And you keep talking about electricity flows as if the brain were switch a current of electrons. But charge is carried by ions. And it is only because of the "informational" structure of the axons - the molecular machinery of ion channels - that a wave of anything can flow down a neural "wire". What "flows' is a bunch of these pores opening and closing in a chain reaction that propagates like a wave. — apokrisis

The ion channels are nodes with sizable gaps between them. Sodium and potassium ions are a trigger, not the full mechanism of signal transduction. Molecular machinery internal to an axon of course must differ from the properties of for instance a copper wire, but some kind of transport chain including tunneling and entanglement is probably involved, similar to photosynthesis, not solely the diffusion of ions.

This says to me, that "matter" might appear as a particle, or it might appear as a wave, depending on one's perspective. But do you see the need to define "matter". Is "matter" to you, the temporal continuity of existence, what apokrisis called "inertia"? — Metaphysician Undercover

Atoms are theoretical to the core, a hypothetical image generated by arbitrary graphing systems to supplement the conceptualizing of dimensionless quantitative data, altogether assisting pattern recognition and prediction. I think the nature of matter depends completely on an observer's frame of reference. An essential disjunct exists between matter interpreted microscopically vs. macroscopically, and at the most basic levels there are multiple models associated with differing experimental contexts. As far as "inertia", it has not yet been possible to generate conditions in which matter is motionless, so I'm not sure how apropos this idea is unless referring to some kind of fundamental relativity. I would define matter as a relatively equilibrated state emergent from substance interactions.

...the fact that the brain relies on exquisite quantum balances to transduce the physics of the world into neurally encoded signals doesn’t mean the resulting conscious state is fundamentally quantum. It is instead fundamentally information processing. — apokrisis

Like I was joking about with Gnomon, I think the idea of information processing as "fundamental" is problematic if it induces some kind of excessively assumptive reification schema. In science, "information" is the content of models, not the substances themselves, and it is human beings who are doing the processing. There might exist phenomena that are not even conceivable unless we completely transcend current concepts of what information can be. The structure of computers is based on models of information processing, so in that case it is an apt term, but analogy to brains could be flawed. I'd be interested to get your definition of information in the context of biosemiosis.

The Nietzschean in me can't get out of the view that information is a conditional content of the mind. We mold the world to our perspective, and all of our theoretical knowledge will necessarily be information in some sense, whether quantitative or qualitative, unless we evolve biologically to perceive in a different manner, but data seems like a model of human-specific perceptual experience to my brain, not a fundamental substance or formative principle. Ancient aliens might look at it differently, the alley cat that patrols my neighborhood probably doesn't have any appreciation of abstract form as a universalizable context, and our own descendants far in the future could observe and think in ways we can't even imagine. I guess the closest I can come to agreeing at my stage of comprehension is that information represents the nature of reality as it appears to many humans, rather than is the nature of reality. But like any attempt at conceptual coherence, its a worthwhile, intuition-building thought experiment, better than most. And if everything is defined as informational, how can you be wrong? lol

What would you mean by "matter" here? — Metaphysician Undercover

The Danish Neils Bohr and German Max Planck, along with contributions from many additional scientists, successfully theorized matter as a duality appearing more particlelike or more wavelike depending on experimental context. Wave and particle concepts were combined in a theory of all energized mass as ‘quantized’, occurring in discrete bundles that are however spatially diffuse in ways still, in the 21st century, only probabilistically definable. Research into quantization greatly advanced scientific knowledge of the internal structure of the atom, producing the idea of atomic ‘orbitals’ as energy wells in which more or less spread out subatomic constituents such as electrons and protons flux in coordinated ways. Quantized ‘wavicles’ were found to be arranged within atoms according to specific mathematical ratios associable with chemical bonding properties, analogous to harmonics of vibrating metal wires, and to move about the environment in approximately modelable forms, but attempts to predict their behaviors exactly have so far been subject to fundamental imprecisions theorized as the ‘Heisenberg uncertainty principle’ and similar concepts. Measurability of various properties at the subatomic level - mass, velocity, energy - varies depending on the design of laboratory setups with their mutually exclusive observational focuses.

Wave/particle duality? I acknowledge that nature does not at all mirror the double slit experiment, but matter has intrinsic wavelength as far as I know, correct me if that isn't accurate.



Merely speculating, but I think its important to avoid excessive bias towards a precedential model of brains as no more than a bundle of neurons wired together. The brain is actually 90% glia, which are closer to conventional, nonconducting cells in their structure, provisional of function that may differ dramatically from neuronal streamlining for purposes of electricity transmission.

My hypothesis is that large assemblages of neurons are responsible for generating standing waves in the brain as measured by an EEG, maybe with specialized regions providing mechanisms of amplification and pulsing linked to states of awareness. Then all kinds of different glia comprised of extremely fine-tuned biochemical ingredients, matched in a multitude of ways with more than ten thousand different types of neurons as locally active functional units, contain the additive superposition entanglements of microscopic coherence fields distantly resembling photosynthetic reaction centers, coordinated to large-scale radiation in such a way that qualia are subtly modulated in miniature quantum processes thus far evading our laboratory instruments.

So basically a massive amount of tiny neuron/glia complexes tailored for very specific sensitivities produce the additive resonances of individual qualia, and our integrated qualitative experiencing is an almost unconscious blending of these into the more holistic standing wave structures. Qualia biochemistry might be so context-specific that even large sources of radiation do not register, just like substances are odorless, sonic frequencies can be inaudible, saturation of the atmosphere with radio waves causes us no issues, prolonged exposure to a computer monitor alters brain wave patterns without causing hallucination, etc. And this allows for the possibility of radically verifying extrasensory perception and paranormality, which is the most exciting facet for me.

Maybe instead of panpsychism, this paradigm can be thought of as something like transpsychism, meaning that mind transcends organic matter. Coinage of a really good term for it might be fun to contemplate.

I'll give some brief detail about the science behind this model and see what you think.


It seems that quantum phenomena of biochemistry are exceedingly sensitive to incoming energy, so even the slightest increase in entropy can produce decoherence, converting a system into the more familiar form of self-contained jostling particles combining and separating at rates determined by three dimensional structure. Hypothesizing claims quantum biology is in need of a thermodynamic buffer shielding its actions from even most molecular-scale forces, which directs the search for its presence to very specific chemical components of even large macromolecules, particularly anywhere that individual protons, electrons or other charged particles are relatively free to shift across some kind of gap, such as between atoms.

One possible instance of a biologically active quantum occurrence is the fast triplet reaction. An electron in an outer atomic orbital paired with its partner of opposite spin is so to speak knocked or drawn out of position into another atom due to the peculiar orientation of these atoms to each other. Even after this happens, the newly positioned electron remains quantum entangled with its former mate, while electromagnetic force is also exerted on it by its new partner, in which state it is in superposition putting it into a statistical percentage of same spin with each, a highly unstable formation that can be driven out of its wavering tension by tiny quantities of energy. When this type of reaction exists upstream of biochemical pathways in key cells, its behavior might be magnified by molecular flow it instigates, engendering exquisite sensitivity of organic processes to the environment.

A fast triplet reaction was found by molecular biologists at a particular site in a blue light sensitive pigment called cryptochrome present throughout the animal kingdom within many different cell types and body parts, and was almost simultaneously identified in the eyes of European robins and antennae of monarch butterflies based on collaboration with field biologists. These two instances came to the heightened attention of biochemists because it was apparent that the cryptochrome reaction is sensitive enough for responding to the earth’s magnetic field, a vanishingly small energy source, supplying possible perceptual means of managing long-range migrations. Through a fortunate set of events the camps joined forces, discussing each other’s research projects and pinning down cryptochrome as a likely candidate for stimulating magnetically-induced qualia in transient species. Cryptochrome and similar molecules in additional organs also have a plausible adaptive role for making organisms sensitive to the magnetic charge of approaching storm fronts and other natural events, allowing them as everyone notices to find shelter far in advance.


In its initiatory stages is quantum theory’s promise for clarifying the workings of consciousness. It has been known for decades that nerve cells function by voltage conductance down their length as ions are transported perpendicularly through the axon's cell membrane via a cascading longitudinal sequence of ion channels, stimulating release of neurotransmitters into synaptic clefts between axon terminals and dendrites as well as between dendrites, where neurons intersect. A well-founded model, but as in the case of enzyme activity, this process happens too fast to be explained in the standard way, as spherical particles incrementally ferried through a three dimensional rate bottleneck. It is also unclear how qualia with their subjectively experienced causal effects can exist at all in association with averred bare, traditional chemistry, resulting in persistently advocated dichotomy of mind and matter within our modeling of the central nervous system.

Accounts have ranged all the way from consciousness as an accidental byproduct of the brain, supervenient on matter, with consciousness’ apparent causality being an illusion, at most a certainty-bolstering epiphenomenon of perceived free will, to awareness as fundamental to the universe and matter nestled within it, the corporeal world essentially being a perception. Philosopher Rene Descartes proposed the pineal gland as the point of intersection between mental and material, physicist Roger Penrose offered that gap junctions connecting brain cells might abet a mechanism of qualia production, but contemporary quantum biology presages a superior model, though tests are still forthcoming.

Those versed in quantum mechanics find it likely that extremely rapid rate of turnover in the ion flow cycle of nerve cells necessitates that these ions take the form of a tunneling wavicle as they enter and leave cells through transport channels. Rather than being seized as localized mass by some kind of membrane machinery and moved or coaxed with electromagnetic charge through a medium of three dimensions, they probably undergo higher dimensional, near instantaneous tunneling into and out of the cell, along with some sort of complementary wavicle afflux down longitudinal transport chains internal to the axon that bust through rate barriers of diffusion. Along the length of an axon's interior, transduction of the total signal via diffusion alone would require hours, yet comes to pass in milliseconds, so obviously something much more potent is at work.

In this quantum state, ionic motion may be acutely responsive to minute inputs of energy, just as in the fast triplet reaction, and the electromagnetic field of brains as registered by an EEG machine may be such an energy source. If brain waves linked to states of awareness can in fact impact ion channels or other quantum-scale facets of the biochemistry of brain and nervous system, this may go a long way towards explaining how qualia seem both supervenient and causal, with subjective consciousness being describable or at least much more predictable in terms of energy field/quantum mechanical interactions. Maybe we would gain the ability to say what something such as ‘color perception’ or ‘stream of consciousness’ is at the cellular level, and the dubious view that professes a paucity of function for the pervasive phenomenon of qualia would be overcome.


I'm not familiar with exact science behind the brain's electromagnetism, but I imagine it could simply be emergent from tens of billions of neurons conducting voltage simultaneously, and this EMF along with brain matter might have coevolved so that cellular mechanisms of additive superposition in entangled wavicles are integrated with saturating and perhaps finely modulated radiation as our qualitative perceptual field.

I think the anchoring causal stratum of this functional, semimechanistic complexing associated with organic matter corresponds to

the nanoscale of tepid H2O — apokrisis

You seem to have substantial knowledge about this nanoscale range of molecular behavior, so I'm curious how you see it fitting with the following model:


In exactly what way consciousness emerged via evolution is a mystery, but we can be fairly certain about what eventually had to obtain in order for it to be possible. Initially, electrical properties in aggregates of tissue such as the brain needed to be robust enough that a stable supervenience of electromagnetic field (EMF) was created by systematic electron fluxing. Quantum effects in molecules of the body are sensitive to trace EMF energy sources, creating a structural complex of relatively thermodynamic mass containing pockets of relatively quantum biochemistry integrated by sustained radiation. EMF/quantum hybridization is likely responsible for our synthetic experience of qualia, how we perceive unfathomably minute and diverse fluctuating of environments as a perpetualized substrate, perturbed by its surroundings but never vanishing while we are awake and lucid, the essence of perceptual “stream of consciousness”. Nonlocal phenomena are ever underlying the macroscopic substance of qualitative consciousness, its EMF properties as well as bulked three dimensional matter in which nonlocality is partially dampened, and quantum processes in cells interface perception instantiated in bodies with the more or less nonlocal natural world mostly still enigmatic to scientific knowledge.

Quantum features of biochemistry have likely been refined evolutionarily so that mechanisms by which relative nonlocality affects organisms, mechanisms of EMF/matter interfacing, mechanisms targeting particular environmental stimuli via functionally tailored pigments along with further classes of molecules and cellular tissues, and mechanisms for translation of stimulus into representational memory all became increasingly coordinated until an arrangement involving what we call ‘intentionality’ emerged, a mind with executive functions of deliberative interpretation and behavioral strategizing, beyond mere reflex-centric memory conjoined to stimulus/response. Qualitative consciousness precedes the degree of unification we experience as humanlike awareness, for qualia can exist and perform a functional role in consort with quantum effects and additional gradations of nonlocal reality while an organism is almost entirely lacking executive, centralized control in the form of intentions.


Does this look like a viable theory, with "pockets of relatively quantum biochemistry" being the scale at which our thermodynamic body and (I think partially classical physics defying) molecular machinery generate the convergence zone? When I suggest that nonlocality is so to speak beneath bulk mass, I don't mean three dimensionally, but more like functionally, as a supradimensional causal influence of which spatiotemporal aggregate matter is the sense-perceptual facet. Its ALL nonlocal, but relative locality is the apparent form within certain kinds of exteroceptive sensation.

Those are cool theoretical ideas, and I'll give some criticism.

Information/entropy might very well provide a viable model of quantum fundamentals to an extent, but I think this is still reifying our intuitions of bulk, relatively macroscale matter and applying it at the quantum scale, similar to the particularity of atomic theory. When you get into quantum phenomena, you're talking about near instantaneous tunneling, almost teleportation, entanglement across vast distances, superposed occupation of the exact same space with simultaneous differentiation, somewhat like parallel universes, even retroactive causality that has been demonstrated in photon entanglement, where instantaneous synchronicity occurs as induced subsequent to passage of a particle beyond the experimental point of perturbation. The reality is not merely a case where qualia inhere in spatiotemporal matter, its complete transcendence of the spatiotemporal paradigm.

I think we can be more ambitious about envisioning what an apex model might look like based on current science. We don't merely have to stop at a theory of the macroscopic/microscopic spatiotemporal divide, but can postulate a completely new, essentially nonlocal facet of substance yet to be detected directly by instruments, in conjunction with which sense-perceptual matter can defy the laws of classical physics and even those of quantum mechanics as it presently stands, something like a realm of supradimensional prime movement. If qualia are integral to not merely matter as spatiotemporally conceived but this nonlocal substrate as well, we can legitimately expect to explain vastly more phenomena, basically skipping the "spatiotemporal dynamics as information" step and going straight to supradimensional substance. The principles of nonlocality may completely defy or reconstitute our fundamental image of entropy among much else, such that the structure of all prior models is like a delusion (though I incline to doubt entropy itself will be transgressed, but who knows).

I agree that panpsychism isn't necessarily an accurate concept, for many mechanisms might exist that don't involve a degree or kind of organization in matter adequate for qualitative experience to emerge out of base level qualia, but the most true account will probably blow all current materialistic conventions to smithereens, and this is tantalizingly within reach.

If you guys would like some reading material on this topic, I've outlined the essentials of how consciousness evolved and posted the theoretical framework to my blog at Wordpress.com.

Orthodoxies and Revolutions in the Science of Human Perception briefly discusses the neuroscience and epistemological fundamentals.

The Origins and Evolution of Perception in Organic Matter and The Nature and Human Impact of Qualia explain the evolutionary procession from inanimate to animate organic matter.

Humanity and the Evolutionary Phenomenology of Preanthromorphic Cognition, Phylogenetic Factors and Evolutionary Origins of Humanity's Language and Conception and The Evolution from Precivilized to Civilized Human Conception give a narrative account of the transition from simple conceptualizing to intelligence and then the linguistic and cultural human mind.

Not that technical, at least not in any way a search engine can't easily assist, and fairly exhaustive. Its a good supplement that might give posters some more certainty about this issue, which seems to be constantly resurfacing at the forum without much new insight.

I’m just interested how you think Panpsychism can work. Where’s the detail? — apokrisis

To step in and quickly clarify the science of panpsychism, I've got a theory as to how it probably works that I posted as a brief essay on this site, its the OP of the thread: Qualia and Quantum Mechanics, the Reality Possibly. Not at all proven yet, but is based on some solid research and in my opinion very unlikely to be inaccurate in the essentials. How plausible do you find it?

I'll give you an additional front of queerness to grapple with.

All of the following can mean "Bob ought to throw the ball":

"Bob is a big dick" (heckling fan)
"Bob knows" (coach)
"Bob, you damn idiot!" (teammate)
"We love Bob" (opposing team)
"wAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" (little sister)
"Who the hell cares" (nonfan)
"Bob shouldn't throw the ball!" (joking observer)

And this is about as unambiguous as real world meaning gets. How do you systematically account for all that context-variance and nuance of linguistic intention? (Me, I don't think its currently possible, which is why I glossed over theorizing modern language use while writing my own pet book project, but I'd be curious to see if you can generalize it)

I'm saying that your personal assessment of the reason has no bearing on the objective 'rightness' of some meta-ethic when there is widespread disagreement among your epistemic peers. If they disagree, and they have no less intellectual capacity and no less data than you, then it is only reasonable to assume that your position is tentative at the very least. The more widespread the disagreement, the more fragile any position within that scope becomes. — Isaac

Damn, that's harsh, bullied into herd submission before we even got started lol

I think intersection of ethics and language is a really effective way to frame the issue epistemologically, but its going to be challenging, because what it really amounts to is non b.s. psychology, and that doesn't even exist yet.

I think pure ethics is not based on what you feel, experience, believe or agree with, but what you want and need, with needs prioritized over wants. If we give someone what they want or need, and it doesn't obstruct either satisfying a greater need or someone's more important wants, it is ethical. If we give someone what they don't want, but its what they need, that can be ethical so long as the consequences turn out how we expect them to. If we don't give individuals what they want or need, and it doesn't refuse anyone their wants or needs, that is not unethical. And of course if we intentionally and avoidably deny someone their wants and needs in a way that individuals concerned deem of destructive consequence, that is unethical.

Obviously a huge gray area exists because of the complexity of cause and effect, but the basic principle to deal with ever present dilemma is reciprocation. If unethical acts are performed on someone from whatever cause, compensation has to be given or one's own wants or needs are revoked, and we have all kinds of ethical norms to regulate this which are organically emerging in each moment as well as traditionalized by larger scale cultural customs and institutional laws.

That's working ethical rationale, but in consort with total psychology it becomes much more...

The issue is in determining nondestructive logistical steps by which to progress the species from an existence of psychological irrationalities towards more peace with ethical rationale.

Since we've known that brains produce consciousness for a long time now, shouldn't we be closer to an actual explanation? — RogueAI

I believe I have a very plausible theory posted awhile back on this site as a brief essay. You can read it at this thread: Qualia and Quantum Mechanics, the Reality Possibly. Tell me what you think!

If I believe it is better to give to charities in Africa than in Britain, and my friend believes that it is wrong to ignore misery on one's own doorstep in favour of classier 'TV' charities abroad, I might refer to facts of efficacy (my charity has achieved more change than his) or statistics, but I have no recourse to a piece of evidence that says one of us has a more compelling case. Assuming the existence of such inaccessible source of truth cannot be justified. Assuming the existence of, say, gravity can be, even if the objective truth about gravity is very different from our theories. — Kenosha Kid

But you can collaborate such that progress is achieved mutually, improving both your perspectives on charity and as a consequence the practical approaches that arise from them. That's all fact-based objectivity is in any sphere, inanimate, behavioral or whatever, the constructive convergence and equilibrating of theoretical viewpoints attained by a united front of revisionary, synthesizing experimental processes. Objectivity isn't "out there" to be irresolvably disputed depending on your point of view, it is a kind of cultural paradigm that creates joint truth by human sharing. That collectivizing outlook is the essence of rationality, why reasoning rendered into this value system we call "rationality" is the core of ethics, and why our ethical ideal is subordinance of the unconscious to reasoning in many contexts. Rationality is the engine that drives objective knowledge long-term, no matter how fallible or inapplicable reasoning proves to be at any particular moment.

I'll quote my book also for the sake of some discussion, a rather psychologistic viewpoint. An excerpt from Standards for Behavioral Commitments: Philosophy of Humanism, "The General Nature of First Person Experience: Universal Characteristics":


"...Distal extension is simply the occupying of space that is characteristic of all physical entities. We define this property with geometry accompanied by processing techniques of algebra, trigonometry, calculus, etc., which can be based on any degree of dimension, but in practical applications are usually restricted to one, two, three or four dimensions. The first three dimensions combine in universally intuitive three dimensional space as length, width and depth. The fourth dimension is more technically abstruse ‘spacetime’, with relevance for many scientific fields that involve modeling relativities of change falling within the purview of conceptualizations such as gravitation, chemical reactivity, quantum mechanical accounts of subatomic phenomena, etc.

Occurrence is the phenomenon of time, measured mathematically as duration integrated with spatial dimensionality as the fourth vector in four dimensional spacetime. While time as pure mensurative concept is very abstract, simply a counting of bare numbers in nondimensional quantities, physically it is no more than distance: length of the equator is the essence of a day on earth, and it is very intuitive perceptually, the chronological unity of all things, an interrelationship of sequential causes and effects, foundational to notions of structure and logic that underpin civilized reasoning in general.

These two domains, distal extension and occurrence, conventionally known as 'space' and 'time', delineate basic corporeality, the principal medium by which behavior integrates with nature. They are organically experienced as a synthetic manifold of cyclical ‘recurrence’, the repeated returning of all substances to at least approximately similar states. This seems to be a universal actuating principle of our perceived reality: the constrained, recursive nature of transformation. Though mysteriously fascinating, quite the enigma, we can elementarily define the phenomenon as ‘pattern’, a general concept for ubiquitous, perpetual presence of unity in multiplicity...

...The mind/environment interface embodied in perceived patterns is describable as a combination of two facets of basic substance: phenomenality and supraphenomenality. Phenomenality is what the mind contributes to perceptions, which exists as an element or potential element of consciousness even in the absence of direct inspection of complementary contents in the external environment, streamlined to assimilate the natural world with an adequate amount of abductive functionality. Supraphenomenality is what the external environment contributes to perceptions, the compositional integrity of which remains in some way as unobserved reality while direct inspection is not happening, constituting the nature of what existence essentially is behind the scenes of awareness, which may be nothing like the intuitive perceptual world human minds have adapted to assume veritable within Earth environments. Reality and human subjectivity are of course a unity or at least some kind of linkage or simultaneity, but are also separate in a way that has so far limited the capacity of human comprehension, a paradox of intrinsic but to this point imprecisely knowable boundaries..."


That's how I look at patterns, entities spontaneously impinging upon consciousness from out of nowhere, but in orderly ways provisional of a baseline objectivity.

socialisation clearly has some corrupting effect — Kenosha Kid

As long as we're getting into some detail and wow, substantive thinking!, I'd be interested in your analysis of corruption, which ties in with the account of cultural conditioning necessary for any theory of ethics. I would claim that contemporary society is devolving into early antiquity's stage of civilization, an era where values were in turmoil and societies vulnerable to extreme inefficiencies or even collapse. Maybe this outlook is excessively doom and gloom, with the situation being less dire than I tend to surmise, but you guys tell me! The following is a somewhat lengthy summary of the perspective I have in mind. With this thread, I might actually have a chance of well-considered critical analysis.


The simple influence of concentrating into a large population can deeply explain why embarking upon civilization had such seachanging effect. In the quintessential hunter-gatherer village on the cusp of transitioning to a civilized way of life, perhaps consisting of about a hundred individuals as a rough estimate, all its members are living off surrounding countryside, hunting, gathering nuts and berries, with perhaps a bit of rudimentary crop-raising thrown into the mix. They live on self-subsistent surpluses that require the same type of tool-making and tool-use to sustain everyone in the tribe. There is some primordial division of labor, as a shaman may fabricate implements of spiritual significance and provide guidance in exchange for food supplies, a chief may also have his needs met by the rest of the group as a perk of leadership, but most households are engaging in almost the exact same essential behaviors, supporting their families by nearly identical means, and can usually function on their own just as well as in commerce with the collective barring competition with rival tribes and warring. As population increases, some families set out on their own and found a new village with approximately the same lifestyle a distance away.

Once humans closely packed into towns and cities, conditions were much different. The same amount of land had to support greatly enlarged populations, so almost full transition to larger scale production of farming occurred. In order for farming to keep up with a swelling quantity of residents, this profession needed to become more technological, requiring specialized tool-making by nonfarmers in town, and conversely necessitating that food producers devote the majority of their working life to tending the fields, altogether greatly reducing degree of self-subsistence. Agricultural food supplies are susceptible to changing seasons and climates, so although huge surpluses could sometimes be achieved, as in large amounts of grain and so on stored year round, sustenance of the population is impossible if crops fail, and at this juncture of development they inevitably would at some point. The first civilizations were putting all their eggs in one basket when it came to the food supply: if agriculture collapsed, specialized populations of high density did not simply hunt or gather instead nor pick up the whole operation and move to a new area, but either dispersed, calling it quits, or starved.

Between 10,000 and 6,000 B.C.E., most civilizations went through periods of at least temporary dissolution that were probably induced by mercurialities of long-term climate; this was especially true of the ancient Americas with their sometimes severe El Nino and La Nina effects. But by around 6,000 B.C.E., relatively stable growing seasons in numerous Old World regions well-watered by river systems, such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China and many parts of Europe, prolonged an advancement in farming and food distribution methods sufficient to permanently settle thousands of square miles.

Infrastructure and trade were indispensable for this full commitment to an agriculture-based lifestyle of specialization in large communities. At first, the erecting of integrated economies must have been quite local, an arrangement along the lines of Greek city states with their small satellite colonies, pockets of high population at strategic spots such as river basins or areas particularly defensible from attack. Some light trading probably took place along stretches of river, modest impetus for large-scale organization, but the key event in the move towards a globally enculturated antiquity was emergence of strong central authority, for it enabled civilizations to pool resources in service of massive engineering projects such as civic construction and man-made canals for irrigation or travel. Supremely powerful government was also more capable of securing vast, sprawling economies against inclement conditions - nomadic migrations, opportunistic invasions by rivals, regional food shortages, and so on - with enhanced military and commercial organization.

Though large-scale civic legislating offers some logistical advantages when suitably technologized, it originated with the obligation that populations give up their independence in order to seek, resist or capitulate to imperial conquering, and many of the first rulers and ruling classes considered themselves elites, committed to enforcing sovereign superiority over the general public. Popular psychologies that upheld this lopsided inequality across vast spans of time probably involve some subtle variety, but the basic conditioning factor in their persistence is elementary enough to conceive, for it similarly obtains in the contemporary age. A civilized society in which almost no citizens live a self-subsistent lifestyle depends on law and order for its very survival. If efficient distribution and protection of goods and resources is not possible due to inadequate military control or incompetent civic upkeep, famines, wars and so on are more threatening to the population's way of life, a greater vulnerability to natural cataclysms as well as violence from hostile cultures. Civilizations in perpetual political chaos, a state of uproar and unrest, will eventually be overrun by more unified outsiders as it is recognized that exploitative actions will not be capably resisted. Citizens also often consider cultural traditions sacred in some sense, with human minds in antiquity all the way up to the present day seeing a connection between viability of social structures and the will of deities or their declared representatives, so that fear of divine wrath or belief in spiritual mandate lead to consent for all but the most egregious, sacrilegious, immoral or traitorous oppressions. Thus, though no one likes to be herded around by pugnacious authority, individuals are usually agreeable to suppressing some level of disgruntlement in order to ward off potential for utter catastrophe.

In a large populace, various distinctly civilized dynamics take effect. Loss of self-sufficient living off of reliable surpluses in communal territories providing for each household’s equivalent way of life means that individuals are more susceptible to misfortune from changing natural and economic conditions. Citizens also simply differ more, as they are living divergent professional and personal lifestyles, often with unintegrated ancestry that introduces the further divisive effect of language barriers and variant manners, a partition of society into separate subcultures. Citizens sometimes lack common financial or cultural interest with many in their own or other neighborhoods, and may even be unable to engage in the most basic spoken communications. Materially, particular citizens matter less to sustenance of the community as a whole, with occupational roles quickly filled by someone new when practitioners are no longer able to render professional services, and large benefits often accrued by elimination of rival tradesmen from the economy. Value placed on individual lives diminishes in an overall milieu of less trust, empathy, and solidarity against community detriments such as poverty or abuse of power.

In antiquity, acquiescence of populations to rulers often involved a conspicuous absence of oversight by commoners, which contributed to a tendency for leadership to become corrupt, living large at the expense of subjects or mischievously manipulating public opinion for personal gain. But logistical crises inevitably happen, the most flagrant neglects of the public good tend to get exposed, and when citizenries become dissatisfied enough with the conduct of those in power to overthrow a government, opulence is practically helpless against popular revolt, especially if conditions grow so bad that even military discipline disintegrates. Exploitative unaccountability is a tough sell, and the earliest authorities stemmed the tide of opposition to their more or less unjust social status with immediate and extremely harsh measures designed to scare so-considered “rabble” into apprehensive obedience, usually nipping any inclination towards social disorder in the bud. Combined with general lessening of empathy in civic settings of anonymity, competition, and subcultural differentiation, the administering of punishment waxed more than a little insane.


Modernizing globalization had been in its preliminary stages during the Enlightenment 18th century, with most of the civilian world not yet technologized to the level of Europeanized societies, and even the main body of Europe’s population lacking access to higher education. A predominant upper class existed in every civilized culture, sustaining exclusivity as the most wealthy, learned, and politically powerful demographic, possessing a primary role in determining the course of culture. As economic advantage amongst the home territories and countries of Europe’s empires came to be seen as reliant on a populace optimally mobilized for technical competence, civic-minded humanism gained more traction with intellectuals. The rich began to realize their security depended on committing to some concessions for the sake of the general population’s well-being and satisfaction, leading to groundbreaking philosophies that promoted pursual of egalitarian institutions. This would stimulate transition towards more democratically representative systems, initially intended as a mechanism by which to uphold certain universal legal equalities so that political organization would better serve everyone’s interests, making civil unrest obsolete.

Despite the best efforts of enlightened thinkers, conflict erupted across the globe in the 19th and 20th centuries as lingering imperialism struggled to sustain a grip on rebellious locals, citizenries in Europe and elsewhere fought violent battles to overthrow the vestiges of autocratic rule, and economically or culturally oppressed demographics everywhere confronted persecution with civil disobedience and demonstration. The quest for egalitarianism had splintered into aristocracies and in some regions bourgeoisie also warring for sustainment of their way of life, a proletariat seeking to free itself from the chains of economic exploitation, and innumerable subcultures whose very survival was at stake.

In the early and mid 20th century, as population exploded and turmoil escalated in many locales, declining egalitarian idealism and rise of a survival of the fittest competitive principle, already well underway, broke through remnants of moral and political tradition, washing over the human race in a monstrous wave of devastating power plays. Fascist Germany quickly overran all of Europe and began to genocidally exterminate minority demographics in many countries. Imperial Japan severely subjugated the Chinese during its WW2 era occupation. After the war, the Stalinist Soviet Union executed many millions. China’s new communism governed its population with surpassing strictness. Corporate capitalism in the Western world became less obligated to promote social welfare and more engrossed in consolidating financial control with every passing year. By the beginning of the 21st century, commitment to progressive civic reform in the mold of both religious and secular enlightenment had been largely derailed, devolving into brazenly exploitative cultural imperialism.

In the contemporary world, finance only stokes the flames of a growing nihilism (in the Nietzschean sense) that is despoiling ethical tradition. Profit models utilized by large corporations judge success based on rate of fiscal growth, with exponential expansion in wealth being the quantitative standard of viability in a company’s business strategy, for it guarantees larger salaries amongst top officials, indicates a trend towards market dominance via monopoly, and allows investment in additional sectors of the economy, a diversification which insures conglomerates against commercial misfortune in any particular venture. Unfortunately, there are many aspects of society that are difficult to quantify and thus do not figure into profit assessments: quality of life, values of a culture, financial security of the general population, organizational integrity of political systems, and so on.

Neglect of more intangible factors that contribute to a society’s health has pushed some parts of the world way beyond what unadulterated, long-standing traditions permitted even a couple generations ago. Shameless greed and general acquisitiveness are much more prevalent in populations than they used to be as corporate leadership spars for hegemony, and ordinary individuals fight to remain solvent in an environment where money is sucked out of their pockets at maximal levels by manipulation of the market. Transmission of memes has lost all sense of overall ethical purpose, usually mimicking the vitiated nature of advertising and character portrayals in corporate media, a shallowness, subversiveness and rapid-fire contradictoriness. Imagery and related behavioral mimesis in many cultures is much more gratuitously violent and sexual than it used to be, which desensitizes citizens to exploitation. The empathetic dimension of ethical responsibility is degenerating due to desensitization, and its rational dimension rarely matures as inducement of superficial decision-making proves most effective in stimulating consumption. Individuals are less concerned with cogent political discourse and vigilant about the ideological direction of their countries, political systems radicalize as they are infused with a market-driven bankrupting of values, pushing much of the modernized world towards invasive, exploitative authoritarianism within largely acquiescent populations.

In the United States, monopolizing in the private business domain is expropriating many of the country’s institutions in order to consolidate financial control and maximize profit. The most sobering factor in this contemporary capitalism is its intersection with media and democracy. Whatever suspect, probably self-defeating economic thrust is being made, media seems to be one of the main vehicles, with mechanisms of publicity often devoted to the purpose of producing an illusion that unifying mass movements are taking place, most likely deflecting attention of some demographics away from declines in wealth, security, freedom and quality of life. Democracy has largely been assimilated into this circus of hype, so that political discourse is becoming more civically incompetent, endless jabbering about manufactured scandals that have no connection with what is really going on in the world. Decadence of official information has become so dire that it is impossible to discern from traditional communications mediums such as news, T.V. shows, big budget internet websites and so on what exactly the status of the social system is. A network of independent publicity consisting in personal postings such as blogs, messaging and video is rapidly coalescing as a replacement for exploitatively compromised popular culture, but this format is extremely disorganized, so diverse that the overall course being set is almost incoherent, making it to this point only marginally capable of countering imperialistic finance.

Deterioration of the American value system, economic hardship hitting the majority increasingly hard, and rampant disinformation have worsened some long-standing institutional issues in the country. The justice system has always been liable to discriminate against the poor and especially minority ethnicities, with these demographics the most arrested, falsely convicted and harshly punished, while the financially well off have better legal representation and are more apt to obtain lenience. Health care is of exorbitant cost in the U.S., requiring similarly expensive insurance that usually must be paid for as a perk of employment at the top-tier companies, so-called “benefits”. This makes medical treatment prohibitive for a large proportion of the citizenry, ruling out preventative care that would mitigate incidence of many life-threatening illnesses commonly associated with aging, such as diabetes, heart disease and cancer. The country is quite multicultural, and tensions between those of very different background can occur in many areas. These hot button issues have been inflamed by a less civic-minded lifestyle with accompanying disintegration towards “fend for yourself” and “take care of your own” social mores, exploding into greater divisiveness along class and racial lines, a subcultural isolationism which foments bullying, crime, hostility towards immigrants, political factionalism, smeared reputations, and prejudicial profiling along with stereotype-based accusations, all placing great strain on law and order as well as applying pressure to subvert or dismantle basic legal equality as the working standard for society’s progress.


If this is an accurate assessment, the species' prehistoric instinctuality is almost negligible to the fate of civilization, and our increasing, declining or lack of capacity to reason in mutualizing ways has become the core factor in moral incentive and agency, a situation that education might be able to deeply influence. We are considerate of those around us on a large scale when our intellects manage to convince us it is beneficial and motivate us, especially with regards to long-term decision making. Modern society is trending towards conditions within which collaborative progressiveness seems extremely unfavorable for our fitness in the short-term as we reason about culture, though this is catastrophically maladaptive for humanity's long-term prospects. The issue then is how we get human beings committed to cooperative reasoning. Relativism is a veneer of complacency, though it draws upon the truth in a disingenuous or misguided way.

I get the sense education is a place you'd start? — Kenosha Kid

Cultural conditioning is a broad and difficult topic, not like I'm an expert, but I would basically argue that the human mind radically acclimates to what it is familiar with, recalibrating in novel situations until behavior is appropriately effective. A few issues:


Bad examples provided by media, combative communities, badly run organizations and elsewhere leading to antisocial behavioral inclinations.

Situations where biochemistry changes such that individuals are put into drastic disalignment with their social environments, such as a failing marriage, not infrequently with drug abuse, etc.

Societies, classes and subcultures that have intrinsically (but perhaps not irremediably) incompatible or antagonistic standards and principles.

Institutional frameworks susceptible to blowing themselves up or becoming so corrupt that ethical standards and real community solidarity are impossible.


If you've got the solutions, I've got a million bucks!

Got to account for the effects of legal systems, education, conditioning, which you started to touch upon when mentioning memetics I think. Human values radically vary by culture and subculture, also evolutionarily diverge and converge massively. Morality is a cognitive interpretation of behavioral consequences, and even caring to begin with depends on the indoctrinating of our capacity for reason by example etc., leading us to interpret cause and effect in particular kinds of socially conscious ways. Social arrangements, even those of kinship or close contact, have always selected against empathy as much as in favor of it due to inevitable situational factors, and this countervailing pressure is only surmounted by relatively intellectual learning, which is what sustains, fosters or degrades the ideals that legitimize communities, institutions and civilized authority. I don't view ethics as existentially derived from simple instinct at all, though the conditions which generate it are effectively infinite in their subtlely minor diversities, so that values might superficially look personal.

Maybe you need to include a cultural dimension also. Reading this, I began to consider that what binds human behavior isn't simply the desire for pleasure or lack of suffering in the individual, but pursuit of collective control along with concessions and compromises to sustain that control in the face of everyone's subcultural weakness, which is what makes the difference between a kinship clan and an institutional framework. Not necessarily a rational social contract, but a pragmatic baseline level of respect for the implications of what contrasting social groups want or do. Perhaps civilization is not even possible without this not hedonic but communal sensibility, no matter how hardnosed the participants are. This communality could be a very tenuous phenomenon at best, but perhaps certain conditions in education and elsewhere can foster its enhancement.

Does anyone even value privacy anymore? It sure doesn't seem like it sometimes. Maybe you must be a multimillionaire to even have a chance at protecting your identity.

My own view is that your business is your business until and unless you make your business my business. Then it's not your business anymore but it is my business. — tim wood

What conditions do you think justify legal help to protect your business from a well-moneyed entity that disruptively or destructively believes your business is their business, and , how far do the institutional mechanisms which could enable an effective defense reach in real life?

What kind of privacy breaches happen in the medical field?

I'm a privacy officer in the medical field and privacy law is far from simple, I can assure you. Lawsuits there are aplenty. — Pantagruel

Who's doing the suing, is it class actions for online security breaches, sole individuals against information distribution companies, corporations for intellectual property concerns? What kind of improvements are being made to privacy law by way of legal proceedings? What medical circumstances warrant lawsuits?

You have some interesting ideas there, but until science finds out something, we won't be able to confirm or deny any of it. — Punshhh

We're going to need a lot of badass brainscan technology to save the star-crossed mice. Anyone know what glial cells do? Could probably be lots of intricate quantum entanglement effects as their chemistry isn't limited to functionality for synapsing.

Quantum entanglement has been found in photosynthetic reaction centers, tunneling has been suggested by multiple experiments as a mechanism for active site behavior in enzymes, atoms in organic molecules existing in multiple mutating superpositioned phase states simultaneously is the best currently available explanation for apparent rate of intracellular evolution at the beginning of Earth's biological history, etc. Quantum phenomena will probably be identified with most of the life processes that happen too fast or efficiently to be accounted for by thermodynamic chemistry as occurs in the lab within extremely simple macroscopic solutions of bulk aggregate mass.

My hypothesis is that qualia are an emergent property of additive superposition amongst particle entanglements in the brain and body's tissues, a kind of extremely complex quantum resonance. This possibly explains mental images, sounds, touch sensations, all kinds of perceptual phenomena, which might vary according to differentiations in cell type and biochemical composition. The qualitative mind could be a sort of macroscopic coherence field generated by diverse quantum resonance (entangled superpositions) instantiated in matter, measured as standing waves.

Putting philosophy at the center is interesting. If you plucked it out, the entire cultural framework still has lots of structural symmetry, a kind of emergent viability, but is it going to merely maintain against external pressure, become flimsy and weak as it expands, or even implode? Philosophy reinforces against the unruly, amorphous nature of spontaneous human innovation, mass motivation and inclement situations as theoretical diversification progresses so the edifice of knowledge has a nondissonant intellectual soul of optimally integrated generalization. Philosophy can be a consolidation mechanism for the episteme. lol

But in all seriousness, without philosophical kinds of thinking we can't have belief systems that broadly and systematically justify respect for psychological and physical need, so institutional structure becomes antagonistic rather than reinforcing to human welfare. What would we be if our species had completely lacked all interest in constructing an ideal, true image of our own existence?

You oughta find a place for history, maybe could give the diagram an additional dimension.

A possible explanation. The foundation of organic consciousness can be termed "phenomenality" and is divided into features internal or external to the brain. Sense organs perceive properties of aggregate, relatively macroscopic mass such as size, object motion, or additive wavelength in photons, a functionality tailored by evolutionary selection pressures for increasing the efficiency of reaction to a limited array of phenomena that are especially salient for survival of the body, such as an object hurtling towards the head, a growl, scalding hotness, etc., but this apparatus is of course extremely subtle and versatilely reconfigurable.

Qualia are a separate dynamic from what the sense organs do, arising as some kind of additive superpositioning and quantum entanglement of particles (vibrating energy concentrations in motion). The physiological synchronizing, amplifying, orchestrating of qualia is what produces qualitative mental states in organic lifeforms, but this qualitativity as the basis of consciousness is not restricted to biochemical structure, for it can be present in all kinds of matter, both internal and external to bodies. Qualia are a basic feature of matter like size, shape, photon-generated color, and consciousness arises from these qualia being structurally organized in various ways, with organic consciousness only one possible form among many, hence the plausibility of panpsychism (though excessively vague for my taste).

So qualia are an intrinsic feature of particles, including drugs, neurotransmitters, all chemicals, and these substances acquire their relatively mechanistic role in the body by way of effects on the type of emergent qualitativity peculiar to neuromaterial tissues, brains, organic systems, performing molecular functions which may be directly responsible for the substance of phenomenality in many cases, but not necessarily. Particle behavior can be both qualitative and mechanistic, or merely mechanistic. But whether we can ever comprehensively theorize mechanism such that determinism proves to be a cogent concept is in doubt.

The issue at the height of Western political religiosity during the Middle Ages was its fomentation of mob mentality that undermined activist solidarity by instigating irrationality and violence, as in crusades, pogroms, persecutions, rampant superstition, and leadership's promotion of concepts anathema to fact-based, collectivized, common sense objectivity. This could only work for so long since oppressed majorities always hold the true power, and when the situation inevitably became unsettled enough, large-scale upheaval ensued, the Reformation.

The 21st century issue is a compromising of activist solidarity in populations that are being atomized by both financial mechanisms and a consumerist enculturation stimulating citizens to place more value on wealth than either the health of their communities or the cognitive actualizing of individuals via dissemination of accurate information, also a cause of much irrationality and violence. Could we again reach Reformation-level unrest if social participation continues to be foiled?

Even if you don't care about the deconstructive psychologism and only want basic fact, it seems apparent we've got a long-standing problem that might actually be solvable with enough analysis. This could probably be a dissertation, I don't claim to have that level of knowledge, but a perspective worth considering I think.

Because science is so inextricably bound to the modernizing of medicine and augmenting of recreation, maybe many have a notion that its advancement in general is directly proportional to standard of living. Lurking beneath this assumption is the pernicious manipulation of materialistic categories to obscure introspective or traditionally "spiritual" truths we must acknowledge if social life is to be adequately cohesive, fulfilling, nonnihilistic, conscientiously and effectively activist.

The political corruption of religion that hypocrisized its doctrines swung the pendulum more towards radical sense-perceptual empiricism with its upstart intellectual integrity and away from spiritual solidarity in communities of the West, but this didn't become conquest until the advent of massive medical, surgical and entertainment technology improvements. In the present day, recently won, 20th century scientific authority has become our corruptedly dominant institution of cultural imperialism, with materialism being one of its go to hypocritical doctrines of ideological control. Seems that whenever a paradigm meets with massive success, it inexorably transforms into a huge bane to the population from an engendering of excessive faith.

I think science is undeniably indispensable, but the synergy of power and dogmatizing can always be a problem.

Wouldn't that be true for both direct and indirect realists? So when most people see red, that means they have a direct awareness of the object's reflectivity?

Part of the problem is that every time I've seen direct realism introduced, it's stated as seeing objects as they are instead of some mental representation. If we see objects as they are, then knowledge is not a problem.

I'm not sure where the "active relation with the environment" fits in with direct realism's certainty versus indirect's reliance on inference. — Marchesk

Maybe the colors of external objects and color perception are both color in some realist sense, but different types. The colors of objects are just as classical physics claims, a reflection or emission of radiating additive or 'superpositioned' electromagnetic wavelengths that stimulates our eyes in a particular way. Color perception, a particular category of qualia, might be the additive or 'superpositioned' resonance of systems of particles such as entangled electrons, rendered into functional mechanisms within the organic brain. In nature, all color might result from additive superpositions, distinguished by the fact that the particles involved radiate, vibrate, entangle, generally move in different ways: photons, electrons, atoms, molecules and so on. How the kind of thinking we experience as 'association-making', which is regarded as 'inferential' when either translated into linguistic form or conceived as a temporal sequence, fits into the picture is an interesting question, but the issue of perception vs. world can probably be thoroughly resolved at this stage of materialist science by hypothetical thought experiment.

I suppose I'm ideally looking for a partial synopsis of what recent philosophy has argued, some kind of brief reference to current consensus or demarcation of the topic.

The dictionary says abstractions are thoughts or ideas that do not have a physically concrete existence. Symbols are languagelike or material representations of ideas. "Technical" is defined as the constituent characteristics and techniques of a subject, art or craft.

You or anyone know of some theoretical or experiential angle clarifying how symbols participate in the interaction between abstract ideation and its instantiation in technical practice, either generally or within specific domains like communications, formal logic, math, scientific modeling or philosophical justification for instance? Even armchair or informal speculating is welcome, a perspective with any degree of focus to give me some traction on objectivity.

A real world example of how the language game concept applies might be helpful.

Not sure where to even begin, which is why I stated the issue in such a nonspecific way. I guess to hone in on the crux of the matter: how do we define "abstract" vs. "symbolic" vs. "technical" concepts?

I'm not sure that this is an explicitly designated thesis/antithesis situation, but basically phenomenology is an expansion of Kantian Idealism or the philosophical dimension of theoretical modeling into finer details of logic, cognition and the structure of meaning, very much concerned with Wittgensteinian and Analytic philosophy of mind subject matter, while Ponty's historical dialecticism was going to place the subject matter in cultural context, Continental philosophy's traditional sphere, fashioning an ethical framework for thinking about modern epistemological issues, probably with some political significance. This may not make clear sense to you, but we can discuss it further if you want.

He's a synthesis of the Hegelian dialectical history paradigm with phenomenology. Gets into psychology of behavior and the nature of cognition, also did some studies relating to cultural humanism.

Not that knowledgeable in "schools of thought" kinds of considerations, but a guy I recently found who might be of interest to you is Maurice Merleau-Ponty. He had a scientist's respect for empirical detail, also with a solid vision of epistemological historicity and the always slippery implications of subjectivity. He didn't get close to consummating the project set out for himself, but success probably would have rendered modern science a lot more ethically coherent, deconstructively active, and generally philosophical than it is. Much of the fact is outdated, but he seems to have really grasped the big picture of his era. Read it and tell me what he says! I unfortunately don't have the opportunity to get into him at the moment.

That's a big challenge, specifying which organisms we're talking about exactly. I agree that human logic is extremely linguistic, also substantially acquired by experience, and formal logic is of course a meticulously learned technical language, but my inclination is to think that protological intuition can be found in all kinds of much less sophisticatedly linguistic birds and mammals at the very least. I'm surmising it depends on which parts of a relatively cognitive species' brain are wired to core logic centers more than radical differences between these logic centers in different species. How much does human protologic resemble that of nonhuman animals, and can an analysis of human language reveal much about transspecies structures and functions?

This seems like a topic the phenomenologists might have addressed. Anyone got any insights from perhaps Husserl or Merleau-Ponty to humor my lazybones?

How would you relate your concept of correlation to intentional and deliberative thought?

Though I'm not sure how it relates to your book, an idea I've been thinking about is that the majority of Western citizens in the 20th century actually had enough education to be considered enlightened as individuals, but this intellectuality was psychologically corrupted somehow by incapacity to modify some archaic facets of culture accordingly, breeding various incarnations of disillusioned nihilism and eventually a decaying of collectivity, so initial Enlightenment-inspired institutional reforming has given way to a mere shell within which the reasons and valuations that originally legitimized it are rotting away. By this account, the cause of degeneration is not essentially fear of truth but rather the inability to operationalize progressive truth as social mechanism during a particular historical epoch, evolving into irresponsible, unprincipled abuse of truth and ultimately a rejection of sincere progressive advocacy. Not yet entirely convinced this assessment is accurate, but if it is, the examination of how abandoned rationales are being compensated for civically could be an interesting issue to address. Hopefully I stated that effectively enough.

You prove to me what inference is not, narrows down the relevant context quite a lot, so thanks. I mean that in a good way lol