You overlooked the part where people equate consciousness with working physical brains. If we started performing brain surgery on you, we might be able to knock out everything associated with your philosophical theory. — Nils Loc

You missed the part where I never denied the contribution of a physical substrate to the production of consciousness. Mind is the function of Brain.

My thesis is not what you think it is. It's merely a scientific update of an ancient philosophical notion. And it's based on Information & Quantum Science, not a recycling of traditional Idealism.

In the Enformationism thesis, Consciousness is just one form of Generic Information (e.g. Platonic Form) ; Energy is another form ; Brain is another form ; and Consciousness is merely a recent innovation after 14 billion years of evolutionary computation. Those statements won't make sense to you until you can get past your subconscious preconceptions :smile:

So, all I can say at this point is that there are people a lot smarter than me who do not find the Mind : Energy notion ridiculous. — Gnomon
I'm still lost as to why you don't think it's a false dichotomy. It is parsimonious/orthodox to conclude minds need physical materials to emerge in the universe and to do work. Where any work could possibly occur, you can apply the concept of energy. — Nils Loc

As I noted above, your "dichotomy" is not a part of the Enformationism thesis ; apparently it is a part of your preconception of the Mind/Body duality*1. My thesis is ultimately a Substance Monism -- a la Spinoza*2 -- postulating a single universal Substance/Essence -- a la Plato*3. :nerd:

PS___Note the colon (:) between Mind & Energy above. As a logic symbol it indicates an inter-relationship, not an either/or dichotomy, as would be implied by a slash symbol (/). Another name for my philosophy is "BothAnd"*4.
PPS___Thanks for the challenge though. It helps me to understand the many ways that a novel (or unfamiliar) concept can be mis-interpreted.


*1. Mind-body Dualism :
Mind and body dualism represents the metaphysical stance that mind and body are two distinct substances, each with a different essential nature.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3115289/

*2. Substance Monism :
The most distinctive aspect of Spinoza's system is his substance monism; that is, his claim that one infinite substance—God or Nature—is the only substance that exists.
https://iep.utm.edu/spinoz-m/

*3. Form Monism :
Plato's theory of Forms is a form of monism because it posits the existence of a single, unified reality that underlies all of existence. While other forms of idealism or monism may posit multiple levels or aspects of reality, Plato's theory emphasizes the essential unity of the world of Forms as the true reality.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-Platos-theory-of-Forms-Why-is-it-a-form-of-monism-rather-than-dualism-or-pluralism-like-other-forms-of-idealism-monism

*4. BothAnd Principle :
The BothAnd principle is one of Balance, Symmetry and Proportion. It eschews the absolutist positions of Idealism, in favor of the relative compromises of Pragmatism. It espouses the Practical Wisdom of the Greek philosophers, instead of the Perfect Wisdom of the Hebrew Priests. The BA principle of practical wisdom requires 'skin in the game" to provide real-world feedback, which counter-balances the extremes of Idealism & Realism.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

I would have preferred that the scientists involved would have used the word data as well, to make the difference with information clearer.
At the fundamental level, there is no demonstration of 'meaning' or 'intent' or 'determinism' imo.
I can conceive of no meaning, intent, feeling or determinism inherent in processes such as particle spin or quantum fluctuations. — universeness

No one has the decryption algorithm to the following scrambled paragraph, if there is one:

srevinesu lebaB yrtpolexse si yldwi fo dna si eht ecdirbelsac egdelbaac knwoeldge, a ti. stiltu, tsav erutan, krow eninihtarbmal, sterlet, yreve dezilogtnahna delater, hguorht trohs eht fo lla dna reve taht egroj siulL . noitcif. gnithguoht-vekorphtuo tsecip uoy'er gnirrefer eht dna ytnifni, ot eht yretlib tpecnoc smuaf dna

Our minds will try to give it context. Those are letters look like the ones used in English. Hey, I speak English. It's obviously gobble de gook. A computer might be able to compare the letter set and count to a coherent English paragraph elsewhere on the internet, maybe if it weren't derivative of ChatGPT. But how many complete paragraphs also contain the exact same set of letters and is this a problem? It looks like clues are left but maybe they are false clues. Why even assume it came from a paragraph that was transformed by some process, without someone there to tell us so.

This possibly highlights the role of the observer and the relative nature of information as processed data. How do we go about decrypting it? Maybe whatever process that scrambled it is irreversible. Information has been lost in one sense, relative to an observer, but whatever corresponds to the lower level of information/data of the physical world is conserved. The lowest level of data (bits) is fundamental, but not the representation of it.

The lowest level of data (bits) is fundamental — Nils Loc

Maybe! As the scientists in the video you posted demonstrated, they as experts in their relevant fields ,cannot reach consensus yet, on the notion that 'data' is a fundamental 'real' constituent of the universe at sub-atomic scales.
Does data exist at the Planck scale? I would suggest, probably, yes, smaller than that, and we get to black holes, does data exist inside black holes? We know hardly anything about black holes! All my brain offers me at that stage, is an off switch.

The lowest level of data (bits) is fundamental, but not the representation of it. — Nils Loc

Yes! :up:

But what is a "Bit" made of? Is the relationship between 1 & 0 a material object, or a mathematical ratio? John A. Wheeler's 1989 It from Bit hypothesis, assumed that Information was the fundamental element of the world, and matter was just one form of the essential basis of reality (Platonic Form)*1. That radical notion inspired several young physicists in the 21st century to propose mathematical models of the universe, implying that matter is merely an evolved form of essential mathematics*2. These counter-intuitive conjectures are closer to speculative Philosophy than to physical Science. They are not empirically provable, but provide snack-food for hypothetical thought.

Math itself is essentially the Logical structure of the physical universe. And where does Rational Logic find its highest expression? In dumb Matter or in intelligent Minds? The human mind has evolved the unique talent of creating imaginary representations (signs ; symbols ; models) of material things and their inter-relationships (logical structure ; gestalts). And the fundamental element of Information theory (bit) is itself a mathematical ratio : a percentage ranging from 0% to 100% (nothing to everything) : a statistical (rational) relationship, not a real particle of matter : Informationism not Materialism.

So, maybe could reword his OP : "what is it like to be a Bit?" :joke:


*1. Theory of forms :
Plato's Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and also is the essential basis of reality.
https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Theory_of_forms

*2. What is the holographic Universe theory simplified?
A holographic Universe means information that makes up what we perceive as a 3D reality is stored on a 2D surface, including time. This means, essentially, everything you see and experience is an illusion.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/our-universe-is-a-hologram
Note --- The world is probably not an illusion perpetrated by a great magician. It's just generic Information creating both Mind and Matter by means of the natural computation we call Evolution.

Units of Information :
The basic unit of information is called bit. It's a short form for binary digit. It takes only two values, 0 or 1. All other units of information are derived from the bit.
https://devopedia.org/units-of-information

Is ‘Information’ Fundamental for a Scientific Theory of Consciousness?
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-10-5777-9_21

Forget Space-Time: Information May Create the Cosmos
What are the basic building blocks of the cosmos? Atoms, particles, mass energy? Quantum mechanics, forces, fields? Space and time — space-time? Tiny strings with many dimensions?
A new candidate is "information," which some scientists claim is the foundation of reality.
https://www.space.com/29477-did-information-create-the-cosmos.html

Information as a basic property of the universe
A theory is proposed which considers information to be a basic property of the universe the way matter and energy are
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8734520/

The basis of the universe may not be energy or matter but information
One of the more radical theories suggests that information is the most basic element of the cosmos.
https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/the-basis-of-the-universe-may-not-be-energy-or-matter-but-information/

And the fundamental element of Information theory (bit) is itself a mathematical ratio : a percentage ranging from 0% to 100% (nothing to everything) — Gnomon

Oh my Gelos. Seriously, you have no idea what you are talking about, and I just got off work, so I'd appreciate it if you could take care of that yourself.

Oh my Gelos. — wonderer1

:grin: A nice attempt to move away from 'oh my god!' if that was part of your intent. Gelos still being a divine reference. A divine manifestation of laughter, according to google. Forest Valkai (on-line atheist/biologist who invites theists to call-in for a debate on theism) uses the exclamation, 'Oh my glob!' I have tried to stick to 'oh for goodness sake,' but old habits die hard.

And the fundamental element of Information theory (bit) is itself a mathematical ratio : a percentage ranging from 0% to 100% (nothing to everything) — Gnomon
Oh my Gelos. Seriously, you have no idea what you are talking about, and I just got off work, so I'd appreciate it if you could take care of that yourself. — wonderer1

I'm sorry that "you have no idea what I'm talking about". Maybe praying to Gelos will help. At least you might get a laugh out of it. :rofl:

If prayer doesn't work, maybe a little Google invocation of statistical Information probability will clarify the meaning of those little 1s & 0s : the fractional degree of certainty of a communication. :smile:


Information theory :
A key measure in information theory is entropy. Entropy quantifies the amount of uncertainty
involved in the value of a random variable or the outcome of a random process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theory

Entropy (information theory) :
In information theory, the entropy of a random variable is the average level of "information", "surprise", or "uncertainty" inherent to the variable's possible outcomes. . . .
The information content, also called the surprisal or self-information, of an event E E is a function which increases as the probability p ( E ) {\displaystyle p(E)} of an event decreases. When p ( E ) {\displaystyle p(E)} is close to 1, the surprisal of the event is low, but if p ( E ) {\displaystyle p(E)} is close to 0, the surprisal of the event is high. This relationship is described by the function

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entropy_(information_theory)

Experimental Uncertainty :
Percent uncertainty is fractional uncertainty expressed as a percent, i.e. fractional uncertainty multiplied by 100.
https://www.bates.edu/physics-astronomy/files/2011/12/Experimental-Uncertainty1.pdf
Note --- If the technical definitions above are above your pay grade, a simpler analogy might help : The uncertainty of Information can be expressed as percentages ranging from Impossible (0%) to absolutely certain (100%). Or merely a probability ratio ranging from 0% (impossible) to 100% (actual).

That's a lot of yammering to say that you still haven't learned what a bit is.

@Gnomon

Assuming you really do know what you are talking about, you lack a principal of charity. Your audience doesn't have the means to understand you. If other roads of combined inquiry, such as a deep dive into information theory, statistical thermodynamics and quantum mechanics (a synthesis of knowledge about physics) get us to your understanding, we still might be able to disagree with how your present your information, or reject the implications conveyed by your 'philosophy'.

Why don't we need to study physics or information theory to understand your philosophy? If we do, you're speaking to the wrong audience. You need to sell it to a room full of physicists (aka the"shut up and calculate" terrorists).

If you could summarize the value of your perspective in a single paragraph, how would you? Sometimes one person's philosophy is another person's headache. Example: "Don't you dare tell me I don't have free will."

I suspect that any feeling is an example of what it does "feel like to be energy."

Assuming you really do know what you are talking about, you lack a principal of charity. . . . Why don't we need to study physics or information theory to understand your philosophy? — Nils Loc

Have you noticed the uncharitable ridicule that has been directed toward and Gnomon, for daring to ask questions that question the material foundations of Consciousness? Materialism/Physicalism/Realism seems to be the most common ideology on this forum. So, Benj and I may be unwelcome interlopers in a clique of back-slapping believers, who give thumbs-up for good gotchas, not for good reasoning. Usually, the animosity is vaguely concealed under a veneer of science ; for example applying the Dunning-Kruger label to those they want to portray as ignorant idiots. I think Benj and I have been as charitable as possible in view of the mean-spirited ad hominem attacks.

Actually, it's usually those who don't like the meta-physical (mental) implications of Quantum & Information theories who bring up the question of empirical evidence. And non-classical quantum physics is the source of the puzzling empirical evidence that forced the quantum pioneers to drag sentient Observers & intellectual Information into their equations. Besides, the topic of this thread implied the "strange bedfellows" of Physical Energy and Mental Feelings : "Energy does a lot of things; Heat, electricity, chemicals, light, magnetism, nuclear, potential etc." Yet his actual question was not about Physics, but Meta-Physics : "Could consciousness be a form of energy like the rest?" So, Gnomon brought in some philosophical "evidence" --- including Information Theory --- pointing to the equation of Consciousness with Energy.

Please note that it was the uncharitable posters who insisted on physical evidence and "physical brains" as irreducible necessity for Consciousness. And who ridiculed the relevance of abstract statistical math to Information Bits. Ridicule is facile*2 denunciation, not a philosophical argument. You said that, unlike the Dunning-Kruger labelers, you are "assuming" that I know what I'm talking about. If so, why not take the brief*3 references to Physics, Math, and Information Theory seriously? Notice that I'm not forcing you to read abstruse scientific articles. The links are there for those who are interested enough to look into the information behind Information theory and Consciousness studies. I am not an expert on those sciences, but I have taken the time to read & ponder their philosophical implications.

Ironically, those who were taught Linguistic Philosophy in college may be baffled by the technical language of quantum physics and information mathematics. If so, it would be more charitable to withhold commentary, instead of displaying their incomprehension in passive-aggressive language. :smile:

PS___ In other threads, on topics related to Consciousness, I have been dismissively labeled an anti-science New Ager --- despite links to scientists, not to gurus. So, I get it from both sides : too-much Science on one hand, and Luddite on another. Does that mean I'm somewhere in the middle? Philosopher, for example.

*1. Facile : (especially of a theory or argument) appearing neat and comprehensive only by ignoring the true complexities of an issue; superficial.

*2. A New Theory in Physics Claims to Solve the Mystery of Consciousness :
Consciousness is not a phenomenon that comes from physics (as it is conceived but how to conceive it otherwise?)
Consciousness is a metaphysical substance. It is the mystery of what is being as opposed to what is thing.
https://neurosciencenews.com/physics-consciousness-21222/
Note --- Although the source of this clip is a Neuroscience study, it seems to be mostly a philosophical analysis of arguments over the last century. You don't have to read the article ; just take the brief, non-technical, excerpt for what it's worth.

*3. Quote from this thread :
↪Benj96's OP question may be a philosophical form of the same conceptual equivalence. Is Consciousness a property of Energy or Matter? My answer would be : Yes. But E & M are both proximate forms of the ultimate Power to Enform*2, which I call EnFormAction for brevity.
Note --- The link in the post gives a capsule definition of a complex & counter-intuitive concept, that originated with a quantum physicist, and has been debated by scientists & philosophers over the last century. If you are not interested in such topical "evidence" just ignore it.

That's a lot of yammering to say that you still haven't learned what a bit is. — wonderer1

OK. So what is your yammer-free definition of a "bit", in the context of this thread, questioning the relationship between Energy & Consciousness? :smile:

PS___Shannon's definition deliberately omitted the meaning of a bit to the analog brain of the conscious receiver of a communication, in favor of utility for processing in a non-conscious digital computer. If you merely parrot Shannon's yes/no definition, I'll know you missed the point of this thread.

srevinesu lebaB yrtpolexse si yldwi fo dna si eht ecdirbelsac egdelbaac knwoeldge, a ti. stiltu, tsav erutan, krow eninihtarbmal, sterlet, yreve dezilogtnahna delater, hguorht trohs eht fo lla dna reve taht egroj siulL . noitcif. gnithguoht-vekorphtuo tsecip uoy'er gnirrefer eht dna ytnifni, ot eht yretlib tpecnoc smuaf dna — Nils Loc

GPT translation:
"Knowledge, as the backbone of wisdom, is a complex and elusive mystery. It requires study, learning, introspection, reflection, and a lateral understanding of all those through thought and careful consideration. If you're pursuing the concept of liberty, finding unity and meaning to the infinite complexities of life, you're on the right path. Although it might take time, perseverance, and thinking-through, nothing is too difficult to achieve."

Gnomon, I'm not going to spoon feed you. You can look up an explanation of "bit" on Wikipedia, just like anybody else.

The context in which we are having this discussion is you having said:

And the fundamental element of Information theory (bit) is itself a mathematical ratio : a percentage ranging from 0% to 100% — Gnomon

I recommend you look up "bit" on Wikipedia in order to stop making a fool of yourself when talking about Information Theory. Better, yet would be if you stopped talking altogether about your new age religion, as if it is in any meaningful way related to Information Theory.

@punos

Weird how ChatGPT got such a clean paragraph. It can't translate or unscramble the original paragraph because it doesn't remember how it scrambled it. I think it went through several unsuccessful scrambles to get the one I posted. It's like when you translate sentences through Google translate, you lose the original.

Found it. The original paragraph was an output of ChatGPT:

The short story you're referring to by Jorge Luis Borges is titled "The Library of Babel." It's a famous and widely anthologized work that explores themes related to infinity, knowledge, and the nature of the universe through the concept of a vast and labyrinthine library containing all possible books. In this library, every combination of letters and words, including every book ever written and those that have never been written, exists. "The Library of Babel" is one of Borges' most celebrated and thought-provoking pieces of fiction. — ChatGPT

@Gnomon

I'm not attacking you, just doubting. Cheers.

I'm not attacking you, just doubting. Cheers. — Nils Loc

No worries mate. I wasn't talking about you being hostile. However,'s labeling of my position on Consciousness as a "New Age" religion, is typical of the aggressive defense of an anti-religion & anti-metaphysics world-view. My personal take on the Mind/Body controversy is indeed Meta-Physical and Philosophical, but I avoid bringing Religion into it. So, his attacks on a Straw Man completely miss their target.

For you, I was just trying to explain why I always seem to be on the defensive --- swatting at gnats --- in threads on metaphysical topics like this one. Actually, I appreciate your respectful skepticism. It forces me to refine my own understanding of such controversial subjects as the "hard problem" of Consciousness. And my hat's off to for coming up with a novel philosophical approach to the relationship between world-causing Energy & world-modeling Consciousness. It points upward toward eternal First Principles, not down to unstable ever-changing Matter. Apparently, doctrinaire Materialists equate Metaphysics with dogmatic theistic Religion, instead of open-minded agnostic Philosophy*1.

The topic of this thread is right down my alley*2, because both Quantum Physics and Information Theory have pointed toward a Monistic worldview, in which everything in the world, including Minds & Bodies, consists of evolved configurations (forms) of a Single Primordial First Cause, that Cosmologists are still looking for. But the scientific search runs into a brick wall at the Planck Time*4, leaving us with an ellipsis of conjecture about the time before Time*5. I don't expect the average TPF poster to be familiar with the scientific & philosophical speculation on the Big Before. So I try to patiently force-feed a few bits & pieces of the Cosmos & Consciousness puzzle into mundane materialistic minds. Sadly, you can lead a mule to water, but you can't make him think. :smile:


*1. Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality. This includes the first principles of: being or existence, identity, change, space and time, cause and effect, necessity, actuality, and possibility. ___Wiki

*2. Quote from OP :
Could consciousness be a form of energy like the rest? Could the sensation of existing simply be energy organised in a particular relationship to matter, or to it's other forms, or to both?
Note --- In my thesis the organizer of matter is something like a creative computer program, which I call EnFormAction (energy + pattern + causation). Materialism takes malleable Matter as elemental. But my thesis takes causal & organizing Energy as fundamental.

*3. First Cause : Potential, not Spiritual

*4. Big Bang models back to Planck time :
Before a time classified as a Planck time, 10-43 seconds, all of the four fundamental forces are presumed to have been unified into one force.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Astro/planck.html
Note --- That primordial Force was not kinetic Energy in the modern sense, but something like Generic Cause of Change, which I call EnFormAction, combining the act of causation with the organized forms of matter that result. You won't find that term in textbooks.

*5. Did spacetime start with the Big bang? :
So General Relativity has not been able to predict (or retrodict) what happens before, or how this process really began. . . . .
However in the last few years, several mathematical cosmologists have taken seriously the idea that there was a Pre-Big Bang.
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/5150/did-spacetime-start-with-the-big-bang

Could consciousness be a form of energy like the rest? Could the sensation of existing simply be energy organised in a particular relationship to matter, or to it's other forms, or to both? — Benj96

I got side-tracked from your original question, by push-back from those who feel that sub-atomic Physics and Meta-Physics are inappropriate reference-material for a (linguistic???) philosophical discussion.

Have you learned anything from this thread? Have you come closer to an answer to the question about physically or metaphorically equating Energy & Consciousness? FWIW, I have given that relationship some thought, as expressed in the ruminations below. :smile:

Mind as a Causal Force :
Functions don't exist apart from their physical systems, but they are clearly not properties of any single component. They also don't exist in isolation. For example, the function of a hammer is defined in relation to hands & nails. Likewise, a Mind is a function of whole brains, not neurons – of systems, not cogs. Yet, it seems that anything physical has the potential to produce Mind, but only when organized & actualized into complex mechanisms that act together in concert for collective goals & purposes.

Hence, Mind is an emergent quality of physical systems, yet is not a physical property of any of their atoms or subsystems. Matter is what a brain is made of, but Mind is what it does. Functions are also dynamic & emergent, not static features of matter. They require time & change to reveal their immaterial existence.

If we begin with the current materialistic scientific paradigm --- that reality is created by self-existent physical energy that somehow regulates itself (laws) --- then the emergence of non-physical Mind will remain a mystery. But, if we place Mind at the beginning, instead of the end of evolution, the story makes more sense. Mind is creative in the abstract, but it is also a causal force --- like a processing program --- in the concrete world. Mind manipulates information, which is the essence of energy.
https://bothandblog2.enformationism.info/page70.html

mass-energy-information equivalence principle :
A recent conjecture, called the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy and exists as a separate state of matter.
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/sci/article/2022/9/091111/2849001/A-proposed-experimental-test-for-the-mass-energy

@Gnomon

Did you read Vopson's paper, The Information Catastrophe?

A recent conjecture, called the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy and exists as a separate state of matter. In other words, stored information has mass and can be converted into energy, and a full hard drive is marginally heavier than an empty one. — SciLight Volume 2022, Issue 9A by Avery Thompson

The Information Catastrophe, Melvin M. Vopson

The total calculated mass of all the information we
produce yearly on Earth at present is 23.3  10-17 Kg. This is extremely insignificant
and impossible to notice. For comparison, this mass is 1000 billion times smaller than
the mass of single grain of rice, or about the mass of one E.coli bacteria [26]. It will
take longer than the age of the Universe to produce 1Kg of information mass. — Melvin Vopson

In terms of digital data, the mass-energy-information equivalence
principle formulated in 2019 has not been yet verified experimentally, but assuming
this is correct, then in not a very distant future, most of the planet’s mass will be made
up of bits of information. Applying the law of conservation in conjunction with the
mass-energy-information equivalence principle, it means that the mass of the planet is
unchanged over time. However, our technological progress inverts radically the
distribution of the Earth’s matter from predominantly ordinary matter, to the fifth
form of digital information matter. — Melvin Vopson

Vopson's paper here reads like a wacky sci-fi premise, projecting an exponential impossibility. How could information mass replace the normal mass of the Earth because of computers, yet register no measurable change? My question would be, where or how does the mass of this information reside in time and space as a physical entity -- what particles carry it?

I feel lost in the wacky sauce.

Could consciousness be a form of energy like the rest? — Benj96

In physics the concept of energy is used to describe the sufficient reasons for the behaviour of observable entities that are supposed to underlie the experience of those behaviours.

Yet the concept of energy derives from experience itself, and already here we have the answer to your question, since experience is a part of consciousness and energy (as concept) is abstracted from experience so must it indeed apply to consciousness.


The actual contentious question becomes whether this additional form of energy exists differentiated in the same way we differentiate them, I would argue it could not possibly do so, and that each of these underlying energies are one and the same thing (gravity, nuclear power, atomic spin etc.), consequences of the diminution of a singular distribute of substance and are not differentiated in themselves at all.

I will only provide one argument for this assertion for now, it goes like this: all we know or could ever possibly know and indeed all we could think or could ever possibly think would only need one form of differentiation, and that differentiation is the very first aspect/principle of any conceivable thought, without evidence why differentiation should not only be the primary function of a living, perceiving or thinking being but also extend beyond such a being there is no reason to believe so.

I conclude that though the energy field outside of consciousness may be a quantity of a singular substance (a quantity of itself), by application of the Kantian duality of intensive and extensive magnitude I believe we can be far more justified in saying that the independency of the energy field that serve as sufficient reason for motion can be a quantity of itself at any given point of time without therefore having to be completely different kinds of things the way we can experience white as an intense light as opposed to a dim light without the white being therefore a different thing and being therewith differentiated.

I will go into more detail if someone wants to hear more or want to rebut something I said above.

Yet the concept of energy derives from experience itself — Julian August

How do you know this? Which came first, energy or the experience of energy?

since experience is a part of consciousness and energy (as concept) is abstracted from experience so must it indeed apply to consciousness. — Julian August

It is very likely that energy is employed by consciousness as consciousness does work or is a result of brain process or the brain doing work. I agree with your conclusion that mind/body duality is very unlikely indeed (at least I think that is your conclusion) but I don't agree with the argument you use to get there. Perhaps I am not fully understanding the logic of your argument.
Is it basically that energy has different forms/states, but it all may well come from a single underlying form or state. Human consciousness will employ energy, but the 'changed state' or 'form' of that energy within human consciousness, does not exist independently, outwith the brain.
I don't think your 'energy/experience' connection adds anything new or substantial to support the claims against dualism.

Yet the concept of energy derives from experience itself
— Julian August

How do you know this? Which came first, energy or the experience of energy? — universeness

Energy, as a concept, is either derived independently or dependently on experience, energy could very well precede all experiences as I am sure a dualist would think being the case, without that having any bearing on whether the concept of energy were derived a priori.

So your follow-up question is a separate issue, you are here referring to the problem of whether time and therewith a rate of time can exist independently of experience, this seems to be the case, it even seems necessary.

Is it basically that energy has different forms/states, but it all may well come from a single underlying form or state. — universeness

I am merely stating that we should not start our philosophical efforts without knowing where we got our concepts, and when we do gain that knowledge ask ourself how we justified taking the step of using our concept beyond the material/substance/subject/substrate from where we abstracted it, this is the essence of Kants Critique of Pure Reason from my reading of it.

Different people and fields uses the same word for different concepts, this sometimes makes these conversations harder than they need to be, yet at the same time these different perspectives will claim that they have the "right" interpretation of what the concept were supposed to mean initially, as has happened with the term "energy" in physics and not without good reasons.

I am a dualist, and I believe we are describing that other thing when in physics we are justifying our conclusions for why something X (unobserved) were a sufficient reason for something Y (either observed or unobserved), while our efforts will ultimately be in vain for our descriptions and schematics will never even be anything like that other thing.

Energy, as a concept, is either derived independently or dependently on experience, energy could very well precede all experiences as I am sure a dualist would think being the case, without that having any bearing on whether the concept of energy were derived a priori. — Julian August

No, 'derived independently' or 'dependently' are not the only possibilities. Energy as an existent rather than as a concept, has not proven itself to be completely 'derivable' at all, so far, by our scientific efforts. I use the term 'derive' in line with a definition such as:
"derived; deriving. transitive verb. : to take, receive, or obtain, especially from a specified source. specifically : to obtain (a chemical substance) actually or theoretically from a parent substance."

Energy may be, as suggested in some such theory as Roger Penrose's CCC, basically, eternally cyclical, in state and form.

So your follow-up question is a separate issue, you are here referring to the problem of whether time and therewith a rate of time can exist independently of experience, this seems to be the case, it even seems necessary. — Julian August

No, any notion of derivation or differentiation or energy changing state, cannot be independent of time, as such takes time to happen. It does not matter whether or not, you conceive time as each human beings independent, (observational reference frame) relative experience of time, or you insist that time has a 'universal' reference frame, that applies to every point in the universe, regardless of whether or not lifeforms such as humans exist to 'think about' such. For me, this is only plausible if an 'outside' of the universe exists.

Different people and fields uses the same word for different concepts, this sometimes makes these conversations harder than they need to be, yet at the same time these different perspectives will claim that they have the "right" interpretation of what the concept were supposed to mean initially, as has happened with the term "energy" in physics and not without good reasons. — Julian August

I agree that nomenclature and definition of terminology is very problematic.
Obtaining clarity of understanding of the terminology being used by all participants in any debate is rarely achieved.

I am a dualist, and I believe we are describing that other thing when in physics we are justifying our conclusions for why something X (unobserved) were a sufficient reason for something Y (either observed or unobserved), while our efforts will ultimately be in vain for our descriptions and schematics will never even be anything like that other thing. — Julian August

Thanks for declaring your position as a dualist. It is not a position I currently assign any credence to, but that is no measure of whether dualism is true or not.

Vopson's paper here reads like a wacky sci-fi premise, projecting an exponential impossibility. How could information mass replace the normal mass of the Earth because of computers, yet register no measurable change? My question would be, where or how does the mass of this information reside in time and space as a physical entity -- what particles carry it? — Nils Loc

You seem to interpret Vopson's "premise" as a scenario of "weird" massless Information somehow magically transforming into spooky "information mass". I don't read it that way. I think he was saying that information is naturally converted into "normal mass". Presumably in a manner similar to the way massless Photons convert their Potential energy into the measurable mass we call Matter : E=MC^2.

Admittedly, Einstein's equation doesn't make sense in terms of Classical Physics. And he didn't specify the steps between Potential and Actual. All we know is that the math adds up. Which is why his radical new Physics of Relativity --- contra Newton's Absolute Physics--- was grudgingly accepted by physicists.

As to the question of "no measurable change", I suppose the scientists are dealing with the same Measurement Problem*1 of quantum physics. The math deals with Statistical possibilities, not Actual observable facts. Once they figure-out how to create an experimental set-up, the end product could just be weighted on a mass spectrometer ; an indirect measurement.

Please note that some professional physicists*2 are now equating massless Energy, not just with Matter, but with massless mental/mathematical Information. It may be counter-intuitive, but do you really think that scientific/philosophical hypothesis qualifies as "a wacky sci-fi premise". :smile:

PS___ A massless Photon is not a particle of Matter until it slows down and gains weight, so to speak*3. Until then, it's merely a statistical abstraction, and undetectable. Perhaps a massless Bit of Information is also nothing-but mathematical/mental Theory until it gains velocity and mass in weird physics experiments. :joke:


*1. The Measurement Problem :
Standard quantum mechanics accounts for what happens when you measure a quantum system: essentially, the measurement causes the system's multiple possible states to randomly “collapse” into one definite state. But this accounting doesn't define what constitutes a measurement—hence, the measurement problem.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-theorys-measurement-problem-may-be-a-poison-pill-for-objective-reality/

*2. American Institute of Physics :
A recent conjecture, called the mass-energy-information equivalence principle, proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy and exists as a separate state of matter. In other words, stored information has mass and can be converted into energy, and a full hard drive is marginally heavier than an empty one.
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/sci/article/2022/9/091111/2849001/A-proposed-experimental-test-for-the-mass-energy
About AIP Publishing :
A wholly owned not-for-profit subsidiary of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), AIP Publishing’s mission is to advance, promote, and serve the physical sciences for the benefit of humanity by empowering researchers and breaking down barriers to open, equitable research communication. . . . the AIP flagship magazine Physics Today provides high-quality, rigorously peer-reviewed research and insights across the physical sciences,
Note --- A less trivializing meaning of "conjecture" is hypothesis : Conjecture is an idea, hypothesis is a conjecture that can be tested by experiment or observation,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5389200/

*3. Why Are Photons Considered Particles? :
It is these units of excitations of the electromagnetic field that we call photons. Like other quantum particles, they are not really “particles” like miniature cannonballs. Rather, they represent the smallest indivisible unit of interaction with the field.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/11/14/why-are-photons-considered-particles/?sh=5ae747e62946

@Gnomon

:up: Am done pestering you and offer an apology to @Benj96 for any offense. I just can't understand or follow what is being said.

Is Information the Fifth Form of Matter (Interview with Melvin Vopson, Youtube)

:up: Am done pestering you and offer an apology to Benj96 for any offense. I just can't understand or follow what is being said. — Nils Loc

That's OK. No apology needed. It's just par for the course on TPF. I appreciate your honest & humble efforts. Some posters seem less than sincere in their supercilious snarky retorts.

Many of the philosophically astute posters on this forum are limited by their outdated Classical Newtonian Physics (commonsense) worldview (Materialism). Quantum Physics defies commonsense though, and sounds non-sensical to laymen, who have not taken the time to learn how the sub-atomic foundations of material reality are different from the macro (human-scale) world of the five senses. That limitation is not a problem for 98% of the human population. But those who study Science and Philosophy --- especially Quantum & Information Theory --- would be handicapped by a 17th century understanding of the physical world.

Quantum physics studies the unseen world beneath our animal senses. Apparently, you have to be a little weird to stick your mind into such dark places. :smile:


Quantum Physics is bullshit :
Lawrence Krauss has the best response - "So arguing that it doesn't make sense to you, is . . . . based on the assumption that you know what is sensible in advance. We don't know what is sensible in advance. Until we explore the world around us. Our common sense derives from the fact that we evolved on the savannah in Africa to avoid lions. Not to understand quantum mechanics, for example. As I have often said, common sense deductions might suggest that you cannot be in two places at once. That is crazy. But of course not only can an electron be but it is. It doesn't make sense because we didn't evolve to know about it, we've learned about it. We forced our idea of common sense to change, its called learning."
https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/2gsqw3/cmv_quantum_physics_is_bullshit/

Quantum mechanics is a physical theory developed in the 1920s to account for the behavior of matter on the atomic scale. It has subsequently been developed into arguably the most empirically successful theory in the history of physics.
https://iep.utm.edu/int-qm/

Have you come closer to an answer to the question about physically or metaphorically equating Energy & Consciousness? — Gnomon

Yes. As it stands, I believe energy requires to transmute into a form that it can interact with. Because information can only arise from interactions between things. No interaction, no information. And at speed C energy cannot interact with itself.

Mass is significantly more sluggish (inertia) than the massless energy hurtling at speed C. Mass is also stable and has duration through time and so can store information (a continuum of modification) And it can arise from free energy (E=mc2).

Consciousness requires this: this mass to store memory and therefore open up the ability to perceive chronological time; as well as an environment rich in free energy to subject that matter to modification - be it more stable or more unstable (natural selection and evolution).

The stage is then set for increasing complexity of energetic-mass interactions and refinement of both sensitivity to information and storage of information or "awareness" - knowledge and the sensorium.

Consciousness then for me is the natural result of the relativistic interplay between material and it's counterpart free energy and the information carried in that process of interaction.

Consciousness would be less a form of energy but rather an emergent property of 2 forms of energy (matter and heat/light) interacting under the process of natural selection.

Just as water is an emergent property of hydrogen and oxygens interactions.

Ever read any quotes from Yogi Berra, the NY Yankees manager — ucarr

More important, their catcher for a career that included three MVPs and ten World Series rings.

If there's gonna be a formal ceremony, "include me out." — ucarr

"Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical."
"When you come to a fork in the road, take it."
The guy is genius!

:up:

I vote that the remainder of this thread ought to be devoted to explaining Melvin Vopson's strange hypothesis, that information is a form of matter.

Hopefully it's actually quite simple, maybe something like when computers process/erase information, particles (matter/anti-matter pairs) make a brief appearance. This would be compatible with his information catastrophe idea, possibly.

The mass of information, however it comes into being, seems negligible if it comes by way of electrons.

In practical terms, when considering the mass of a hydrogen atom, you can often neglect the mass of the electron compared to the mass of the proton. The mass of the hydrogen atom is essentially the mass of the proton. — ChatGPT