Certainly the doctrine of original sin (assertion of the will) and of salvation (denial of the will) is the great truth which constitutes the essence of Christianity, while most of what remains is only the clothing of it, the husk or accessories. — WWR Book 4

Therefore according to this doctrine the deeds of the will are always sinful and imperfect, and can never fully satisfy justice; and, finally, these works can never save us, but faith alone, a faith which itself does not spring from resolution and free will, but from the work of grace, without our co-operation, comes to us as from without. — WWR Book 4

It seems to me that, given the above, Christianity's Gospel cannot be served up to the masses (as we are taught); salvation cannot be be reeled in like a fish on a hook; there is no learning how to fish for salvation, as it comes unbidden to the elect, in accordance with a mysterious divinity. If this is true, then Jesus came to earth to greet those already divinely chosen for the afterlife in heaven.

If it were works, which spring from motives and deliberate intention, that led to salvation, then, however one may turn it, virtue would always be a prudent, methodical, far-seeing egoism. — WWR Book 4

...salvation is only obtained through faith, i.e., through a changed mode of knowing, and this faith can only come through grace, thus as from without. This means that the salvation is one which is quite foreign to our person, and points to a denial and surrender of this person necessary to salvation. — WWR Book 4

I see here that faith is a type of knowing, perhaps divine knowing. In our language, "knowing" is a verb, an action. Is there a divine knowing possible in the form of an existential reality that can be practiced within the natural world?

Luther demands (in his book "De Libertate Christiana") that after the entrance of faith the good works shall proceed from it entirely of themselves, as symptoms, as fruits of it; yet by no means as constituting in themselves a claim to merit, justification, or reward, but taking place quite voluntarily and gratuitously. So we also hold that from the ever-clearer penetration of the principium individuationis proceeds, first, merely free justice, then love, extending to the complete abolition of egoism, and finally resignation or denial of the will. — WWR Book 4

I see here that good works become operational when the faithful cease to obstruct their activation due to exercise of self-serving will.

I think Schopenhauer's version of non-being is almost necessarily accompanied by a physical death because at that point of salvation, how does one go back to "willing" again? Willing is so intertwined with physiological living for Schopenhauer, I cannot see how the final "salvation" can be anything different (like a Buddhist might believe with the Middle Path): — schopenhauer1

What comes to mind as a possible alternative to non-existence is something akin to the virtual body of Jesus on earth.

Yet it seems that the absolute denial of will may reach the point at which the will shall be wanting to take the necessary nourishment for the support of the natural life. This kind of suicide is so far from being the result of the will to live, that such a completely resigned ascetic only ceases to live because he has already altogether ceased to will. No other death than that by starvation is in this case conceivable (unless it were the result of some special superstition)... — Schopenhauer

I wonder if the passage described here might better be characterized by some label other than "suicide." What about the idea of replacing "suicide" with "ascension"? Might Jesus' total surrender of his will to God have been the form of his ascension from the cave?

I've thought of ascension as a type of explosion that creates instead of destroys. In this context it might be the creative explosion of the will. With its explosion, the will merges into the Divinity.

Your Schopenhauer quote says interesting things in the way of clarification: self transcendence -- as I'm getting it at the moment -- entails a journey to a state of mind of total acceptance, which plays as a human possessing the neutrality of a rock, or any other such insentient.

However, there's a big however; the human as a rock, retaining cognition, sees himself attaining to rock neutrality and approves. Goal attained. Job well done. Cognition cannot escape self interest. And self-interest, by definition, precludes transcendence of self.

There is no life in absence of self.

So, at the moment, I'm thinking self transcendence is an ego-stroking mind game. Why else would the saints, if they had really merged into non-existence, leave behind their writings?

That being said, I claim that the best course of action...is to live a life of withdrawal. — schopenhauer1

I hear you saying social engagement is overrated because it causes more problems than it solves. I wonder if human nature might forestall isolation as antidote. I expect that in the situation of protracted solitude, human nature internalizes social engagement. The two-way conversation of social engagement becomes the mock two-way conversation within the mind of the solitary.

If the solitary isolates beyond internal mock social engagement -- assuming that's possible -- I wonder if a strengthening tendency towards hallucination arises. This wonder on my part is funded by the notion life, by its definition, militates against isolation. I base this natural anti-isolationism of life upon the idea consciousness is inherently social. My basis for this claim is the understanding consciousness is rooted within a self/other binary. This binary, I think, presents so essentially that even the self becomes object.

If you think there’s a flaw in Schopenhauer’s or Buddhism’s approach to transcending the self, make the case. — schopenhauer1

I wonder if the flaw might be: "...even the self becomes object." That being the case, there may be no transcendence of the self possible. Also, there might be the issue of a logical puzzle: how can the self transcend itself if it's the self doing the transcending?

If self-transcendence can somehow transcend the logical puzzle of itself, then where does it arrive? Let's suppose it arrives at the position of pure observer: always seeing, never seen.

Isn't that the God position: purely generative, not at all derivative?

A problem attaching to the God position -- at least from the human perspective -- presents as the origin narrative of the God position. We know from Russell's Paradox there's a logical problem with all-inclusive set comprehension, a necessary pre-requisite for the God position.*

If a human somehow arrives at a God-position point of view, isn't it likely human nature will inflate the ego to an extreme exaggeration featuring omniscience, an ultimate resultant of hubris?

*Perhaps Russell's Paradox suggests a reason why the super-nature of God needs the nature of humanity: not even God -- being conscious -- exists free of the self/other binary.

Causal relationships are about transformation, not simulation. — ucarr

I never used the word, "simulation", so this appears to be a straw-man argument. An effect is a representation of its causes, not a simulation of its causes — Harry Hindu

"Represent" has meaning in more than one sense, depending on context. There's the sense of "represent" as "to speak for" in lieu of another. This sense often refers to an elected official who, as a member of congress, represents the voters who put him into office. It would be strange to claim the elected official is an effect of his constituents. There's also the sense of "represent" as "to depict" something. This sense often refers to a picture depicting, for example, a bucolic setting in the countryside. This is the sense that involves simulation.

We've been writing at length about the GUI. It can be a simulation.

With causal relationships, we're concerned with an initial state of a system and how it arrives at a different state of the system at a later time. A → B. If A is the cause and B is the effect, is B a representation of A, or a result of A?

I would like for you to try to explain yourself without using terms like, "internal/external", "material/immaterial" and "objective/subjective". Each time you type a sentence with those terms, try removing them and see if it takes away anything from what you intend to say. If it does, then what is it that is taken away? — Harry Hindu

Let me refer to what I said at the end of the last part that I posted: the physics of a material world, beyond mentally constructed information supports something being at stake: the life of the aware subject experiencing the world. Materialism, with its discrete boundaries, makes real the life and possible death of the subject. It is the vulnerability and possible death of the subject that makes the discrete boundaries of the subject hold essential importance to its existence. These discrete boundaries include: objective/subjective; material/immaterial; before/after; here/there. If you've ever been attacked by an aggressor, or faced an impending collision in a car at high speed, you know the importance of here/there; left/right. In the real world of physics, an inch this way or that marks the difference between life and death. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.

I am not saying that causality is a physico_material phenomenon. It is just a process, or a relationship, like everything else, and that using terms like physico and material confuses the issue. — Harry Hindu

We both know you're not confused about the difference between someone creating an animation showing you being shot and falling to the ground dead and a flesh and blood killer with a gun pointing at you and squeezing the trigger. If you want to claim both scenarios are just processes, or relationships like all other relationships, and "that using terms like physico and material confuses the issue." no one will try to stop you. Everyone will know you're keeping alive and well because, regardless of what you say in a debate, in your life you never confuse the two types of scenarios.

I know you have your language games configured so that when necessary, you can claim your denial the world is physical does not entail you regarding a memory of your supper last night and your real, physical supper before you today as one and the same. If the world were not physical, there'd be no important difference between the two. The boundaries of the world of physics have meaning beyond information and relationships.

When the lights are out or you close your eyes, and you experience a red stop sign, what are you actually doing - seeing or imagining? — Harry Hindu

In both situations: a) wakeful seeing; b) slumbering seeing the visual cortex processes visible light energy so that it's encoded for memory playback of visible light impressions. By the way, with the argument you're making here, depending as it does on a difference between seeing a stop sign with your eyes open versus dreaming a stop sign with your eyes closed, aren't you making use of your belief in open/closed, a "confusing" and unhelpful binary?

Your problem lies in you trying to explain how material and immaterial things interact, and how an immaterial mind can represent material things. Your assertions imply that the mind is special or separate from the world when we understand that it isn't. The solution isn't in doubling down on dualism. The solution is monism. — Harry Hindu

What evidence do you have proving my dualism?

How does one get at the material nature of the world via a dimensionless, immaterial GUI? — Harry Hindu

By GUI I mean incandescent monitor displaying animated graphics and text streaming from a computer. Since you think GUI dimensionless and immaterial, you can help me better understand by elaborating further details about it.

What does it mean to say that there is a lack of dimensional extension of immaterial things? — Harry Hindu

...why can we look in the dog house and see the dog but not look in the brain and see the mind? — Harry Hindu

In the underlined part of the quote, are you not making the point that the mind, being dimensionless, cannot be seen by the eyes?

You cannot access all of your long-term memories at once but you can recall them from somewhere. From where are they recalled if there is no dimension to the mind? — Harry Hindu

Since you think the mind has dimensional extensions, as do material objects that can be measured in inches, why don't you specify, in inches, the dimensions of the mind?

One could argue that the dimensional aspect of material things is a product of your GUI, in the way the information is structured in your GIU, not of the world. — Harry Hindu

This is one of your important premises; I can't respond to it until you elaborate more details about what you mean by GUI.

This is only vision but I have four other senses that come together with vision in my mind. Where do they all come together in the information structure we call the mind, or the GUI? — Harry Hindu

When you write GUI, are writing a synonym for mind?

I can get at the thoughts in your head by correctly interpreting the causal relationship between the scribbles I see on the screen and the thoughts in your mind. — Harry Hindu

I'm not sure if communication in general always examples causality. Do you think my looking at an apple causes my mental image of the apple?

I would just say that self and environment are themselves relationships and processes. Try pointing to the boundaries of each and see if you can succeed. Everything is a relationship. — Harry Hindu

If you're in a jungle and a tiger starts racing towards you in attack mode, you don't think you could separate the tiger from the environment?

Where is the material stuff you keep talking about if all we can ever point to are relationships? — Harry Hindu

In the USA, 43K deaths per year are due to vehicle collisions.

...you have to bring in what I said about information being a relationship between causes and their effects, and the way you get at the causes is by making more than one observation and using logic. — Harry Hindu

If there's nothing but relationships between systems of information created mentally, with no material physics in existence, and, as you seem to think, causal relationships are instances of communication of information, then what's at stake in the lives of humans? Since there are only systems of information, and we know from experience information can be erased but not killed, what is there for humans to be fearful of; what is there for humans to care about? Only death gives reality and meaning to fear and love and hate. Only physics gives reality to death.

YOU are the one using the terms "internal/external". I'm asking you what YOU mean by those terms. If you are saying that the mind is caused by the brain, then that is not an internal/external relationship. It is a causal relationship. So what do YOU mean by saying that the mind is internal to the brain if you do not mean the same thing as the relationship between the dog and doghouse? — Harry Hindu

Maybe you, like I, can benefit by further examining what you mean by internal/external.

What do you mean by your use of the words, "internal/external"? Are you using them in the same sense that the dog is internal to the dog house? If so, then why can we look in the dog house and see the dog but not look in the brain and see the mind? What if the mind is what the whole brain does, and not what some internal part of the brain does? — Harry Hindu

In your quote directly above, I see that you're thinking through the meaning of internal/external in the same terms I've been using to think of them. You're meeting me halfway by using the doghouse/dog relationship in accordance with the context in which I've been referring to internal/external. Nevertheless, when you oppose my thinking with: "...why can we look in the dog house and see the dog but not look in the brain and see the mind?," you counter-example my claim with the same literal conception of internal/external I've been using. Since you base your counter-narrative upon a counter-example that uses internal/external in the same literal sense I've been using it, this evidences your belief the internal/external binary is real and probative, your preference for avoiding it notwithstanding.

I'm asking you what YOU mean by those terms. If you are saying that the mind is caused by the brain, then that is not an internal/external relationship. It is a causal relationship.

In your above quote you infer the possibility I'm positing "mind is caused by brain." That you infer this possibility suggests that you, like me, consider "mind emerges from brain" consistent with logical possibility and thus perhaps a real phenomenon.

Well, some causal relationships include effects emergent from their causes, as in the case of a viral infection and the symptom of heavy production of mucus by the immune system. So, your argument based upon the distinction between internal/external and cause/effect raises a question about the brain/mind relationship: Does it example mind emergent from brain, or not? If not, then that tells us some causal relations involve emergent properties, some don't. This limits the scope of causal relationships being also emergent relationships; it doesn't refute their possibility wholesale.

If we allowed the computer to take in some input and then use that information as input to a deductive or inductive process, we end up with new information. The question then becomes, does the new information apply to the world (you might ask, "is the information correct or incorrect?")? — Harry Hindu

If the deductive information is a logically correct derivative of the input information about the world, then barring emergence and supervenience, we know from the transitive property that it is also pertinent to the world, since its source is pertinent to the world.

It's just that in the moment of the dream, we misinterpret what we are experiencing and confuse the prediction or imagining with the world... — Harry Hindu

To the extent the dreaming experience is recognizable as waking experience, and thus can be conflated with it, the dreaming experience is not different from the waking experience.

You could even say that an effect is a representation of its causes. A chair is representative of all the processes that went into making it. — Harry Hindu

To the extent that an effect is not a simulation of its cause, it's not a representation of its cause. For an example: a chair is not a simulation of the process that made it. We can propound this argument by claiming the oakwood chair that derives from an oak tree is not the oak tree, nor is it a simulation of it.

Causal relationships are about transformation, not simulation.

You're talking about how the information is structured and presented as your GUI. — Harry Hindu

Here we have to be careful to avoid, or account for, infinite regress, or should it be described as infinite recursion? Picture (whether dreaming or awake) the infinite recursion of the images within two facing mirrors. I'm now sensing you're traveling down this road. In the absence of an objective physico_material object with at least semi-discrete boundaries, the experiencing sentient becomes lost within a realm of endless cognitive echoes. Within this realm, the question: Where am I? becomes the harbinger of an ordeal.

As sentients in bodies, we need the hard boundaries of physico_material objects to anchor us to a definitive position within the otherwise infinitely fluid spacetime.

No cognition without attendant physics.

You are confusing the GUI with what it represents when you use terms like "physical". The world is not physical. It is presented as physical by the way your GUI represents it. — Harry Hindu

You claim "physicality" is a presentation from a representation of the world via GUI. In that case, the presentation is also a representation. So, if: "Talking about how the information is structured and presented as your GUI." is not connected to an independent physical reality of electronic circuits inside the computer, but instead is a representation of a physical world contructed by a GUI, then we have two representations facing each other creating the "images-within-facing-mirrors-infinite recursion effect."

This looks to me like the realm of infinite echoes.

For you to think of anything, you have to create objects of thought and your objects of thought have boundaries that don't exactly line up with the "boundaries" in the world. — Harry Hindu

Since it says there's a discrepancy between thought boundaries and world boundaries, sentence implies that "boundaries" of the world are independent from "boundaries" of thought. This appears to contradict the claim: "The world is not physical."

I think about information as the relationship between cause and effect. Effects carry information about their causes. We are informed about the state of the world by the effect it has on our mind. We might misinterpret some percepts, but over time we can work those out by making more observations and making logical sense of these multiple observations as in the way we solve the mirage problem. — Harry Hindu

Does what you say imply there exists within the world objective states of a system rooting representations thereof within facts? If so, can we designate these objective states of a system as radiant facts transmitted to our understanding via representations? If so, does this radiant transmission of objectivity evidence information as an energetic, mass-to-mass alteration of form across spacetime?

I'm asking if causality is a physico_material phenomenon. This question is important because it spotlights whether spacetime is an active agent of consciousness as a physical phenomenon. Going forward with the presumption it is, we can conjecture that consciousness, the boundary administrator, parses reality via a set of formatting functions that includes causal changes that assemble the timeline. So, time, like space and consciousness, is a physico_material phenomenon.

Consciousness, as the boundary administrator formatting and thereby constructing the timeline of events making up the history of the cosmos, makes a close approach to mind as the fundamental thing in existence.

When we wake up (and thereby make another observation), we interpret the experience as a dream, not as an actual experience of seeing. — Harry Hindu

R.E.M. sleep is the stage of sleep where most dreams happen. This fact makes me resistant to the claim dreaming of a red stop sign is unambiguously distinct from wakefully seeing a stop sign.

So, you're saying we're always interacting with one or more types of information systems, and, speaking generally, this is what the world is like? — ucarr

The mind is part of the world and part of the causal chain that everything else is part of. Apples, chairs, trees, mountains, planets and stars are all information in that they are all effects of prior causes and causes of subsequent effects. Minds are not special in this regard. — Harry Hindu

I think your underlined claims support rather than refute the correctness of the conclusion of my quoted question. That you think the mind is just another information system additionally reenforces the correctness of my conclusion.

What do you mean by your use of the words, "internal/external"? Are you using them in the same sense that the dog is internal to the dog house? — Harry Hindu

Let me make a beginning to my response by asking if dog_doghouse and mind_brain are two duos forming a true parallel. Dog_doghouse is a relationship between two things not connected. No one claims the dog was caused by the doghouse. Mind_brain is a relationship between two things connected. Because some say the mind is caused by the brain, and some say the mind is independent of the brain, there is an issue in debate about which claim is true.

If so, then why can we look in the dog house and see the dog but not look in the brain and see the mind? — Harry Hindu

Tentatively following through on what I say above, the answer is that the two duos are not parallel.

Additional thought – Whether or not the mind is inside of the brain might also be a sticking point in your contextualization of internal/external. If, as some claim, the mind is immaterial, then it is not inside of the brain, nor is it inside of any other material thing.

The lack of dimensional extension of immaterial things is one of the difficulties with connecting them to material things. Following from this, obviously, the claim an immaterial mind is connected to a material brain posits a very hard theory to prove. On the other hand, we know it’s true that “no brain, no mind.” On the surface of things, the theory claiming mind is either: a) identical to brain, or b) emergent from brain presents as much easier to argue.

If immaterial things exist dimensionless, then there’s the strong suggestion inside/outside, being dimensional properties, have no meaning for them. If this is the case, then we have to try to answer the difficult question: Where are they? Can an existing thing exist nowhere?

What if the mind is what the whole brain does, and not what some internal part of the brain does? — Harry Hindu

From neuroscience we know that certain parts of the brain do things made use of by the mind. For example, the visual cortex, which is the part of the cerebral cortex that receives and processes sensory nerve impulses from the eyes, produces memorizable visual images essential to the mind's imaginative activity.

How did the contents of my mind get on your computer screen for you to read? How did the contents of your mind get on my computer screen for me to read? Are the contents of your mind inside my computer? — Harry Hindu

We know our communication depends upon representation that, in turn, gets manipulated by our computers.

Are the four dimensions just mental representations of the relations between objects, causes and their effects? — Harry Hindu

You say:

The contents of working memory is about a specific temporal_spatial location, namely you and your immediate environment. It is a relationship between you and your environment. — Harry Hindu

Your use of the preposition "between" evidences the fact we cannot make sense in thinking or writing about navigating and experiencing our material world without separations across spacetime and, conversely, connections across spacetime. Self and environment and living seem to entail necessary binaries.

I'm getting the impression that dreams, hallucinations and socially verified perceptions are distinct types of working representations. How is it that some of them can be incorrect? — ucarr

Because when we compare them to our actual observations of the world, we find that they are not the case. — Harry Hindu

Haven't you been arguing that "our actual observations of the world," like dreams and hallucinations, are just another type of information system, i.e., just another working representation no more a literal transcription from an objective reality than are dreams and hallucinations?

Haven't you, as evidenced via my paraphrasing of your language above, been implying Kant is correct in asserting there is a noumenal world of things-in-themselves, presumably objective, that's inaccessible to our necessarily representative translations thereof via the senses_the brain_the mind?

Haven't you been using this argument to support the argument denying an inside/outside duality?

Haven't you been implying that a network of information systems is our insuperable environment?

Haven't you, through the above stages of argumentation, been arguing generally that the "map is not the territory," an argument rooted within Kant's noumena?

So whatever you interpreted from what I said, I never implied that the mind is internal and the world external. — Harry Hindu

Are you telling me it's generally true the mind and the world have no internal/external relationship? On the other hand, are you instead telling me the mind and the world have no internal/external relationship within the limited context of our two-person dialogue without generalizing further?

Instead of saying that working memory is an "internal" representation of the world, we say it is a working representation of the world. — Harry Hindu

Does working memory have a temporal_spatial location, or is that irrelevant?

We could say the same thing about dreams. They are a working representation of the world, just an incorrect interpretation, no different than a waking hallucination is an incorrect working representation of the world. — Harry Hindu

If a dream is a working representation of the world, and likewise a waking hallucination is a working representation of the world, why are they in some sense incorrect? In the context of your post overall, I'm getting the impression that dreams, hallucinations and socially verified perceptions are distinct types of working representations. How is it that some of them can be incorrect?

They are a working representation of the world, just an incorrect interpretation, no different than a waking hallucination is an incorrect working representation of the world. It is incorrect because we are incorrectly interpreting the red we experience as being a product of our senses' interaction with the world when they are actually another working model. — Harry Hindu

Are you saying the red we experience is just our interaction with more information labeled as “working model”? If this is so, does it follow that there is no translation from observed physico_material objects (existing independently within an objective world) into information in a form compatible with our brain?

We don't experience seeing when asleep. — Harry Hindu

Are you saying there's no parallel between seeing a red stop sign while driving a car and seeing a red stop sign while dreaming?

The information in a computer is part of the "external" world, so I don't understand what you mean by rocketing "away from the external world into the interior of the mind". — Harry Hindu

As you say in your response here:

Maybe we should talk in terms of experiences only and then assign seeing and imagining to types of experiences... — Harry Hindu

So, you're saying we're always interacting with one or more types of information systems, and, speaking generally, this is what the world is like?

You keep forgetting the first step and that is that any time you talk of... code, you are only talking about how it all appears in your GUI. — Harry Hindu

When I talk of code, I'm accessing the GUI-constructed resultant of my neuronal activity?

The information in the computer is not the information that it received through it's input. It can even recall the processed information stored to process further without any access to the world, meaning that the information it is working with stored information instead of information received via some input. — Harry Hindu

In my attempt to understand what you've written immediately above, here's my paraphrase:

The information in the computer is not the information it received through its input. What's in the computer can recall its stored information for further processing without accessing the world. This means the information within the computer works with its own memory instead of working with information received from an input.

This isn't much different from how we can have a working model of the world and other kinds of working models going on in the form of predictions, imaginings and dreams. — Harry Hindu

So, working representations cover a range of types including: the world, predictions of future worlds, imaginings and dreams?

I would recommend you find some established authors who's published works represent what you think is the best synthesis of these ideas and provide references to them, a practice that you will notice I try to do in many of my posts. (Sorry for being blunt, but you did request feedback.) — Wayfarer

You have given me what I asked for, and I thank you for it. Already my understanding has a sharper focus because of what you've shared with me. I think your advice is good and I'm going to do what you advise.

Let me make a start right now by sharing my best idea about communicating who I am to another person. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man rocked my world with its insights. Marshall McLuhan lit up my mind with his observations about the evolution of mass media: first there was the spoken word; then there was the printed word; now there's the motion picture; next there might by AI through QM computing. Each medium expands communication across a bigger landscape with its computational coding at a greater removal from DNA-based organics.

I'm not at all a media guru. What I'm getting at is that McLuhan, like me, thinks in terms of big leaps forward through a narrative via intuition-supported insights. His book is full of stunning insights I feel in my gut while being challenged by the overborne continuity of his mind's quantum leaps of understanding.

If consciousness functions as a boundary administrator, formatting the picture of reality into the physical world of material objects with discrete boundaries in space and time, then there is the suggestion that at the QM scale on down to the Planck scale, an interval wherein, presumably, consciousness is not yet assembled, the state of the system is superposition. If so, then we can associate superposition with Kant's noumenal realm of things-in-themselves.

Therefore, the noumenal realm isn't in fact inaccessible to perception and knowledge thereof, instead, it's the granular building blocks of both reality and consciousness. Seeing the objects of the micro-cosmos entails meeting the challenge of interpolating consciousness into the mix such that it bridges the gap between QM and Newton. It is the boundary administration of consciousness as the formatting function rendering superposition into a discrete physics that establishes the consistency linking QM with Newton.

With the search for QM gravity underway, we can examine this context with the goal of applying the boundary administration of consciousness to time_causation. Just as there is an essential bonding of space and time, there is an essential bonding of time and causation, with consciousness enacting the role of the mediator effecting this bond.

Yes, it might be the case that consciousness parses the time boundaries of events as it parses the vector boundaries of physics. This leads us to a new conception of spacetime with consciousness interpolated into the mix as spacetime's nearly synonymous organizing principle.

Making an allowance for imprecision during this period of high conjecture, let it be said that consciousness is an integral function of spacetime. In this context, integral has meaning in two senses: a) consciousness is essential to spacetime; b) consciousness integrates spacetime into a formatted and navigable coherence.

So now we have the triumvirate radical: cogito-spacetime.

Descartes' cogito ergo sum can now be adjusted away from the hard-boundary bifurcation of substance and essence, a configuration that gives rise to the HPoC.

Instead, cogito-spacetime takes the place of cogito ergo sum. With consciousness now inducted into the physico_material realm of physics as the boundary administrator for the cognition of the physics of physico_material reality, this addition resolves the seeming inconsistency between QM and Newton. The seeming inconsistency between QM and Newton, plus Descartes' cogito ergo sum, operate as the wellsprings of the HPoC.

If the seeming inconsistency between QM and Newton, plus Descartes' cogito ergo sum, are accounted for systemically: a) QM is the pre-conscious realm of superposition; b) the cogito ergo sum is a focal point of the QM_Newton inconsistency due to the absence of consciousness as boundary administrator, then the addition dissolves away the hard bifurcation of the cogito ergo sum.

With consciousness situated in the physico_material realm, a promising attack on the question of how works the physics of subjectivity might be the conception of an upwards evolving spiral of higher-orders of mnemonic feedback looping, the reiterative physico_material home for consciousness.

Closing Thought - The HPoC is a symptom of the problem of the seeming inconsistency between QM and Newton. This seeming inconsistency, foreshadowed by Descartes' cogito ergo sum, raises questions that find answers in the objectification of consciousness as an agent that performs actions in the physico_material world. These actions are the boundary negotiations that find their essence in the the two modes of physics: a) the discrete boundaries of the particle form; b) the soft boundaries of the waveform.

I've been following this conversation with interest but I don't yet understand whether the computer-based terminology is meant to be a useful analogy or a literal description of the brain/mind/consciousness situation. Would any of you be able to help me out here? — J

The HPoC, as I understand it, derives from the question how (or if) the brain's code for our perceptions includes the subjective experience of perceptions by an experiencing self. — ucarr

As you can see from my above quote, I think the (IT) based terminology is a useful analogy for describing brain_mind activity. In my attack upon the HPoC, I look upon the question of how and why subjectivity stands associated with the brain as an advanced level project in reiteration.

One of my central concepts is the assumption reiteration is how organic memory operates within in a brain.

In your earlier quote immediately above, you argue that our working memory is not solely based on the immediate connection between self and world. In addition to this, you say our working memory can also be based upon imagination and dreams. — ucarr

What I am saying is imagination and dreams are a manifestation of the work being done in working memory. There is also the work of interpreting sensory data and one's memories, which includes imaginings and dreams, is used as a basis for interpreting sensory data. — Harry Hindu

I don't see any escape from the contradiction. In your original intention with your quote, you argued that the experience of seeing red can be interior to the mind. Through virtual seeing via the mind-supported imagination, we can lie in our bed at night and "experience" seeing red based on the neuronal memory circuits stored in our brain. Therein resides no literal red. In your later quote, you say, emphatically:

If the "I" is accessing anything, it is the world via its senses. Working memory is just a working model of the immediate environment relative to the body. — Harry Hindu

This quote says (independent of your intended meaning) working memory is an internal representation of the world. You're describing a bifurcation of sensory experience and virtual seeing. Virtual seeing is constructed from code-bearing memory for "red."

As I understand you now, you're saying: cognitively speaking, the color red is visual information stored in memory as code, and stored code is working memory.

...within the neuronal circuits of the brain wherein we interpret the specific wavelength for red, there's nothing therein that's red because the relativistic effect that supports our experience of red exists within the context of the visual field of our eyes, not within the neuronal circuits of the visual cortex of our brain. — ucarr

But we can imagine and dream of red things. So it seems to me that the color red is the form visual information takes and stored as such — Harry Hindu

When you introduce the word "information," you rocket away from the external world into the interior of the mind. No, the color red itself is not the form of visual information stored in the mind. Instead, there is electro-chemical, neuron-mediated code within the brain.

The HPoC, as I understand it, derives from the question how (or if) the brain's code for our perceptions signifies the subjective experience of perceptions by an experiencing self.

What I am trying to say is that primary "substance" of the world is process, relationships or information. — Harry Hindu

What form the data takes in memory is the ultimate question here. — Harry Hindu

You seem to be saying neuron circuits and electro-chemical code are an interpretation of a more fundamental level of reality populated by process, relationships or information.

As I understand this, the hard boundaries of a physical world of material things is the interpretation of an underlying reality of processes, relationships and information.

Is there a sense in which consciousness overflows its symbolic representations? — Pantagruel

Please note that in our conversation, consciousness is representation. As such, consciousness itself is a construction from the aggregated quanta of (presumably) Planck scale cognitive atoms.

Things get really interesting when we conjecture that consciousness, the boundary administrator, acts upon itself in that role in its own constructions of representations of objective things. Circularity.

Empirical knowledge is precisely reflected in exhausted by what is symbolically represented. — Pantagruel

Folks keep telling me: "The map is not the territory."

However consciousness can know some things in a way that seems to transcend empirical encapsulation of this kind. That fact that it can "know" that something can be brought about by conducting itself counterfactually, for example, acting "against" the way things are in order to bring about something different. So does intuitive knowledge transcend empirical encapsulation? Or does it in fact such an encapsulation itself? — Pantagruel

Premise -

Empirical knowledge is precisely reflected in exhausted by what is symbolically represented. — Pantagruel

Argument -

However consciousness can know some things in a way that seems to transcend empirical encapsulation of this kind. The fact that it can "know" that something can be brought about by conducting itself counterfactually, for example, acting "against" the way things are in order to bring about something different. — Pantagruel

Questions -

So does intuitive knowledge transcend empirical encapsulation? Or is it in fact such an encapsulation itself? — Pantagruel

Your premise is addressed by Kant's distinction between experience through the senses and understanding by abstract reasoning. Abstract reasoning sometimes liberates the understanding from the report of the senses by arriving at a valid, non-empirical conclusion to an abstract premise. When this happens, we say, "Our abstract reasoning has discovered a counter-intuitive truth about the world."

Your argument examples abstract reasoning liberating the understanding from the encapsulation of the appearance of things via the senses.

Your questions: Intuitive knowledge viewed in our context here in this conversation presents as the low resolution feedback looping mnemonics of abstract reasoning about the world. All of the spirals of feedback looping cognitive circularity involving subjectivity are higher-order loops. A low resolution loop, as in the case of intuition, can be enriched by the addition of information, thus rendering it as a high resolution loop.

At low resolution, or at high resolution, abstract reasoning has the capacity to liberate itself from the limitations and distortions of experience rendered through the senses. As the resolution increases, the more thoroughgoing the liberation.

Kant on God

Looking at your questions within the context of the big picture:

These questions hark back to the free will or fate puzzle. Can humans really create something? If they can, then certain individuals, from time to time, will arrive at new thinking not a statistical probability hard-wired into a bounded existence. On the other side, if existence is a bounded infinity, what happens is still pre-ordained by probability, even if it will take forever for all possibilities to actualize. This unlimited timeline of unlimited probabilities is the phenomenon projecting the illusion of human creativity.

So, unbounded (and incomplete) is the way to go if you're favoring human freedom and creativity, and especially so if you embrace the elusive physics of the upturning spiral of consciousness.

Great -- and deep -- questions.

Is there a possibility that where this is headed is going to end up restating in QM terms what Kant clarified in the subject (consciousness) that is isolated from the thing in itself (wave, QM theories), due to the phenomenal veil (consciousness’s constructions)? — Fire Ologist

I think your forward vision of where this is going is good. Little doubt rejiggering Kant with (hopefully) substantial additions and nuancing of transcendental idealism will occur.

For me, the gist of QM is discovery of the boundary of a quantum, as there is a boundary of a photon or, recently, the discovery there is a quantum of space. Well, if space itself is a construction from space-atoms at the Planck scale, then even what appears to our perception at the Newtonian scale as a neutral background is a construction with atomic boundaries negotiated in aggregate into a larger thing.

Who would've thought the boundary negotiations of the hard boundary particle form and the soft boundary of the waveform would be so rich with complex physics?

...there are two parts to consciousness. One is as the seat of perception, like a dog is conscious, a function of the brain, out there in the world, like any other thing in itself. The second part, for human beings, is consciousness of this consciousness. — Fire Ologist

Yes, the first level is the baseline of the cognitive construction; consciousness constructs a representation of the thing-in-itself. Now, even here at the baseline of consciousness, we have to be careful: since we're dealing with a representation of the thing-in-itself, we're already dealing with an "echo" of the prior thing-in-itself. Echoes are resident within circularity, so the physics of even the baseline of consciousness is complex.

The second level is the tentpole feature of what's known about consciousness to date: subjectivity, or internally consistent selfhood. Structurally, this is a higher-order ring of the upwardly evolving spiral of mnemonics-based cognition.

At this level, the boundary negotiations are perplexed by the entelechy and the telos of subjectivity. Now, the physics of consciousness must address the structures attendant upon non-local physics: thermo-dynamics, morpho-dynamics, teleo-dynamics.

Where does the transitive bridge fit in?

If I’m making any sense to you. — Fire Ologist

Have no doubt you're making good sense when you ask a million dollar question. If we take recourse to Schrödinger's equation, we can conjecture that our assembled consciousness formats superposition into position, which is to say it resolves the conflated boundaries of paradox down to the hard boundaries of the particle form.

This conjectured transitive function of consciousness is the wall of empirical experience QM had to break through en route to discovering the hard boundaries of apparently continuous material objects are made up of discrete quanta.

Conceptually, this is cogent. — Pantagruel

Thank-you.

But it still begs the question of the exact nature of the representation construct. — Pantagruel

This is a work in progress. I present my theories incomplete because my method of working requires interaction with other thinkers who check/advance my own thinking. Considering my work method being embedded within the hot kitchen of debate, of course the conjectured method of construction by boundary negotiations is presently vague. This is not to suggest I'm not working from an already elaborated database of systematic reasoning and scholarship.

I view it in light of what I'd call "constructive realism". — Pantagruel

That's a useful label. Thank-you

...are we talking about the conscious experience qua representation, or are we talking about some kind of construct - presumably a material-symbolic artefact - that instantiates or incorporates this conscious experience? — Pantagruel

This is a deep question. Presently, I am focusing on consciousness as a builder by way of being a boundary administrator. The boundary negotiations work towards construction of a representation of reality. Using this simple structure for my method of attack helps me keep my focus manageable.

One of the deep questions is whether reality can be experienced directly, or only indirectly through constructed representations. I suppose Kant's noumena presents an argument against the possibility of direct cognitive access to reality (things-in-themselves). I also suppose Kant harks back to Plato, who claimed our perceptions can only copy eternal forms imperfectly.

In the same vein, there is the deep question whether consciousness via the neuronal circuits of the brain is an endlessly hierarchical spiral upwards through evolving levels of cognition.

Also, there's the question whether the sweeping dynamism of an upwardly evolving spiral of memory, if it is at all physical, can be ever be examined in stasis; is the memory spiral like photons which are physical, but have no rest mass?

If the "I" is accessing anything, it is the world via its senses. Working memory is just a working model of the immediate environment relative to the body. — Harry Hindu

...red exists within the context of the visual field of our eyes... — ucarr

But we can imagine and dream of red things. — Harry Hindu

In your earlier quote immediately above, you argue that our working memory is not solely based on the immediate connection between self and world. In addition to this, you say our working memory can also be based upon imagination and dreams.

...do we have solve the problem of the ontology of knowledge before we can start talking about the ontology of the world? — Harry Hindu

If "the ontology of knowledge" can be construed as "the physics of consciousness," the central question of this conversation, then it seems that understanding the ontology of the world -- at least regarding physicalist physics -- has come first, and now consciousness lies under the microscope.

Is it strictly mental, or does it also inhabit the empirical realm of practical physics? — ucarr

To me this seems like asking the question, Is the "representation" real? — Pantagruel

I'm asking if math representations have referents within the practical world of empirical physics. Since math supposedly allows us to create valid forms we cannot experience empirically, it presents as formidable evidence there is a real and immaterial realm.

It seems incontrovertibly to be so... Our increasing mastery of quantum phenomena being solid evidence. — Pantagruel

From the above I gather that you, like me, believe math inhabits the empirical realm.

If you are suggesting that consciousness functions as an organizational principle of reality I'd agree that is evident. — Pantagruel

So far, I'm suggesting that consciousness functions as an organizational principle of the representation of reality.

In turn, this representation is a construction deriving from the cognitive complex linking the senses, the brain and the mind.

I think it probable the role of consciousness regarding the organizational principles of QM_Newton is a very deep question.

The handshake between consciousness (in its formatting role as boundary administrator) and (the building blocks of) QM_Newton is presently perplexed by the boundary negotiations of consciousness regarding the hard boundaries of the particle form vis-á-vis the soft boundaries of the waveform.

I think the way consciousness variably navigates these two modes of physics lies at the heart of the HPoC. At present, we have two complex schools of thought: materialism/immaterialism. Also, of late, we have a middle zone featuring emergence_supervenience.

It might be the case that a cogent analysis of this variable navigation will shine light on what it means to "see" QM mathematically at the Newtonian scale of experience.

In turn, such cogent analysis might help answer questions pertaining to the existential status of mathematics. Is it strictly mental, or does it also inhabit the empirical realm of practical physics?

...I would hazard that more than just the construction of a picture of reality is going on. Constructing reality itself perhaps. However, undoubtedly constructing the picture is a significant part of that project. — Pantagruel

You do a good job clarifying the richness of the palette of QM applications. In order to keep the scope of my focus manageable, for now I'd like to stick to consciousness as a boundary administrator in the construction process of a picture of reality composed of sub-sets ambiguously parts_gestalt.

Perhaps some justification for this particular focus gets expressed in your conjecture:

I would hazard that more than just the construction of a picture of reality is going on. Constructing reality itself perhaps. — Pantagruel

If consciousness, working in tandem with QM, constructs reality itself, that function is the role of boundary administrator writ large.

I would say the brain is more like the actual computer with a CPU, working memory and long-term memory, not just a CPU. Each part is necessary and cannot function without the other parts. — Harry Hindu

I understand you to be referring to R.A.M./R.O.M. with: "working memory and long-term memory."

I would distinguish between "processing" and "views" as a view being a type of processing where the information being processed is about the world relative to the one processing the information. This is why the world appears and sounds to be located relative to your eyes and ears and that all of our sensory perceptions are about the world relative to our locating in space-time. — Harry Hindu

I understand you to be saying that the "views" type of processing is closely tied to the location of the referent and its viewer.

We seem to have a problem with how we experience other's working memory compared to how we experience our own working memory. — Harry Hindu

I think consciousness, performing in its virtual imaging mode, as based on memory, greatly complicates and perplexes the discreteness and certainty of the location of the referent in relation to the viewer. The portability of memory in time and in space complicates our understanding of the original link between referent and viewer regarding their respective locations.

Furthermore, I think this loosening of the link between the two is one of the main causes of the HPoC. I can access my own subjective memory directly. I can only attempt to access another person's subjective memory indirectly, as via listening to a narrative recounted from memory by another person.

I'm not asking which one is real. I'm simply asking what form does the contents in any type of working memory take... If it is simply a matter of perspective - of BEING your working memory as opposed to representing the working memory of others because it would be impossible to BE others' working memory so your only option is to represent it, then that is ok. — Harry Hindu

I think it's possible to understand that even in the case of one's own subjective memory of being oneself, a separation exists between oneself as thing-in-itself (a kind of pure objectivity of a thing, extant, I believe, more as concept than experience) and a mental representation within subjectivity.

I guess I'm saying we are not exactly our thoughts. Evidence for this might be the fact that sometimes the motives for our behaviors are unconscious.

As to the question of the general form of working memory, firstly, I think memory has a circular structure. Going forward from there, I speculate subjectivity is a higher-order of mnemonic feedback looping. Going forward from there, our ability to know what it's like to be someone else depends upon our virtual viewing (in our imagination) of the GUI of the contents (code) of the other person's working memory.

Dauntingly complicated, isn't it?

Certainly quantum phenomena are not a discrete and isolate realm, because they not only do manifest directly at the classical level... — Pantagruel

I understand you to be referring to such macro-QM effects as the tenants living atop a skyscraper aging faster than those living on the ground floor due to the time dilation of the stronger gravitational field at the skyscraper's base.

...but are increasingly being exploited (by consciousness) in advanced technologies. — Pantagruel

I'm wild-guessing the qubits of quantum computing will be manipulatable in various ways towards enhancing the power of organic consciousness: the optical systems of humans acting in concert with qubits might enable direct perception of hyper-cubic space.

By my argument above, I'm defending the notion consciousness acts as a boundary administrator in the construction process of a picture of reality composed of sub-sets ambiguously parts_gestalt.

Why should this be the case? On the one hand, you seem to be presenting a metaphysics of consciousness as a natural feature of reality. — Pantagruel

We're getting into the metaphysics of consciousness when we start examining Schrödinger's Equation and begin understanding some particulars of the propagation/collapse of the wave function.

Observation-as-measurement, i.e., consciousness, as made explicit by the differential equation, effects a transformation from superposition to decided position. So, yes, this transformation, which can be characterized as the physics of "will," is a sine qua non function of consciousness_reality.

But then you seem to fall back on a more anthropomorphic interpretation. — Pantagruel

Of course we're in the anthropomorphic zone when we examine theoretical/experimental experiences "observing" the wave function mathematically at our human scale of experience.

The central focus of this conversation is providing a definition of consciousness as a transitive agent in addition to its well-known role as a perceiver.

The purpose of the definition of consciousness as a transitive agent is to bridge the suppositional gap between QM and Newton.

Premise - Consciousness is the bridge linking QM with Newton.

If this premise is correct, then we now have a way forward in our examination of consciousness as a physical phenomenon amenable to scientific investigation.

...the subjective experience of knowing one is seeing things in the world, including knowing one is seeing oneself. — ucarr

That's several different experiences and objects stacked on top of each other. — jkop

Yes, it's the vertical stacking of higher-orders of memory feedback looping; this is what the current generation of robots lacks. That's why, as yet, robots lack subjectivity. Subjectivity requires awareness of being an aware subject of both objective and subjective experience.

What could that be like? — jkop

Were you not aware of being aware of me when you addressed your above question to me? Of course your were in possession of that second tier of awareness, or how else could you have addressed your question to me?

What is the cat like when it is not being seen? — Patterner

My conjectural answer is superposition; I draw this directly from what Schrödinger says about the cat in the box before the door is opened: the possible radioactive decay of the particle possibly triggering the killing of the cat, while unobserved, holds superposition of an undecided cat simultaneously alive/dead.

Note - At our Newtonian scale of experience, the vast network of sentients observing events makes macro-scale superposition extremely improbable. Even so, we do frequently experience something superposition-adjacent: in a courtroom with a defendant on trial for murder, in the instance of the murder presumably having occurred without a witness, that alleged murder holds something like superposition in that it's uncertain whether it did or did not occur. This uncertainty, for the judge, jury, prosecutor and defense is akin to the murder holding superposition: it simultaneously did/did not occur. Via circumstantial evidence, inference serves as the "observer" supplying the jury with an "observation" of the event. It then empowers them to resolve which possibility becomes a decided reality.

So, we see, as a generalization, that superposition is logical uncertainty rendered in physics.

For more on this, please click the hyperlink below:

What Does Consciousness Do?

When you imagine a cat, however, there is no relation between the experience and a cat (neither physical nor mental cat). What you are experiencing then is your own creative use of memories and beliefs with the intent to figure out (by what it feels like) what the cat is like. — jkop

As I understand you, you are saying when I imagine a cat, I'm having a completely internal experience between different parts of myself, i.e., I'm having an experience between the virtual seeing of a cat via my imagination and my intent to understand what a cat is like.

The visible properties of the cat fix what it's like for you to experience the cat. Your use of memories and beliefs about cats fix what it's like for you imagine the cat. — jkop

I agree with what you've written in the paragraph immediately above, but I also think the simulation of virtual seeing via memory-supported imagination of the physical cat retains its connection to the physical cat. I see evidence of this unbroken connection in your own words: "The visible properties of the cat fix what it's like for you to experience the cat."

A literal interpretation of the term 'mental image' is a fallacy of ambiguity. — jkop

What I see re: 'mental image' is "image" modified by "mental." Since "image" by definition means: a representation of the external form of a person or thing in art:, "mental" is redundant because "representation" includes the virtual seeing of something physical recorded in memory.

You're saying the HPoC stems from an ambiguity of language without a referent ambiguity in nature? — ucarr

Right. Chalmers assumes that an experience is accompanied by a property of what it's like to have the experience. That's property-dualism. — jkop

You're saying Chalmers posits the "what it's like to be x" experience as a mental property emergent from the physical properties of the brain? Also, you're saying this bifurcation on Chalmers' part is an ambiguity of language with no referent ambiguity within the physics of the natural world?

Why do you think the mental property to which Chalmers refers is an erroneous use of the sense of "experience" (intentionalistic) and not simply the subjective memory of the person?

As if seeing the cat consists of two experiences, one of the cat, and another of what it's like. Separately or somehow coalesced. I find the dualism implausible and redundant. I believe that seeing is the experience, and what the experience is like is what the cat is like. — jkop

Why do you think a man can know he's seeing a cat but not also separate that knowledge from his knowledge of his knowledge? We're not simply aware. We're also self-aware.

My above question trains its focus upon a separation between seeing a cat and knowing that one is seeing a cat. In order to give an account of seeing the cat to a listener at a later date, doesn't that require that the storyteller hold in memory both the experience of seeing the cat and the experience of being aware of seeing the cat?

I think this is what Chalmers assumes. Therefore, as I understand him, the HPoC isn't about seeing things in the world, but rather it is about the subjective experience of knowing one is seeing things in the world, including knowing one is seeing oneself.

The HPoC, therefore, isn't based upon a false bifurcation of things seen in the world and then subsequently rendered into a physical property and a mental property; it's based upon the question about how self-awareness is apparently attached to a physical brain whose physico_material processes seem to give no account, in physico_material terms, of that attendant self-awareness.

In the sense that an imagination is invisible and a cat is visible, they can't be compared, — jkop

An imagination is invisible to the 3rd person perspective; it is not invisible to the 1st person perspective.
I can't see what you imagine; I can see what I imagine.

Notice that there is no need to assume dualism between the cat and what it's like to see the cat: the experience is the cat. — jkop

Do you claim a cat seen via the virtual viewing of imagination is no less physico_material than a cat seen via the optics of the eyes?

Many forms of dualism are fallacies of ambiguity. — jkop

Language open to more than one interpretation falsely suggests two objective and parallel modes of being?

A literal interpretation of the term 'mental image' is a fallacy of ambiguity. — jkop

I see the redundancy; I don't see the ambiguity.

So perhaps the hard problem of consciousness is a fallacy of ambiguity? — jkop

You're saying the HPoC stems from an ambiguity of language without a referent ambiguity in nature?

The central executive in a computer does not view the data it is working with. The data simply exists in memory and is manipulated in real-time by the central executive. — Harry Hindu

If by central executive you mean CPU (central processing unit), then I say it's not an unreasonable stretch to construe "processing" as "views." In each case -- the CPU in one and the brain in the other -- a processor processes data in the act of constructing a world view. Furthermore, the brain also manipulates data that simply exists in memory. When you imagine or dream of the experience of seeing red, that's an example of your brain manipulating data that simply exists in memory.

What form the data takes in memory is the ultimate question here. — Harry Hindu

From our perspective it takes the form of silicon circuits, computer code and logic gates. From others' perspective the data in your working memory takes the form of neurons and the chemical and electrical signals between them. But from our own minds, we do not experience neurons and their chemical and electrical signals. We experience colors, shapes, sounds, etc. of which others' working memory is composed of. From our own perspective, our own working memory takes the form of colors, shapes, etc. and it is only by observing others' working memories that we experience something different. So which form does working memory actually take? Which one is the real form working memory takes? — Harry Hindu

Can you rewrite this passage?

I guess you want to go from:

What form the data takes in memory is the ultimate question here. — Harry Hindu

to:

So which form does working memory actually take? Which one is the real form working memory takes? — Harry Hindu

I guess the passage is intended to be a narrative that elaborates two or more forms of "working memory."

Also, I guess you believe one form is real and the other not.

I don't believe consciousness is an illusion, and I don't believe it is immaterial, I believe we cannot know either of these things. — Skalidris

You're telling me the category type for consciousness is unknowable.

The hard problem of consciousness arises when one believes consciousness can successfully study (and explain) itself as an object in the world. — Skalidris

You're telling me the category type being unknowable is intimately tied to consciousness being necessary to the examination of consciousness.

You can see that “and” is already in the definition and even if we try to phrase it differently to avoid the “and”, you’ll still need to talk about the several inputs being received, and what’s “several”? It is at least one unit AND another. Do you see the circularity? — Skalidris

You're telling me "and" is fundamental, and thus cannot be analyzed down to smaller parts.

So even if we can associate physical processes with consciousness, we cannot break down the intuitive meaning into smaller parts, and breaking something into smaller parts is how we explain things. — Skalidris

You're telling me the intuitive meaning of consciousness inside the mind is fundamental.

To go back to the "and" example, any definition or description of the material processes behind "and" includes the concept "and". — Skalidris

You're telling me examination of "consciousness," like examination of "and," always leads to a circular definition, and thus the identity of these terms cannot be illuminated by analysis.

If, as you imply, consciousness is thwarted by the self-referential state into useless circularity, then that's a claim that supports: consciousness exists outside of the subject/object bi-conditional. — ucarr

No, it simply implies that we do not know. — Skalidris

In this case, I think your claim: consciousness examining consciousness always leads to circularity implies beyond doubt that self-examination, in the case of consciousness, cannot lead to a bi-conditional interweave of subject/object. This, in turn, implies subjectivity is pure; it stands outside of the subject_object duet. Mysteriously, this has something to do with the claim: we can't examine how subjectivity arises from brain functions.

...we could explain the "And" logic gate but yet never be able to explain the "And" concept. — Skalidris

So far, I'm not understanding why you think the concept of the conjunction operator cannot be explained: ¬ {x ∧ Y} both x and y are negated; {¬{x} ∨ {y}} x is negated, y is not. By contrasting "and" with "or," the two operators clarify and explain each other. In other words, the "and" operator is an attractor that puts multiple members into one set, whereas the"or" operator is a separator that puts multiple members into separate sets, as demonstrated by the two expressions above. Now there, I've defined the "and" operator without any circularity.

Likewise, when we experience seeing red, it's because that specific wavelength stands in contrast to other wavelengths of visible light. Therefore, within the neuronal circuits of the brain wherein we interpret the specific wavelength for red, there's nothing therein that's red because the relativistic effect that supports our experience of red exists within the context of the visual field of our eyes, not within the neuronal circuits of the visual cortex of our brain. — ucarr

But we can imagine and dream of red things. So it seems to me that the color red is the form visual information takes and stored as such for future use in making predictions about the world. For us to be able to apply what we predict to the world, our predictions need to be similar to what we attempting to realize in the world, or else how could we apply new ideas to the world? — Harry Hindu

You have exposed an error in my narrative quoted at top. I've underlined the part of my narrative where I've jumped the proper continuity by omitting something: after the brain assembles a visual image of the world seen optically, the color content is next coded so that red equals not-green and not-blue, and so this third element is relativistically red as specified by the corresponding EM wavelength, itself distinct from the green and blue wavelengths.

Next, a mnemonic loop for recording of the visual image in color is produced. An accessible memory loop of the experience of the visual image in color becomes available for imagination and dreams.

Through all the orders of feedback looping minus the one culminating in an accessible memory loop of the experience of the visual image in red, no colors are in the neuronal circuits of the brain. At the level of the memory loop of the experience of the visual image of red, the remembered color of red is present as coding via modulated circuits simulating the relativistic effect: red. The visual construction of the experience of seeing red is played back as a memory on a virtual GUI also encoded in the feedback loop.

Well, now you're establishing some kind of Cartesian theater where there is a GUI that is being viewed, but viewed by what? — Harry Hindu

Viewed by the brain that constructs the simulation of the world within the visual field of the eyes.

Okay but you can only access the code via a GUI. I can only access your neurons via my GUI. Your neurons and the code appear in my GUI as visual representations of what is "out there". The neurons and the code do not exist as represented by the GUI. As you said, the GUI is a representation, and not the neurons and code as it actually is. So maybe terms like, "neurons" and "code" are representations of how they appear in the GUI and not how they are in the world, and how they are in the world is simply information or process and we are confusing the map (GUI) with the territory. — Harry Hindu

This applies within the scope of the simulation. A simulation has a referent outside of itself. If the simulation is successful, i.e., if it accurately describes its referent, then its coding also accurately describes its referent. So, no. The coding for a simulation is not hermetically sealed within the territory of the simulation.

As to what the neuronal circuits (modulated electric currents) are really like in context, in the world out there they are like themselves: building blocks; in the world of the simulation: they are like themselves: building blocks; in the world of themselves they are like themselves: building blocks.

We're supposed to confuse the map with the territory. How could the map be useful without this confusion of identities? If the map were completely distinct from the territory, it would effect no simulation of the world and thus be useless.

Simulation is specifically about the confusion, or overlapping of two identities. If your brain's simulation of the external world were not cause for suspension of disbelief of the sameness between what you perceive and what's out there, you'd never go outside of your house.

Are the building blocks and the construction of them bi-conditional? If you wish to navigate the world intelligently, and that especially means designing schemes to achieve your goals, you'd better hope they are. The brain's coding of its perception of the world is not a transformation of that world, but merely an internalization of it.

Sidebar -- Firstly, Skalidris, I'm glad you're again posting to your conversation here. After your long absence, I was afraid you'd checked out permanently, and that's less fun.

The whole 'hard problem' arises from regarding consciousness as an object, which it is not, while science itself is based on objective facts. It's not complicated, but it's hard to see. — Wayfarer

Wayfarer above makes a good point. Herein, we're all talking about consciousness, voicing factual claims about it. These actions treat consciousness as an object grammatically speaking: "voicing factual claims about it." Predicate: voicing claims; Preposition: about; Object: it. Grammatically speaking, if you can predicate claims about something, then that something is an object, a thing. It's out there in reality to be examined and understood. If it's not out there, then what the heck are we talking about in this conversation? If subjectivity were ineffable, nobody would be talking about it. Nearly everybody talks about it at one time or another. I'm not seeing any modal difference between the efforts of neuroscience and the efforts of the typical layperson trying to understand the human psychology of their families and friends.

I think subjectivity and objectivity are always paired; I suspect their relationship is the bi-conditional logical operator. Regarding Nagel's: "There's something that it's like to be a bat." I'm waiting for an immaterialist to prove logically the necessity of the metaphysical separation of subjectivity from objectivity.

I'm trying to understand why the obvious grammatical objectification of consciousness doesn't carry over into objective reality. I don't, however, want to sidetrack us into lengthy discussions about the limitations and distortions of language; we all know that's a full topic unto itself.

Consciousness can indeed associate itself with all kinds of objects, but doing so creates a self referential problem, aka the hard problem of consciousness. — Skalidris

I take this to be the heart of your premise for this conversation. I'll try to parse it:

"Consciousness can indeed associate itself with all kinds of objects..." Why is this not a simple and clear example of one thing: consciousness, associating itself with other things: all kinds of objects? Isn't connection of things to things what "associate" means?

No, I haven't forgotten the immaterialist mantra: "Consciousness is not a thing." I know, your above statement is not literal. So what is it saying? If consciousness is not a thing, how does it perform actions, like "associate itself with all kinds of objects." Usually, subjects who execute actions are things. It's hard to authorize pundits who make statements that grammatically contradict the intended meanings of said statements.

"...but doing so creates a self referential problem, aka the hard problem of consciousness."

Have you elaborated how it is the case that when one thing associates itself with another thing, with one of the things being consciousness, a self-referential problem always ensues? Do either Nagel or Chalmers examine this self-referential problem?

Yes. Indeed you have a problem making predications about a subject that's not a subject. From the get-go, you're inhabiting the realm of paradox.

To me, this type of reasoning implies impossible premises. And to show that, let's first start with possible premises. We know that:

1) One indispensable element for the perception of objects is consciousness.
2) Time flows in one direction.

The logical conclusion from this is that consciousness cannot be viewed solely as an object since it has to be there for the perception of objects. Consciousness can only be viewed as consciousness (cannot be broken down into something else since it is always there as a whole in our reasoning). — Skalidris

Your first sentence implies consciousness cannot examine itself. Can you explain how this is the case given the fact that, in this very instant, we are examples of consciousness examining itself? If we're not doing that, then what are we doing?

In the second sentence you mysteriously claim "Consciousness can only be viewed as consciousness..." as if consciousness viewing itself doesn't objectify itself. In order to make your claim consciousness is not an object, you have to turn it into an object.

Can you explain why this premise is not an impossible premise leading to the logical circularity you're propounding?

You claim consciousness is not approachable by setting up yourself in a paradox, then claim the paradox you've created is the proof objective examination of consciousness is impossible. Well, yeah, by your own setup.

Suppose we discard your premise and replace it with another premise: consciousness can examine itself. This gets us out of the paradox, at least grammatically speaking.

Can you show why we're still existentially locked within paradox and circularity when consciousness tries to examine itself?

Any materialistic theories about it is followed by this question "why are these materialistic phenomena accompanied by experience?". And any materialistic attempt to answer that question also ends up being followed by the same question, creating a circularity that seems impossible to escape. — Skalidris

However, when we ask ourselves “why are these materialistic phenomena accompanied by experience?”, we trigger a self referential explanation that has no other outcome than being circular because it circles back to incorrect premises that contradict the rest of the reasoning. — Skalidris

Above I've underlined an important sentence. I'm surmising it expresses your core belief there is no possible materialist explanation connecting brain functions with subjectivity. I'm guessing you justify this belief by taking recourse to emergence and supervenience. I think your core belief is supported by a metaphysical commitment: consciousness exists outside of the subject/object bi-conditional.

If, as you imply, consciousness is thwarted by the self-referential state into useless circularity, then that's a claim that supports: consciousness exists outside of the subject/object bi-conditional.

Do you have an argument to support this claim?

How can it be that consciousness exists outside of the subject/object bi-conditional?

I'm supposing immaterialism puts forward consciousness as its star witness for the possibility of existence uncoupled from materialism, and this uncoupling is centered within the circularity to which you refer.

You name the possible premises; do you name the impossible premises?

Let me try to name an impossible premise: a subject that is not its own object.

Can an existing thing not be self-referential (to itself) as an object? If it can, we must ask where is it located in space and time (both of which are material)?

Speaking generally, existence precedes essence and, speaking more specifically, brain precedes mind, at least from the materialist point of view: brain and mind always co-exist, but there's no thought without brain, as demonstrated causally by the maxim: absent brain, absent mind.

Of course, immaterialism posits existence of essences outside of space and time.

Are we now afoot within Kant's transcendental idealism? Are we hearkening back to its ancestor, Platonic idealism?

No. Today's immaterialists have probably nuanced their positions beyond Kant.

What if: "when we ask ourselves 'why are these materialistic phenomena accompanied by experience?', we trigger a self referential explanation that has no other outcome than being circular..." is an important clue to the reason why consciousness as an objective thing appears to be immaterial?

I'm suggesting consciousness as a phenomenon is rooted in mnemonic echoings upwardly mobile through higher-orders of the self-referential. These higher-orders are essential to subjectivity. They play fast and loose with matter, but never uncouple from it completely.

The abstractionism of multi-tiered feedback looping via neuronal circuits of the brain is how we arrive at useful concepts such as infinity, sets and Cantor's Continuum Hypothesis.

Mnemonic circularity, ethereal but still material.

The battery poles are certainly Real. but until they are connected into a circuit, the electric current is only Potential. — Gnomon

There's no difference of opinion here. Yes, in this situation, the electric current is potential before the circuit closes.

Our difference centers on whether or not a potential current embodied within a charged battery is physical whereas a potential current embodied within the mind's memory is abstract. In both cases the potential is tied to something physical: a) the charged battery and its difference of potential; b) the mind's memory and the difference of potential it represents abstractly.

I say: a) involves two physical things; b) involves one physical thing and one abstraction.

Difference is a mental concept : Ideal not-yet Real. — Gnomon

If you live in Germany and your brother lives in France, you don't say the difference of your relative positions is a mental concept. In a parallel, the difference of the charge on the negative plate from the charge on the positive electrode is not a mental concept.

Potential is not a real thing, but an ideal concept that points to a future state. — Gnomon

The difference in the state of a real system from one phase to another is not an ideal concept.
Speaking of water, do you say its difference of state from liquid to solid is an ideal concept?

Difference and Potential are found only in Conscious Minds, not in the material world — Gnomon

Picture a desert rock sitting in a pool of water at noon. After nightfall, the same rock is encased in the frozen pool. You know that during the desert winter, the temperature at noon in the low seventies falls forty degrees at night to the low thirties. Are potential and difference only in your mind?

Consciousness may be the only thing that can study consciousness. If consciousness is feeling and thinking, then that which feels and thinks can feel and think about itself.
Maybe? — Patterner

:up:

But that's the thing. What makes a mass of neurons conscious, but a mass of silicon circuits not conscious? — Harry Hindu

We don't yet know — J

A mass of neurons has processing of memory functions attached; I'm not sure, but I think AI operates in similar fashion.

Potential is not-yet Real. — Gnomon

...the Voltage of an electric battery is its potential for future current flow measured in Amps. — Gnomon

This polarization of negatively charged particles into a concentration apart from positive charge, thus creating a potential for current flow, examples a physical state of a system. Difference of potential is rooted in the extant charge of the concentrated particles. It is real.

The difference of potential of a system for performance of a function -- a charged battery that powers the illumination of a light bulb -- is a part of physico-material reality.

There is a basic difference between having an idea about current flow and having a charged battery ready to deliver current flow.

Well, now you're establishing some kind of Cartesian theater where there is a GUI that is being viewed, but viewed by what? — Harry Hindu

Are you implying the GUI is being viewed by an immaterial mind? Would this be, in context of your thinking, cognition-to-cognition, along the lines of mental telepathy?

...the computer screen is a physical object that emits light so this still does not seem to be a valid example. — Harry Hindu

If you're implying GUI content is not consciousness, I say it's intelligible, and intelligibility is one half of the consciousness duet of intelligibility meets agent intellect. Also, I say that GUI, being an analog signifier, simulates the natural world and thus it is something beyond stimuli that's more at consciousness than not; it's the surrogate of the programmer's consciousness.

What I'm trying to say is that the world may be more like the GUI than the code — Harry Hindu

So, simulation of the world by GUI is movement towards consciousness and thus it resembles the mind more than it resembles its code?

What I am trying to say is that primary "substance" of the world is process, relationships or information. — Harry Hindu

Consciousness is more fundamental than matter?

Perhaps an inversion is more correct: matter emerges from mind?

Hard to tell, innit? Whether definitions set the stage for good philosophy, or get in the way of it. — Mww

Somebody's gotta say something, otherwise our theater becomes a graveyard. When I mis-speak half-truth, eventually someone will correct me, so in the meantime eat, drink and be merry, and stop sweating the crumbs on the floor.