This is a continuation of the first part of my OP.

Conclusion: number-as-property, being essential and physically real, and being tied inextricably to material objects, is discovered. They are not purely conceptual objects, accessible to the mind only.

Numbers are discovered, not invented. Numerical properties and numerical relationships likewise are discovered, not invented.

The number zero shows how emptiness is permeated by these same numerical relationships, so existence presupposes number-as-property.

If number-as-property is physical and essential, then there is an answer to an important question: How can mental “objects” have causal effects upon the physics of the natural world? The answer is numbers.

This is the necessary conclusion of both the number-idealist and the number-realist.

Example: Civil engineering demonstrates idealist control of the physical if you’re a number idealist: The building of a suspension bridge across a body of water as, say, San Francisco’s Golden State Bridge, demonstrates numbers manipulated to specifications required for a stable road across a bay. How ideal number shakes hand with real object remains to be explained.

If, on the other hand, you’re a number-realist, then you understand there’s no unexplainable interface of ideal and real in the design and build of a suspension bridge. Numbers, like the bridge itself, are physically_materially real. The two are integrated and holistically consistent.

Is this a correct paraphrase of your response to Philosophim’s thesis: spacetime, an unbounded, finite, beginning-less phenomenon, requires an arbitrary starting point re: sequential processes. It can be considered a “working” starting point, but there’s no logical necessity guiding the choice of a particular starting point.

Why include me in your reply to Gnomon? — 180 Proof

In my post to Gnomon, I'm continuing our debate about his interpretation of $e=mc^2$and, additionally, his application of his interpretation to his arguments supporting his EnFormAction proposition. I think it's fundamentally wrong because he has m = matter instead of m = mass, the correct equivalence.

I was interested in your post because it lays down some foundational definitions of physicalism as you see it. (In another minute, I'm going to ask you some questions in reaction to your postulations. This is for clarification of my understanding.)

I'm thinking what you have to say is germane to our debate. He has EnFormAction covering a wide terrain including: material, spiritual and undefined. Much of what he's claiming as metaphysical_spiritual I'm claiming as physical.

Also, I've been criticizing him from the standpoint of execution of his argumentation. I've characterized it as being slapdash and error-laden. Your execution of argumentation, meticulous, precise and funded by in-depth research, stands at the opposite end of the spectrum from his and, for that matter, from mine as well until very recently.

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...the abstraction, or concept, of "consciousness" ...a self-reflexive activity — 180 Proof

If firstly we picture Einstein sitting at his desk writing out the equations for special relativity, and then secondly we read his paper published in 1905, can we next conjoin these two events via memory to the effect that we can claim them public and therefore physical?

...because by definition consciousness is excluded from this paradigm. — Unknown

This is a claim made by Wayfarer?

Physicalism only excludes non-physical concepts from modeling (i.e. explaining) how observable states-of-affairs transform into one another. In this way "the paradigm" is epistemologically modest, or deflationary, limiting its inquiries to only that which can be publicly observed – accounted for – in order to minimize as much as possible the distorting biases (e.g. wishful / magical thinking, superstitions, prejudices, authority, etc) of folk psychology/semantics. — 180 Proof

You're saying physicalism is rooted in the scientific method's demand that scientifically measurable things be public?

We physicalists do not "exclude consciousness" (i.e. first-person experience) but rather conceive of it as a metacognitive function – e.g. phenomenal self-modeling – of organisms continuously interacting with and adapting to each other and their common environment. — 180 Proof

Is metacognitive, within your context, higher-order cognition, i.e., cognition of cognition?

Might selfhood entail a three-tiered hierarchy of cognition: empirical cognition (seeing the world directly); analytical cognition (elaborating the grammar and syntax of the seen world); hyper-cognition (seeing your seeing of your seeing of the world).

Actually, I didn't comment on the visibility of Mass & C. But, for the record, all of the equation's elements are imaginary & invisible abstractions. And none of them is tangible Matter, although Mass is a numerical measurement (mentalization) of Matter, a concept, not an object. So, I don't know how you decided that the invisibility of of numerical concepts contradicts my description of Einstein's equation, in which I referred to Matter, not Mass, as "tangible". Does any of that "matter" to you? :joke: — Gnomon

I call EnFormAction a "shapeshifter", because like physical energy, it can transform into a variety of manifestations. The most famous example is Einstein's E=MC^2 equation of invisible Energy and tangible Matter and a non-dimensional number. They are different expressions of the same essential substance. — Gnomon

Here's why I read your examination of Einstein's equation as commentary on the invisibility of m and $c^2$:

Einstein's E=MC^2 equation of invisible Energy; this is your description of the left side of the equal sign: (one term) E = energy (characterized by you as invisible).

and tangible Matter and a non-dimensional number.; this is your description of the right side of the equal sign: ( two terms) M = mass (characterized by you as tangible matter) and $c^2$ = the velocity-of-light$^2$ (characterized by you as a non-dimensional number).

Tangible = perceptible by touch, so tangible matter is stuff that can be picked up and handled. Your mistake: M = matter; no, M = mass.

You say:

Mass is a numerical measurement (mentalization) of Matter, a concept, not an object. — Gnomon

The signs denoting measurements of mass are abstractions, and the meaning of these measurements are concepts, but the referent for this signification and conceptualization of its meaning is physical reality. The material reality of mass is experienced whenever a weightlifter attempts to lift a three-hundred pound barbell. The barbell's disinclination to move is not visible.

Regarding C = velocity-of-light$^2$, light, being a physical phenomenon, has a constant velocity, another physical phenomenon. C = velocity-of-light$^2$, being a sign, arguably has no expanded spatial dimensions. However, the subject of importance here is the referent of the sign, the velocity of light squared. Being physical, it is spatially three-dimensional, not non-dimensional.

You talk about the abstractions that populate $e=mc^2$. Yes, they're abstractions not simply tangible, but questions about the ontic status of signs and their relationship to their physcial_phenomenal antecedents lies within the domain of linguistics. The framing context for your description of $e=mc^2$ is Enformaction, a proposition within your theoretical philosophy as based upon physics. Herein you're talking physics, not linguistics. Argumentation about the immateriality of signs is irrelevant within your context.

I call EnFormAction a "shapeshifter", because like physical energy, it can transform into a variety of manifestations...They are different expressions of the same essential substance. — Gnomon

This is where you're heading with your examination of $e=mc^2$. You seem to be claiming Enformaction is a substance that is the material platform for energy, mass and the velocity of light.

You bite off a big challenge. The ontic status of energy not being well understood, its conceptualization remains largely undefined.

...I'm always looking up words, the definitions of which often lead me to other words I have to look up, — Patterner

...we might say, snowflakes, in general, have a design, and each one has its own unique design. — Patterner

...is that the kind of thing you’re talking about? — Patterner

A pattern, when it's catchy, presents itself a thing worth keeping. I delight in sweet melodies arising from ingenious tunes. Might your experience of music resemble this?

A world without patterns is not something I wish to experience, too much like trudging Dresden after the Allied bombing.

I suppose we can say ideas are a type of pattern; they're the type favored by the mind.

I'm guessing now and then you marvel at the creativity of a clever idea. A familiar example is a good joke. When a good joke is current and passing word-of-mouth like wildfire, we catch glimpse of many minds joining together like kindling.

How about a choice piece of hot 'n juicy gossip? That brings us together like a gaggle of squawking busybodies, right?

Yes. We're all immersed in a world of patterns.

We grew within the universe, which has consistent principles, and are made of the universe's materials, which are subject to those principles. Is there a reason to think an intelligence that developed in such a way would not be able to recognize these principles? — Patterner

I agree with your first sentence and I believe it to be a sufficient explanation of our recognition of order within the matter_energy realm.

What is the relationship between numbers and order? To what degree can you have one without three other? To what degree are they not the same thing? — Patterner

I believe the number line is sine qua non to both math and order. The positions along the number line and their relationships are why math is the language of the ordering of spacetime phenomena. A number is a number line. A position along the number line is just an idealization about the ultimate compactness of a dimensionless point.

Is a random number sequence an instance of numbers separated from order? Even in this instance, the numbers still map to the number line. Furthermore, this question dovetails into the difficult question whether we can rationalize outside of order. A requisite for postulating about numbers, a rational entity, depends on numbers being coupled with order. Rationalizing outside of order also raises a difficult question about whether intelligibility can exist separate from order. You explanation for how humans internalized the consistent principles of the universe places heavy reliance upon intelligibility. How could humans recognize scientific truths without being engulfed within an environment essentially ordered?

I want you to give more thought to your decision to sign off from all discussions of design. Principles, being organizing, foundational truths, have an intimate relationship with design. If I'm not mistaken, you embrace them as essential components of metaphysics. How could organizing principles, acting in the role of designers, not be involved in the high ordering of atoms? As you say, the universe's materials are subject to the universal principles.

No. I did not, and do not, declare the order is designed. — Patterner

Again, I did not, and do not, acknowledge design. — Patterner

No, I did not, and do not, describe cosmic mind. — Patterner

Yes. The order pre-existed the life that arose within it. — Patterner

What I mean is, will thinking that objects 'possess an inherent attribute that can be labeled "number"' lead to a dead end? Will thinking it is not an attribute of objects, but of the universe's order, that we are recognizing lead to a dead end? After all, we might approach things differently, depending on which we take as our starting point. — Patterner

You have raised the central question: Where is the starting point of order? If we can accept, within the confines of our discussion here, that number is the peerless marker of position and therefore of order, then we can acknowledge that there's presently toleration of the notion number and order are discovered not invented.

A second, central question: How did number and order pre-dating humans get internalized within the human understanding? This form of the question evaluates down to: Where is the starting point for order and design for humans? Is it the human hand suggesting to the inquisitive mind of its possessor that two fingers not looking like five fingers is both meaningful and useful? Is it, instead, the abstract mind of humans navigating the environment via notions of number relations abstracted from counting fingers? Is number an attribute of material objects, or is it an incorporeal abstraction confined to the realm of cognition?

A third, central question: does the biconditional operator in logic link number with order? If N = number and O = order finds true expression as n ⟺ o, then finding the start of one entails finding the start of the other.

I’ve already given my answer: both claims about number are true. Counting fingers is no less essentially mathematical than perceiving the obscurities of pure math. This is so because the foundation of math cognition is its necessary antecedent: counting fingers. As justification, I cite Aristotle’s Agent Intellect (human) meets intelligibility (material object first, then both material and cognitive objects).

Patterner, by implication, agrees with the equivalence of the two modes of discovery with his response to my question:

Do you believe a brain confined to a vat will eventually start counting? — ucarr

Certainly not. I don't believe a human could come to any intelligence or consciousness under those circumstances. I believe sensory input is essential. — Patterner

Now we come to the hotly controversial topic of design and its location within the cosmic history.
If it’s possible to pinpoint the advent of design within the phenomenal universe, where in the timeline of events does it lie?

Firstly, let’s consider a fourth central question: If O = order and D = design finds true expression as o ⟺ d, then finding one entails finding the other.

If there’s a hierarchy, it might be number, order, design.

Most importantly, if the two biconditionals are true, then we have a triad.

Can we make a theoretical placement of the triad of number_order_design within the infinitesimal interval of time following the Big Bang?

If we answer is “yes,” all we’re doing is tracking the start of the triad as natural phenomena.

If super-hot plasma is the first form of the material universe during inflation post-Big Bang, then we can infer its ontic status as pre-cursor to the formation of elemental atoms. With atoms clearly, we have number and order, whether as independent, unobserved entities, or as entities contingent upon observation. You ask what agent could act as observer in the micro-seconds following inflation? The question must be raised during the early expansion of the universe because the reflexivity of end-oriented consciousness, per our discovery-rather-than-invention thesis, requires a pre-cursor no less than does the triad. Remember, when I claim the early universe knew itself, even if only pre-cursively, I’m claiming nothing in scope beyond the phenomenal universe.

To summarize, we have a defensible argument to the effect that the triad of number_order_design was extant from the start of the universe because the highly ordered status of the atom and its sub-atomics must be assumed as prior to all assemblages thereof.

The universe is consistent. Laws of physics, mathematics, and whatever else, are the same everywhere...If they were not, we would have chaos, and I doubt life would have arisen at all. — Patterner

You argue that our phenomenal universe of forces and material objects has an innate order founded upon principles likewise innate. You go on to declare that life wouldn't be possible without the designed and pervasive order of the universe as its ground. You present a picture of naturally ordered life arising from pre-existing order.

We evolved, and exist, in this universe, with its consistent principles. Meaning they are within us. I think counting is our recognition of these attributes, these consistent principles, of the universe. It makes sense that we recognize the principles of our own existence when we see them outside of ourselves. — Patterner

You acknowledge designed order is imbibed into human genome from the forces and materials from which it has arisen. This is your description of cosmic mind meeting human mind. The human mind, once attaining to the requisite cognitive prowess, recognizes essential attributes of order of the surrounding creation. So, order, and number, the peerless marker of position and therefore of order, are discovered within the natural world. You don't believe numbers are a human invention:

Do you believe a brain confined to a vat will eventually start counting? — ucarr

Certainly not. I don't believe a human could come to any intelligence or consciousness under those circumstances. I believe sensory input is essential. — Patterner

You make it clear human mind and the innate order of the natural world are an interface, a complex surface interwoven from the coming-together of the two conversationalists. You answer the question: Why do two fingers look different from five fingers? It is because Aristotle was right and Descartes was wrong: human learns from natural world as part of an Aristotelian Duet wherein Agent Intellect meets intelligibility.

Do you believe a brain confined to a vat will eventually start counting?

Question - Are not both mass and the speed of light invisible? — ucarr

Yes, both are numbers quantifying qualities (properties). Properties (attributes) are rationally inferrable, but not sensibly visible. Why do you ask? :nerd: — Gnomon

I call EnFormAction a "shapeshifter", because like physical energy, it can transform into a variety of manifestations. The most famous example is Einstein's E=MC^2 equation of invisible Energy and tangible Matter and a non-dimensional number. — Gnomon

You have described Einstein's equation as an expression of three states of being: a) invisible; b) tangible; c) non-dimensional. On one side of the equation you have the invisible state; on the other side of the equation you have mass and the speed of light as tangible matter. You agree that mass and the speed of light, contrary to your description of $e=mc^2$, possess invisibility.

I was not familiar with the term "unary", and I still don't how it is different from "Unitary" or "Holism". — Gnomon

With "unary" I'm trying to express my take on physicalism in a math context wherein one continuum, the real number line, expresses one mode of existence, physical. The real number continuum is, by my language, equated with a unary math operation such as $√X$. So, the real numbers measure along one mode, the continuum of the physical. Let me add that, in my view, numbers, like the environment in which they have meaning, are physical.

If numbers are not precisely physical, then they're a good candidate for the bridge between the material and immaterial worlds. Such a bridge function, in my opinion, doesn't refute my unary physicalism notion because two worlds that can be bridged are situated within Deacon's hierarchy of higher-order dynamisms: thermo, morpho, teleo. The debate between material/immaterial, as clarified by Deacon, comes to a crux at the notion of emergent properties of matter, such that the emergent properties, while dependent upon the lower substrates, operate under different parameters. This radical difference, as in the cases of numbers and mind, gives the appearance of an immaterial world, but its really the cause of emergent components of the physical world.

Absential materialism, as taken directly from the work of Deacon, names dynamic, physical processes that function on the basis of what's not contained in spacetime. The big picture starting to emerge from the hierarchy of physical dynamisms is how constraints compel dynamisms to do work ordering the necessary absences that teleodynamically organize toward the end-directed dynamisms essential to life, sentience and consciousness. Teleodynamically organized, end-directed work tilts the mind away from immediately tangible cause/effect relationships via a dynamism of emergent functions that operate within empirical experience as if they're invisible agents from another, non-sensory realm.

Please remember that I have no formal training in academic Philosophy. — Gnomon

No need to cop a plea. Your understanding of the science is equal (if not superior) to mine. I, like you, and most people, have a checkered academic grounding.

Scientific method = experiment/verification methodology: measurable, repeatable, public.

Ontic grammar = the ground rules governing the content, nature and scope of existence (metaphysics).

Question : Does your commitment to immaterial reality contain a moral component?

If you will, let your responses marinate in the following sallies:

• Intangibles offer cold comfort for flesh ‘n blood mortals.
• Perishable things physical possess the sweet touch of certain presence.
• After ascension, no saint has ever given comfort to mortal infant in distress. Mother’s arms, pock-marked though they be with sin, better quell the cutting slashes of earthly woes than all equations combined.
• Eternity, known only by grasp of mind, is but faint medicine for wounds of the flesh.
• No one denies the road from the physical to the mental lies tortured with complexity.

I hope that my philosophy is compatible with Kant's 'copernican revolution', which is that 'things conform to thoughts, thoughts don't conform to things' — Wayfarer

Kant's maxim is one of your foundational premises.

In the middle of the night, en route to the loo, you stub your toe on the bedpost. This is an instance of you directing the world to crush your flesh and you directing yourself to scream appropriately?

It is precisely that conception of the world as separate from the self that I am calling into question. The subjective and objective are, as it were, co-arising and mutually conditioning - there is no self without world, and no world without self. — Wayfarer

Question - How does the self as subject-only have presence within a phenomenal world populated by objects?

Question - How does your project to promote the merger of self and world proceed simultaneous with asserting the subject-only mind?

Notice that the realist objection to this argument is invariably along the lines that 'the world must exist anyway, regardless of any observing mind'. But say that this statement always includes an implicit perspective even while conceiving of a world in the absence of an observer. Without a perspective or scale, nothing meaningful can be said or thought about what exists. — Wayfarer

Your two quotes in bold comprise in tandem a position antagonistic to your subject-only mind. By your own values, you tilt towards a complex surface in spacetime converging the subject/object duet.

You then, however, shoot yourself in the foot with your immaterial, subject-only mind. Is it not the epitome of anti-philosophy? Consider the maxim that the examined life is the central aim of philosophy. Well, what does the examining and, most important, what object is central to its examination? If you and your subject-only life are one and the same, how can you practice philosophy?

I don't understand your characterization of "multi-mode" vs "unitary". I call EnFormAction a "shapeshifter", because like physical energy, it can transform into a variety of manifestations. The most famous example is Einstein's E=MC^2 equation of invisible Energy and tangible Matter and a non-dimensional number. They are different expressions of the same essential substance. — Gnomon

Question - Are not both mass and the speed of light invisible?

But my thesis goes even further to postulate that several "modes" or phases of unitary EFA are : Energy, Matter, and Mind. I also apply that notion of transformation to the common-but-mysterious physical Phase Transitions, such as plasma-water-steam-ice. In terms of Deacon's triad, EFA serves the causal functions of Thermodynamic, Morpheodynamic, and Teleonomic. — Gnomon

If I remember correctly, you deem both mind and consciousness as being immaterial.

My notion of unary physicalism, like your EnFormAction, encompasses the four phase states you name and furthermore, I currently speculate it also encompasses mind and consciousness via absential materialism, a label that I use to name Deacon's hierarchy of dynamisms: thermo, morpho and teleo.

You take the position material and immaterial entities are encompassed by one essential substance; I think causal information is how you name it. In distinction from you, I speculate about all entities being material, even highly-ordered, emergent properties such as sentience and consciousness.

My single-axis notion, inspired by Deacon, centers on a continuum of upwardly evolving dynamisms.

Might it be correct to say your theory encompasses a system that, going forward from antiquity, encompasses both scientific method and ontic grammar.

Maybe we can say of the two narratives that one is unary and the other holistic.

Your language paints a picture of a man who knows himself. Since, as you say,

...the mind is never an object of perception... — Wayfarer

and also as you say,

It is never appears to us as object, but as us, as the subject. — Wayfarer

the reader knows, from your two statements, that, in your understanding, your mind is your self. So, if you know yourself, because you perceive yourself, then you both perceive and know your mind. I don't expect to find we disagree on what I've claimed so far. We disagree whether the situation of you knowing yourself as mind involves your mind in the position of object. Your mind knows objectivity, so it also knows conceptually the objects that populate categorical objectivity. Since the mind is, by definition, a processor that deals in concept processing, and metaphor is a concept, then we know that mind dealing in metaphor is not metaphorical but literal if, as you claim, mind is only conceptual.

I want you to respond to the specifics of my argument: a concept processor processing concepts (such as metaphor) is not a figurative action; it is a literal action. In light of this, the mind examining itself is not an action done in a metaphorical sense. If it were the case that the latter holds, that would be higher-order metaphor, i.e. metaphor of metaphor.

We can speak of the mind as object in a metaphorical sense, i.e. 'as an object of enquiry', but it is not an object of perception in the sense that objects are. There is no thing called 'mind'. I can think about my thinking, but the act of thought is not itself an object, for the stated reason, that a hand cannot grasp itself. And 'grasping' here is a pretty exact analogy - the mind 'grasps' ideas in an analogously similar way a hand grasps an object but ideas are not physical. — Wayfarer

You're attempting to use "metaphor" as an escape clause liberating you from the self-contradiction inundating your denial. Your bigger problem is that you're caught in a rook's forking attack - to use a chess metaphor - if you avoid acknowledging the mind can be an object, in so doing, you lose the war because you position yourself as a Binary Existence Idealist: there is the phenomenal world of objects and, in a parallel world, there is the pure subjectivity of mind. This scheme doesn't even work in terms of the realm of Platonic ideals because its parallelism precludes the intersection of ideal model and imperfect copy central to Platonism.

Try to do anything cognitive without spatial and temporal extension and you’ll soon discover you cannot.
— ucarr

I see you make no comment on this statement. Is it because commentary would necessitate your acknowledgement not doing cognition is physical? Such acknowledgement lands you squarely within mind/body dualism — ucarr

In this statement, I made an error. I have corrected the error, a negation, by lining it through.

I sense in your analysis the inability to conceive of an 'immaterial thing or substance'. But note here I'm not claiming there is any such thing. The 'nonmaterial component' Pinter refers to is not something that exists objectively, rather it is in the operation of observing mind - which we ourselves can never be outside of, or apart from. — Wayfarer

You raise and important point here. The distinction you point out is helpful to my understanding and I appreciate your sharing of it. This configuration of cognitive operations is complicated and interesting. I think an exhaustive examination is beyond my ability. Let me attempt making some claims.

If observing mind holds a concept of objects and, moreover, holds capacity to perceive particular objects conceptually, and if, as you imply, there are no extant immaterial objects that can be perceived conceptually, then you negate, by implication, the objective world of immaterial objects as perceived by observing mind. This categorical negation carries two competing implications: 1) conceptual mind exists in isolation, perceiving nothing or 2) conceptual mind fabricates imaginary conceptual objects perceived via solipsistic dreaming.

If observing mind does perceive conceptual objects not fabricated as imaginary objects perceived via solipsistic dreaming, then observing mind literally perceives conceptual objects via physical processing within the brain. This must be true because we know the conceptual contents of observing mind are funded by the physical processing of the brain.

I want you to respond to the specifics of my argument: cognition by the observing mind, which is tied to the physical processing of the brain, is both literal and physical.

You claim we can never be outside of our subject-only mind. An essential attribute of observing mind is self-awareness. Sentient beings survive threats to life via feedback looping memory circuits monitoring their body's interactions with the environment. This is self-awareness. Self-awareness cannot exist without the observing mind being subjectively aware of itself as object. Likewise, sentient being cannot be aware of another sentient being without observing mind being subjectively aware of its objective self in society with the other. If it were not subjectively aware of its objective self, it would not be able to differentiate itself from the world. This subjective awareness of the objective self is literal, not figurative. When another being strikes you in the face with its fist, the pain you experience is literal, not figurative.

The pink elephant in the room of this discussion is the complex surface. It is a cognitive processor that links self and world via mind. It is cognitive processing rooted in the physical, as consciousness is physical.

It seems to be a physical circumstance were non-physicals can exist in an identifiable physical form. If non-physicals are showing up you should observe they always can be mapped to a physical brain in location and time. — Mark Nyquist

Well said. This conveys, in a nutshell, something akin to the essence of what I been arguing regarding the scope of physicality and its extension into phenomena that some, in my opinion, erroneously label categorical immateriality.

Yes. If we map the so-called immaterial ideas back to the empirical navigations of humans through our phenomenal world, en route to their ideas, we find that linkage only seems to disappear because the interval of time extends cognitive discovery across different positions upon the landscape that are not all simple, line-of-sight configurations. Knowing a green-shirt clad golfing tourist lost on Street A and, remembering a throng of green-shirt clad golfing tourists on Street B, fuels the mind, thus allowing it to make the inference the solitary tourist is a member of the throng but now separated from them and lost.
We call this abstract thinking but, as you say, it can be mapped back to empirical experience remembered and thus, abstract thinking is still an empirical thing, albeit a multi-part thing.

I've been saying math started when humans caught onto patterns based on numbers of physical things. Fingers, being a permanent and handy instance of countable things, launched human understanding of number. Two fingers look different from five fingers. Hah! Now we've started the process. Why do two fingers look different from five fingers? Is it not because fingers, and the like, possess an inherent attribute that can be labeled "number?" Different numbers of the same things look different because things possess the attribute called "number." When their number differs, they, as a group, differ. Indeed, if your piggy bank suddenly becomes possessed of fewer gold coins than yesterday, you become emotionally charged up by the numerical attribute of things.

Firstly, your piece on the onticity of numbers has been very helpful to me. Thanks for doing the work and then offering it up to me on a silver platter.

...the mind is never an object of perception... — Wayfarer

Is not "mind" the overarching subject of our HPoC discussion?

...it is 'the unknown knower' to draw on a phrase expressed in Indian philosophy. — Wayfarer

This to me sounds like Aristotle.

It is never appears to us as object, but as us, as the subject. — Wayfarer

Are you perhaps getting your bearings twisted within the hall of mirrors? If the mind appears to us, then it's the object of our perception, is it not? One of the tricks of the mind is that it is, subjectively, the object of its self-perception. WRT the subject/object pairing, the disjunction operator is a semi-permeable membrane in both directions.

this essay (Nature of Number) takes for granted the division of mind (‘in here’) and world (‘out there’) as being, to all intents, separate realities. And that itself is a metaphysical construction!
— ucarr

Nowhere do I say that - that is your interpretive paradigm. — Wayfarer

I offer my public apology for anything I've attributed to you erroneously. Misquoting someone is a serious violation of that person's rights. I always try to be correct with my quotations. I do claim, however, that these words appear in your Medium article, The Nature of Number. Are they in there because you're quoting someone else?

Furthermore, no. It's not my interpretive paradigm. In fact, I'm on the other side of the aisle. My foundational premise says material and immaterial are two positions along the physicalist continuum.

Ultimately, what we call “reality” is so deeply suffused with mind- and language-dependent structures that it is altogether impossible to make a neat distinction between those parts of our beliefs that reflect the world “in itself” and those parts of our beliefs that simply express “our conceptual contribution.” The very idea that our cognition should be nothing but a re-presentation of something mind-independent consequently has to be abandoned.

This is the theoretical zeitgeist post quantum mechanics.

Try to do anything cognitive without special and temporal extension and you’ll soon discover you cannot. — ucarr

I see you make no comment on this statement. Is it because commentary would necessitate your acknowledgement doing cognition is not physical, which acknowledgement lands you squarely within mind/body dualism?

And by the way, doesn't

...the mind is never an object of perception... — Wayfarer

land you in the same location? If the mind is only subject, then clearly it's categorically isolated from a phenomenal world filled with objects.

what kind of existence do they [numbers] have? Mathematical platonists say that numbers are real independently of whether anyone perceives them or not, 'in the same sense', said Frege, 'just as a planet, even before anyone saw it, was in interaction with other planets'. But although they're independent of any particular mind, they can only be grasped by a mind. So they are 'intelligible objects', bearing in mind that 'object' is used in a metaphorical sense of 'the object of thought'. That is the sense in which there is an 'intelligible realm' that doesn't exist on the level of sensory perception (per Plato's analogy of the divided line) but is real in a noetic or intellectual sense. — Wayfarer

My ascription to you of mind body dualism I further propound by reference to the above quote as evidence. Firstly, it's funny that you make a case for mind as an isolate and pure subject by explaining how the mind "grasps" something, a physical action of the hand.

We can't get out of the physicality of verbal language, and numerical language (math) possesses unreasonable effectiveness in the natural sciences because it too is physical.

Is it not the case the main reason you claim non-binary ideation for yourself is because you do, in fact, believe the phenomenal universe is a derivation and sub-set of immaterial mind?

Math may have beginning because we noticed repeatable patterns in material objects. But math is not a material object. The mathematical writings in book or on computer screens are material things, but they are not math. They are how we share mathematical ideas. — Patterner

What you claim has the strong fragrance of the welcome familiar and the commonplace good, both backed by seeming rigorous logic. Let's say out in the field I come upon a gathering of stones (perhaps another Stonehenge in the making) and set about counting them, just for heck sake. So, I'm counting stones. Counting things is doing math. Seeing the stones does more than facilitate their counting; it affords it. The stones, therefore, participate in the counting action. Stones herein cannot be reasonably considered mathematical with regards to number?

As for counting things unseen, what trenchman can unsee the missing fingers of his dead comrade?

• "Who says the countin' of gold coins is not properly mathematical? The blighter who stole me gold coins in the dark of night? I say, after a couple of pints, I can't even take me rest in yonder gutter without gettin' rolled. Bollocks!"

Nothing is ‘ ultimately material’. No material ultimate has been discovered, despite the construction of the most complex apparatus in the history of science. The standard model of physics is itself a mathematical construction. — Wayfarer

I’m thinking math began when cave people looking at their fingers started seeing repeatable patterns.

Since matter is neither created nor destroyed, why do folks think tangible stuff is perishable? Why should not the label instead be reconfigurable?

I suspect you’ll blow off the above as anecdotal fluff, so let me follow with my best attempt to ask probing questions.

Do you hold a metaphysical commitment to the claim the phenomenal world is undergirded by an immaterially extant realm ultimately real albeit undetectable to the senses?

If so, can you elaborate some essential attributes of this immaterially extant ground of existence?

How would you manage your commitment if it turns out that the intellect and its perceptions are another sensory faculty? The argument here is that if consciousness is physical, then its perceptions must likewise be physical. For example: we know spacetime is physical. It follows then that anything existing in time, as in the case of thought, holds possession of time duration. Finally, therefore, thoughts, being always time-positive, are physical.

Conversely, if consciousness and its perceptions are immaterial, then how explain the intersection of the material and the immaterial? Is there a bizarre, transitional realm, neither material nor immaterial? How might the boundaries between these realms be measured? Does impossibility of measurement raise doubts about their existence?

Since matter_energy is neither created nor destroyed, it follows that they, like immaterial reality, having no origin, have no beginning. This makes them co-eternals. If so, how is it that immateriality logically priority to materiality?

My hypothesis claims that If spirituality is higher-order thermodynamics (teleodynamics), then matter/energy are two positions on one continuum. I call spirit absential materialism.

In your article in Medium, you say,

• we must already have ‘the idea of equals’
  
• It is the innate capacity which provides us the ability to make such judgements
  
• Science sees the Universe through...mathematical hypotheses
  
• the grasp of abstract relations and qualities, are quite literally the ligatures of reason
  
• But even though they’re real (mathematical hypotheses), they are not ‘out there somewhere’.
  
• this essay...takes for granted the division of mind (‘in here’) and world (‘out there’) as being, to all intents, separate realities. And that itself is a metaphysical construction!
  
• Charles Pinter’s book, Mind and the Cosmic Order provides considerable evidence for
• the kind of scientifically-informed idealism that I’m wishing to elaborate in my essays.
  
• This implies reality can propagate without a location in space, i.e., that immaterial reality has no whereness…

How do humans access knowledge of real things not located anywhere? This question is important because it implies that cognition, no less than sensory perception, must have a spacetime location. Try to think about anything without spatial and temporal extension and you’ll soon discover language cannot proceed meaningfully without them. Try to do anything cognitive without special and temporal extension and you’ll soon discover you cannot.

In closing, I ask, is it reasonable to label your metaphysical commitment as Existence Dualism (physical objects extant as real material things; ideas extant as abstract immaterial things)?

I know that materialism rendered a holy of holies becomes a death trap. At the other end of the spectrum, skittering around, spewing glib, scientific catchphrases scintillating with the current cachet in smartypants verbiage becomes another death trap.
— ucarr
Is that your disdainful view of philosophical speculation? :cool: — Gnomon

No. Im sufficiently repentant to know I've got no cause for being disdainful about anything.

When the Enlightenment gave birth to Empirical Science, it threw-out the philosophical baby with the bath-water. The Materialism and Scientism found on this forum are the off-spring of that "disjunction" between Ideal & Real worldviews. EFA is, in part, an attempt to heal the rift between the science of Matter, and the science of Mind. :smile: — Gnomon

Holism is one of your main themes?

What are some specific ways materialism reasons erroneously when arriving at its reductionism?

Both Math and Language are theoretical in conception (principles), but practical in application (details). :nerd: — Gnomon

Theoretical Philosophy is the study of the principles for human knowledge, the development of the sciences and the basis for scientific knowledge, the principles of thought, argumentation and communication, metaphysics and the history of the subject itself. — Gnomon

Since you cite this quote from Lund University, I assume it speaks for you. Is it your understanding principles, by definition, are theoretical and therefore subject to revision?

I'm not sure I buy your distinction between theoretical philosophy on the one hand and math and language on the other because, to my understanding, the latter are no less subject to revision than the former. As a matter of fact, language is an obvious example of applied principles subject to frequent updating as evidenced by the topicality of the vernacular. Take for example, ending sentences with a preposition. That used to be a no-no. Nowadays it's the speaker's decision.

Philosophy and Its Contrast with Science
Science is about contingent facts or truths; philosophy is often about that but is also about necessary truths (if they exist) — Gnomon

Since scientific theory, by definition - and also by methodological principle - always expresses itself tentatively, its tentativeness, being necessary (albeit somewhat paradoxically), is not contingent.

Obversely, since theoretical philosophy, by definition – and also by methodological principle – always expresses itself universally, its universality, being theoretical (albeit somewhat paradoxically), is not necessary.

So, scientific theory and theoretical philosophy have common ground in their management of the contingent/necessary disjunction operator; their approaches to it from opposite poles is therefore a trivial difference.

Employing the above symmetry, I proceed to claiming the conceptual distinctions between science and philosophy are trivial with one exception: the phenomenal.

I’m now inclined to think the crux of the mind/body problem is the question of the scope of perception_cognition by the senses or through immediate experience.

I suspect the possible mistake of reductive materialism is its belief material/immaterial are necessarily parallel categories.

My materialist mode of inquiry, theory and hypothesis impel me towards a bold speculation: as science progresses, it subsumes more and more of the claims traditionally ascribed to immaterial spirit. Talking fancy, the ne plus ultra for this line of reasoning is to claim God, the supposed immaterial spirit, exists as an existentially real, physical being. To be sure, God’s physicality effects a cosmic scale perturbation of the human scale of empirical experience. The job of science, being physicalist, therefore entails reconciling the human scale of empirical experience with God’s cosmic scale of empirical experience along the continuum of the phenomenal universe.

What’s important for Enformaction is that it not distort the degree to which its multi-mode holism differs from my unary physical holism. The difference is small, not large. The former parallels material/undefined/immaterial whereas the latter subsumes these three categories.

...arithmetical objects, rules of logic, conventions, scientific laws. All of these are arguably real, but not existent as phenomena... — Wayfarer

The practice of reasoning by humans, being phenomenal, accommodates direct observation via the senses. Call to mind Rodin's Thinker. A child stands before the statue observing it. Probably the child doesn't know specifically what they're observing, but nonetheless they're observing it.

The products of reason are, ultimately, material. At issue is the phenomenon of comprehension. Comprehension of the products of reason: arithmetical objects, rules of logic, conventions, scientific laws et al, requires navigation of a multi-part, empirical journey of discovery.

Consider a priori discovery:

• One morning exiting the bakery shop I see a tour bus populated with male riders dressed in green blazers. A couple of green blazers are outside the bus swinging their golf clubs. There's an ad on the side of the bus: Scotland Golf Vacations. I tip my hat to the green blazers as on weekends I'm coming along with my driver swings very nicely. "You guys are so lucky." I say to them. They come back to me saying, "Yeah!. We're off to St. Andrews Old Course." Next moment, on a lark, I decide to take an alternate route home. Suddenly I see a solitary, bewildered green blazer looking all about nervously while licking his lemon gelato. I quickly think to myself: green blazer, lost golfing tourist, supply directions. "Going to play some links at St. Andrews Old Course?" I say to him. His eyes brighten with hope as he exclaims, "Yes! Where is ---" "The bus? Just over on the adjacent street. Go round that next bend and you can't miss it."

Our human presumption is that a dog, first seeing the busload of green blazers on one street and then seeing a solitary blazer on the adjacent street, can't reason through transitive logic: all nearby golfing tourists heading for links at St. Andrews Old Course wear green blazers ⟹ lost man wears green blazer⟹ lost man a golfing tourist heading for links at St. Andrews Old Course.

When we look at the conclusions of reason through the abstractions of head trips, they seem to be intangibles lying beyond the senses, but really, they're multi-part empirical experiences stretched across a positive time interval.

Using our memory, we join together the multiple parts of our empirical experiences upon the scaffold of transitive logic. Consequently, the products of reason arise from empirical experiences articulated.

...our culture is deeply committed to the notion that what is real exists in time and space - out there, somewhere, potentially experienceable... — Wayfarer

And perhaps you're saying things exist that are experienceable not in the conventionally empirical sense, but rather in the cognizable sense.

I don't think Wayfarer thinks numbers exist in his brain — RogueAI

For the very simple reason that is numbers are real, but not material... — Wayfarer

In the above statement, Wayfarer didn't have numbers in his brain, but rather had them nested in Plato's Realm of Ideals, which his brain had nested in itself as an image having Plato's Realm of Ideals...

The above series, like Borges' map of the landscape that keeps elaborating itself until the elaboration merges with the referent, elaborates, eventually, its simulations back to the thing itself?

Does anybody have some ground rules for things real but not material? Why is the stuff of a number, as when you gaze at two equisitely cut diamonds, less material in its dazzlement of your eyes than that sweet smile from your bestie upon seeing you at the train station?

So, you are you convinced that when you look at a pair of diamonds encased in the platinum ring encircling your beloved's finger, no part of that crushed carbon attaches to the number two floating around immaterially within your brain? — ucarr

That really is a nonsensical question. — Wayfarer

If you're willing to elaborate, please do so.

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

For the very simple reason that is numbers are real, but not material... — Wayfarer

So, you are you convinced that when you look at a pair of diamonds encased in the platinum ring encircling your beloved's finger, no part of that crushed carbon attaches to the number two floating around immaterially within your brain?

I acknowledge and respect your substantial accomplishments as a professional architect. As I understand architecture, you are a geometrician grounded in the math of structural engineering. And, moreover, all of this is coupled with graphic artistry.

Professionals the likes of Max Planck, Niels Bohr, John Wheeler and Terrence Deacon have trudged long hours through the trenches of empirical discovery en route to their various ruminations in maturity. Some of them perhaps have been esoteric.

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

• You talk of weaving together the disjunctions of science and philosophy; can you name a specific problem that Enformaction is attacking?

• You say math is theoretical; some components of pure math are theoretical; to claim math in general is theoretical is, to my thinking, like saying language in general is theoretical. Language, whether numerical or verbal, has within-the-discipline issues and projects that attract theoreticians, but characterizing language in general as being theoretical when, for example, there's a compendium of applied math (architecture), bespeaks a slapdash imprecision emblematic of a thinker spewing superficial glosses upon a variety of deep and complex disciplines, each of which rigorous explorers examine individually over a lifetime.

• You talk of disciplines both empirical and theoretical inhabiting one, universal substance. Such language, contrary to your arguments toward establishing an immaterial ground for existence (it from bit), suggest a largely unexamined, foundational belief existence is grounded within the material (I know, the merger is intentional, that is, during those moments when it strikes your fancy).

• You turn the rapier point around to me when you endorse both_and over either_or. My retort is to declare "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

• I know that materialism rendered a holy of holies becomes a death trap. At the other end of the spectrum, skittering around, spewing glib, scientific catchphrases scintillating with the current cachet in smartypants verbiage becomes another death trap.

I'm digressing into becoming defensive by attacking both your methodology and your execution; not my original purpose.

The main thing I want to do herein is confess to the fact all of the above criticisms have, until very recently, been perfectly applicable to my own methodology and execution.

If I'm projecting my faults onto you erroneously, I apologize.

The best of what I've shared with you is this accurate picture of my character as a pretentious, full-of-himself, science_philosophy flirt now starting to get real.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I have a question about it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

... — JuanZu

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

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

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

Are you expecting a Scientific, or Philosophical, explanation on this forum? — Gnomon

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

You can hover in the vicinity of philosophy without a grounding in science, and you can hover in the vicinity of physics without math, but the immersion-in-depth requisite for proficient, authoritative understanding of either necessitates these groundings.

My own theory of Consciousness has a "defect" similar to Panpsychism : jumbling Matter together with Mind. That's because the fundamental element of our real world is neither a physical thing, nor a metaphysical entity, but the not-yet-real Potential for both. Terrence Deacon calls it "constitutive absence", but I call it "causal information" (EnFormAction). Materialism & Spiritualism typically view Mind & Brain as incompatible opposites. But the BothAnd principle*3 allows us to see both sides of reality, where Mind & Matter are parts of a greater whole system : the enminded universe. — Gnomon

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

Materialism & Spiritualism typically view Mind & Brain as incompatible opposites. But the BothAnd principle*3 allows us to see both sides of reality, where Mind & Matter are parts of a greater whole system : the enminded universe. — Gnomon

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

I surmise from your above two quotes that you wish to escape the mind/body conflict by pairing the two positions such that you transcend the impasse while at the same time carving out a niche for your own postulations. Speaking structurally, with Enformaction, you're going non-binary.

So, the Both/And Principle is the lynchpin of Enformation.

Both/And translates to: disjunction operator (or)/conjunction operator (and).

Let’s examine your Both/And principle logically with X = Material and Y = Immaterial.

If Material = True and Immaterial = True, then

(X or Y) / (X and Y) translates to (True or True) or (True and True). This evaluates to (True or True). This evaluates to True as the final state. If both material world and immaterial world exist, then the Both/And Principle contains truth content.

Let’s assume the reality of the material world is not in dispute (Solipsists speak now or forever hold your peace).

What about the reality of the immaterial world? It’s in dispute.

Does Gnomon’s claim for the ambiguity of Enformaction hold true? I dispute Gnomon’s defense by arguing his Enformaction, as defined, equals potential energy and that, being energetic (although non-kinetic), is material, not ambiguous.

So now we can evaluate the truth content of the Both/And Principle in application to Enformaction as defined: …the fundamental element of our real world is neither a physical thing, nor a metaphysical entity, but the not-yet-real Potential for both[/i].

If Material = True and Immaterial = False, then

(X or Y) / (X and Y) translates to (True or False) or (True and False). This evaluates to (True or False). This evaluates to True as the final state. This means that within the disjunction operator, there’s truth content even if only one of the terms is true because they’re not connected. The Both/And Principle contains truth content within one of its chambers.

An example of the disjunction operator containing truth value for (X or Y) which evaluates to (True or False) which evaluates to True is: "…the fundamental element of our real world is neither a physical thing, nor a metaphysical entity, but the not-yet-real Potential for both."

If, as I argue, this is a claim for a transcendent ambiguity that is really a description of stored energy, a material reality, then we’re looking at a (True or False) disjunction that evaluates to a final state that has truth content.

The conventional interpretation of my argument expresses as the claim the material world is true whereas the immaterial world (and evasive ambiguity) is false and yet, claims about the immaterial world can nevertheless make statements true in the material world.

One possible further interpretation is that spiritual claims about existence draw some of their truth from claims that ultimately pertain to attributes of human nature as it expresses itself within the natural world. This indicates in turn that spirituality is sometimes in fact a sub-division of human psychology.

Finally, this leads us to speculate about spiritualist-human-psychology occupying a position on the continuum of material things inhabiting the natural world.

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

Mental phenomena inhabit the natural world as material realities.

...I did not intend to imply that Mind is a "component" of Matter. — Gnomon

Your language implies mind is a component of matter because in your thinking about its emergence, your language invokes the concept of emergence, an action that, in context here, manifests physically. Your usage is evidence your thinking alternates between two realms, one material, the other immaterial. When you argue that immaterial things emerge from material things, you imply that the material and the immaterial have common ground. This means the two modes have an intersection wherein their supposed parallelism collapses. The necessity of common ground for interaction means the spirit world cannot interact with the material world and remain wholly spiritual. Familiar evidence of this is the manifestation of Jesus as flesh and blood.

Quantum Physics raised unsettling metaphysical Mind over Matter questions with its observation that a scientific Measurement seems to reduce the Uncertainty of an entangled system, somehow causing it to "collapse", or manifest, from an undifferentiated non-local holistic state into a single physical particle of matter — Gnomon

There's no metaphysics here. This is physics within the framework of thermodynamics. This framework includes the higher-orders of thermodynamics: morphodynamics and teleodynamics. This broadly inclusive framework includes mind, but there's no mind-over-matter in the sense of Cartesian Dualism. This is to say there's no metaphysical entity inhabiting an immaterial universe and spiritually controlling material objects within the natural world.

The theme behind my arguments thus far is the premise that much (if not all) of what spiritual parallelism to date claims for itself is actually higher-order materialism. My premise is not, however, an expression of reductive materialism. It is, instead, a mandate to seek the release of spirituality from Cartesian Dualism.

I claim that the sign by itself does not "contribute" information at all. But, equally, the subject does not contribute information either. The information would not be something that passes or transits from one system to another (between a book and a reader), but rather it is generated. That is, it is not cause but effect. — JuanZu

The relationship between Book_Reader, as described by you above is Book ¬⇋ Reader: no info passes between them.

Also, as described by you above:

but rather it (info) is generated. — JuanZu

In the picture you give us, there is no info transit, in either direction, between book and reader.

Even so, the info is generated.

...we say that a book has information, we also say that among all the ink marks there is something that, however, those ink marks are not. — JuanZu

...it is necessary to say that the information is not found there, neither in the book nor in the reader, but is produced as both systems of signs enter into some type of relation. — JuanZu

Give us a picture of: both systems of signs entering into some type of relation; also, give us a picture of the environment in which both systems of signs are entering into some type of relation.

This request does NOT seek after language that is a vague, abstract description such as:

the information is not found there, neither in the book nor in the reader, but is produced as both systems of signs enter into some type of relation. — JuanZu

No. This request seeks after a description (of both systems of signs entering into some type of relation producing the info) within the everyday world of human experience. An example of a successful response to the request is a narration of a movie that shows both systems of signs entering into some type of relation producing the info as an event unfolding within the everyday world of human experience.

The information would not be something that passes or transits from one system to another (between a book and a reader), but rather it is generated. That is, it is not cause but effect. — JuanZu

This effect is generated by what cause? What is the location of this effect? (If you're theorizing an effect without a cause, elaborate essential details of this phenomenon).

I claim that the sign by itself does not "contribute" information at all. — JuanZu

Picture yourself reading a printed-on-paper book. The common-sense view says the conjugated signs in the book diminish the possible meanings of the employed sign system to some specific meanings that the reader cognizes within the brain as a narrative of visuals, dialogues, actions and events, all of which conjoin to express a hero's journey of discovery and change.

Now, imagine all of the signs on the pages of the book being deleted, leaving behind blank pages. What is the additional component or dynamical process, beyond the signs, that communicates the narrative to the reader?

Also, imagine that nothing transits from the blank pages to the reader's brain. How does the reader glean a narrative from the book?

...the subject does not contribute information either. — JuanZu

Finally, imagine that the reader, with respect to the book, brings a mind that is a blank slate devoid of information pertinent to the book's contents. How does the reader decode and understand a narrative totally foreign to everything the reader knows?

You think I've become ensnared within physicalism?

You talk of mind emergent from matter. How does a non-physical entity emerge? Is not emergence, like all actions, a matter_energy, dynamical process (of geometrical transformation with attendant momentum)?

What does a non-physical entity emerge from? When you say mind emerges from matter, you imply mind is a component of matter and thus mind, like matter, is material. (See example directly below)

Note --- EnFormAction is a power or force that has both physical/material & metaphysical/immaterial effects/consequences.

Name some metaphysical effects of physical force.

EnFormAction ⟹ energy = causation; form = matter; action = control. Energy_form_matter are physical things. Where is the immaterial component of EnFormAction?

An entity is something that exists as itself. It does not need to be of material existence. — Gnomon

Since thought, the supposed immaterial medium of your metaphysical abstractions, manifests and functions as a physical activity of our physical brains, and spacetime, the medium through which empirical experience funds our thoughts, likewise is physical, you must, as many others before you have not, explain how things immaterial shape and control things material.

Isn't it clear we can't even conceptualize immaterial things except as negations of material things, with these said negations also being material things in obverse mode?

Might it be possible that the claims for certain attributes of the immaterial world made by religionists and spiritualists can all be expressed through material phenomena? Under this configuration, a monist physical universe is no less soulful or spiritual or eternal than a dualist matter/spirit universe. One possible difference might be deletion of mysticism from the monist_physical universe.

Note how I haven't made declarations about the immaterial universe being fictional. Instead, I've presented arguments you must demolish en route to establishing its reality.

Doesn't the term "Intelligibility" refer to an "intellect" or a "mind"? Isn't that giving mental properties to the sign? — JuanZu

"Intelligible" simply means "able to be understood," as with the example of a book. Do you think something devoid of information can be understood?

Regarding the interface linking object with observer, we have the question: What does each correspondent contribute to the interface?

If the observed object, in this case the sign, contributes no information to the interface, then we’re back to claiming the human mind dreams the details of the sign internally. This explanation must then further explain how, or if, any mind makes contact with an objective reality beyond itself.

We should bear in mind that pattern recognition (reading of signs) involves both information and information processing. How can the latter be performed without input from the former?

Of the two options here: 1) The mind is an idealistic producer of dreamworlds populated by Plato’s ideal forms, or 2) Intelligible object and Agent Intellect are two objects that interact to form an interface interior & exterior to both, I expect most thinkers will find it easier to embrace the second option.

Interface represents an entangled objectivity that possesses both interior and exterior surfaces. Following this claim, we can say that the sign reads the Agent Intellect just as the Agent Intellect reads the sign. In the case of the former, the sign exerts the shaping influence of a gravitational field curving the mind with its intelligibility. This is a mirror of what the Agent Intellect does to the sign. In this situation, information is physical.

EFA... is the "Ground" of Being, including both Mind & Matter. — Gnomon

The upshot of our dialogue so far, as I see it, involves two cruxes: 1) We have a disjunction to evaluate: We know matter via mind, or we know mind via matter; 2) Mind/Matter are not two parallel categories, but rather two positions on a continuum within one category.

Regarding the first crux, is it just one or the other? If so, we have a conditional: x ⟹ y or y ⟹ x, with x = mind and y = matter. If x = True, which is to say if mind as a distinct category exists, and if y = True, which is to say matter as a distinct category exists, then x ⟹ y = True and y ⟹ x = True. In this case science and religion have no argument.

Even if x = False, x ⟹ y = True. In this case, the existence of mind as a distinct category is false, but its implication of matter, while logically valid, is not existentially real.

If y = False , meaning the existence of matter as a distinct category is false, then x ⟹ y = False, even if x = True. Thus, mind as a distinct category, while logically valid, in this situation does not imply matter is independently real.

Given these complications, I surmise that the second crux is the better choice regarding the search for a clear path forward to the truth rooted within common sense.

Now we can evaluate a bi-conditional representing two positions within one category: Mind_Matter are two states positioned along one continuum.

Given x ⟺ y, with x = True and y = True, we have a bi-directional implication of two states being one value in variant forms along one continuum. Whether this equivalence refers to an independently real phenomenon is a moot question with respect to logic.

Given x ⟺ y, with x = False and y = False, we have a bi-directional implication of two non-existent states. This equivalence, being non-existent and therefore meaningless, has nothing to say.

Since we're here and dialoguing about the nature of the states of things, we have evidence of Mind_Matter, and thus x ⟺ y, with x = True and y = True, looks like our best choice.

My conclusion allows me to claim that when you say:

EFA works only within the physical constraints of the only entropy-increasing world that we know via our senses, but understand via our reasoning & imagination. — Gnomon

You're referring to a realm of mind_matter monism. The mind/body problem is a problem due to a category error in physics_philosophy (mind_matter are two parallel categories).

One way to express the Mind/Matter relationship is to say that "Cosmic Mind is the ground of Matter", along with everything else. That is to say that the Potential-for-Mind must have existed prior to the Big Bang that sparked physical, biological, and mental evolution. — Gnomon

From a cosmological perspective, Matter emerged near the beginning of the universe's expansion, then eventually, Mind emerged from a "ground" of animated matter (Life) only after eons of matter/energy cycles*1. In my thesis though, the ultimate "ground" (fundamental substance) is what I call EnFormAction, which is conceptually an amalgam of Energy+Matter+Mind : causation + instantiation + control. All of which are programmed into the algorithm of Creative Evolution

Therefore, my most general term for all phases of Mind emergence is "Information" (EnFormAction). However, one phase of the evolutionary process could be called "Protoconsciousness", as discussed in a previous post. :nerd: — Gnomon

Let me start by asking a question pertaining to each of the fragments highlighted in bold italics.

Fragment 1: Cosmic Mind is an uncreated eternal?

Fragment 2: If matter emerged from Cosmic Mind, what is the bridge linking the non-physical with the physical?

Fragment 3: If EnFormAction makes three posits: energy = causation; form = instantiation; action = control, then these three phenomena appear to be coequal, uncreated eternals. If that's the case, how is it that Cosmic Mind is the ground of Matter, since matter_energy is coequal with Mind, per EnFormAction?

If you want to make a generalization of the idea of language to apply it to physical processes [beyond human existence] I have no problem. In fact I'm doing the same thing, kinda
... The difference is that we both have different ideas of how something called "information" takes place for a language, or for a sign system. — JuanZu

As to the first part of your quote, regarding language applied to physical processes, as to that, I say, "language is physical."

How language is physical and what structure supports the physicality of language are two questions that have been under consideration and attacked in debate for at least the last two millennia.

I’ll venture an intuitive conjecture that we, too, have really been considering the physicality of language.

With “The Structure of the Physicality of Language” specified as our rubric, I think we have two important questions before us: 1) What’s the physical structure connecting signification with intelligibility and 2) What’s the physical relationship between information and meaning?

Aristotle has weighed in on the first question with his Agent Intellect concept. Per Aristotle, Agent Intellect is internal to human. It’s the necessary cognitive mechanism that detects the intelligibility of a sign. The physical structure, then, is the interface positioning Agent Intellect before sign, with intelligibility and its decoding as meaning an emergent property of Agent Intellect.

This configuration generates the interesting situation wherein subject/object are interwoven into a multi-part whole. The ambiguity of subject/object as discrete poles within this configuration accounts for much of the undecidability of the matter/mind debate.

It could be that the only resolution possible is the bias of individual character, as with the question whether the glass is half full or half empty.

I claim that information takes place... between at least two sign systems. — JuanZu

So, for example, a footprint on the beach (a sign). In itself it does not have information; The information takes place once the human enters the scene. — JuanZu

The information is then not an internal property of the foot print, nor internal to the human-sign-field. Information is produced, therefore, in the relation. — JuanZu

Your three above quotes, taken together, raise, by implication, the question: Where is the physical location of the relation?

Whether this relation is a physical phenomenon lies at the center of my purpose in my conduct of this inquiry.

Another critically important question asks: How is the physical relation produced?

I claim that a sign, as a discrete physical entity, possesses some type of information in the form of intelligibility. Moreover, I claim that this intelligibility is physical.

This claim seems to bog down in the quagmire attached to the following question: Are numbers invented or discovered? I argue that numbers, like other types of signs, are physical and therefore discovered rather than invented. If this were not the case, how could the animal kingdom, before advent of humans, have practiced adaptation to their various environments?

Since their successful adaptations prior to humans cannot be disputed per the evolutionary claim positing some of them as our direct forebears, if follows logically that successful species made intelligent use of various physical significations about their environments towards survival and reproduction.

For these reasons, I claim that information is ambiguously internal-and-external to both the physical signification and the physical Agent Intellect who decodes the information and meaning of the former.

The curious situation that we have in nature is one with physical language as an operator positioned between sign and Agent Intellect, with intelligibility and cognition interweaving an interface that is some kind of non-local physicality, a close relative of absential materialism.

I never said that the physical elements, whether ordered or not, that precede the generation of information, can be something generated by the human imagination. — JuanZu

I'm attempting to examine whether or not your statements thus far imply what you deny in the above quote.

What I am claiming is that a signal like that has no information, no matter how organized that signal is. I consider that Information and order are not the same thing. The information would arise when that signal is received and enters into relation with any environment that is constituted by a system of signs. — JuanZu

Your two statements highlighted above, taken together, as I understand them, assert that order and information are separate categories that have no intersection.

From this it follows that information is only passed from one sign-field to another sign-field.

Since order has no intersection (common ground) with information, there's the question whether organized nature, prior to the signing of sentient humans, entails dynamical processes that support signing before the advent of the human species. In short, the question asks whether organized nature sans humanity is a potentially language-bearing environment. Does pre-human nature possess language-bearing properties, albeit in latent form?

Also, there's the question whether pre-human nature includes dynamical information processes. Does it sound right to think that apes, for example, had no available information useful for their adaptation to the environment?

If pre-human nature possessed neither information nor language, then human, upon experiencing nature, could see only a jumbled confusion of chaotic, sensory signals from the senses to the brain.

The jumbled confusion of sensory signals would be perceived even if nature is organized if, as you say, an organized signal has no information. It is information that empowers a human observer to make sense of the abundance of sensory signals inputting to the brain every moment. We perceive signal input without information as noise.

The linguistic human brain, acting in tandem with information-bearing signals, assigns meaning to the inputting information via reiterative reduction of the improbability of reception of a specific set of inputting stimuli.

If pre-human, organized nature contains no information_language-bearing dynamical processes, then human, holding possession of such within itself, must generate an information_language-bearing dynamical process within its own brain in independence from the objective natural world. This is a process of daydreaming reality into existence as an information_language-bearing dynamical reality. This is an instance as mind as the ground of matter. This is Plato's transcendent realm of ideal things. This is Berkeley's Idealism.

my thesis accepts that our world appears to be Dualistic in that Mind & Matter are polar opposites : like something & nothing. Yet, we only know about Matter by use of the Mind. Hence, the thesis is ultimately Monistic, in the sense of Spinoza's "Single Substance". :smile: — Gnomon

Yes. I am a retired Architect. So I am familiar with imagining things that are not yet real. I use geometry to translate my idea of the future thing into the graphic language of a "blueprint". If you will suggest a specific topic-of-interest (a possibility), I will attempt to construct a mental model to represent the "something-nothing interweave". Perhaps, what Terrence Deacon calls an "Interface". — Gnomon

...the lotus in the garden would be a geometric for "appears to be Dualistic." — ucarr

I suggest we try to illustrate a kind of flow chart of the interweave of matter_mind through use of Deacon's triumvirate: thermodynamics, morphodynamics, teleodynamics. Each of the transition phases needs to show an emergent property dependent yet functionally autonomous from its antecedant. Visualizing connection coupled with autonomy is what I expect to be the hard part.

I guess we're trying to visualize an evolutionary transition linking an antecedent dynamical species with a descendent dynamical species emergent from its predecessor.

“How Mind Emerged From Matter,” Deacon’s subtitle, suggests to me his belief matter is the ground of mind.

...my thesis accepts that our world appears to be Dualistic in that Mind & Matter are polar opposites : like something & nothing. Yet, ...we only know about Matter by use of the Mind. Hence, the thesis is ultimately Monistic, in the sense of Spinoza's "Single Substance". :smile: — Gnomon

From you I get the suggestion mind is the ground of matter.

The main point of our flow chart, as I see it, is to answer visually_structurally which component is ground and which is emergent property, or whether, as a third possibility, the interweave of the two components is essentially ambiguous.