Thanks for everyone’s words. I’ll check out Peter Smith if it comes out in e-format. I already have a couple, as well as Hofstadter’s I An a Strange Loop. But the premise is beyond me. Arbitrarily assigning numbers to all the numbers and symbols in equations? If it doesn’t matter what numbers you assign them, how is there any point in doing it at all?

Thanks. But at least you understand what we're talking about. I need to find a professor of mathematics to sit down with me and help me understand it. But they aren't easy to come by.

Sadly, the whole thing seems beyond me. I've tried different books and sites, but just don't have any idea what he's doing. I get lost at the very first step.

Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell bad.


(Can’t believe it took three pages for someone to say that.)

Thanks

Thank you very much. I don’t have a clue about what I don’t know about the topic. For example, I don’t have any idea what symmetry has to do with it.

Never heard of The Great Courses. I think I’ll pass on that $239.95 option. :D

Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information Is $42.77 on kindle. That’s no problem.

But maybe I’ll start with The Ascent of Information. Only $9.99, and it sounds very interesting.

Why do we try to look for some sort of extravagant meaning ? — simplyG

Because we can. Why do we walk when we could crawl all our lives? Why do we go to the moon? Why do we write string quartets, novels, and poetry? Because we can. We don’t not do the things we can do. Why would we not?

Sadly, I know nothing about any of this, so I’m already lost. But I thought it fit the topic nicely.

I was just watching The Bit Player, which is about Claude Shannon, who I’m learning is a pretty important person. (Literally never heard of him until a couple months ago when I started reading about semiotics, which I also never heard of until I started hanging out here.) One thing it says is:

“Normal English, though, I calculated was over 50% redundant. You know certain words follow each other, and there’s grammar rules. When you learn a language, you inherently know the statistics. That’s why you can drop letters, and even words, and still understand the message.”

Looking at the redundancy in English gives Shannon his Big Thought #2. Compress your information. Eliminate the redundancy. Just send what you can’t predict.

And then he asked a question that nobody had really thought of before. Is there a minimum size, a minimum number of bits, that I can shrink my information to, and not lose anything essential? He discovers there is a minimum. And he shows how to calculate it. His formula is based on the probabilities in the message. It has a very intriguing form. It’s almost identical to a fundamental quantity in physics called entropy.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/meaning/
I’m told this is a good site to start on this topic.

Not sure why anyone worries about teleology. The universe has certain characteristics. It has structure. That structure seems more conducive to certain relationships and ratios.

That's the only book on Complexity I've looked at.

In At Home in the Universe, a book about self-organization, Stuart Kauffman wrote:

We will be showing that the spontaneous emergence of self-sustaining webs is so natural and robust that it is even deeper than the specific chemistry that happens to exist in earth; it is rooted in mathematics itself.

Mathematician Eddie Woo showed photos of a river delta, tree, lightning, and human capillaries, which all have remarkably similar patterns, and said:

There's a mathematical reality woven into the fabric of the universe that you share with winding rivers, towering trees, and raging storms.

Not your fault. I didn’t explain.

Behavior is explained by the physical.
— Patterner

Is it though? I do things because of the way I feel, it seems to me. — bert1

To me, too. I'm just stating the case for the other side, and asking how it works.

(I sent you a message the other day. Don’t know if you were aware. Pardon the pun.)

As, uh, Flannel Jesus (lol) said, we still have the question of subjective experience. Everything you wrote is regarding physical processes. And those physical processes explain behavior nicely. Never having seen a red-hot piece of metal, my brain sends signals to my muscles, and I pick it up. My nerves send signals of extreme damage to my brain. My brain sends signals to my muscles to drop it.

Various signals also get stored in my brain. The next time my retinas are hit with patterns of photons that are a close enough match to those stored signals that are linked with the damage my hand received, my brain does not send signals to my muscles to pick it up.

Obviously, it's extraordinarily more complex than that. But it's all just physical things and processes, bringing about physical behavior. How do those physical things and processes bring about another phenomenon at the same time? A phenomenon that, as I said in a previous post, a leading expert in neurology and the study of consciousness, and a leading expert in the properties of particles, forces, and the laws of physics, do not know how to account for with neurons, properties of particles, forces, and the laws of physics. They don't know how those things account for subjective experience.

There's also the question of why. Behavior is explained by the physical. Why have the subjective experience that only observes after the fact? Why would evolution have selected for something that has no function?

To me, that shouldn't really count as a point against materialism - it's often presented like it is. — flannel jesus

I gotcha. But I would argue that the opposite also happens. Many say there is no question that materialism is the answer. With no hint of physical properties or processes that can explain properties of consciousness, that's as much a leap of faith.

Sure. To me it seems quite explainable that we can't totally explain it. Humanity is still developing the conceptual and techological tools that would be required to do so in any comprehensive way. (Making the big assumption that human minds are capable of grasping an explanation that would necessarily have extraordinary complexity.)

Like many matters of scientific understanding, understanding of the mind's relationship to the brain is a matter of looking at many scientific findings relevant to piecing together an enormous jigsaw puzzle. There is a lot to learn, to have a well informed opinion of what the picture looks like. (And facing that picture is something a lot of people have a negative emotional reaction to, at least for a time.) — wonderer1

What picture are you saying is already drawn that people have a negative emotional reaction to?

Greene is a physicist, not a neuroscientist. Try Damasio's The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness. — wonderer1

Thanks! I am LOATHE, (LOATHE I tell you), to buy physical books. But this is not available as an e. It should be delivered Tuesday.

I'll point out, however, that Koch is a neuroscientist, and he also says they can't explain it.

I'm just directly responding to the question of evidence.

I think the hard problem of consciousness IS a hard problem. I don't disagree with you that it's a hard problem. — flannel jesus

It's possible we disagree about what the evidence is saying, and what the hard problem is. I do not think the evidence is insisting that consciousness is produced by the physical things and processes we know so much about, despite the fact that it doesn't exist in their absence. Maybe. But if so, there's no hint of how. So maybe not.

I don’t think the solution to hard problem is figuring out how the physical produces the mental. I think the solution is figuring out what else is there with the physical.




Fair enough. But I want to emphasize things, as well.

And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? Particles can have mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), but all these qualities seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience. How then does a whirl of particles inside a head—which is all that a brain is—create impressions, sensations, and feelings?

Yes, we know a ton about the physical processes of the brain. But nothing the world's leading experts know "remotely" explains consciousness. Plenty of correlation. Plenty of location. But no explanation. Greene doesn't give a non-robust scientific explanation. There is no partial explanation. There is only It happens here, and It just happens.. The fact that it doesn't seem to exist without the physical means, obviously, the physical is involved. But that's not a robust explanation. It's only an assertion that physical is involved.

Sure, we can't yet explain it with matter. It's not like we can explain it with something else either. It's not like there's some other more complete alternative that sufficiently gives an account of consciousness. — flannel jesus

Maybe there is something else we can explain it with. Maybe something non-physical is also present. We have no problem accepting that space and time are one, or that matter warps it. And wet have no problem accepting the impossible, contradictory nature of quantum mechanics. I don't think the idea that there is something non-physical involved with consciousness is any more outlandish, considering none of the people who know the most about physics and neurons can find an explanation that only involves the physical.

I doubt anyone disputes that the only types and examples of consciousness we are aware of cannot exist without their physical components. But that only tells us where is happens. But that only tells us where it takes place. The way we might say walking takes place in the legs, or flight takes place in the sky. We would not accept such statements as explanations of how walking and flight are accomplished.

As I said in my previous post, a leading expert in neurology and the study of consciousness, and a leading expert in the properties of particles, forces, and the laws of physics, say we do not know how consciousness is produced by neurons, properties of particles, forces, and the laws of physics. It is a mystery how physical things and processes are accompanied by subjective experience, and the awareness of themselves. Impulses travel along nerves, causing a hand to pull away from a hot surface. But something else is also taking place. The physical things and processes define and describe the physical events. Why do, and how would, they also define and describe the mental events? Leading experts in physics, neurology, and consciousness are stumped.

Christopher Koch, the president and chief scientist of the Allen Institute for Brain Science, and someone's who believes consciousness can be explained in physical terms, paid off his bet to Chalmers, because, if it is, they haven't figured it out.

Brian Green wrote:

We have yet to articulate a robust scientific explanation of conscious experience. We lack a conclusive account of how consciousness manifests a private world of sights and sounds and sensations. We cannot yet respond, or at least not with full force, to assertions that consciousness stands outside conventional science. The gap is unlikely to be filled anytime soon. Most everyone who has thought about thinking realizes that cracking consciousness, explaining our inner worlds in purely scientific terms, poses one of our most formidable challenges.

and

And within that mathematical description, affirmed by decades of data from particle colliders and powerful telescopes, there is nothing that even hints at the inner experiences those particles somehow generate. How can a collection of mindless, thoughtless, emotionless particles come together and yield inner sensations of color or sound, of elation or wonder, of confusion or surprise? Particles can have mass, electric charge, and a handful of other similar features (nuclear charges, which are more exotic versions of electric charge), but all these qualities seem completely disconnected from anything remotely like subjective experience. How then does a whirl of particles inside a head—which is all that a brain is—create impressions, sensations, and feelings?

So serious scientific minds that are dedicated to the idea that it is explainable in physical terms say we cannot do so. While that is not evidence that it is not explainable in physical terms, it is certainly not evidence that it is. The Hard Problem is hard, according to the experts on opposite sides of the fence.

I've had enough of consciousness for a while. — T Clark

So you're unconscious at the moment?

Amen!

I’d imagine if I was an African man struggling to eat this would be the last question on my mind. It’s the spoilt westerners that have this sort of nihilistic outlook about life. Life’s too easy or comfortable is why this question gets asked. — simplyG

The starving man might think, "This is it? This is life? Pain and misery? Life is meaningless." He might think that, because he can. No other animal can. To our knowledge, nothing else in the universe thinks, searches, contemplates, wonders. I can’t fault anyone for wanting to go to the Zen route, and do less of those things. But neither can I fault anyone for doing the thing that is uniquely ours, the thing that defines us more surely than anything else.

My favorite show of all time.

Lots of good philosophy in Trek. More in Northern Exposure.

Meaning is subjective, so I don’t believe there can be a definitive answer to “the meaning of life”. But that’s why I love this question! In attempting to answer it, we reveal more about ourselves than we do about the nature of reality. And in doing so, I get to connect with people who view life differently than myself. — JWW

Here's a good moment from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Short conversation between Dr. Crusher and Data (an AI android, for those who don't know):

Data: What is the definition of life?

Crusher: That is a BIG question. Why do you ask?

Data: I am searching for a definition that will allow me to test an hypotheses.

Crusher: Well, the broadest scientific definition might be that life is what enables plants and animals to consume food, derive energy from it, grow, adapt themselves to their surrounding, and reproduce.

Data: And you suggest that anything that exhibits these characteristics is considered alive.

Crusher: In general, yes.

Data: What about fire?

Crusher: Fire?

Data: Yes. It consumes fuel to produce energy. It grows. It creates offspring. By your definition, is it alive?

Crusher: Fire is a chemical reaction. You could use the same argument for growing crystals. But, obviously, we don't consider them alive.

Data: And what about me? I do not grow. I do not reprodue. Yet I am considered to be alive.

Crusher: That's true. But you are unique.

Data: Hm. I wonder if that is so.

Crusher: Data, if I may ask, what exactly are you getting at?

Data: I am curious as to what transpired between the moment when I was nothing more than an assemblage of parts in Dr. Sung's laboratory and the next moment, when I became alive. What is it that endowed me with life?

Crusher: I remember Wesley asking me a similar question when he was little. And I tried desperately to give him an answer. But everything I said sounded inadequate. Then I realized that scientists and philosophers have been grappling with that question for centuries without coming to any conclusion.

Data: Are you saying the question cannot be answered?

Crusher: No. I think I'm saying that we struggle all our lives to answer it. That it's the struggle that is important. That's what helps us to define our place in the universe.

That's what this whole conversation about meaning is. Finding our place in the universe.

Are you simply saying, you are impressed by the size of the spectrum of potential 'meaning/purpose/cause,' that humans can manifest or are you saying that this is what overwhelms many people and makes them reduce it to the more simplistic biological imperatives or it results in negative pathologies such as chronic depression? — universeness

I guess my point is merely noting that humans can choose meanings that are biological imperatives/things other living things do, or that are beyond what any other species can do. Since it's not a requirement that someone choose a meaning at all, it can't be said that one type is better, or more appropriate, than the other. I just thought it was worth noting. I don't know if it's something any philosopher has written at any length about.

They is a bit awkward, but it’s probably the best option because we already used it to refer to people whose gender we didn’t know. As in, “Mildred, if a tax inspector comes today can you tell them I’m at a conference in Hong Kong.” — Jamal

I wish they would choose one of the alternatives that have been used in sci-fi. Like ze/zir. As you say, we use "they" when we don't know the person's gender. Which, historically, is because we don't know the person at all. If we know the person, I don't like using the pronouns of ignorance. We aren't ignorant. We know the person. I don't like how impersonal it seems.

I see two different types of meaning in what you two are saying. I don't know what to make of it, and maybe it isn't important. But it occurred to me, so I figured I'd mention it.

First is something that's wrapped up in a biological imperative. such as being a parent. The plants and all the other animals can't contemplate these things. For them, there is no meaning of life in the way this thread is primarily focused on. Only a human would, or can, say a biological imperative is the meaning of their life.

Second is the kind of meaning that only humans can have. Not because we’re the only thing we are aware of that has any concept of meaning, but also because we're the only ones who do most things that are not biological imperatives. Like devoting your life to music, religion, linguistics, philosophy, literature, or any of a number of other things. most of us seem to be talking about.

The first type might be easier to find. Or might feel more natural. It seems like it would be great fortune if what you thought the meaning of your life is was also something you were biologically driven to do. Of course, if you think the meaning of your life is, say, to have children, but you cannot, it might be a pretty serious problem for you. Hopefully, people in that kind of predicament are able to change their way of seeing things in time. Adoption, or other ways of caring for people.

But what really strikes me is that humans are the only things in the universe that we are aware of that can choose to do things that aren't biological imperatives. I feel there's something... Difficult to find the right word. I think "human" might be it, although that doesn't convey the specific feeling that I can't seem to name. There's something appropriate in people doing things that only people can do. Not many animals walk on two legs. Not many have opposable thumbs. It would be strange if someone refused to take advantage of either.

Although it doesn't necessarily have to be your meaning of life. Maybe Bach would have said the meaning of his life was being a father.

But it still must be chosen, don't you think?
— Patterner


Yes, I think so. My point is that the act of choosing in itself is not enough. What is chosen must stand in some "meaningful" relationship to oneself, that I can't elucidate right now.

There are so many meanings, that more than merely "regretting the choice", are objectively wrong choices, in that they don't stand in this (for now, mystery) relationship with the chooser. For instance, the pursuit of money or fame cannot be the meaning of your life, no matter how earnestly chosen, if you are unfulfilled and haunted by precisely the thought that your life is meaningless. — hypericin

Indeed. Some might come to realize their decision was not too their liking. Or they might think it's shallow. Or whatever. And they might think more on it, and learn the kind of thing that is needed.

Some might come to think their lives don't need this kind of meaning.

Anybody/thing capable of understanding the concept is free to choose the meaning of their own life.
— Patterner

i'm not sure if one's life meaning can necessarily be chosen. Do we really have that much agency? Many meanings we might choose will turn out to be false, and reveal themselves as such with hollowness and dissatisfaction. I would say, it must be discovered.

Some people will never discover theirs, or even may not have any. — hypericin

I can see the possibility of choosing badly. Meaning regretting your choice. Hopefully, you aren't on your deathbed when this regret hits you. If you're not, then you can choose another meaning. You might make a choice you're happier with, having learned from your mistake.

I can also see people never choosing any meaning. Heck, some never consider the topic at all.

I think I understand what you mean by it must be discovered. But it still must be chosen, don't you think? A person with extraordinary talent for healing might choose that as the meaning of their life. But they might choose music, despite what seems to be obvious to everyone else. Or they might become a doctor, but consider being a parent the meaning of their life.

Everything (we are aware of) in the universe exists simply as part of the cycle. Only we are above that.
— Patterner

How did you climb above the universe? — Vera Mont

The appearance of our consciousness and intelligence put us there. They make us the only known thing that conceives of these ideas. Someone conceived of the concept of meaning beyond the cycle of life and death. Now we can each decide the meaning for our lives, if we choose to. To our knowledge, nothing other than humans can do that.

What does life mean? That something is not inanimate or dead. — Vera Mont

I'm not remotely close to having any expertise in linguistics, semiotics (a word I never heard untill I read it here a cooker months ago), meaning, or whatever. I don't even know what topic this falls under. But this just doesn't seem right to me. There are not characteristics of the inanimate that life lacks. I would think it's the other way around. The characteristics of life are absent in the inanimate. Inanimate is not animate.

Similar with dead, but a couple of differences. First, inanimate came before life. Everything was inanimate until life showed up. Although there would have been no concept of "inanimate" before there was life. (Of course, there was nobody around to lable things.) But dead came after life. Second, while dead things are inanimate, most inanimate things are not dead. Nagel says "...the appearance of life from from dead matter..." I wouldn't say something is "dead matter" unless I was talking about the remains of a plant or animal.

Does a lion search for a meaning to his life? Does a dolphin? Why should they? They are themselves, integral and complete, in harmony with their environment.
Only man has been diminished in his own eyes; made to feel insignificant and flawed. Told by 500 generations of prophets and philosophers that he is wanting, fallen short, fallen from a loftier position, and that the only way he can redeem himself is by dedicating his life to something greater than himself: a god, a liege lord, an empire, a noble cause, a brotherhood of warriors, monks or mobsters. His own little life is of no consequence: it is a conveyance merely, like a deed of sale or a summons, disposable once it's served purpose. — Vera Mont

Wow, I view the idea of meaning in an extremely different way. Everything (we are aware of) in the universe exists simply as part of the cycle. Only we are above that. Only we get to have meaning, if we choose to.

Consciousness — Mikie

I think it is a couple things.

1) Subjective experience
Having a point of view, which means one experiences things. As opposed to things simply happening to an object. Rocks don't have a pov. Neither do robots with parts that detect light, and parts that perform actions when the light-detectors send signals to them.

2) Awareness
-Awareness of a subjective experience is possibly redundant? If you weren't aware of it, it wouldn't be a subjective experience.

-Self-Awareness is more. I doubt a bat is self-aware.

-Awareness of awareness seems more still. Are there animals that are aware of themselves as individuals, but not aware that they are aware of themselves?

I presume the higher levels of awareness require more intelligence than the lower levels.

Anybody/thing capable of understanding the concept is free to choose the meaning of their own life.

Then I ask you for a fact about your previous behavior that shows that the rule you were following was addition rather than quaddition. — frank

Then I ask you to prove tI've been doing quaddition, not addition.

I don't see the idea that there is an affective element to consciousness as distinguishing what it is like from merely sensing. I think sensing is always already affective and so I would not say that machines sense anything. Machines may have sensors that detect photons, sound waves, molecules and so on, but that is not what I would call sensing. I don't deny the term could be used other than the way I do, but if you want to use the term 'sensing' differently then we will just talk past one another. — Janus

Do you prefer the terms "detectors" and "detecting"?

Is it possible that electric devices (or anything) have subjective experience and awareness of things, but don't care about, desire, or want to avoid anything?
— Patterner

I don't know, but I tend to think that out of all the raw sensory data that enters via the senses, only the tiny portion which is meaningful in some way, that is which is cared about, is attended to, and that that attention constitutes awareness or consciousness. — Janus

Although I don't think I agree, let's just go with this. Is this not a coherent answer that distinguishes what it's like from merely seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling?