TPF : Hard Problem of Consciousness

[Gnomon]

I'm still on the energy-consciouness relation.
Our brains use 20 percent of our bodies total energy. In terms of power it's about as much as a 10 watt light bulb. So we should suspect consciousness is energy driven. I don't think that's the end of it though. Once we have functioning consciousness the subject matter can drive physical matter. — Mark Nyquist

In my thesis, there is indeed a close relationship between Energy and Consciousness. Both are emergent forms of a cosmic predecessor that I call EnFormAction. But each sub-form has its own characteristic properties. Energy is physical causation, but no material properties. Instead, in my hypothesis, tangible Matter --- mathematically defined in terms of Mass --- is what happens to Energy when the speed of Light slows down enough for a phase change (to Mass) to occur (E=MC^2). So, Light & Matter & Mind are different phases of the same Universal Substance (essence), to which I apply the modern term "Information", but translate into EnFormAction : the creative act of enforming (i.e. transformation or causation).

If you can accept that far-out philosophical posit, then yes : "Consciousness is energy driven". Yet again, in my thesis --- not in standard physics --- both C & E are forms of Generic Information : the universal metaphysical power (potential) for form change. Pre-Big Bang, the unknown "nothing" from which our "something" physical universe suddenly popped into existence was simply Eternal Potential. That's equivalent to Plato's Logos/Form, and to Aristotle's Prime Mover.

But the heat given-off by a hard-thinking brain is more closely related to the work of pushing electrons & calcium around in the neural net, than to processing massless immaterial thoughts. Conscious Awareness doesn't radiate like a light bulb . . . . except perhaps as a graphic metaphor.


No, Roger Penrose, We See No Evidence Of A ‘Universe Before The Big Bang’
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswith ... ddef047a0f

Does the human brain get hotter when thinking?
https://www.quora.com/Does-the-human-br ... n-thinking

52210890-brain-in-light-bulb-creative-thinking-or-idea-conceptual-icon.jpg

[Gnomon]

To me this sounds like a description of stored energy and, therefore, I say in response: Where there's energy there's material and thus your attempt to occupy ambiguous position between material/immaterial is false. Your Enformaction, like Deacon's constitutive absence, stands squarely within the material world. — ucarr

My thesis of EnFormAction does exist "within the material world", because the observer lives in the world of tangible material objects and invisible physical forces. But I think your interpretation of the thesis is influenced by the materialistic nature of the English language*1. That's why our dialogs on the Philosophy Forum are so often fraught with harsh put-downs, when we fail to communicate on both levels. Some posters attempt to express philosophical concepts in concrete scientific language, while others use more abstract expressions when discussing topics like "Consciousness". That inherent ambiguity limits our ability to communicate, unless we understand that both Concretions and Abstractions exist side-by-side in the Real/Ideal world.

Perhaps you still haven't grasped the meaning of the BothAnd Principle. It acknowledges that our objective world is Matter-based, and that our subjective realm is Mind-based. So, I can agree with you, that the technical term EnFormAction is a brain-state in the material world. But it is also a concept in & about the ideal realm of Mind.

*1. Language is too material!
language is infused with materiality and should not therefore be considered as an abstract system that is isolated from socio-material reality.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 017-9540-0

*2. The BothAnd Principle :
Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ─ what’s true for you ─ depends on your perspective, and your frame of reference; for example, subjective or objective, religious or scientific, reductive or holistic, pragmatic or romantic, conservative or liberal, earthbound or cosmic. Ultimate or absolute reality (ideality) doesn't change, but your conception of reality does. Opposing views are not right or wrong, but more or less accurate for a particular purpose.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html


Today, while perusing Deacon's book Incomplete Nature, I came across a philosophical term that I hadn't noticed in previous readings : Neutral Monism*3. Serendipitously, it happens to be pertinent to both this Consciousness thread, and to the BothAnd concept. It assumes that both Mind & Matter emerge from a single more fundamental root or cause. Both Particulars (material objects) and Relations (ideas about associations between things) exist in our Material/Immaterial world. So, William James coined the term Radical Empiricism*4 to include both empirical Things and theoretical Ideas under the purview of Philosophy.

In 500BC, Plato called that original Source or Essence : Form & First Cause. In the 17th century, Spinoza called that Single Substance deus sive natura. But in the 21st century, my thesis calls it EnFormAction, a contraction of Energy (causation) & Information (organization). EFA is neither Matter nor Mind, but it creates both of those sub-forms as distinctive aspects of the Real world. Moreover, the philosophical perspective of Radical Empiricism seems to be a BothAnd acknowledgement of the apparent Duality of reality, even as it postulates a Monistic origin of all things & ideas in our diverse multiform world.

*3. Neutral monism is an umbrella term for a class of metaphysical theories in the philosophy of mind, concerning the relation of mind to matter. These theories take the fundamental nature of reality to be neither mental nor physical; in other words it is "neutral".
Neutral monism has gained prominence as a potential solution to theoretical issues within the philosophy of mind, specifically the mind–body problem and the hard problem of consciousness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_monism

*4. Radical Empiricism is a philosophical doctrine put forth by William James. It asserts that experience includes both particulars and relations between those particulars, and that therefore both deserve a place in our explanations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_empiricism

The disjunction: science or philosophy, with respect to consciousness studies, runs parallel to the disjunction: physics or math, with respect to Relativity. Anyone operating within either of these two disciplines who aligns with either of these disjunctions assumes position to play the part of the fool. — ucarr

The point of my thesis is to provide a conjunction (BothAnd) that weaves together the disjunctions of Science and Philosophy. For example, Physics is empirical, but Math is theoretical; yet both exist in the same world as different forms of the same universal substance. So, I can agree that those who "align with either", to the exclusion of the other, is playing the fool. Watch your step!

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[Gnomon]

This is why I refer to "mental activities" rather then "the mind". We should be able to agree that mental activities occur. Mental activities are...activities, like running (actions are not "entities"), so I disagree with imposing an inherent reification. — Relativist

I don't know where you got "reification", but I refer to the Mind as the Function of the Brain. Both are aspects of heterogeneous (diverse) Reality, but only the brain is a material object. Mind is an abstract immaterial process, closer to Energy than Matter. I make that distinction because Mind is not an empirical thing to be analyzed by Science, but an immaterial activity to be studied holistically by Philosophy . . . or by Psychology, which is mostly philosophical.


Why psychology isn’t science
Because psychology often does not meet the five basic requirements for a field to be considered scientifically rigorous
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm- ... story.html

In physics, energy is an abstract, non-material quantity associated with the state of a system.
file:///C:/Users/johne/Downloads/PERC02_Loverude.pdf

[Gnomon]

Therefore, regarding the Both/And Principle, my first thought is that this is a redundancy. — ucarr

Yes, both "Both" and "And" are conjunctions, so the redundancy is intentional for emphasis. But BothAnd joins the two into a single holistic concept, which is in opposition to the common Either/Or presumptions of Reductionism.
PS___ I appreciate your constructive skepticism. Too much criticism on this forum is couched in destructive cynicism.

I join Relativist in posing this question to you. Also, I will attempt to reenforce his supposition about mind being matter-based by claiming that any phenomenon with time duration is physical because spacetime is a physical medium. Thoughts, possessing time duration, are therefore physical. — ucarr

No, I don't think that the brain-function we call "Mind", or the body-function "Life", exist outside space-time. Both are simply concepts that exist in the unreal realm of Ideas. You can't put them under a microscope, but you can analyze them philosophically. Also, I don't deny that both of those immaterial functions evolved from material predecessors. They are references to "absences"*1 in Terrence Deacon's notion of "aboutness". And, like most philosophical speculations, they can't be understood from a space-time Materialist/Physicalist perspective.

I define "Mind & Life" in meta-physical*2 terms for two reasons : a> to distinguish my Information-based holistic worldview from matter-based Materialism and reductive Science. And b> to force us to trace the evolution of Matter & Mind back to the beginning of the space-time world, which (per BB theory) suddenly appeared from no-where & no-thing & no-time. A century after the Big Bang hypothesis, cosmologists still debate what existed "before" the physical bang. My proposal is metaphysical Causation (EnFormAction ; primordial Energy ; creative Power) and Entention*3 (goal-directed program for evolution)*4. All current cosmologies presume that Energy (cause) & Law (order) pre-existed the Bang.

In my information-based thesis, the source of our Reality was something like Plato's timeless Ideality, consisting of Infinite Potential (FORM) which is not-yet-real and not-yet-existing. What you call "mind being matter-based" is a banal truism. What I call "Mind" (capital M) is a philosophical postulation, based on physicist Wheeler's "It from Bit" conjecture. Both posits go beyond the space-time boundaries of Science, into the unbounded possibilities of Philosophical speculation. Enformationism is a modern update of ancient Panpsychism, similar to Radical Empiricism & Neutral Monism. They build-upon, but go beyond, the facts of physical Science.

*1. Absential : The paradoxical intrinsic property of existing with respect to something missing, separate, and possibly nonexistent. Although this property is irrelevant when it comes to inanimate things, it is a defining property of life and mind; elsewhere (Deacon 2005) described as a constitutive absence
Constitutive absence :A particular and precise missing something that is a critical defining attribute of 'ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences.
https://absence.github.io/3-explanation ... ntial.html

*2. Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.

*3. Entention : Deacon Incomplete Nature
Special spelling of "intention" : purpose ; direction
Aboutness : aiming toward some external or future state

*4. Do you think evolution from chaotic plasma to intelligent ucarr happened by accident? Accidents are destructive of order. Design is constructive of organization. Do you think Evolution could work like a computer program, to compute something unknown (the missing answer) from something known (the initial state)? Design and Entention are no-nos for empirical Science, but not for theoretical Philosophy. What we are talking about on this thread is not rocket science, but the Intelligence that leads toward rockets to Mars.


I don't agree, however, that the concrete/abstract debate parallels the mind/body debate. The former is non-controversial, the latter anything but. — ucarr

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. The "parallels" are philosophical analogies, and have no basis in materialistic Science. Do you consider yourself to be a devout Materialist? If so, why are you posting on a free-thinking Philosophy Forum?

[Gnomon]

If you're claiming mental activity entails the existence of immaterial objects I'd regard that as a reification- treating an abstraction as something ontic. — Relativist

For the record, I'm not claiming that mental activity is a real thing (ontic), but an ideal concept (noumena). Brain processes are real & physical, but mental activities are ideal & metaphysical. Science deals with Reality and Objects, but Philosophy deals with Ideality and Subjects. The ontological being of Mind is essential, not material. You can't examine Intellect under a microscope, but you can study Reason with reasoning.

However, if you don't pay close attention, the materialistic presumptions of our common language may give you the impression that metaphysical noumena are physical phenonomena.


Aristotle describes Mind (nous, often also rendered as “intellect” or “reason”) as “the part of the soul by which it knows and understands”

[Gnomon]

Reification means ‘to treat as a thing’. It is from the root ‘re-‘ (from which ‘reality’ is also derived), and which Descartes employed in his ‘res cogitans’, and by virtue of which he has been accused of reifying mind (justly, in my view). But as per my question above, I say that one may regard numbers and logical conventions as real without reifying them as things. — Wayfarer

Yes. Apparently ↪Relativist is reading Reification into what I call Ideality (the state or quality of being ideal). Ironically the "res" in res cogitans is usually translated as "thing". Although non-specific, "thing" seems to imply physical object or sensory phenomenon. So I struggle to find language that doesn't sound like Reification. How do you deal with the problem of communicating immaterial-but-non-spiritual philosophical concepts in a materialist language?

[Gnomon]

You beg off from the arduous path of scientific rigor by drawing a hard boundary around your philosophical postulations, and yet all of them seem to be funded by the theories and experimental verifications of materialistic science. If your philosophy were authentically divested from rational materialism, I think it would be almost barren. Given this situation, it's clear to me you'd benefit greatly by investing more time in study of science with rigor, whether reductive or not. — ucarr

I do take exemption from the empirical requirements of scientific rigor, when I'm discussing a topic that has no objective empirical evidence. I would like to assume that the different methodologies*1 would go without saying on The Philosophy Forum ; but Materialism/Physicalism seems to be the default metaphysics for many posters.

If the topic of this thread was Neurology, I would indeed feel the need to justify my arguments with empirical data. However, the kernel of my thesis was a scientist's interpretation of quirky Quantum Physics, and computerized Information science : "it from bit" : material things are derived from immaterial information*2. So, yes, my thesis is fundamentally "funded" by Science, yet not the "materialistic" type, but the theoretical philosophical type. That's because Consciousness is subjective, not objective*3.

The Enformationism thesis is not entirely "divested" from materialism, anymore than Quantum Physics is completely separate from Macro Physics. But quantum-scale matter is more mathematical (wave function) than material (particle). And the "evidence" for quantum behavior is much more open to philosophical interpretation than for full-scale chemistry. So, the math adds some "rigor" to the science of invisible & intangible "things"*5. But, a century later, quantum physics remains more philosophical than empirical. And some physicists interpret the Copenhagen Interpretation to imply that Consciousness might be related to quantum phenomena.

If you are really interested in the Science underlying the Enformationism thesis, invest some time in reviewing the website and the blogs. But remember that the thesis is not scientific, and I am not a scientist. Also, the professional scientists I quote, feel free to depart from the rigors of materialistic science, when they are extrapolating from hard evidence to philosophical speculation. Besides Wheeler*3, I follow several other physicists*4 who venture off the reservation in search of philosophical understanding of subjective concepts, such as Consciousness.


*1. The Difference Between Philosophy and Science :
The difference lies in the method of explanation. While philosophy uses philosophical arguments and philosophical principles, science makes use of empirical data and objective evidence. Science uses empirical data to validate its theories. It takes the answers of experiment and proves them to be right or wrong.
https://www.ponderingphilosopher.com/th ... d-science/

*2. John Archibald Wheeler's "It from Bit" theory is a philosophical idea that suggests that all physical reality, including spacetime itself, is ultimately derived from information. According to this concept, fundamental reality is not composed of particles or fields, but rather information. In this theory, Wheeler suggests that information is primary, and the material world emerges from the interactions and processing of information.
https://www.quora.com/According-to-John ... bit-theory
Note --- Information processing is energetic in the sense of causing physical transformations.

*3. Information Theory and Consciousness :
Consciousness is a subjectively experienced phenomenon that cannot be doubted, as Descartes famously observed.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10 ... 39/full#h2
Note --- The Santa Fe Institute for the Study of Complexity is a scientific endeavor, but its subject-non-matter, Complexity, is not a material object ; it is instead a generalized concept referring to the holistic interrelationships of many things. Randomness and Non-linearity tend to water-down the rigor of a science studying res cogitans.
"Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to non-linearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence". ___Wikipedia

*4. Physicist Paul Davies :
Paul Davies begins with the claim that our ability to understand nature through the scientific method is a fact which demands an explanation. He proposes that our mind and the cosmos are linked, that consciousness “is a fundamental and integral part of the outworking of the laws of nature.” . . . . Still the ultimate explanation of the origin of the laws lies outside the scope of science and should be pursued by metaphysics and theology.”
https://counterbalance.org/ctns-vo/davie1-body.html

*5. THIS IS THE EVIDENCE FOR SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLES
not a photograph, but an artist's interpretation of paths followed by unseen particles
Atom%20smashing.webp
Note --- the path provides mathematical information for a conscious observer to interpret

[Gnomon]

↪Gnomon
You're close. I used "reification" to refer to the treatment of an abstraction as a thing, where thing is something that exists (i.e. it is ontic; part of the ontological furniture of the world).
I don't think abstractions are ontic. I reject platonism, which treats ideal forms as ontic. It's still fine to talk about them figuratively as things, but it's unclear to me if you're talking figuratively or literally. Please clarify, because this thread is about the "hard problem" -which is only a problem for materialism. If your solution is to assume the existence of the immaterial, please state this. — Relativist

Yes. What you are labeling "reification", I would call an Abstract Noun. I assume that the referent of the term Consciousness is not an observable material object, but a rational inference. It does not point to a physical thing, but to a holistic behavior that we call Thinking & Reasoning. The word is an Abstract Noun, "denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object". Would you classify Consciousness as "immaterial"? Is the denotation "figurative" or "literal"? You tell me.

[Gnomon]

In my case, my occupation deals with a lot of material objects such as moving a mass from point A to point B, machine operation, operating in dangerous environments, bad weather, physical environments that are not controlled,...that sort of thing. Since my personal approach to consciousness and the material environment affects my safety I might naturally have a more materialist view than someone coming from a historical or academic view. — Mark Nyquist

As an Architect, my occupation involves interpreting the client's ideas & dreams into a mathematical & graphic design language that can be erected into material structures, which not only ward-off environmental dangers (tornadoes, earthquakes), but provide sentimental satisfaction of those expressed needs & desires. So, you can see why I might be more open to immaterial concepts than a manual laborer.

Note --- As I have frequently clarified : for practical matters, I am a materialist, dealing with things. But for theoretical topics, I am a philosopher, dealing with ideas.

[Gnomon]

Well, you will have an issue accounting for the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences' (Eugene Wigner). — Wayfarer
Not really. There are mathematical relations between the things that exist. These relations don't exist independently of the things that exhibit them. Simple example: two-ness is a property that groups of 2 have, but groups of 3 of 4 lack. This fact doesn't depend on "2" existing in a 3rd realm. — Relativist

FWIW, I think of Mathematics, and "mathematical relations" as mental abstractions from observation of the arrangement and dynamics of the world. For me, Math is the logical (immaterial) structure of reality. Mental Relations do exist apart from Material Objects, in the sense that Ideas are categorically distinct from the things they portray.

For example, a structural engineer is able to "see" (imagine) the invisible logical relations, and to convert them into a freebody diagram, where the arrows represent invisible forces, and the lines represent not-yet-real material beams capable of supporting those forces. It's a diagram of "things that exist" ideally, but the relationships diagrammed (represented) are mental noumena, which exist only in a conscious rational mind. In the real world you don't see those imaginary lines & arrows, because relations are metaphysical, not physical. Representations are not real, they are Ideal. Do you "see" what I mean?

Is the Mathematical World Real?
Philosophers cannot agree on whether mathematical objects exist or are pure fictions
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... orld-real/

A mental representation can be caused by something it does not represent, and can represent something that has not caused it,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ment ... sentation/

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↪Wayfarer