Whitehead’s process ontology is a first step - it regards existence as consisting of four-dimensional events, rather than the 3+1 (objects in time) view of traditional materialism. Process ontology corresponds to the theories of quantum physicists such as Carlo Rovelli, but both Whitehead and Rovelli fall short of acknowledging the relations between these structures as necessarily five-dimensional. From here, they turn to mathematical structures, which present at least a relational potential to reconcile these events with aspects of reality such as gravity, qualia and emotion. But we can only define a four-dimensional structure by relating it to a specific four-dimensional observer event, and then mapping the relation as a four-dimensional mathematical prediction, which can be reduced to relative instructions for any four-dimensional system to align to this observer-position.

Interestingly, this corresponds to Lisa Feldman Barrett’s neuroscience/psychology based theory of constructed emotion, in which the correlates of consciousness consist of relative instructions (attention and effort) for a predictive alignment between the four-dimensional interoception of an organism and the brain’s conceptualised reality. It seems this continual process of alignment - in terms of what adjustments are made to the interoceptive or conceptual predictions throughout what is an ongoing interaction - constructs our unique experience of the world.

Of course, this is theory upon theory upon theory - but I think the structure may be there to work towards testable inferences or predictions. It’s well above my pay grade, though.

However that there is mind at the cellular level is without doubt. You have described it as "molecular-level information". So we have information, and there is a good argument for emotion, and they are the two ingredients of consciousness - of course it is entangled into matter. Specifically, entangled into DNA, which is a symbolic representation of information, much like the sentence I'm writing. So we have abstract thought at the cellular level. — Pop

Your first and last sentences here are examples of confusing dimensional levels. I recognise that you don’t see the world this way, but this is where you fail to see that your theory is an over-simplification, so it’s worth getting your head around it. Molecular-level information is not ‘mind’: mind refers to five-dimensional structure, molecular-level information refers to three-dimensional structure. DNA consists of four-dimensional information, rendered in a three dimensional structure as organisational code (an arrangement of chemical potential) by its relation to four-dimensional systems. The sentence, on the other hand, consists of five-dimensional information rendered in a four-dimensional structure as organisational code (a sequence of observable letters) by its relation to five-dimensional systems.

But the sentence also relies on four-dimensional information (your actions) rendered in a three-dimensional structure as organisational code (keyboard hits), and then rendered by your computer into a one-dimensional system as binary code. This is not an integrated process, but must be monitored and maintained by five-dimensional integrated systems, to adjust for errors and damage. DNA, on the other hand, requires integration with four-dimensional (living) systems to monitor and maintain its process. DNA does not require emotion or mind - a five-dimensional relation - to produce life; only a four-dimensional relation is required.

That said, some potential for a resulting four-dimensional system to relate to another four-dimensional system in a five-dimensional relational structure is written into most DNA structural information - but doesn’t exist as emotion or mind, and varies both within every DNA code and for every type of living cell. In the same way, the structural information of a carbon atom has a vastly different potential to form molecular relations than that of a helium atom, but whether any molecular relation will even occur is indeterminate at the level of atomic structural information.

You keep constructing the result of DNA information in your mind as if it already exists.

There would be an underlying quantum layer, but I don't want to go there for now, as it is too theoretical.
The biological data - that information, and emotion, and abstract thought are present, is not theoretical. That we are blind to it is a hangover from materialism, I believe. — Pop

Emotion and abstract thought consist of information - this must be the case if, as you say, everything is information. They cannot then be present alongside information in biological data. You keep consolidating information at a particular level of awareness, and then treat what remains as something else. It isn’t - it’s all information. You will need to come to terms with this as a monist, otherwise you will keep contradicting yourself.

If emotion is information, then you should be able to inform me exactly how you feel, such that I could feel it also, but you cannot for the same reason you couldn't describe red. Information and emotion exist in consciousness, emotion entangles information, but it is only information that exists in transit from one consciousness to another. Perhaps it is better described as biased information, and we can to some extent discern the bias. It is biased because it is entangled by emotion.

Emotion is a subjective quality that arises in relation to integrated information. Every thought has a corresponding quale, that orients us in our personally constructed reality. The whole conscious experience gets reduced to an emotional symbol representing the experience. Once we are in possession of the emotional symbol ( quale ), we understand the implications of the information we have integrated. My quale would be located on a point on the PPS, but yours would perhaps be a multidimensional PPS. Regardless, it is at this point that we have an experience, that we take to be reality. — Pop

There seems to be a contradiction here. You have been arguing:

1. Everything is information. (Monism)
2. Emotion is not information. (Dualism)

Can you explain this?

Referring to emotion as a ‘quality’ does not explain its existence as something other than information, unless by ‘information’ you mean only consolidated information.

To resolve this as a monist, either everything is information (and emotion is information), OR everything is emotion (and information is emotion). Where do you fall?

Do we want to be in charge? Or are we content to ride on this train where ever it is going, even though the most logical outcome is likely some form of disaster? — Hippyhead

Are they the only two choices? Or do you think we can work instead towards maximising awareness, connection and collaboration? Of course, on the surface it would appear remarkably similar to being in charge. One noticeable difference is humility.

I must agree this is very understandable. After all, a "more is better" relationship with knowledge was perfectly sensible for our entire history, until quite recently. Given enough time, and enough pain, I'm sure we could adjust to the new reality. But we may not have much time, and the pain can now be fatal.

I think a key issue is the scale of the emerging powers.

With small powers one makes small mistakes and so can clean up the mess and correct the course.

With large powers one mistake can be game over, removing the ability to learn and adapt. With every day that passes the room for error is quietly shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, arguably at an ever quickening pace. — Hippyhead

You’re approaching this with a lot of fear - in my view, it is fear that removes the ability to learn and adapt much more than mistakes.

But I personally don’t see the scale of emerging powers as such a key issue. Those ‘large’ powers are not as consolidated as you might think. They consist of relations between relational structures - even if they appear to be individual, autonomous and ‘in charge’. For all the posturing of nuclear weaponry, there’s a reason why ‘that button’ has never been pushed: no man is an island. The ‘larger’ that power seems, the more relational structures hold it in place. And when those relational structures perceive their own potential destruction, they will consolidate against it, and that ‘power’ will shrink.

In this way, we have remained just this side of non-existence, in a dynamic non-equilibrium that always looks more frightening than it is. Many of us are content to ride this train to wherever, while others are fighting to be ‘in charge’.

Would it be accurate to say that everyone involved is acting intelligently and professionally within their narrow lane, and some talk about the big picture, but nobody is responsible for the big picture? So this huge very intelligent knowledge machine keeps grinding on blindly towards the cliff.

Perhaps nobody is responsible for the big picture because we assume that no one could be, which seems a reasonable theory. If true, then we aren't really in charge, right? Should we reconfigure our view of this from "we are developing knowledge" to "knowledge is developing us"?

Sometimes I think of knowledge as another element of nature, like water, air, space, atoms etc. We've wandered in to a knowledge hurricane and don't know how to find our way out. Or more precisely, we typically don't realize that hurricanes are dangerous? — Hippyhead

Who said we were in charge? We are developing knowledge, but this knowledge consists of our relationship to information as part of information’s relationship to each other - of which we are also a part. In a way, we are developing our relationship to information, as information. As complicated as it sounds, this makes more sense to me.

But the ‘big picture’ seems too big now for an individual mind - I think this has been our main issue for some time. Big picture thinking is rare, and seems to be valued far less than specialised knowledge - this is evident in education, employment and modern leadership structures. Quantitatively, we know more and more, but qualitatively, so much of that knowledge is ignorant, isolated and excluded from each other.

It’s a repeat of the Tower of Babel: so much knowledge, but everyone speaking different ‘languages’, unable to understand each other, scattered and dis-organised. It was never about how high we could build this tower of information - a one-dimensional relation to ‘truth’ value - but about a complex relational structure inclusive of humanity that maximises awareness, connection and collaboration with all possible existence.

It is out of fear that we ignore, isolate and exclude information that requires us to dismantle and re-structure our consolidated satellites of knowledge. We draw arbitrary boundaries where physics blends into chemistry and chemistry into biology, and we say ‘stay within your lane’ with clear funding and industry segmentation. It’s no wonder the big picture is out of our grasp.

Our view of scientific knowledge as a commodity is pushing the quantitative slant. Scientists seek to understand quantum-level relational structure, but funding and media attention focuses on the consolidation of a ‘god-particle’; they seek to understand the relational structure of disease, but funding and media attention push for a consolidated cure. Preferential treatment is given to the objects, products and numbers, not the relational structures that create them - the particle, not the wave.

The hurricane is only dangerous because we didn’t predict it - we’ve wandered into it because we weren’t paying attention to the relational structures that have been forming it around us. We’ve looked up from focusing on our individual, specialised tasks and thought, “Crap - how did this happen?”

Can the proposed danger be said to be a real concern to the science community if knowledge development continues seemingly full speed ahead in every field?

That said, I am agreeable to relating to scientists as one would a highly skilled car mechanic. If the mechanic does the job you're paying him for, we applaud, and don't expect them to be responsible for air pollution. — Hippyhead

I’m not sure the analogy is accurate. We pay a mechanic to fix our car, but in all honesty most of us have no clue and no way of determining whether he’s solved the problem or just making it seem like the problem is solved. The same goes for doctors. We are entrusting aspects in our relation with the world to their knowledge and expertise. It’s risky. But if a mechanic, in fixing one problem with our car, causes another, then we’re not going to applaud him for doing the job we paid him for, are we? We don’t expect him to take responsibility for the whole car, but we do expect him to be responsible for his actions in relation to the whole car.

Ethics is an important aspect of scientific development, but it’s also an important aspect of interpreting and communicating scientific knowledge - it’s here that no-one seems to be taking responsibility. The scientific method includes interpreting and making conclusions from the data, but too often this bit is left to science journalists, whose short-term goal is consumption of information. So they will qualitatively structure that information in a way that increases consumption.

The problem is that science is content with that, because they can’t agree on the qualitative structure of the information they have in relation to our experience of reality. So they put it out there as purely quantitative information or data, inviting everyone to interpret it in their own way and for their own purposes. It’s like a mechanic telling you what’s wrong with your car, and then giving you the parts that need replacing.

Yes DNA is alive as part of a system. It is probably not the dominant brain of the system, it is capable of creating messenger RNA, and they, in their many guises, are seeming to be the epigenetics of the system. They can transcribe from DNA, but also reverse transcribe, to alter DNA. — Pop

A multi-cellular organism relies on a number of additional integrated system structures, within which DNA (as molecular-level information) is subject to variability in interpretation, expression, editing and transmission. Saying DNA is the dominant brain would be like saying the bible is the ‘dominant brain’ of Christianity, so to speak.

I concentrate on the fundamentals of a system to try and unentangle the qualitative ( emotional ) and quantitative information. There are only tiny little straws on offer to do this with. Thus far microbes respond to painful stimuli, the selfish gene, the bias to be, and gradient tracking - all suggest emotions at the fundamental level. We know information, energy and matter are present at this level, we know there is life, but for consciousness we need emotion to be present at this level, and I think there is a strong case. I am convinced , at least. — Pop

There are only tiny little straws because you’re not really at the fundamentals of that system. You’ve consolidated molecular relations within a living system, and you’re arguing for the existence of relational information as proof that ‘consciousness’ exists at this level. Relational information at the level of biochemistry - as a variability in 3D structure (attention) and energy (effort) - pertains to the potential for ‘life’ in relation to a living organism, in the same way that affect - as a variability in valence (attention) and arousal (effort) - pertains to the potential for ‘consciousness’ in relation to a conscious organism.

The way I see it, all of existence has a six-dimensional structure of relational possibility. In this way, we often relate to animals and even rocks as if they were conscious - attributing attention and effort as valence and arousal - but we have no reason to assume they are even vaguely aware of relations at that level of complexity. You can say that DNA is alive and emotional because it moves and responds to interaction in a way that supports the awareness and intentionality of the organism, but that’s because DNA is always subject to the awareness and intentionality of the organism through interpretation and epigenetics. You seem to be arguing that DNA has its own agenda within a living system, but there is no evidence of that.

Relational aspects of life are well established. Once emotion at the fundamental level is established, then we start to get an understanding of how consolidation or a nucleus to relational self organization forms. That qualia cause self organization is a good bet. Dose qualia = emotion? If so, and this is my understanding, then it is consciousness that emerges as self organization, not life. Life is a concept that obscures this understanding, and I wish I could erase it from common usage, as it is redundant and makes my case difficult to explain. Consciousness arises as a system of self organization - this is what you are seeing in those cellular animations. An extremely sophisticated system of self organization. This system of self organization is common to all of life, and as we come to understand it better, we must attribute its spectacular complexity, to either god, or a consciousness. — Pop

At the fundamental level, even sub-atomic particles are contingent upon relation. It’s not a matter of establishing emotion at the level of DNA, but recognising that each ‘fundamental’ level of consolidation is dependent upon underlying relations, and so this relational information that we perceive as ‘emotion’ (from our conscious perspective) points to the potentiality of a higher level of ‘self’-organisation. But don’t confuse the potentiality of DNA with that of the living or conscious system that interprets the relation. The perceived potentiality of a rock is enhanced exponentially by my own capacity for awareness, connection and collaboration with its relational structure. I wouldn’t claim that capacity is inherent to the rock, though.

Both emotion and qualia are relational information, but they relate to different consolidated structures, so they are not the same. It isn’t surprising that equating these two is difficult to explain. I understand your wish to remove consolidated structures such as ‘life’ from an explanation of relational information. If you are to take this seriously, though, you would need to remove ALL consolidated structures: DNA, molecules, atoms and sub-atomic particles - even consciousness. Because they, too, are constructed by relational information. This system of self-organisation is common to all of existence, but it goes further than attributing its complexity to ‘a consciousness’.

Do you include your own consciousness within that consciousness, or in external relation to it? Be careful how you answer this question: the former suggests determinism, the latter suggests a god. Or is it your own consciousness that you’re referring to? In which case, you have many conscious subjects, each with their own potential structure of reality, within the possible existence of a more complex relational structure than consciousness. This is the sixth dimension, an aspect of meaning and possibility.

Yes, DNA can only exist in a living system, and is biased to be. Fundamentally it is biased to be, as the universe is biased to be, so all of the component parts of the universe in turn are biased to be. So it would seem emotion is fundamental as well as information. This is how I understand Panpsychism. — Pop

You’re missing the point. The universe as a whole is not biased to be - what you’re able to interact with is structured to enable this interaction, but there is much more to the possible universe than this. Emotion IS information - there is no ‘as well as’ and we need to stop making this distinction. It isn’t helpful. The difference is only in how we perceive it: as consolidated or relational. When we consolidate, we also perceive a one-dimensional, surface relation between ourselves and the world, which we refer to as ‘emotion’ or bias. But the reality is that information is relational across multiple dimensions, affecting the system as one, two, three, four and five-dimensional relational structures within an integrated system. We always need to locate our perception in relation to the world, and be honest about attributing this relational information that you package as ‘emotion’.

The truth is that this ‘emotion’ is both our relation to the system and its relation to ours. When we consider ourselves to be a wholly rational, consolidated structure, then we attribute all ‘emotion’ to the system - the object of our attention and effort. When we consider this object to be the wholly rational, consolidated structure (as materialists do), then we must attribute all ‘emotion’ to ourselves. When we consider all of existence - ourselves included - to be purely relational in its structure, then everything is information and everything is relational, and we can more honestly attribute attention and effort, beyond the limitations and bias of consolidated structures.

What's the relational structure of knowledge? — Hippyhead

The complexity of relationships between all information - this is the source of wisdom. We’re currently isolating and micro-managing edits to the environment so much that we’ve lost sight of how it’s all arranged to collaborate so efficiently with minimal effort from us.

The quantitative power of knowledge is only part of this capacity to edit the environment. We also need to understand the most efficient and collaborative ways to focus and channel power sustainably, otherwise we’re just creating chaos. And we need to understand our biases: why are we editing the environment? Because we can? Because it brings us pleasure? Or because we’ve ignored, isolated or destroyed the relational structure that enables the environment to edit itself?

Science is an effective tool for attributing knowledge to a human observer. But we’ve been ignoring where we fit in the whole structure, and how that limits our perspective. Shut Up And Calculate and other small thinking, exclusive or isolated approaches to scientific knowledge focus on quantitative aspects without much concern for how our power to edit one area of the environment relates to processes in another. To say this isn’t a concern for science is irresponsible.

1) Science is an effective tool for developing knowledge.
2) Knowledge often delivers power to edit our environment, which is typically why we seek it.
3) Knowledge development feeds back on itself, resulting in an ever accelerating rate of knowledge development.
4) An ever accelerating rate of knowledge development results in an ever accelerating development of new powers.
5) Thus, science gives human beings new powers at an ever accelerating pace.
6) Human maturity and judgment advances at an incremental pace at best, if at all.
7) To illustrate the above, imagine a car racing down the highway at ever accelerating speeds, while the driver's skill increases maybe a little bit now and then.
8) If the above is true, what is the logical outcome?
9) If the logical outcome is eventual chaos, what would be the point of developing more new knowledge, given that it would likely be swept away in that chaos? — Hippyhead

This accounts for the quantitative aspects of knowledge, but not the qualitative aspects - the relational structure of knowledge. Science that accelerates power without relational structure will produce a logical outcome of eventual chaos.

The issue with whether DNA is alive or not revolves around whether it is biased to be. The below video shows DNA in action. It is indeed alive and wiggling, and doing its stuff, much like a queen bee in the center of a hive, with RNAs tending to it, and epigenetics coordinating the whole show. It is alive and biased to be, you have admitted previously that a bias to be is central to life. DNA is central to life also. As per Richard Dawkins's Selfish gene, and my argument that a bias exists centrally to consciousness / self organization, and a bias, and selfishness are emotions, thus emotion is shown to be fundamental. — Pop

The DNA ‘in action’ is part of the relational structure in a living system. Without this relation, the process would not occur, and the DNA would meet none of the requirements for life. The DNA seems like it is alive because it is always perceived as part of an existing living system. The video is a computer-generated consolidation of relational processes, allowing you to visually isolate and identify certain ‘objects’. But the objects don’t exist, only the relational processes do. This ‘show’ is just one aspect of relational processes, which together structure each of the players, as well as the living system, of which it is an integrated and integral part.

The fundamental ‘bias’ and ‘selfishness’ refer to these relational processes, interpreted as properties and attributed to ‘objects’ as ‘+emotion’ via consolidation - ie. by ignoring the relational processes that structure what you consider to be fundamental, and excluding the relational processes that transcend the system you consider to be universal. If I was so ignorant as to assume life as the be-all-and-end-all of existence, then I might agree that ‘emotion is fundamental’. I do agree that whatever constitutes your concept of ‘+emotion=’ underlies the very structure of life and also enables consciousness, but I disagree with how you constitute this concept only from what is unreasonable within a system. This prevents you from understanding the concept as it pertains to all of existence.

I was using it as an expression of something that that could not create consciousness. As apposed to a selfish / biased gene, which is essential in establishing a self around which self organization can take place. Thus consciousness and life arose together. But for consciousness to exist emotion has to be present, and in DNA it is present as a bias to be, or a selfishness that creates the self, or the nucleus of self organization. — Pop

Life arose with the potential for consciousness, just as atoms arose with the potential for molecules. But for molecules to exist, it is not ‘emotion’ that has to be present, but an underlying relational structure through which ‘molecular potential’ is established, enabling this ‘self’-organisation of atoms only through correlation. This ‘molecular potential’ consists of an energy prediction of effort (distance) and attention (direction) in the atom that aligns with another. And once a molecule exists, it, too, has an underlying relational structure (more complex than the atom) with a certain potential for material substance, also consisting of effort (energy) and attention (structure). But most molecules don’t form material substances, just as most atoms don’t form molecules, most molecular structures don’t form living organisms and most living organisms don’t form a ‘self’. Those that do are not so much biased to be as interactively ‘lucky’ in the scheme of existence (or unlucky, depending on your view).

You can refer to the potential for consciousness as ‘emotion’ in your narrow perspective, but it will confuse the issue if you then explore the potential of the conscious self for introspection: ie. to form ‘emotions’, thoughts and other abstract concepts, that enable the ‘no-longer-self’-organisation of consciousness into differentiated conceptual systems within a broader relational structure of intersubjective meaning. But more than likely you also exclude this aspect of reality from your theory. I understand your preference for keeping it simple, but either this is a theory of consciousness, or you admit it’s an expression of limited intersubjective experience of consciousness.

DNA has the following options:
1. Biased to be
2. indifferent to be.
3. Random about being
4 biased to not be.

Which of these options do you think it is? Which option would natural selection favour? Whether this is a choice DNA makes, or is something shaped by external forces, is of no consequence. This is the fundamental information shared by all of life that we are talking about. Look at the world around you, every niche is filled with life. Please engage with and answer this question before we go further. It is an easy question to answer, in my opinion. I simply ask myself - to be or not to be, and I know the answer. I don't need to rationalize anything or build a theory around it, I don't need to think about it at all. It is a bias that exists within me, and my DNA. — Pop

DNA as a molecular structure is biased to be ONLY in relation to a living system. Otherwise, it is biased to NOT BE. Your answer is ‘to be’ because you only relate to the question as a living system. But objectively speaking, DNA as a conceptually isolated molecular structure is indifferent, and at the most fundamental level of existence, any answer to the question of ‘to be or not to be?’ is random.

Let's discuss either your position or mine. Attempting to cover both simultaneously is asking for trouble, especially when our respective positions use the same term in remarkably different ways... — creativesoul

Fair enough.

I'm a bit disappointed. I was looking forward to reading your answer to the question I posed. Now, it seems that there are more pressing issues rearing their ugly heads... — creativesoul

I don’t recall you posing a question to me - did I miss something?

...Correlation, as I see it, is the process of establishing a mutual relationship or connection between two things... ...The process as a structural relation exists without any resulting ‘correlation’ being manifest as such. When one is manifest, it informs the system’s most complex organisational structure, whether it’s as a causal correlation or a conceptual one.
— Possibility

Causal physical systems/interactions ARE correlations.
— Possibility

The above doesn't work(it's incoherent, self contradictory, and/or an equivocation fallacy). It also presupposes meaning at the subatomic level of existence, or it presupposes that not all information is meaningful. — creativesoul

I’m not all that capable of spotting incoherences, so you’ll have to help me with this. I consider all information to be meaningful, but only insofar as ‘all possible information’ is both meaningful/meaningless. This I consider to be a self-contradiction at the core of existence.

So, yes - you could say that I do presuppose meaning at the sub-atomic level of existence, but not with any certain or objective sense of definability. There is no distinction at the sub-atomic level between meaning, value/potential, action/change, substance, shape or distance. An electron correlates with a proton at a probabilistic distance, which may result in atomic structure. Meaning for a sub-atomic particle, though (in my view), is an arbitrary binary relation between existence and non-existence: matter/anti-matter.

Come on, is your arm alive? Is your heart alive? Are you alive? Because according to your argument you are not. This is a surprise argument from you. What dose not depend on relation for its existence?

DNA is indeed alive as part of a whole living system, just as you are alive as part of the biosphere and information that surrounds you. DNA is alive and indeed immortal, or at least the basic instruction set shared by all of life is immortal. — Pop

I think I’m starting get a picture of how you’re viewing this. It’s similar to the 3+1 dimensional perspective of the physical universe: consolidation plus emotion/relation. You’re starting with a defined object - the DNA molecule - and then attempting to attribute the extra relational information (which at this level is information for ‘life’) without losing the original consolidated structure. So consolidated-DNA plus emotion = ‘alive’. It’s the ‘plus emotion equals’ that I’m concerned with, because the relational process is not that simple.

Using ‘plus emotion equals’ works as long as you’re only talking about a relation to one consolidation level. Once you move from there to consciousness, you can either talk about consolidated DNA+emotion=life, OR you can talk about consolidated life+emotion=consciousness. But to talk about both, you need to understand the relational structure is not just ‘plus emotion equals’, because you’re talking about two different dimensional aspects. In mathematics, it would be like talking about an x-axis variable and a y-axis variable as if they were both y. Also, keep in mind that consolidated molecules+relation=DNA; consolidated atoms+relation=molecular; consolidated (probabilistic) particles+relation=atomic; and that particles are pure relational structure. Each of these equations shows an emotion/relation variable as a dimensional extension from the consolidated object. The ‘+relation=’ is a placeholder for some relational structure, and its complexity is exponential.

So in the end, it’s pointless arguing about whether or not DNA is ‘alive’ in a discussion about consciousness, because the +relation= in the equation DNA+relation=life needs to be expanded out if you hope to relate consolidated DNA to the equation: life+emotion=consciousness.

An overall six-dimensional structure helps me to keep these relations all in perspective, so that I can’t confuse one relational aspect with another, as I shift from atom to molecule to DNA to living system to conscious subject and back again. I may not know the exact structural relation, but I do know that the relational information between a living system and consciousness is not the same as the relational information between DNA and a living system, because that information is consolidated uniquely in each living system. So, it’s all relational information, but it’s not the same information.

I can say with confidence that your hope to consolidate the ‘basic instruction set shared by all life’ is as pointless as a religious hope to consolidate the ‘basic instruction set’ for all human morality. Both will lead you either to a false and exclusive binary, or to the fundamental and arbitrary relation between matter and non-existence.

The Bias to be is a fundamental necessity that self organisation / consciousness forms around. It creates a self that is biased to be, hence self organisation can occur. It could not occur around an indifference to be / a non self.The selfish gene creates consciousness. A non selfish gene would be a P.zombie gene, so indifferent or not selfish, so not conscious or alive. — Pop

There is no such thing as a p-zombie gene - this is an example of a false binary.

1. DNA + emotion (bias to be) = life
2. life + emotion (bias to become) = consciousness
3. emotion (bias to be) = emotion (bias to become)
4. Therefore consciousness — emotion = p.zombie gene

My problem is with 3, for reasons I have tried to explain above.

1. The relevant information in any physical system is finite.
2. You can always obtain new information on a physical system.
— Pop

Postulate one contradicts Gödel's incompleteness theorem, and lets not forget these postulates are mathematically based. This is why I try not to stray too far from personal experience - the further from this the murkier the waters become. — Pop

These postulates are based on quantum mechanics, so they take into account the variability of personal experience in applying mathematics to physics, and do not refer to an axiomatic system. You’re making a false assumption that ‘relevant information’ is all possible information, which would contradict Godel’s theorem, but Rovelli explains quite clearly that this is not the case. I suggest you read it again.

Consciousness can be divided into information integration, and then experience, and then affect.
The experience, I postulate, is resolved to an emotion, which is a feeling, which resolves to a point on the PPS. This creates Affect. I think, you, Kant and Barrett see the experience component as the subconscious, and so you make mistakes. It is possible to some extent to suspend thought, and feel the qualia of an experience, but to then suggest imagination, understanding , and judgement can come into play is a contradiction, as then intellect comes into play and that effects the feeling being felt. I can see a beautiful women and enjoy seeing her beauty non judgmentally, but then I learn something about her that I don't like, and so her beauty in my eyes is diminished. — Pop

You’re consolidating experience from information before any interaction occurs. Information is resolved to affect by the interoceptive network and aligned with conceptualised experience (which has also been resolved to predictions of affect for the purpose of relation). The potential for adjustments to prediction and/or interoception is evaluated for the system’s current and predicted availability, requirement and allocation of energy (effort and attention), and the most efficient resolution is determined as an overall instruction for the system - to be continually revised in the same way at every subsequent moment. This ongoing resolution forms the basis of our allocation of attention: our consciousness, most of which is working on conceptualised experience. With practise, we can learn to allocate more attention only to interoception (ie. through meditation), OR to the process of evaluation itself: the interplay of imagination, understanding and judgement. This is introspection. If you learn something about a beautiful woman that you don’t like and allow it to affect how you perceive her beauty, then you’ve given rein to judgement. The challenge is to understand that her ‘beauty’ is not yours to bestow through judgement. Then you can still appreciate this beauty, without ignoring what you’ve learned about her. To suspend judgement is not to dismiss information, but to imagine the feeling without that effect, and in doing so understand how information affects your faculty of judgement, which shines a light on experience.

It is possible to reach a state of consciousness in meditation that is ineffable. It is a state where the intellectual consciousness is turned off, so nothing can be said about this state. It is not something many can do reliably, but many will experience such moments in meditation, and still others can use such mind control in everyday life. Kant is referring to this ability without quite grasping it. Having knowledge of this ability shines a alight on experience, in my opinion. — Pop

Kant is not referring to ‘turning off’ intellectual consciousness, but examining it. This is a common misconception of Kant’s aesthetic experience - it comes from a compulsion to consolidate objects and concepts in the intellectual process. Interestingly, it’s a compulsion that Kant shares. This is why he refers to aesthetic experience - because there exists an awareness of beauty and delight in our experience of nature that commonly transcends object, concept, purpose and even necessity, despite all efforts to consolidate.

Seems you're using the term "correlation" as a synonym for any and all connections, including physical causal chains(causality) whereas I'm not. I do not think we're too far apart, but it's hard to tell. I cannot perform substitution without difficulty.

I'm gathering that correlation is not the result of a creature's drawing correlations on your view. — creativesoul

Your definition seems circular to me, but I understand the language difficulty. Correlation, as I see it, is the process of establishing a mutual relationship or connection between two things. That you refer to the resulting connection as a ‘correlation’ is a conceptual consolidation. The process as a structural relation exists without any resulting ‘correlation’ being manifest as such. When one is manifest, it informs the system’s most complex organisational structure, whether it’s as a causal correlation or a conceptual one.

The confounding question for me really is what is it about the organisation of all of our cells that solidified our sense of awareness. Where to we place the transitions the boundary or so to señal isolate that part of ourselves which identifies and reflects on said self? Assuming the common belief that the brain is involved, how many Neurons constitutes an aware brain that satisfies the conditions we identify as Human — Benj96

I think your first question about the organisation of our cells starts to approach the issue, but the second and third are limiting your scope. You can’t quantify/solidify/consolidate awareness, any more than you can solidify energy or photons. You CAN quantify evidence and calculate predictions, but a relational structure doesn’t really have ‘boundaries’. The transitions would be fuzzy - probabilistically located at best.

Not sure if you’ve read Lisa Feldman Barrett’s neuroscience/psychology research and theory of constructed emotion, but in my view it demonstrates a relational structure between the brain’s conceptual system (mind) and an interoceptive network that involves the brain and central nervous system, with energy/information transfer between them as a distribution of affect: attention/valence and effort/arousal.

FWIW, my own (speculative and unquantifiable) theory applies a dimensional structure of relations to address the common issues of consciousness, abiogenesis, quantum physics, etc.

DNA is not only alive, it is immortal. Life is its vehicle. It is living information, and ultimately, if information is fundamental, this is what life is - living information. You cant say DNA is not alive! It exists in every one of your 10 trillion odd cells. — Pop

No, DNA is information for living. There’s a difference. DNA by itself is a biochemical molecular structure - its capacity for life is purely relational, in the same way that energy’s material capacity is purely relational. Saying that DNA is alive is like saying that energy is directly observable - you’re referring to the capacity of a relational process as if it is the result.

Our language is structured to conflate the process of potential with its result, particularly with nouns ending in ‘-ation’. I have a feeling we will continue to talk past each other in a number of areas because of your focus on reduction, and mine on relation. The concept ‘information’, for instance, can refer to the process (relation) as well as the result (consolidation). But if ‘information is fundamental’, then which of these are we referring to? And which of these is ‘emotion’?

1. The relevant information in any physical system is finite.
2. You can always obtain new information on a physical system.
— Carlo Rovelli, ‘Reality Is Not What It Seems’

So which postulate do we accept? Because one contradicts the other! If a system is finite, how can you always obtain new information? — Pop

That’s the thing: they don’t contradict each other at all. It only seems like they do because we conflate the process of potential with its result. Information in quantum mechanics refers only to its relational process, because the results can be consolidated only in relation to an observer. Think of it this way: how is it that computer capacity keeps growing, while the physical size gets smaller? In a finite system, it is how we structure the potential for information that increases its capacity, and the physical size of an information system is limited ultimately by its energy consumption.

This statement dose not disagree with my view entirely. Kant is experiencing qualia, whilst suspending intellectual content. Of course, it is doubtful such a situation can exist, and it makes no sense to say that in such a setting you can have understanding or judgement, as those would be intellectual content. — Pop

It wasn’t supposed to disagree with your view. But Kant is not suspending intellectual content - what would be consolidated into objects and concepts, he’s retaining as relational information.

I wouldn’t agree. Most systems do required input from the brain to continue operations; the hypothalamus secretes several hormones that regulate the bodies different systems; hunger, core temperature, sweating, blood volume, uterine contractions etc. Also how do any autonomous aspects of our tissues work without the fundamental voluntary act of Finding food and water, chewing swallowing etc all of which are governed by the brain.

The only reason brain dead patients “survive” is because of myriad interventions to keep them breathing, fed, remove wastes, prevent skin ulcers and infection due to inability to self clean. Basically a hospital takes over all the executive functions that normally would be carried out by the brain. So no most of our internal systems do require nervous impulses and even critical indirect cause effect reactions with the external world caused by our brain. — Benj96

To regulate them, yes. But systems don’t require input from the brain to start or stop functioning - they will continue to do so under suitable conditions at the rate the resources are supplied. So long as the hospital systems can manage the basic functions of the central nervous system and keep up the flow of resources and waste disposal, the patient remains ‘alive’ for the intents and purposes of its cells, which would be aware of little more than the resources and conditions required to act in their capacity.

The point I was trying to make was that our cells are not just mechanistic units, but their awareness is sufficiently limited that they can collaborate as if the system (their universe) is still operating more or less as normal, long after the brain ceases functioning.

DNA is alive however, Is it indifferent or is it biased? — Pop

DNA is not alive. It is a molecular structure, organised in such a way that the potential of the information it contains renders a living system. Its informational structure has a qualitative aspect that manifests only in relation to another DNA structure, under certain conditions within a system that will supply the required resources.

If it is biased then you have to admit emotions are fundamental and essential. — Pop

No I don’t. You isolate this qualitative aspect as ‘bias’ or ‘emotion’ only because you cannot consolidate it, but it only exists as such in relation to the consolidated or ‘logical’ system from which you exclude it. DNA does not consist of information plus emotion, rather its information is qualitatively four-dimensional, but you can only consolidate it in a three-dimensional quantitative structure, plus ‘emotion’ as an unconsolidated relational aspect.

Yes, everything that exists has a relational aspect that we exclude from its consolidated definition. I don’t refer to it as ‘emotion’ because I disagree with the exclusion. This relational aspect cannot be understood separate from the relational structure that forms the DNA itself, nor from the relational structure that forms each of its atomic and particular components and brings them together in this way. And so ‘emotion’ is an arbitrary distinction that limits understanding of qualitative information as a whole-system structure.

A bias to be is what the self organization revolves aground, and how this self organization expresses itself is endlessly variable and open ended - quite possibly infinite :starstruck: - If we apply Gödel's incompleteness theorem to an axiomatic consciousness, there is always information outside the system that things within the system rely on for their explanation. So this suggests infinite consciousness growth. — Pop

It seems endless, but each system still has it limitations. Carlo Rovelli describes the two main postulates of quantum mechanics in terms of information this way:

1. The relevant information in any physical system is finite.
2. You can always obtain new information on a physical system.

Here, relevant information is the information that we have about a given system as a consequence of our past interactions with it: information allowing us to predict what will be the result for us of future interactions with this system. The first postulate characterises the granularity of quantum mechanics: the fact that a finite number of possibilities exists. The second characterises its indeterminacy: the fact that there is always something unpredictable which allows us to obtain new information. When we acquire new information about a system, the total relevant information cannot grow indefinitely (because of the first postulate), and part of the previous information becomes irrelevant, that is to say, it no longer has any effect upon predictions of the future. In quantum mechanics when we interact with a system, we don’t only learn something, we also ‘cancel’ a part of the relevant information about the system. — Carlo Rovelli, ‘Reality Is Not What It Seems’

It is only when we recognise these limitations that we realise the importance of our interconnectedness, and that being able to navigate the entire relational structure of existence is what will enable us to more efficiently consolidate complex information structures.

Regarding your broader argument that "Nothing exists that is biased to NOT be". I would agree with this, my theory is panpsychist and it relies on not just information to be fundamental, but emotional -information. As previously explained indifferent or reasonable information would not form a universe, so it would not become a process of self organization, and neither would its component parts. You Barrett and myself agree that emotional - information exists, not purely objective information, and we arrive at this through different paradigms and different reasoning, so this is important. That everything that exists is biased to be so is profound as it affirms emotional-information. But I would speculate further in this direction, and a little off topic, in regard to where great insights and ideas come from. Minds like Einstein and others say they come from a love of the subject, but what is love? - some emotion that arises due to the pleasure of engagement with somebody or something. It gives rise to extraordinary energy and engagement, and extraordinary things happen. :smile: How this phenomenon relates to emotional-information is worthy of a theory in itself. — Pop

Love is what rounds out this six-dimensional structure of existence in terms of qualitative relations: pure relational possibility. This is the part that I find reductionists struggle with the most, where everything dissolves into its negation. Because when everything matters regardless of value, then nothing matters; and ‘all information is meaningful’ becomes meaningless. The six-dimensional structure of existence is equal to non-existence. It messes with your head, but without this final dimension then nothing exists. But that’s another topic...

It’s worth exploring Kant’s aesthetics to recognise how this develops from the pleasure of engagement to a non-conceptual, disinterested delight, allowing ‘free play’ between our faculties of imagination, understanding and judgement. It’s a challenge for reductionists, though, who struggle to resist judgement, consolidating away objects and concepts until only ideas remain, leaving very little substance to play with in the end.

Apparently I don’t. Are you saying that protein synthesis and immune response are examples of self-organisation at an intracellular level - with no connection to the [extracellular ]system structures except through pain-pleasure?
— Possibility

Yes, that is how it seems. The PPS is an emotional gradient that they both agree on. — Pop

But how do you determine that protein synthesis agrees with this emotional gradient? And are you simply organising extra-cellular system structures so that they do agree?

There - did you just experience red in the shape of your name? That probabilistic experience is quantified and constructed by the website’s code. It’s just a hashtag and six number/letter combination.
— Possibility

That is cheating and you know it. :smile: — Pop

Maybe a little - but it demonstrates my point. Everything that we quantify, we also experience qualitatively. And what we experience qualitatively cannot always be fully quantified, but the most accurately I can construct a qualitative experience for you is by structuring the information I have within the most complex logical system that we share, so that you relate to it in a predictable way. The simpler the logical system I use, and the more unqualified assumptions I make, the more variable your relation to the experience might turn out to be.

Seems to me that you're conflating causal physical systems/interactions with correlations, or more directly, conflating causality and meaning. The former is not existentially dependent upon a mind. To quite the contrary, minds are existentially dependent upon causality. — creativesoul

Causal physical systems/interactions ARE correlations. It seems to me that you’re conflating correlation and meaning.

Fire causes pain when touched. The pain is the result of physical interactions between fire and body. It is not the result of correlations. When a creature draws correlations between it's own behaviour(touching fire) and the ensuing pain, it has rightly attributed and/or recognized causality. The experience of touching fire becomes meaningful to the creature as a result of those correlations. The creature will no longer touch fire as a result of drawing correlations between the behaviour and the pain, and that holds good regardless of whether or it it is capable of taking it's own experience into account. Contrary to Hume and those who hold his problem of induction so dear, such recognition/attribution of causality does not require repeated experience. Once is enough. — creativesoul

Pain is the result of correlation between fire and the body’s pain receptors, and between these pain receptors and the interoceptive network, which locates the pain in the body and the body in proximity to other sensory information, and enables the system to develop correlations between this pain and the body’s relative proximity to fire, regardless of whether or not it is aware of its own behaviour as such. Proximity to fire (as a sensory information pattern) develops a negative value for the creature as a result of those correlations, but the creature need not be aware of either meaning nor experience.

All attribution of meaning requires a mind capable of drawing correlations between different things. Purely physical causal relationships do not. All meaning is existentially dependent upon a plurality of things and a creature capable of drawing correlations between them. So, minds are existentially dependent upon both physical and non physical things. — creativesoul

I agree with your first sentence, in the sense that ‘meaning’ is distinct from value/potential, action/change, substance, shape and distance. But purely ‘physical causal’ relationships DO correlate within their limited capacity to interact - they’re just not capable of doing much with it, except to manifest the correlation. Correlations between different structures, however, are not dependent upon a mind capable of extrapolating their potential existence - only a plurality of structures capable of correlation.

I want to be clear that I am not arguing for the existence of ‘mind’ in animate matter, only for the existence of correlation, as a proto-conscious aspect of existence.

No. Correlation is existentially dependent upon a creature capable of drawing correlations between different things. So... — creativesoul

Not the way I see it. Correlation is existentially dependent upon a physical system capable of structurally manifesting evidence of that correlation.

Rock molecules manifest correlations with each other, transferring temperature changes, electrons, etc. If you break a rock, those molecules suddenly exposed to the air manifest a correlation with interacting oxygen molecules instead. The correlation may exist only in each instant of interaction, but there is physical evidence of its existence, nonetheless.

That evidence is relevant information to a creature capable of extrapolating the potential existence of correlations between different things.

The capacity of a cell to be aware of surrounding cells in the organism is limited - most of our internal systems don’t require information directly from the brain to continue operations, only energy and other resources from interacting cells. As long as those surrounding cells also don’t require interaction with the brain directly, the system will continue until the cell no longer has access to what it needs. The cell’s internal purpose is not to sustain the life of an organism, but to interact, connect and collaborate with surrounding cells to the extent that it is able. Most would be unaware of any ‘social construct’ to maintain the human body, even as its structure and limitations suit this external purpose.

A ‘cancerous’ cell would then simply be interacting with a vague awareness of capacity beyond its current structure and limitations. The susceptibility of human cellular reproduction systems to this type of interaction may be minimal, but it isn’t zero.

There seems to be a misconception that the sentience of the whole amounts to ‘control’ of all aspects, but this isn’t the case. Just as we can structure society according to certain rules or ‘laws’ but cannot prevent members from ‘breaking’ them, so, too, cells ‘born’ into a ‘social construct’ of the human body are under no obligation to ‘know their place’.

FWIW, I think there are many people going about their lives carrying out functions for a societal construct with little to no awareness of the entire organism...

Minds consist entirely of thought and belief. Thought and belief... correlations between different things. Correlations are not physical. Not much of a burden really. — creativesoul

And correlation occurs all the way down. What is referred to as ‘consciousness’ or ‘experience’ at the level of inanimate matter such as rocks is the extent to which this correlation is manifest in the physical, not the extent to which thought and belief can be identified as ‘mind’. After all, we identify thought and belief only through correlation between different things...

So, the ability to produce a self (to come up with a sense of self) is intrinsic to the individual, but that the individual produces a self is dependent on his social interactions. Would you agree with that statement? is it clear what I mean? — Daniel

Well, I think your emphasis on the ‘individual’ as a consolidated invariant is going to complicate things, but basically, yes.

I don’t think we simply ‘come up with’ a sense of self, though - it evolves from an awareness of the differences between socially constructed and interocepted reality. And that difference is me: my actions and social position, initially.

Could you give an example of one of such "arbitrary distinctions"? — Daniel

Any potential behaviour or appearance that has no precedent in social reality identifies the self. When interocepted reality says there are no more red hats, and social reality says everyone wears a red hat, then from this difference - ‘the self’ - comes an arbitrary distinction: no hat or something other than a red hat. Recognising one’s ability to orchestrate that distinction develops an awareness of self as a concept. Understanding the purpose of everyone wearing a red hat when they have other options can help one select a more purposeful or effective distinction, instead of a random one.

Is the concept of personhood dependent on the interaction of two or more human beings? what about the concept of mind? does the mind require other minds to exist? Would a person who's never seen another mind or another self categorize his thoughts as part of a self? It seems to me that I call myself myself because I observe in other people a unique behaviour that I distinguish from everything else, and from such observation I infer that like them I must have a unique behaviour. Is the mind a social construct, or is it truly a characteristic of the individual, independent of social interaction? — Daniel

I think the relational structure exists, but it would be difficult to conceptualise or even manifest personhood without some sort of relation to another person - particularly considering we define ‘personhood’ in a strictly qualitative or relational sense. Having said that, I think as human beings we are structured to relate to the world in such a way that we eventually distinguish a sense of ‘self’ from whatever social construct develops through our relation to the world. But so do most social animals. This ‘self’ is not consolidated as a concept until it is successfully communicated to another - until someone deliberately manifests an arbitrary distinction that cannot be interpreted as a socially constructed interaction. To that end, I think the mind is a unique relation to social construct, but cannot be considered ‘independent’ of social interaction.

Who said life was meant to be easy? Pain is prediction error: there is a discrepancy between our conception of reality and our interaction with it. It is an awareness of entropy: of missing information. This information could be missing from our conception OR from our interaction.

Emotional pain is an awareness of missing qualitative information in particular: when the world seems to be the same, but our relation to it has changed. An adjustment is required either to our conception of reality, or to our process of interaction with it. The aim isn’t to avoid pain, though, but to allocate the attention and effort required to make an adjustment that ultimately increases awareness, connection and collaboration with the world. Because the alternative - ignorance, isolation and exclusion - will only increase entropy and prediction error.

If you believe DNA is biased to be, then this would be the fingerprint to refute Barrett's argument.
A bias is emotional information. If DNA is biased, then all life is biased. Emotion is the essential element that all thought bounces off to create self organization. Without it there is no impetus to self organize, as per a P.Zombie. This argument applies to all life. — Pop

I’m thinking perhaps you misunderstand what I mean by a ‘fingerprint’ here. The classical claim is that each instance of emotion is identifiable as a particular type of emotion (say, anger) rather than another by certain biochemical or behavioural markers, because ‘anger’, for instance, apparently has an essence. A ‘bias to be’ refers to the presence of qualitative information, in the biochemical structure of RNA/DNA, that constructs a living, temporally-structured existence only from its relation to another biochemical structure of DNA - at the expense of its own consolidation. DNA is biased ‘to be’ inasmuch as all of existence strikes a tentative structural balance between consolidating and relating.

Nothing exists that is biased to NOT be. Everything expresses a bias simply by existing, which is contingent upon a binary relation to non-existence. The essential element for any kind of organising is relation - without it, there is no qualitative information, no structure - this argument applies to all existence.

A ‘bias to be’ could be observed in a living organism as consolidation (living by maintenance) OR as relation (living by adaptability) - but it’s really BOTH. One without the other results in the non-existence of life, either way. In a conscious organism, consolidation/maintenance isn’t about survival/life as a base, but about experience - being adaptable is now the lower limit of this bias, encoded in their DNA, and the relational aspect is experiencing by variability. A living organism is defined by a bias to ‘be’, a conscious organism by a bias to ‘become’ - striking a variable balance between consolidating and relating.

Pain is an emotion, slightly different for everybody, there are gradations of pain, the absence of pain has a quality different to pain. It is an emotional gradient. Some people hardly feel it, others feel it intensely and choose death in preference to a life of pain. — Pop

Pain is an interoception that consists of qualitative relations, but I think it’s more than an emotional gradient. Pain has an unpleasant quality and a variable intensity that contributes to affect, but it also has spatio-temporal qualities that enable it to be described as sharp or dull, sudden or gradual, localised or moving, etc. This is more complex than a gradient. An absence of pain can be experienced as unpleasant and arousing, and even intense pain can be described as calming or pleasant (although these are often dismissed as pathological). Pain has no quantitative information, and cannot be described, measured or observed objectively - only as a relational structure. In other words, it isn’t possible to consolidate pain. It reduces to the bias that defines one’s existence, but that’s not what pain is, objectively speaking. At its absolute base existence, pain is a system’s awareness of entropy: missing information.

Well, we’re in disagreement there. Your thoughts have a greater impact on your biochemical state than you realise
— Possibility

Come on, you know what I'm talking about - what role do you play in protein synthesis, or immune response, or all the other biological processes which we are not even aware of? Extracellular consciousness is all about extracellular self organization, whilst intracellular consciousness takes care of intracellular self organisation. They agree on the PPS. — Pop

Apparently I don’t. Are you saying that protein synthesis and immune response are examples of self-organisation at an intracellular level - with no connection to the multicellular system structures except through pain-pleasure?

just as you can quantify and construct a probabilistic experience of ‘red’.
— Possibility

Please quantify and construct a probabilistic experience of red for me. I think you will find it is impossible with reason alone. — Pop

There - did you just experience red in the shape of your name? That probabilistic experience is quantified and constructed by the website’s code. It’s just a hashtag and six number/letter combination.

I have read over our long and interesting conversation, and I think it really boils down to whether or not you accept DNA is biased to be. I think it is logical to say that it is, and from this understanding I construct an algorithm for consciousness / self organization that works like a self loading mouse trap.
This unifies extracellular, and intracellular consciousness. — Pop

Again with the logic. Bias at the level of consciousness is a complex, five-dimensional algorithm within a six-dimensional structure of relation. This is the ‘logic’ of it. We consolidate those relations as structures of information/matter at each dimensional level - defining particles, atoms, molecules, reactions, cells, organisms, persons, etc. This enables us to make sense of relational structure one or two dimensions at a time, by ‘ignoring’ the complexity of the underlying consolidated structure. A cell cannot exist without a relation between biochemical reactions that challenges the necessity of consolidated molecular structure; a molecule cannot exist without a relation between atoms that challenges their consolidated atomic structure; an atom cannot exist without a relation between electrons and the protons within its nucleus; and a particle cannot exist without a relation to anti-matter. So, a bias at any level is essentially a relation to non-existence, regardless of consolidation. This not only unifies intra/extra-cellular consciousness, it unifies the structure of existence.

I don't think this is a possibility from brain centric conceptions of consciousness, and ideas that emotions are created in the brain. Of course brain function integrates information and translates it to emotion, it is multifunctional, but emotions themselves are something fundamental, and exist in some form in all of life, including brainless life. This is the logic of it, and it is an impossible assertion to make for a materialistic academic, as it is so problematic for the western lifestyle in so many different ways. But, I believe, If you are not entirely self interested then it is something worth considering, as it instills a respect and responsibility for all other life that is not generally found in the materialistic paradigm. — Pop

It seems like you keep referring to my position as a ‘brain-centric’ conception of consciousness, but this is not the case at all. Emotions are constructed in the brain from qualitative information that it cannot consolidate, but all the information that it has consolidated (to which this emotion must relate) is essentially qualitative, too. Think of it as a particle-wave duality at every level of existence: all information is BOTH quantitative and qualitative in nature. It comes down to whether the system is consolidating (quantitative) or relating (qualitative) to this information. What is fundamental is not the ‘emotions’ themselves, but the qualitative information from which they are constructed, which exists in some form in all of life, and is fundamental to existence.

I can tell you that I am neither a materialist nor an idealist, as such. I think you have a bias to consolidate your position as an idealist, which manifests as a prejudice against materialist arguments. In my view (and this is deliberately simplistic) materialists struggle with relativity and idealists struggle with entropy. But I think a six-dimensional structure of information, with qualitative-quantitative duality, accounts for both in a surprisingly elegant way.

I think the strongest insight of my theory is that emotions orient us in our personally constructed reality relative to the information surrounding us - as per the instance of consciousness in the OP. Do you agree with this, and how dose it square with Barrett's view? — Pop

Emotions are part of our ‘constructed conceptual reality’. Within an amorphous system of information in the brain, concepts and objects make sense of everything in relation to the ‘conceptual self’, and emotion concepts in particular make sense of this conceptual self in relation to everything else. From this construction, an ongoing prediction event (instruction for effort and attention) is manufactured for the organism, open to refinement and adjustment relative to ‘actual’ reality through the interoceptive network.

Affect, on the other hand, is part of our ongoing ‘actual’ reality. Within this system of interrelated biochemical events, it is affect that continually orients the organism relative to the changing state of internal and external sensory information of the moment, aligning with the brain’s ongoing prediction of effort and attention its own ongoing assessment of arousal and valence. It is a continual dialogue between this biochemically constructed state and the brain’s conceptually constructed prediction that results in instructional changes to the system’s four-dimensional self-organisation in relation to the world, as well as structural changes to our five-dimensional conceptual reality (including emotion concepts).

We are aware of instructional changes (through the interoceptive network), but most of us are only vaguely aware of our conceptual system as such - we notice changes to this in relation to ‘other’ conceptual systems, and so the process of orienting the system (as a five-dimensional structure within a six-dimensional reality) continues at a broader level of awareness...

My thoughts have very little control of my biology. I am not involved in that aspect of self organization at all. Extracellular consciousness is distinct and separate but linked to the whole via the PPS, in my view. Each of our organs are specialized, but linked to the whole via consciousness - each performing a specialist role. I think if we could visualize human self organization it would not be a perfect sphere, but a lumpy whole similar to a protein - unified in a best effort evolutionary manner. I think you have overstated my claims. However, simulating the basic pancreatic trypsin inhibitor over the course of a millisecond took a supercomputer about 100 days. This sort of complexity was already in existence a billion years ago when animal life first arose. An evolving brain, initially a weak system, would have to evolve on top of this superior underlying system of self organization. — Pop

Well, we’re in disagreement there. Your thoughts have a greater impact on your biochemical state than you realise. It doesn’t take much effort to call to mind a memory that can raise your stress levels, or to pretend you’re laying calmly on a quiet sandy beach and allow this thought to change your affective state. It’s about collaboration, not control. Consciousness is a whole-system, integrated level of self-organisation, not a mechanical structure with distinct and separate parts that operate in isolation, and battle for supremacy. Specialised does not mean isolated. A brain does not evolve ‘on top of’ biochemical self-organisation, but in full collaboration with it - a give-and-take process that a supercomputer (or other purely logical system) is unable to grasp.

Have you mixed up your qualitative and quantitative here? The way I see it, incoming information has two aspects to it , the quantitative ( reasonable / facts ) and qualitative ( emotional ) aspects to it. Reason can distinguish between the two to some extent, but can in no way dissect and reasonably interact with the emotional aspect - you can not describe red. You must feel it! The emotional aspect of consciousness belongs to the cellular consciousness, I believe. — Pop

Not at all. Reason can only distinguish between quantitative and qualitative information by quantifying as much information as it can, building predictable structures out of these quanta with probabilistic qualitative relations, and then attempting to isolate or ignore the rest as external to logic. So the qualitative aspects you’re referring to as ‘emotional’ are simply what the brain tries to make sense of outside of logic. You can ‘feel’ warmth on your skin, but you can also quantify temperature, just as you can quantify and construct a probabilistic experience of ‘red’. Qualitative (relational) information is employed as much in reason as quantitative (analytical) information - it just isn’t referred to as ‘emotional’.

To unentangle is to analyze, not ignore or exclude. — Pop

To analyse is to parse - to break something down into identifiable component parts (quanta). Reconstruction is optional in analysis, and so the relational structure (qualitative information) that enables that something to operate as it does is irrelevant - ignored or excluded - until one discovers something that consists of the same components, yet is not the same in operation. Only then does qualitative relation become relevant - but only to the extent that we can predictably differentiate between their operations, forming two conceptual structures. Barrett uses an example of muffins and cupcakes in her book that seems relevant here. How do we get from the same set of ingredients to two different results? And how would you determine this organisational distinction without any instructions? I’ll give you a tip: the answer isn’t to focus on the lowest common denominator.

Well, I dispute that all self-organisation is self-interested
— Possibility

Self organization is, by definition, self interested. It is organization relative to self. This dose not exclude collaboration, awareness and connection, nor self sacrifice for the greater good. We self organize relative to external information, through a belief system, that exists and has evolved in a collective system of self organization, — Pop

But you’re talking about self-organisation in systems that have no awareness of ‘self’, so how can this be ‘interest in self’? These systems only organise what we refer to as ‘self’ because nothing else exists for them to organise. ‘Self’ for them is the universe: everything they’re aware of. Nothing else exists for the system in which they can be disinterested. This is a common misconception of self-organisation, which runs us into trouble when we use the term in relation to consciousness. We observe other animals and their interest only in what is relevant to their living system, and call it ‘self-interest’ because we identify a ‘self’ component within a conceptual system of which we are aware. But most animals are not. Yet we presume this to be a preference or bias towards the ‘self’, even though it’s a bias simply towards ‘something’ existing rather than nothing.

So, as humans we justify our own self-interest as ‘primal’ - the common denominator we share with animals. But it’s just an excuse to ignore our self-conscious capacity to be interested in all matter, living and non-living, and to ‘self-organise’ as a global ecosystem, at least.

She states that emotions are created in the brain. This would be incompatible with Denton's view and your statement : " I’m certainly not denying its complexity, nor the influence of qualitative relations at that level". — Pop

I disagree - If you read what I wrote, I mentioned that Barrett uses the term ‘affect’ to distinguish between ‘emotions’ of everyday language, as concepts constructed in the brain, and your idea of ‘emotion-information’ - what Denton confusingly refers to as ‘emotion’ (not to be confused with ‘emotions’) - as a relational structure consisting of qualitative information at a bio-chemical level.

Cellular complexity reveals a very sophisticated process of self organization ( consciousness ). I would reckon it rivals, and in some respects exceeds, extracellular brain consciousness, particularly in relation to protein synthesis. Acknowledging this and acknowledging that emotions play a role, I believe, is key to understanding consciousness — Pop

I see this as a misunderstanding from the dualist assumption that ‘extracellular brain consciousness’ is something different to (or even isolated from) this complex cellular self-organisation to which you’re referring. Simpler organisms demonstrate complex self-organisation at a cellular level, while more complex organisms also self-organise within integrated, multi-cellular systems. You’re effectively trying to isolate some arbitrary concept of ‘brain consciousness’ not only from any relation to cellular structures, but also from our integrated multi-cellular system, and then claiming it isn’t as complex as cellular-level consciousness. It’s a whole other level of complexity.

I do agree that ‘emotion-information’ (quantitative information) plays a role. ‘Emotions’, however, are constructed in the brain. Understanding the difference, I believe, is key to understanding consciousness.

Either everything is information (in which case qualia IS information),
— Possibility

Yes, that is how I understand it. Information has qualitative and quantitative aspects packaged into one unit. It is created in an emotionally charged setting, or a biased setting, both for animate and inanimate matter, and so reflects this charge, but the charge and information is not miscible, rather it exists as an emulsion, and we can unentangle some of the charge rationally, but only in an emotionally charged setting of our own mind / belief system / sanity. So this process can unentangle some of the charge, but also adds extra charge to the information. So it is always biased or affected information. It is an exceedingly difficult process to articulate and account for all the complexity - it almost requires its own theory. — Pop

I think what you refer to as ‘an emotionally charged setting’ IS that qualitative information: the relational structure of reality. Qualitative information manifests as this relational structure (matter); quantitative information manifests as energy. Not charge AND information (again with the dualism?). It isn’t just a matter of unentangling - it’s about understanding how all information interrelates. To ‘unentangle’ is to ignore, isolate or exclude the relations that give the information its structure, tipping the bias. The more ‘unentangled’ the information appears, the more biased/affected.

In the end you get this emotional-information construction which can be negatable, by providing an instance of organic unemotional information - which I believe is logically impossible, since everything is in a process of self interested self organization, so any information it creates will reflect this.
I then applied this to the big bang theory and, as previously explained, concluded emotional - information causes the universe to collapse in on itself and self organize, and all of its components likewise are self organizing, and we are the most self organized. So, according to my model, self organization = consciousness, and emotional-information creates it. The P.Zombie argument would supports this, but I have other logical arguments.
Expressions of consciousness may be able to indirectly create unemotional information - I'm undecided, and still working on this. — Pop

Well, I dispute that all self-organisation is self-interested, and I’ve already given examples that refute this. The way I see it, any integrated system of matter is either self-interested (consolidating) OR self-organising (increasing awareness, connection and collaboration), but never both simultaneously. Interaction with unattributed qualitative information poses the basic question: self-interest or self-organise? The answer is expressed in consciousness.

I don’t believe emotion-information is limited by logical possibility. This is where quantum physics challenges the way we structure logical reality. Kant’s aesthetics suggest that ‘emotion-information’ structures our imagination and understanding. But I will try to make more sense with this section when I’ve had some sleep...

I find it interesting that you make a distinction between moral/immoral outcomes, actions and intentions, but not persons.

I don’t consider an ‘outcome’ to be moral/immoral - I think this is a misattribution of ‘moral’ judgement. There are good and bad outcomes of an action for you, me, us, or others, just as I mentioned there are good and bad actions relative to the observer. Morality always refers to a behaviour, though, not to the action or its outcome.

If in my ignorance I accidentally kill a person, this outcome says nothing about the value of my intentions - which may have been only to maim, or it may have been to help them. If an ignorant person intends to help someone but instead causes their death, why should any aspect be subject to moral judgement? Must there be ‘true evil’ found here? Something terrible happened, sure. But why are you looking for something to blame it on?

Just wanted to let you know that I am reading along with great interest here. There is something about your theory that always captures my interest, but I cannot quite place it. I find that on first reading I find much to disagree with, but nothing to find fault with. On a second or third read-through, the ideas start to fall into place, and although your approach is vastly different to mine, I am intrigued by the sense that we may be approaching the same understanding from very different perspectives. I don’t think I’ve read nearly deeply or widely enough of the academic material to participate notably at this level, and I still have to re-read everything a couple of times before it starts to make sense, but I think I can follow just enough to relate to where you’re headed. :up:

I don’t know why you choose Barrett, a relatively minor materialist academic, over other monistic theories of emotion. Of course, some of the other researchers are older and they don't promote themselves all over the place, but you know, we are no closer to understanding emotions in science today then we were in their day. I have not provided citations in my theory, but of course I have them. Very little of it is actual original thought, it is mostly an integration of the work of others. I rely on Derek Denton's interpretation that emotion is the underlying force that gives impetus to instinctual behavior. I go one step further , I say emotion is inseparable from information - this is a testable construction - It can be negated by providing one instance of information that is unemotional in some way. I cannot find such an instance. — Pop

Barrett’s theory is constructionist - she successfully refutes essentialist assumptions made in classical emotion theory, which claim from intuitive and unconscious relational behaviour and historically misappropriated information that all ‘emotions’ must therefore be instinctual, and that each ‘emotion’, from pain to happiness, comes from an essence or fingerprint that is universal and identifiable across all human experience. Yet no such fingerprint can be found. Her use of the term ‘affect’ makes a distinction between these psychological emotion concepts and the more general, unprocessed bodily feeling you refer to as ‘emotion-information’ because her research straddles both psychology and neuroscience. You claim we are no closer to understanding emotions, yet Barrett’s research and constructionist theories are providing new insight into anxiety disorders and autism, among other areas.

The classical theory of emotion is based on a neo-Darwinian assumption that all intuitive behaviour must be survival-related in essence. Barrett’s theory is based on research that shows complex intuitive behaviour patterns are constructed from much simpler instructions, which she then claims are survival-related. This doesn’t conflict with Denton’s interpretation, that I can see, except that what he refers to as a ‘force’ is, in Barrett’s theory, inseparable from information, as you say.

I distinguish information and qualia to highlight that they are both present in information, not as you have interpreted it. — Pop

So, ‘information’ is present in information, and qualia is present in information? Do you see the confusion? You are referring to a concept as a component of itself. Either everything is information (in which case qualia IS information), or there is information and then there is qualia (a dualist notion). You can’t have it both ways.

You do understand, don't you, that if emotion is present in DNA code then emotion is present fundamentally in all of life as the force providing impetus to it? DNA is emotional-information - it provides the instruction set of how to construct an emotional gradient that is analogue, not binary as you assume. Binary would be meaningless. — Pop

An ‘emotion gradient’ is two-dimensional: you’re suggesting that those two dimensions are pain-pleasure in relation to a degree of strength (?), but you’re not clear on the structure at the complexity level of human emotional experience. And you’ve based this on a 200-year old model that pre-dates neuroscience. I have suggested that these dimensions are a pleasant-unpleasant valence in relation to arousal value: a two-dimensional structure of relational reductionism that is well-documented and backed by neuroscience in relation to psychology. But you reject the neuroscience, seemingly because the overall interpretation appears biased towards a materialist argument, and challenges the essentialist assumptions of psychology in relation to classical emotion theories and idealism.

The binary I’m referring to, by the way, is your ‘bias to be’. You’re suggesting it is fundamentally a bias (towards one bit of information rather than another), which suddenly and without explanation becomes a set of instructions in DNA to construct an emotion gradient within a four-dimensional system. I have suggested an elegant structure of evolution in complexity from quantum physics to consciousness that enables this, but it seems you won’t consider it either because it, too, appears biased towards a materialist argument, and challenges idealist assumptions.

Let me assure you that my arguments are designed to challenge the assumptions of BOTH materialism AND idealism - your bias to consolidate your own position is colouring your perspective here. According to ontic structural realism (SEP), ‘it’s relations all the way down’, relational structure is ontologically subsistent, and individual ‘objects’ are merely heuristic devices used by agents to orient themselves in regions of spacetime, and to construct approximate representations of the world.

I present a complete theory, which is in parts testable, and it fits - both in the big picture, and in explaining why we have consciousness, so it explains the hard problem. As we come to understand molecular biology better, we are seeing enormous complexity. My theory accounts for this. How does Barrett and yourself account for the below? It is at this level that you have to construct a picture, because the story of this will be the story of us. — Pop

Your theory is incomplete - you’ve said so yourself. It explains nothing except how consciousness appears to a conscious subject. Other conscious subjects are likely to agree - that only shows the extent to which their experience relates. But your ‘theory’ is a shared expression of consciousness, not an explanation of it. You cannot explain the hard problem with an expression that is bound by it.

Lastly, the video tells me nothing that I haven’t accounted for: you will need to elaborate. I will admit that my understanding of molecular biology is limited, but I’m certainly not denying its complexity, nor the influence of qualitative relations at that level. So I’m unsure what this video challenges.

If you assign an objective value to one, then your determination is always uncertain relative to the other.
— Possibility

How so? — Philosophim

In hindsight, this was poorly worded, sorry. We can determine an action to have a good/bad effect only in relation to an observer; we judge the act to be moral/immoral by relating that position to the awareness/intention of the causal agent. So, when we assign an objective value, we define an observer position, to which the other value will always be relative.

When a causal agent is determined to be well-intentioned in relation to a bad action, they are assumed ignorant in relation to this determination; or if ignorance is determined as the cause, then we assume the agent’s intentions were good. Once you determine one, the other is judged relative to that determination, and cannot then be independently determined by the observer with any certainty in itself.

A judgement of ‘immoral’ determines either that one was aware (and perceived themselves capable) of better alternatives to a bad action, or that their intentions were bad. But not both - one judgement is always assumed relative to the other. If you’re convinced that a person’s intentions were evil, they cannot possibly be ignorant of the potential for a better action. Alternatively, if you determine that someone was aware of alternatives to a bad action, their intentions cannot have been good. We don’t even entertain the possibility. But in truth, we cannot be certain of both simultaneously.

It seems there’s a lot of subjectivity concealed in moral judgement - we always bring our relative position to the table. The more affected I am by the outcome, I am less likely to perceive the agent as ignorant. The more evil I judge the outcome, I am less likely to perceive the agent’s intentions as good.

So, it’s not so much a matter of simply stopping the ignorance. It’s more a matter of interacting with others in such a way that we strive to increase awareness, connection and collaboration. When we isolate or exclude others, we invite ignorant intent.
— Possibility

This is not negating the point that ignorance is the problem. You are simply introducing one of many ways to prevent ignorance. — Philosophim

You’re referring to ‘ignorance’ as if it’s an event in itself that must be stopped - but that’s just shifting the ‘problem of evil’. Ignorance/awareness is a property of intention, as is isolation/connection and exclusion/collaboration. The way I see it, it isn’t just one of many ways to prevent ignorance: there IS no other way to reduce it. You either interact with the causal agent to increase mutual awareness, connection, or collaboration, or you interact in the same way with an agent who will. That’s all.

Individually, the three elements all seem 'warranted'; that is, their validity as experiences hold up in retrospect. In my experience, "romantic love" has been pleasant while it lasted, but was "unwarranted" in retrospect because there was often a crash, when idealization (an aspect of romantic love) ran into reality. A good solid love relationship doesn't idealize too much, is realistic, and flexible.

Lust can fizzle out, but it usually doesn't come crashing down. Friendships may cool, but they don't usually crash, either. Love (never to be adequately defined) endures, may wane, may end, but not harshly (usually). Romantic love, in my experience, doesn't hold up over the long run. Someone (in a documentary on gay liberation) defined love as "a combination of lust and trust". Lust and trust have better long range prospects than romantic love.

Lust and idealization seem to be the essence of romantic love. — Bitter Crank

I agree that idealisation is the main hallmark of romantic love - in my experience, though, lust is not a necessary aspect, nor friendship, nor any connection to physical reality, for that matter. That’s part of the problem, I guess.

Romantic love points to the capacity of love (as pure relation) to transcend current, observable reality: to perceive and seek to manifest unrealised potential or value in how we relate and interact with one another. Even when we don’t yet know all of their positive and negative qualities, we have the potential to treat someone as if we accept them anyway. Recognising that all of us have limitations and failings, and that we all rely on loving interaction to support us in becoming the best we can be, helps us summon the courage to love deeper and longer, as well as broader. Through experiences of romantic love, we learn what our own limitations are: what we are or are not prepared to accept in a loving relationship - how flexible we are, and how honest we can be with ourselves.

Romantic love, in the modern sense, is often grounded in lust - the desire for sexual interaction - but this a cultural construction (arguably patriarchal). The subjective experiences of an eleven year old girl would beg to differ.

"Self-interest is NOT central to consciousness." disagrees with "The problem with this method is that it assumes our bias only comes into play when we interpret the results. But quantum physics shows that our bias affects every step, and is most significant in how we select and test probable explanations from imaginable possibilities". — Pop

It only appears to disagree because you assume the bias has a linear structure at the level of life, and a binary structure at the level of DNA, but this is not the case. Quantum physics shows that the bias is present as a binary structure at the level of matter/anti-matter. At the level of consciousness, this same bias is irreducibly four-dimensional. But you believe this bias is fixed on ‘to be’, in opposition to ‘not to be’ - whereas I recognise it as an unresolvable relation that is always present as ‘the question’, like Shakespeare says: “whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and, by opposing, end them.”

To explore this requires the ability to introspect, and I have noticed you posses this ability in regards to your comments on pain, but what is central to consciousness might be different. It took me a long time to get in, but I posses this do or die dogged stubbornness. For two months I tried without success, it was like gnawing away at a billiard ball, and then finally I managed to get a purchase and have been inching away ever since. At its core is a simple self interested algorithm, but you need to discover this for yourself - to prove it for yourself. Eventually I will develop the theory along these lines, once I learn a bit more and test some of my expectations. — Pop

What is central to consciousness is the question of life, and consciousness is the expression of an attempted answer, in all its diversity of awareness/ignorance, connection/isolation and collaboration/exclusion over many interactions - not from a singular bias to be, but from the irreducible diversity of life. DNA has never instructed just one way to be, even it is simplest form.

The way you have put it together is a good description that is not entirely in conflict with how I see it. From my perspective, you say the introspective network is the base and can not be resolved any further, so you can not make any further connections and leave it at that. I say the network resolves to feelings which resolve further to points on an emotional gradient. I further link this gradient to the first information in DNA, and note it is biased, or emotional information. It being fundamental information, I make the connection that all subsequent information is emotional. — Pop

What it seems you’re resolving here is ‘emotion’, not affect and not an introspected construction of the network. Emotion is a conceptual construction of phenomenal ‘feeling’: what remains when all rational concepts have been accounted for intellectually. It is a purely idealistic notion, with no reference to external reality, let alone to DNA. Emotion is a predictive pattern of experience that relates as ‘feelings’ to other conceptual structures such as ‘objects’, ‘thoughts’ and ‘memories’. We can resolve it however we want to in theory - but in practice, it must always be translated back into affect. The network then converts affect into ongoing action of the organism: a distribution of energy as effort and attention, no further reduction required.

I’ll admit that your interpretation sounds plausible from a purely intellectual perspective - most idealist arguments do. But its application to what exists beyond mind fails to account for a host of anomalies and contradictions in human experience alone. Until you can do that, it’s no more credible than apologetics from creationists.

The way I see it:
Biased / emotional information in DNA informs life, which possesses consciousness, and only expresses and propagates consciousness, in the form of emotional information - through DNA ( offspring ) and expressions of consciousness. Expressions of consciousness are all formed in an emotionally charged setting, as they preserve the bias to be, so are emotional information. All incoming information is emotional information ( information and qualia ), which is processed by a reasonable brain system, but in an emotional setting of a biased consciousness. Hence have consequences that are either painful, neutral, or pleasurable. The output is a self preserving response, hence emotional information. As you say, it is arbitrary to separated emotion from information. — Pop

Your need to add a ‘neutral’ position indicates a complexity that is unaccounted for: an instance that is neither painful nor pleasurable is beyond the perspective of the value structure - its quality is infinite, unmeasurable. If, as you say, the output depends entirely on this emotion-information, then a neutral consequence results in NO response. But this is inconsistent with empirical observation. I would also argue that the brain system as a whole is anything but ‘reasonable’ - watch your dualistic notions here, particularly in distinguishing between ‘information and qualia’. If all is information, then you’ll have to explain why you need to make such a distinction.

May the best interpretation win :smile: — Pop

I’m not trying to win - I’m just trying to refine my own theory in relation to different perspectives, and to offer challenges and suggestions to help you refine yours. Mine is a long way from perfect - I know that because there are a number of members here with whom I struggle to formulate much in the way of coherent discussion points, whether I agree with them or not. They challenge my thinking, and provide plenty of topics for me to look up, though.

I think a well intentioned person "believes they are being moral, and desires to be moral", but their actions may result in immoral outcomes. Ignorance in this case is causing evil, which is immoral. Thus we credit that if the person's ignorance was erased, they would cease to cause immoral consequences with their actions.

So it is the ignorance that is the root cause of evil in this case. But is the person committing an action which results in an immoral outcome? Yes. Good intentions are wonderful because if we erase the ignorance, we hope the person will not commit evil anymore. But the ignorant person is still committing evil. The difference is that ignorance is what must be stopped, not the person themselves. — Philosophim

The idea is that we can determine a moral judgement on the action by evaluating the most probable intentional state - but we need to recognise that the complexity of this state is irreducibly four-dimensional, in the sense that a wavefunction is four-dimensional. The morality judgement of an intentional state is a relational structure consisting of conjugate variables: here described as awareness/ignorance and intention; which aligns in behaviour to attention and effort. If you assign an objective value to one, then your determination is always uncertain relative to the other.

So, it’s not so much a matter of simply stopping the ignorance. It’s more a matter of interacting with others in such a way that we strive to increase awareness, connection and collaboration. When we isolate or exclude others, we invite ignorant intent.

Your classic ‘trinity’ explanation fits the common understanding
— Possibility

Yep, that's all I was targeting. Nice history lesson though! — Philosophim

So, the fact that common understanding is riddled with prediction errors, which results in a high instance of suffering, is not an issue for you?

What is romantic love? I feel it can be identified as a combination of three traits. (Order is alphabetical, not by importance).

1. Friendship - You can confide in one another and have fun in your interactions in daily life.

2. Love - Love is simply the acceptance a person despite knowing all of the other person's positive and negative qualities. Further, while you understand their limitations and failings, you support them in being the best they can be.

3. Lust - The reason this isn't just a good friendship. — Philosophim

Your classic ‘trinity’ explanation fits the common understanding, but I think it is misunderstood in relation to this notion of love, which developed from the medieval idea that ‘nobility’ in thought, word and deed could improve one’s social standing.

Romantic love has altered somewhat in interpretation from its origins. It originally referred to the recognition of a relation between perceived value/potential: the apparent beauty and/or virtues of one party in relation to the exploits or words of another, such that this mutual relation edified them both, regardless of their assumed value. Lust played no part, and neither did an understanding of their limitations or failings. It was idealist: the relation itself created in the mind. So the poet and/or soldier transform into a heroic knight in relation to a beautiful and virtuous courtier (despite the reality) when they share in this idealist notion of ‘nobility’.

It was soon misinterpreted in actuality as a relation between an active agent and a passive one, giving both parties cause to prioritise their own perceived potential in the interaction, to actualise it upon the other, and resist their partner’s attempts to assume the active position. This somewhat warped notion of ‘romantic love’ continues to this day, and within that ensuing tug of war, most of us try to make sense of what love is.

The bias to be, is the fundamental information that creates consciousness.Without it there could not be consciousness or life. It is the essential element that creates a self interested process of self organisation. It remains central to consciousness / self organisation, and is present in every instance of self organization as the primal consideration relative to all other information. What are the consequences of this information to me? How do I self organize in relation to this information? These are the fundamentals of consciousness. In this setting a response is formed. These responses are all expressions of consciousness, and can be lumped together and considered singularly as such. They are endlessly variable and open ended. They all work so long as the organism survives. — Pop

Self-interest is NOT central to consciousness. This is a misunderstanding of consciousness - from a limited perspective of self-consciousness, reduced to a ‘survival’ binary, and assumed as the ‘immovable centre’. It is inaccurate to claim its presence as the primal consideration in every instance of self-organisation. If this were the case, then heroic self-sacrifice in war, seppuku, self-immolation and other ritualistic or altruistic suicide acts would not have become an aspect of any culture, for example. Neither would any of the many and diverse mating behaviours have developed to prioritise diversification and only partial reproduction of genetic information over self-survival. No amount of neo-Darwinian apologetics can show that any of these instances of self-organisation have ‘self-interest’ as their primal consideration.

I understand that you have deliberately narrowed your focus between life and human-level consciousness, but we couldn’t hope to have developed an accurate understanding of Earth in relation to the Solar System simply from our perspective looking up from Earth, I see no reason to expect an accurate understanding of consciousness in relation to life, let alone to the universe, from our conscious perspective. Copernicus had to first imagine that the Earth was moveable, and second that it was not the centre.

Kant proposed a ‘Copernican Turn’ was necessary to more clearly understand our phenomenal position in reality - in my view, at the time he wrote it, he required at least two: first, the variability and de-centring of humanity from theories of life and the unfolding universe; and second, the moveability and de-centring of human experience from theories of consciousness and existence. Darwin set the first in motion, but we can’t seem to get our heads around the second...yet.

The scientific method in making sense of the world is to imagine the possibilities, calculate the most probable explanations, and then test them against empirical evidence, adjusting it for accuracy and refining our final explanation to account for anomalies in each instance of results. The problem with this method is that it assumes our bias only comes into play when we interpret the results. But quantum physics shows that our bias affects every step, and is most significant in how we select and test probable explanations from imaginable possibilities. Reductionism has always attempted to remove this bias by consolidating to a common denominator, but all this does is limit the process from the start. We need to imagine a perspective beyond the bias, just as Copernicus and Darwin did, and even Max Planck.

We can divide consciousness into two components. The fundamental component is a self preserving ( biased ) process of self organization relative to external and internal information. And then it's expression. Which are ideas and action. Expressions of consciousness are not the same as consciousness itself. They give some insight into the consciousness that created them, but only if you understand the self interested process underlying them. Fundamentally the task of brain consciousness is very simple - firstly provide a solution that allows me to survive, secondly make it as pleasant as possible. — Pop

This is another misunderstanding from within. The pursuit of pleasure has the capacity to override a self-preserving bias - ask anyone who’s suffered from intense addiction. So your last sentence cannot possibly explain the task of brain consciousness. Expressions of consciousness are not secondary - any bias to consolidate (to ignore, isolate or exclude) is contingent upon awareness, connection and collaboration at the most fundamental levels of existence.

Philosophical Zombies lack the bias to be, so they can not be conscious or alive. They are indifferent to the effect of the information surrounding them. They are not Affected. It is all the same to them whether they live or die, or experience pain or pleasure. But nothing is all the same to living creatures because everything has an Affect on them. Thus Affected they are spurned to thought and action. The base all thought bounces off is the emotional gradient I call the PPS, but you would better understand it as an Affected mental state. I would call it an emotional whole body state. — Pop

P-zombies are a thought experiment - they’re ‘not alive’ only because you say they’re not. But a p-zombie gives all the necessary indications that it IS alive - that’s the point. Using your own description of p-zombies as evidence to support your own argument is circular.

And you misunderstand me entirely if you think I’ve been referring to affect as a purely mental state. Interoception is self-organisation at the dimensional level up from DNA. Affect is information about the state of the entire organism. I don’t make a Cartesian distinction at this level between ‘mind’ and ‘body’, because I don’t think it helps our understanding. We are monists - ‘mental states’ needn’t feature in this discussion.

All of life is informed by RNA and DNA, and this bias to be, being a fundamental necessity of consciousness and life, would be fundamental code shared by all of life. So all of life, including brainless life, would posses a bias to be as an emotional body state. This creates consciousness and life. There would be no need to self organize without a bias to be. There would be no emotional impetus to do so. — Pop

Consciousness is informed by interoception , in the same way that life is informed by DNA. Affect is irreducible, continually updated ‘bias-to-be’ information within that self-organisation. Interoception interrelates on an ongoing basis with our conceptual reality to manifest the future conscious subject based on the sum of the system’s experience, rendered as conceptual reality. DNA is a 3D rendering of the system’s 4D information, and interrelates with a different DNA structure to manifest a future life that more accurately expresses its ongoing and variable relation to the fundamental existence/non-existence binary: its ‘bias to be’.

Your ‘bias to be’ seems biased to prioritise consolidation, reductionism. You should recognise this as a tendency to ignore, isolate and exclude information that doesn’t suit your theory. I have tried to show that what you refer to as a ‘bias to be’ is a dynamic, unresolvable relation at the base binary of all existence: to exist or not exist. All matter (living or non-living) draws an arbitrary line to consolidate its minimum existence, but must continually express a capacity beyond that: to strive for awareness, connection and collaboration. This minimum existence can never be reached - instead the system will reach zero point energy, before which the question to exist or not exist must be answered anew, requiring that last surge of energy in its expression either way.

For an integrated system, the expression to not exist is not simply dropping to a lower level of consciousness, because most elements of the system have sacrificed their lower-level consolidation. A blood cell, for instance, maintains its 3D relational structure only as long as it is part of a living (4D) system. We can artificially manage the appearance of a system from the perspective of the blood cell, but its 3D structure will cease to exist as such in isolation from a suitable system. So a blood cell is committed to the minimum existence of a suitable 4D system, regardless of integration.

We can sustain this appearance of a living system, but not the appearance of consciousness. Consciousness develops from a living system that is aware, connected and collaborating with its developing offspring enough to continue re-structuring this future life into infancy. From there, the more plasticity built into the DNA, the more adaptable the future life becomes to circumstances its parents didn’t anticipate prior to birth. Eventually, the living system develops an internal, dual-integrated interoceptive network - similar to the double-helix structure of DNA, only at a higher level of complexity: half generated from the information the system has about itself, and the other half rendered from the information that system has about another system, with which it interacts. Reproduction aligns two halves of different DNA instructions to form a whole 3D structure of effort and attention instructions that would hypothetically develop a more accurate and efficient life in a 4D system. The interoceptive network continually re-aligns two different 4D predictions of valence-arousal to form a whole 4D structure of effort and attention instructions that would hypothetically develop a more accurate and efficient consciousness (in a 5D system).

Effort and attention instruction is energy/information, and however much of it is quantifiable, there is always some aspect of it that is purely relational (and vice versa), in accordance with the uncertainty principle. An accurate description of consciousness cannot be reduced to emotion-information, anymore than we can make an accurate calculation of quantum reality: only where, when and how much to direct our effort and attention.

You seem to have a good system of dealing with the complexity by dividing it up into different dimensions. I have always tried to understand things from first principles as far as is possible. I deal with the complex by simplifying it, resolving it in simple form, and then growing the solution in complexity. These are two different expressions of consciousness, one is not necessarily better then another, and together they are better then on their own. — Pop

When you do ‘grow the system in complexity’, you need to be conscious of the overwhelming urge to consolidate through ignoring, isolating or excluding information - it will always hold you back from being able to explain the complex diversity that exists. Plus, each advancement in capacity requires a surge in energy/information that transcends the current system’s processing capacity, rendering it insufficient.

When I first seriously started studying consciousness, I started with microbial life. It seemed DNA information created an amoeba, and an amoeba subsequently expressed this DNA information, by being alive and through its self organization, in relation to internal information and external information. Why would it bother was the immediate and overwhelming question - what a waste of energy! Of course it has no choice. It is not self aware and it is biased to continue to live. So it seems RNA and DNA insert this bias, into life, and hence when it comes to the question of to be or not to be, the answer is not rational, but biased to be.

So I concluded life is biased to be, and a bias is not rational information, but emotional information - an aversion to death and an attraction to life. It is a fundamental force present in all living creatures, including the ones without brains. So emotion occurs fundamentally ( emotional - information ), it is the essential ingredient of self organization as it provides impetus to organize, and is present long before the ability to branch out and create complicated expressions of consciousness. However , being fundamental, it is present in all subsequent expressions of consciousness, as the force providing impetus to self organization. — Pop

The answer is only biased to be for those who are. The proportion of living to non-living matter in the universe is staggeringly small. Likewise, the proportion of matter to anti- or dark matter, the proportion of multi-cellular to single-celled life, etc. The impetus is present in all matter, but it is comparatively weak. You have to admit, by your own habits, that we are more inclined to consolidate than to collaborate, particularly if energy/information is perceived as limited, unattainable. But the impetus persists, nevertheless.

An amoeba is aware of interaction: it can distinguish between a persistent, semi-stable state and the changes that are not this state. Initially, an animate cell will always prefer this persistent state over changes, and will self-organise to maintain or return to it from every change. But this impetus to consolidate barely counts as ‘life’. The process of natural selection quickly favours those whose ‘unwanted’ changes result in increased activity (dominance) or information diversity (reproduction) as much as stability. So, is this “attraction to life” an impetus to consolidate - to ignore, isolate and exclude - or is it to increase awareness, connection and collaboration, despite the risks?

Fortunately, most people tend to be moderate & conciliatory in their views, and inclined to favor to the idea of social & cultural progress, rather than regress. Besides, modern societies are too homogeneous to split neatly into Left vs Right, or White vs Black, or Christian vs Islamic. — Gnomon

What about Red vs Blue?

Is there anyway that every idea of life after death can be correct? There apparently are many ideas in different religions and personal beliefs that really seem completely in conflict with one another. But in general most beliefs seem to favor a paradise. Eliminating all pains from this world and becoming young again. Such an optimistic view of what's next. Shouldn't they seem suspicious as well? Simply existing without health problems and with physical and mental energy and focus is enough for me. — TiredThinker

The idea of life after death seems to have developed from a vague awareness, and attempts to make sense of, a very real capacity to interact with the world beyond one’s physical existence. When we remember and embody the unrealised intentions or preferences of someone who has died, individually or collectively, then what has heretofore defined that person in life is able to ‘live’ on and interact with us - if not visibly in the world, then somewhere, somehow. Given that many people still describe emotion as a ‘force’ of some kind, it stands to reason that they would describe this potential influence of the departed in a similar way. Many questions naturally arise from this, and the possible answers put forward, and subjectivity in validating them, help to shape how one would, could or should live and interact in an eternal, cultural reality. In the absence of any way to verify, and as a comfort to those facing what is essentially unknown, why wouldn’t we favour a paradise, or at least a more optimistic possibility?