BothAndBlog Forum

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... osition/p2
I feel like the "all is mind" position is a cop out position or even just laziness. — Chaz

I came to the conclusion that "all is mind" by inference from the modern scientific theory that "all is Information". Einstein determined by theoretical reasoning that Matter is a form of Energy. Then Shannon determined mathematically that Information content can be measured by its degree of Entropy (negative energy). Which means that "Information" is equivalent to positive Energy. Therefore Information = Energy = Matter. Ironically though, the term "Information", prior to the 20th century referred only to the contents of minds, i.e. knowledge & concepts. Hence : Information = Mind.

Unfortunately, the new common usage in high tech has caused many people to forget that "Information" is actually Mind Stuff : ideas, thoughts, imagination, intention, etc. Nevertheless, some cutting-edge scientists have concluded that everything in the universe, both Energy & Matter, is a form of Information. This is not yet a mainstream theory, but it makes sense to me. And it may help to explain how Minds evolved from Energy and Matter.

Years ago, one early quantum physicist exclaimed in surprise, that on the quantum level of reality, particles are "nothing but Information" (i.e mathematical). Look into the works of physicists Paul Davies and Seth Lloyd to see if their conclusions sound like "cop-outs" or new insights into reality.

Origin of information :
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English infformacion, informacyon “instruction, teaching, a forming of the mind,” from Middle French, Old French informacion, information “criminal inquiry,” from Late Latin informātiō “teaching, instruction,” from Latin: “sketch, first draft; idea, conception”; see inform1, -ation
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/information

Everything is Mind Stuff? : So here's the deep question: Is information the ultimate constituent from which the cosmos is constructed?
https://www.space.com/29477-did-informa ... osmos.html

Is it possible that everything is made of information? : Yes. Some influential physicists, mathematicians, philosophers, strongly theorize that the entire universe is comprised of bits of information.
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-th ... nformation

Why information can't be the basis of reality : A growing number of scientists, Gleick writes, are beginning to wonder whether information "may be primary: more fundamental than matter itself." . . . But the everything-is-information meme violates common sense.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cr ... f-reality/
Note : Science is not based on Common Sense, but on Extraordinary & Exceptional Reasoning.

Good on the equivalence, but more correct to substitute 'mass' for 'matter'. In e=mcc, 'm' is 'mass' and the equation is indeed showing equivalence, not that mass makes energy or vice-versa. — PoeticUniverse

Technically, you are correct, but I was not speaking as a physicist. Mass is indeed an inferred immaterial property or essence of Matter. But humans never experience raw Mass. Like Information and Energy, all of our experiences are with the material containers of properties, qualities, and Information. :joke:

The most direct refutation remains Stove's Gem. — Banno

Stove's "Gem" is a bit over my head. But how does he accommodate Einstein's Relativity ?''

Relatvity and Reality : We take our own personal orientation for granted most of the time, (especially when we are overseeing an abstract equation or model of everythingness), but to model everythingness absolutely faithfully, we would need to include this very strange, but very ordinary state of affairs that we know as ‘being here’, or ‘our presence’; consciousness. . . .
It is for this very reason, that purely mathematical approaches to understanding the universe as a whole and consciousness are ultimately doomed. Their rigidity arises from a reference frame which is intrinsically incompatible with the floridly eidetic and creative frame of human privacy.
https://multisenserealism.com/thesis/7- ... elativity/

Note : this site is also above my pay-grade.

The idea that an idea has to be proven wrong in order to be wrong is wrong. In order for an idea to even be considered plausible, or worth considering, it must have some justified explanatory power. Can “all is mind” justify its premises? — Pinprick

Yes. I came to the "all is mind" conclusion from the evidence of Quantum and Information theories. The "hard problem" of how Mind and Consciousness emerged from insentient Matter and amorphous Energy can be explained by applying information theory to Evolution. This is not a religious belief, but a philosophical theory, based on cutting edge science.

If the essence of Energy & Matter is abstract Information, as several physicists have concluded, then we may infer that our world was Enformed by some kind of Mind, and actualized in the Big Bang. My thesis resulted from following such evidence to the conclusion that our Real world is essentially an Idea. But then, a materialistic mind-set cannot "see" essences with the body's eye, so will be incredulous of such nonsense, as "seen" by the mind's eye.

To Enform : to give meaningful form to; to create -- as a sculpture from clay or marble

Integrated information theory : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrate ... ion_theory

Reality is not what you see : http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html

↪PoeticUniverse

It just occurred to me that my All Is Mind reply above, may have inadvertently explained the essence of Poetry : it expresses immaterial qualities & subjective feelings in real-world concrete terms, thereby giving substance to the insubstantial, and objective form to subjective imagination . 'Poet' comes from a Greek word meaning "to make." Perhaps poetry makes Ideal concepts Real, so others can experience them. N'cest pas?

"Like Information and Energy, all of our experiences are with the material containers of properties, qualities, and Information."

I’m not doubting consciousness, only that it derives from “mind” as opposed to brain. — Pinprick

I agree that immaterial Mind is the function of Brain matter. But, do you know of a viable theory to explain how Mind & Consciousness & Meaning are "derived from" from mindless Matter, such as neural networks? Where is the latent potential for mental properties located in brain matter? How does that latency transform into manifest mental behavior?

I’m not doubting consciousness, only that it derives from “mind” as opposed to brain. — Pinprick

Reply by Khaled :

"mind" is the experience of qualia. You cannot explain to someone what the color red looks like without showing them the color red. Even if someone knows everything there is to know scientifically about the color red (it's wavelength, appearances in nature, etc) they will not know what the color red looks like without seeing the color red.

Consciousness is that thing which experiences these qualia.

Both have not been observed by the senses (no one has smelled tasted, seen, touched or heard consciousness yet). Both are definitely noticable in real life (that you experience qualia and that there is a "you" experiencing qualia are things you cannot deny unless you're a philosophical zombie) but have yet to even be approached by the scientific method.

To refute 'All is Mind', one needs to show that there is substance, which I'd say includes forces/energy acting as substance, plus that Mind cannot make substance, plus that there can't be a kind of a movie going on through Mind in which everything operates exactly as if there were substance and its laws, and that if there is this perfect movie going on that a difference in the message between the faux and the true substance is not a difference that makes no difference. — PoeticUniverse

Ironically, Aristotle's definition of "Substance" combined the mental (metaphysical) and material (physical) elements : Form + Matter. But Materialists only recognize the sensory stuff as "real", and ignore the invisible structure or "essence" of reality, that is apparent only to Reason. It's true that human minds cannot "make substance" (matter) directly, but they can and do Enform matter to Conform to imaginary concepts (information) in the mind of the designer.

Poets express intangible concepts by presenting them clothed in familiar forms (material things). As an architect myself, I often imagine unreal things (such as proposed buildings on empty lots) that eventually become real. Of course, that is only a pale imitation of the creativity of a World Enformer. Creation of something that did not exist before, in any form, is the ultimate Difference that makes a meaningful distinction : i.e Information. This is not a religious belief, but a scientific concept, that an ancient pagan philosopher could accept.


Substance : According to Aristotle, the being of any individual thing is primarily defined by what it is, i.e. by its substance. Substance is both essence (form) and substratum (matter), and may combine form and matter. Substance constitutes the reality of individual things.
http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/f ... sophy.html

Enform : to form, fashion, create new forms of things.
e.g. A sculptor enforms a block of marble into the form of a human body.

Concept :
1. an abstract idea; a general notion.
2. a plan or intention; a conception.

Information :
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those ratios are also called "differences".
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

The Enformer :
AKA, the Creator. The presumed eternal source of all information, as encoded in the Big Bang Sing-ularity. That ability to convert conceptual Forms into actual Things, to transform infinite possibilities into finite actualities, and to create space & time, matter & energy from essentially no-thing is called the power of EnFormAction. Due to our ignorance of anything beyond space-time though, the postulated enforming agent remains undefined. I simply label it "G*D". But Materialists call it "Multiverse".
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

PS__In a poem, which is the faux, and which the true substance? Does poetry make any meaningful difference in the world?