’s consciousness
wishes to know itself by
expressing itself. God wishes to make his
potential
real….” (p. 126)
“I believe that we live in a purpose-guided
Universe
governed by the laws of science. There is no
conict
between a Universe of matter and forces and a
Universe
of purpose, because the purpose is what went into
the
laws. In order for God to let himself experience a
part
of his potential, he imagines into existence just
the right
characteristics that a Universe needed to have in
order for
life to originate and then to evolve into complex
beings,
such as you and I. His consciousness caused this
and
it is his consciousness that we share and that is
our
195 APPENDIX

essence. But the arena in which all this takes place
is
fully governed by the laws of nature including
Darwinian
evolution. Hence there is ample reason to believe in
Einstein, Darwin, and God.” (p. 206)
from the author –
This appendix was added-on by myself in
September,
2012, seven years after Summa II was originally
rst
copyrighted and posted online (2005), four years
after
it (Summa II) was available on Amazon, and
twenty-four
years after Summa I was published by KTAV – and
reviewed and distributed globally.
Note that all the extracts from the Haisch book
are
almost verbatim reprints of key and highlighted
sections
of Summa Metaphysica I’s
featured centerpiece Unied
Formulation (reprinted in Summa II).
Summa I (1988) introduces onto the world scene,
among
other concepts, respectfully, my original concept of Quest
for Potential
∞
as well as the inter-related
Potential∞ as the
core of the Divine.
Note as well that Summa I (God and Evil) maneuvers
with the concept of Divine Contraction of Divine
Consciousness in Summa I’s
book-spanning Theodicy
presentation. (Former seminary student) Haisch’s
presentation (2010) of this theme in his above-noted
The
Purpose Guided Universe is almost a verbatim extract
from Summa I.

Finally, Haisch’s centerpiece theme – the actual title of
his book – The Purpose-Guided Universe
– of Potential
fulllment being the purpose of Creation, is
straight out of
Summa I.
Thus, note that Haisch’s
key and central ideas (2006 and
2010) very directly, to
put it mildly, precisely parallel or
restate – ideas proffered
in Summa I (1988) and Summa II
(2005).
Note, however, that in the
‘history of ideas’ it is not
unusual for (alleged) ‘conceptual breakthrough’ ideas to
‘bubble up’ simultaneously in two unrelated
quarters. Of
course, in his case there are multiple identical concepts
bubbling-up here simultaneously – and therein lies the
issue.
Now, vis à vis
my parochial interests, I am ne with
several almost-identical concepts to my own being
proffered-forth by a ne
astrophysicist. It should be noted,
however, that Summa I
enjoyed considerable global
traction for over 18 years (both online and hard
copy)
before Haisch’s works on
cosmology (2006 and 2010).
One may, of course, give
San Francisco-based Haisch
the benet-of-the-doubt and deem him innocent of
conscious wrongdoing.
Vis à vis the global community’s interests, I am of course
glad that the concepts are being given traction – from
whatever serious corner.
May this trend continue in its
intended spirit of Good Will
to all mankind.
*** Bernard Haisch, The Purpose-Guided Universe. Franklin, New Jersey: New Page
Books. 2010. pp. 20, 21, 23, 86, 122, 126, 206.

APPENDIX Z61: 2010: Cosmologists Hawking and Mlodinow

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APPENDIX Z61:
2010: Cosmologists Hawking and
Mlodinow
***
“We each exist for but a short time, and in that
time
explore but a small part of the whole universe.
But
humans are a curious species. We wonder, we seek
answers. Living in this vast world that is by turns
kind and
cruel, and gazing at the immense heavens above,
people
have always asked a multitude of questions: How can
we
understand the world in which we nd ourselves?
How
does the universe behave? What is the nature of
reality?
Where did all this come from?
Did the universe need
a creator? Most of us do not spend most of our
time
worrying about these questions, but almost all of us
worry
about them some of the time.
Traditionally these are
questions for philosophy, but
philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up
with
modern developments in science, particularly
physics.
Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of
discovery in our quest for knowledge.”*
*** Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, The Grand Design. New York: Bantam
Books. 2010. p. 5

APPENDIX Z60: 2008: Cosmologist Paul Davies

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APPENDIX Z60:
2008: Cosmologist Paul Davies
***
“…Somehow the universe has engineered, not just
its own awareness, but also its own comprehension.
Mindless, blundering atoms have conspired to make
not just life, not just mind, but understanding….
Could
it just be a uke? Might the fact that the deepest
level of
reality has connected to a quirky natural
phenomenon
we call ‘the human mind’ represent nothing but a bizarre
and temporary aberration in an absurd and
pointless
universe? Or is there an even deeper subplot at
work?”….
(p. 5)
“In some manner…life, mind, and physical law are
part of
a common scheme, mutually supporting. Somehow, the
universe has engineered
its own self-awareness.”…
(p. 231)
*** Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma. United Kingdom: Little, First Mariner Books
edition. 2008. pp. 5 and 231

from the author –
Paul Davies (b. 1946) is possibly my favorite
cosmologist.
I have read several of his works since the early
1980s.
Australian Davies, currently at the University of
Arizona,
who has a Templeton Prize
under his belt, among other
academic trophies, is also a favorite cosmologist of
the
academic ruling elite in cosmology.
Reading the above quotes, one can sense Davies’s
frustration. The holy grail of cosmology – the
cosmic
common denominator/motivating engine lurks just
outside
his quite-formidable intellectual grasp. But, as
readers of
Summa surely grasp, all that Davies needs to do to
nail-
down ultimate victory after his ~25 books on
cosmology
and related, is to simply plug-in metaphysical Summa
into
his sophisticated astrophysicist matrix.
In contemporary times, theologians and physicists
both
vector towards the Goldilocks Enigma.
To theologians, it is an
indicator of a “Guiding Hand”
To physicists, it is a
conundrum.
Actually, the Goldilocks
Enigma is a key – and almost
incontrovertible-support for Q4P
∞
. It is Q4P
∞
which so-to-
speak “sets the dial” in each case.
And Q4P
∞
of course “sets-the-dial” to optimize potential
Extraordinariation – which includes Life.

APPENDIX Z59: 2006: Quantum Computation Theorist Seth Lloyd

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APPENDIX Z59:
2006: Quantum Computation
Theorist Seth Lloyd
***
The universe is a quantum computer
“The universe computes its own behavior.
* As soon as the
universe began, it began computing. At rst the
patterns
it produced were simple,
comprising elementary particles
and establishing the fundamental laws of physics. In
time,
as it processed more and
more information, the universe
spun out ever more intricate and complex patterns,
including galaxies, stars, and planets. Life,
language,
human beings, society,
culture—all owe their existence
to the intrinsic ability of matter and energy to
process
information.” (p. 3)
Why is the cosmos so complex?
“The computational capability of the universe explains
one of the great
mysteries of nature: how complex

systems such as living
creatures can arise from
fundamentally simple physical laws…. The digital
revolution under way today is merely the latest in
a long line of
information-processing revolutions
stretching back through the development of language,
the evolution of sex,
and the creation of life, to the
beginning of the universe
itself. Each revolution has
laid the groundwork for the
next, and all information-
processing revolutions
since the Big Bang stem from the
intrinsic information-processing ability of the universe.
The computational universe necessarily generates
complexity. Life, sex, the brain, and human
civilization
did not come about by
mere accident.” (pp. 3, 5)
from the author –
Lloyd and his key scientic compatriots are now
holed-up at MIT’s new
Center for Extreme Quantum
Information Theory (established in 2007) of which
Lloyd
is the Director [ google MIT xQIT ]. Lloyds
hypothesis
converges with mine. The universe does ‘compute
itself,’
and complexity ‘is no accident.’
Now, to a procient
cutting-edge secular MIT scientist
observing a slice of the universe at-work, the
universe
might appear as a quantum computer. What the scientist
is observing, however (according to our hypothesis)
is the
quantum aspect of Innite Divine Extraordinariation
at-
work.
From my perspective, the MIT group is pretty adroitly

dealing with a very key conceptual slice of the
(multi-
billion-year) unfolding of the cosmic drama. Thus
this
‘Quantum Information’ group would have a
potentially
signicant interest and “stake” in Summa. And,
Summa, in
turn, has an extremely signicant “stake” in this
group.
Of course, on some level we ‘talk past each
other.’ They
speak mechanisms; we speak metaphysics. But, on
another crucial level – i.e. the entire Universe as
~self-
generating and ~complexifying – we crucially
intersect.
The MIT center potentially buttresses a very major
swath
of Summa – from the pinnacle of contemporary
cutting-
edge academic hard sciences.
***
* Lloyd’s ~mechanistic terminology posits “a computer which
computes”; I might rather say “an Innite Divine
which ‘creates’
or ‘iterates.’” Note that Seth Lloyd is currently
(October, 2012) a
Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and has self-described
himself as a ‘quantum mechanic.’ Notwithstanding
the probability that
Lloyd is more multi-dimensional than he professes, his background
context is relevant here.
Note as well that Lloyd’s
group is a small cadre of iconoclastic
top-ight scientists/engineers/mathematicians
representing mainly
themselves (and not the scientic community
at-large), albeit with the
imprimatur of MIT for their esoteric and mind-stretching research.
*** Seth Lloyd, Programming the Universe. New York: Vintage Books, 2006. pp. 3 and 5

APPENDIX Z58: 2006: Cosmologist Leonard Susskind

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APPENDIX Z58:
2006: Cosmologist Leonard
Susskind
***
“For my own tastes, elegance and simplicity can
sometimes be found in principles that don’t at all
lend
themselves to equations. I know of no equations
that
are more elegant than the
two principles that underpin
Darwin’s theory: random
mutation and competition. This
book is about an organizing principle that is also
powerful
and simple….
And what about the biggest questions of all: who
or
what made the universe and for what reason? Is
there a
purpose to it all? I don’t pretend to know the answers…
…The ultimate existential question, ‘Why is there
Something rather than Nothing?’ has no more or less
of
an answer than before anyone had ever heard of String
Theory.”…
*** Leonard Susskind, The Cosmic Landscape. New York: Little, Brown and Company.
2006. pp 379-380

APPENDIX Z57: 2004: Cosmologists Tyson & Goldsmith

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APPENDIX Z57:
2004: Cosmologists Tyson
&
Goldsmith
***
“Every once in a while, however, a signicantly new
take on an important theory emerges…. The greatest
moments in scientic history have arisen, and will
always
arise, when a new explanation, perhaps coupled
with
new observational results, produces a seismic shift in our
conclusions about the workings of nature….
Baruch Spinoza, the philosopher who created the
strongest bridge between the natural and
supernatural,
rejected any distinction between nature and God, insisting
instead that the cosmos is simultaneously nature
and
God… Let us then proceed with our adventurous quest
for cosmic origins, acting much like detectives
who
deduce the facts of the crime from the evidence
left
behind.”
*** Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith. Origins. New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
Inc. 2004. pp 19-21

APPENDIX Z56: 2000: Cosmologist Brian Greene

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APPENDIX Z56:
2000: Cosmologist Brian Greene
***
“The search for the fundamental laws of the universe
is a
distinctly human drama, one that has stretched the
mind
and enriched the spirit… We are all, each in our own way,
seekers of the truth and we each long for an answer
to
why we are here. As we
collectively scale the mountain
of explanation, each generation stands rmly on
the
shoulders of the previous, bravely reaching for the peak.
Whether any of our descendants will ever take in the
view
from the summit and gaze out on the vast and
elegant
universe with a perspective of innite clarity, we cannot
predict. But as each generation climbs a little
higher, we
realize Jacob Bronowski’s pronouncement that ‘in every
age there is a turning point, a new way of seeing
and
asserting the coherence of the world [(Jacob Bronowski,
The Ascent of Man, p. 20]. And as our generation
marvels at our new view of the universe—our new way
of
asserting the world’s
coherence—we are fullling our part,
contributing our rung to the human ladder reaching
for
the stars.”
*** Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe. New York: First Vintage Books edition, 2000. p. 387

APPENDIX Z55: 1999: Cosmologist Martin Rees

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APPENDIX Z55:
1999: Cosmologist Martin Rees
Noted astrophysicist and cosmologist Martin Rees
(b. 1942,
England, and President
of the Royal Society
2005-2010)
noted the following in the nale of his 1999 work
“Just Six
Numbers”:***
“But it remains a fundamental challenge to
understand the very beginning – this must await a
‘nal’ theory…. Such a theory would signal the end
of an intellectual quest that started with Newton,
and continued through Maxwell, Einstein and their
successors. It would deepen our understanding of
space, time, and the basic forces….
This goal may be unattainable. There could be no
‘nal’ theory; or, if
there is, it could be beyond our
mental powers to grasp it. But even if this goal
is
reached, that would not be the end of challenging
science. As well as being a ‘fundamental’
science, cosmology is also the grandest of the
environmental sciences. It aims to understand

THE TRANSCENDENT DYNAMIC
how a simple ‘reball’ evolved into the complex
cosmic habitat we nd around us – how, here on
Earth, and perhaps in many biospheres elsewhere,
creatures evolved that are
able to reect on how
they emerged.”*
from the author –
Every once-in-a-while, Sir Martin, a sort-of
‘simple
concept’ makes-an-appearance on the world stage
– a ‘simple concept’ which simultaneously
apparently
‘solves’ an array of formidable, inter-related, and hitherto
seemingly intractable issues.
*** Martin Rees, Just Six Numbers. Great Britain: Weindenfeld & Nicolson, 1999. pp. 176-177

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