But consciousness - on his view - is quite different. We're not talking about more of the same. And thus it cannot emerge. It must therefore be present all the way down. I don't see that you've said anything to block this. — Bartricks

No. His point is that consciousness is not a different sort of emergence than liquidity. That's why he denies radical emergence.

Liquidity emerges naturally based on the properties of the particles that make it up.

The only point I want to stress is that experience (consciousness) all the way down can be misleading, because it would suggest that particles or tables are conscious somewhat analogous to the way people are conscious. He doesn't say this at all.

He'd say that experience is an "ultimate" one of several features that are found at the base of physical stuff. Just like liquidity is an ultimate too.

But as found at the base of physical stuff, it isn't configured in a manner that has consciousness as a person would. But being that it is one of the properties of physical stuff, when it is configured in things like brains you do get experience like ours. So experience emerges naturally for him.

I have to repeat that this is not my view. I don't think panpsychism is correct.

Having said all this and explained (or failed to explain) his views as best I could, feel free to attack the view as much as you wish. I don't want to block anything, I just tried to state his views.

EDIT: I forgot to add, this version of his panpsychism comes from his two most cited works I believe, Realistic Monism and Consciousness and Its Place in Nature.

He goes on to expand and elaborate his views, later on, in a manner I can't defend, because I don't understand it and because what I read seems way off the mark to me. So I'm only presenting what I think I understand. Just so you know.

You phrase it is as if I were saying bears and apples could not interact. I am saying that the material and immaterial; better, the physical and non physical, can not interact. This is a simple tautology: if the nonphysical interacted with the physical, then it would be a part of the physical description of the universe, and so be physical. — hypericin

Let's just be clear. Your 'evidence' that the mind is material was initially that doing things to the brain has affects on the mind.

That is a very poor argument. Doing things to A affects B does not imply that B 'is' A. If I pour some water into a plastic beaker, the water will become beaker-shaped. If I distort the shape of the beaker, the water will similarly change shape. Clearly it would be silly to conclude that therefore the water is the beaker.

Yet that is literally how people reason when it comes to the mind and the brain.

You have now claimed that material objects cannot interact with immaterial ones. That is absolutely not - not - a tautology.

It is false. Manifestly. My mind - which remember, you've provided not one dot of evidence is material and gives every impression of being immaterial - interacts with my brain. So, my mind - something immaterial - interacts with something (supposedly) material.

But even if two radically dissimilar kinds of thing cannot causally interact - a claim for which there is no non-question begging evidence - that would not imply that my mind is material, but rather that all material things are in fact mental.

The only point I want to stress is that experience (consciousness) all the way down can be misleading, because it would suggest that particles or tables are conscious somewhat analogous to the way people are conscious. He doesn't say this at all. — Manuel

I'm not disputing that he doesn't say this, I am saying that it is the upshot of his position!

Again, return to shape - there's shape and then there are shapes. Different shapes can emerge from the combination of objects that are not that shape. But we're still talking shape here, so there's no radical emergence going on, right?

So, if he wants to say that consciousness 'emerges' in this way, then he'd have to say...well, what?

There's consciousness (analogous to 'shape') and then there are particular conscious states (analogous to particular shapes). So, if he was saying that molecules and what-not have particular conscious states, and that particular combinations of them can give rise to a different conscious state, then I'd agree that what we have here is emergence of the same sort as we had with liquidity. But now, of course, we really do have molecules having conscious states.

If, on the other hand, he's saying that molecules do not have conscious states but they can build things that do, then we have radical emergence. If, for example, a large enough collection of numbers became liquid, that would be radical emergence for numbers are not in the 'having a texture' game at all.

So again, I am not disputing that Strawson would deny my conclusions - I am sure he would - I am simply pointing out that there seems to be a genuine dilemma here. One can't have one's cake and eat it (or eat one's cake and have it, as the original saying was). Consciousness is either so radically different to all else that it must go all the way down - in which case we have a robust panpsychism worthy of the name, but also a conclusion so absurd it warrants rejecting the materialism that led to it - or we have consciousness not being so radically different to other states that a thing can be in, in which case we have no reason to be panpsychists in any meaningful sense of the word.

One of Strawson's main papers on panypsychism can be found here

Ah ok. Then yes. I agree with that and I do think it is problem.

He'd probably say that radical emergence can't happen because every aspect of nature would be a miracle, there'd be no reason, law, habit or anything for why things occur.

I accept the force of this intuition. I do think that everything is conscious, and I do not think that the concept of consciousness admits of degree. Shape might be another good example of a property that does not admit of degree, I'm not sure. — bert1

Yes, there can be complex conscious states that can be broken down into their more basic component states, but one can't have half a conscious state. Even those conscious states that do admit of degrees - such as desires - can't be halved. One can desire things more or less, and desire something half as much as someone else, but one can't have half a desire.

This is one of the reasons I am an immaterialist, for if the sensible world is made of exactly what it appears to be made of - namely sensations, and thus mental states - we would not get the problem of infinite divisibility.

That is a very poor argument. Doing things to A affects B does not imply that B 'is' A — Bartricks

Not "A affects B". Rather, changes to A result in changes to B. When this relationship is observed, it provides evidence that either:
* A is B
or
* B is causally connected to A — hypericin

every impression of being immaterial — Bartricks

You keep referring to these appearances and impressions as if they had evidentiary status .

You have now claimed that material objects cannot interact with immaterial ones. That is absolutely not - not - a tautology. — Bartricks

Despite your bald assertion, it is in fact a tautology. If a ghost picks up a rock and throws it, by definition this is not the nonphysical interacting with the physical. Rather, by virtue of throwing a rock, the ghost enters the physical realm, and textbooks must now somehow account for the physics of ghosts, or be incomplete.


So in your odd world view, if a meteorite, undetected by anyone, fell from the sky and hit you in the head, in whose mind did this mental meteor exist before it struck you?

You also seem to overlook a basic asymmetry: the mental world is exquisitely sensitive to the "supposedly" physical one: a little electric current, a speck of hallucinogen, a leak in a blood vessel, can have dramatic impact on internal life. But if everything were mental, then you would expect the obverse to be true: powerful acts of mentation should have at least as powerful impacts on your supposedly physical world. But mentate as you like, you cannot alter the trajectory of even a mote of dust with thought alone.

An ontological distinction - would you agree? — Wayfarer

No. You can divide things into groups on any basis whatsovever. These divisions may be more or less relevant, more or less salient, but thats a far as it can go.

Because 'appears' requires a subject, i.e. an agent to whom something appears. Nothing appears to a rock. — Wayfarer

Ergo, the rock is mental?
I don't follow your reasoning.

The issue I see with ‘vitalism’ is actually caused by the impossibility of taking the ‘elan vital’ to be an object or an objectively real existent — Wayfarer

The issue is that it is redundant. It has no explanatory relevance. Everything that can be explained about life can be explained without reference to "elan vital". The same will likely prove true of consciousness.

Bulk matter can be alternatively in a solid, liquid, gaseous or plasma state; it cannot be alternatively, and in the same sense, in a "field" state. Fields are used as mathematical models of continuously distributed physical quantities, but that probably isn't what Lange has in mind (although it can still be asked whether any or all such fields are real things). — SophistiCat

Lange mentioned the passage I quoted as the overall conclusion of his book at the beginning. That is, his whole book revolves, so to speak, around the idea that fields are a form of matter. Since I have only skimmed the book and read only single short passages, I cannot go into your objections in more detail.

I was really only concerned with the basic idea. And my thesis was how one could save materialism. Since materialism represents a monism, i.e. assumes that there is only one kind of stuff, namely matter, which makes up the whole world, I must necessarily, in order to prevent dualism, regard physical fields, provided they are ontologically real, as a form of matter.

The following paper at least argues for the materiality of waves. Thus indirectly perhaps also for the materiality of fields. For either fields are nothing but the sum of waves. Or they merely denote the local sphere of action of waves.

"While waves travelling in material media are perplexing, they are much more straightforward than electromagnetic waves such as light waves, where there does not appear to be any material medium involved. In these cases, we will argue that they are themselves material entities, which participate in their own wave processes."

"We have argued that waves are best classified as processes, and that light and other electromagnetic waves are material entities that participate (or are the agents of) their own travelling wave processes."

"Considering our treatment of electromagnetic waves, and that fields are closely related to the waves that propagate them, one way to resolve the issue would be to claim that the field is a property of the material wave, similar to the approach we have discussed for photons."

Colin Batchelor and Janna Hastings - Waves and fields in bio-ontologies
http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-897/sessionJ-paper24.pdf

If fields or waves are closely related, to avoid dualism, one must consider both made of the same stuff.

(Indeed, at an even deeper level, ordinary matter - solids, liquids, etc. - is all quantum fields.) — SophistiCat

Okay, so matter would be quantum fields in your view. I would have no problem with that. The main thing is that monism is ensured. So everything would be a form of quantum fields. Thus also electromagnetic fields, provided they are ontologically real, what I have taken for granted.

f I were making an argument that fields are real things, I would put it the other way around: fields are real things because they have real effects. — SophistiCat

I see, he is talking about relativistic length contraction. That's not an example of fields moving matter; for that you could just refer to e.g. an electric field interacting with charged particles. — SophistiCat

I agree.

I'm not sure this makes sense. The word "life" cleaves reality so that some things fall on one side, some things on another. And there are things where the cleaving is ambiguous such as viruses. But you can't say, "well in reality things are neither dead or alive".

Rather they carve the world into sets. — hypericin

I was inspired by the Shakespeare quote:

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

And Spinoza and Nietzsche say something similar.

I only applied it to the distinction living and dead. Perhaps this is not justified.

I agree with you that for the sake of convention and practicality, the distinction between living and non-living can be made without problems or with minor problems (perhaps also major problems regarding organ donation, because one does not know when a person is really dead). Only, nevertheless, the words can mislead us and make us look at the things of the world askew, so to speak.

This misunderstands words, they do not and cannot point to the true nature of things. — hypericin

Wouldn't we say that words of consciousness point directly to a core of our nature? With life words, I didn't see it as being that obvious.

You seem to have said above that what applies to consciousness does not also apply to life. Can you explain why you think that, if indeed you do? — Janus

Maybe I can explain it now.

I think I am assuming that for both the organic (life) and the inorganic (death) the principle applies that the parts are for the whole. By parts, I don't necessarily mean reductive parts, but rather sectors in a continuum or continuous whole

I see this principle as a neutral and logical entailment of things.

An example would be a drop of water that I perceive as a whole. Each small water spot or section of the drop is for the whole. With organic beings it is in principle no different, only much more intricate and complex.

The principle I mentioned would stand beyond or above the concepts alive or dead.

I forgot to add, this version of his panpsychism comes from his two most cited works I believe, Realistic Monism and Consciousness and Its Place in Nature. — Manuel

The first is Galen Strawson, the second I think is Chalmers. Chalmers wasn't a panpsychist last time I looked, but he's open to it. I thought Strawson's panpsychism did assert that micro-scale systems like an atom or whatever do have experiences. But it's a while since I read Strawson on that.

It comes down to a theory of "other minds". Experiments have shown that even some animals may have such theories. We know we are conscious and live in a private little mental world and we attribute such invisible inner worlds to other people but then where do we draw the boundary. Descartes thought that dogs are not conscious. Are fish or insects conscious? I am a panpsychist and believe that conscious entities are ubiquitous and may exist in single celled eukaryotes.

The problem is we cant directly perceive other minds and can only infer their existence., WE can take a stingy view and say that only things like me are conscious but this seems to go against the whole flow of western science which says "nothing can come from nothing". In other words a more scientific view is that conscious evolved from consciousness and didn't just emerge from nothing. The hallmark of conscious beings is that they are active self movers. Even electrons in today's physics are no longer dead pieces of rock but active agents that seem to make unpredictable quantum jumps. Other minds exist in nature - are they natural in the universe or oddities that emerged out of nothing with no effect on anything? For some speculations see: scientific animism and Panpsychism and Real Mental Causation

Between the non-living and the living there also seems to be an infinite gap. Panpsychism is a modern vitalism. — hypericin

Why should I favor "the physical world is mental, and only appears physical" over "the mental world is physical, and only appears mental"? — hypericin

This misunderstands words, they do not and cannot point to the true nature of things. Rather they carve the world into sets. — hypericin

Everything that can be explained about life can be explained without reference to "elan vital". The same will likely prove true of consciousness. — hypericin

:clap: :strong: :fire:

Matter/information is the real dualism, — hypericin

Yikes

"The wizard of Oz" is the same movie, whether it is stored on a film reel, a dvd, a magnetic tape, a hard drive, or an eidetic brain's memory: all completely different physical media. — hypericin

Only because we

carve [those (or adjacent) bits of the] world into [the same] set[...]. — hypericin

Both of these books are Strawson's. Maybe Chalmers wrote in the latter book, as it contained many responses by philosophers.

It becomes very strange later on in the last essay, he starts introducing micro-subjects of experience and speaks about the inner and the outrer aspects of experience in ultimates...not convincing.

Matter/information is the real dualism, and demonstrates how ontologically distinct entities nonetheless interact. — hypericin

I do not believe that two ontologically completely different things can causally interact with each other.
When two things causally interact, one must assume that they have something in common, however marginal that commonality may be.

If we do not make this assumption, we have also abandoned a rational conceptual explanation and are at a point where anything goes and nothing is impossible in explaining what happens.

Even Descartes had assumed to his dualism life spirits, which are apparently an intermediate of mind and body, thus containing both corporality and mentality, in order to explain the interaction between mind and body.

With the Occasionalists, God then played the mediating role.

That's why I also assumed that physical fields or waves are a form of matter.

Both of these books are Strawson's. Maybe Chalmers wrote in the latter book, as it contained many responses by philosophers. — Manuel

Oh, fair enough. They both must have written something by the same title. Chalmers wrote a (very good IMO) paper Consciousness and its Place in Nature.

Ah, did not know. Thanks for sharing.

@Bartricks

Since you are an idealist, how would you answer the following tweeted questions from panpsychist Philip Goff?

"where do distinct subjects come from? what ensures they share a common world of experience? i find these qs easier to answer on panpsychism than idealism."

Here's another reason why panpsychists are panpsychist, again using Philip Goff as an example:

"I argue that the traditional approaches of materialism (consciousness can be explained in terms of physical processes in the brain) and dualism (consciousness is separate from the body and brain) face insuperable difficulties. On the basis of this I defend a form of panpsychism, the view that consciousness is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of the physical world. It sounds a bit crazy, but I try to show that it avoids the difficulties faced by its rivals." https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/directory/staff/?mode=staff&id=17324

Panpsychists are panpsychists because the alternatives are questionable to them.

From Goff (Galileo's Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness) comes still practical reasons. In a panpsychism we are in a healthier relationship with nature and can protect her better:

"Dualism can create an unhealthy relationship with nature in at least two respects. Firstly, it creates a sense of separation. Dualism implies that, as an immaterial mind, I am a radically different kind of thing from the mechanistic world I inhabit. Ontologically speaking, I have nothing in common with a tree. There is no real kinship with nature if dualism is true. Secondly, dualism can imply that nature has no value in and of itself. If nature is wholly mechanistic, then it has value only in terms of what it can do for us, either by maintaining our survival or by creating pleasurable experiences for us when we take it in with our senses. There is a worry that dualist thought can encourage the idea that nature is to be used rather than respected as something of value in its own right."

"Panpsychism has the potential to transform our relationship with the natural world. If panpsychism is true, the rain forest is teeming with consciousness. As conscious entities, trees have value in their own right: chopping one down becomes an action of immediate moral significance. Moreover, on the panpsychist worldview, humans have a deep affinity with the natural world: we are conscious creatures embedded in a world of consciousness."

"Few people are aware of these transformations in our understanding of plant mental life, and many would still probably dismiss the ideas that trees talk as hippie nonsense. But imagine how our children’s relationship with nature could be transformed if they were taught to walk through a forest in the knowledge that they are standing amidst a vibrant community: a buzzing, busy network of mutual support and care."

I find Goff's questions perplexing/confused. You quote him asking:

"where do distinct subjects come from? what ensures they share a common world of experience? i find these qs easier to answer on panpsychism than idealism." — spirit-salamander

I am an immaterialist on the basis of the evidence. That is, I believe there are epistemic reasons to believe immaterialism about the mind - and immaterialism about everything - is true. Whether there are prudential reasons or moral reasons or aesthetic reasons to think some other view is true, is neither here nor there. For those kinds of reason are not the kind that evidence is made of. As I am sure even Goff would accept, if there are prudential, moral and aesthetic reasons to think God exists, that would not constitute evidence that God exists. Likewise, if there are good prudential or moral reasons to think materialism is true, that's not evidence it is true.

I am not a dualist. I am an immaterialist about the mind. But, following Berkeley, I think everything that exists is made of minds and their contents. Immaterialism is a monistic theory, like materialism. It should not, then, be conflated with dualism - a theory that does no more than add the problems of materialism to an otherwise problem-free immaterialism.

Anyway, he asks 'where do distinct subjects come from?' Nowhere. Everyone has to say that about something. And note, as a panpsychist he would have to say 'nowhere' to the question 'where do the consicous states of the most basic units of existence come from?' So when it comes to the basic units of existence - that from which all else is made - the question 'where do they come from?' is misapplied. They don't come from anywhere, whatever they are. THey just brutally exist.

That's what I say about my mind. It doesn't 'come from' anywhere. It just exists. And that's true of all minds. They just exist. The external world 'comes from' them, or one of them. But they themselves come from nowhere, for they are not in a location and they are not made.

Consider this argument for immaterialism:

1. If an object is material, it is infinitely divisible
2. No object is infinitely divisible
3. Therefore, no object is material
4. If no objects are material and some objects exist, then immaterialism is true
5. Some objects exist (my mind, for instance)
6. Therefore, immaterialism is true

My mind is an indivisible thing - half a mind makes no sense - and thus has no parts (for if it had parts it could be divided into them). If a thing has no parts - is indivisible - it is simple. That is, it is not made of anything more basic than itself. It has no ingredients. As such, if an object is indivisible it has not been created, for there is nothing more basic from which one could create it.

Thus our reason tells us, if we care to listen to it, that we are not created - we are uncreated simple things. Immaterial things.

Goff, then, by asking 'where to subjects come from' shows only that he does not really understand how one might arrives at immaterialism about the mind.

What about the second silly question - 'what ensures they share a common world of experience?'?

Again, he seems not fully to understand the position he's addressing. There 'is' a common world that we are experiencing - he would agree to that, of course. The question is 'what is it made of?'. If we answer that question, that will help us answer his. Well, it is made of mental states. For I am aware of the world via my sensible experiences. But what do I experience? I experience sights, sounds, smells, tastes, textures. These are sensations. Thus the world of common experience - the world we each seem independently to be aware of via our own sensible experiences - is made of sensations. Not mine or yours, of course. My sensible experiences give me an awareness of a world, but do not constitute it. He would accept this too, of course, for otherwise what's he asking about? We all seem to be aware of a single, unified world - that is, our individual sensible experiences give us each a partial awareness of a single world of sensations. Thus that common world is not existent in our own minds, but is external to them.

Sensations can only exist in a mind. As the world of common experience is made of sensations - sensations external to my mind and yours - the world of common experience is made of the sensations of a single external mind.

So what ensures our minds share a common experience of that sensible world: well, what else but the mind whose sensations the world is made of?

Despite your bald assertion, it is in fact a tautology. If a ghost picks up a rock and throws it, by definition this is not the nonphysical interacting with the physical. Rather, by virtue of throwing a rock, the ghost enters the physical realm, and textbooks must now somehow account for the physics of ghosts, or be incomplete. — hypericin

No, you're just confused. The claim that material entities can only causally interact with other material entities is a substantial (and false) claim.

Why are you so sure you're right, incidentally, when you're clearly not very good at reasoning? I mean, you really did give the woefully poor 'brain affects mind, therefore mind is brain' argument. And that really is a terrible argument. Yet you thought it was good - a zinger, yes?

It is a non-sequitur and needs supplementing with the causal principle to be valid - something I told you.

We're now discussing that causal principle. But it's just odd to me that you should continue to be so confident that you're right and I'm wrong, given that so far you've had a monopoly on being the latter.

Anyway, although this is no doubt utterly pointless as you're so convinced I'm wrong and you're right, 'causation' is a relation between things. So, if A causes B, then A and B are not the causation; causation is the relation that obtains between them.

The claim, then, that if A causes B, A and B must be things of the same kind is the claim that causal relations can only obtain between objects of the same kind.

That's a substantial claim - not a tautology - and it is prima facie false. If we have good evidence that there is a material world, then we experience its apparent falsity all the time - for my mind, which appears not to be material - seems to be interacting with a material world. That's good prima facie evidence .

Also, take another relation - liking. Liking is a relation between things. I like tea. I like the number 8. In both cases we have a liking relation - but one is between me and tea, and one is betweem me and a number. Tea is nothing remotely like the number 8, yet that does not stop me standing in a liking relation to both. It would be odd - perverse - to insist that liking relations can only exist between the same kinds of thing, such that persons can only like other persons and nothing else. Why on earth think such a perverse principle true? Well, the same applies to the causal principle. It's perverse - it is not self-evident to reason - and experience teaches us that it is positively false. Like the materialism that it is wheeled in to support, it has nothing to be said for it and plenty against. No wonder so many materialists appeal to it!

Using my own words against me? Rude!
Re: the Wizard of Oz, I'm not so sure the naming of it is just semantic (I'm also very sure I don't believe everything I say). In the case of lossless media, you can show, with mathematical rigor, that the information content of the movie on dvd, and on hard disc, is identical, bit by bit, in spite of the total dissimilarity of the physical medium. In a sense, the information is not just the same, but it is the same informational "thing" residing in two places simultaneously.

This is in contrast to physical objects, where this assertion of identity simply cannot happen. At best you can say that two things are very similar. And as is familiar, the more you increase the accuracy of this evaluation, the more you disturb the object itself.

This is one aspect of what seems to be a deep divide, which leads me to my own verbal cleavage of the world into matter and information. I assert that mind is far more information-like than matter-like, and so falls on the information side of this split. In order to reconcile mind and brain, one must first reconcile information and matter.

Perhaps matter has a mental aspect that enables it to tune on information. Bohm's interpretation of quantum physics saw the guiding wave as information that helps particles adjust their movements as part of a whole..and this seems quite mental. As mental beings we are also guided by information. The information of being an American, a Human, a Man, our own selves with their own personality over time is information and seems to guide us.

But information is just one aspect of mentality which happens over time. The other aspect is in the present for every conscious being right now has a unique location and private subjective perspective on the sights and sounds of the world from that place.

Using my own words against me? — hypericin

The wise ones.

the information content of the movie on dvd, and on hard disc, is identical, bit by bit, in spite of the total dissimilarity of the physical medium. — hypericin

Only in the same way that a page of text is identical from one print or manuscript to the next. With or without a coding and subsequent decoding in between.

In a sense, the information is not just the same, but it is the same informational "thing" residing in two places simultaneously. — hypericin

Why the woo? Why not, here are two different things both classified as "apple"; here are two things both classified as "Wizard of Oz file"?

This is in contrast to physical objects, — hypericin

How?

where this assertion of identity simply cannot happen. At best you can say that two things are very similar. — hypericin

But you just pointed out that digital identity of symbols isn't affected by their physical diversity, so...

Incidentally, let's distinguish between The Wizard of Oz the set of its plays or screenings (sound-and-light-events) from The Wizard of Oz the set of its recordings on reel or disk etc. The first set is defined by the second: whether what you saw was actually the film depends on whether it was produced from one of the set of authentic reels or files. But only members of the first set are subjected to aesthetic comparisons, with each other and with other films, etc.

Also, none of the first set are "residing in" any of the second.

In order to reconcile mind and brain, one must first reconcile information and matter. — hypericin

I did.

...

I was really only concerned with the basic idea. And my thesis was how one could save materialism. Since materialism represents a monism, i.e. assumes that there is only one kind of stuff, namely matter, which makes up the whole world, I must necessarily, in order to prevent dualism, regard physical fields, provided they are ontologically real, as a form of matter. — spirit-salamander

Yeah, but I feel that saying "there is only one kind of stuff, namely matter" doesn't really say much. All we have to do to "save materialism" in this sense is to extend the definition of "matter" as far as we need.

Okay, so matter would be quantum fields in your view. — spirit-salamander

Also solids and liquids and chairs and cats, etc. That is, if by "matter" you just mean what there is. There are many different ways to look at what there is, fields being just one such way.

Why the woo? Why not, here are two different things both classified as "apple"; here are two things both classified as "Wizard of Oz file"? — bongo fury

No more "woo" to say that two numbers, i.e. "13, 13", are the same number. Two different things, classified as "13"? Sounds woo to me. And consider that, in binary form, the movie is a single (beyond-cosmically large) number.

How — bongo fury

Two spatially distinct objects cannot be numerically identical, only qualitatively similar (even qualitative identity cannot be established). Two spatially distinct informational "objects" may be numerically the same object.

But you just pointed out that digital identity of symbols isn't affected by their physical diversity, so... — bongo fury

... whereas physical identity is not only completely dependent on physical diversity, but also impossible to establish anyway, and also impossible anyway (for two things to be physiclally identical, they must be coincident, in other words, the same, singular thing).

My point is that information operates under very, very different rules from matter, to support my woo claim that matter/information is the actual dualism in the universe.

Incidentally, let's distinguish between The Wizard of Oz the set of its plays or screenings (sound-and-light-events) from The Wizard of Oz the set of its recordings on reel or disk etc. — bongo fury

Such events of the first sort are where information interacts with, and drives, the physical, material world.
But consider that the light and sound is the same information as that in the reel or disc, just in another physical medium, and spread across time. This can be seen by the bootlegger who then records this and captures it back to disc, albeit with much information lost. Here you can meaningfully say that the bootleg "wizard of oz" is an object in the same category as an authentic "wizard of oz". But this is not an apt description of an authentic copy. An authentic copy of "the wizard of oz" is the very same "wizard of oz".

No more "woo" [than] to say that two numbers, i.e. "13, 13", are the same number. Two different things, classified as "13"? Sounds woo to me. — hypericin

I don't quite understand the choice of example, here. Are we talking about tokens of a numeral (or numeral string)? Or are we talking about some abstract number or concrete collection, but either way something (or some things) referred to by such a numeral? Or would that be a pedantic question? *

And consider that, in binary form, the movie is a single (beyond-cosmically large) number. — hypericin

I'm lost here. Please help.

Two spatially distinct objects cannot be numerically identical, — hypericin

Good...

only qualitatively similar (even qualitative identity cannot be established). — hypericin

Hopefully we can at least agree where we disagree, here: for me, qualitative in this context would mean non-numerical, merely. Non-numerical identity would be equivalence, and only distinct from similarity in the formal respect of being transitive. So qualitative identity of distinct physical objects is as I see it perfectly easily established, as in the example of distinct tokens of a digital signal, or of a notational text.

words [...] do not and cannot point to the true nature of things. Rather they carve the world into sets. — hypericin

Sets such as the reliably mutually exclusive ones that are distinct digital signals; or, equally well, notational texts. Ok. But now,

Two spatially distinct informational "objects" may be numerically the same object. — hypericin

... So, numerically distinct but themselves numerically identical??

my woo claim — hypericin

Sense of fun appreciated, but please clarify if/how tokens of a type (a text or signal) are numerically both distinct and identical?

Such events of the first sort [plays or screenings] are where information interacts with, and drives, the physical, material world. — hypericin

This is beginning to sound like bio-semiotics? So, likely mystical about information. And you did warn me. Oh well.

But consider that the light and sound is the same information as that in the reel or disc, just in another physical medium, and spread across time. — hypericin

But this is confusing symbol and object. So my first question (*) was pedantic after all?

An authentic copy of "the wizard of oz" is the very same "wizard of oz". — hypericin

Not numerically the same: rather, it is a link in some dependably and safely transitive chain of copying, such as the kind of copying known as "digital"; whereby the set of authentic copies is kept reliably separate from the fakes.

Yeah, but I feel that saying "there is only one kind of stuff, namely matter" doesn't really say much. All we have to do to "save materialism" in this sense is to extend the definition of "matter" as far as we need. — SophistiCat

This is true in a sense. On the other hand we now know that what we should study is matter and physical stuff, not Gods or angels.

I think it's kind of astonishing that at bottom, there is only one kind of stuff, such that everything is physical. Maybe trivial sure, but also insane, given the world looks so pluralistic.

In any case materialism doesn't need to "saved" any more that "empiricism" or most other "isms". It all depends on what we mean when we say these words.

I see no need to contrast materialism with panpsychism. Both do not work. Both assume that matter somehow becomes conscious, or 'has' consciousness.

Materialism cannot be saved because it's logically absurd, while panpsychism and 'many worlds' theory seem to be attemtps to rescue it.

It's odd to see no discussion here of of the Perennial philosophy, for which matter is in consciousness.and consciousness simply is reality. Meister Eckhart describes matter as 'literally nothing', and this would be my view. Materialism looks like a pre-analytical folk-superstition. It cannot survive analysis so is unsaveable. Good riddance. No point in having a theory that explains exactly nothing. . . .




. .

I don't quite understand the choice of example. — bongo fury

Just consider the numbers "13, 13" as they appear on your screen. Are they two different numbers, both classifed as "13"? Or the same number?

I'm lost here. Please help. — bongo fury

You are probably aware that digital data is stored as 1s and 0s. These are interpreted as base-2 numbers, which are just like the familiar base-10, except at every digit only 2 values are possible, instead of 10 So, every file on your computer can be interpreted as an enormous number. In the case of a movie, if it is well compressed and HD the file size might be ~4GB. This is 2^32 base-
2 digits, corresponding to a single base-10 number of around 1.2 billion digits!

So qualitative identity of distinct physical objects is as I see it perfectly easily established, as in the example of distinct tokens of a digital signal, or of a notational text — bongo fury

But look at the examples you chose. These might be informationally identical. But physically? Is the signal comprised of the same number of elections, with the same energies and relative positions? Is the ink on the page perfectly identical, forming the same shape down to the molecular level? True qualitative identity of distinct physical objects is both statistically impossible and impossible to verify, due to the uncertainty principle. This is opposed to informational objects, where qualitative identity is trivial. Moreover I claim that with information qualitative identity *is* numeric identity. As in the example of "13, 13". Hence the woo assertion that two copies of "The Wizard of Oz" are qualitatively and numerically
the same information expressed in two qualitatively and numerically distinct physical media .

mystical about information — bongo fury

Not mystical at all (although to a true reductionist, everything must look like mysticism). I'm just taking information seriously, as something with its own nature and laws, and as something distinct from matter. Whether information is something fundamental in the universe, or emergent from (and so reducable to) matter, is up for debate. But either way there is more to be said than

Information is patterns. Facts. — bongo fury