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 seeking 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), living well (Happiness), 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.”

Mathematically, we may think of this self-referential science as exploring the Universe with self-replicating automata. Philosophically, we may think of it as seeking all that is good in living well. We can never precisely know what this timeless end is. However, we can imagine learning to seek it ever more wisely. Understanding the reason underlying this pursuit helps us replace non-knowledge with knowledge resources. Unlike the former, using the latter does not use them up. Once in use, knowledge resources are inexhaustible. Learning is to the economics of deciding well what gravity is to physics.

Author’s Note

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 it. Knowing 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 freely available online. It includes appendices from an unpublished book, Origins of Boundless Reason. People with either an RSVP reader or a text-reading browser may skim the basic argument using the RSVP version.

The abridged version is also available for a nominal fee on Kindle. People who wish to read more may read the unabridged version. Neither of these Kindle versions includes the origins appendices. People who want to delve deeply into its history can search lists of changes made since 1998 or visit internet archive sites.