↪Gnomon
Thanks for the information. — Ciceronianus

:smirk:

Interesting, keeping in mind I was not arguing for or against pantheism, only that, as I understand it, pantheism and panpsychism are different things.

Sorry it took me so long to respond.

↪Gnomon
Thanks for the information. — Ciceronianus

I was hoping you might suggest a hypothetical answer to the topical question : "But how does such an ethereal notion [pneuma ; aether] relate to the title of this thread?" What feature of the Cosmos, as a whole system, could explain the emergence of both Life & Mind (processes) on a minor planet in an ordinary galaxy?

I've been exploring alternatives to ancient Materialist theories (e.g. Pneuma ; Aether) in my blog*1. And the only common factor I've found is phenomenal Causation (energy ; force ; power) directed by noumenal Organization (natural laws), which together I call EnFormAction (the power to transform) or just Information*2. But what is the ultimate source of Cause & Laws of the universe*3? :chin:


*1. Cosmology and Evolution :
Divine Design vs Teleological Evolution vs Scientific Serendipity
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page41.html

*2. Information :
Knowledge and the ability to know. Technically, it's the ratio of order to disorder, of positive to negative, of knowledge to ignorance. It's measured in degrees of uncertainty. Those ratios are also called "differences". So Gregory Bateson* defined Information as "the difference that makes a difference". The latter distinction refers to "value" or "meaning". Babbage called his prototype computer a "difference engine". Difference is the cause or agent of Change. In Physics it’s called "Thermodynamics" or "Energy". In Sociology it’s called "Conflict".
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

*3. Schopenhauer’s Will as Intention :
Ironically, as a critic of religion, Schop’s “Will” combines phenomenal causation and noumenal representation⁴ into a single concept, similar to the Holy Spirit of the Bible. . . . .
Schopenhauer argued that the flawed world is not rationally organized⁸. But, if so, how could reasoning beings evolve, and how could human Science gain control over the physical realm?
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page19.html

# Factor : a circumstance, fact, or influence that contributes to a result or outcome.

No, they are not related except they both have a "pan" prefix which refers to "all," "of everything," or "completely." They are completely different things. — T Clark

I assume that you are passionately defending the worldview of Spinoza's philosophical PanTheism from the ancient "New Age" notion of PanPsychism. But they are only antithetical for devout believers. I'm aware that likes to portray Panpsychism as "nonsense" compared to Spinoza's scientific sense. But from an objective perspective, someone not ardently committed to one belief system or the other may not see any incompatibility*1.

I'm not a true believer in either view, but a loosely related "pan-" label, PanEnDeism*2, could be applied to my own non-religious philosophical understanding of how & why the world works as it does : supporting the immaterial processes of Life & Mind. But my thesis uses the more scientific term Information instead of spooky Psyche. :smile:

PS___ I don't know enough about Noetics to pin any of these "-ism" labels on it.


*1. Spinoza's philosophy is both pantheistic and panpsychist because it identifies God with Nature and sees everything in the universe as an aspect of this single substance, including mind and matter. His pantheism is the view that God is identical with the universe ("God, or Nature"). His panpsychism is the view that mind is a fundamental and pervasive feature of reality, such that every physical thing has a mind as one of its attributes.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=spinoza+pantheism+and+panpsychism
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/panpsychism/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism

*2. Panendeismis a belief system that combines elements of panentheism (God is in the universe) and deism (God does not intervene supernaturally after creation), asserting that God both pervades the universe and transcends it.

Well, I think you'll find my thoughts, such as they are, disappointing.

As for the title of this thread, I'm leery of the use of the word "created" (or other variations of "create"). I think it's too often associated with a conscious choice or act. I have the same concerns when it's claimed that we, or our minds, "create" the world. We don't. We're organisms having certain characteristics that are part of an environment. We don't make the world of which we're a part.

So I don't think it's appropriate to speak of the cosmos creating mind if it's intended to suggest the cosmos somehow intentionally made mind, or us for that matter. I know of no evidence supporting those claims. Nor do we have any evidence that something transcendent (outside of the universe) did so.

Given the information we have, I think the best evidence suggests mind arose as a result of substances or processes that are part of or take place in the universe. If that's the case, I have no idea how that worked. We seem to have a lot yet to learn about the universe, so maybe we'll know someday. Now we can only speculate.

Spinoza's philosophy is both pantheistic and panpsychist ... — Gnomon

:lol:

Only silly blinkers like you, sir, who have not themselves closely read (and comprehended) the Ethics, so conspicuously misunderstand Spinoza's philosophy. To wit

– not "pantheistic" (2020)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/528116

– not "panpsychist" (2020)
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/509905

Well, I think you'll find my thoughts, such as they are, disappointing. . . .
So I don't think it's appropriate to speak of the cosmos creating mind if it's intended to suggest the cosmos somehow intentionally made mind, or us for that matter. I know of no evidence supporting those claims. . . . . .
Perhaps they were pantheists or panpsychists--I don't particularly care which. I find the general idea of such a cosmos attractive. But I agree that if there is something similar to pneuma {animating principle} it will be established through science, not philosophy. — Ciceronianus

"Disappointing"? Do you think I am emotionally invested in the "science of Noetics"*1? For me it's just an interesting philosophical approach to the Hard Problem of Consciousness : phenomenal experience, or what it's like to be a person. My interest in the elusive topic of Mind is philosophical, not scientific*2. Any "science" of Noetics is limited to the soft science of Psychology, which draws inferences about holistic mental states (e.g. intentions) from particular neural states (electro-chemical activity). But, how do neurons & electrons create meaningful ideas? Noetics postulates that ideas are signals from outside the brain. Personally, I'm skeptical. But the analogy with immaterial radio signals (mathematical waves, not material particles) is suggestive. So, I can't categorically deny the possibility. Hence, this thread.

"Appropriate" relative to what standard? If your philosophy is Materialism, then of course any talk about immaterial stuff like metaphysical Minds & Cosmic signals would be inappropriate. But this is a Philosophy forum, so if discussion of immaterial stuff is banned, then it should be renamed The Physics Forum. Is the "animating principle" of Life & Mind elucidated in an authoritative physics text? Does Physics have a material definition of the Causal Principle of the Cosmos? Materialism seems to treat Mind as immaterial, hence it literally & figuratively doesn't matter. Scientism treats the "Hard Problem" as solved finito, hence the hay is in the barn : cut & dried. Do you agree?

If discussion of Intention on a philosophy forum is inappropriate, then yes I would be disappointed. But what kind of "evidence" do you think is appropriate for the topic of Cosmos Created Mind? The title of this thread was intentionally flipped from 's Mind Created World thread. Which did not imply that your mind created the whole physical world, but left open the possibility that some cosmic intentional (teleological) Mind created the dynamic physical Universe, which in turn created (by evolution) living & thinking creatures. Instead it referred to the common understanding that human mind imagines a metaphysical model of its physical environment that the person treats as-if it's real*2.

If you think the Hard Problem of Mind has been solved by Science, then you may be influenced by the dogma of Scientism, which holds that All Truth is revealed by Physics & Chemistry. But what about Mathematics? I'm currently reading a 1948 memoir by philosopher/mathematician A.N. Whitehead. In a chapter on Axioms of Geometry, he discusses "absolute and relative theories of space", noting that Isaac Newton believed that "space has an existence . . . independent of the bodies {matter} which it contains". Whitehead concluded that "geometry is not a science with a determinate subject matter". Does that mean Math exists only in Minds, hence is not Real?

Then along came Einstein with his Theory of Relativity, indicating that objects are knowable only in relation to other objects, and that "only relative motion is directly measurable". The relevant point being that all we know about the world is subjective ideas in a Mind. Do you think physical science provides us with Absolute Knowledge, so that exploring Metaphysical (mental) aspects of reality is a waste of (immaterial, immeasurable) Time? :chin:


*1. Noetic science is not considered real by mainstream science because its claims, such as telepathy and telekinesis, are not supported by empirical evidence and are classified as pseudoscience by organizations like Quackwatch.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=is+noetics+a+real+science

*2. Cosmos : The mind creates a model of the world by actively constructing a perception of reality based on sensory input, past experiences, and predictions. It doesn't passively receive information but instead interprets and pieces together fragmented data to create a coherent, subjective experience that allows for prediction and survival. This internal model is constantly being updated and is why individuals can have different interpretations of the same events
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=mind+creates+a+model+of+the+world

But, how do neurons & electrons create meaningful ideas? ... immaterial radio signals (mathematical waves ... immaterial stuff like metaphysical Minds & Cosmic signals ... the possibility that some cosmic intentional (teleological) Mind created ... all we know about the world is subjective ideas in a Mind. — Gnomon

:yikes: :lol: :rofl:

Then semiosis actually defines life and mind as a modelling relation within the entropic world — apokrisis

Indeed, functionalists do tend to end up defining 'consciousness' by fiat as a function, just as they have with 'life'. But in doing so making the concept irrelevant to the philosophy and what people actually mean by 'consciousness'.

“Suppose that our brains are not productive, but transmissive organs, through which the material world affects the spiritual. Then the diminutions of consciousness which accompany brain lesions may not be due to the destruction of consciousness itself, but to the failure of its physical organs to transmit it properly.” ~ William James — Joshs

The 'receiver/transmitter' model of mind and consciousness. Alduous Huxley also considered that idea when tripping on mescaline. In Doors of Perception, he wrote that the total potential of consciousness, which he terms "Mind at Large," is too vast and overwhelming for biological survival. The brain and nervous system have evolved to perform an "eliminative" or "reducing" function, filtering out the mass of "useless and irrelevant knowledge" from the Mind at Large. What remains is a "measly trickle" of consciousness, which is the selective awareness necessary for us to stay alive, focus on practical matters, and operate on "this particular planet." This idea has many resonances, not least in current models of 'predictive processing' and 'relevance realisation'.

Then semiosis actually defines life and mind as a modelling relation within the entropic world. It gives a sharp reason why consciousness can arise when a particular modelling process arises within Nature at a certain sufficiently cool, large and complex moment in its Big Bang history. — apokrisis

The question that is begged, however, is why it should it? Not that I expect that you or I or anyone can answer such a question, but it can at least be contemplated.

My tentative answer is that there is, at least, a kind of incipient drive towards conscious existence woven, somehow, into the fabric of the cosmos. And that through its manifest forms of organic existence, horizons of being are disclosed that would otherwise never be realised.

The only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature and for the uniformity in general is to suppose them results of evolution, and that evolution is of the nature of a psychical process, by which the confused becomes distinct. — C S Peirce, Collected Papers, 6.101

In all of this, it is important to get a grasp of the history of the emergence of scientific worldview. And if that is difficult it is because we're situated within it, so we tend to look through it, rather than at it.

...Modernity resuts from a clearly formulated intellectual decision whose content is perfectly intelligible. It is the decision to understand, in the light of geometric-mathematical knowledge, the universe as reduced henceforth as an objective set of material phenomena. Moreover, it constructs and organises the world exclusively on the basis of this new knowledge, and the inert processes over which it provides mastery. — Michel Henry, Barbarism

Within this worldview where does mind or consciousness fit? Why, it doesn't - for the very simple reason that it has been excluded at the very outset of the method, which accords existence only to those fundamental objective existents within the purview of the objective sciences. Hence the interminable arguments, confusion and controversy about whether or how 'consciousness exists'. Science seeks to define the mind in terms of the objective realm from which it was excluded at the outset. That, anyway, is the hardcore reductionist attitude, exemplified by such thinkers as the late Daniel Dennett.

So if you're asking what mind or consciousness is from within that implied framework you can only approach it by asking what kind of thing it might be, or where it might be, or what it might cause, and so on. Which is bound to fail, because it overlooks the exclusionary step that was taken at the very beginning of the modern scientific method.

Phenomenology realises this from the outset (Michel Henry, quoted above, was a phenomenologist, as was Edmund Husserl, who initiated this kind of analysis in his Crisis of the European Sciences.)

So it's important to disentangle the understanding of mind or consciousness from these kinds of ideas of it being 'out there somewhere' or what kind of phenomenon it might be. What it requires instead is the kind of perspectival shift that phenomenology introduced by way of the epochē, the suspension of judgement, which is a very different thing to either analytical philosophy or the customary scientific method. However, there are now hybrid schools of phenonenological science appearing which do take this into account.

A recent example of this shift is The Blind Spot (by Marcelo Gleiser, Adam Frank, and Evan Thompson), which argues that science’s major omission has been the exclusion of lived experience from its own self-understanding. The authors, two scientists and a philosopher, call for a renewal of science that recognises consciousness not as an anomaly to be explained away but as the condition of all observation and knowledge (from book description.)

Indeed, functionalists do tend to end up defining 'consciousness' by fiat as a function, just as they have with 'life'. But in doing so making the concept irrelevant to the philosophy and what people actually mean by 'consciousness' — bert1

Why not check your terms before trotting out the nonsense.

AI as the impartial observer says…

The core difference is that functionalism views neurocognition and consciousness purely in terms of their computational or causal roles (what they do), while biosemiotics views them as processes of meaning-making and interpretation that are intrinsic to all living systems, emphasizing the biological context and the subjective "umwelt" (experienced world) of the organism.

Functionalist Approach

Focus on Causal/Functional Roles: Functionalism defines mental states (like pain, belief, or consciousness) by their causal relations to sensory inputs, other internal mental states, and behavioral outputs. It is unconcerned with the specific physical substrate (e.g., neurons, silicon chips) that carries out these functions, a concept known as "multiple realizability".

Analogy to Software: The mind is often compared to software running on the brain's hardware. The essence is the functional organization or program, not the physical material.

"Easy Problems": Functionalism is good at addressing the "easy problems" of consciousness, such as how the brain processes information for detection, discrimination, and recognition.

Third-Person Perspective: It primarily relies on an objective, third-person perspective, seeking to explain functions that could, in theory, be performed by any suitable system, including a sufficiently advanced computer.

Consciousness as an Outcome: Consciousness is generally seen as an emergent property or a functionally integrated pattern of the brain's activity, important for adaptive behavior and survival.

Biosemiotic Approach

Focus on Meaning-Making (Semiosis): Biosemiotics argues that life is fundamentally a process of sign production, interpretation, and communication, which is the basis for meaning and cognition. It studies pre-linguistic, biological interpretation processes that are essential to living systems, from bacteria to humans.

Embodiment and the "Umwelt": This approach emphasizes that meaning is actively constructed by an embodied agent within its specific environment, or Umwelt (subjective, self-experienced surrounding world). The mind is not just in the brain but deeply integrated with the body and its interactions with the world.

Addresses the "Hard Problem": Biosemiotics attempts to address the "hard problem" of subjective experience (qualia) by positing that proto-experience or a basic level of awareness is a fundamental aspect of all matter/biological processes, which then expands to higher degrees of consciousness through complex, hierarchical information processing in the brain.

First-Person Perspective: It incorporates a necessary first-person, internal perspective, recognizing the subjective, felt qualities of experience that are difficult to capture with a purely functional, third-person approach.

Causality and Context: It introduces different modes of causality, including "sign causality" (meaning-based influence) and a focus on biological context (pragmatics), which are often overlooked in standard functionalist models that rely primarily on efficient (mechanistic) causes.

In essence, functionalism abstracts away from the biological substrate to focus on the logical architecture of cognition, while biosemiotics insists that biological context, embodiment, and inherent meaning-making processes are crucial to understanding consciousness and neurocognition.

So with less effort than it takes for you to make one of your little three line posts, you could have sorted out your confusion even before you started.

My tentative answer is that there is, at least, a kind of incipient drive towards conscious existence woven, somehow, into the fabric of the cosmos. And that through its manifest forms of organic existence, horizons of being are disclosed that would otherwise never be realised. — Wayfarer

Well biosemiosis has now turned all this from metaphysical speculation into firm science. What is woven into the initial conditions of the physical world is the incipient inevitability of its Second Law entropic drive running into a form of systemhood that can exploit its own loophole.

This is Pattee’s point about the symbol grounding problem. And the solution that biophysics has since delivered in discovering the lucky coincidence of the “convergence zone” of physical forces that arises in room temperature water at the semi-classical nanoscale of organic chemistry.

The problem for organisms that run on information is how a molecule can act as a message. And biophysics now tells us that the convergence zone is a place where all forms of energy arrive at a single narrow band of “currency exchange rates”. The cost of switching energy from one form to another becomes suddenly equivalent. And so an organism just has to pay the tiny extra cost of flipping some switch in a direction of its own beneficial choice.

I’ve described this for you at least 10 times in the past. But in one ear and out the other I guess.

But it says that the convergence zone effect was always going to be manifested by a Big Bang with the initial conditions that ours had. And then - not as a consequence of any entropic drive but due to emergence of this “unexpected” entropic opportunity - life and mind suddenly evolved,

Physics just needed to accidentally create the right habitat - something like the porous and mineral rich thermal vents of the ocean floor about 500 million years after the Earth’s crust started to stabilise - and boom. Life couldn’t help but get going as all it had to do was set up the most rudimentary self-organising metabolic loop and it would be off.

So symbol processing were always going to arise if a convergence zone was always going to emerge and result in a scale of physics just begging for the next thing of a symbol processing mechanism to take advantage of it free energy flow.

It switchability was a thing - however not a thing pure physics could do, yet information could - then that is why life and mind seem both continuous with physics, but also a little … detached.

I’ve described this for you at least 10 times in the past. But in one ear and out the other I guess. — apokrisis

Nothing I said is in contradiction to what you have said, although the dimension your analyses always seem to omit is the existential.

I’m also interested in the idea the biosemiotics puts back into science what Galileo left out, although that may not be of significance to you, given your interests mainly seem to be from a bio-engineering perspective, rather than the strictly philosophical.

Biosemiotics attempts to address the "hard problem" of subjective experience (qualia) by positing that proto-experience or a basic level of awareness is a fundamental aspect of all matter/biological processes — apokrisis

Notice that this elides 'biological processes' and 'matter' by conjoining them with the "/" symbol.

Nothing I said is in contradiction to what you have said, although the dimension your analyses always seem to omit is the existential. — Wayfarer

So now I’m guilty of not being a dysfunctionalist instead of being guilty of being a functionalist? :sweat:

I’m also interested in the idea the biosemiotics puts back into science what Galileo left out, although that may not be of significance to you, given your interests mainly seem to be from a bio-engineering perspective, rather than the strictly philosophical. — Wayfarer

If by strictly philosophical, you mean free to just make shit up, then of course guilty as charged now. I don’t take that intellectual liberty. The facts constrain me.

Notice that this elides 'biological processes' and 'matter' by conjoining them with the "/" symbol. — Wayfarer

Or instead underlines the metaphysical claim being made. Nature is dissipative structure. And biology continues that physicalist story at the semiotic modelling relation level.

Gosh. You sure seem disappointed to me. Extensively so, in fact. Or is indignant a better word? Regardless, quod scripsi, scripsi.

strictly philosophical.
— Wayfarer

If by strictly philosophical, you mean free to just make shit up, then of course guilty as charged now. I don’t take that intellectual liberty. The facts constrain me. — apokrisis

:smirk: :up:

Nature is dissipative structure. And biology continues that physicalist story at the semiotic modelling relation level. — apokrisis

And philosophy?

And philosophy? — Wayfarer

Again, as I have told you so many times, I’m with Stanley Salthe in reviving natural philosophy as the argument against science’s reductionist turn. That is why we can agree on Scientism as being a bad thing, but then not agree that science is inherently non-philosophical.

You have your hobby horse on this point. But I believe that is only because you don’t want to be constrained by real world facts. There are just inconveniently too many of them.

AI summarising Salthe:

Stanley Salthe's Argument

Stanley Salthe, a theoretical biologist and complexity theorist, argues for a return to natural philosophy as a way to reintegrate the natural sciences and provide a more holistic understanding of the world. His main points include:

Counteracting Fragmentation: Salthe contends that modern science has become excessively specialized and fragmented. Different disciplines, and even sub-disciplines within them, operate with their own specific paradigms and often fail to communicate effectively or see the bigger picture. Natural philosophy, with its broader scope, can serve as a unifying framework.

Addressing Reductionism: He argues that a purely reductionist approach—breaking systems down to their smallest components to understand them—is insufficient for grasping complex, emergent phenomena like life and consciousness. Natural philosophy encourages a focus on holism, organizational hierarchies, and the relationships between levels of organization.

Reintroducing a Philosophical Perspective: Salthe suggests that modern science often avoids or dismisses fundamental philosophical questions (e.g., questions about purpose, emergence, or the nature of existence) as being outside the realm of empirical science. A return to natural philosophy would re-legitimize these questions and reconnect scientific inquiry with broader humanistic concerns.

A "Grand Narrative": He advocates for a more integrated, encompassing view of the world—a new "grand narrative" that acknowledges the emergent properties of complex systems and the directionality observed in nature (e.g., the flow of energy, the emergence of life and complexity).

Are you telling me there is even one point on that list you disagree with? So quit belly aching.

I completely agree with that, and, astounding as it might seem, I'm not actually trying to pick a fight with you about it. And as for 'in one ear and out the other', I've read quite a bit of biosemiotic literature since being introduced to it by you. As I said, I think the argument can be made that the whole semiotic movement re-introduces the first-person element that Galilean scence tended to bracket out (in a different but complementary way to phenomenology. And no, I'm not "making shit up".)

So make up your mind whether you agree or disagree with me at this general level. Then if you have some more particular point to make it, then make it. Present that argument..

I agree with you in some ways, but not in others. I respect your learning, but I'm not on board with Naturalism Triumphant.

And

First-Person Perspective: It (biosemiotics) incorporates a necessary first-person, internal perspective, recognizing the subjective, felt qualities of experience that are difficult to capture with a purely functional, third-person approach.

Where in your reckoning does this point figure?

The 'receiver/transmitter' model of mind and consciousness. Alduous Huxley also considered that idea when tripping on mescaline. In Doors of Perception, he wrote that the total potential of consciousness, which he terms "Mind at Large," is too vast and overwhelming for biological survival. The brain and nervous system have evolved to perform an "eliminative" or "reducing" function, filtering out the mass of "useless and irrelevant knowledge" from the Mind at Large. What remains is a "measly trickle" of consciousness, which is the selective awareness necessary for us to stay alive, focus on practical matters, and operate on "this particular planet." This idea has many resonances, not least in current models of 'predictive processing' and 'relevance realisation'.

I had a trip once where I realised that the atoms in my brain were 99.999% (or something) empty space and if I rocked the boat too much I would fall into the gaps between these atoms and never be able to get back out. Also on another trip, the distinction between me and the outside world became reversed. So I was the outside world talking and thinking back at me and my body was external (other) to that, or the subject being talked to.

Where in your reckoning does this point figure? — Wayfarer

Enactivism.

:up:

Both, I can completely relate to.

I am grateful to you for using an AI to generate your answer, which I will take to represent your view. It is much easier to understand than your posts typically are. I heartily recommend you copy its style. I note with relief it does not begin any paragraphs with 'So'.

Biosemiotics argues that life is fundamentally a process of sign production, interpretation, and communication, which is the basis for meaning and cognition. — ApoAI

I don't see a significant difference between mind as a process and mind as a function in relation to the conceptual issues. Both are a system doing something. In either case, whether it be a system performing interpretation embedded in an environment, or a brain realising a function, there is still a conceptual disconnect with that and consciousness.

]Biosemiotics attempts to address the "hard problem" of subjective experience (qualia) by positing that proto-experience or a basic level of awareness is a fundamental aspect of all matter/biological processes, which then expands to higher degrees of consciousness through complex, hierarchical information processing in the brain. — ApoAI

This is panpsychism, which you have previously distanced yourself from. ApoAI's apparent separation of proto-experience from consciousness is conceptually mistaken; consciousness does not admit of degree.

First-Person Perspective: It incorporates a necessary first-person, internal perspective, recognizing the subjective, felt qualities of experience that are difficult to capture with a purely functional, third-person approach. — ApoAI

That's interesting. What is needed for an emergentist account such as this is sufficiency, not necessity. Necessity requires that consciousness is already there. What is needed is the conceptual link that moves from sign production, interpretation, and communication to consciousness, without presupposing consciousness, on pain of begging the question. Why must the processes of sign production, interpretation, and communication embody/enact/realise/constitute (pick your concept please) consciousness?

Thank you for getting help to write an intelligible post. If it wasn't a potential violation of the site rules, I would encourage you to do so again for the sake of clarity. However the hard problem remains untouched.

I note with relief it does not begin any paragraphs with 'So'. — bert1

:grin:

This is panpsychism, which you have previously distanced yourself from. — bert1

Well no. Biosemiosis would say that only biological systems that model - that stand in some sign relation with their physical reality - are making meaningful relations with the world. And to get to what you would want to call consciousness, they would need some kind of neurosemiotic model.

So biology is in a modelling relation mostly in the sense that it is running an intelligent relation with its own metabolism. And neurology is where an organism is in a modelling relation that is a self in relation to its wider environment.

Thank you for getting help to write an intelligible post. — bert1

But what use was it if you just misinterpret it in your usual fashion, bending it to your prejudices and not getting the point at all?

And to get to what you would want to call consciousness, they would need some kind of neurosemiotic model. — apokrisis

Why?

Why what? You mean why is it worth even getting AI to answer the questions you could ask it yourself directly.

Feel free to irritate machine intelligence all you like. Report back on what sense it can make of your fixed prejudices.

Why what? — apokrisis

Why would they need some kind of neurosemiotic model to get to what I would want to call consciousness?

Why would they need some kind of neurosemiotic model to get to what I would want to call consciousness? — bert1

You say that what you call consciousness is accounted for by panpsychism – the simpleminded non-theory that matter is mind and mind is matter.

They are just the one universal substance and so "co-exist" as a brute fact. End of discussion, as no discussion can find a difference worth the bother of cranking up a causal account.

Panpsychism is simply an article of faith among its adherents. It's best metaphysical support is that its adherents claim anything which smacks of a scientific theory or causal account fails before it starts. Consciousness is interior to material being, and so cannot be explained in exterior fashion. Mutter the magic incantation "the Hard Problem" in a profound and reverential tone and your job is done.

If you are convinced by this epistemological position, any further words are wasted on you. You are not even listening. Pure faith protects your prejudice.