We asked the question: how do mindless mathematical laws give rise to aims and intentions. So how does it happen? Well, we're not going to just tell you the answer. You'll have to read it for yourself -- in our winning essays, which we are now happy to announce!
We have an unusual outcome this time. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the contest question turns out to be rather controversial, with not just the essayists but also the panelists holding quite diverging views. Despite a lot of effort and good-faith attempts to find common ground, in the end the jury was deadlocked along several dimensions. In the end they decided the fairest representation of their collective opinions would be -- a tie for first (and second) place. In fact, a 3-way tie.
Sharing the top spot are the entries from Larissa Albantakis (A Tale of Two Animats), Carlo Rovelli (Meaning and Intentionality = Information Evolution), and Jochen Szangolies (Von Neumann Minds). The panel elected to pool the prize money for the top 3 spots, a total of $20,000, and split it evenly. Thus each of our 3 top winners will receive $6,666.
Visit our page of winners to also see our third and fourth prize winners, and find links to each winning essay. Also awarded was a special "community choice" award for the entry from George Ellis (Wandering Towards a Goal), which was well liked by many and, thanks to George's involvement, had high levels of community engagement and forum interaction, which is a lot of what makes these contests worthwhile.
We look forward to our next contest, which we hope to announce soon.
Thanks to our sponsors, The Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation, for making it possible. We also thank our diligent review panel. And last of all, we give great thanks to all of our entrants -- we appreciate the effort you put into writing the entries, as well as reading and discussing them. We hope you will join us again for the next one.