Publisher’s Description of Boundless Reason
In the culmination of his 1973 BBC science series, The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski envisioned the future of science as a grand strategy for refining everyday thinking based on John von Neumann’s game theory and incomplete mathematics of reason. The key to completing this conception of reason is a new form of the science of goal-seeking (cybernetics). Rather than seeking either well-defined (first-order) or ill-defined (higher-order) ends, this new form seeks the timeless (infinite-order) end of deciding well (Wisdom). It does so by breaking this end down into likely factors. Pursuing any of these factors well calls for deciding well, which calls for pursuing all the others. The better people decide, the more tightly the pursuits of these factors intertwine. Among these likely factors are the timeless ends of believing well (Truth), contemplating well (Beauty), governing ourselves well (Justice), and competing well (Winning). This rings true with Bronowski’s claim that what von Neumann sought in his mathematics of reason was “a procedure, as a grand overall way of life—what in the humanities we would call a system of values.”
We may think of this ethical approach to science as the process of refining everyday thinking, of seeking all that is good in deciding well in living well. We can never precisely know what this timeless end is. However, we can imagine expanding science from seeking the truth to seeking the truth ever more wisely. Doing so well calls for distinguishing between models of the world that help us solve given problems and those that help us find better problems to solve. Understanding the reason underlying this formal process of refining everyday thinking not only helps us learn to live ever more wisely but also to identify defectors in the game of deciding well in living well ever more readily.
This self-refining approach to science may lead to artificial beings that learn to decide ever more wisely several orders of magnitude faster than human beings. We would be wise to build a culture these potential people would want to join. Given recent advances in artificial intelligence, we ought to do so directly.
Author’s Note
The reason underlying science as the process of refining everyday thinking includes not only logic but also the beauty that emerges from removing waste from the complex (multiple-frame) process of deciding well. Few concepts are as critical to how people view the world as their concept of reason. To be willing to change this concept, people need to see extraordinary value in doing so. Knowing that I needed to learn more about what prevents people from seeing this value, I chose to self-publish this book. I also chose not to promote it widely. In time, I will likely revisit these two decisions. In the meantime, I suggest that people read the abridged version, which contains the primary argument and examples in mathematics and art. This version is available online and on Kindle. People who have either an RSVP reader or a browser that reads text aloud at high speed may skim the basic argument using the RSVP version.
People who wish to read more about boundless reason may read the unabridged version on Kindle. The latest version of the second edition is 2022.12.31. To read more about this work, go to www.recursionist.com. This site includes an incomplete explanation of its origins, a primer for the financial decision language mentioned in its acknowledgments, a 2018 academic poster, and lists of the thousands of pages of changes made to it since 1998 broken down by year and title.