Well I would say I am more of an anti-realist generally so I think the shapeshifter thing might be apt.

I think you "information is what its like to be information" is probably taking what I am saying a little too literally. i mean, i think given the original statement was:

"subjective experience is what its like to be information"

then surely, the substitution should be

"what its like to be information is what its like to be information"

The world is full of structure, clearly what I experience is what it is like to be that structure if I am indeed part of the world. Specifically, information transmission. My experiences are also trivially information.

Interesting article, will have to take a look.

Theres one article I havent actually given more than a glance but the idea has stuck in my mind:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9689906/

its not actually *that* novel of an idea and I think they even themselves note the similarity to IIT at least superficially. But the notion of non-separability seems quite thought provoking for me in the context of the hard problem.

Sorry, bad eyes and doing this on a smart phone.
I'll try to read more carefully.

To my mind "the hard problem of consciousness" is only "hard" for (Cartesian) philosophers because their aporia is actually still only an underdetermined scientific problem. — 180 Proof

Could you elaborate that further? You seem to be saying that consciouness one day will be fully explained by science. Is that correct?

I'm saying that philosophy cannot solve a scientific problem because the latter concerns 'simulating some specifiable facts of the matter' whereas the former concerns 'interpreting concepts'. The folk concept "consciousness" has yet to be demonstrated to correspond to a specifiable fact of the matter, so prematurely declaring (how "consciousness" emerges?) "is a hard problem" is only semantic nonsense.

So all the philosophers of mind that research consciousness are simply confused?

If you say so.

I never said so. That is what your posts entails. If "consciousness" is semantic nonsense, all the philosophers of mind around the world who treat it as a real metaphysical problem must be confused. You can make the case for that, I myself don't think every academic field is valid, but I am simply wondering if you know that that is what your belief entails.

If "consciousness" is semantic nonsense, — Lionino

... is not my statement.

In a nutshell: because correlation doesn’t explain consciousness — Art48

Also: Because Physicalism can't stop trying to engorge everything.

Physics could dissolve any particular "hard problem" of consciousness, by simply expanding the rules of it's language to accommodate any perception, in a bespoke, albeit practically unworkable fashion.

For example, take the colour scientist Mary from the knowledge argument, who "learns" about redness for the first time when leaving her black and white room. Suppose that upon leaving her black-and-white room and seeing red for the first time, the language of physics is augmented with a new term that specifically denotes Mary's red perceptual judgements. Call this new term maryred. There is one simple rule for this new term ; whenever Mary perceives an object to be "red" then by definition the object is said to be maryred. So if another scientist is performing an optical experiment, say on a distant planet, and wants to know whether the result is maryred or not, then according to the definition of maryredness, there is nothing he can do other than to ask Mary after she has inspected the result for herself.

Mary cannot explain the relation between optical redness and maryredness, and the augmented physical language doesn't specify theoretical rules for inter-translating the two, not even when additional context is provided. But why should this absence of translation rules be considered a problem for physics? Isn't it in fact a blessing that we might call "The Hard Feature of Physics"?

For suppose that maryredness was theoretically correlated to optical redness (plus context). Then doesn't this imply that Mary needs to be present at every optical experiment performed anywhere in the world, including the ordinary optical experiments that aren't measuring maryredness? For how can it be argued that maryredness is theoretically reducible to optical redness + context, but not vice-versa? Theoretical translation must surely work in both directions. So wouldn't the meaning of optical redness become contingent upon the meaning of maryredness such that Mary's perceptual judgements became part of the theoretical foundation of optics? Clearly this isn't desirable, because we want physics to be a universally applicable language with a semantics that is independent of the perceptual judgements of particular observers. So it makes good sense for physics to decree optical redness and maryredness to be incommensurable by fiat.

Hence in my opinion, those who believe in a "Hard Problem of Consciousness" misunderstand the purpose of science, and that this hard problem is better understood as being a "Hard Feature of applicable Physics"

So it makes good sense for physics to decree optical redness and maryredness to be incommensurable by fiat. — sime

But what if the object of translation was not optical redness but brain states?

It seems then that the context problem doesn't apply because Mary's perceptions are always present alongside her brainstates and correlate so much that many suspdct that they are identical.

"An obvious question is whether all information has a phenomenal aspect. One possibility is that we need a further constraint on the fundamental theory, indicating just what sort of information has a phenomenal aspect. The other possibility is that there is no such constraint. If not, then
experience is much more widespread than we might have believed, as information is everywhere." ___Chalmers quote — Apustimelogist

This quote from Chalmer's essay on the "hard problem of consciousness" touches on a key issue of our philosophical debates. He asks whether Information is both phenomenal and noumenal. And my general answer is Yes. But, the phenomenal aspects are "easy", because our physical senses can detect them. So, it's the noumenal aspects that we argue about. My position is that Information is both Physical and Mental. But discussing mental stuff is like nailing jello to the wall, it's inherently squishy and hard to pin down.

Perhaps the most contentious feature of Consciousness is its experiential quality. He implies that "experience" --- as a form of generic information --- "is everywhere". And that sounds like Panpsychism, with the implication that even an atom has awareness of its environment. Hence, All-Mind-Everywhere-All-The-Time would be true. However, that notion implies that the world is not hierarchical, and that we cannot or should-not discriminate between one form of information and another.

So, if you define "experience" as a "feeling" in the human sense, I would have to disagree with Panpsychism, but not on materialistic grounds. That's because human interactions are infinitely more complex & multi-valent than atomic exchanges of positive/negative electron valences. So, although similar in one way, meaningful-feelings & energy-sharing are different in so many other ways. Electron bonding of atoms is phenomenal, hence observable by empirical methods. But sharing feelings is noumenal, and knowable only by the emotional inference that we call Empathy or Sympathy. Therefore, I would say that atoms are not sentient beings, and that Panpsychism is an over-generalization.

I'm still on this information-consciousness relation.
Our brain specific information has complete access to our consciousness and vice versa.
So if you don't understand this of course understanding consciousness is going to be hard.

How can you propose information is everywhere when it's just a projection of your mind. Of course it's going to be a hard problem because you have set up the problem wrong.

Perhaps the most contentious feature of Consciousness is its experiential quality. He implies that "experience" --- as a form of generic information --- "is everywhere". And that sounds like Panpsychism, with the implication that even an atom has awareness of its environment. — Gnomon

I don't know that anyone believes an atom has awareness of it's environment, and I don't think Chalmers is implying it.

I think of it as every particle having a mental property, proto-consciousness, in addition to the physical properties we're familiar with. Mass, charge, spin... Proto-consciousness. Not consciousness. Perhaps every particle in a rock is experiencing. Not aware of anything, simply experiencing whatever happens to the rock. But there's not much going on within a rock. There aren't even different physical activities taking place inn a rock, much less exchanges of information. So all particles experience pretty much the same, basic, physical things. That's not sufficient for actual consciousness to come about.

I don't know how many people would argue with the belief that rocks are not conscious because they are too homogenous (I don't know if there's a better way to say that), and that humans have the degree of consciousness we have because there are so many things going on within us. Many different physical systems; different kinds of physical systems; many different systems of information sharing. I assume physicals agree with that. I just don't think our consciousness is explainable by physical properties and laws of physics. I think something more is needed, and proto-consciousness seems worth considering.

I'm still on this information-consciousness relation.
Our brain specific information has complete access to our consciousness and vice versa.
So if you don't understand this of course understanding consciousness is going to be hard.

How can you propose information is everywhere when it's just a projection of your mind. Of course it's going to be a hard problem because you have set up the problem wrong. — Mark Nyquist

In the Enformationism thesis, Consciousness is viewed as an emergent form of basic mathematical Information. If you don't understand, or agree with, that essential relationship, the Hard Problem will remain an apples & oranges conundrum.

I'm not sure how to interpret the assertion that "information has complete access to consciousness". But if bits of Information and holistic Consciousness are interrelated, like bricks and houses, then they are not just "accessible", but also intertwined, perhaps inseparable. And it's the part/whole relationship that will soften the "hard" problem, which is due to the assumption of fundamental difference.

Again, I'm not sure what you mean by "information . . . is just a projection of your mind". But, the thesis is based on the assumption that Information is much more than just an imaginary something. Just as Einstein equated Energy with Matter (E=MC^2), the thesis equates Information with Energy, Matter & Mind (I=EMM). If so, it is everywhere and everything.

Enformationism is a philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance*1 of everything in the universe. I know that sounds absurd from the perspective of Materialism, but quite a few scientists are beginning to find evidence of that equivalence*2. :smile:

PS___ Your assertion that Information has "complete access" to consciousness is coincidental, because I just read an article on The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Which postulates that, due to the divided brain, humans had to learn how to communicate between the verbal/rational brain and the intuitive/emotional brain. Julian Jaynes proposed that until the "EGO" (self) gained conscious control over the "ID" (non-self), people thought their subconscious urges were messages from gods. I don't know if it's literally true that before 3000BC humans were all schizophrenic, but metaphorically it makes sense. The rational linguistic part of the Mind is what we usually think of as Consciousness (Dr. Jekyll). But the emotional non-verbal half is what we call Sub-Conscious (Mr. Hyde). And, due to incomplete access, that inner beast is what we are always struggling to control.


*1. What did Aristotle mean by substance? ;
substance, in the history of Western philosophy, a thing whose existence is independent of that of all other things, or a thing from which or out of which other things are made or in which other things inhere.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/substance-philosophy

*2. Is information the fifth state of matter? :
In 2019, physicist Melvin Vopson of the University of Portsmouth proposed that information is equivalent to mass and energy, existing as a separate state of matter, a conjecture known as the mass-energy-information equivalence principle.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/information-energy-mass-equivalence/
Note --- Vopson's "conjecture" is a physical hypothesis, while my thesis is meta-physical. Hence, my Information is not just a "state of matter", but also a "state of mind".

I don't know that anyone believes an atom has awareness of it's environment, and I don't think Chalmers is implying it. — Patterner

Chalmers seems to think that "everything is conscious" in some sense of "thing" and "consciousness". But I doubt that he believes that atoms are little beings chatting amongst themselves about their feelings. It's that "some sense" that needs to be explained. In my own thesis, I use abstract "Information" instead of personal "Psyche", partly in order to avoid the absurdity of atomic awareness. :smile:

David Chalmers, Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism :
I present an argument for panpsychism: the thesis that everything is conscious, or at least that fundamental physical entities are conscious.
https://philpapers.org/rec/CHAPAP-17
Note --- I haven't read the article, so I don't know how he defines "fundamental physical entities". If you have time, please investigate and let me know.

In this Ted Talk, Chalmers says:

Even a photon has some degree of consciousness. The idea is not that photons are intelligent, or thinking. You know, it’s not that a photon is wracked with angst because it’s thinking, "Aaa! I'm always buzzing around near the speed of light! I never get to slow down and smell the roses!" No, not like that. But the thought is maybe the photons might have some element of raw, subjective feeling. Some primitive precursor to consciousness.

Edit: This is his third paragraph:

For present purposes, the relevant sorts of mental states are conscious experiences. I will understand panpsychism as the thesis that some fundamental physical entities are conscious: that is, that there is something it is like to be a quark or a photon or a member of some other fundamental physical type. This thesis is sometimes called panexperientialism, to distinguish it from other varieties of panpsychism (varieties on which the relevant entities are required to think or reason, for example), but I will simply call it panpsychism here. — Chalmers

... is not my statement. — 180 Proof

Ok, so your statement amounted to claiming that the issue of how consciousness arises is a hard problem is semantic nonsense. Your use of parentheses makes a direct quote both unwieldy, and open to the type of sidestep above by explaining the parenthesized element.

So, that's what it amounts to - on paper. If you meant something else, so be it. But given what was actually put across in your post - that absolutely entails philosophers of mind who treat that as a serious metaphysical problem as either misguided or confused. Can you, perhaps, not be obtuse, but address that question?

's that "some sense" that needs to be explained. In my own thesis, I use abstract "Information" instead of personal "Psyche", partly in order to avoid the absurdity of atomic awareness. :smile: — Gnomon

I believe i have seen Chalmers reference (perhaps in that 2022 Yale talk?) IIT as a framework for how you could have different 'levels' of consciousness essentially mirroring the functionality of the 'being'. Vague, but a hint at a direction.

But what if the object of translation was not optical redness but brain states? It seems then that the context problem doesn't apply because Mary's perceptions are always present alongside her brainstates and correlate so much that many suspect that they are identical. — Apustimelogist

I'm not sure what neuropsychology means by 'brainstates' exactly - but then isn't that the point - that the types and tokens referred to by neuropsychology are sufficiently vague and flexible so as to both accommodate the ad-hoc and informal judgements of it's practitioners on a case-by-case basis, whilst conveying enough of the practically essential information?

I'm also reminded of software-engineering, where the concepts of types, tokens and type/token identity are normative notions that only concern and describe the programming language being used, rather than being descriptive of the implemented application (that could be implemented in any number of languages that use different and incompatible type-systems).

In my view, Physicalism takes types, tokens and identity relations too seriously, due to mistaking these normative linguistic concepts for propositions.

I'm not sure that I = EMM is an equation.

The relation between E, M and M isn't given.

For me:
I = brain state is an equation as I, information, is the equivalent of brain state.

An expansion gives I = physical brain; (mental content), still an equation as the mental content exists as the brains physical configuration. The parentheses mean specific mental content is supported by the physical brain state.

Also working on information and consciousness as one problem is reasonable as both are supported by brain state. Not separate at all.

The semicolon parentheses is a foot note so it's not part of the equivalence but gives an understanding of how specific mental content exists.

In this Ted Talk, Chalmers says:
Even a photon has some degree of consciousness. The idea is not that photons are intelligent, or thinking. You know, it’s not that a photon is wracked with angst because it’s thinking, "Aaa! I'm always buzzing around near the speed of light! I never get to slow down and smell the roses!" No, not like that. But the thought is maybe the photons might have some element of raw, subjective feeling. Some primitive precursor to consciousness. — Patterner

My only problem with Chalmer's philosophy of Panpsychism is in his word choice. He uses "consciousness" to label his fundamental element. But I prefer to give that prime role to a "primitive precursor to consciousness". I reserve "Consciousness" for the rare feature of the universe that only emerged from zillions of physical interactions (computations) after billions of Earth-year cycles. The big "C" is a recent innovation of evolution.

So, I propose that ubiquitous Generic Information (Platonic Form) was the essential element of everything at the inception of our universe. Atoms are indeed physical forms of Information, but Mind is a late-emerging meta-physical form of the universal Power to Enform (to create novel structures & patterns). In my thesis, physical Energy is a form of causal Information. But this is an unconventional & philosophical use of the term, that Shannon defined more narrowly, for a specific engineering problem. :smile:


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

I believe i have seen Chalmers reference (perhaps in that 2022 Yale talk?) IIT as a framework for how you could have different 'levels' of consciousness essentially mirroring the functionality of the 'being'. Vague, but a hint at a direction. — AmadeusD

Yes. There seems to be a hierarchy of consciousness among living beings, from single-cell organisms to cetaceans. But personally, I would prefer to restrict the term "Consciousness" to living organisms, for which the notion of awareness seems appropriate. The general direction of the universe appears to begin with non-being stuff that evolves toward that which we now call Beings instead of Things. :smile:

I'm not sure that I = EMM is an equation. — Mark Nyquist

Sorry, that was tongue-in-cheek. I didn't mean for it to be taken literally.
It's a verbal equation, not a mathematical equation. :smile:

However, since you asked : How about phi (Φ) for Information and psi (Ψ) for Mind?
{ Φ = E x M x Ψ } information is composed of Energy, Matter, and Mind.
All are non-dimensional values, hence metaphysical/mathematical concepts. So what do they add up to?

I would also prefer he use "Consciousness" the way you describe. He says, "This thesis is sometimes called panexperientialism, to distinguish it from other varieties of panpsychism (varieties on which the relevant entities are required to think or reason, for example), but I will simply call it panpsychism here." How about don't simply call it panopticism here? Let's make things as consistent in all discussions as possible.

"Primitive precursor to consciousness" is fine, but a bit of a mouthful. I like "proto-consciousness."

Also: Because Physicalism can't stop trying to engorge everything. — JuanZu

:up:
Mainly that.

We seem to be in a similar situation: no understanding of physical processes, however complete, explains consciousness. — Art48

Materialists like to belittle the "Hard Problem" by implying that philosophers deny the "obvious" fact that Consciousness is nothing-but a body-control function of material brains. Hence they --- the "un-grounded" thinkers --- complicate a simple situation by insisting on the contribution of immaterial metaphysical things or processes. Perhaps there's some truth to that assessment, but the OP implies that "C" is more-than "physical processes". If so, what is that "more-than"?

I can't deny that "C" seems to be a function of brain operations, just as program solutions are a function of computer operations. But then what is a Function? Is it a> a lump of matter, or b> a series of actions, or c> a mathematical relationship between variables? A Function is not a thing, or a sequence of events, it's an effective (purposeful) correlation of Input & Output. Therefore, I think Consciousness is a goal-oriented function of complex information-processing systems. Moreover, shape-shifting Information can take-on all of those function-facilitating forms --- matter, energy, ratios, etc. So philosophically, "C" is ultimately a function of cosmic operations from Big Bang initiation to the current continually complexifying situation.

For those interested in the relationship between Consciousness and Information, here's a research report from the Santa Fe Institute for the study of complexity. Among other things, it proposes A> that Mind emerges from Integrated Information systems. Also B> that Consciousness seems to be necessary for individuals in multilevel complex societies (e.g. herd & pack animals, not amoeba). Hence, it serves primarily a social function, not just coordination of body parts. One surprising postulation, though, is C> that it links the emergence of Consciousness to the unification of a dual-hemisphere brain. That's similar to the radical proposal of Julian Jaynes in The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, as I referenced in a post above.

This technical paper seems to agree with the OP, that Consciousness is more-than a simple physical process. For a self-aware being it's infinitely more. As neuroscientist Christof Koch put it : "it's the feeling of life itself". :smile:


Information Theory and Consciousness :
We are not conscious simply because we have a large brain, but rather humans have evolved to become conscious when exposed to other conscious humans during a critical phase of their development. That is, first, consciousness is partly a social phenomenon, even though it seems that a main aspect of consciousness is to distinguish a self from others,and second, there were evolutionary reasons for the emergence of consciousness. . . . .
the two halves of the brain are separately conscious, even though only the left hemisphere can express itself verbally.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fams.2021.641239/full#h2
Note --- Frontiers is a peer-reviewed research publisher

Materialists like to belittle the "Hard Problem" by implying that philosophers... — Gnomon

Do you understand that "materialist" is not a distinct category from "philosopher"?

Your writing frequently suggests that you don't understand this.

Perhaps the most contentious feature of Consciousness is its experiential quality. — Gnomon

Nice. I rarily see people connecting consciousness with experience. (In the sense of human feeling, as you say.)

For me, consciousness is basically experience. In fact, consciousness can be only experienced.
And human experience as not accepted in general as evidence for anything --esp. by Science-- because it is totally subjective, of course.

This, and generally the subjective and non-physical nature of consiousness, are the main reasons why we have got into such a thing as the "hard problem of consciounsess". But the inability of Science to deal with consciousness is so obvious, so much expected, that it makes the "hard problem of consciounsess" too overrated. In fact, it shouldn't exist as a problem at all. Why should it? The subject of "consciousness" is out of the jurisdiction of Science.