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

This may not count as an actual explanation, but I have a hypothesis based on physics, but also including a role for metaphysics (non-physical Information). Without an understanding of the Enformationism thesis though --- that Mind & Matter are both emergent forms of Generic Information --- this brief synopsis may sound like speculative non-sense. Yet, it's a combination of sensable Realism & knowable Idealism, of Physics & Metaphysics.

I begin with the assumption that Matter, Energy, & Mind are emergent forms of a universal fundamental creative "power to enform". If you find that hard to believe, I have lots of supporting evidence & arguments. In the original Singularity, that cosmic Potential was generic, not specific (no instances), and not physical (no real stuff). But after the Big Bang, infinite Potential was transformed into finite Actuality (the stuff of reality). Over time, that proto-energy gradually caused new forms to emerge in what scientists call "phase transitions". Energy, in the amorphous state of Plasma, evolved (condensed) into a field or fog of free particles (ions), then into the various forms of matter that we know today. Those phase changes are merely new forms of the same underlying Potential for creation of novelty.

So, I propose that the metaphysical phenomenon we call "Life" was also a phase transition from complex interactions of energy & matter. Once that cosmic novelty was established in one insignificant corner of the universe, it eventually transformed again into what we call "Mind" or "Consciousness". Hence, Mind is merely an emergent form of Energy. It's what eventually came to be known as "Information" (mind stuff), in the form of metaphysical concepts (ideas) generated by physical brains. In this process of successive phase changes, no new "stuff" was added, such as a Soul, because the Potential for Mind was already included in the Program we call The Singularity. If any of that makes sense, I can get much deeper into the hypothesis. :nerd:

Five (or 8) phases of Matter : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_matter

The EnFormAction Hypothesis : http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html
Note : click note 2. Emergent Phases

Emergence of Mind : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page70.html

EnFormAction : http://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page29.html

I'll try again. I get that you folks feel that materialism does not - and will never - offer an explanation of consciousness. But beyond that I'm not getting what your positions actually are - and please don't say it's obvious - or toss out words like "feeling" and "experience".

I am not rejecting your ideas out of hand. I am not criticizing you personally or attacking you for not being able to express your ideas clearly. These are difficult topics. What I am asking for is some reference. Is there some philosopher and/or some philosophical school of thought out there who you agree with?

Just for example, here is someone who talks about how Idealism explains consciousness. In this discussion he makes it clear that he does not agree with the Idealists but he gives a clear explanation of their thinking.

https://thepsychedelicscientist.com/2017/02/13/solving-the-hard-problem-with-idealism/

Please read this - it's a quick read - and get back. Does the author give a good explanation of your thoughts? if not, can you supply a link that gives a reasonably accurate summary of your position?

↪bert1 ↪Eugen
I'll try again. I get that you folks feel that materialism does not - and will never - offer an explanation of consciousness. But beyond that I'm not getting what your positions actually are - and please don't say it's obvious - or toss out words like "feeling" and "experience". — EricH

I won't do that! The thing Eugen and I are talking about as so obvious (albeit apparently only to us and some other people) is not a theory but the thing that the theories are about. The easy bit should be identifying and agreeing on the phenomenon to be explained (e.g. What actually is a Star?) and the hard bit should be explaining it (Maybe it's a hole in the firmament? Maybe it's the soul of a dead person? Maybe it's a lamp? Maybe it's a ball of burning gas?). Unfortunately with consciousness, isolating exactly what it is we are talking about is also the difficult part, as there is nothing external and public to point at.

I am not rejecting your ideas out of hand. I am not criticizing you personally or attacking you for not being able to express your ideas clearly. These are difficult topics. What I am asking for is some reference. Is there some philosopher and/or some philosophical school of thought out there who you agree with?

I'm a panpsyschist, but I'm an unusual kind of panpsychist. I think most modern panpsychists are micropsychists, that is to say, they don't think, say, that half a sausage with a stick through it has a single consciousness. They think that sub-atomic particles, or perhaps atoms, are conscious. Then maybe some organic chemistry. Then maybe a cell, or something. They have a difficulty in specifying exactly what the conscious units are supposed to be.

I'm a much more radical panpsychist. I think that any arbitrarily defined object whatever is a unified centre of consciousness. So take half a German sausage, three paving stones from Aberdeen and 25% of the Andromeda galaxy, that is a single conscious entity. Exactly what it is conscious of as that entity is almost nothing. I'm not completely wedded to this very odd view, in fact I'd rather like to come up with something less weird, but at the moment I think it is the most likely thing to be true. I need to think more about ways to define conscious objects, and an adaptation of the Integrated Information Theory might be a good way to do that.

Regarding references, a recent panpsychist philosopher who is worth having a look at is Philip Goff. I think my views might be quite close to his. I can't remember if he is a micropsychist or not.

Just for example, here is someone who talks about how Idealism explains consciousness. In this discussion he makes it clear that he does not agree with the Idealists but he gives a clear explanation of their thinking.

I used to be a subjective idealist following Berkeley. I may still be an idealist, but for somewhat different reasons. I certainly think that mind is fundamental. But I also think that spatiality may also be fundamental as well, along with will (the ability to self-move). Not sure exactly. I think substance might have more than one fundamental property which are mutually irreducible to one another, and jointly sufficient for all the phenomena that occur.

https://thepsychedelicscientist.com/2017/02/13/solving-the-hard-problem-with-idealism/

Please read this - it's a quick read - and get back. Does the author give a good explanation of your thoughts? if not, can you supply a link that gives a reasonably accurate summary of your position?

I'm not sure he actually gives his own view. Maybe I missed it. I might be an idealist, but it's more informative to say I'm a panpsychist.

I might be an idealist, but it's more informative to say I'm a panpsychist. — bert1

My worldview is also related to ancient Idealism and Panpsychism, but I try to express those valid concepts in more modern terminology. That's because they retain a lot of historical baggage, which doesn't hold-up in light of modern science. Here's a note from my blog.

Panpsychism :
In popular usage, this term is taken to mean that even stones and atoms are conscious in the same sense that humans are. But that’s nonsense. In my theory it only means that the potential for emergent consciousness is included in the energy & information that constitutes those elementary Objects. The elementary mind-stuff eventually adds-up to self-consciousness in holistic Selves.
https://qz.com/1184574/the-idea-that-everything-from-spoons-to-stones-are-conscious-is-gaining-academic-credibility/

In popular usage, this term is taken to mean that even stones and atoms are conscious in the same sense that humans are. But that’s nonsense. In my theory it only means that the potential for emergent consciousness is included in the energy & information that constitutes those elementary Objects. — Gnomon

I part company with you there Gnomon. I think everything is conscious in exactly the same way, according one sense of the word.

Thank you for the thoughtful & polite response. I looked up Philip Goff & I think I have a bit of a handle now on what you're saying. So first I will respond to your comments - and then I will attempt to give my own somewhat incoherent thoughts on the topic.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
Panpsychism in all of it's variants seems like a religion to me. Compared to most religions it seems relatively harmless - I can't see anyone going to war over it and/or threatening to kill people if they do not convert. And I can see how it might be an appealing option. But unless there is a way to test/verify these hypotheses it remains a religion of sorts. But if there were any way to verify these hypotheses - then at that point it would cease being a religion and would become - for want of a better term - scientific.

I can anticipate that your objection to this is that science is locked into a materialistic paradigm and thus is incapable of performing any such inquiries. If this is the case, then it is up to you and your fellow panpsychists to lead them in a new direction. How should we proceed to investigate these hypotheses? How should one attempt to verify that a rock has some form of consciousness?

- - - - - - - - - - - - -
So what do I think about all this?

To the best of our current knowledge, the universe is composed of atoms, sub-atomic particles, forces, etc, etc. And yet somehow, atoms can organize in such a way as to become self aware.

Hey! Look at me! I'm made of atoms!

This is truly an extraordinary thing and the more you think about it the more mind boggling it gets. How can one account for this?

My short answer? Beats the heck outta me. . . :smile:

My longer answer . . .

Humankind has been around in it's current form for, say, 40 thousand years or so. It is only in the last 400 years that we have started to understand how the universe behaves. Our knowledge base is expanding every year - we are finding new facts about reality and our abilities to explore/measure are also increasing. We likely know as much about existence as an ant crossing a football field understands about the rules of the game. Maybe a bit more. If history is any guide, it is likely that much of what we know about the universe will prove to be only partly correct under certain conditions.

If we (mankind that is) can succeed in not destroying civilization, then perhaps 100s or 1000s or millions of years from now we will get to the bottom of things (that's a metaphor of course).

As such, we must be humble and acknowledge our limitations. We are all frail fallible human beings out here.

One possibility is that the existence of conscious beings is a manifestation of some underlying principal in nature - I believe the most common way of expressing this is "emergent property". Perhaps consciousness is somehow related to Godel's Incompleteness Theorem? It strikes me a fascinating that no computer program can detect an infinite loop in another computer program yet human beings can spot them.

Alternatively, Noam Chomsky has stated that - while there is a materialistic explanation for consciousness - we human beings will never uncover it because we cannot introspect ourselves.

Perhaps in the future science will come up with a machine that can truly transfer thoughts/feelings from one person to another. I can't rule it out.

Vulcan mind meld anyone? :chin:

I part company with you there Gnomon. I think everything is conscious in exactly the same way, according one sense of the word. — bert1

That is what I call the "New Age" notion of Consciousness, which it seems to equate with Spiritualism and with magical powers (e.g healing). It's essentially a religious belief system with myths about the spiritual powers of stones, that would formerly be attributed to conscious agents (shaman) in ancient religions. They sometimes adopt technical sounding terminology, like "energy", to make their myths sound scientific. I have a pretty crystal on a shelf, but I don't try to communicate with it.

My own unconventional worldview is intended to stay closer to a pragmatic scientific understanding. Which is why I prefer to use the more technical term "Information" (power to enform, to give meaning) instead of emotion-laden "consciousness" (power to know, awareness). I sometimes concede that stones --- metaphorically, not literally --- "know" their environment by exchanging energy, but that's a far cry from the kind of knowledge that humans gain by exchanging Information. So, I have to spend a lot of time trying to differentiate my own notion of Panpyschism --- which I call Enformationism --- from the New Age notion of Universal Consciousness. It's a philosophical, not religious, attitude toward the world we know & love. :nerd:


Alternative Theory of Reality : http://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page9.html

Universal Mind : http://www.bothandblog.enformationism.info/page12.html

Panspiritualism : http://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page32.html

That is what I call the "New Age" notion of Consciousness — Gnomon

I call it the 'dictionary' notion of consciousness.

I can anticipate that your objection to this is that science is locked into a materialistic paradigm and thus is incapable of performing any such inquiries. If this is the case, then it is up to you and your fellow panpsychists to lead them in a new direction. — EricH

That is exactly the point of my Enformationism thesis and the BothAnd philosophy. Panpsychism probably evolved from the ancient "superstition" of Animism. The shamen & sages, who tried to explain mysterious signs of Causation in the material world, used their own personal experience of Intentional Action (agency) as a metaphor for whatever was causing inanimate things to move and change (spirits, gods).

Eventually, in the 19th century, scientists coined the impersonal term "Energy" (work; capacity for activity) to explain such abstract physical causation. Now though, in the 21st century, we have become familiar with a new usage of traditional "Information" (mind contents) to describe the even more abstract concept of Shannon Data in terms of pure mathematics. Yet, few us us are aware that Quantum Theory has applied the same word to describe natural forms of Energy, as in E = MC^2 (see below).

So, I have merely taken the term for "Mind Stuff" and "Causal Force" literally, to say that Matter, Energy & MInd are all forms of basic Information. It's that fundamental stuff (ultimately : Mathematics, Numbers or Logic) that I propose as a modern version of Panpsychism (all mind) : Enformationism means All Information. The original Singularity is envisioned as pure mathematics (algorithm, program), which evolved into generic Energy, then into Matter, and finally into Life & Mind. In which case, atoms & rocks exchange energy (numerical values; ratios), but not ideas (personal values; reasons). Consciousness is a late emergence on the cosmic scene in the form of animals with agency, and humans with moral agency. This proposed paradigm combines ancient mental models of Physics (Materialism) and Metaphysics (Spiritualism) into a comprehensive 21st century worldview. :smile:

Animism :
1. the attribution of a soul to plants, inanimate objects, and natural phenomena.
2. the belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe.

Energy - Information Equivalence : https://aip.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/1.5123794

Information = Energy : https://physicsworld.com/a/information-converted-to-energy/

What Are Numbers? : https://science.howstuffworks.com/math-concepts/math1.htm

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".
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

Consciousness :
Literally : to know with. To be aware of the world subjectively (self-knowledge) and objectively (other knowing). Humans know Quanta via physical senses & analysis, and Qualia via meta-physical reasoning & synthesis. In the Enformationism thesis, Consciousness is viewed as an emergent form of basic mathematical Information.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page12.html

I call it the 'dictionary' notion of consciousness. — bert1

Conscious Crystals : It's the dictionary definition of human consciousness that is metaphorically attributed to non-human and inanimate objects. We seem to enjoy our metaphors, without regard for facts, such as cartoons with talking animals. Sponge Bob is obviously conscious and sentient.

I think the ancient metaphors of Animism were good guesses in pre-scientific times, but we now have a better understanding of how the world works, and how unique Consciousness is to living things, and Self-consciousness to reasoning things. :cool:

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

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

If we (mankind that is) can succeed in not destroying civilization, then perhaps 100s or 1000s or millions of years from now we will get to the bottom of things (that's a metaphor of course). — EricH

I've seen this way of thinking in many materialists like Sean Caroll, but what they don't want to admit it's that this is not a matter of gathering more information, it is a matter of principle, and in this regards, materialism has already set its final statements:
1. either consciousness do not exist
2. or physical manifestations = pain, happiness, love, etc. and absolutely nothing else.
The problem with this is that while materialists see this as a final victory, the rest of the world perceives it as a limitation of the materialistic view.
Materialism has another huge issue: it cannot explain their super-argument of emergence - they want consciousness to be made of things that have no conscious properties, but somehow, like magic, they add up and form consciousness. They try to build first person experience with things experienced within our first person experience.

Panpsychism in all of it's variants seems like a religion to me. — EricH

Well, this is exactly the problem of materialism - anything that leaves a small open door for spirituality is automatically invalidated. Materialism is not science, it is an idelogy meant to refute absolutely anything that could somehow give a chance to spirituality.
Panpsychism has nothing to do with religion, it is more like a view of reality that makes more sense than purposeless unconscious atoms forming a purpose-driven conscious being. As Chalmers put it, ''emergence'' is like a magic word for things that we really don't understand. Indeed, panpsychism has to move fast and come up with more well-defined theories, theorems, experiments, and some proofs. I personally see panpsychism being in its infancy and very different from what it will be in 30 years from now.

I think the ancient metaphors of Animism were good guesses in pre-scientific times, but we now have a better understanding of how the world works, and how unique Consciousness is to living things, and Self-consciousness to reasoning things. — Gnomon

Cool! I'm clearly out of date. What are the latest findings on which things are conscious?

panpsychism has to move fast and come up with more well-defined theories, theorems, experiments, and some proofs. I personally see panpsychism being in its infancy and very different from what it will be in 30 years from now. — Eugen

I think it highly unlikely, but if the panpsychists can come up with some experiments & proof? That would be very cool.

But once you have theorems, experiments, and reproducible proof - then you are following the scientific method.

I think it highly unlikely, but if the panpsychists can come up with some experiments & proof? That would be very cool.

But once you have theorems, experiments, and reproducible proof - then you are following the scientific method. — EricH

Yes, for now panpsychism is, in my opinion, just a proposal to people to analyze things from another perspective, it is more like an alternative appeared in a time when for an increasing number of people materialism seems to have reached its limits.

Cool! I'm clearly out of date. What are the latest findings on which things are conscious? — bert1

Descartes expressed his opinion that only humans are conscious, while animals only appeared to be sentient. But modern science has discovered signs of consciousness in almost all animate (self-moving) organisms. Unfortunately, we still have no way to detect consciousness directly, so we rely on inference from behavior. Even primitive bacteria seem to interact with their environment as-if they are sentient beings. But, since inanimate objects have no observable self-propelled behavior, they are presumed to be non-conscious. Therefore, it appears that Life is a necessary precursor to Mind.

I don't know why some Panpsychists believe that crystals are conscious. I suspect their beliefs are based on the common ancient notion of universal "Psychic Energy", such as Western Spirit, Chinese Chi (Qi), and Hindu Prana. Those are pre-scientific hypotheses to explain the mysteries of Life & Mind & Animation & Causation. Ironically, some modern proponents of "Vital Energy" claim that Chi is a form of electromagnetic energy, but sadly it is not detectable with EM instruments --- even though ghost hunters claim to find spurious signals on their EM devices.

Consequently, my Enformationism thesis assumes that Sentience is not a fixed property of the universe, but instead an emergent evolutionary process. My guess is that It began as something like a mathematical algorithm (information) in the pre-big-bang Singularity, and has gradually complexified over the eons into Energy, Matter, Life & MInd. If so, then we can assume that Self-Consciousness, as found in humans, is the current pinnacle of Evolution. Who knows what comes next --- artificial consciousness? Of course, this is a philosophical hypothesis, not a proven scientific theory. :nerd:

Animal Consciousness : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_consciousness

Bacteria Consciousness : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29254105/

Psychic (Vital) Energy : Qi is a pseudoscientific, unverified concept, which has never been directly observed, and is unrelated to the concept of energy used in science (vital energy itself being an abandoned scientific notion).

Chi : https://universalenergyarts.com/chi/

But modern science has discovered signs of consciousness in almost all animate (self-moving) organisms. — Gnomon

I'm intrigued. What are the "signs" that "modern science" has discovered with regard to consciousness in non-human organisms?

I should make it clear that I don't doubt that non-human organisms are capable of consciousness, I just wasn't aware that there were any scientific criteria by which consciousness could be detected in any organism.

I'm intrigued. What are the "signs" that "modern science" has discovered with regard to consciousness in non-human organisms? — ChrisH

As I said before, in physical Science, the "signs" of consciousness are limited to overt behavior, which must be interpreted by analogy to the activities of conscious humans. For example, in mice, intentional behavior must be discriminated from automatic or reflexive actions. But some minimal level of consciousness has been assumed in vegetative or comatose humans, even when they are unable to make voluntary movements.

So, in recent years, neurologists have been using a variety of brain scans looking for indications of consciousness in the electrical activity of the brain. That still requires a lot of guessing and interpretation. So they are using artificial intelligence to spot consistent patterns that signify subliminal awareness. That is a big step toward detecting Consciously directly. But in my thesis, Mind is a highly-evolved intentional form of physical Energy (EnFormAction), which we still can only detect by its effects on physical objects. EnFormAction is the power to Inform, to Transform, to cause Change in both Matter and Minds. :nerd:


Signs of Consciousness : https://www.scientificamerican.com/gallery/searching-for-signs-of-consciousness/

Coma Consciousness : https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/new-test-can-detect-hidden-consciousness-in-coma-patients

Energy :
Scientists define “energy” as the ability to do work, but don't know what energy is. They assume it's an eternal causative force that existed prior to the Big Bang, along with mathematical laws. Energy is a positive or negative relationship between things, and physical Laws are limitations on the push & pull of those forces. So, all they know is what Energy does, which is to transform material objects in various ways. Energy itself is amorphous & immaterial. So if you reduce energy to its essence of information, it seems more akin to mind than matter.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Thanks for that.

If I understand correctly, the 'consciousness' you're talking about (assumptions based on neural activity) is not the same as the philosophical sense of consciousness (as in the 'hard problem' and p-zombies).

Descartes expressed his opinion that only humans are conscious, while animals only appeared to be sentient. But modern science has discovered signs of consciousness in almost all animate (self-moving) organisms. Unfortunately, we still have no way to detect consciousness directly, so we rely on inference from behavior. Even primitive bacteria seem to interact with their environment as-if they are sentient beings. But, since inanimate objects have no observable self-propelled behavior, they are presumed to be non-conscious. Therefore, it appears that Life is a necessary precursor to Mind. — Gnomon

Thanks, that's good. Inference from behaviour is an interesting way to resist panpsychism and has some force. This line of thought leads to possible issues of overdetermination. A narrow examination of this argument by analogy with humans would be worth a thread of its own I think.

I don't know why some Panpsychists believe that crystals are conscious. — Gnomon

Indeed, that appears to be the case.

Consequently, my Enformationism thesis assumes that Sentience is not a fixed property of the universe, but instead an emergent evolutionary process. My guess is that It began as something like a mathematical algorithm (information) in the pre-big-bang Singularity, and has gradually complexified over the eons into Energy, Matter, Life & MInd. If so, then we can assume that Self-Consciousness, as found in humans, is the current pinnacle of Evolution. Who knows what comes next --- artificial consciousness? Of course, this is a philosophical hypothesis, not a proven scientific theory. :nerd: — Gnomon

I'd need more information to understand this properly. Do you think consciousness is identical with a certain kind of information processing?

If I understand correctly, the 'consciousness' you're talking about (assumptions based on neural activity) is not the same as the philosophical sense of consciousness (as in the 'hard problem' and p-zombies). — ChrisH

Yes. The links I referred to are talking about scientifically observable signs of consciousness. Philosophical Consciousness is not observable via the senses, but hypothetical via reasoning. The basic concept of Consciousness is simply awareness of the environment : Sentience. But theologians & philosophers have posited a variety of shades of mental activity --- sensation, thought, feelings, inner-source-of-truth, conscience, etc --- with Self-consciousness at the top of the hierarchy. But, at this moment, no one is certain of what makes the difference between Conscious and Non-conscious beings. My own theory is that Consciousness is an emergent property of energized matter (living organisms), and that abstract Information is common to all phases of sensing & knowing. :smile:


Consciousness : The problem of consciousness is arguably the central issue in current theorizing about the mind. Despite the lack of any agreed upon theory of consciousness, there is a widespread, if less than universal, consensus that an adequate account of mind requires a clear understanding of it and its place in nature. We need to understand both what consciousness is and how it relates to other, nonconscious, aspects of reality.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness/

Sentience : the capacity to feel, perceive or experience subjectively. Eighteenth-century philosophers used the concept to distinguish the ability to think (reason) from the ability to feel.
https://speakingofresearch.com/2019/08/26/what-is-sentience/

I'd need more information to understand this properly. Do you think consciousness is identical with a certain kind of information processing? — bert1

Yes & no. It's not that simple. In order to understand my theory of Consciousness, you'd need to start with a fundamental "fact" discovered by Quantum theorists : that matter, energy, & mind are all emergent forms of mathematical Information. That's my summation of the concept, but few scientists have made that connection. Paul Davies, physicist & cosmologist, is one of those few, who conceive a new paradigm of Science based on expanded Information theory. As for my personal worldview, it is expressed as a non-academic thesis in my website : Enformationism. As a new paradigm, though, it will puzzle or offend both Materialists and Spiritualists. :joke:

Paul Davies : What is Information? "the primary stuff, out of which the physical world is built".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7EjwUp5krY

What is physical Information? : "photons & Information are the same thing"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=or8Rktj_HA4

Enformationism : http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/page2%20Welcome.html