This argument works from the perspective of Physics. But, in Aristotle's Meta-Physics, he introduces the non-physical notions of Potentiality & Actuality*1, Form & Matter, Essence & Substance. Hence, the Function of a System is non-physical, even though the parts are material items. It's a mathematical input/output relationship that you can't see, but can infer as purpose or meaning. — Gnomon

Mental phenomena, to me, are divided into strong and weak emergence as well. The example of weak emergence is perception, and the example of strong emergence is creating an idea.

I disagree with pretty much everything you said. I'm speaking from an entirely different angle. And I know nobody agrees with me, but I still think what I think. I think consciousness and various aspects of mental states have been incorrectly mixed together forever. I do not think consciousness means being aware. I do not think there is such a thing as being conscious. I think consciousness means subjective experience, and, consciousness being fundamental, I think everything is conscious.

Particles are conscious, meaning they subjectively experience. They do not know that they subjectively experience. They do not have any mental capabilities in order to know, think, prefer, or feel anything. But none of those things have anything to do with consciousness. They are simply the things that we subjectively experience.

Mental phenomena, to me, are divided into strong and weak emergence as well. The example of weak emergence is perception, and the example of strong emergence is creating an idea. — MoK

Yes, creative Ideas are considered to be emergent*1 in that they present a novel or unique perspective on an old problem that, presumably, no one has thought of before. But the emergence of Consciousness in a material world is more challenging to empirical scientists because Sentient Awareness*2 is not an empirical Property, but a philosophical Quality, that includes the power to generate mental images & ideas. We can't trace a lineage of cause & effect leading up to an entity that not only senses its environment (like a plant), but knows that it knows. That self-knowledge is limited to "higher" animals. And, as far as we know, only homo sapiens is able to both imagine abstract ideas, and to communicate them in language.

However, I was taking a different approach to the notion of Emergence, by bringing in the Aristotelian concept of Potential and the modern science of Complexity. Routine physical Cause & Effect*3 is an example of Weak Emergence : the emergent Effect is simply the final state in a chain of causation. For example, the amazing collective patterns created on the fly by thousands of birds, seemingly acting as a single organism. In principle, scientists could trace the complex interactions from single bird to "murmuration" {image below}, but in practice it would be very difficult to collect & analyze the data.

Moreover, Strong Emergence implies that some unpredictable novel property is manifested, not just in localized group behavior, but in the specialized talent of a single species for abstracting ideas (imaginary information) from concrete reality. Emergence of novelty from complexity seems to be inherent in the evolutionary process. But modern science has only recently developed mathematical techniques & computer programs for analyzing & understanding non-linear systems, that defy traditional reductionist methods.

Some say that Consciousness is not produced mechanically, but magically. I suspect that Mind only seems like Magic, due to our inability to comprehend functions & effects that arise from the most complex structure in the universe : the human brain. Personally, I think a key to understanding the Consciousness Effect will be found in the equation of Information (meaning) and Energy (causation) along with the notion of Potential (latent causal power). And that's the topic of my thesis*4. :nerd:


*1. Yes, new and complex ideas are often considered emergent, meaning they arise from the interaction of simpler parts or processes in a system and possess novel qualities that are not inherent in those individual components. This concept applies to creativity, where ideas can surface from actions, experiences, and contexts, transforming from unarticulated "know-how" into conceptual "know-what". Emergence also refers to phenomena that arise from complex systems, such as consciousness from the brain, which cannot be fully understood by examining its simpler constituents alone.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=are+ideas+emergent

*2. Sentient awareness refers to the capacity of a living being to feel, perceive, and be conscious of its surroundings and experiences, often implying an ability to suffer or experience pleasure, and is distinct from mere behavioral responsiveness or simulated intelligence. It involves an "inner experience" or subjective reality, which may be distinguished from "self-awareness" (knowing one is aware) or "sapience" (wisdom)
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=sentient+awareness

*3. Cause and effect emergence refers to phenomena where macro-level patterns and behaviors arise from the interactions of many micro-level components, leading to outcomes that are qualitatively novel and cannot be predicted by examining the components in isolation. While simple cause-and-effect relationships involve one event directly preceding and influencing another, emergent cause-and-effect involves collective interactions creating new, unexpected patterns. This concept is explored in causal emergence theory, which uses mathematical frameworks from information theory and network science to study these complex relationships in systems like the brain, ant colonies, and starling murmurations.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=cause+and+effect+emergence

*4. Mind/Body Problem :
Philosophers and scientists have long debated the relationship between a physical body and its non-physical properties, such as Life & Mind. Cartesian Dualism resolved the problem temporarily by separating the religious implications of metaphysics (Soul) from the scientific study of physics (Body). But now scientists are beginning to study the mind with their precise instruments, and have found no line of demarcation. So, they see no need for the hypothesis of a spiritual Soul added to the body by God. However, Enformationism resolves the problem by a return to Monism, except that the fundamental substance is meta-physical Information instead of physical Matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind%E2%80%93body_problem
Note --- Life & Mind are emergent, not miraculous

STARLINGS SCULPTING A SELF-IMAGE

But the emergence of Consciousness in a material world is more challenging to empirical scientists because Sentient Awareness*2 is not an empirical Property, but a philosophical Quality, that includes the power to generate mental images & ideas. We can't trace a lineage of cause & effect leading up to an entity that not only senses its environment (like a plant), but knows that it knows. That self-knowledge is limited to "higher" animals. And, as far as we know, only homo sapiens is able to both imagine abstract ideas, and to communicate them in language. — Gnomon

Consciousness, to me, is the ability of the mind, namely, the ability to experience, and it cannot be an emergent thing. The quality of the experience, however, whether it is a simple perception or complex thought processes, is an emergent thing, and for that, you need an organism with a complex brain and a mind. There are two reasons why I consider the mind as an extra component: 1) The hard problem of consciousness, and 2) The efficacy of mental events. I am sure you have heard about (1) but not (2). So, we are dealing with (2) as a serious problem in physicalism, even if the hard problem of consciousness could possibly be resolved. But why (2) is a serious problem? The problem is that mental events have no physical property, so they cannot be causally efficacious in the physical world. So, we are dealing with an anomaly that physicalism cannot resolve.

Moreover, Strong Emergence implies that some unpredictable novel property is manifested, not just in localized group behavior, but in the specialized talent of a single species for abstracting ideas (imaginary information) from concrete reality. Emergence of novelty from complexity seems to be inherent in the evolutionary process. But modern science has only recently developed mathematical techniques & computer programs for analyzing & understanding non-linear systems, that defy traditional reductionist methods. — Gnomon

You cannot get consciousness from complexity. You can, however, get complex behavior when the system under investigation is complex enough.

Some say that Consciousness is not produced mechanically, but magically. I suspect that Mind only seems like Magic, due to our inability to comprehend functions & effects that arise from the most complex structure in the universe : the human brain. — Gnomon

The mind, to me, is an irreducible substance with the ability to experience, freely decide, and cause. The mind is not by byproduct of physical processes in the brain.

Some say that Consciousness is not produced mechanically, but magically. — Gnomon

Who says that?

2. Sentient awareness refers to the capacity of a living being to feel, perceive, and be conscious of its surroundings and experiences, often implying an ability to suffer or experience pleasure, and is distinct from mere behavioral responsiveness or simulated intelligence. It involves an "inner experience" or subjective reality, which may be distinguished from "self-awareness" (knowing one is aware) or "sapience" (wisdom) — Gnomon

Isn't "inner experience" or "subjective reality" usually the definition of consciousness?

Consciousness, to me, is the ability of the mind, namely, the ability to experience, and it cannot be an emergent thing. . . . .
]The mind, to me, is an irreducible substance with the ability to experience, freely decide, and cause. The mind is not by byproduct of physical processes in the brain. — MoK

Yes. I agree that there is a fundamental "substance", in the Aristotelian sense, that eventually produced the Consciousness that we Sapiens take for granted. And Panpsychism is based on the assumption that Mind is fundamental to the Cosmos. But, I think that implies a much too broad definition of "the ability to experience". For me, Consciousness is not a "thing", but a process, a function.

Modern Cosmology portrays a universe with no sign of Life or Mind for over 10 billion years of evolution. Only in the last few billion years, has Life emerged as single cells with crude senses for finding food. Billions of years later, the entities we call animals, evolved along with more sophisticated sensory apparatus, that eventually became controlled by brains. However, it's only in the last few thousand years that animals with big brains emerged with sufficient complexity to produce the talent that we humans experience as Self-Consciousness. We know what it's like to be human, but "what it's like to be a bat" is still a mystery. We can't see or touch the substance of Consciousness, we can only infer it's existence by means of the very subject of our investigation : the mental tool of Reason.

Based on current developments in science (complexity, information, etc), I have concluded that Consciousness is an emergent phenomenon & noumenon. Hence the "ability to experience" was absent from the Big Bang event, and from the expanding universe for about 90% of the evolutionary period to date. The human era, with Consciousness as-we-know-it-and-experience-it, it has existed for only about 2% of Cosmic time.

But the Big Bang was powered by Energy (causation) and Information (natural laws) from the beginning of space-time. And my name for that original Substance (form + matter) is what I call EnFormAction*1. A term I coined to contrast with Shannon's negative definition of Information in terms of dissipating Entropy. EFA is equivalent to what Schrodinger coined, in his book What is Life?, as Negentropy : positive causation. In my thesis, EFA is the fundamental substance, from which Life & Mind evolved, and Emerged.

So, Consciousness may have been present at the beginning, in the form of Potential. But that creative power only fulfilled its promise after eons of "physical processes". Perhaps, not a "byproduct", but definitely a long-delayed Effect of cosmic Causation. :smile:


*1. The EnFormAction Hypothesis :
That neologism is an analysis and re-synthesis of the common word for the latent power of mental contents : “Information”. “En” stands for energy, the physical power to cause change; “Form” refers to Platonic Ideals that become real; “Action” is the meta-physical power of transformation, as exemplified in the amazing metamorphoses of physics, whereby one kind of thing becomes a new kind of thing, with novel properties. In the Enformationism worldview, EnFormAction is eternal creative potential in action : it's how creation-via-evolution works.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html
Note --- The evolutionary unfolding of that original Potential may be what some call Panpsychism : EFA (Energy & Form) is everywhere forever.

Some say that Consciousness is not produced mechanically, but magically. — Gnomon
Who says that? — Patterner

Daniel Dennett, for one*1.

*1. The idea that "consciousness is magic" can refer to different concepts: some see consciousness as a literal, wondrous phenomenon that imbues the world with meaning and feeling, while others, like philosopher Daniel Dennett, use the metaphor of magic to describe how the brain creates an illusion of a unified, rich inner experience from complex, non-magical processes.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=consciousness+is+magic

Sentient awareness refers to the capacity of a living being to feel, perceive, and be conscious of its surroundings and experiences, often implying an ability to suffer or experience pleasure, and is distinct from mere behavioral responsiveness or simulated intelligence. It involves an "inner experience" or subjective reality, which may be distinguished from "self-awareness" (knowing one is aware) or "sapience" (wisdom) — Gnomon
Isn't "inner experience" or "subjective reality" usually the definition of consciousness? — Patterner

Yes. But some alternative terms for Consciousness are : awareness, attention, mindfulness, knowledge, cognition, mind, observation, etc.

My point is that C is not a thing, but a process ; not a material substance, but a Function of a complex organism. Your cell phone is a complex mechanism, it processes a lot of information, and it performs several useful functions. But at the moment, it's AI functions have not reached the status of Personhood.
So, it is not Sentient or Aware of what it's doing. It's simply a mechanism.

One requirement for Sentient Awareness seems to be, not just complexity, but an integrated system of information processing, as postulated by Tononi's Integrated Information Theory*2. IIT is intended to be the kernel for a scientific theory, but at the moment, it's a philosophical conjecture. But I think it's pointing in the right direction.

Consciousness seems to require A> material complexity (entanglement ; feedback loops), B> systematic integration (Holism), and C> inherent Potential (power, ability, capacity) for "higher functions" such as Life & Mind. So, simple objects like Atoms or single cell organisms may have the Potential (Panpsychism), but they lack sufficient Complexity or Systematic Integration for awareness & intelligence. Hence, not Conscious, in the human sense. :smile:


*2. Integrated Information Theory (IIT) is a scientific framework proposing that consciousness is a fundamental property of physical systems with the capacity to integrate information; it quantifies this capacity using a measure called Phi (Φ).
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=integrated+information+theory

The physical substance cannot even cause a change in itself. I have a thread on this topic here. Therefore, the Mind sustains the physical substance (I have a thread on what the Mind is here).

By the way, I am wondering how such a thing as a physical substance that has no control over its movement at all, given the first argument in the first thread above, could be the cause of something that is intelligent, something that can freely decide, etc. what you call the mind. This is a bad model to work on since it has tons of problems and anomalies on the first side. Just accept the substance dualism at least, and you can describe how the physical substance moves.

The physical substance cannot even cause a change in itself. I have a thread on this topic here. Therefore, the Mind sustains the physical substance (I have a thread on what the Mind is here).
By the way, I am wondering how such a thing as a physical substance that has no control over its movement at all, given the first argument in the first thread above, could be the cause of something that is intelligent, something that can freely decide, etc. what you call the mind. This is a bad model to work on since it has tons of problems and anomalies on the first side. Just accept the substance dualism at least, and you can describe how the physical substance moves. — MoK

I think you misunderstood my usage of the term "substance"*1. I was not talking about malleable Matter, but about Causal Energy. For modern scientists, Energy is defined as "ability" or "capability", but Aristotle called it "Potential", as contrasted with Actual, which is the form of frozen Energy we know as Matter (E=MC^2). Energy is physical only in the sense that it is the Dynamic (Causal) Force for the science of Physics. The "control" is provided by Natural Laws (principles ; regulations).

In my thesis, I suppose that Aristotle's Potential (power , ability , possibility), which I call EnFormAction*2 (power to transform), is not only the Causal Source of tangible Matter (hylomorph), but also of intangible Mind (intellect, nous, reason). I arrived at that conclusion from the scientific equation of Energy and Information*3. That equivalence is not yet established as a scientific fact, but it serves as a reasonable assumption for philosophical conjectures. The Triad of Energy-Matter-Information may sound strange, but I use it as an illustration of a difficult concept in my Information-centric thesis.

Exactly how the holistic complex of Energy + Matter + Information produces the effect in a material brain that we call "Intellect" or "Intelligence" or "consciousness" has not been completely worked out. But I think of Thinking & Reasoning as meta-physical processes, similar to the physical processes caused by inputs of Energy.

Although the scientists noted in the link below envisioned a triple-set, Descartes viewed the mind/body relationship as a duality of res extensa (matter) and res cogitans (thought). However, I imagine that our local duality or triality are merely manifestations of an ultimate universal Monism : EnFormAction : the power & program of the Big Bang Singularity, that provided the Cause & Laws of evolution, from which has emerged thinking & reasoning lumps of mobile matter that we now call philosophers & scientists. Note --- the ResearchGate image calls that triple aspect Monism : "Universal Substance".

Therefore, although we may not be on the same page, we seem to be on adjacent pages, regarding the question of how Consciousness could emerge in a Material world. :smile:

PS___ I guess my analysis of Consciousness is more scientific than Hegelian. :wink:


*1. In Aristotle's philosophy, a substance is the primary kind of being, an individual thing composed of matter (pure potentiality) and form (actuality). Potentiality is a thing's capacity to become something else, while actuality is the realization of that capacity. Every substance has the potentiality to develop its inherent capacities and achieve its specific purpose or telos, thus actualizing its form.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=aristotle+potential+and+substance
Note --- Information, like Energy, is physical only in the sense that it produces physical effects in matter.

*2. EnFormAction :
That neologism is an analysis and re-synthesis of the common word for the latent power of mental contents : “Information”. “En” stands for energy, the physical power to cause change; “Form” refers to Platonic Ideals (potential) that become real (actual); “Action” is the meta-physical power of transformation, as exemplified in the amazing metamorphoses of physics, whereby one kind of thing becomes a new kind of thing, with novel properties. In the Enformationism worldview, EnFormAction is eternal creative potential in action : it's how creation-via-evolution works.
https://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html

*3. Is information energy or matter? :
The fundamental triad of energy/matter/information |
The concept of information as a physical element has been put forth by various researchers (Landauer, 1996;Stonier, 1990;Vopson, 2019;Wheeler, 1989). It is now considered as fundamental as well as matter and energy in the universe (Meijer, 2013; Stonier, 1996).
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-fundamental-triad-of-energy-matter-information_fig1_275017053
Note --- ResearchGate image below. I don't agree with all of these labels. It's just an imaginary illustration of how Information relates to Energy and Matter.


THE hypothetical FUNDAMENTAL TRIAD
https://www.researchgate.net/about

According to Alex Rosenberg down at Duke, this is simply true of all of us. The reason paradoxes emerge is because the "self" and "intentionality" are akin to ghosts and magic, i.e., superstitious folk explanations. Neurons are not about anything. They don't "think" or "believe" anything. Everything, including neurons, are just elementary particles, and these are not "about" anything either. Hence, it is quite impossible for "thoughts" to be "about" anything else, or for there to be "intentional" states about the future. Five hundred years of scientific progress back this up. Mechanism cannot spontaneously produce aboutness and there is only mechanism. Ergo, intentionality doesn't exist. Ergo, the self doesn't exist!

He wrote a 400 page book "about" this (titled with his name, which is of course not a reference to a self). It has some good advice, like "solve unhappiness with medication, not introspection, since you are your neurochemistry and some tools work better than others for producing chemical changes," although when he gives this advice it's not wholly clear "who" or what is capable of even being "unhappy." It's a fun book from the parts I read though.

Now, we could laugh at Rosenberg, but he has some serious philosophical chops and knowledge (much more so than a Dawkins, etc.) and I think he's interesting because his target isn't so much the non-physicalist (a lost cause of course) but the "non-reductive naturalist," who he wants to convert by showing that naturalism entails his point of view.

Isn't his book Atheist's Guide to Reality? An excerpt from the NY Times review (2011):

The book expands the campaign of militant modern atheism, the offensive launched against religion by Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Rosenberg’s broadsides attack a wider horizon. Since atheism is thought to be territory already secured, the targets now in view are the Big Questions, questions about morality, purpose and consciousness that puzzle softheaded people who muddle over them. Science brings good news. The answers are now all in. This conviction that science can resolve all questions is known as “scientism” — a label typically used pejoratively (as by Wieseltier), but one Rosenberg seizes as a badge of honor.

The evangelical scientism of “The Atheist’s Guide” rests on three principal ideas. The facts of microphysics determine everything under the sun (beyond it, too); Darwinian natural selection explains human behavior; and brilliant work in the still-young brain sciences shows us as we really are. Physics, in other words, is “the whole truth about reality”; we should achieve “a thoroughly Darwinian understanding of humans”; and neuroscience makes the abandonment of illusions “inescapable.” Morality, purpose and the quaint conceit of an enduring self all have to go.

...Rosenberg’s cheerful Darwinizing is no more convincing than his imperialist physics, and his tales about the evolutionary origins of everything from our penchant for narratives to our supposed dispositions to be nice to one another are throwbacks to the sociobiology of an earlier era, unfettered by methodological cautions that students of human evolution have learned: much of Rosenberg’s book is evolutionary psychology on stilts.

Nonplussed to find you in such company, Tim :yikes:

Hey, I didn't say it wasn't absurd, insane even. But his argument that it follows from some commonly held positions is not bad. I think the idea is that the good naturalist should be an eliminativist and that the "non-reductive naturalist" is in a sense kidding themselves or else really a dualist because they believe in an irreducible, "strongly emergent" (and thus fundamental) causally efficacious mental activity/substance whose behavior cannot be reduced to or wholly explained by physical laws. The second option isn't really physicalist, its dualistic, and it's arguably not "naturalist" if it makes intentionality causally fundamental (granted, that terms is stretched ridiculously far in different directions).

It's admirable in a way. In the same way that Luther is admirable when, challenged by Erasmus that God would be evil if He creates creatures without freedom just to cosign them to an eternal torment they could never have avoided, Luther simply claims that God's "goodness" is wholly equivocal (i.e., that God is evil in human terms, or as he puts it, that we are evil in God's terms, which is still the same thing). It's following things out to their conclusion at least... (I suppose it's one way or solving the ol' "Problem of Evil" :meh: )

OK, so the question is, how can consciousness, as you've defined it, be any sort of advantage when all the advantages I can think of fall into the categories that you've excluded. — noAxioms

Consciousness is the property by which the thing experiences itself. Without it, nothing experiences itself. — Patterner

Consciousness does not have physical properties. — Patterner

This seems all contradictory. it would seem that having a survival advantage (being more fit), or being physically causal at all, would constitute a physical property. By your assertion, consciousness does not contribute to that fitness, else it would have those physical properties.

You can see my confusion. You define consciousness as a lack of all these properties, and I don't see what's left. A thing doesn't experience itself, it experiences phenomena. That's what experience is. So perhaps you've redefined that as well. How is a unit defined? How is one collection of particles (none of which has phenomenal experience) have it, but a slightly different collection of particles does not, or does not as much? Did I word that correctly?

When we're talking about a particle, the experience is of things like mass, charge, and spin. — Patterner

A particle cannot measure any of those things, let alone experience them. It doesn't even have a spin except as measured by something else. Not even you can experience your own mass, charge, or spin. Arguably charge if you have a lot of it. Anyway, experience of those things requires physical interaction with something not-you, and also requires cognition.

I don't imagine there's much of an advantage, because a particle can only interact with things according to the laws of physics.

There are those of us that say a human can only interact with things according to the laws of physics, despite your assertion of "It is not simple physics taking place.". No demonstration otherwise has ever been made. Going out of your way to not know how it works does not constitute a demonstration.

It is not simple physics taking place. If it was, we wouldn't have everything humanity has created.

Non-sequitur

Do you think physical laws and interactions intend states of the future?

It doesn't make logical sense to suggest that laws have intentions. Intentionally created laws in theory reflect the intentions of their creators, but I don't think physical laws are intentionally created. That would be ID, which is different magic.

No step in the manufacture of a computer violates the laws of physics.

This seems to contradict your assertions since the manufacture of a computer probably involves humans and their intent, which you seem to assert do more than just interact with things according to the laws of physics. Perhaps you're including this consciousness as part of those laws, but no laws of consciousness has ever been required to describe how a particle interacts with other particles, and in the end, we're just collections of particles.

Something that didn't exist was wanted. Planned. Intended. It was decided that something that could not be found anywhere, no matter where you look, and that would never come into being due to the interactions of matter and energy following the laws of physics, must come into being. Interactions that were not going to occur had to be arranged. Consciousness used the laws of physics to do very specific things in very specific orders and combinations, that would never have occurred spontaneously.

All that is also true under physicalism, the only difference being a definition of consciousness as a physical process.

I am not asserting that physicalism is necessarily correct, but I am asserting that nobody has demonstrated it being incorrect, or that any alternative offers a better explanation.

I notice you frequently use the fallacious tactic of refusing to use a word for anything nonhuman or at least nonbiological, as if a definition proves anything. — noAxioms

A definition 'proves' how the word is used. If you wish to re-define memory as 'the past', then the onus is on you to justify it.

Memory: the faculty by which the mind stores and remembers information.
"I've a great memory for faces"
2. something remembered from the past.
"one of my earliest memories is of sitting on his knee — Wayfarer

Excellent illustration of most of my points. You've redefined 'memory' as "information that is conserved for the sake of maintaining homeostasis". OK, you didn't explicitly state that as a definition, but you disqualified all my examples of memory because they did not meet that particular definition.
Ability to recognize people from their faces (a baby knowing its mother say) is not information conserved for the sake of maintaining homeostasis. Thus the onus is upon you to justify that very narrow definition, especially since you've quoted the google response to 'memory definition'.

Another point of mine was your 'tactic of refusing to use a word for anything nonhuman or at least nonbiological', nicely illustrated by you omitting the 3rd definition provided by google, which is:
"3.the part of a computer in which data or program instructions can be stored for retrieval."

You are correct that the information about the past stored in say rocks did not meet the dictionary definition. People tend not to use the word that way, just like they don't use 'memory' to describe the information of our evolutionary past stored in our DNA. @Patterner specifically brings up that example as one of information processing above and beyond what a machine does.

When I say memory is characteristic of life, I mean it in the strong sense: not just a trace of the past, but the active retention of previous experience for the sake of survival and adaptation. — Wayfarer

That's quite different than 'for the sake of maintaining homeostasis'. The kind of memory you now describe is not characteristic of all life, but sure, even trees retain previous experience and act on it.

Secondly, memory is also a characteristic of non-life, although it might not necessarily serve the purpose of survival and adaptation, similar to how a memory of trivia doesn't serve that purpose. So it does not follow that only living things utilize memory, nor that all living things utilize memory, since plenty (majority?) of them continue existing without it. Again, this presumes that DNA is not consciously accessed/recalled, but your definitions might differ on that point.

To equate memory with anything in the past—erosion marks or planetary orbits —dilutes the meaning of the word until it just means “the past.”

It means a record of the past in that context. It does not mean 'the past'. And I agree that the term 'memory' is not often used in that context, hence its lack of appearance in the dictionary. The word tends to be used for things that do their own access of that stored information. There is no obligation for a rock to retain a fossil.

But organisms, in contrast to geological or crystal structures, must retain and carry their past forward in order to continue existing

Technically they don't. But OK. Memory is still not defined as only that recall of past information solely for the purpose of being fit.

Artificial systems such as RAM only “remember” as extensions of the organisms that do (those organisms being us).

I deny this. Sure, most devices are currently slaved to people or other devices, so their purpose is currently not their own (quite similar to an employee), but that in no way disqualifies their recall of data as 'memory'. Yet again, it being memory is not dependent on the purpose to which it is recalled, but I do concede that there needs to be some sort of self-recall for the word to be reasonably applicable.

I suggest that the reason you find that unacceptable is that it represents an ontological distinction which your philosophy can't accomodate.

Your google quote (the entire quote) also does not make an ontological distinction between the two cases.

I think everything is conscious.

Particles are conscious, meaning they subjectively experience. — Patterner

But how do you know that. What is this based on? Anything? Anything at all besides what made 15th century people who had to crap in holes in the ground and tell stories to pass the time between famines and brutal periods of war?

There are millions of dust particles on the average person's body at any given moment. Are each of them really observing the world or aware they are dust particles? Are they really like you or I, if either of us were strapped to a chair, unable to speak or use our limbs and basically intelligent beings in a brain in a jar scenario?

A dead person is still a person, but they have no awareness of what's going on around them. It requires a brain with a nervous system to be able to think. Unless we're just cheapening or misusing the word and replacing it with your own definition, that's one thing. But you should own up to it, if so.

Otherwise, no, there are not millions of microscopic forms of life that are experiencing emotion, observing life, and being aware of time and contemplating their own existence on any given person's forearm.

. You've redefined 'memory' as "information that is conserved for the sake of maintaining homeostasis". — noAxioms

I quoted the definition! Memory is an attribute of living organisms, things that have memory. 'The earth' only has memory in a figurative sense.

Ability to recognize people from their faces (a baby knowing its mother say) is not information conserved for the sake of maintaining homeostasis. — noAxioms

Damned well is! You don't remember your own mother's face, your homeostasis is in deep doo-doo.

you omitting the 3rd definition provided by google, which is:
"3.the part of a computer in which data or program instructions can be stored for retrieval." — noAxioms

Did not omit it. Noted that computers are constructed by humans, to which I will add, to conserve memories for human purposes.

And I agree that the term 'memory' is not often used in that context, hence its lack of appearance in the dictionary. — noAxioms

Maybe you might start your own dictionary, then. Just don't expect others to use it.