The methodologies associated with Operant Conditioning may be primitive but it seems that the stimulus shock/reward slides in nicely with evolution and molecular/cellular evolution. Do something and it works you keep doing it. You may even elaborate in the directon of doing it. Do something and it doesn't work, you're eliminated from the system or down regulated. Simple feedback loops where the only difficulty is making sure the feedback you're getting is from your output.

Behaviouralism though must include the mind, even if doesn't want to - because associations are being formed in the mind and choice is being made based on those associations. An animal/system incapable of associating the stimulus with the reward will never understand nor grow in complexity. The bird chooses to eat the pellet because it doesn't want to get zapped, or because it wants a treat.

I understand the crudeness of the results. A causes B is not the mind, but it is a window into it. As complexity layers, more weightings can be placed between A and B providing uncertainty. The weightings may come intrinsically from the organism or extrinsically from the environment.

What I am I not seeing?

If I understand correctly, substantial being exists only as the result of constraints. — Metaphysician Undercover

Constraints on "material potential". So there has to be something to act on. Then the question becomes what is the least kind of action that can be imagined? This is what leads to modelling the "prime matter" as simply a vagueness or "unbounded fluctuation".

Substantial being emerges from the interaction between material and efficient causation — Metaphysician Undercover

No. It arises from constraints on a vague material potential (that thus become the concrete degrees of freedom of the system because there are those limits that produce some distinct variety of substantial being).

So in terms of the four causes, it is formal/final cause constraining vague potential to produce definite material/efficient causes. The causal loop is then closed as these material/efficient causes must be of the right character to re-construct and perpetuate the global state of constraint.

Hence why Peirce's system logic is said to be irreducibly complex. It has to be understood as one entire developmental whole.

I take your point Rich, but I take the opposite view. I don't like to use the word consciousness because it is a neat little bag we don't need to open - a quanta of life. I am ready to resign myself to that position if I can't open the bag, but I'm not there yet.

You are very good at replying why being a state of matter shouldn't feel like anything. Likewise a state of information.

But you go curiously silent on the question of why wouldn't a lived neural model of the world feel like something?

Hmm. — apokrisis

No, I answered you. You just fundamentally do not get the hard problem. WHAT is this "feel like something" you talk about? I already said earlier: WHAT is this feeling in the first place? That is the hard question. You can keep pointing back to the map but all you are saying is a=a. It is analytic. It isn't SAYING anything other than what the physical constituents are. You will always have the problem of a dualism. Emergence only works when it is physical phenomena producing other physical phenomena. It is all MAP. The subjective/first person EXPERIENCE (what it "feels" like) is metaphysically different in that it is the thing which observes the map. It is the territory, so to say. WHAT is this territory? Well you keep pointing to the map, and we are no longer in map-world, we are in territory world.

In other words, "feel like something" is its own phenomena that must be reckoned with. You never do, so therefore you always avoid the hard problem. You refer to it as the map, and never deal with it head on as this "other thing" which is the actual "feeling like something". WHAT is this "feeling like something". Explain the territory, not the map. In map world, everything is a map. But clearly, first-person "feels like something" experience is not just map but has this "feels like something" (experiential quality). What is this? Not what are its constituents in map world, but what is experience?

What I am I not seeing? — MikeL

That it is not a window into a functional understanding of cognition. Quite deliberately, it doesn't go there.

Of course even Skinner couldn't be satisfied with not trying to go further. He did later try to extend to cover associative or Hebbian networks. But he started from such an underpowered position that it had about zero influence. If you want to understand the mind in terms of Hebbian networks, Hebb had already made a better start.

Operant conditioning is still employed for behavioural training. It is important to slot machine design for instance. Or crude forms of psychotherapy, like desensitisation to fears.

I ask why shouldn't it feel like something as that exposes the fact you don't really have any clear definition of feeling yourself. You keep telling me what can't have feeling - matter or information - and yet you have no real basis for that claim as you can't, in counterfactual terms, say what ought to have feeling.

Well I suggest such an empirical basis and ask for an honest response. Why is a brain's lived modelling relation with the world so sure not to be experiential? Doesn't modelling seem like it might be experience creating?

You take fright at this question as you realise how much you have to lose from an honest answer.

No you never. You just reverted to asking the same questions about matter or information. You've been so obsessively repetitive with that tactic that even you got bored enough to start simply cutting and pasting yourself. — apokrisis

Because I'm bored with you dodging the hard problem and de facto "copy and pasting" your past responses by regurgitating them. Again, I said thus:

In other words, "feel like something" is its own phenomena that must be reckoned with. You never do, so therefore you always avoid the hard problem. You refer to it as the map, and never deal with it head on as this "other thing" which is the actual "feeling like something". WHAT is this "feeling like something". Explain the territory, not the map. In map world, everything is a map. But clearly, first-person "feels like something" experience is not just map but has this "feels like something" (experiential quality). What is this? Not what are its constituents in map world, but what is experience?

What say you?

That it is not a window into a functional understanding of cognition. Quite deliberately, it doesn't go there. — apokrisis

Perhaps not, but it is a rudimentary understanding of cognition. Like I said, the bridge may be out between behaviourialism and mind, but the disagreement is occurring at the front door of the mind and not the cells. it is a much narrower stream to ford than a model of non-life to life that is all chemistry or one that is all mind.

Slot machines are so much like cells.

Just so we're on the same page here.

I take your point Rich, but I take the opposite view. I don't like to use the word consciousness because it is a neat little bag we don't need to open - a quanta of life. I am ready to resign myself to that position if I can't open the bag, but I'm not there yet. — MikeL

What do you think is thinking? Do you ever spend any time observing your mind at work? Right now it is trying to figure out how to bring chemicals to life. I guess it is a way of killing time.

The layers of cognition, being stackable in nature, have created a limited power central command that floats over parts of my thoughts. Today this power (I) has decided:

I have opened the box of enjoyment, now that my basic needs of food, rest, shelter have been met, as well as my less basic but still important needs of doing the washing, doing the dishes tidying the house. Truth be told though, even during these tasks, I let the anticipation of discussion filter in. They are not hard containers that separate these actions.

Inside my box of enjoyment I have much to choose from. The one with the greatest weighting at the moment is this forum. I have other boxes I can draw from to bring things into this work space: some knowledge, of varying degrees of understanding, I have the tool of logic that I am going to bring into it. I have the problems that have been posed by yourself and others that I want to try and solve.

I will then output the result of this enjoyment to a mind file or to the computer screen or mostly likely both and await the next input from the screen while also running logic through the existing arguments, looking for connections.

The stimulus for my actions is this forum. For years, with few (except recently my brother, and occassional friends) to discuss my ideas with, they fell dormant and I have not paid them any serious attention. They kept popping up though, intrinsically - some mismatch of a sorting algorithm, but only recieved a passing eyeroll from myself.

It's not a way of killing time, but it is a reflection of how I've weighted my time.

Everytime you used the word I, that was your mind. Embrace it, because it is you.

If you want to understand the mind in terms of Hebbian networks, Hebb had already made a better start. — apokrisis

I looked up Hebbian networks: Cells that fire together wire together? That is a neural explanation for the emergence of cognitive patterns and not at all useful in understanding the emergence of life - unlike Operant Conditioning.

Just because Skinner fell on his face trying to bridge to mind, doesn't mean there is no bridge to mind, it just means Skinner's bridge was made of sticks.

Through observing behaviours we observe the output of minds. The more behaviours we study, the more we can ascertain with a high degree of certainty what is ocurring inside the mind.

The man who sits down and sobs, is probably sad. The one who leaps up and starts hugging people, is probably happy. We can increase our certainty by looking for the input which may have caused this: The woman who dumped him, the lottery draw he was watching on TV.

So too, the cell that suddenly upregulates the expression of a glucose receptor may be in a low glucose environment or be expending lots of energy. (output: glucose receptor up, input: low glucose)

When glucose levels fall below a certain level the cascades that are normally initiated when glucose binds to a cell receptor decrease. This means that secondary proteins that are normally bound up in the cascade are now more likely to participate in reactions involving the creation of glucose receptors.

It is sentience, it is behaviour, it is semiotics, it is chemistry.

Should we really be assuming physical causation as a valid assumption at all? — Victoribus Spolia

Just saw this.

Well, I would argue that the issue of causation is first and foremost metaphysical. As to causation on the physical plane, who would for example deny that the motion of one billiard ball hitting another causes the other to move?

It’s quite the topic, though. Obviously, I don’t believe causation is limited to efficient causation.

Actually Rich, I'm surprised you're not a behaviourialist.

In case you hadn't noticed, my physicalism is semiotic. So as science, or indeed metaphysics, it starts from psychology and sociology. — apokrisis

Similar to the entropy equivocation (thermodynamic-information) devised by von Neumann and Shannon:

You should call it entropy for two reasons: first, the function is already in use in thermodynamics under the same name; second, and more importantly, most people don't know what entropy really is, and if you use the word "entropy" in an argument, you will win every time. — John von Neumann

Just substitute "semiosis" for "entropy" and "everything" for "thermodynamics" in von Neumann's quote, and hey presto, voila: pansemiosis. It's magic, or better yet: HUGE !

I was wondering about how the high concentation of proteins came about in a certain area of ocean before lipid membranes were used. They would need to be manufactured at a much higher rate than the 'drift away' or dispersion velocity in order to be useful - and the DNA to protein link seemed weak. Then I thought of the ribosome, which sews amino acids together into proteins, using messenger RNA (it itself is a protein-RNA complex... I know, I know)

It occurred to me that an early ribosome may well have been working bi-directionally, using proteins to make RNA strands and using RNA strands to make proteins. Perhaps ribosomes made the DNA we use today.

I did a search and found that ribosomes have indeed been implicated in the Origin of Life process and that they may have created proteins independent of any RNA, which is another interesting angle. Here is the extract from this page:

Evolution of the ribosome

The ribosome in three-dimensions shows us that the exit tunnel was a central theme of all phases of its evolution. The tunnel was continuously extended and rigidified. The synthesis of non-coded peptides of increasing length conferred advantage as some reaction products bound to the ribosome. The ribosome sequentially gained capabilities for RNA folding, catalysis, subunit association, correlated subunit evolution, decoding and energy-driven translocation. Surface proteinization of the decoding ribosome was one driver of a more general proteinization of other biological processes, giving rise to modern biology. The ribosome spawned the existing symbiotic relationship of functional proteins and informational nucleic acids.

Did you have a point or just feel the need to vent?

No. It arises from constraints on a vague material potential (that thus become the concrete degrees of freedom of the system because there are those limits that produce some distinct variety of substantial being). — apokrisis

OK, so I understand that you assume two distinct types of constraints, the constraints which act on material potential causing substantial being, and semiotic constraints which act on substantial being. This is what you just told me:

The semiotic information acts causally as the constraints on substantial being. In Hylomorphic terms, it represents the top-down formal and final causes. — apokrisis

Can we deconstruct the conflation of "formal and final causes" here to assign "formal" to one of these types of constraints, and "final" to the other? Would you agree with me, that the constraints which act on the vague material potential, which account for substantial existence in the first place, are formal causes, and the constraints of semiotics, since living beings act with purpose, are final causes?

So in terms of the four causes, it is formal/final cause constraining vague potential to produce definite material/efficient causes. The causal loop is then closed as these material/efficient causes must be of the right character to re-construct and perpetuate the global state of constraint. — apokrisis

Yes, "causal loop" is an appropriate expression because you have just described a vicious circle. First, you said that "constraints on vague material potential" become (or I would say "cause") substantial being. But then you say that this constraining produces "definite" material causes. So we need to sort this out. If material cause refers to vague potential, we cannot reintroduce "definite" material cause, because "definite" implies formal. So either material cause is vague and indefinite, or it is definite, but if the essence of material cause is to be vague and indefinite, as I understand "material cause" then to say that it becomes definite is to say that it becomes not itself.

Can I assume, according to my distinction between formal and final cause, made above, that formal cause, acting on material potential produces further formal causes, which act on material potential to produce further formal causes, and that this activity is what we commonly call a causal chain of efficient causation? Now, the concern of the op is, how does final cause, or semiotic constraints enter into this process?

Apokrisis is providing the pivot we need to understand the transition from non-life to life. Semiotics allows us to jump track from chemistry to biology by considering function over form. — MikeL

This is what I am trying to understand, how does semiotics provide this pivotal point? To me, it appears like nothing other than the assumption of God, or as the atheists would say, magic. We had non-semiotic activity occurring billions of years ago, prior to the arrival of life on earth, then magically semiotics (and life) occurred. If we assume that semiotic activity occurred prior to life on earth, and is responsible for the original shaping of material potential into substantial existence, then this is no other than assuming God as creator of substantial existence.

I'm sure that it is correct to say that the first instance of self-replicating organic molecules was not the outcome of evolution, but is instead the origin of evolution. It's the origin of self-organising information that is at issue.

Although biosemiotics appears to accept the notion of final and formal causes, it doesn't appear to accept the related role of prime mover or first cause, which is assumed by Aristotelian philosophies. So it's the 'bootstrapping' process that purportedly gives rise to the first self-replicating molecules which is at issue. The physicalist explanation of this development are the 'dissipative structures' discovered by Prigogine which are said to provide the basis for the development of life sans any kind of transcendent intelligence.

So the basic claim that is at issue in all of this is that whatever the origin of life is, it is something that can be known to science, in principle, and that 'vast progress has been made' in identifying this process, even if the details still elude us. But that implies that, whatever this process might be, it is ultimately physical in nature, something which can be understood in terms of molecular substances and interactions. This is the promethean promise of modern scientific materialism - the promise that we will unravel and even master the material secrets (and they're the only kind) of the living cell. And then we will indeed have become as Gods. This is why, when Craig Venter was asked if he is 'playing God', he answered, only half-jokingly, 'not playing' ;-)

I don't see how "bootstrapping" is an appropriate term here. To assume bootstrapping is to take a physicalist premise and begin with this prejudice. What is necessary first, is to demonstrate that this is actually a case of bootstrapping.

There is a huge gap between a Prigogine dissipative structure, and a semiotic system. So much so, that these two are fundamentally different, because the capacity to understand and use symbols which is essential to semiotics is missing from dissipative structures. The proposition that a semiotic system bootstraps itself into existence from a dissipative structure, could be ridiculed if it was proposed as a scientific principle.

We had non-semiotic activity occurring billions of years ago, prior to the arrival of life on earth, then magically semiotics (and life) occurred. If we assume that semiotic activity occurred prior to life on earth, and is responsible for the original shaping of material potential into substantial existence, then this is no other than assuming God as creator of substantial existence. — Metaphysician Undercover

Hi Metaphysician,
I find when thinking about semiotics it is best not to ascribe it the properties of a force or anything else. It is simply a way of reporting. It is possible not to use semiotics to explain what is happening as well. The chemistry gets extremely complex in all directions so fast though, that it is impossible to keep track of. By invoking the idea of semiotics we can ditch the detail of chemistry and look at what is occuring in terms of an emergent phenomenon. I gave the example earlier of the ion channel.

The cell that suddenly upregulates the expression of a glucose receptor may be in a low glucose environment or be expending lots of energy. (output: glucose receptor up, input: low glucose). It is upregulating to ensure supply ---- a semiotic explanation

When glucose levels fall below a certain level the cascades that are normally initiated when glucose binds to a cell receptor decrease. This means that secondary proteins that are normally bound up in the cascade are now more likely to participate in reactions involving the creation of glucose receptors. — MikeL

---- a chemical explanation.

The higher we go the more impossible it becomes to explain chemically - although it most probably can be done. There would come a point when even semiotics is too complex, which is why I suggested we look to psychology in terms of cause and effect principals, which were investigated by Skinner when he did Operant Conditioning.

I don't feel that semiotics actually addresses the how it happens at all, which is why I suggested the ribosome might be involved, and highlighted things that other people have deemed necessary such as concentration gradients etc.

I can't find the dissipative systems reference you speak of, but in terms of the dissipative structures that Aprokrisis talks about, my feeling is he is simply taking a low entropy object such as 'an apple' and running it through life eg a person so that it breaks down.

The apple has many molecules inside them. They have 'constraints' on them because they have lost entropy when they were bonded or double bonded. They can't kick about freely anymore. When we break the molecules down for food (or burn oil) we break the bonds thus dissipating the trapped energy. Of course life will try to use that release of energy to power its own building processes (that is how it is able to manifest its negentropy) but inevitably there will be loss out of the system.

I think that represents what he's saying, but there was a lot of philosophy talk in there too and references to things which I've not read up on yet.

Apokrisis initially suggested that based on a book he was reading life might have originated near volcanic vents because they would provide a ready source of reactants, the right pH, and a concentration gradient needed to force negentropy. The theory lacked a lot of necessary detail though.

There is a huge gap between a Prigogine dissipative structure, and a semiotic system. — Metaphysician Undercover

Google 'pansemiosis bootstrapping' and see what comes up ;-)

Apokrisis:

I have really appreciated you input on this thread and also on "Why Can't the Universe be Contracting?" I've put "Life's Ratchet" on my reading list and I'm going back to reread some of your posts on this thread.

In other words, "feel like something" is its own phenomena that must be reckoned with. You never do, so therefore you always avoid the hard problem. You refer to it as the map, and never deal with it head on as this "other thing" which is the actual "feeling like something". WHAT is this "feeling like something". Explain the territory, not the map. In map world, everything is a map. But clearly, first-person "feels like something" experience is not just map but has this "feels like something" (experiential quality). What is this? Not what are its constituents in map world, but what is experience?

What say you? — schopenhauer1

@apokrisisI guess no answer.

I also read Life's Ratchet on apo's recommendation and it's excellent. There is relatively little about information** in it, and nothing I recall about semiotics, but the explanation of how the thermodynamics works is fascinating. Gets a little deep in the weeds on transport molecules, since I think that's what Hoffman spends a lot of his time doing, but worth powering through.

Once you can picture a kinesin binding an ATP to clamp one foot to a track, allostery causing the back foot to hydrolyze its ATP, and then relying on thermal motion to get the back foot to its new position -- wow. The combination of consuming free energy and "capturing"-- putting to use rather than resisting-- energy from what Hoffman calls the "molecular storm" of randomly moving water molecules, it's extraordinary.

** ADDED: But some nice stuff about regulation, which is, as @MikeL has been noting, what we're often looking to do with information.

Once you can picture a kinesin binding an ATP to clamp one foot to a track, allostery causing the back foot to hydrolyze its ATP, and then relying on thermal motion to get the back foot to its new position -- wow. The combination of consuming free energy and "capturing"-- putting to use rather than resisting-- energy from what Hoffman calls the "molecular storm" of randomly moving water molecules, it's extraordinary. — Srap Tasmaner

I was about to say that myself. Yes that's irony.

There is relatively little about information in it, — Srap Tasmaner

I found an article on the web - "The Algorithmic Origins of Life," by Walker and Davies, which I enjoyed, but need to read again at least once. Are you familiar with that? Is that what you are talking about?

Have not read.

Hoffman talks about Maxwell's demon and Landauer. But my memory is that a lot of the discussion of RNA, DNA, ribosomes, etc. is just focused on how they work. It seems like there should be another chapter or two to put some pieces of the puzzle together, but I guess that's because the idea here is to show what life is, rather than how it arose. It's not really intended to be a brief for abiogenesis. I'll probably check out Nick Lane's book, but I'm already reading four or five books, so it'll have to wait.

Enjoy Life's Ratchet.