So the logic is given memories of the past are know to be not physical then consciousness is known to have non-physical components supported by brain biology. To me that's where the logic leads.
Chalmers didn't do anyone any favors in setting up the hard problem.
I just disregard him.

How did quantum mechanics come up?

Neurons have 100 trillion atoms so I don't see the mechanism of consciousness at the atomic or quantum level at all.
...just neurons operating at the scale of neurons seems to be the right scale of consciousness.

And consciousness has a non-physical component.

If you recall what you were doing ten years ago that is part of your personal consciousness.
The physical reality of ten years ago doesn't exist.
It's just a memory. Non-physical information.
I think most of us would classify a memory as both information and a component of consciousness.

Alright.
I might tend to physicalism, but if you are saying our mental worlds are what drives thing... I do agree.

You really do believe information exists outside a physical form?
A piece of information?

A non-physical that exists with no physically supporting mechanism?

And all the various media have interactions with brains as a common denominator. The 'piece of information' doesn't move supernaturally from media to media but brains always guide the process.
It really is a chain of physical events in all cases of information transfer.

A printed page is just physical pattern.
Brains are involved encoding and decoding.
Just identify brains as supporting non-physical content in the process and things work fine with no mystery elements like unsupported "information".

Information and consciousness are both physically Instantiated non-physicals. It's the only possibility. Seems like a common theme with overlap between information as it exists and consciousness.
Mostly a problem of definitions, boundaries and semantics at the fundamental level.....

There aren't a lot of options.

Physical matter exists or not.
Non-physicals exist or not.
Physically instantiated non-physicals exist or not.

Do you have alternatives?

I don't think I follow any conventional dualism.
It's just forced on us that non-physicals need to be paired with physical brains.
If we can't use non-physicals we don't have normal time perception or understanding of distant events. It would only be here and now.

I can't see anyway concepts could predate brains.
How? There isn't a physical mechanism.

It might be human nature to think our own mental world is more real than it really is. So I think reminding...us...ourselves, gives a good perspective. But a lot of it is real so brains keep us safe too....

Not sure.
It's real in the sense that a brain must physically configure and process specific content.
But other than that the content has no physical form.

Yes. Pretty sure. Without exception.

Addition: Instantiated is a better word and is what I meant.

My version is:
Physical things exist.
Non-physical things do not exist.
Physically contained non-physicals do exist.
Or mental content....

For example the future doesn't physically exist.
But the idea of the future does exist as mental content.

It would be hard to build a model of consciousness without physically contained non-physicals.

For you the question is in what form do non-physical things exist? If physical matter isn't involved there is no physical form.
But as a concept a non-physical always is mental content so is physically contained.
It seems relevant...and a starting point...for understanding consciousness.

My main point is that the hard problem really is a secondary problem. The question of physically contained non-physicals is primary to understanding consciousness.

So it doesn't take place in the dark, in your sleep or when you are dead because all the biological functions need to be in place for consciousness to be fully developed.

Not sure what in the dark means? Unconscious?

The hard problem of consciousness.
It might not really be that fundamental to philosophy.

Try starting with a more fundamental idea
Do physical and non-physical things exist.
I think if we assume physical things exist the next question is how non-physical things can exist.
They can't by definition.
Non-physical, to me, means non existent.
So a good approach is to identify non-physicals as physically contained non-physicals.
Brains holding mental content.

That gets closer to what consciousness is.
Not just any type of physical matter, but the special case of brains holding non-physical content.
And examining the context we see full input and output capabilities, connections with the biological organism, location in space and time, that is fully consistent with what consciousness is.

So what consciousness is, and other things like information, can be understood by using the idea of physically contained non-physical objects.
Not sure that's news, but maybe to some. In anything Chalmers related, consciousness refers to brains in a physical state.

I agree that numbers and information have something in common.

So, numbers physically exist as,
Brain; (numbers)
And, information physically exists as,
Brain; (information)

The general form is,
Brain; (a non-physical thing)

So as far as identity of numbers and information...they are associated with a physical location and time of a physical brain...always.
And they have the mental content consistent with what brains can do.

Numbers and information are not non-physical without support...but only exist as a physically supported non-physicals.

Any Claude Shannon reference is going to cause confusion
Is it physical, non-physical or physically supported non-physicals? I assume anything with Shannon information theory is physical only.
Entropy doesn't apply to non-physicals or physically supported non-physicals.

How does Shannon information even deal with a non physical things such as the past or future?
Our brains do it all the time, so something different is going on. More than a physical signal in our brains...

So for me...being a head in the sander....on the issue of Arbitrary Transfers....really isn't an option.

So let's move on with Arbitrary Transfers.

Is democracy a haven for AT activity?
Vote your interests?
Promote the policy that moves money your way?

You.mentioned taxes.
We know what we pay but not were exactly it goes. And it diminishes as it is distributed.

So taxes and transfer payments are part of arbitrary transfers.

If it's not philosophy to you ...fine.
Maybe we are lucky or unlucky and transfers play a part.

People will.have different perspectives on arbitrary transfers.

Let's try three catagories.

Only Payers Out of AT's,
Net income = (earned income) minus (AT out).

Both Payers.Out and Benifitiaries of AT's,
Net income = (earned income) plus (AT's in) minus (AT's out).

Only Benifitiaries of AT's
Net income = (earned income) plus (AT's in).


A fourth catagory would be people not in any form of AT economy. Not a big group.

So perspectives will follow the group you are in.
Most of us are both Payers out and Benifitiaries.

To me, defense budgets are another category.
But AT principles apply.
Are we paying for something without a return or is the alternative an impossibility?

Good.
Add HOA's to the list.
Some might be well run but others might exploit.

Arbitrary because transfer payments are not direct payments.
A taxpayers has an involuntary commitment, the government sets policy and allocates and the beneficiarys need to be qualified.
Or the benefit could be funded by debt and the final payers are unknown.

And in cases like markups the arbitrary transfer is a variable factor in price.

Arbitrary Transfers come in many forms but are identified by a transfer of funds or resource with no benefits in return.

So in specific cases, like welfare the benefits can be targeted.
Property taxes are an arbitrary funding method as all beneficiaries are not property owners. Such as large proportions of school funding by property taxes.

Arbitrary because not all players have control...

What about dying with liabilities and no assets.
That's an arbitrary transfer.

Bankruptcies....

I hadn't thought of remittances.
That is a big one.

Ok, people work in a wealthy nation, earn a wage and send a portion back to their home country.

The portion sent back is an arbitrary transfer.
If the worker works for.less than prevailing wages, the difference could be an arbitrary transfer in favor of the employer. Appears to be voluntary on the part of the worker or the best option.

I did see economics wasn't listed as a subject heading.

We'll see want turns up.

Philosophical question:
Are arbitrary transfers a philosophical question?

Describe why arbitrary transfers are philosophically significant:
Arbitrary Transfers such as transfer payments are political decisions and involve moral judgement.

But I thought it was an interesting topic.
It might have some usefulness in understanding the economy and varying perspectives.

Are you critical of the subject, 180 Proof?

So you are opposed to arbitrary transfers?
Transfer payments?

What my point is, if you use Arbitrary Transfers as a tool to understand the economy you will see things you missed before.

Let's say a consumer buys a 15 dollar toaster.
Consumers buy blind without knowing what the markup is. So by thinking in terms of arbitrary transfer the over view is the consumer paid 11 dollars NT and 4 dollars AT.

Something a consumer is likely unaware of.
So the retailers profit is the 4 AT dollars and is the beneficiary.
The consumer was willing to pay 15 dollars that included a 4 dollar AT. The consumer has a 4 dollar AT cost burden.

All useing my original example of a 10 dollar wholesale toaster and an 11 dollars NT cost from the retailer.

It's just a tool to use...

I can speculate on China...Not sure but with centralized control it's possible that what would be corporate profits (AT dollars) in the US, might end up in central government control in China.

But the US economy has control features that are less than transparent.

I am suggesting to be more aware of Arbitrary Transfers.
So in the US economy the organizations that can capture the most arbitrary transfer dollars will do the best. It might be obvious but profits tend to accumulate in certain sectors of the economy and Arbitrary Transfers can drive profitability.

Political donation might be a special case of Arbitrary Transfers.
Is something gotten in return or is it really a donation with no return?
Tens of millions now days...

It may or may not be a disadvantage.
But I was thinking about opportunity cost.
Production could bring high return but the social programs wouldn't get done.
So supporting or not supporting social programs is a political perspective.


Arbitrary Transfers (AT)
Can work against consumers...
Here's an example,

A toaster costs 10 dollars wholesale.
A retailer marks it up to 11 and sells to a consumer.
The 11 dollars is the nessecary transfer (NT) for the transaction to occur.

If the retainer sells for 12 dollars, the price could be understood as 11 dollars (NT) and 1 dollar (AT).

That means the consumer was the burden bearer of the AT and the retailer was the beneficiary.

So with arbitrary transfers, it's not just a point of view but a need to understand the concept.

If energy is involved, that too could propagate opposite the arrow of time.

I suspect that is the case given the logic of the problem.

Here what I came up with to explain back propagation through time.

t0 to t3
t1 to t4
t2 to t5
t3 to t6
t4 to t7
t5 to t8
t6 to t9
t7 to t10
t8 to t11
t9 to t12

These are ranges of clock time at quantum scale.
A range of time has physical events that coexist in the time range.

A physical event at t3 could effect t0 because they coexist.

A physical event at t12 can not directly effect t0.

However, if a signal can form a chain of physical matter that can transmit a signal, it may be possible to back propagate between t12 and t0.

In theory, a signal back propagating in matter could, as time progressed from the big bang, have been back propagating from a future state to the big bang era.

So retro causality could be involved in the big bang era.

A signal needs a physical carrier so the carrier would be things that exist at the quantum scale.

This back propagation idea is speculative.
Another possibility is if some future branching exists then you also have a mechanism for spooky action at a distance. Quantum entanglement.

So I'm looking at it until someone gives me a reason not to.

It may have come up here before but I'm not finding it.

Ok. Overlap the boxes.

The time intervals are clock times. Very small.
The point is duration t3 can have an effect on t1.

Try this,

Take a sheet of lined paper and write t1 to t10 down the left side.

Draw a box next to t1. It represents a duration of physical matter during the duration.

Draw a box next to t2 shifted to the right by say a third the duration of t1. Same size.

And so on down the page.

Think of the boxes as matter progressing through time in 3D.

Place your pencil at the lower right box and without leaving the page draw a line of causality to the upper left box.

So that's a pipeline for back propagation .

Does it work? I don't know. Devils in the details.
Patterns? Signals? Computation? Standing wave?

The boxes represent what matter is, so mass and energy are present in the model but the mechanism of back propagation isn't identified.
But the potential is there and the logic of causality and the question of the big bang point to it.

A pipeline all the way back to the big bang.
So at the big bang you have a physical effect on another physical.

I forgot an important part.

If you think of a time line with a duration of time (instead of an instant) moving with the arrow of time then the backward propagation only exists in the duration....moving backward.

And the backward energy flow gives present matter it's form.

Retro causality is another term.
If you think of the arrow of time, back propagation is energy, or possibly a signal, moving in the opposite direction.

I know it's speculative. But the logic points in that direction as a possibility.

We are looking at the idea of nothing causing something and that seems illogical.
A timeline with nothing becoming something seems illogical.

Back propagation of energy is physical so if it was present at the singularity it could have caused the big bang.

It's just a philosophy approach and I don't know of any physical evidence to support it, however physics as we know it is failing so it's worth a look. Also the question of dark energy could be one in the same problem.

Actually I think for philosophy we should count the leading theories of physics a failure.

The laws of physics break down at the singularity in the beginning... and we don't know what dark energy is and something is driving the current expansion of the universe.

There is a solution to this in the form of back propagation of energy. So at the singularity a physical is affecting another physical.

If a future source of energy supply exists and it has the ability to back propagate through physical matter then a number of problems can be solved together.

More of a philosophical approach forced on us because the known physics fails.

My version.

Non-existent is a concept.

It does exist as brain state,

Brain; (a concept)
Brain; (a non-existent entity)

Also brains activate muscles so a concept can affect physical matter. Like the result of a math problem.

That's the only way an abstraction, concept, mathematical construct can affect physical reality.

Going back in the thread we might agree....
Not sure.

My version,

Brain; (hypothesis... conclusion)

Yes, it's physically based.
We have the ability to physically hold non-physicals. So mathematics does exist in this physical form.