...what we've defined as "matter" is just different levels of energy in different forms. — alleybear

Could one function of our consciousness be to define all the energy fields we come into contact with, whether "matter" or not, into a "navigable environment"? — alleybear

Yes. As described by Einstein's equation: $E=MC^2$ we're navigating our way around a reality populated by the mass/energy binary. Mass is the particle form of energy and energy is the waveform of mass. Under this scheme, consciousness, like your word-processing program, organizes raw data. Instead of organizing letters, punctuation and spaces into words, sentences and paragraphs, it organizes the raw data of the mass/energy binary into massive objects, their dynamic motion and the resulting events into empirical experience.

I conjecture that spacetime in its pure form is infinite flow. The mass/energy binary is the result of the perturbation of flow. So, our mass/energy populated reality is rooted in the interruption of infinite flow and, existentially speaking, the deepest inclination of our reality, and of ourselves, is the natural desire to return to the flow out of which we emerge as a disturbance.

This desire to hark back to the infinite flow is spirituality viewed through the lens of physics.

Schopenhauer's suicidal apotheosis is the desire to liberate the material self, an interruption_perturbation of flow, from its incompleteness. Some force disturbed the surface of the primordial waters, thus causing water droplets to spring upwards into the air. While the water droplets live airborne, traversing space and time, they long to return to the sublime oblivion of the primordial waters.

Under this view, the consciousness of the water droplets - a stand-in for sentient beings such as us - is tragical. It's formatting function of the mass/energy binary is an attempt to return to the primordial waters in piecemeal fashion. The primordial waters, however, are the limit of consciousness and what it constructs. The constructions of consciousness are forever approaching but never arriving at their source.

Schopenhauer's suicidal apotheosis is the desire to liberate the material self, an interruption_perturbation of flow, from its incompleteness. Some force disturbed the surface of the primordial waters, thus causing water droplets to spring upwards into the air. While the water droplets live airborne, traversing space and time, they long to return to the sublime oblivion of the primordial waters.

Under this view, the consciousness of the water droplets - a stand-in for sentient beings such as us - is tragical. It's formatting function of the mass/energy binary is an attempt to return to the primordial waters in piecemeal fashion. The primordial waters, however, are the limit of consciousness and what it constructs. The constructions of consciousness are forever approaching but never arriving at their source. — ucarr

I like your analogy here. I for one, take Schopenhauer seriously, but at the same time metaphorically. That is to say, I don't necessarily buy into the metaphysics (i.e. Will objectified into Forms and mediated by the appearances of object for a subject further conditioned by the PSR which creates the appearance of individual world). I might be more agnostic on this. However, if taken as an allegory, it has the ring of truth of the animal condition, such as we experience. Although all animals experience the striving and contingent nature of existence, humans suffer particularly acutely because of our increased levels of self-reflection, creating a "hall of mirrors" that amplifies the effects. Other animals seem to be more embedded in nature through instincts and being in the "present". Humans struggle to experience this state, and thus look for it in any number of avenues: "peak" experiences, flow states, drugs, pleasures, meditation, study, worship, and a whole host of other ways. But where animals are already "there", we have to try to get there. It takes conscious effort and thus, work, and thus more striving. The dissatisfaction is thus implicit in our struggle. There is a striving principle to life, and there are contingent negatives one generally encounters and/or tries to overcome. All the while, we are self-aware of this endeavor.

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I've always thought consciousness does being. It is the being aspect.

Isn't your argument relying on the Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation of quantum physics? And Schrödinger's cat wasn't a proposed concept of how things work, but an example of the absurdity of how the logical end points of some interpretations of quantum mechanics lead to absurd outcomes. It was an example used as criticism of how some thought about it all.

The Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation of quantum physics has the least, or rather no empirical evidence behind it. It's, in my own words, an argument or interpretation out of the "arrogance of man". That we elevate our own sense of importance in the universe because the notion of ourselves as just being as basic as all other matter and energy drives us to despair. It's an emotional drive that tries to imbue ourselves with an attribute (consciousness) that elevates ourselves to deities of reality.

As I see it, there's nothing to support consciousness being "special" if we observe everything from the point of view of reality itself.

I think that leaving out evolutionary reasons for consciousness and the reasons for life itself is a grave mistake when trying to assess what consciousness is. People have a tendency to become bias to their own existence and skew explanations into the realm of religious belief. But if we look at a logical concept of why consciousness and life formed, we begin to see why it emerged from our universal laws of physics.

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The major process of reality is entropy. Energy, both released and trapped in matter, is simply spreading itself out over time. Without going into the physical processes of the relation between time and entropy, the universe is, by the laws of physics, leaning towards spreading out energy as effective as possible. Life, as a process, is highly effective at transferring energy. Both from the sun and from the matter of celestial bodies. There's an inclination towards the formation of life, by entropy itself. And the more energy demanding life is, the faster entropy moves. The complexity forming out of this is generally in line with speeding entropy up, and the complexity might seem oddly beautiful to us, but may just be iterative as anything else in nature. Consciousness then, is the spear tip of life adapting to energy consumption. Adaptation is a key component of consciousness.

And it's through adaptation that I propose consciousness stems. There's an interesting "coincidence" that we see advanced consciousness in mammals and some reptilians. The evolution of advanced consciousness seem to be linked to major apocalyptic events in which the remaining animals that survive require themselves to be highly adaptive to the post-apocalyptic environment they exist in. The more adaptive a species can be, the better they will prosper and spread. And those who required most adaptation among large animals were the mammals and remaining reptiles. Basically explaining why mammals and some birds show the highest level of intelligence in nature.

High intelligence in consciousness becomes a second step of evolution. The basic form of evolution relies on cellular adaptation out of chemical reactions. The next step is instinctual behavior that is changed over generations. The third step is the lifeform itself adapting to continuously changing environments. The fourth step is spreading adaptive behaviors between lifeforms. Through this we can see life evolving the consciousness we possess; featuring all steps within us and the fourth through advanced language and spreading of ideas.

Consciousness, with empirical evidence supporting the predictive coding theory, operates on primarily generating a hallucinatory representation of our surroundings, then using previous experiences stored in memory to predict events as we navigate through reality. This process is so complex and malleable that our experience of it appears as the experience we have as thinking beings. We believe ourselves to have free will and "thinking" but in general, we are only operating on an advanced prediction process in order to adapt to our surroundings. Rather than our adaption being moments apart in time, our advanced cognition makes it happen on extremely short timespans. We can adapt within microseconds. Evolution has driven chemical reactions, genetic changes, through instinctual behaviors changing over generations, to social changes (like in dolphins), to end up operating so fast in adaption that our experience produce the illusion of free will.

But in the end, we are still acting on simple prediction operations, generating an experience that fold in on itself, predicting its own predictions, thinking about thinking. As such, this feedback loop produces abstract concepts that evolve out to complex ideas that is being spread by language.

Essentially this feedback loop forms a new level of complexity, just as we see in any other system in nature. Emerging a state of operation that on its surface look more complex than the parts permit. But we are not more complex than any other system in nature and reality, we just believe we are due to the limitations of a system reacting to itself.

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So I don't think that consciousness relation to quantum physics has a special bond of meaning or is linked in the way you describe. Consciousness operate much more simpler than being a bridge like that. Just because our brain have quantum mechanical operations being part of our function, does not mean consciousness itself stems from a bridge between Newtonian and quantum physics. It only means that as anything else in the universe and reality, quantum processes are part of our being.

We are, in essence, only an emergent complex process that is a natural progression of the physical laws and processes of our universe. And in my opinion, it's important to be humble to the fact that we are not special, but part of a hierarchy of emergent processes, steps on a ladder in which we exist pretty high, but without knowledge of the steps above us.

We know that consciousness sees and understands the many events that populate the history of the world. This is consciousness reacting to its environment.

Is consciousness only reactive?

What about the possibility of consciousness acting in the role of a transitive agent impacting and changing the objects under its influence?

I claim that consciousness performs a variety of functions that affect the boundaries of material objects in various ways:

• Time dissolves boundaries

• Space platforms boundaries

• Spacetime extends boundaries

• Consciousness oversees these three boundary negotiations — ucarr

There are two very distinct ways of looking at this. You describe consciousness as reactive here, the other way is to describe consciousness as creative. The two are fundamentally incompatible, because the former assumes a world already made, which is irking the consciousness, while the latter assumes that the consciousness is producing "the world", in its creativity. Then you attempt to describe the consciousness as constructive (creative) within the incompatible premise that the consciousness is reactive.

To deal with this incompatibility, lets assume two distinct aspects of reality, those which the consciousness can work with to create, and those which the consciousness does not have the ability to alter, so that it can only be reactive to these. Basic experience defines these two categories as past and future. We look at the future as having the possibilities to create, and the past as what we do not have the ability to alter. I believe that this is the most productive way to frame that fundamental incompatibility, the past in its reality, is incompatible with the future, in its reality.

Now the human being is fundamentally an intentional being, so its primary perspective is toward the future of possibilities, and it observes, notes, and remembers the past in relation to the primary perspective, which is the creative perspective, looking toward the future. Therefore, I ask you to reverse your perspective, and place the consciousness as fundamentally creative rather than reactive. The consciousness is always moving forward in time, creating, constructing, and the means by which it "reacts" is through the structures it has already created. So all of its "reactions" are already conditioned by its creations, the creations being prior to the reactions, as required for "a reaction". This is demonstrated by the scientific method, we test hypotheses with experiments, build an apparatus, and see how it reacts. Notice that the "reaction" is fundamentally conditioned by the apparatus built. And it is required that there is an apparatus to produce a reaction.

As described by Einstein's equation: E=MC2

=


2
we're navigating our way around a reality populated by the mass/energy binary. Mass is the particle form of energy and energy is the waveform of mass. Under this scheme, consciousness, like your word-processing program, organizes raw data. — ucarr

Notice how the past/ future categorical separation is represented by the mass/energy binary". The "mass" perspective is a conceptual creation expressed in Newton's laws of motion. We describe past existence with "mass" which has inertia as a fundamental property, and this is "resistance to change". Resistance to change is what is basic to "what we do not have the ability to alter", and this is mass. "Energy", on the other hand is "the capacity to do work", and this is an expression of the view toward the future, "the possibilities to create". What we have then, with this expression of mass/energy equivalence, E=MC2, is a principle designed to convert "what we do not have the ability to alter", the inertia of mass, into the malleable energy, "possibilities to create".

However, we need to respect the basic incompatibility between the past and future, which defines these two categories. Because of this basic incompatibility, we can know that this supposed mass/energy equivalence is defective It is an attempt at doing what is impossible, taking the determinist principles of inertia, "what we do not have the ability to alter", and expressing it in the free will perspective of "the possibilities to create".

The problem is that we need to assign priority to one over the other, and fit the other within that perspective. And, as I explained above, the primary perspective of the human being is intentional, the view toward the future, so this must have priority. However, the entire sense apparatus of the human being has bee constructed through evolution as reactive, the view toward the past, and sense observation is what is used to validate "science". This means that science is critically disadvantaged as a tool to guide us in this endeavour. What this implies is that we need to create an observational capacity, an apparatus, which is not reliant on mass/inertia principles. In other words we need an apparatus which is entirely created of possibility without matter or mass. We cannot call this use of pure possibilities "energy", due to the faulty mass/energy equivalence.

...there's nothing to support consciousness being "special" if we observe everything from the point of view of reality itself. — Christoffer

Here I take you to mean existence must be perceived logically, not egotistically. With some nuance, I agree with this premise.

The major process of reality is entropy. — Christoffer

My gut reaction, so far, infers the above statement stands as the foremost premise in your post. So, given consciousness being a part of reality, and given your premise "entropy drives reality," then our core question here seems to be: What's the relationship between entropy and consciousness? My spitball conjecture says: Consciousness drives some part of entropy.

...the universe is, by the laws of physics, leaning towards spreading out energy as effective as possible. — Christoffer

Here we come upon a complex issue: the language of the above statement imbues the universe and its laws with teleology. The universe, having a goal, behaves with design towards spreading out energy as effective as possible. Also, the universe, because it prioritizes effectiveness over its opposite, has a value it adheres to. The implication is that the universe is itself conscious.

There's an inclination towards the formation of life, by entropy itself. — Christoffer

Here we have more teleology, but operating on an even grander scale: entropy is biased towards the formation of life - that is to say, entropy has the goal of forming life.

Here's how I define entropy for myself:

entropy - the unidirectional increase of disorder within any dynamical system utilizing energy toward performance of a function. So, entropy is rooted within $InputA → logical/operator → Output B$.

The negation of inherent design within creation is a gnarly problem for sentients. This is so because sentients must perceive patterns in nature in order to live.

If you discern patterns in nature, you cannot deny that nature has purposes, as patterns and purposes are intimately related. In fact, if you say there’s a pattern to activity, you’re as good as saying there’s a purpose to activity. If there’s a logical sequence to activity, a sentient observer can only conclude there’s a goal-oriented progression including a start point, a mid-point and an end point. If you randomize this sequence, and all patterns along with it, the sentient being cannot practice life-sustaining behavior. Working backwards, we see that existence without patterns and purposes would not lead to the emergence of life.

So, teleodynamics - thermo-dynamics at the higher level of entropic systems organizing constraints on natural forces towards a future state of the system - or cognitive design by sentients, is about something not immediately present, but rather something predicted to emerge at a later state of the system.

...the more energy demanding life is, the faster entropy moves. The complexity forming out of this is generally in line with speeding entropy up, and the complexity might seem oddly beautiful to us, but may just be iterative as anything else in nature. — Christoffer

I take you to mean entropy is an essential and iterative process.

Could it be the iteration of entropy and the complexity of mind are joined by the bi-conditional operator? As the iterations of entropy evolve upwardly, the complexity of mind evolves upwardly. From the reverse direction, as the complexity of minds increases, the vertical stacking of re-iteration rises.

Conclusion – there’s no conflict between the entropy-driven evolutionary process and the egotistical mediation of its resultant: sentient beings.

I've always thought consciousness does being. It is the being aspect. — Barkon

Interesting premise. Consider: If medical science could surgically reduce the human brain to the limited power of sustaining only the unconscious nervous system, with no trace of an individual personality and its will remaining, would such a vegetative state of a biological system in human form count as a presence when in the company of conscious humans?

I ask this question because your conceptualization of "being" as an active verb, i.e., how one goes about "doing being" sounds like it's the same conceptualization I have. I think in the case of both conceptualizations, our conscious presence is the active verb that empowers us to go about "doing being." We are doing "being" when we focus our attention on something or someone.

I'm with you, i.e., present, when I pay attention to you. Paying attention is how we do "being."

Interesting premise. Consider: If medical science could surgically reduce the human brain to the limited power of sustaining only the unconscious nervous system, with no trace of an individual personality and its will remaining, would such a vegetative state of a biological system in human form count as a presence when in the company of conscious humans? — ucarr

No. Nagel's bat would be more of a presence. In the situation you describe, there would be nothing it's like to be that person from that person's pov. That person doesn't have a pov.

Here I take you to mean existence must be perceived logically, not egotistically. With some nuance, I agree with this premise. — ucarr

Precisely. Any perspective of our consciousness being a higher state or more special than everything else in reality is a conjecture based in our emotional reaction to our own experience rather than rational argument about our function.

What's the relationship between entropy and consciousness? My spitball conjecture says: Consciousness drives some part of entropy. — ucarr

Consciousness is a development in evolution and evolution is a result of entropy leaning towards more efficiency. The concept is that life appears out of chemical reactions that utilize energy absorption for its continued reaction and in doing so start to develop more and more complex ways of doing that process. As it continues it becomes more advanced, forming higher cellular structures that streamlines the same kind of process between multiple parts. And as an ecosystem it spreads out this process of efficient entropy more and more.

The development of consciousness being more a part in the evolutionary system than entropy, but at a higher scale still moves towards even more efficient entropy, so it may be that entropy even has part in forming consciousness as higher conscious beings require more and consume more energy. Humans compared to gorillas consume a lot more energy because of our brains, so it makes sense, but we are also beings that create things that push entropic processes into high gear, so to speak.

Here we come upon a complex issue: the language of the above statement imbues the universe and its laws with teleology. The universe, having a goal, behaves with design towards spreading out energy as effective as possible. Also, the universe, because it prioritizes effectiveness over its opposite, has a value it adheres to. The implication is that the universe is itself conscious. — ucarr

Not necessarily. Our laws of physics have constants and variables that push processes and behaviors into specific leanings. Like the cosmological constant, which exist at the right balance to allow the formation of galaxies and even slightly changing would collapse out universe.

While these are often used by theology to "prove" the existence of God, there's no need for such explanation as it's no different than how specific parameters of matter cause things like the surface tension on water. All over nature and in the universe there are balanced parameters that in that balance produce a certain effect.

If we were to view the universe as any other "sample" of a chemical process, we can write out the parameters that dictate its behavior.

That entropy functions like this does not require purpose or meaning anymore than the meaning and purpose of the surface tension of water.

I usually try to view reality through this lens in order to not imbue my emotions onto explaining things. Viewing it in relation to other physical systems we know very much about and through that dispel any human arrogance or sense of insignificance to the greater whole. If I look at the universe as a petri dish of chemical reactions that functions due to certain parameters that govern its entirety, it starts to make sens why things happen without any meaning or purpose being applied to it.

Here's how I define entropy for myself:

entropy - the unidirectional increase of disorder within any dynamical system utilizing energy toward performance of a function. So, entropy is rooted within InputA→logical/operator→OutputB

The negation of inherent design within creation is a gnarly problem for sentients. This is so because sentients must perceive patterns in nature in order to live.

If you discern patterns in nature, you cannot deny that nature has purposes, as patterns and purposes are intimately related. In fact, if you say there’s a pattern to activity, you’re as good as saying there’s a purpose to activity. If there’s a logical sequence to activity, a sentient observer can only conclude there’s a goal-oriented progression including a start point, a mid-point and an end point. If you randomize this sequence, and all patterns along with it, the sentient being cannot practice life-sustaining behavior. Working backwards, we see that existence without patterns and purposes would not lead to the emergence of life.

So, teleodynamics - thermo-dynamics at the higher level of entropic systems organizing constraints on natural forces towards a future state of the system - or cognitive design by sentients, is about something not immediately present, but rather something predicted to emerge at a later state of the system. — ucarr

Natural laws can create ordered structures and sequences without any goal or intent. The standard definition of entropy does not imply function or design. Recognizing patterns in nature doesn't mean nature has intrinsic purposes, it simply reflects consistent physical processes.

Patterns, as we humans see and experience them are linked to our predictive coding organizing experience in ways that is easier to perceive, it doesn't give them value or purpose. We are good at it because it is beneficial for survival. We prefer symmetry and order because then we can spot disorder (something breaking it, like a predator in the bush).

if you say there’s a pattern to activity, you’re as good as saying there’s a purpose to activity. If there’s a logical sequence to activity, a sentient observer can only conclude there’s a goal-oriented progression including a start point, a mid-point and an end point. — ucarr

I'm not sure that's correct. I don't see how pattern to activity has the logical conclusion to be the same as purpose or having a goal. They do not logically follow each other. You can have patterns without any purpose or goal. You can have a randomly created constant that because of it produces certain patterns. Like how the patterns of fractals form due to certain mathematical values, but those values in themselves are meaningless.

I take you to mean entropy is an essential and iterative process.

Could it be the iteration of entropy and the complexity of mind are joined by the bi-conditional operator? As the iterations of entropy evolve upwardly, the complexity of mind evolves upwardly. From the reverse direction, as the complexity of minds increases, the vertical stacking of re-iteration rises.

Conclusion – there’s no conflict between the entropy-driven evolutionary process and the egotistical mediation of its resultant: sentient beings. — ucarr

A big problem with the reasoning of many who try to evaluate consciousness is that they look at it as some form of "order creation mechanism that produce order out of chaos". But this is again tapping into the biases of our consciousness seeing patterns where there are none. What we view as "order" does not equal order in the point of view of reality. We can see the dead process of a mountain being formed as perfectly symmetrical and beautiful in its "order", but it is as dead of a process as any other chemical system in nature and reality. We imbue value into a process because it looks beautiful to us, but it makes no difference to the universe.

Thus when we think ourselves as beings that through our consciousness can make order out of the chaos of the universe we act in arrogance in front of the more logical truth; that we act in accordance with that chaos. Our sense of "order" is only order in our perspective, but the processes of the universe and reality does not have such a perspective. We are therefor just part of the chaos machine, part of entropy and the entropic processes that happen through time. We take energy, absorb it and consume it, then dissipate it. All according to entropy.

We fool ourselves with the illusion of seeing order, but if we had the capacity to view the totality of the universe, from that elevated perspective beyond our comprehension, we would not.

And we don't know about any next steps of evolution of consciousness. It may very well be that the next step is our own creation of synthetic consciousness, being even more effective at entropic processes. Maybe the paper clip scenario is in fact a natural end game for entropy.

You describe consciousness as reactive here, the other way is to describe consciousness as creative. — Metaphysician Undercover

The two are fundamentally incompatible, because the former assumes a world already made, which is irking the consciousness, while the latter assumes that the consciousness is producing "the world", in its creativity. — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you attempt to describe the consciousness as constructive (creative) within the incompatible premise that the consciousness is reactive. — Metaphysician Undercover

First, you talk about consciousness as something reacting to a reality at least partially independent of it.

Second, you talk about consciousness as something that produces reality from itself.

Third, you talk about the contradiction in characterizing the function of consciousness as a reactive organizing principle that parses the raw material things of existence into a navigable environment.

Speaking in a parallel, I don't believe grammar, an organizing principle that takes words and organizes them into sentences, paragraphs, chapters and books, creates written language. No, grammar organizes written language. The organized sounds of the spoken word get organized into written signs that can be interpreted by a standardized organization, i.e., grammar.

Likewise, as I'm saying, consciousness takes partially independent material objects that, at the quantum level, exist prior to consciousness - itself a construction from parts - and organizes them into navigable environments. So, consciousness is a material phenomenon that provides a function that parallels the syntactical function of grammar.

To deal with this incompatibility, lets assume two distinct aspects of reality, those which the consciousness can work with to create, and those which the consciousness does not have the ability to alter, so that it can only be reactive to these. — Metaphysician Undercover

Your above sentence contains some issues. First, you say there are aspects of reality consciousness can work with. That's consciousness in reactive mode. Didn't you already say consciousness_reactive and consciousness_creative are fundamentally incompatible? Doesn't this imply that consciousness can only be one or the other, with switching between the two modes being impossible?

Second, you say consciousness must be reactive to independently existing things it cannot alter. Doesn't this statement have the same problem as the first one?

We look at the future as having the possibilities to create, and the past as what we do not have the ability to alter. I believe that this is the most productive way to frame that fundamental incompatibility, the past in its reality, is incompatible with the future, in its reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

If I'm not mistaken, there is no continuity between incompatible things. By this reasoning, past and future must be compatible given the natural continuity between them. Clearly, the functional present, when seen relativistically as the future in relation to the past, contains overlap with the past. If there were no compatibility between the two - not to elaborate on the problem of them existing as such only in relationship to each other - it seems to me there could only be an eternal present. An eternal present is hard to make sense of when we entertain the concept of progress.

So all of its "reactions" are already conditioned by its creations, the creations being prior to the reactions, as required for "a reaction". — Metaphysician Undercover

This argument seems to contradict your prior argument: "...the past in its reality, is incompatible with the future, in its reality."

What we have then, with this expression of mass/energy equivalence, E=MC2, is a principle designed to convert "what we do not have the ability to alter", the inertia of mass, into the malleable energy, "possibilities to create". — Metaphysician Undercover

Your above statement contains an issue. Inertia can be overcome, and it is overcome too many times to count. Einstein's equation, by explaining change of momentum through mass/energy equivalence,
establishes the fact that where's there's inertia, there's also energy, and thus past and future, being consistent along the channel of mass/energy equivalence, are not incompatible.

...this supposed mass/energy equivalence is defective It is an attempt at doing what is impossible, taking the determinist principles of inertia, "what we do not have the ability to alter", and expressing it in the free will perspective of "the possibilities to create". — Metaphysician Undercover

I take your above statement to be a logic-based attack upon $E=MC^2$. As I see it, the gist of your argument says: the equation tries to make a claim based on Mode A interpreted in the context of Mode B, but this must be a faulty claim because Mode A and Mode B are incompatible.

Can you show how inertia examples determinism?

...the primary perspective of the human being is intentional, the view toward the future, so this must have priority. — Metaphysician Undercover

...we need to create an observational capacity, an apparatus, which is not reliant on mass/inertia principles. In other words we need an apparatus which is entirely created of possibility without matter or mass. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you assuming the human individual can exist untethered from mass/energy?

No. Nagel's bat would be more of a presence. In the situation you describe, there would be nothing it's like to be that person from that person's pov. That person doesn't have a pov. — Patterner

I agree with what you say. So, where are we now? Well, maybe it's easier to see that in the supposed noumenal world of Kant, existing things dwell in something like superposition because they have no presence, something supplied by consciousness. Therefore, it appears that the human observer's presence vis-à-vis the object observed imparts to it boundaries both measurable and navigable.

Attention, then, imposes measurable material properties upon potential material things. Does this allow us to speculate about measurement being, to some extent, a self-fulfilling prophesy? When you expect something to be there along the lines of certain dimensions measurable, it will be there in such prescribed form? If nothing else, this might help explain flights of fancy become airborne in the dark, optical illusions and hallucinations.

if you say there’s a pattern to activity, you’re as good as saying there’s a purpose to activity. — ucarr

A person cannot follow a pattern without having a purpose. This is true even if the purpose of the pattern is simply cycling through the pattern and maintaining its organized form. In this example, purpose means maintaining a sequence of steps holding true to the pattern. There's no way to understand organization outside of purpose. In the absence of organization, there's no possibility of consciousness that recognizes organization and distills from it purpose. Working backwards, the presence of a conscious being implies a universe consistent with life and its stupendous organization. This is not to say there's a humanoid, super-being who designed the universe super-naturally. Thermo-dynamics may have caused life-supporting organization in balance with non-living chaos. Whatever system supports life is a system consistent with life even if it's also consistent, in equal measure, with total chaos. As such, it cannot be characterized as being a system devoid of organization and purpose. We know this because, being part of this system, we see the presence of organization and purpose.

Our sense of "order" is only order in our perspective, but the processes of the universe and reality does not have such a perspective. We are therefor just part of the chaos machine, part of entropy and the entropic processes that happen through time. We take energy, absorb it and consume it, then dissipate it. All according to entropy. — Christoffer

Order in our perspective is order in the perspective of the universe because we are part of the universe.
We're not separate from the universe, and neither is our pattern recognition, logical thinking and purpose.

Humans lived thousands of years before the organic chemistry of the metabolism began to be understood as an organized process. In other words, it was present and operational in the world before there was any human perspective on what goes on inside our bodies. Do the enzymes in our digestive track have a role to play, i.e., a purpose to fulfill? If you're alive and in good health, you cannot doubt this.

I agree with what you say. So, where are we now? Well, maybe it's easier to see that in the supposed noumenal world of Kant, existing things dwell in something like superposition because they have no presence, something supplied by consciousness. Therefore, it appears that the human observer's presence vis-à-vis the object observed imparts to it boundaries both measurable and navigable. — ucarr

I don't agree with any of that. I can be blindfolded, driven somewhere I've never been, and taken into room in a building I've never even seen in a picture. There could be anything in that room. Something someone made; a plant; a meteorite; a person; anything at all.

Someone I've never heard of could be taken to the same room in the same manner, and they would see the same thing.

The thing was there, and had the characteristics it had, regardless of the other person and/or me seeing it.

Being is meeting the condition of having rational activity, such as consciousness being the rational activity of a brain and body online. Or shoppers in shops.

Speaking in a parallel, I don't believe grammar, an organizing principle that takes words and organizes them into sentences, paragraphs, chapters and books, creates written language. No, grammar organizes written language. The organized sounds of the spoken word get organized into written signs that can be interpreted by a standardized organization, i.e., grammar. — ucarr

I think you need to look at written symbols independently from written words. Then you'll see that there is necessarily "a grammar" behind any writing of symbols. The written symbol may be essentially a memory aid, or something like that, and there is necessarily a rule, as to what the symbol represents. Without that grammar, which tells one how to read the symbol, the symbol would be useless. Likewise, in the organizing of letters to create words, there is a grammar required. Generally, in English, each letter represents a sound. You'll notice that in some languages, a written symbol often represents an idea, and hieroglyphics is taken to be a combination of these two. In an acronym each letter represents a word. These are all different "grammars".

You might wish to restrict the meaning of "grammar" to a more formal sense, so that this type of rule does not qualify as "grammar", but then we still have to account for the reality of this type of "rule", which is used to create written language.

Likewise, as I'm saying, consciousness takes partially independent material objects that, at the quantum level, exist prior to consciousness - itself a construction from parts - and organizes them into navigable environments. So, consciousness is a material phenomenon that provides a function that parallels the syntactical function of grammar. — ucarr

This analogy does not work. As demonstrated above, with the reality of written language, the parts themselves, each mark or symbol, is created according to a rule or rules. So if we wish to maintain your analogy with quantum particles, we must say that the "material objects" are not independent, they are created intentionally, according to some rules. So if you want to maintain the principle that these parts exist prior to consciousness, then we need to allow intention prior to consciousness, as what creates the parts. Then we have a formal meaning of "consciousness", as what arranges the parts, just like the formal meaning of "grammar", as what arranges the symbols, but we still need "intention" as prior to the parts, creating them, just like we need "rules" as prior to the symbols.

First, you say there are aspects of reality consciousness can work with. That's consciousness in reactive mode. — ucarr

Working with something is not the reactive mode, it is the creative mode. This is evident from the fact that we can work with completely passive things, moving them around to build something. That you interpret what I wrote, in this way, demonstrates misunderstanding.

Didn't you already say consciousness_reactive and consciousness_creative are fundamentally incompatible? Doesn't this imply that consciousness can only be one or the other, with switching between the two modes being impossible? — ucarr

No, I meant that the descriptive principles, the descriptive modes are fundamentally incompatible. If we describe consciousness as reactive, that description is fundamentally incompatible with a description of consciousness as creative. This is a feature of the rules which apply to making such descriptions. Consider the difference between describing a past event, and describing a future event for example. We use the past tense of verbs to describe the past, and future tense to describe the future.

Notice how the incompatibility between the two descriptive modes is understood as an incompatibility between two features of reality. This is a product of the reactive mode. All such "representation of reality" is the reactive mode. So adherence to the reactive mode produces the appearance that "consciousness can only be one or the other". This is because the reactive mode cannot apprehend the creative mode except by analyzing the effects of the creative mode. This is what I described as observations through the apparatus. This approach cannot understand the creative mode which built the apparatus, because it always interprets through effects, what have occurred, the past.

From the perspective of the creative mode, however, both of the two apparently incompatible features of reality can be understood, as incompatible due to the descriptive modes employed, and these are created. This means that the supposed independent reality does not necessarily consist of incompatible features, only our (created) modes of representing reality has produced this appearance. This leaves the consciousness itself as capable of understanding reality. The required separation is not between the consciousness and the independent reality, as an independent reality is only "supposed" by the consciousness, as part of its creative functions. The required separation is between the will to create, and the effects of this, the creation.

The will to create, itself, does not require the assumption of a separate independent reality, as it takes absolute freedom as its premise. And absolute freedom denies any external constraints. It is only after the act of creating, when the consciousness observes what has been created, that the constraints of the external world are observed, in their effects, that the consciousness is inclined to create the two incompatible representations, one representing the will to create, in absolute freedom, and the other representing what has been created, as having been restricted.

If I'm not mistaken, there is no continuity between incompatible things. By this reasoning, past and future must be compatible given the natural continuity between them. Clearly, the functional present, when seen relativistically as the future in relation to the past, contains overlap with the past. If there were no compatibility between the two - not to elaborate on the problem of them existing as such only in relationship to each other - it seems to me there could only be an eternal present. An eternal present is hard to make sense of when we entertain the concept of progress. — ucarr

The issue outlined here helps to demonstrate that the problem of incompatibility is a problem with the representation, not a problem with "reality" itself. The concepts of "past" and "future" are aspects of the representation. The incompatibility exists here, within this conceptualization. The "being" of consciousness, at the present, demonstrates the continuity between the two, and that the incompatibility is somehow an incorrect representation.

The problem can be seen to be the assumption of an "independent reality". Placing reality as "independent" removes the consciousness, and its creative acts, from "reality", leaving only the observed "past" as "reality". Then the consciousness's creative acts are interpreted as reactive. Modeling the consciousness's creative acts as reactive rather than creative is what produces the incompatibility. This misplaces the creative acts, as "at the present" instead of modeling them as "in the future" with an overlap of future and past, as you describe. The reality of the overlap of future and past is what allows for the incompatibility to be resolved. But this idea necessitates a breakdown of "independent reality", which is what "special relativity" accomplishes. Then we are left with the consciousness only, no assumption of "independent reality", and we must start with a primary premise which respects the reality of the consciousness itself, as the will to create.

This argument seems to contradict your prior argument: "...the past in its reality, is incompatible with the future, in its reality." — ucarr

That is what happens when we assume an "independent reality". We assume the consciousness to be at the present. The independent reality is the past and future, and all of temporal existence, as distinct from the perspective of the consciousness, which then is understood as a "point in time", which provides the grounds for temporal measurements. But the "point in time" then is distinct from the "independent reality", which is a requirement for the idea of "independent". Now, the "point in time" is an eternal principle, as distinct from temporal existence, which the consciousness can insert anywhere into the supposed independent temporal existence, to produce temporal measurements.

However, this "point in time", which is derived from that assumption of "independent reality", is really a faulty principle, as "special relativity" indicates. Now the "point in time", which is representative of the consciousness's "present", as distinct from "independent reality", must be reworked, to allow that "the present" is actually a duration of time combining both future and past. This is the way to dissolve, or resolve, the apparent incompatibility between past and future. We take the consciousness's "present" as a combination of the will to create, and the experiencing of the effects of this will to create, without the need to assume any "independent reality".

Your above statement contains an issue. Inertia can be overcome, and it is overcome too many times to count. Einstein's equation, by explaining change of momentum through mass/energy equivalence,
establishes the fact that where's there's inertia, there's also energy, and thus past and future, being consistent along the channel of mass/energy equivalence, are not incompatible. — ucarr

We do not need to discuss this, but the incompatibility is evident in the difference between invariant (inertial) mass, and variant (relativistic) mass.

I take your above statement to be a logic-based attack upon E=MC2

=


2
. As I see it, the gist of your argument says: the equation tries to make a claim based on Mode A interpreted in the context of Mode B, but this must be a faulty claim because Mode A and Mode B are incompatible. — ucarr

Yes, the problems of E=MC2, as demonstrated by the difference between invariant mass and variant mass, demonstrate the incompatibility between the Newtonian (mass) perspective, and the Einsteinian (energy) perspective.

Can you show how inertia examples determinism? — ucarr

The inertia perspective, is derived from Newtonian laws of motion, which state as the first law, that a body will continue to move in a regular way, as it has in the past, indefinitely into the future, unless forced to change. That is the determinist perspective, that a cause of change is required. Notice that the way I stated it, as "indefinitely into the future" the determinist infinite regress of efficient causation is signified.

Are you assuming the human individual can exist untethered from mass/energy? — ucarr

I don't understand the question. These are temporal concepts, "mass", "energy". We do not need to employ them. In theory we could completely annihilate them, and build a different conceptual structure.

I think you need to look at written symbols independently from written words. Then you'll see that there is necessarily "a grammar" behind any writing of symbols. The written symbol may be essentially a memory aid, or something like that, and there is necessarily a rule, as to what the symbol represents. Without that grammar, which tells one how to read the symbol, the symbol would be useless. — Metaphysician Undercover

Consider a symbol whose rule for its interpretation is lost. Though meaningless, the symbol still exists.

Consider a symbol whose rule for its interpretation is known. The rule can be read and understood. The logic supporting the rule can be read and learned. Where in this sequence is something created from nothing?

...if you want to maintain the principle that these parts exist prior to consciousness, then we need to allow intention prior to consciousness, as what creates the parts. Then we have a formal meaning of "consciousness", as what arranges the parts, just like the formal meaning of "grammar", as what arranges the symbols, but we still need "intention" as prior to the parts, creating them, just like we need "rules" as prior to the symbols. — Metaphysician Undercover

Consider that in our dialogue, as dialogue, there is nothing prior to consciousness. Can there be something prior to consciousness? We cannot know the answer to this question because the means of searching out the answer requires a questioning mind, which pre-supposes consciousness. Consciousness can only get beyond itself paradoxically, as in the case of Kant's realm of the noumena: things in themselves unmediated by consciousness. This is the paradox of a conscious conception of what is not consciousness. By playing a mind game wherein I paradoxically assert there is a realm lying beyond consciousness, I paradoxically de-construct consciousness and arrive at the inexpressible, given that expression pre-supposes consciousness. So, getting beyond consciousness paradoxically via a mind game, I de-construct consciousness, and thus the logical implication is that at its most fundamental, consciousness formats reality itself. Of course, within the scope of the mind game of paradoxicality, intentionality is just another stop in the infinite regress of consciously constructed reality.

First, you say there are aspects of reality consciousness can work with. That's consciousness in reactive mode. — ucarr

Working with something is not the reactive mode, it is the creative mode. This is evident from the fact that we can work with completely passive things, moving them around to build something. — Metaphysician Undercover

If creativity means something from nothing, that's the paradox of nothingness being an existing thing. If creativity means re-arranging pre-existent things, that's equating creativity with permutation, a false equivalence. Matter is neither created nor destroyed.

We use the past tense of verbs to describe the past, and future tense to describe the future. — Metaphysician Undercover

Notice how the incompatibility between the two descriptive modes is understood as an incompatibility between two features of reality. — Metaphysician Undercover

Distinct and incompatible are non-equivalent. I shake your right hand with my right hand. Our two hands are distinct across the axis of two semi-circles symmetrical. Our distinct hands example compatibility in a handshake.

the reactive mode cannot apprehend the creative mode except by analyzing the effects of the creative mode. This is what I described as observations through the apparatus. This approach cannot understand the creative mode which built the apparatus, because it always interprets through effects, what have occurred, the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

Reverse engineering has no problem recreating the creation of the apparatus from the opposite direction: final state $→$ initial state.

The will to create, itself, does not require the assumption of a separate independent reality, as it takes absolute freedom as its premise. — Metaphysician Undercover

The will to create pre-supposes a sentient. The existence of a sentient in turn pre-supposes an environment from which the sentient is emergent. In our entropically mediated world, absolute freedom holds no obvious pertinence to the constraints of the evolving thermo-dynamism of far from equilibrium life forms. Feeding the metabolism on a daily basis - a far from equilibrium necessity - bears no resemblance to absolute freedom.

The "being" of consciousness, at the present, demonstrates the continuity between the two, and that the incompatibility is somehow an incorrect representation. — Metaphysician Undercover

The issue here pertains to accessing Kant's noumenal realm of things in themselves, i.e., "being" without encountering the problem of the perceptual distortion you describe. If what you say is something you know, and not merely conjecture, then it must be true that you can do this. Show me that you can.

The reality of the overlap of future and past is what allows for the incompatibility to be resolved. But this idea necessitates a breakdown of "independent reality", which is what "special relativity" accomplishes. Then we are left with the consciousness only, no assumption of "independent reality", and we must start with a primary premise which respects the reality of the consciousness itself, as the will to create. — Metaphysician Undercover

You seem to think that elimination of the noumenal realm delivers us into a unified reality permeated by consciousness. Moreover, you seem to think material reality no less a part of mind than abstract reality.

What do you make of Russell's Paradox as it relates to the origin boundary ontology you equate with omnipresent mind?

Note - The paradox shows that, logically, a set cannot be a sub-set of itself. In order to overthrow "existence precedes essence," you have to produce some logic showing there exists a context wherein a set being a sub-set of itself doesn't entail an uncontainable paradox. It's the uncontainability of the paradox that explodes establishment of an internally consistent origin of existence.

The problem is the reason for a posited material reality independent of mind. It's this originating part of the Big Bang science can't reach.

The independent reality is the past and future... — Metaphysician Undercover

How do you know this about something lying beyond your consciousness?

"the present" is actually a duration of time combining both future and past — Metaphysician Undercover

How is it that future and past don't dissolve when joined together in the present? There can be no direct contact with either, as contact implies the present.

...the incompatibility is evident in the difference between invariant (inertial) mass, and variant (relativistic) mass. — Metaphysician Undercover

I conjecture there's no local frame of reference for either the past or the future; they exist only as abstract concepts. Likewise, I conjecture there's no past mass or future mass. Whatever their causes might be, they render them as present tense phenomena.

Can you show how inertia examples determinism? — ucarr

The inertia perspective, is derived from Newtonian laws of motion, which state as the first law, that a body will continue to move in a regular way, as it has in the past, indefinitely into the future, unless forced to change. — Metaphysician Undercover

Okay. So constant flow animation only gets interrupted with perturbation of momentum.

....we need to create an observational capacity, an apparatus, which is not reliant on mass/inertia principles. In other words we need an apparatus which is entirely created of possibility without matter or mass. — Metaphysician Undercover

Are you assuming the human individual can exist untethered from mass/energy? — ucarr

I'm wondering how a zero-mass apparatus could be built by the positive-mass agency of humans.

I don't agree with any of that. I can be blindfolded, driven somewhere I've never been, and taken into room in a building I've never even seen in a picture. There could be anything in that room. Something someone made; a plant; a meteorite; a person; anything at all.

Someone I've never heard of could be taken to the same room in the same manner, and they would see the same thing.

The thing was there, and had the characteristics it had, regardless of the other person and/or me seeing it. — Patterner

Regarding what you know, you can't transcend the scope of your consciousness. Everything you describe examples an organized perception of reality known to your personal history and its attendant point of view. Through social interaction, you've experienced verification of what you've perceived by other individuals who've described similar perceptions.

You know that other individuals have perceptual mechanisms that render perceptions similar to yours when they gaze upon similar things.

Do you know there's a realm lying beyond yours and other persons perceptions that's analogous to those perceptions?

Do you know there's a realm lying beyond yours and other persons perceptions that's analogous to those perceptions? — ucarr

I do. If there wasn't, we wouldn't perceive the same thing. No matter how we test or verify it, we see the same thing. The reason is because we independently perceive the same thing outside of our minds. That's the function of our perceptions. Why would we have these gelatinous orbs that seem to let us know what is out there, a conclusion which all of our scientific methods of studying confirms, if that wasn't what's going on? We can philosophize about it all we want, but that's what's going on.

Do you know there's a realm lying beyond yours and other persons perceptions that's analogous to those perceptions? — ucarr

I do. If there wasn't, we wouldn't perceive the same thing. No matter how we test or verify it, we see the same thing. The reason is because we independently perceive the same thing outside of our minds. — Patterner

You know that you perceive what you call reality in accordance with the cognitive constructions of your mind. Since the basis for what you know is your mind, how do you know what lies beyond the basis for your knowing, i.e., your mind?

You know that another person looks at what you've looked at and reports seeing something that agrees closely with your description of what you've looked at. So far, you know that your and the other persons' minds construct perceptions similar, and thus you know that your and the other persons' minds do similar things when they react to existing things that stimulate their perceptive activity.

Consider a parallel. You and your friend both have the same computer system. Also, you both run the same word processing program on your respective computers for formatting typed input into spread sheets as output. Let's say the program is MicroSoft's Excel program.

Neither of you has independently learned the DOS (Disk Operating System) language that supports the GUI (Graphical User Interface) that translates, i.e., constructs the cognitive package of animations, pictures and sounds you and your friend know as Excel.

What do you know about the underlying DOS that makes possible the GUI you and your friend depend on? For example: Do you think that, on the basis of knowing the GUI content alone, you could write DOS code for the GUI you and your friend depend on for seeing and comprehending Excel's content?

Let's assume that via parallelism you can translate from the GUI content to an analogous DOS electronic content. In this situation, you've discovered an analogous realm lying beyond what you perceive directly.

If, however, we assume the underlying system supporting the GUI is not an analog program, but rather a digital program, do you think that in this situation knowing GUI content informs you about digital content?

Note - What Cons Does: Examining in Overview by Analogy

If quantum reality supports our empirical GUI, which we call reality, then, by analogy, we can understand that QM codes for our empirical GUI.

Does it follow that making a study of the QM realm leads to unlocking the QM coding of our empirical GUI?

Might this be equal to learning how to read the building blocks of cons?

Will this lead to understanding our cons at the human scale of experience in terms of it being a formatting program for the empirical reality assembled from the building blocks of cons, i.e., quantum phenomena?

Consider a symbol whose rule for its interpretation is lost. Though meaningless, the symbol still exists.

Consider a symbol whose rule for its interpretation is known. The rule can be read and understood. The logic supporting the rule can be read and learned. Where in this sequence is something created from nothing? — ucarr

Who said anything about "something created from nothing"? I said that the rule, for using the symbol, is prior in time to the symbol's existence, as the reason for its existence.

Consider that in our dialogue, as dialogue, there is nothing prior to consciousness. Can there be something prior to consciousness? — ucarr

How does this make sense to you? You are asking me to take as a premise, that there is nothing prior to consciousness, and then asking me if there can be something prior to consciousness. That would be blatant contradiction.

If creativity means something from nothing, that's the paradox of nothingness being an existing thing. If creativity means re-arranging pre-existent things, that's equating creativity with permutation, a false equivalence. Matter is neither created nor destroyed. — ucarr

I think the problems that you have with this issue are due to the conditions which you set up for yourself. Why do yo see the need to set out conditions such as these? Just like the above example where you asked for a blatant contradiction, this makes no sense to me. Why do you insist on "something from nothing" as a condition?

Distinct and incompatible are non-equivalent. — ucarr

Sure, but I am explaining them as incompatible. And "distinct" is a form or type of "incompatible". Incompatible is the broader term, with a wider application, and "distinct" is more specific.

Reverse engineering has no problem recreating the creation of the apparatus from the opposite direction: final state →
→
initial state. — ucarr

Perhaps, but that doesn't address the point, which is to get to the reason behind the existence of the thing, what is prior to the initial state. Consider the title of the thread, "what does consciousness do". I answer that it is an act which produces "the initial state". If reverse engineering looks at "states", it does not apprehend the activity which produces the states. Therefore reverse engineering does not apprehend the activity prior to the initial state. This issue is very evident in quantum mechanics. The engineering produces "particles" (states), but it does not apprehend the activity which produces the particle (referred to as wave function, and wave function collapse).

The will to create pre-supposes a sentient. The existence of a sentient in turn pre-supposes an environment from which the sentient is emergent. — ucarr

Again, you are just employing contradictory conditions. Why do this to yourself? You impose terms upon yourself which create an impossible to solve problem.

The issue here pertains to accessing Kant's noumenal realm of things in themselves, i.e., "being" without encountering the problem of the perceptual distortion you describe. If what you say is something you know, and not merely conjecture, then it must be true that you can do this. Show me that you can. — ucarr

I never said anything about "Kant's noumenal realm". Again, you are imposing terms designed to create difficulty in understanding. Why do this to yourself?

What do you make of Russell's Paradox as it relates to the origin boundary ontology you equate with omnipresent mind?

Note - The paradox shows that, logically, a set cannot be a sub-set of itself. In order to overthrow "existence precedes essence," you have to produce some logic showing there exists a context wherein a set being a sub-set of itself doesn't entail an uncontainable paradox. It's the uncontainability of the paradox that explodes establishment of an internally consistent origin of existence.

The problem is the reason for a posited material reality independent of mind. It's this originating part of the Big Bang science can't reach. — ucarr

Now, you describe things in terms of Russel's paradox, and set theory. Then you say "you have to produce some logic showing there exists a context wherein a set being a sub-set of itself doesn't entail an uncontainable paradox". But why do you even refer to set theory at all. By defining "objects" in terms of "sets", all you do is impose extremely difficult conditions on yourself. These conditions are designed to place "objects" outside our capacity of understanding, by making the constituent elements of a set unintelligible, and telling us to simply take them for granted.

Again, why use terms which create difficulty for yourself, rather than looking to actually understand the issue?

I'm wondering how a zero-mass apparatus could be built by the positive-mass agency of humans. — ucarr

If you believe in free will, and the immateriality of the soul, then you would not represent the agency of human beings as "positive-mass". Therefore this would not be an issue.

See what your post demonstrates? You reject the terms and conditions (free will, immaterial, soul) which are specifically designed to make all the aspects of these problems you bring up intelligible, comprehensible, and solvable. And you insist on employing terms which create contradictions, and paradoxes, creating unsolvable problems. Since we construct and choose our premises and axioms, why not take the ones designed to solve the problems, which the other ones create?