TPF : Short Theory of Consciousness

[Gnomon]

You have so many things to learn. It is evident you guys don't even have a scientific education, and you have invested all this energy writing a theory of everything — Raul

Raul, you accused me of wanting to go backward to a primitive way of thinking about the world. But I'd like offer a different analysis of our contrasting worldviews. Instead of going backwards, I have made a lateral move. In my youth, during discussions on religious topics, I was sometimes accused of being too rational & analytical -- of being a know-it-all -- making no allowance for human feelings and opinions. I was more like you then. But, over the years, I discovered that I did have some things to learn, that are not found in the textbooks of mainstream Science. Ironically, I'm now sometimes accused of being passive-aggressive.

One thing I've learned is that the world is not all simplistic black & white. It's a complex rainbow of perspectives, some of which are true, some false, and some truish. To counter black & white thinking, I like to refer to the Yin/Yang symbol, where both halves contain a spot of the other color. In terms of the Enformationism thesis, I call that the BothAnd Principle. It acknowledges that the world is characterized by opposing forces. Like the human genders, the hard, aggressive, no-nonsense, Masculine element is compatible with the soft, passive, sentimental Feminine element. But. balancing the inherent conflict between those different perspectives is not an easy task --- as illustrated in the tribulations of marriage between male & female.

My original character was typically masculine : focused on Reasoning, Doing, Analysis, and Sensory Evidence. Now, my new, more balanced, personality makes allowance for Emotions, Feelings, Holism, and Intuitive Evidence. I'm still not completely harmonized to the point of being genderless, but I try to be open to other points of view. However, your aggressive, haughty, know-it-all responses -- to a side of the world you are not comfortable with -- seems a bit too Macho for a philosophical forum, where moderation is the key to a calm, reasoned dialogue.

Macho : showing aggressive pride in one's masculinity. [or rationality]

Both/And Principle :
* My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
* The Enformationism worldview entails the principles of Complementarity, Reciprocity & Holism, which are necessary to offset the negative effects of Fragmentation, Isolation & Reductionism. Analysis into parts is necessary for knowledge of the mechanics of the world, but synthesis of those parts into a whole system is required for the wisdom to integrate the self into the larger system. In a philosophical sense, all opposites in this world (e.g. space/time, good/evil) are ultimately reconciled in Enfernity (eternity & infinity).
* 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.
* This principle is also similar to the concept of Superposition in sub-atomic physics. In this ambiguous state a particle has no fixed identity until “observed” by an outside system. For example, in a Quantum Computer, a Qubit has a value of all possible fractions between 1 & 0. Therefore, you could say that it is both 1 and 0.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Fuzzy Logic :
Fuzzy logic is a form of many-valued reasoning in which the truth values of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1. It is employed to handle the concept of partial truth, where the truth value may range between completely true and completely false.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuzzy_logic


PS___Your hyper-agressive use of smiles ( :lol: :lol: ) indicates a tendency to ridicule what you don't emphathize with. Please try to be cool.

[Gnomon]

In my understanding, this is the beginning of consciousness . . . . What I'm getting at is that there is an evolving process at play always — Pop

I agree, but the metaphorical "awareness" of an atom or ant is not fully-developed. In my graph of cosmic progression, full Consciousness was attained only after Life emerged only a short time ago, on the cosmic scale. Information (EnFormAction) is the causal force of Evolution, but it only causes consciousness after a long period of complexification and integration, as in IIT.


No there is nothing spiritual about my understanding. It is entirely logical. Rigorously logical. — Pop

OK. I'll accept that. In my worldview, Spiritualism was an intelligent rational response to the pre-scientific understanding of ancient people. They saw animals moving & behaving, so inferred that they were motivated by a common invisible force, that they compared to life-giving breath. But they also saw trees moving in the wind, and concluded that invisible Spirits or souls or gods were shaking them (Animism). Some even detected evidence for Spirits in crystals that sparkled with light energy. But today we would attribute those phenomena to non-conscious non-living Energy. Hence, the worldview of Panpsychism that is fashionable today among New Agers, and even some scientists, is based on an outdated understanding of causation. That "breath of the gods" notion might have been logical three thousand years ago, but now we are able to make a practical distinction between Information -- which in some forms has a mind-like quality (meaning) -- and Energy -- which sometimes has a life-like quality (motion, animation), but no human-like mental qualities. This picky distinction is necessary for the logic of my thesis to make sense.

Panpsychism is the view that all things have a mind or a mind-like quality.

Spiritualism :
A primitive theory of Cause & Effect, ignorant of physical energies & forces. Enformationism is an update based on generic Information as the “substance” of both Energy & Matter. To Enform is to cause an effect. To be“spiritual” is to discern true causes. Animal Intuition is sufficient to grasp that this reliably follows that. But ancient humans tended to reason beyond the obvious to imagine hidden causes for natural events, such as weather. Invisible spirits & gods were held responsible for both productive rain and destructive storms. But modern reasoning has found mundane causes for those natural phenomena. The chain of causation leads all the way back to the beginning with no miraculous gaps between causes & effect. And each causal event is basically an exchange of energy/information.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page18.html

We know a philosophical zombie is inert with only energy and information. It needs emotion for consciousness. Why should this not work for everything?
The logic is that it should! — Pop

Everything? Are you saying that atoms have emotions, and communicate feelings? Perhaps, in a metaphorical sense. But the fine distinction I make is between non-conscious Energy Effect, and Conscious Affect. Effect is a physical (material) change due to energy input. But Affect is the meta-physical (mental) result of a meaningful input of information. It's the same difference between Motion and Emotion. :chin:

↪Gnomon
Lets not respond to trolls. — Pop

I'm sorry for allowing your thread to go off-topic. But I enjoy sparring with those of different opinions. I don't really expect to change their minds, but it's good exercise for my flabby philosophical muscles. :joke:

[Gnomon]

I was having a lot fun with Pop and I cannot laugh? Com'on Gnomon enjoy life I'm maybe Macho but I'm a nice person. Aren't you? — Raul


Nah! You're no fun anymore. Your scientific superiority schtick is wasting time on a philosophical thread about Consciousness, which has baffled scientists for ages. Paraphrasing Banno's put-down of such diversions : "because . . . science . . . QED"

Until you have some new ideas of "epistemic value" to contribute, we'll just take our ball, and go-on having fun with the original game.

schtick : a gimmick, comic routine, style of performance, etc. associated with a particular person.

[Gnomon]

None of that emergent consciousness is possible without the ordered patterns of consciousness below. It is not turtles all the way down, it is patterns of order creating emergent properties, which when synergized are self ordering - they are equally an evolving process of self organization, where human consciousness = an evolving process of self organization. — Pop

I agree. And I think you are referring to the self-generating systems within Nature that Deacon calls "Autogens". But, the "ordering" and "organization" of system is the Effect of a Cause.outside the sub-system (holon) that is changed. It doesn't just happen spontaneously.

I call the cause of those "ordered patterns", EnFormAction, because no consciousness is required to create patterns within randomness. Unless, that is, you want to count the turtle at the bottom of the pile : the one I call The Enformer. I can't say with any certainty that the Enformer, outside the system, is Actually conscious in the same sense that humans are. But logically, since Consciousness has emerged from pre-conscious evolution processes, the Enformer must have possessed the Potential for consciousness. This notion is based on Aristotle's definitions of "Actual" & "Potential".


EnFormAction : The power to create meaningful patterns within a meaningless randomized system. Higher forms of those patterns are able to recognize the meaning in other patterns. That's what I call Consciousness. Since that power (energy) is invisible, its effects appear to be Self-Organizing, as in the Phase Transitions of physics.

Terrence Deacon's Autogen : A self-generating system at the phase transition between morphodynamics and teleodynamics; any form of self-generating, self-repairing, self-replicating system that is constituted by reciprocal morphodynamic processes
https://www.informationphilosopher.com/ ... ts/deacon/

Order within Chaos : Chaos theory is an interdisciplinary theory stating that, within the apparent randomness of chaotic complex systems, there are underlying patterns, interconnectedness, constant feedback loops, repetition, self-similarity, fractals, and self-organization. ... This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

If you can recognize the "meaning" within Chaos, you are Conscious.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/cont ... ormat=500w

[Gnomon]

The synergy of atoms creates molecules. The synergy of molecules creates amino acids. The synergy of amino acids is where animate matter emerges. It is the pattern and folding of amino acids that create protein machines that are able to carry out independent cellular functions. For some idea of this, there is the awareness in molecules thread. — Pop

In Darwinian evolution, there is no need for "awareness in molecules". As KenoshaKid pointed-out "No awareness required, just a survival advantage".

However, contingent survival of novel forms is dependent on the pre-set criteria (programming) for what counts as an "advantage" (fitness). And the judge of fitness is what Darwin called Natural Selection (conscious choice?). Charles didn't explain who the chooser was. But I refer to the One who selected the criteria as the Programmer.

So, I think the main difference between our theories of Consciousness is that I model it as a deterministic evolutionary program of evolving information (data), but with the freedom to explore novel solutions. While your model retains a touch of mystery. I place the "awareness" at the beginning (input) and end (output) of the process, not the middle.

Evolutionary Programming :
Special computer algorithms inspired by biological Natural Selection. It is similar to Genetic Programming in that it relies on internal competition between random alternative solutions to weed-out inferior results, and to pass-on superior answers to the next generation of algorithms. By means of such optimizing feedback loops, evolution is able to make progress toward the best possible solution – limited only by local restraints – to the original programmer’s goal or purpose. In Enformationism theory the Prime Programmer is portrayed as a creative deity, who uses bottom-up mechanisms, rather than top-down miracles, to produce a world with both freedom & determinism, order & meaning
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

Sorry but Panpsychism is based in observations like these, not as you have assumed it above. — Pop

I wouldn't call the spontaneous emergence of new forms an "observation", but an interpretation. For example, the sudden crystallization of liquid water into a snowflake might look like magic to someone inclined to think in such terms. But, to a scientist, the unseen steps between liquid & solid are merely due to the "nature" (enthalpy) of water. By that I mean, the water is Programmed to respond to loss of latent heat energy by forming crystals that require less energy to maintain their geometric form. And the "magic" is merely the subtraction of mundane Energy (EnFormAction). :chin:

The Nature of Matter : Aristotle referred to the essential properties of a material object as its "nature". And that natural disposition is defined by "hyle" (malleable stuff) and "form" (design or program). The inherent limits & possibilities of the design determine how the object responds to causal forces.

Enthalpy : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_fusion

[Gnomon]

We don't know what emotions are. We have agreed we cannot conceptualize them. We cannot feel each others emotions. If we don't know what something is, how can we say something does not have it? Why would information not contain emotion? An empirical assumption is not a good enough answer. — Pop

I know what my emotions are, implicitly. But you can't know my emotional state, except by explicit descriptions of what those feelings mean to me. Or, by judging (conceptualizing) from my behavior compared to yours. So, I'd say that we can "conceptualize" another person's feelings, even though we can't actually feel them. That's what words are for : to share concepts in my mind with you. Ask your wife if she'd like to share her feelings with you.

If we "know what something is made of, and how it works", then we can say, with some confidence, what properties (qualia) that thing has and doesn't have. However, some people have a tendency to impute their own feelings onto things that shouldn't, by definition, have any visceral emotions. That defense mechanism is what Freud called "projection".

Projection : the process of displacing one's feelings onto a different person, animal, or object.
https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... psychology

[Gnomon]

However, some people have a tendency to impute their own feelings onto things that shouldn't, by definition, have any visceral emotions. That defense mechanism is what Freud called "projection". — Gnomon
Proof of definition please. — Pop

The "things" I was referring to are inorganic objects, and don't have any viscera, no brains, no neurotransmitters, no subjective consciousness, etc. For example, people have been known to attribute feelings to toys, dolls, cars, and especially to therapeutic robots that simulate emotions. But even low-level organisms (amoeba), with some internal organs & neurotransmitters, cannot convey their subjective awareness of feelings to us. So, in the absence of verbal evidence, or mind-reading, they are presumed to be robotic (or zombies). Hence, we infer that their reactions to external stimuli are programmed, scripted, automatic -- with no reflective cognition. They may behave as-if they have subjective feelings, but we'll never know for sure that the observer's subjective impressions are as-is.

That's because these human interpretations (opinions ; presumptions) about non-humans cannot be proven positive or negative, because subjective feelings are not amenable to empirical testing. So, we could debate forever, and not be convinced against our own personal feelings & beliefs about Consciousness. Unless you communicate them to me in words, I only feel that you have feelings, by empathy with your outward behavior that resembles mine. Hence, I project my feelings about your feelings onto you. That's how aura readers can confidently "see" the feelings of inorganic "beings". :joke:


Misplaced Empathy : anthropomorphism, or the attribution of human characteristics and emotions onto inanimate objects
https://www.mindfood.com/article/new-st ... e-objects/

Robots created that develop emotions : They are programmed to learn to adapt to the actions and mood of their human caregivers,
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 094527.htm

Reflective Cognition : Cognitive science has distinguished between two types of thinking: intuitive and reflective. Intuitive cognition is fast and automatic, whereas reflective cognition is slow and deliberate.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs ... .wbiea1906

Inorganic Auras : The only similarity between inorganic and organic beings is that all of them have the awareness-bestowing pink or peach or amber emanations
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~jjudd/energy/pa ... ganicb.htm

[Gnomon]

No it doesn't occur spontaneously. But neither dose human consciousness. As I see it we are still locked into this singular way of being as an evolving biological system. We have not disconnected from those turtles causing us, we still depend on those turtles. This leads to an impression of a multilayered being in a pocket of order, or a being in the universe. — Pop

That's why I conclude that Human Consciousness is merely the current stage of a continuous on-going evolutionary process of complexification & integration. Perhaps, even mind-reading silicon-based beings in the future may be more empathetic & conscious than our primitive 21st century Awareness. But, I don't dwell on such speculative notions that are beyond my comprehension.

I can however, rationally imagine tracing the development of awareness back through time, and the degree of Information Integration (complexity & wholeness) diminishes as it gets closer to the beginning of time. Consequently, only since the emergence of organisms with language have we been able to share the feelings of others rationally, as opposed to the vague non-verbal sensations of emotional Empathy. :love:

[Gnomon]

Or perhaps what is outside the system is a cause of consciousness. The system interacting with what is outside of itself causes consciousness. — Pop

What do you suppose is "outside the system", constantly "interacting" with components of the system to cause energy exchanges to evolve into self-awareness?

In my thesis, I don't claim to know anything definite about what outside influence might have "caused consciousness" to emerge. But I can extrapolate from what we currently know about how the system works, in order to extend the chain of causation one step beyond the Big Bang. And, the necessary features of that First Cause seem to be essentially the same as those attributed to Creator Gods, from the beginning of history. That's why I reluctantly use the neologism "G*D", to serve as a generic modern version of Brahma, Jehovah, & Ahura Mazda, etc.. :halo:

[Gnomon]

Pop

This is a side note from our current discussion. Before I found this thread on the provenance of Consiousness, I hadn't thought of that evolutionary process specifically in terms of technical theories of Self-Organization -- although that was implicit in many of my blog posts. But, I am currently working on a blog-review of a book by a modern philosopher looking at science from an Aristotelian perspective.

Today, the notion of evolutionary Self-Organization came-up. So I did a little research, and added a note on Aristotle's notion Immanent Causation, which is essential to self-organization. A couple of links are added below. I also found an old blog post on a similar topic. FWIW, Here's an excerpt from Post 45 :

Throughout history, deep thinkers have produced various theories to explain the compelling “appearance” of design in nature. Teleology : Aristotle's hierarchy of causes from First to Final, was presented as an “impersonal, undesigned, aspect of nature” equivalent to natural laws. Holism : Medieval meta-physicians produced a theory of Mereology, in which parts & wholes interact in a sort of mathematical logic to drive nature toward a final solution. Conatus : Aristotle called the tendency of things to evolve toward their natural predetermined state, “striving” , which is like a combination of Energy and Enformy. Vitalism : Gregory Bateson called his natural biological force, ėlan vital. Autopoiesis : The acorn-to-oak-tree process is an example of self-organization, and several thinkers have tried to discern how it works. Systems Theory : A modern version of Holism is the science of Systems, which studies how parts & wholes work together to maintain the stability and success of the system, to ensure that it fulfills its function. Morphogenesis : A theory of biological enformation based on fields as the wholes that influence the parts to act cooperatively, and with single purpose, to reach a future form & function. This latter is a return to the notion that the future goal & purpose was set by the creator or designer or programmer. Thus, the “appearance” of design is an inference from a mechanical system that works as-if it was created for some practical reason, just as a clock serves a purpose that is not found in the mechanism itself.
http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page60.html

What Is Self-Organization? http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7104.pdf

Self Organization : http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s7104.pdf

Immanence and Causation in Spinoza : https://philarchive.org/archive/MARIAC-12