Phil Forum : The Hard Problem

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/357340

I can understand why you would think "ultimate or absolute reality" is "ideal" for us as opposed to phenomenal reality which is concrete or physical for us. — Janus

You may have misunderstood my usage of abstract "ideality" in contrast to concrete "reality". Plato's realm of perfect Ideas or Forms was never meant as a perfect abode for flesh & blood humans. Instead, it would be more suitable for the generalization "humanity", which is merely an abstract idea, a concept, which has no concrete instance. We can go to that ethereal "place" in MInd, but not in Body.

Ideal :
1. satisfying one's conception of what is perfect; most suitable.
2. existing only in the imagination; desirable or perfect but not likely to become a reality.

Ideality :
In Plato’s theory of Forms, he argues that non-physical forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate or perfect reality. Those Forms are not physical things, but merely definitions or recipes of possible things. What we call Reality consists of a few actualized potentials drawn from a realm of infinite possibilities.
1. Materialists deny the existence of such immaterial ideals, but recent developments in Quantum theory have forced them to accept the concept of “virtual” particles in a mathematical “field”, that are not real, but only potential, until their unreal state is collapsed into reality by a measurement or observation. To measure is to extract meaning into a mind. [Measure, from L. Mensura, to know; from mens-, mind]
2. Some modern idealists find that scenario to be intriguingly similar to Plato’s notion that ideal Forms can be "realized", i.e. meaning extracted, by knowing minds. For the purposes of this blog, “Ideality” refers to an infinite pool of potential (equivalent to a quantum field), of which physical Reality is a small part. A formal name for that fertile field is G*D.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

Realize : 1.become fully aware of (something) as a fact; understand clearly.
[to form a mental image, not to make a physical thing]

[Gnomon]

You are confusing computation with communication, neither of which is 'information', — Zelebg

No. I'm using a broader definition of "Information" as both noun and verb. That's the whole point of the Enformationism Thesis. Information is not just 1s and 0s, it's also everything in between. Information is data, Enformation is energy, EnFormAction is both. Probably the best explanation of the development of Information theory, post-Shannon, can be found in the series of books by prominent Physicist & Cosmologist Paul Davies.
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... vies+books

The Mind of God is a 1992 non-fiction book by Paul Davies. Subtitled The Scientific Basis for a Rational World, it is a whirlwind tour and explanation of theories, both physical and metaphysical, regarding ultimate causes. Its title comes from a quotation from Stephen Hawking: "If we do discover a theory of everything...it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would truly know the mind of God."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mind_of_God

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/357340

But, the only reason to regard the sub-atomic domain as foundational, is a hangover from philosophical materialism and the quest to resolve everything to 'fundamental particles'. ' — Wayfarer

I agree. But I was including the current theoretical (immaterial) "foundation" of perceived reality, Quantum Fields, in the sub-atomic domain. I also agree with cognitive researcher Donald Hoffman, that what our senses perceive as real (matter, particles) is not fundamental reality, but symbols representing the underlying "ideality". He illustrates the perception/reality interface as a computer screen displaying symbolic icons instead of the invisible patterns of coded electrons in the CPU and memory. I think you would appreciate his mind-bending (idealistic) take on consciousness.

Vicktor Toth on Quora : But no, quantum fields do not interact with matter. Quantum fields are matter. In a quantum field theory, what we perceive as particles are excitations of the quantum field itself. https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017 ... 82644728c4
I disagree. A sub-material field (empty space) has no real stuff to stimulate. The excitations are actually in the visual system of the observer.

Donald Hoffman to Francis Crick : I agree wholeheartedly with you that "seeing is an active, constructive process", that what we see "is a symbolic interpretation of the world", and that "in fact we have no direct knowledge of objects in the world.
Hoffman, The Case Against Reality
https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-evol ... -20160421/

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ecause/p11

Normal people would be ashamed to admit they were talking nonsense the whole time, that's what you just said. There is no such definition in English dictionary. Your imaginary language only makes you insane, and it does not answer my point: there is no uncertainty in computer algorithms, do you understand this? — Zelebg

I guess I'm not normal, and have no shame, or perhaps I'm just unconventional. But, I have good company. Most of the leading philosophers have been noted, not for using dictionary meanings for old words, but for creating new meanings and new words. This innovation often makes their writings difficult to understand until someone produces a glossary of their technical vocabulary to supplement the common words in Webster's.

For example, have you ever tried to read A.N. Whitehead's Process and Reality? A century later, you will find "actual occasions of experience', "concresence", and "prehension" in philosophical dictionaries, along with his personal definition of, "Creativity" : "The fact that endlessly the past is blended with the possible in order to make new units of reality". Does his creative language make him "insane", or merely "imaginative"?

In my previous post, I noted that the whole point of Shannon's Information Theory and its application to computers is precisely because it minimizes uncertainty. But what does that have to do with human consciousness? Do you understand the difference? Materialists assume that computers can eventually emulate human consciousness. But some very smart people say "not so". Yet for both sides, it's an opinion, because computer consciousness (not intelligence) has never been demonstrated. So, you can have your opinion, and I can have mine, without resorting to insulting each other's intelligence.

Whiteheadian Terminology : http://ppquimby.com/alan/termin.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead

Computer Consciousness : http://www.cogsci.uci.edu/~ddhoff/Hoffm ... usness.pdf

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ecause/p11

It doesn't seem to me that we are talking about the same things, or at least in the same way about things, so I don't know how to respond. — Janus

Obviously, we are not talking "in the same way" about our conscious perception of Reality. Philosophers often distinguish between Phenomenal Reality (perception, appearances, maya) and Ultimate Reality (the source of the Information that we interpret as the real world).

I defined "ultimate or absolute reality" in Platonic terms as "Ideality", which consists of metaphysical Ideas (Forms) instead of physical objects (things). Now, what were you talking about, in your reference to "phenomenal reality' versus "ultimate reality", and "concrete or physical" versus "ideal for us"?


Reality versus Ideality : https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-evol ... -20160421/

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ecause/p11

that's not just stupid, it's so idiotic it deserves prison punishmet. Go away child robot, shoo, shooo! — Zelebg

Ouch!! The entropy between sender and receiver is astronomically high. There must be a short somewhere producing stupid static. :groan:

[Gnomon]

In short, any form of Platonism is a positive reification. — Janus

That may well be, but a lot of smart people, including pragmatic scientists, not noted for fanciful thinking, argue that Materialism might also be a form of reification. Cognitive researcher Don Hoffman has concluded, after many years of trying to explain Consciousness, that : "our senses are simply a window on this objective reality. Our senses do not, we assume, show us the whole truth of objective reality".

For me, his experiments, arguments and illustrations are compelling. And his alternative to Objective Realism is essentially a 21st century form of Idealism. But of course, it is outside the materialist mainstream, epitomized by Daniel Dennett. Here's a brief synopsis of his recent book.


The Evolutionary Argument Against Reality : https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-evol ... -20160421/

YouTube Video of Hoffman TED Talk : https://youtu.be/oYp5XuGYqqY

[Gnomon]

I agree, but there is also a little bit of humor in there. — Zelebg

Yeah! It's just philosophical locker room talk.

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ent/358084

We had a long debate on Hoffman a couple of years back. I concluded his resemblance to 'idealist philosophy' is superficial, his program is fundamentally neo-darwinian and not really connected with philosophy. — Wayfarer

I'm sure that was his intention. And he doesn't have much to say about Platonism. In his chapter "Illusory" though, he says, "In Plato's allegory of the cave, prisoners in the cave see flickering shadows cast by objects, but not the objects themselves." But in his 21st century update, the cave is replaced by a computer screen, and the shadows by pixelated icons. In both cases, the actual objects (shadow-casters; computer processes) are hidden behind the Wizard's curtain. Presumably, modern cell-phone addicts are the "prisoners".

His latest book was published in 2019, so maybe his argument has been refined in the last two years.
https://www.amazon.com/Case-Against-Rea ... 0393254690

[Gnomon]

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussi ... ecause/p12

Just to clarify, I think consciousness is form of integrated unified experience. I think experience is universal. Mind (a less unified and integrated form of experience) is widespread in nature and “consciousness” is a fairly rare form of mind and experience. I thus fall into the category of panexperientialism or a form of Whiteheadian process philosophy which some classify as a variety of panpsychism. — prothero

This sounds similar to my own worldview, except for some of the outdated terminology. "Experience" and "Consciousness" and "Panpsychism" are terms that are normally defined from the human perspective. So I have substituted the less anthro-morphic term "Information" as a reference to the fundamental element of the universe --- by contrast to "occasions of experience". Hence, "Information" is universal in Nature, but "Consciousness" is a limited and late-emerging phenomenon of evolution.

Panpsychism is often criticized for implying that atoms are aware of their environment in the same manner that humans are. But human Consciousness necessarily includes Self-consciousness. Ironically, some physicists are guilty of suggesting that sub-atomic particles are self-aware, when they say metaphorically that a particle "feels" the weak or strong forces. That's OK, as long as the term is not taken literally. But such literalism is why some New Agers assume that non-biological crystals have a sort of spooky Mind power, or that they can communicate with the universe as a whole.

So, just to be clear, I call my version of Panpsychism "Enformationism", which asserts that both rocks and rabbits are composed of bits of Information, but only the rodents are somewhat self-aware.


Integrated Information Theory : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrate ... ion_theory

Criticism of IIT : https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cr ... ciousness/