From mindless mathematics to thinking meat?
arXiv Preprint Archive July 27, 2017 Matt Visser preprint
Deconstruction of the theme of the 2017 FQXi essay contest is already an interesting exercise in its own right: Teleology is rarely useful in physics --- the only known mainstream physics example (black hole event horizons) has a very mixed score-card --- so the "goals" and "aims and intentions" alluded to in the theme of the 2017 FQXi essay contest are already somewhat pushing the limits....