But I do like the your idea of the reorganisation of the ego as infinite. — Jack Cummins

That is not quite how I see it. Consciousness or self organization is the infinite element. It can assume many different identities, but that any of these identities are true is doubtful, as given different circumstances , or a different time in history, the identity would be different. What remains constant is that self organization occurs, but the identity over a lifetime, and in different times in history changes.



To clarify; If I am consciousness, and consciousness is infinite, what can be my identity?

Were this to be true, it would signify that solipsism is logically impeccable. — javra

Not quite. Idealism would prevail. As @Olivier5 states , integration requires something to be integrated.
I have started a thread on this and would be grateful for your contribution.

There is so much limitation through identifying with the ego — Jack Cummins

It seems to me, consciousness assumes an identity, and the ego is a personal measure of how well it is succeeding in maintaining this identity. If we look at history and the many different identities humanity has assumed, it seems the range of human nature is endlessly variable and open ended. The consistent thing is that self organization occurs, but the form of self organization is infinitely variable, it seems.

If we apply Gödel's incompleteness theorem to an axiomatic consciousness, there is always something outside the system that elements within the system require for their justification. So this suggests that consciousness / self organization is infinite. It suggests that the form of self organization will continue to evolve in line with whatever the requirements are to survive. I think we have seen this in extreme moments of history, and how people have adapted, but the bright side is there is no limit to how this might manifest itself in the future.

Consciousness by definition is always the consciousness of something (the world). So the world does not spring of consciousness, it is a logical requirement for any consciousness. — Olivier5

That is true, but the world is our interpretation of this information, rather than an accurate integration of the facts of the world as they might exist.

I agree however, both must exist. One cannot exist without the other - chicken and egg situation.

It can go to: therefore I exist, and therefore the world exists. — Olivier5

I think we exist as consciousness, and the world is a product of this, but I will start a new thread so as not to derail this one.

To sum up the aforementioned, regardless of the status of the world, BIVs, and the like, if I am aware, I as a first-person awareness am.

... Interesting to see where this goes. — javra

It lands on, I am consciousness, and from there it can not go any further.

Yes - or more accurately, a feeling about a sense of feeling. This is what you’re referring to with emotion producing affect, not to feeling as it is in itself. — Possibility

I don't quite understand you. A feeling is sensed - always.

When I recognise that you are alive, I can deduce that I am conscious - but it doesn’t necessarily follow that you are conscious. One can be alive without being conscious. Consciousness is a potential property of life, not a necessary one. — Possibility

In my theory, consciousness is self organisation, and all of life possesses self organisation. You would call it consolidated relational information, I think. The core of consciousness / consolidated relational information possesses a quality that is different to other consolidated relational information that is not enduring - that disintegrates. The difference, I believe, is a bias to be, which I interpret as emotional information. So it is emotional information, from the outset that causes consciousness.

When you consider your own consciousness, you integrate information in relation to this bias to be, and the result is an answer that is biased to be! It is a very clear emotional answer that the entire, vertical down system, agrees upon. Every instance of consciousness relates to this bias to be, in the form of the cascade as previously described, so the bottom line is always emotional / has feeling that causes affect.
When you query your own consciousness you are querying this bias to be, and it returns a resounding -YES. When you query my consciousness, the answer is nowhere near as clear. You are nowhere near as biased to be about my consciousness as you are about your own!

Emotions are a reasoning of this sense of feeling, and can occur either before (prediction) or after (justification) the organism is affected. The structure of emotion is a reasonable prediction/justification of affect, based on your conceptual systems. Any structural reduction of emotion (to a point on a PPS, for example) has no direct relation to reality, but is necessarily limited by your self-conscious process. — Possibility

I think I see the difference in our understandings. You have a third party understanding of consciousness, and from that perspective there is little to no sense of emotion - as there is no skin in the game. From a first party understanding there is always skin in the game, so the importance of emotion is much more evident.

Emotions are feelings that are either painful or pleasurable. A thought process has to land on the emotional gradient before it is understood, before it can cause affect. It makes no sense to say experience causes affect, without describing why. The affect is caused because the information being integrated has either painful or pleasurable or something in between consequences - which you feel. It is an ongoing process of course, but it is a one way process - the cascade starts with integration and ends on an emotional gradient - we need to know what the feeling is, before we know what will be its Affect. It is the feeling that causes affect. It can not work in reverse, in my opinion, it wouldn't be logical.

If you accept the cascade as logical, and inseparable, then you need to explain affect in terms of it. I think the result is more sensible this way.

One can be affected without recognising it as a feeling. Feeling is a potential property of self-consciousness, not a necessary one. — Possibility

All instances of consciousness are associated with feeling - necessarily. All instances of information integration relate to the bias to be, and when you relate any information to the bias to be, the integrated product will be emotional. It will be Information and emotion - thus causing affect. Feeling / emotion is the necessary ingredient in the Philosophical Zombie argument that causes consciousness.

And I am arguing that your logical characterisation excludes key relational information that affects how we make these decisions and actions, rendering your structure inaccurate, despite its logic. Contradiction is apparently excluded from emotion, but I would argue that contradiction can and does continue to exist in affect, leading to common occurrences of words that contradict one’s behaviour, or thinking one thing while saying another — Possibility

I would agree with you. In many respects I have only just scratched the surface, there is so much more to consider.

Affect is feeling, emotion is a feeling. — Possibility

Emotion is a feeling - yes. Affect is the response to a feeling, but it is also an instance of consciousness so incurs its own cascade, and hence feeling. It is an oversimplification of course, as there are multiple trains of thought and action occurring which cloud and complicate feelings and thoughts.

Again, I cannot stress enough this difference between feeling (affect) and a feeling (emotion). — Possibility

Yes I see. Our different understanding has been a source of confusion for sure. I understand it in terms of the cascade, and so emotion is a feeling, which is pleasant or not, which Affects me so, and so on.

Sleepy can also be a comfortable, pleasant or neutral feeling, whilst nervous can also be a pleasant or neutral anticipation of an event. It’s the something in between that is particularly significant. When sleepy and nervous are neither particularly pleasant nor unpleasant, if they are both located at the same point on your PPS, then what distinguishes between them? The answer is arousal. What they resolve to is not a singularity, but affect. This is the impetus to behaviour. — Possibility

But can you have two or more Affects simultaneously? I think this gets to the how Red is my Red argument, and how qualia and the PPS is something personally constructed and interpreted, and thus personally affected. It has to make sense within one's belief system, and there is plenty of room for interpretation.

We are often disoriented in our reality, and yet our actions are still meaningful in that disorientation. Incidentally, we can make more than one action at a time - I can pat my head and rub my belly simultaneously, and I can throw two balls at once, or catch one and throw another... — Possibility

:smile: Ha,Ha. Can you do it one handed? I would say we are always disoriented in reality, but oriented in our personally constructed reality - we have a sense of whether we are standing on solid or shaky ground.

Can we accept that two conflicting ideas come to mind simultaneously, or that we can feel both happy and sad (melancholy) all at once? Or does logic eliminate these possibilities, even as they occur? — Possibility

Nothing is impossible in mind, but in the real world we make one action at a time, so it seems a decision was made / complexity and potential reduced.
I am not suggesting I am describing the actual physical process that creates consciousness, just characterizing logically what seems to occur.

Human apperception is bound by a limited distribution of attention and effort in time, but consciousness, self-consciousness and reason are not necessarily bound by anthropocentric logic. It is here that you will find the real source of bias in your theory. — Possibility

Yes, there is plenty of bias there. :smile: It is both a great weakness and a great strength.

So, it seems that what you call ‘self-organisation’ is what I refer to as unconsolidated relational information. From the perspective of the system in question, what you refer to as ‘self’ is only a vague awareness of some kind of relational structure to the ‘universe’. — Possibility

Yes, our different terminology is an impediment. I would not call it unconsolidated information. I would call it integrated information or information consolidated in relation to self. Yes, self is a vague term - perhaps totally empty, except for a bias to be. The entire vertical down system has to agree on something, my bet is emotions / feelings. We are the bus driver in terms of the information we become aware of, but the bus is full of interrelated and interdependent stuff which we are not aware of. There is a feel to the bus which all the stuff inside contributes to, in my opinion.

The communication occurs between conceptually isolated relational structures within an integrated system, in order to maximise the efficiency of awareness, connection and collaboration. The system communicates with itself through complex organisational systems of ongoing consolidation, relation and integration. It is the integration capacity that is often overlooked in seeking to explain consciousness: we are motivated not just to exist or survive as we are, but to increase awareness, to connect and collaborate with all of existence, regardless of our perceived limitations. — Possibility

I would agree with most of what you say here, but it all relates back to the self. It is meaningful only in terms of self organization, and at the heart of self organization ( consciousness ) there must be a force creating the self. It is meaningful only in terms of a bias to be, as far as I can see. Otherwise why bother?

. I don’t agree that consciousness exists for us in discreet, temporally located frames, like a film. What you refer to as ‘instances of consciousness’ are arbitrarily isolated patterns of information for the purpose of introspection and discussion. — Possibility

You would then need to argue against the Planck length of time. If you accept the Planck length of time, then it is not a matter of whether frame rates exist, but what are the rates for human consciousness.
Given we mistake 30Fps for continuous time, what would natural selection select?

Incidentally, you seem to ignore this distinction I continue to make between conscious and self-conscious. I find this distinction is important, because a reasoning, self-conscious system is capable of isolating ‘emotion-information’ from ‘rational information’ (for the purpose of reasoning), whereas a merely conscious system is not. — Possibility

Regardless of the focus of consciousness, it always follows the sequence as set out above. Whether the object of focus is external or internal , you always incur the cascade as previously described. If the object is feeling, then you incur the cascade in regard to feeling - you end up with a feeling about feeling.

But, as you cannot objectively prove the existence or absence of consciousness, you cannot conclusively prove its existence or absence in any form of life, except your own. I believe that you CAN have life without consciousness — Possibility

You can have life without self organization? :chin: Consciousness = an evolving process of self organization, in my theory.

I would also argue that you CAN have experience without emotion (but not without feeling), — Possibility

How can you have a feeling without emotion?
Wikipedia: The Oxford Dictionaries definition of emotion is "A strong feeling deriving from one's circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.

you CAN discuss and think about (but not experience) emotion without feeling, — Possibility

Really? What dose that feel like? :lol: All instances of consciousness have feelings associated with them. You can not separate experience and consciousness - they are qualities of each other. The Barrett quote you provided argues much the same!

and can even describe feeling without reference to either pain or pleasure. There are a number of different feelings that fall in neutral territory here. How do you use the pain-pleasure spectrum to distinguish between sleepy and nervous, for instance? — Possibility

Sleepy is an uncomfortable / unpleasant feeling , whilst nervous is an unpleasant fear of an eventuality.
Feelings resolve to an emotional gradient I call the pain / pleasure spectrum. All feelings are either painful or pleasurable, or something in between - what else can they be? How would they be meaningful If they did not resolve to something, and provide impetus to behavior / cause affect?

Every instance of consciousness has to be resolved to an emotional point - a singularity, for the purpose of orientation in ones personally constructed reality. How could our actions be meaningful if we were disoriented in our reality? Note , we can only make one action at a time. Sure life is a juggling act, but we can only catch and throw one ball at a time!

First of all, I don’t have to invalidate your logic to accept an alternative interpretation of emotions, because frankly, as a self-conscious, reasoning system, I’m not bound by your logic. — Possibility

It is not my logic, it is just logical. But as I have said before, it is consciousness that must decide what consciousness is, so when logical / rational defenses of one's self organization fail, emotional one's kick in to save the day. This is a universal phenomena and a great demonstration of how we are emotionally driven.

Secondly, we’re not talking about logic, we’re talking about relational information. Logic recognises ‘feeling’ only as a product of emotion, because it consists only of consolidated information. You’ve effectively isolated relational information at each level with ‘qualia’ as a placeholder, allowing you to form a logical construction that has no relational structure at all. Any self-conscious, reasoning system - with a similar capacity to isolate relational information and imagine a conceptual reality of pure logic, before ‘adding emotion’ back in - will have no issue with this form of construction. But this is not an honest introspection.

You need to address the anomalies I have pointed out. Until such time, your theory is as accurate an explanation of consciousness as any geocentric model is an explanation of the solar system... — Possibility

I'm sorry, but I find the above statements a mess of confusion. I will try to rephrase the cascade.

The quality of life is consciousness - when you are alive you are conscious
The quality of consciousness is experience - you cannot have consciousness without experience.
The quality of experience is emotion - all experience is emotional / has feelings
The quality of emotion is a feeling - emotions are feelings
The quality of a feeling is a point on the PPS. - all feelings are ultimately painful, or pleasurable, or something in between. There are no unresolved feelings - they may be something vague and fuzzy, but this too is a feeling.

This cascade is inseparable. When you have one of these elements you must have all the others. You cannot have an unconscious experience, nor an unexperienced consciousness - you cannot separate the two as they are a quality of each other, just like all the other elements. Surely you can see that?

The feelings are what we act upon, what creates affect. When the feeling is painful we move to alleviate the pain, when the feeling is pleasurable, we want more, when it is neutral / something in between, as it normally is, we can choose to continue as is, or do something to make it more pleasurable. The drive to make the feeling more pleasurable, but not knowing how, is what is responsible for substance abuse . The desire for greater pleasure is what provides impetus to behavior in general. The belief that externalities are the solution for more pleasurable internal states is what creates the world.

A knowledge that these feelings are malleable, if not entirely controllable, is something worth pursuing, in my opinion. This is my area of interest, and I have experimented with this and can attest that it is possible. Thus far, it is nothing like a pleasure beyond pleasure, but more a mild joy where there was previously a mild melancholy. It is not difficult, the difficulty is in understanding and accepting the cascade, and thus inhabiting the paradigm that makes it real, and possible.

Hi, we may be setting a record for size of posts, so instead of addressing all of your points separately Ill try and cut to the chase, but firstly to clarify some points.

y

You’re assuming this evidence of Euclidean space can be ‘seen’ by all life — Possibility

No, the Euclidian space was bought up as evidence that consciousness is not continuous, as you proposed, but exists as discreet frames for us. How consciousness exists for other life forms is endlessly variable and open ended, but that it should be continuous would seem an unnecessary waste of energy.

I also provide some proof of the construction through an articulation of qualia.

The qualia of life is consciousness
The qualia of consciousness are experiences.
The qualia of experiences are emotions.
The qualia of emotions are feelings.
The qualia of feelings are points on the PPS
The qualia of points on the PPS are death - pain / pleasure - life.
The qualia of life is consciousness – this completes the consciousness loop.

You see there is a loop that binds my construction together - all these elements are related by qualia and so no individual element can exist on it's own. When you consider one element you can not do so without all the others. Your understanding dose not recognize this at all. You would have to disprove this conception in order to logically dismiss it.
— Pop

This is not proof of the construction - you apply the term ‘qualia’ as a placeholder concept, a metaphor for any type of relational aspect: kind of like ‘God’. Quale is commonly defined as: a quality or property perceived or experienced by a person. The problem with defining any qualitative property with a concept such as ‘qualia’ is that a self-conscious system can then apply the term to refer to objects as if they were consolidated information in themselves. But the only consolidated information in the concept ‘qualia’ is the ‘person’, as a conscious system. Everything else is relative. It makes more sense to state: — Possibility

You have focused on the word qualia, whilst ignoring that the elements of this construction are inseparable. You cannot have life without consciousness. You can not have consciousness without experience. You can not have experience without emotion. You can not have emotion without feeling. You can not have feeling without a pain / pleasure spectrum. Qualia articulates them, and they are logically inseparable. Each element is a quality of the element next to it. You can not have one of these elements without also incurring the entire cascade.

It is a logical construction, confirmed by introspection. So people can check against themselves. I have floated this idea without incurring objection, even my nemesis Banno did not object to the logic. I believe it is logically impeccable. When you experience one of these elements you must also experience all the others, and it must occur in the order stated. This is what animates the biological system. The end result is a feeling that is either painful or pleasurable. This creates Affect. The intensity and energy of Affect (effort and attention) is determined by where on the pain / pleasure spectrum the moment of consciousness resolves to. The more extreme the point - the greater the affect, and so on.

You would have to invalidate the logic of this construction to accept Barrett's interpretation of emotions, I believe. So I look forward to your objections. :smile:

To give you a head start. Materialism and consciousness are incompatible. The nature of consciousness is idealistic, so an understanding of consciousness negates materialism, and visa versa. All materialist philosophers who tackle consciousness either end up as idealist ( or thereabouts ) like Koch, or deny consciousness like Dennett. The area that they attack consciousness in is the specific point that experience entails emotion - that emotion creates experience, so they attack the P.Zombie argument, qualia, deny consciousness itself. It is why we have no consensus on consciousness and emotion, and will not have any, any time soon. You seem to place a lot of faith in neuroscience, academia, and interoception, and these are important and worthy areas of research, but I think you should consider to what extent materialism influences the outcomes of such research.
It is in this area that Barrett also diverges - she jumps from experience to Affect, thus avoiding the emotional nature of consciousness, which is indeed a problem for such notions as empiricism, objectivity, physicalism, and materialism in general.

We both understand what it feels like to be conscious - I don’t need to explain that to you. How I understand it is always going to be different from how you understand it, and any attempt I make to describe an experience will necessarily be positioned within consciousness, and so cannot create a complete explanation of consciousness - only a subjective expression of it.

To explain consciousness, you need to propose and refine a perspective of consciousness beyond ‘feeling’. This is not a p.zombie conception, but rather re-examines Kant’s proposal of a ‘Copernican Turn’: to reject the assumption that human reason is motionless, and that our perspective of reality is central. — Possibility

I particularly want to avoid a third person perspective of consciousness , as it is a fantastic notion that nobody can ever experience. It is like trying to describe a reality that everybody subsumes to, when in fact reality is personally constructed. I would like to paint a first person perspective of consciousness - just the basic structure which enables self organization, that can be personally confirmed or negated with introspection. As you say, the difficulty is that I only have my own consciousness to base it on, but I have a hunch the basic algorithm is the same for all of life, the trick is to conceptualize it. I have nailed the definition of art, and that was supposed to be impossible - you can never know for sure until you try.

I am out of time today, so will continue to answer you later.

That looks exactly wrong. It serves to hide distinctions and similarities by grossly simplifying our tried, attested and substantial language around sensations. — Banno

I think it is absolutely logical. You can not have consciousness without experience. You can not have experience without emotion. You can not have emotion without feeling. You can not have feeling without a pain / pleasure spectrum. Qualia articulates them, and they are logically inseparable.

Wouldn't you agree that simply asserting that our sensations are ineffable serves to remove them from the conversation? — Banno

We can only remove our sensations from the conversation via anesthesia. This is what needs to be addressed, not negated.

Qualia articulates life, consciousness, experience, emotion, feeling, and a pain / pleasure spectrum. It connects them meaningfully.
If you do not like the word qualia, you could use the word quality instead. It is philosophical jargon, I admit, but it is now well established. Would a word change make a difference? I don't think so. The problem is not the word, the problem is Materialism vs Consciousness - that the nature of consciousness is idealistic, is Dennett's problem, wouldn't you agree?

In other words, when you are alive, you are conscious, and you are having an experience, which is emotional, as it feels either painful or pleasurable or something in between. — Pop

Are you saying this dose not apply to you?

Edit. It would not apply to a philosophical zombie. :smile:

That is to say, whenever someone experiences something as being one way rather than another, this is true in virtue of some property of something happening in them at the time, but these properties are so unlike the properties traditionally imputed to consciousness that it would be grossly misleading to call any of them the long-sought qualia. Qualia are supposed to be special properties, in some hard-to-define way. My claim--which can only come into focus as we proceed--is that conscious experience has no properties that are special in any of the ways qualia have been supposed to be special.

And further:
I want to shift the burden of proof, so that anyone who wants to appeal to private, subjective properties has to prove first that in so doing they are not making a mistake. — Banno

The below is a qualia articulation that I believe would satisfy the burden of proof sought. None of these elements can exist separate to the others. Whenever you experience one of these elements you also experience the others.

The qualia of life is consciousness
The qualia of consciousness are experiences.
The qualia of experiences are emotions.
The qualia of emotions are feelings.
The qualia of feelings are points on the Pain Pleasure Spectrum
The qualia of points on the PPS are death - pain / pleasure - life.
The qualia of life is consciousness – this completes the consciousness loop.

In other words, when you are alive, you are conscious, and you are having an experience, which is emotional, as it feels either painful or pleasurable or something in between.

When asleep and dreaming this would apply also, but experience of sleep is mostly ineffable.

Some posters here call subjectivity "self-report" and they see it with a great deal of suspicion. They mistrust themselves. — Olivier5

They do not trust in their own feelings, and so they put their trust in the feelings of others.
As far as I can see, there are no thoughts without feelings. I have yet to experience one! :smile:

Personally, I find the dual process account pretty convincing, so I think there's lots of stuff going on with us we aren't aware of. If you want to include all of that under "mind", and I would, then I agree wholeheartedly. The disembodied mind is an abstraction. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, I would agree with you. The entire biological system is undergoing a process of self organization, in my view.

you're the one neglecting the body and thinking exclusively in terms of the mind, consciousness sovereign of all, center of the universe. — Srap Tasmaner

I hope you don't mind me butting in, but mind and body are one. There is no separation - one cannot exist without the other. If you accept that consciousness is self organization, it all subsumes to self organization.

:up:

Those who identify with something anthropocentric surely must die. But those who identify with the universe cannot possibly die! How can they? I think it is a much healthier paradigm. :smile:

It's Theosophy which is derived from Hinduism. Some of it is my own thinking, I've lost track of where one ends and the other begins. — Punshhh

Thanks, I'll have to check it out.

Thanks for the excellent summary.

Where do we start?

Dennett accepts we have feelings, dose he explain why we have feelings?

Dose he accept that every thought has its associated feeling?

I see the subjective experience as the font of all knowledge. — Olivier5

:up: It was put very well by somebody on another thread, but I can not remember who. It went something like; every experience creates a note, in sequence the notes create a tune - this is what we dance to! I love it :smile:

In the case of the coffee. Every sip is a note, but the whole cup is a tune. Some tunes are better then others. How would it be without them?

More poor language skills. No, it's Albert. Not the experience of Albert. — Banno

You know Albert, but not through experience? :chin:

0

Nor is the name "Albert" a tag for something we share. By definition, Albert is only yours. You can talk about Albert, but like the beetle, what role can Albert possibly play in a language game? You can't order Albert at a coffee shop.

Albert's sole use seems to be in philosophical threads such as this.

So why bother? — Banno

Because we are really talking about the qualia of consciousness, which in your case is the experience of Albert. I agree with you that it would be a more meaningful conversation if we were directly discussing the qualia of consciousness - which are experiences.

Re Albert though, to a P.Zombie, every sip would be identical, as would every experience - neither painful, or pleasant.

Also, there may be beings with us who know the answers but for some reason or circumstances are not telling us. — Punshhh

Do you mean beings living within us? I think our cells are a sort of being that collectively create us.
Is this insight part of a school of thought, or is it your own construction?

Your description suggests that sensory information is processed through reason before an experience of reason is translated to emotion, which is then translated to feeling, and then justified by reduction to a point on an evaluative spectrum. — Possibility

What I describe is a general formula which accounts for all instances of consciousness derived from external sensory information. The choice of words, I admit, could be better. Quantitative information might be better then reason, but it depends on what is being integrated. There are no assumptions here however, that information is integrated is evidenced by the Euclidian space you see. The rate at which this is sampled is an interesting question. Given there exists a plank length of time, we know consciousness is not a smooth process, as you have conceived it. That information is sampled at the plank length is highly unlikely, given that we are unable to distinguish between 30 Fps and smooth continuous time. So it is unlikely to be more then 30 to 40 a second. Energy efficiency being the pertinent consideration.

I also provide some proof of the construction through an articulation of qualia.

The qualia of life is consciousness
The qualia of consciousness are experiences.
The qualia of experiences are emotions.
The qualia of emotions are feelings.
The qualia of feelings are points on the PPS
The qualia of points on the PPS are death - pain / pleasure - life.
The qualia of life is consciousness – this completes the consciousness loop.

You see there is a loop that binds my construction together - all these elements are related by qualia and so no individual element can exist on it's own. When you consider one element you can not do so without all the others. Your understanding dose not recognize this at all. You would have to disprove this conception in order to logically dismiss it.

Your conception has a gaping hole, In my opinion, in that you do not describe an experience at all. You skip from information integration to Affect arbitrarily. In so doing you do not account for what it feels like to be conscious. You skip the pertinent aspect of consciousness - how experience is emotional, how feelings are painful or pleasurable. And so you create a conception of consciousness befitting a P.Zombie.
Every one of your 5 points contains an unprovable assumption. It is a typical and reasonable proposition of how information might be integrated, but that is all. There is no hint as to why this should be happening.

My theory contains:
1. A provable definition of consciousness - every instance of consciousness is self organization - for everything - always. It is a dynamic system even for rocks.
2. How experiences are emotional, ( contain carrot and stick ), as an explanation of what animates the biological system
3. How inanimate matter becomes conscious - through self organization, that has almost universal acceptance in abiogenesis theory.

You may not agree with it, but I don't believe you can reasonably disprove it. So far you have made some dints in certain aspects ( and I thank you for your help ), but it still floats. You offer up an alternative theory, which contains no explanation for the three points I mention, and so from a philosophical point of view I wonder why you even bother with it. Your theory is like dozens of reasonable theories that do not address the hard problem, but wait to be rescued by more information down the track. Unless they address the points I mention, they are just not in the race as an explanation of consciousness, in my opinion.

From my perspective, all of your vertical down conceptions are P.Zombies without emotion providing impetus. Unemotional Information, energy and matter cannot create consciousness - we know this from an understanding of ourselves. Add emotion, and you have consciousness! It is consciousness that requires emotion, not the other way around. Relational information on it's own cannot create an enduring consciousness until a self is created. Once a self is created then self organization can take place around this nucleus. That a self is created suggests a bias to be, or at least we know that the self that is biased to be will prevail. Selves that are random, or indifferent to be, will disintegrate. Relational information is already consolidated to a higher system, so it is elements of a higher system that are relating and consolidating, and disintegrating, but then a certain type of relational information contains a bias to be, and consolidates and breaks away from the higher system, in the formation of a self. Then enduring self organization can take place ( consciousness ).


Emotion is information, but it is a private information only you can experience. Why do we have these internal carrot and stick communications? Who or what is communicating internally?

I don't attribute such importance to DNA, — Punshhh

When I say DNA, I really mean epigenetics, or cellular consciousness. DNA seems to be the custodian of this. You see the biosphere as the main organism, and humanity as one of its components? What caused the biosphere ? How did it come to be?

The same logic can be applied here. Plants and cells : they are alive so ,according to the above, they must have consciousness and emotions. Do you agree with this ? — aylon

Yes, this is how I see it. Dopamine, melatonin, serotonin, and other neurotransmitters have been isolated in plants. There is no evidence, that I am aware of, that they do not possess emotions of some kind.

Yes, I agree, emotions are what really matters. The Philosophical Zombie argument tells us that without emotions, there would be no consciousness, and without consciousness there would be no life. Emotions are not something we can conceptualize, we can not turn an emotion into a concept such that others can know our emotional experience. The only way to know them is to experience / feel them, and indeed without emotion there would be no feeling, and hence no experience, so there would be no impetus to life. Emotions are ultimately painful or pleasurable. We are averse to pain, and attracted to pleasure, so this , I believe, creates meaning.

Emotions make life meaningful, and we have meaningful interactions with other people and animals that we recognize also posses emotions. It is the emotional empathy that makes the interaction meaningful. The quality of interaction is diminished when interacting with something that is not emotional. Seems to be a sensible move to attribute emotions to all living creatures and hence improve the quality of our life by enriching our interactions with them, in my opinion.

No - you don’t HAVE to reduce this to a defined pinpoint on a constructed spectrum. Most humans and animals are more than capable of acting without that knowledge. What you act on is affect: an ongoing allocation of attention and effort to align ‘where you stand’ (as an interoception) and ‘the reality you create for yourself’ (as a conceptual structure), whether or not you can distinguish these constructions from consciousness. — Possibility

What creates affect? "where you stand’ (as an interoception) ". Interoception, in its many guises, that you are aware of, reduces to feelings, and feelings can only be understood as something pleasant or painful. We can call it interoception, or a feedback loop, or self organization, it is consciousness.

What else also causes affect? " the reality you create for yourself’ (as a conceptual structure)".

It follows this form:

1: Senses input information
2: Information is integrated to reason
3: Reason is experienced
4: Experience is translated to emotion
5: Emotion is translated to a feeling
6: A feeling is located as a point on a pain / pleasure spectrum ( PPS)
This cognizes the instance of consciousness - the point on the pain / pleasure spectrum tells you what this instance of consciousness means for you. At this point, the reason is understood by the whole body; whole body consciousness understands this language.

Again it is a feeling that causes affect, regardless of the conceptual structure that creates your reality.

So feelings always cause affect, and feelings reduce to something painful or pleasant.

Consciousness is subject to a causal chain - the next moment of consciousness is determined by the present moment, but it is not necessarily a simple linear progression, and there can be several trains of thought occurring simultaneously, with interruptions and resumptions in focus, etc. It is not possible to predict the next moment without first orienting yourself in the present moment. It is the present moment of consciousness and its associated emotional state - the feeling - that affects and causes the next moment.

So one could argue that the relational properties of a molecule equate to ‘consciousness’, but it’s not the same ‘consciousness’ attributed as a property to humans. — Possibility

When you define consciousness as self organization it is.

I have not said this is ‘chance’, but I maintain that calling it ‘consciousness’ is a case of false attribution. You’re implying that the DNA molecule is informed of the variability in its relational properties, structure or conditions. But only the epigenetic system has access to this information — Possibility

And what is epigenetics?

No, it doesn’t. The way I see it, meaning is pure relational information: its existence is possible, regardless of whether or not emotions can be constructed from this possibility — Possibility

Before you have meaning you have to have consciousness, before you can have that you have to have emotion. This is why emotional information is important. If emotional-information is fundamental, then consciousness is fundamental.

and so on, down to contingency upon an answer to the binary question above, but you’ll just ignore all this underlying structure as irrelevant, because the answer is assumed. — Possibility

I ignore it because it is a dead end, due to lack of information.

Saying ‘we don’t know’ is a cop-out: the neuroscience research into the interoceptive network, conceptual cascades and constructionist theories of emotion show extensive understanding in this area. Ignoring it because it doesn’t support your theory is, well, ignorant. — Possibility

I do not ignore it. As per above explanation. I see no conflict with my theory.

One much identify the vehicles and their actions in this hosting and distinguish the spirit, or essence of being form the vehicle. — Punshhh

This would be a dualism, whereas I am a monist. Once the wave passes, so dose the pattern that formed it, I believe.

I wouldn't put to much emphasis on emotion myself, as it is a system within the vehicle of the body for the purposes of controlling behaviour, in a conditioned, or inherited and strategic way. — Punshhh

What is controlling what / who? What is the strategy?

In biology we are the vehicles of DNA, but in some eastern philosophy we are the vehicles of a life force. We being nodes in a lineage of life. The conceptions are very close, and I have faith in them. Do you agree?

This can occur once one identifies with the universe, rather than something anthropocentric. The universe dose not die. It would indeed be a shift in paradigm. ↪Pop

It would be, unless it is already ones paradigm. It would be to become a buddha or find the Holy Grail. . . . — FrancisRay

There is one thing missing from the wave. It is something we attribute to ourselves, but begrudge almost everything else, and it is a stupid, stupid thing that we do, as it impoverishes our experience of the world, and makes us mortal. Emotion exists in the wave as the reason why it self organizes. If emotion is attributed to the natural world, then everything in the natural world comes to life as a peer. So waves and trees can become friends, and there is meaning in every blade of grass. So you are never alone, as it is all equally as meaningful as you are. But also you can never die, as you will always become something such that you will continue to experience, but not as yourself, but as an equal something else. So you become immortal, via a shift in paradigm, by identifying with the universe.

No. The canvas is not a pattern. This is its definition. If it were a pattern it could not be the canvas. — FrancisRay

I can not agree with this. The wave has ripples on it, the ripples are themselves waves.

What I'm saying here is that each of us knows spirit (for want of a better word), but via being rather than intellectualizing it. — Punshhh

You are referring to experience, and the essential element of experience is emotion, which I would agree can not be described with intellect at all - it must be experienced - suggesting emotion is a force rather then a concept. To feel the force / emotion of ones body is the only way of knowing it. This is the hard problem of consciousness.

The interesting thing about this thread, is that people have arrived at similar conclusions via different reasoning. So, I think, it is worth while elucidating it in the best way that one can, so as to put as much light on it as possible.

To understand something one way is one experience, whilst to understand it another way is yet another experience.

That's just wrong. There are patterns.
— Banno

REAL. Just not existent.

Like space. — Hippyhead

I believe, the pattern you are describing is consciousness, which I define as self organization. The consciousness ( self organisation ) exists for the duration of the wave, but when the wave passes the consciousness disappears, whilst the matter and energy are conserved, and go on to create a different consciousness - so a different experience is created, if you like.

The pattern exists as part of the wave, but as the wave passes, so dose the pattern. So, the pattern cannot exist independently of the wave. This is monism.

No, that’s not quite how I see it. Consciousness is the result of a continual correlation between interoceptive and conceptual predictions of reality, as four-dimensional relational structures. Affect is the relative difference interpreted by our interoceptive network (a purely relational system) which manifests as a distribution of effort and attention; emotion is how our conceptual systems - particularly in relation to language and culture - make sense of that difference in a prediction. This continual interplay and adjustment is the process of integration in a conscious organism. But we are not conscious of it all - only what required our carefully distributed attention at the time. — Possibility

And all of this has to be reduced to a specific emotional symbol - a pin point - on the pain pleasure spectrum, for you to orient yourself in it. You have to know where you stand in regard to the reality you create for yourself. Each moment of consciousness creates a note. The notes in sequence create a tune - this is what we dance to.

Consolidating information reduces volume by discarding information deemed irrelevant — Possibility

That is not so. A cellular protein is reduced to a pattern of genes - no information is lost.

In the same manner, the relational structure of consciousness can be understood - not by reducing it to an essential geometric pattern, but by recognising that there is an existing conceptual structure, unique to the experiencing subject, upon which any instance of emotion is constructed. And that conceptual structure is a result of millions of ‘emotional instances’, each manifest according to their relative conditions at the moment of construction. — Possibility

These are expressions of consciousness - these are the branches of the trees you are talking about, these are not consciousness itself. Consciousness is something common to everything in monism.

Barrett shows that ‘emotional instances’ are formed from a relation between the prediction generated by conceptual structure, and the prediction generated by interoception (ie. the relative conditions). Part of that instance is relational behaviour, as affect, and part of it is restructuring the conceptual system (including the predictive pattern of emotion) to enable a ‘reasonable’ justification of that affect, so that the result is an ongoing alignment of conceptual structure and interoception. — Possibility

All you are telling me here is that integrated information, results in emotion, which I have no problems with.

I am saying, however, that there is no mind making choices and decisions at the cellular level. These ‘choices and decisions’ are determined and initiated by the relation of potentiality in this DNA structure to relative conditions. You can probably argue that there is will at the cellular level, but not mind, and not with any degree of freedom. — Possibility

There has been a quantum leap in cellular biology in the last 10 to 15 years, due to advances in technology. For anybody wishing to get up to speed on these developments I can recommend the youtube channel ibiology for state of the art information from the horses mouth. The old idea that this happens by chance somehow is a nonsense, but Descartes did his job well, so it is still considered a mechanical duck. It is an extremely sophisticated system of self organization, and self organization is consciousness, in my theory.

the structure of human logic or reason is as variable and subject to criticism as our own value systems. — Possibility

It is indeed, but nevertheless meaning arises due to emotions! For a P.zombie it is all meaningless.

My understanding of emotions leans heavily on the Philosophical Zombie argument. Not that such a person can exist, but precisely that such a person can not exist. Without emotions, there can be no consciousness ( self organization ), and hence no life. It really gets to the essential primacy of emotions.

It seems you are saying here that emotion is relevant information only at the level of consciousness, and has a complexity that renders it irreducible to consolidated information. I agree with this. All emotion is relational information - but not all relational information is emotion. — Possibility

Lets forget our differences on the other matters and concentrate on this topic?
We agree on your first sentence.
"All emotion is relational information" - maybe. It is information that causes affect, in relation to integrated information. Note, we don't know how the information becomes integrated. We become aware of the integrated information, and the emotion it is accompanied with.
"but not all relational information is emotion" - correct, but it seems all information is entangled with emotion? Can you think of any unemotional information - not a possibility. But can something outside of ourselves produce unemotional information?

You have to assume there is a third state, and this would be immortality. With practice one can discover this state. Then one knows one is not subject to life and death. This is the basic message. .. . — FrancisRay

This can occur once one identifies with the universe, rather than something anthropocentric. The universe dose not die. It would indeed be a shift in paradigm.

I think it is best to leave spirit undefined, other than its being something we know because we are alive and have being. This fits the reference to the Upanishads you mentioned. — Punshhh

I like to define things, otherwise we talk past each other with different understanding of vague terms like soul, or spirit, but I can respect your wish. I was really focusing on what Schrödinger said, I am not familiar with the Upanishads.

The canvas is what is revealed when the patterns are seen for what they are. As the Upanishads say, 'the voidness of one thing is the voidness of all'. , — FrancisRay

The canvas being a pattern itself? If we lay quantum field theory over this, the wave would be an intersection of various fields. The consciousness would be the self organization, the state of matter the result of self organization, and energy would enable it all. It is something for a brief moment and then vanishes and turns into something else. Sounds about right.

Thus Hippyhead's patterns do not really exist. — FrancisRay

I don't think Hippyhead's patterns are in conflict with what Schrödinger said. They are a different dimension, I believe. Hippyhead is describing the physicality, but there is also an element of mentality to it, as panpsychism would suggest. In monism the mental and physical are inseparable.

But technological/natural evolution won't reach infinity. — Eugen

" Hard to see, the future is" - Yoda

But we still are not able to encapsulate the infinitude of BEING in any language. So, a modicum of Intellectual Humility should restrain us from trying to define, or to speak for G*D --- whatever you imagine he-she-it to be. :cool: — Gnomon

No disrespect was intended. What was intended was for you to consider the possibility of an infinite consciousness, and whether this violates any conceptions of God. I don't believe it dose, as it contains all conceptions of God. The infinitude of being, I believe, is captured by infinite consciousness. Perhaps this is what God is?

It is a concept that integrates such things as God the creator, and God being within you, God is love, etc so worthy of consideration, I believe. But If you prefer not to speak of these things, for whatever reason, I can respect your wishes.

↪Pop
What if the original cause is consciousness, and the ultimate effect is consciousness? And what If consciousness is infinite?
— Pop
I do believe that, but my question isn't about that. It limits to living beings inside the Universe. — Eugen

If consciousness is unlimited, living beings in the universe are limited only by consciousness itself. An unlimited consciousness is the most powerful concept I can think of. It would be an omnipotent, omniscient consciousness - equal to a god.

the creature will never be as intelligent or knowledgeable as the unknown Creator. So, the original Cause is more of a mystery than the ultimate Effect. :cool: — Gnomon

What if the original cause is consciousness, and the ultimate effect is consciousness? And what If consciousness is infinite?