To me this sounds like a description of stored energy and, therefore, I say in response: Where there's energy there's material and thus your attempt to occupy ambiguous position between material/immaterial is false. Your Enformaction, like Deacon's constitutive absence, stands squarely within the material world. — ucarr

My thesis of EnFormAction does exist "within the material world", because the observer lives in the world of tangible material objects and invisible physical forces. But I think your interpretation of the thesis is influenced by the materialistic nature of the English language*1. That's why our dialogs on the Philosophy Forum are so often fraught with harsh put-downs, when we fail to communicate on both levels. Some posters attempt to express philosophical concepts in concrete scientific language, while others use more abstract expressions when discussing topics like "Consciousness". That inherent ambiguity limits our ability to communicate, unless we understand that both Concretions and Abstractions exist side-by-side in the Real/Ideal world.

Perhaps you still haven't grasped the meaning of the BothAnd Principle. It acknowledges that our objective world is Matter-based, and that our subjective realm is Mind-based. So, I can agree with you, that the technical term EnFormAction is a brain-state in the material world. But it is also a concept in & about the ideal realm of Mind. :smile:

*1. Language is too material!
language is infused with materiality and should not therefore be considered as an abstract system that is isolated from socio-material reality.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11097-017-9540-0

*2. The BothAnd Principle :
Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ─ what’s true for you ─ depends on your perspective, and your frame of reference; for example, subjective or objective, religious or scientific, reductive or holistic, pragmatic or romantic, conservative or liberal, earthbound or cosmic. Ultimate or absolute reality (ideality) doesn't change, but your conception of reality does. Opposing views are not right or wrong, but more or less accurate for a particular purpose.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html


Today, while perusing Deacon's book Incomplete Nature, I came across a philosophical term that I hadn't noticed in previous readings : Neutral Monism*3. Serendipitously, it happens to be pertinent to both this Consciousness thread, and to the BothAnd concept. It assumes that both Mind & Matter emerge from a single more fundamental root or cause. Both Particulars (material objects) and Relations (ideas about associations between things) exist in our Material/Immaterial world. So, William James coined the term Radical Empiricism*4 to include both empirical Things and theoretical Ideas under the purview of Philosophy.

In 500BC, Plato called that original Source or Essence : Form & First Cause. In the 17th century, Spinoza called that Single Substance deus sive natura. But in the 21st century, my thesis calls it EnFormAction, a contraction of Energy (causation) & Information (organization). EFA is neither Matter nor Mind, but it creates both of those sub-forms as distinctive aspects of the Real world. Moreover, the philosophical perspective of Radical Empiricism seems to be a BothAnd acknowledgement of the apparent Duality of reality, even as it postulates a Monistic origin of all things & ideas in our diverse multiform world. :nerd:

*3. Neutral monism is an umbrella term for a class of metaphysical theories in the philosophy of mind, concerning the relation of mind to matter. These theories take the fundamental nature of reality to be neither mental nor physical; in other words it is "neutral".
Neutral monism has gained prominence as a potential solution to theoretical issues within the philosophy of mind, specifically the mind–body problem and the hard problem of consciousness.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_monism

*4. Radical Empiricism is a philosophical doctrine put forth by William James. It asserts that experience includes both particulars and relations between those particulars, and that therefore both deserve a place in our explanations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_empiricism

The disjunction: science or philosophy, with respect to consciousness studies, runs parallel to the disjunction: physics or math, with respect to Relativity. Anyone operating within either of these two disciplines who aligns with either of these disjunctions assumes position to play the part of the fool. — ucarr

The point of my thesis is to provide a conjunction (BothAnd) that weaves together the disjunctions of Science and Philosophy. For example, Physics is empirical, but Math is theoretical; yet both exist in the same world as different forms of the same universal substance. So, I can agree that those who "align with either", to the exclusion of the other, is playing the fool. Watch your step! :joke:

...in the case of two people who speak the same language. The sounds uttered by each individual are nothing more than sound waves with a certain structure (this includes syntax). But in themselves, these waves do not contain information... — JuanZu

...if we assume... we can isolate some sound wave and analyze it, we will not find anything other than sound -because is in abstent of relation. — JuanZu

It looks like you're trying to have it both ways: you acknowledge that spoken dialogue is both inflected grammatically (tense, mood, number, case and gender) and modulated vocally (pauses, volume changes, accents, rate-of-delivery changes, diction). You end by claiming sound waves convey no meaning because they are absent of relation.

In the first part of your statement, you make it clear (by implication) that individual words and their vocal utterances have relationships between themselves as expressed by each speaker individually. That everyday dialogues involve no exchanges of information is a curious claim extremely counter-intuitive if true.

...the sound uttered by one individual reaches the ears of another individual; This individual makes an acoustic image (just as Saussure understands it) of what he has heard; but now what appears is the language that the listener individual possesses. It means something to him: the sound uttered (one system of signs) has effects on another system of signs (the language sedimented in the listener's memory). — JuanZu

If I understand correctly what you've written (which may not be what you intend to communicate), then "acoustic image" equals the listener's language database actively interrelating to some utterances of the speaker. In my common sense understanding, I have no question about this being an instance wherein an interweaving relationship is unfolding through the process of information exchange between two speakers having a conversation.

If the utterances of the speaker mean something to the listener, again, my common sense tells me the listener's accessed portion of his language database is being reconfigured by the information exchange process to the effect of him cognizing the speaker's meaning. In short, the listener now knows what the speaker is thinking, whereas before, he didn't. I see no room for doubting, via common sense, that an information exchange from one sentient to another has occurred.

Your point throughout our dialogue, as I understand it, claims that utterance involves no exchange of information because information exchange can only occur between to sign-systems databases, i.e., two language databases held in memory by sentients.

But in your above quote, you acknowledge that utterances in dialogues are both logically inflected and aurally modulated. Strip away the inflection and the modulation and the two signs-systems databases have nothing to work with but a signifier-absent, droning hum. You say as much in your words below:

"hello, how are you" our listening friend understands. They are specific effects in the listener's language due to the more or less ordered structure of the sound waves uttered by the speaker.[/quote]

... — JuanZu

But in a communication between two persons we cannot think of this specific configuration ("hello, how are you") without a cause, and equally we cannot think of this specific configuration as something mysteriously contained in sound while it flies through the air. Given these two impossibilities, the conclusion, evidently, is that the effect suffered by the listener's is produced and not transferred. — JuanZu

Your above quote is the crux of your argument, and it's what I've been struggling to understand in the terms of the language you've been using.

The cause is the thinking of the two sentients who inflect and modulate their utterances. That this thinking and communicating is a physical, objective exchange of information through spacetime is evidenced by the generations of newborn humans who acquire language skills. There can be no doubt that at least a portion of these language skills originate externally before the learning child becomes able to internalize them. Noam Chomsky, a linguist, theorizes existence of an innate, human aptitude for language; that's the internal portion.

Perhaps you still haven't grasped the meaning of the BothAnd Principle. It acknowledges that our objective world is Matter-based, and that our subjective realm is Mind-based — Gnomon

The mind (i.e. mental activity) may be matter-based. Are you denying that possibility? It's not clear, but by stating this dichotomy, it seems that way.

...disjunctions of Science and Philosophy — Gnomon

Physicalist metaphysics joins the two. Earlier, you said:

The only non-physical entities I'm aware of are Mental Phenomena (e.g. ideas), which I place into the philosophical category of Meta-physical. — Gnomon

This is why I refer to "mental activities" rather then "the mind". We should be able to agree that mental activities occur. Mental activities are...activities, like running (actions are not "entities"), so I disagree with imposing an inherent reification.

Perhaps you still haven't grasped the meaning of the BothAnd Principle. — Gnomon

I have a question about it.

Both = referring to two things regarded and identified together; used before the first of two alternatives to emphasize that the statement being made applies to each; having it both ways (in your case, having it both ways in spite of seeming incompatibility).

And = used to connect things that are to be taken jointly.

It seems to me that "both" and "and" are virtually the same thing. Perhaps they're not identical, but I think they're very close to being so. Therefore, regarding the Both/And Principle, my first thought is that this is a redundancy. If that's the case, then your use of the forward slash (/), which conventionally indicates an opposition between polarities, expresses something incorrect.

On another point, you suggest with your language that, regarding the Both/And Principle, "Both" equals the disjunction operator which, properly speaking is "or" not "both." Here's the evidence supporting this:

*3. Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. . . . Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ─ what’s true for you ─ depends on your perspective, and your frame of reference; for example, subjective or objective, religious or scientific, reductive or holistic, pragmatic or romantic, conservative or liberal, earthbound or cosmic. Ultimate or absolute reality (ideality) doesn't change, but your conception of reality does, as you re-frame the question. — Gnomon

Perhaps, as you say, I'm looking at the surface of the principle and missing its true meaning. So, why is the Both/And Principle not a redundancy? (Note - I do see that if the principle intentionally joins redundancy and opposition to express paradox, then its logical absurdity is intended.)

The mind (i.e. mental activity) may be matter-based. Are you (Gnomon) denying that possibility? It's not clear, but by stating this dichotomy, it seems that way. — Relativist

I join Relativist in posing this question to you. Also, I will attempt to reenforce his supposition about mind being matter-based by claiming that any phenomenon with time duration is physical because spacetime is a physical medium. Thoughts, possessing time duration, are therefore physical.

both Concretions and Abstractions exist side-by-side in the Real/Ideal world. — Gnomon

If, by concretions and abstractions, you mean to say concrete things and abstract things exist side-by-side within the natural world, I agree. I don't agree, however, that the concrete/abstract debate parallels the mind/body debate. The former is non-controversial, the latter anything but. Since, in my opinion, language is unambiguously physical, it's not enough to acknowledge language as being materialistic. This ascription suggests that language has domain over things both material and immaterial. Embedded within this premise is the additional premise that thoughts are immaterial, another premise I dispute.

With the advent of the concept of spacetime as a physical phenomenon, the spiritualist faces a deep puzzle in the attempt to postulate existing things that have no duration in time.

This is why I refer to "mental activities" rather then "the mind". We should be able to agree that mental activities occur. Mental activities are...activities, like running (actions are not "entities"), so I disagree with imposing an inherent reification. — Relativist

I don't know where you got "reification", but I refer to the Mind as the Function of the Brain. Both are aspects of heterogeneous (diverse) Reality, but only the brain is a material object. Mind is an abstract immaterial process, closer to Energy than Matter. I make that distinction because Mind is not an empirical thing to be analyzed by Science, but an immaterial activity to be studied holistically by Philosophy . . . or by Psychology, which is mostly philosophical. :smile:


Why psychology isn’t science
Because psychology often does not meet the five basic requirements for a field to be considered scientifically rigorous
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2012-jul-13-la-ol-blowback-pscyhology-science-20120713-story.html

In physics, energy is an abstract, non-material quantity associated with the state of a system.
file:///C:/Users/johne/Downloads/PERC02_Loverude.pdf

Therefore, regarding the Both/And Principle, my first thought is that this is a redundancy. — ucarr

Yes, both "Both" and "And" are conjunctions, so the redundancy is intentional for emphasis. But BothAnd joins the two into a single holistic concept, which is in opposition to the common Either/Or presumptions of Reductionism. :smile:
PS___ I appreciate your constructive skepticism. Too much criticism on this forum is couched in destructive cynicism.

I join Relativist in posing this question to you. Also, I will attempt to reenforce his supposition about mind being matter-based by claiming that any phenomenon with time duration is physical because spacetime is a physical medium. Thoughts, possessing time duration, are therefore physical. — ucarr

No, I don't think that the brain-function we call "Mind", or the body-function "Life", exist outside space-time. Both are simply concepts that exist in the unreal realm of Ideas. You can't put them under a microscope, but you can analyze them philosophically. Also, I don't deny that both of those immaterial functions evolved from material predecessors. They are references to "absences"*1 in Terrence Deacon's notion of "aboutness". And, like most philosophical speculations, they can't be understood from a space-time Materialist/Physicalist perspective.

I define "Mind & Life" in meta-physical*2 terms for two reasons : a> to distinguish my Information-based holistic worldview from matter-based Materialism and reductive Science. And b> to force us to trace the evolution of Matter & Mind back to the beginning of the space-time world, which (per BB theory) suddenly appeared from no-where & no-thing & no-time. A century after the Big Bang hypothesis, cosmologists still debate what existed "before" the physical bang. My proposal is metaphysical Causation (EnFormAction ; primordial Energy ; creative Power) and Entention*3 (goal-directed program for evolution)*4. All current cosmologies presume that Energy (cause) & Law (order) pre-existed the Bang.

In my information-based thesis, the source of our Reality was something like Plato's timeless Ideality, consisting of Infinite Potential (FORM) which is not-yet-real and not-yet-existing. What you call "mind being matter-based" is a banal truism. What I call "Mind" (capital M) is a philosophical postulation, based on physicist Wheeler's "It from Bit" conjecture. Both posits go beyond the space-time boundaries of Science, into the unbounded possibilities of Philosophical speculation. Enformationism is a modern update of ancient Panpsychism, similar to Radical Empiricism & Neutral Monism. They build-upon, but go beyond, the facts of physical Science. :nerd:

*1. Absential : The paradoxical intrinsic property of existing with respect to something missing, separate, and possibly nonexistent. Although this property is irrelevant when it comes to inanimate things, it is a defining property of life and mind; elsewhere (Deacon 2005) described as a constitutive absence
Constitutive absence :A particular and precise missing something that is a critical defining attribute of 'ententional' phenomena, such as functions, thoughts, adaptations, purposes, and subjective experiences.
https://absence.github.io/3-explanations/absential/absential.html

*2. Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.

*3. Entention : Deacon Incomplete Nature
Special spelling of "intention" : purpose ; direction
Aboutness : aiming toward some external or future state

*4. Do you think evolution from chaotic plasma to intelligent ucarr happened by accident? Accidents are destructive of order. Design is constructive of organization. Do you think Evolution could work like a computer program, to compute something unknown (the missing answer) from something known (the initial state)? Design and Entention are no-nos for empirical Science, but not for theoretical Philosophy. What we are talking about on this thread is not rocket science, but the Intelligence that leads toward rockets to Mars.

I don't agree, however, that the concrete/abstract debate parallels the mind/body debate. The former is non-controversial, the latter anything but. — ucarr

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. The "parallels" are philosophical analogies, and have no basis in materialistic Science. Do you consider yourself to be a devout Materialist? If so, why are you posting on a free-thinking Philosophy Forum? :cool:

Mind is an abstract immaterial process — Gnomon

I compared mental activity to running. The word "running" is an abstraction, but ontologically grounded in a material process. Mental activity may be the same. We describe the mental processes abstractly, but that doesn't preclude it being grounded in material processes.

I don't know where you got "reification", but I refer to the Mind as the Function of the Brain. Both are aspects of heterogeneous (diverse) Reality, but only the brain is a material object.

If you're claiming mental activity entails the existence of immaterial objects I'd regard that as a reification- treating an abstraction as something ontic.

If you're claiming mental activity entails the existence of immaterial objects I'd regard that as a reification- treating an abstraction as something ontic. — Relativist

Would you acknowledge that arithmetical proofs and logical relations are real, even if not material? It doesn’t mean treating them as things - which is what reification means - but acknowledging that they are the same for all who are capable of understanding them.

I don't know where you got "reification" — Gnomon

Reification means ‘to treat as a thing’. It is from the root ‘re-‘ (from which ‘reality’ is also derived), and which Descartes employed in his ‘res cogitans’, and by virtue of which he has been accused of reifying mind (justly, in my view). But as per my question above, I say that one may regard numbers and logical conventions as real without reifying them as things.

Would you acknowledge that arithmetical proofs and logical relations are real, even if not material? — Wayfarer

I do not acknowledge that these abstractions (or any other) are part of the ontological structure of the world. Abstraction is a mental exercise, and logic is semantics.

If you're claiming mental activity entails the existence of immaterial objects I'd regard that as a reification- treating an abstraction as something ontic. — Relativist

For the record, I'm not claiming that mental activity is a real thing (ontic), but an ideal concept (noumena). Brain processes are real & physical, but mental activities are ideal & metaphysical. Science deals with Reality and Objects, but Philosophy deals with Ideality and Subjects. The ontological being of Mind is essential, not material. You can't examine Intellect under a microscope, but you can study Reason with reasoning.

However, if you don't pay close attention, the materialistic presumptions of our common language may give you the impression that metaphysical noumena are physical phenonomena. :smile:


Aristotle describes Mind (nous, often also rendered as “intellect” or “reason”) as “the part of the soul by which it knows and understands”

Reification means ‘to treat as a thing’. It is from the root ‘re-‘ (from which ‘reality’ is also derived), and which Descartes employed in his ‘res cogitans’, and by virtue of which he has been accused of reifying mind (justly, in my view). But as per my question above, I say that one may regard numbers and logical conventions as real without reifying them as things. — Wayfarer

Yes. Apparently is reading Reification into what I call Ideality (the state or quality of being ideal). Ironically the "res" in res cogitans is usually translated as "thing". Although non-specific, "thing" seems to imply physical object or sensory phenomenon. So I struggle to find language that doesn't sound like Reification. How do you deal with the problem of communicating immaterial-but-non-spiritual philosophical concepts in a materialist language? :smile:

The "parallels" are philosophical analogies, and have no basis in materialistic Science. — Gnomon

You beg off from the arduous path of scientific rigor by drawing a hard boundary around your philosophical postulations, and yet all of them seem to be funded by the theories and experimental verifications of materialistic science. If your philosophy were authentically divested from rational materialism, I think it would be almost barren. Given this situation, it's clear to me you'd benefit greatly by investing more time in study of science with rigor, whether reductive or not.

Regarding your currency with the fashionable isms of the populist publications for the science-adjacent, you cover the whole waterfront. Enformaction has popular titbits for just about everyone as it unfolds its wings and, like a game of three-card Molly, deftly shifts its positions. There's materialism for those conversant in QM and its imponderables; there's Spirituality for votaries questing for understanding of the metaphysical grounds of existence; there's mysticism taking up an intermediary ambiguity between matter and spirit. Enformaction is a clever dynamo. "Can't catch me!" He exclaims. "Now I'm here, galavanting with the scientists. Whoa! Now I'm hanging out with the pious crowd. Look out. I'm deep in the mists of the misty moors of the unknowable. Can't catch me!"

Riffing behind researchers and practitioners with jazzy renditions of their hard-won themes that you comprehend with noteworthy proficiency is nonetheless science_philosophy lite.

I know these comments, being harsh, will be tough to swallow, but they're intentionally so. I've walked a mile down the road you're still walking. As we dialog, I feel like I'm talking to myself. I'm referring to myself of the recent past. I've spun around with the centrifugal excitement of a whirlygigging carousel whose name is Vanity. Suddenly jumping off, the radical change in momentum puts an aching into my knees. That's what happens when you emerge from the giddy flights of fancy sponsored by self-importance.

Now that I'm walking on solid ground, inching along slowly, experiencing substantial things, I look back on my days as an airman borne aloft without an airplane and laugh at myself.

You're close. I used "reification" to refer to the treatment of an abstraction as a thing, where thing is something that exists (i.e. it is ontic; part of the ontological furniture of the world).

I don't think abstractions are ontic. I reject platonism, which treats ideal forms as ontic. It's still fine to talk about them figuratively as things, but it's unclear to me if you're talking figuratively or literally. Please clarify, because this thread is about the "hard problem" -which is only a problem for materialism. If your solution is to assume the existence of the immaterial, please state this.

You seem to deal with a lot of perspectives that you reply to and something came to mind about materialism. A person's life experience might have an influence on what philosophy they adopt regarding consciousness. In my case, my occupation deals with a lot of material objects such as moving a mass from point A to point B, machine operation, operating in dangerous environments, bad weather, physical environments that are not controlled,...that sort of thing. Since my personal approach to consciousness and the material environment affects my safety I might naturally have a more materialist view than someone coming from a historical or academic view. Things like eye to hand coordination or safely operating a machine for example.

So that's a consideration as to why I comment or criticize the way I do.

I'm something of a newbie, so bl not sure how these definitions work. I would say there are things that exist that are physical, and things that exist that are not physical.

I'm not sure how the non-physical things would/should be divided. Mental things, like thoughts. Does every non-physical thing come down to that? Is mathematics a mental thing? Like any thought, mathematics doesn't exist if nobody is thinking about it. If nobody is reading the book about mathematics, it's just physical paper with physical ink. It doesn't have any mental content on its own.

mathematics — Patterner

I suppose it depends how you're defining it. If you mean the anthropocentric system of allocating symbols to facts about the world and abstracting them to come to proofs, then yes. That's true.

But if you take mathematics as merely a naming of those aspects of the world that necessarily are attending by the former description, i'm unsure this can be said.

I do not acknowledge that these abstractions (or any other) are part of the ontological structure of the world. — Relativist

Well, you will have an issue accounting for the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences' (Eugene Wigner).

Is mathematics a mental thing? Like any thought, mathematics doesn't exist if nobody is thinking about it. — Patterner

The point about numbers and arithmetical principles is that they are not the product of thought, but can only be grasped by thought. This is the general area of Platonism in philosophy of mathematics, which is a big and contested question.

How do you deal with the problem of communicating immaterial-but-non-spiritual philosophical concepts in a materialist language? :smile: — Gnomon

It's very difficult. Numbers and the like are often referred to as 'intelligible objects', but here I think the term 'object' is being used metaphorically. Nevertheless mathematical platonists (which include Godel and Penrose) believe that mathematics is describing something real (again, using 'thing' metaphorically).

Well, you will have an issue accounting for the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences' (Eugene Wigner). — Wayfarer

Not really. There are mathematical relations between the things that exist. These relations don't exist independently of the things that exhibit them. Simple example: two-ness is a property that groups of 2 have, but groups of 3 of 4 lack. This fact doesn't depend on "2" existing in a 3rd realm.

The point about number is that it can only be grasped by the mind. A number doesn't exist in the same way that trees and chairs do, but numerical reasoning, and reasoning more generally, are fundamental to the understanding and to science in particular. But this is not the thread for this argument - although your mention of a third realm brought to mind an academic paper I sometimes cite in this regard, Frege on Knowing the Third Realm, Tyler Burge:

Frege held that both the thought contents that constitute the proof-structure of mathematics and the subject matter of these thought contents (extensions, functions) exist. He also thought that these entities are non-spatial, non-temporal, causally inert, and independent for their existence and natures from any person's thinking them or thinking about them. Frege proposed a picturesque metaphor of thought contents as existing in a "third realm". This "realm" counted as "third" because it was comparable to, but different from, the realm of physical objects and the realm of mental entities. I think that Frege held, in the main body of his career, that not only thought contents, but numbers and functions were members of this third realm.

Returning to our case, ...the sound uttered by one individual reaches the ears of another individual; This individual makes an acoustic image... of what he has heard; but now what appears is the language that the listener individual possesses. — JuanZu

But in a communication between two persons we cannot think of this specific configuration ("hello, how are you") without a cause, and equally we cannot think of this specific configuration as something mysteriously contained in sound while it flies through the air. Given these two impossibilities, the conclusion, evidently, is that the effect suffered by the listener's is produced and not transferred. — JuanZu

Hence, as your statements may suggest (emphasis in bold mine), only an active mind can generate and then process information? Signs themselves are gathered pools of thermodynamic potential available for processing towards information by active minds that supply constraints that occupy in the negative, a core function of the generative processes of cognition?

I'm drawing my concept words from Terrence W. Deacon, who wrote: Incomplete Mind.

Have you been attempting to convey to my understanding something akin to the following quote from Deacon: REPRESENTATION

We can conclude that a representational relationship cannot be vested in any
object or structure or sign vehicle. It is not reducible to any specific physical
distinction, nor is it fully constituted by a correspondence relationship. But
neither is it a primitive unanalyzable property of minds. Instead, even simple
functional and representational relationships emerge from a nested
interdependence of generative processes that are distinctive only insofar as they embody specific absences in their dynamics and their relationships to one
another. These absences embody, in the negative, the constraints imposed on the
physical substrates of signals, thoughts, and communications which can be
transferred from one substrate to another, and which thereby play efficacious
roles in the world as inherited constraints on what tends to occur, rather than
acting as pushes or pulls forcing events in one direction or another. Constraints
don’t do work, but they are the scaffolding upon which the capacity to do work
depends.

This is only the barest outline of an information theory that is sufficient to
account for some of the most basic features of functional and representational
relationships, so it cannot be expected to span the entire gap from biological
function to conscious agency. But considering that even very elementary
accounts of biological function and representation are currently little more than
analogies to man-made machines and human communications, even a general
schema that offers a constructive rather than a merely descriptive analogical
approach is an important advance.

In this exploration of the relationship between information theory,
thermodynamics, and natural selection, we have unpacked some of the
unrecognized complexity hidden within the concept of information. By
generalizing the insight captured by Claude Shannon’s equation of information
with entropy reduction and constraint propagation, and tracing its linkage to
analogues in thermodynamic and evolutionary domains, we have been able to
address some of the most vexing issues of representation, reference, and
normativity (i.e., usefulness). By removing these inadequacies in current
definitions of information, we may at last overcome the seemingly
insurmountable obstacles to formulating a theory of representation that is
sufficiently rich to serve as the basis for biology and the cognitive neurosciences,
and sufficiently grounded in physics to explain representational fallibility, error
checking, information creation, and the relationship between informational and
energetic processes.

The point about number is that it can only be grasped by the mind. A number doesn't exist in the same way that trees and chairs do, but numerical reasoning, and reasoning more generally, are fundamental to the understanding and to science in particular — Wayfarer

The universe operated just fine during the billions of years it existed before there were any minds around to grasp, reason,or understand anything about it. Those physical relations among objects and phenomena were present in them, despite the absence of them being described as formulae.

The universe operated just fine during the billions of years it existed before there were any minds around to grasp, reason,or understand anything about it. — Relativist

It appears to have, yes. There is a much deeper issue here than the hard problem of consciousness, although it is related. But if you do have time, have a look at my OP The Mind Created World, which presents an alternative view to the one you're proposing. Comments would be welcome.

You beg off from the arduous path of scientific rigor by drawing a hard boundary around your philosophical postulations, and yet all of them seem to be funded by the theories and experimental verifications of materialistic science. If your philosophy were authentically divested from rational materialism, I think it would be almost barren. Given this situation, it's clear to me you'd benefit greatly by investing more time in study of science with rigor, whether reductive or not. — ucarr

I do take exemption from the empirical requirements of scientific rigor, when I'm discussing a topic that has no objective empirical evidence. I would like to assume that the different methodologies*1 would go without saying on The Philosophy Forum ; but Materialism/Physicalism seems to be the default metaphysics for many posters.

If the topic of this thread was Neurology, I would indeed feel the need to justify my arguments with empirical data. However, the kernel of my thesis was a scientist's interpretation of quirky Quantum Physics, and computerized Information science : "it from bit" : material things are derived from immaterial information*2. So, yes, my thesis is fundamentally "funded" by Science, yet not the "materialistic" type, but the theoretical philosophical type. That's because Consciousness is subjective, not objective*3.

The Enformationism thesis is not entirely "divested" from materialism, anymore than Quantum Physics is completely separate from Macro Physics. But quantum-scale matter is more mathematical (wave function) than material (particle). And the "evidence" for quantum behavior is much more open to philosophical interpretation than for full-scale chemistry. So, the math adds some "rigor" to the science of invisible & intangible "things"*5. But, a century later, quantum physics remains more philosophical than empirical. And some physicists interpret the Copenhagen Interpretation to imply that Consciousness might be related to quantum phenomena.

If you are really interested in the Science underlying the Enformationism thesis, invest some time in reviewing the website and the blogs. But remember that the thesis is not scientific, and I am not a scientist. Also, the professional scientists I quote, feel free to depart from the rigors of materialistic science, when they are extrapolating from hard evidence to philosophical speculation. Besides Wheeler*3, I follow several other physicists*4 who venture off the reservation in search of philosophical understanding of subjective concepts, such as Consciousness. :smile:


*1. The Difference Between Philosophy and Science :
The difference lies in the method of explanation. While philosophy uses philosophical arguments and philosophical principles, science makes use of empirical data and objective evidence. Science uses empirical data to validate its theories. It takes the answers of experiment and proves them to be right or wrong.
https://www.ponderingphilosopher.com/the-difference-between-philosophy-and-science/

*2. John Archibald Wheeler's "It from Bit" theory is a philosophical idea that suggests that all physical reality, including spacetime itself, is ultimately derived from information. According to this concept, fundamental reality is not composed of particles or fields, but rather information. In this theory, Wheeler suggests that information is primary, and the material world emerges from the interactions and processing of information.
https://www.quora.com/According-to-John-Wheelers-it-from-bit-theory-can-information-exist-outside-of-spacetime-Can-information-cause-something-without-completely-no-energy-in-it-from-bit-theory
Note --- Information processing is energetic in the sense of causing physical transformations.

*3. Information Theory and Consciousness :
Consciousness is a subjectively experienced phenomenon that cannot be doubted, as Descartes famously observed.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fams.2021.641239/full#h2
Note --- The Santa Fe Institute for the Study of Complexity is a scientific endeavor, but its subject-non-matter, Complexity, is not a material object ; it is instead a generalized concept referring to the holistic interrelationships of many things. Randomness and Non-linearity tend to water-down the rigor of a science studying res cogitans.
"Complexity characterises the behaviour of a system or model whose components interact in multiple ways and follow local rules, leading to non-linearity, randomness, collective dynamics, hierarchy, and emergence". ___Wikipedia

*4. Physicist Paul Davies :
Paul Davies begins with the claim that our ability to understand nature through the scientific method is a fact which demands an explanation. He proposes that our mind and the cosmos are linked, that consciousness “is a fundamental and integral part of the outworking of the laws of nature.” . . . . Still the ultimate explanation of the origin of the laws lies outside the scope of science and should be pursued by metaphysics and theology.”
https://counterbalance.org/ctns-vo/davie1-body.html

*5. THIS IS THE EVIDENCE FOR SUB-ATOMIC PARTICLES
not a photograph, but an artist's interpretation of paths followed by unseen particles

Note --- the path provides mathematical information for a conscious observer to interpret

↪Gnomon
You're close. I used "reification" to refer to the treatment of an abstraction as a thing, where thing is something that exists (i.e. it is ontic; part of the ontological furniture of the world).

I don't think abstractions are ontic. I reject platonism, which treats ideal forms as ontic. It's still fine to talk about them figuratively as things, but it's unclear to me if you're talking figuratively or literally. Please clarify, because this thread is about the "hard problem" -which is only a problem for materialism. If your solution is to assume the existence of the immaterial, please state this. — Relativist

Yes. What you are labeling "reification", I would call an Abstract Noun. I assume that the referent of the term Consciousness is not an observable material object, but a rational inference. It does not point to a physical thing, but to a holistic behavior that we call Thinking & Reasoning. The word is an Abstract Noun, "denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object". Would you classify Consciousness as "immaterial"? Is the denotation "figurative" or "literal"? You tell me. :smile:

In my case, my occupation deals with a lot of material objects such as moving a mass from point A to point B, machine operation, operating in dangerous environments, bad weather, physical environments that are not controlled,...that sort of thing. Since my personal approach to consciousness and the material environment affects my safety I might naturally have a more materialist view than someone coming from a historical or academic view. — Mark Nyquist

As an Architect, my occupation involves interpreting the client's ideas & dreams into a mathematical & graphic design language that can be erected into material structures, which not only ward-off environmental dangers (tornadoes, earthquakes), but provide sentimental satisfaction of those expressed needs & desires. So, you can see why I might be more open to immaterial concepts than a manual laborer. :smile:

Note --- As I have frequently clarified : for practical matters, I am a materialist, dealing with things. But for theoretical topics, I am a philosopher, dealing with ideas.

Well, you will have an issue accounting for the 'unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences' (Eugene Wigner). — Wayfarer
Not really. There are mathematical relations between the things that exist. These relations don't exist independently of the things that exhibit them. Simple example: two-ness is a property that groups of 2 have, but groups of 3 of 4 lack. This fact doesn't depend on "2" existing in a 3rd realm. — Relativist

FWIW, I think of Mathematics, and "mathematical relations" as mental abstractions from observation of the arrangment and dynamics of the world. For me, Math is the logical (immaterial) structure of reality. Mental Relations do exist apart from Material Objects, in the sense that Ideas are categorically distinct from the things they portray.

For example, a structural engineer is able to "see" (imagine) the invisible logical relations, and to convert them into a freebody diagram, where the arrows represent invisible forces, and the lines represent not-yet-real material beams capable of supporting those forces. It's a diagram of "things that exist" ideally, but the relationships diagrammed (represented) are mental noumena, which exist only in a conscious rational mind. In the real world you don't see those imaginary lines & arrows, because relations are metaphysical, not physical. Representations are not real, they are Ideal. Do you "see" what I mean? :smile:

Is the Mathematical World Real?
Philosophers cannot agree on whether mathematical objects exist or are pure fictions
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-mathematical-world-real/

A mental representation can be caused by something it does not represent, and can represent something that has not caused it,
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-representation/

I'm extremely focused on physical risks around me and focus on the moment. However I see people do crazy things they shouldn't because they are distracted. In some cases people will take extreme risks because their mind set is that it's all up to fate anyway. It's possible a personal philosophy could be dangerous.
But I think we get safer on the risk side as we get older.

Also, architecture is an extremely physical undertaking so no doubt you deal with physical issues.

The universe operated just fine during the billions of years it existed before there were any minds around to grasp, reason,or understand anything about it. Those physical relations among objects and phenomena were present in them, despite the absence of them being described as formulae. — Relativist

They were. But those relationships, and the laws of physics, are not why or how we are communicating. Computers and the internet would not have spontaneously come into being. They would not exist if we had not come to describe those physical relationships in formulae, and then developed/expanded them in ways that are far beyond those relationships. Primes are not a relationship. They are the lack of relationships. There is no formula that produces them. Yet they play a vital role in how we do so many things. Yes, the universe operated just fine without us. But we have begun shaping it in ways it would not have become shaped without us.

And I will argue that our new ways are the best of it. A sunset; the rings of Saturn; a supernova; so many indescribably beautiful things everywhere. But they are not beautiful without us to recognize their beauty. They are simply particles and clumps, doing what the laws of physics determine. It all had beauty only because of us. Because we noticed the physical relationships, and found beauty simply in them. Then we developed it far beyond what we found. And developed so many other things, like painting, music, and literature, with and because of the real things that are not physical. The things that are absent from the physical, but present in our consciousness.

All off this is the HPoC. It is not the physical. The physical doesn't do what we have done. What we have done is because of what is not seen in, or defined by, the physical. Deacon's absential features.

But if you take mathematics as merely a naming of those aspects of the world that necessarily are attending by the former description, i'm unsure this can be said. — AmadeusD

The point about numbers and arithmetical principles is that they are not the product of thought, but can only be grasped by thought. This is the general area of Platonism in philosophy of mathematics, which is a big and contested question. — Wayfarer

I believe what I just said to Relativist is also largely a response to both of you. I believe we have produced a few mathematical things that were not merely names for, or grasped from, the things we are able to observe.

Philosophers cannot agree on whether mathematical objects exist or are pure fictions — Gnomon

For the very simple reason that if numbers are real, but not material, then there are real things that are not material. The intellectual contortions that modern philosophers perform to avoid this conclusion are striking. That SciAm article you linked - very good article - says:

there are some important objections to (platonic) realism. If mathematical objects really exist, their properties are certainly very peculiar. For one, they are causally inert, meaning they cannot be the cause of anything, so you cannot literally interact with them. This is a problem because we seem to gain knowledge of an object through its impact. Dinosaurs decomposed into bones that paleontologists can see and touch, and a planet can pass in front of a star, blocking its light from our view. But a circle is an abstract object, independent of space and time. The fact that π is the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle is not about a soda can or a doughnut; it refers to an abstract mathematical circle, where distances are exact and the points on the circle are infinitesimally small. Such a perfect circle is causally inert and seemingly inaccessible. So how can we learn facts about it without some type of special sixth sense?

I would have thought the answer was 'through reason'. By dint of reason we are able to discern mathematical regularities which characterise many underlying aspects of nature - 'the book of nature is written in mathematics' - but which don't exist empirically. The difficulties posed by this are mainly due to the cultural impact of empiricism which must insist that what is real must be 'out there somewhere'. But mathematics is not 'out there' anywhere, even though mathematical reasoning is fundamental to the invention of the JWT which has had such stellar success in exploring what is 'out there somewhere'.

Yet they play a vital role in how we do so many things. Yes, the universe operated just fine without us. But we have begun shaping it in ways it would not have become shaped without us. — Patterner

:100: That feeds into the meme you will sometimes encounter that conscious sentient beings are the Universe become self-aware.