TPF : Consciousness Studies

[Gnomon]

Each one of these primitive mind endowed (and, hence, awareness endowed) cells is constituted of organic molecules – some of which which have been empirically evidenced to exhibit at least some QM properties. — javra

You seem to be more familiar with Biology than with Quantum Physics*1. If so, you may be able to enlighten me about Biosemiotics (BS). Which has been proposed as an alternative to Panpsychism (PP) as a mechanism for the emergence of Mind from Matter. ↪apokrisis doesn't seem to be willing to engage with an infidel (unbeliever in Materialism) to explain some of the technical jargon he uses in his posts. My interest in BS is simply that the semiotic (symbolic) aspects of the BS theory may be related to the Information Theory that I am better acquainted with. But some of the language sounds like Postmodern linguistic analysis*2 that is opaque to my simple mind. Does BS tell us anything new & important about Biology in general, or about the symbol manipulating Mind?

Although It's clear to me that the Potential for Mental Phenomena (sensation ; psychology ; awareness ; knowledge, etc) must have been inherent in Nature from the beginning, my understanding of Information Theory tells me that the "primitive mind" wouldn't necessarily be Conscious or Aware. Instead, it could have begun as nothing more sophisticated than exchanges of Energy, which are meaningless abstract interrelationships. Yet the human brain seems to be capable of processing & integrating perceived-information-structures/patterns into personally relevant meanings. Those private subjective meanings are what I would call "awareness". Anyway, that's the hypothesis I'm working on.


*1. Quantum biology at the cellular level :
Quantum biology is emerging as a new field at the intersection between fundamental physics and biology, promising novel insights into the nature and origin of biological order.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23470561/

*2. Postmodernist Writing :
I think most Postmodernist writing can be classified into these categories: ... Much of analytic philosophy is so abstruse and hermetically sealed that it too becomes an exercise in obscurantism. Where the style of thought diminishes content.
http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogs ... iting.html

[Gnomon]

If that's true, they are metaphysics - ways of looking at the world. The question to ask is whether or not they are useful ways. — T Clark

Yes. But useful for what purpose?

The materialists on this forum appear to be only interested in physical scientific uses : e.g. can we build artificial intelligence into computers? However, the panpsychists seem to be focused on metaphysical philosophical purposes : e.g. can we understand the relationship between the real world of physics and the ideal world of metaphysics?

For the purposes of this forum, do you prefer impersonal mechanistic objectives, or personal meaningful motives? Is that a fair question? Some posters are clear about their preferences. But you seem to be somewhat ambivalent about siding with Science or Philosophy or Both. Perhaps that's a sign of an open mind? And I applaud the open-door policy. At least it leaves the door ajar for exchanges of views : "ways of looking at the world"

[Gnomon]

Yes. Exactly. Science needs materialism to work. Are there aspects of life where a materialist view is not helpful? — T Clark

Yes. Materialism is not helpful for dealing with the philosophy of mind*1. That's why David Chalmers, a professional Neurologist, calls the metaphysics of Mind : "the hard problem". The philosophy of Panpsychism is all about aboutness*2.


*1. Materialism in the philosophy of mind :
Materialism – which, for almost all purposes, is the same as physicalism – is the theory that everything that exists is material. Natural science shows that most things are intelligible in material terms, but mind presents problems in at least two ways. The first is consciousness, as found in the ‘raw feel’ of subjective experience. The second is the intentionality of thought, which is the property of being about something beyond itself; ‘aboutness’ seems not to be a physical relation in the ordinary sense.
https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/ ... f-mind/v-1

*2. Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter is a 2011 book by biological anthropologist Terrence Deacon. The book covers topics in biosemiotics, philosophy of mind, and the origins of life. Broadly, the book seeks to naturalistically explain "aboutness", that is, concepts like intentionality, meaning, normativity, purpose, and function; which Deacon groups together and labels as ententional phenomena.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature

[Gnomon]

I won’t be much help, and this because I so far find this very quoted affirmation to be nonsensical. Bio-semiotics is the semiotics of life – it addresses the meaning transference of lifeforms and all this entails. To apply biosemiotics to a former cosmos devoid of life from which life emerged will either necessitate a panpsychistic cosmos by default or, else, again, it will make no sense: — javra

I agree that Biosemiotics is a theory of living things, not thinking things. So, I don't understand why ↪apokrisis sarcastically replied that "You did a splendid job of misrepresenting what biosemiosis claims". His alternate explanation is way over my head : "Simply put, semiotics resolves the antique dilemma of realism vs idealism by inserting the epistemic cut of the “sign” between the world and its interpretation".

The notion of an "epistemic cut" is not included in my everyday vocabulary. And I am not educated in Postmodern linguistic analysis, so the quote below*1 just sounds like gobbledygook to me. I asked apo to dumb it down for us un-indoctrinated dummies, but he seems to think it's beneath his dignity to stoop that low. Terrence Deacon's use of semiotics*2 seems to be limited to the recent biological phases of evolution, not to a "primeval epistemic cut". And I find his language much easier for a layman to grasp. Is the "epistemic cut" a case of circular reasoning, or of cutting Nature at imaginary joints?




*1. The Physics of Symbols: Bridging the Epistemic Cut :
Evolution requires the genotype-phenotype distinction, a primeval epistemic cut that separates energy-degenerate, rate-independent genetic symbols from the rate-dependent dynamics of construction that they control. This symbol-matter or subject-object distinction occurs at all higher levels where symbols are related to a referent by an arbitrary code.
https://casci.binghamton.edu/publicatio ... attee.html

*2. How Molecules Became Signs :
These molecules are not the source of biological information but are instead semiotic artifacts onto which dynamical functional constraints have been progressively offloaded during the course of evolution. ___Terrence Deacon
https://link.springer.com/article/10.10 ... 21-09453-9

[Gnomon]

What he's calling 'an epistemic problem' is actually the metaphysical problem of appearance ('world image') and reality ('what we call the real world'). So I don't see that as 'resolving' the idealist-realist distinction. — Wayfarer

Thanks for stepping-in there. Your explanation makes more sense to me than the "epistemic cut" notion. For someone with no formal training in Philosophy or Biosemiotics, such jargon is way over my pointy little head.

[Gnomon]

The epistemic cut is simply that between knower and known, organism and environment and symbol v what is symbolised. — Wayfarer

Thanks. Your post clarified that -- to me -- unfamiliar concept : how to divide Monistic (holistic) Ontology into a Dualistic (reductive) Worldview : philosophy into science.

You may also be able to help me understand why ↪apokrisis is applying the notion of physically encoded Biosemiotics to mentally aware Consciousness. He seems to believe that it is a hard science, instead of a soft philosophy*1. We now know that the phenomenon of biological Life is dependent on biological codes, mostly in the form of DNA. But DNA itself is merely a stringy chemical. The code/symbol part is an idea in a human mind. So how could a code or symbol have any physical effect on the emergence of Life & Mind, in a universe of Physics & Chemistry, long before Biology & Psychology?

My interest in Biosemiotics is limited to its possible relationship to my own philosophical notion of Enformationism. A code is an abstract form of Information (SOS = . . . - - - . . . ), that when socially conventionalized, can convey meaning to a mind. But, how a notional code can have the physical effect of animating raw matter into biology, seems to be equivalent to Chalmer's "hard problem" of how raw matter can be enlightened into psychology (awareness). Am I missing something here? The mystery is in the transformation (transubstantiation?) of Material Substance into ethereal Life & Mind : both not tangible things but tenuous processes. That enigma is the motivation for my theory of metamorphizing Encoded Energy (EnFormAction).

Claude Shannon introduced the notion that meaningful Information results from the expenditure of causal Energy into voided Entropy. So, I'm trying to somehow fit the physical notion of Life Codes (Biosemiotics) into the metaphysical concept of Mind Codes (Information). The two should be connected, but the Body/Mind transition point seems to be related to the location of the Epistemic Cut.


*1. Biosemiotics is the idea that life is based on semiosis, i.e., on signs and codes. This idea has been strongly suggested by the discovery of the genetic code, but so far it has made little impact in the scientific world and is largely regarded as a philosophy rather than a science.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18365164/

[Gnomon]

↪Gnomon
The article you mention is by Marcello Barbieri - in my reading of biosemiotics, solely due to Apokrisis (to give credit where it's due) I've learned that Barbieri resigned as editor of the journal Biosemiotics, because he felt that it had become too philosophical and influenced by Peirce. He has initiated what he considers a new approach which he calls 'code biology', that, he says, is more concentrated on the science, less on the philosophy (I think Apokrisis would probably disagree but I'll leave that to him). There's a useful intro to his approach here What is information? (different from your own use of the term). He also wrote a history of the subject that I found useful - like, who's who in the zoo. — Wayfarer

Thanks for that information.

Barbieri's interest in Information is for its role in Biology. Whereas my focus is on its multifunction roles in Ontology, Epistemology, Physics & Psychology*1. But the article does provide some useful info on how specific applications of the General Information concept can be perceived as A> "too philosophical" or B> "too scientific", depending on the interests of the observer.

Apparently, ↪apokrisis prefers to err in the direction of B. Which may explain his disdain for my more A approach. He'll probably disagree with that explanatory dichotomy, though. That's because he & I seem to make the "epistemic cut" in different places : current state vs original state, or matter vs mind, or code vs cause. But that's OK. Narrowly-focused Biosemiology is probably closer to becoming a hard science, than my own wide-angle philosophical musings.

*1. Information : What is it?
Originally, the word “information” referred to the meaningful software contents of a mind, which were assumed to be only loosely shaped by the physical container : the hardware brain. But in the 20th century, the focus of Information theory has been on its material form as changes in copper wires & silicon circuits & neural networks. Now, Terrence Deacon’s book about the Causal Power of Absence requires another reinterpretation of the role of Information in the world. He quotes philosopher John Collier, “The great tragedy of formal information theory [Shannon] is that its very expressive power is gained through abstraction away from the very thing that it has been designed to describe.” Claude Shannon’s Information is functional, but not meaningful. So now, Deacon turns the spotlight on the message rather than the medium.
http://bothandblog4.enformationism.info/page26.html

[Gnomon]

David Chalmer's doesn't say that consciousness is off-limits. He says it is intractable from the third-person perspective, due to its first-person character. — Wayfarer

Perhaps the Consciousness problem is "intractable" for empirical science because subjective experience is seamless & holistic, with no obvious joints for reductive science to carve into smaller chunks of Awareness. Equating the material Brain with the immaterial Mind is like carving thin air with a steak knife. Unfortunately, that means philosophers can only analyze theoretically, not empirically. Is that like a toothless man gumming a steak, then trying to swallow it whole? We can get a taste of 3rd person Consciousness, but not the full meaning/feeling.

[Gnomon]

He means that the information we have about how the visual system works, for instance, doesn't explain the experience of seeing, at least it hasn't yet. The knowledge about what the brain is doing during vision is third person data. The experience itself is first-person data. — frank

I'm currently reading a book by mathematical physicist Charles Pinter, subtitled : How the Mind Creates the Features & Structure of All Things, and Why this Insight Transforms Physics. After a chapter discussing Donald Hoffman's interface theory ("a necessary deception"), he raises the "binding problem"*2 of Consciousness, using vision as an example. "The retinal image is split apart at its very inception into disembodied aspects each of which is analyzed in different and specialized part of the brain". And, "the information parsed by the brain is assembled and comes together somewhere". Then he concludes, "no one knows where or how visual information comes together to yield a systematic, unitary image." He uses an old term from 20th century Psychology, Gestalt*3, to label those holistic concepts.

Apparently, incoming sensory information from the outside world is reductively "analyzed" by the brain into various qualia, like Shape or Motion, which are parceled-out according to their significance to the observer. But eventually, all those isolated parts must be re-integrated into the holistic concepts, we call Images or Ideas or Gestalts. Yet, there is no known mechanism for that transformation from parts to wholes. Even the Integrated Information Theory of Consciousness, doesn't specify by what magic the bits of physical neuronal information (codes) are transmuted into subjective metaphysical mental imagery (content). This implicit natural "magic" may be what Materialists dismiss as spooky "woo". Yet Pinter takes it seriously.

He uses several terms --- integrated, come together, convergence, confluence --- to describe the process of "binding" bits of information into meaningful bytes (words) of awareness. Yet his proposed mechanism is not a mechanism at all, but merely acknowledgement of the apparent duality of reality, and the necessary unity of the universe. "The mind seems to be non-material, though tied to the brain which is material. . . . . The very idea of mind acting on matter by a pure effect of will appears a little spooky". But it's only uncanny if your worldview has no place for immaterial stuff like Ideas & Ideals.

To explain the disdainful "woo" response to notions of matterless mental phenomena, Pinter notes that "contemporary philosophy is dominated by a materialist way of thinking strongly influenced by physics". Yet, since Materialism is an unproven presumption (axiom), the problem may be more of a "way of believing" than a "way of thinking". Although the term is not in the book's Index, his own monistic unifying approach to the Hard Problem of Consciousness sounds more like Panpsychism.


PS___He doesn't refer to Biosemiology by name, but the author mentions that "the signals merely code the content", implying that the personal significance (meaning) of those incoming symbols is a product of Mind, not Brain. He also says, "the brain constructs a coded representation of the visual array . . . . There is no known physical mechanism which could achieve this unification". Here again, the implication of Holism, which is a taboo concept for believers in monistic Materialism, living in an apparently dualistic world.


*1. Interface Theory :
Within the interface theory of perception, neither primary nor secondary qualities necessarily map onto reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_D._Hoffman
Note --- "primary" = incoming Percepts ; "secondary" = processed Concepts ???

*2. The neural binding problem :
In its most general form, “The Binding Problem” concerns how items that are encoded by distinct brain circuits can be combined for perception, decision, and action. In Science, something is called “a problem” when there is no plausible model for its substrate.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3538094/
Note --- Incoming physically encoded Information (abstract dots & dashes) must be metaphysically decoded (into meaningful words & images) in order to make sense to the observer.

*3. Gestalt :
The classic principles of the gestalt theory of visual perception include similarity, continuation, closure, proximity, figure/ground, and symmetry & order
https://www.toptal.com/designers/ui/ges ... -of-design
Note --- Pinter says "Gestalt is not an objective fact of the world, but is a way of being perceived. It is a property of perception, not a property of of the external world." Although I appreciate the alliteration, to be more accurate, I would change physical "perception" to mental "conception",

Perception = analysis (reductive science)
Conception = integration (holistic philosophy)

↪apokrisis

↪Wayfarer

[Gnomon]

"The mind seems to be non-material, though tied to the brain which is material. . . . . The very idea of mind acting on matter by a pure effect of will appears a little spooky" — Gnomon
Is substance-dualism making a come back? — RogueAI

Apparently, Substance Dualism never went away. It seems to be compared or contrasted with Property Dualism in the never-ending debates on Brain vs Mind explanations for the mysterious-yet-familiar quality of Consciousness, by which we know both substances and properties.

PS__When I refer to "substance" in this context, I'm usually talking about Aristotle's definition as Essence.
Substance and Essence in Aristotle :
https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/bo ... bookTabs=1