Hi. I'm arguing that the combination of pleasure and pain may be a pleasure to some, and not to others. — Pop

My point is that ‘pleasure or pain’ is insufficient, because pain is something else.

[quote="Pop;459244"And then there is the stoic thing where you hate that which you desire in equal proportion, in order to annihilate them both. The PPS is personally malleable, if not entirely controllable.[/quote]

Stoicism is misunderstood in the modern understanding of the adjective ‘stoic’. This is certainly not a Stoicist strategy to free oneself of desire and hatred. The aim is not to control it, but to understand it, and in so doing, determine and initiate more informative and less erroneous predictions and subsequent actions. Pain, hate and desire are not annihilated - they’re simply less prominent in the bigger picture.

I was thinking more of a 2D structure rather then linear, such that similar degrees of pain could be differentiated laterally. It is a gradient, but I don't know its structure absolutely. — Pop

Differentiated how? Would the 2D structure of affect - as valence (pleasant-unpleasant) and arousal (high-low) - suffice?

I maintain that pain is something else, but it is still part of the interoceptive network. Pain is usually a located, urgent demand for effort and/or attention somewhere in the body - each instance has an intensity and particular spatial quality, and can appear, disappear or change over time. It is pure interoceptive feed forward, though. It has no reference to the outside world, and no clue what else is going on in the body.

Affect, on the other hand, refers to an overall state of the system. It is a two-dimensional relation that consists of valence and arousal, and is ongoing: it monitors the system even when you’re asleep or unconscious, to keep the brain updated on energy (effort and attention) requirements and availability.

Affect is tasked to ensure sufficient energy resources are available when required, in a timely fashion. Rather than obtain enough sensory information first (which would result in a delay), the system generates a ‘wavefunction’ of effort and attention from an ongoing 4D construction of the system (from the interoceptive network) interoception in relation to an ongoing 4D construction of conceptual reality. This particular wavefunction is all that Barrett focuses on - but in my view the entire amorphous, 5D relational structure is consciousness: the perceivable potentiality of our existence. The wavefunction enables the system to continually adjust and refine its future effort and attention requirements, and instruct the brain when it needs to pump the blood faster or breath quicker, etc. to prepare for greater demands of energy, when it needs to use available energy to avoid situations that may make dangerous demands on the energy budget, or when it needs to use energy to initiate situations that are likely to balance or supplement the energy budget overall.

So pain tells us when our prediction is particularly inaccurate: when conceptual reality doesn’t match sensory information in a spatial location, that discrepancy often comes back to the interoceptive network as a located demand for effort and/or attention. Sometimes that pain demands that we take notice and make changes to the system itself: repair and extend muscle capacity, repair skin, strengthen lungs, etc. Sometimes it demands that we take notice of what is different in the world from our previous expectations. Sometimes it’s a bit of both. But that demand always needs to be weighed against the other upcoming energy demands of the overall system.

The base consistency of reality is in its relational structure: All living systems consist of a four-dimensional integrated system of information, and evolve according to the sustainability of their self-organisation process to transform information/energy [in order to transform themselves from their current emotional state to a more pleasurable one. :razz:] .
— Possibility

I hope you don't take offense with my altering the last part of your paragraph, it was meant in jest. No disrespect intended, I just thought it would be funny to skew it to my understanding. — Pop

Well, I’d prefer if you made use of the square brackets to show that you’ve altered my quote, but it’s a useful approach. The reason I describe it this way is because this is a general description that applies to all living systems - most are unaware of a ‘current emotional state’, and so have no intention to ‘transform’ it. They are aware only of ongoing attention and effort requirements and availability.

The difference is self-consciousness, which requires a more complex relational structure. All conscious systems consist of a five-dimensional integrated system of information, and evolve according to the capacity of their self-organisation process to transform potential information from their accumulative experience of the world and ongoing affective state into an accurate prediction of effort and attention allocation. It isn’t just about pursuing a more pleasant affective state, but one that makes efficient use of available energy. Because pleasant experiences that demand high levels of attention (like sex) can consume vast amounts of energy, which may compromise the system long term. And pleasant experiences of low arousal (like drug use) compromise the capacity of the system to seek and acquire the energy needed to sustain itself.

Consciousness has no boundary. It is endlessly variable and open ended, so what you suggest is not theoretically impossible, in my opinion. It was not what I was referring to. I was referring to your suggestion that it could be contained and described like a forest. We could catalogue and take account of it theoretically up until today, but tomorrow it will be something different. It will have grown beyond our conception of it. We can characterize it, as I have done with the PPS, but upon doing that, it then has the opportunity of transcending that, whether it will, and how, I don't know. This is all highly speculative stuff, and I love to speculate, but I am no Guru. I have a theory that I call a sketch, but I have so much more to learn. — Pop

Here’s the interesting thing: I never suggested that a forest could be contained or described - but that it can be understood as an ever-changing whole. By the time we have catalogued its contents, we would need to go back through and catalogue the changes, and so on. You can characterise the physical boundary of a forest or its trees, animals, etc, but once that’s done, it will almost instantly be inaccurate.

This reminds me of Kant’s aesthetics. It is the capacity for an aesthetic experience to transcend any attempt to subsume it under ‘object’ or ‘concept’ that renders it aesthetically pleasing. In pursuing pure beauty, our awareness must transcend any concept or thought of ‘pleasure’, and instead to delight in the possibilities, engaging our faculties of imagination and understanding without being constrained by judgement. The sublime can have a similar effect, regardless of valence. A maximally unpleasant experience would hypothetically transcend any known concept (terror, horror, etc), but interestingly has nothing to do with pain.

But I digress. To understand is not to constrain, define or describe within a concept, but to relate to its possibilities as a particular and variable conceptual system ourselves. To learn not just how I relate to the forest now, but how that is likely to change over time, how different conceptual systems may relate to the forest differently to me, and how both the forest and any conceptual system may be altered by each observation, measurement or other interactive experience, whether or not either is consciously aware. This is how we develop more integrated relational structures with reality, minimising overall prediction error (pain, humility, loss and lack) and aiming for pure, confident interrelation.

We understand the weather not by constraining, defining or describing it or its individual elements, but by formulating, testing and refining probabilistic relations between events. The idea is not to aim for certainty.

I’m certainly no Guru myself. I’ve found that there are many ways to approach the same meaning from a limited and flawed perspective. I think discussions such as these help both of us reach a broader understanding, even if we never see eye to eye.

That is a good one. I think If one seeks to avoid the experience then it is more painful then pleasurable, and visa versa. If they are equal then it is a neutral experience. — Pop

Your first explanation is circular. You’ve been arguing that the pain-pleasure spectrum is the impetus for behaviour, and yet here you’re saying that our behaviour determines the position of such an experience on the spectrum. So which is it?

Your second explanation suggests the experience is void of information, which is inconsistent with such an experience. A simultaneously painful and pleasurable experience is far from ‘neutral’, and a spectrum, by definition, has no ‘neutral’ position. What you’re referring to is a linear structure, with positive values on one side, negative values on the other, and an infinite value (zero) in the centre. But that ignores the complexity of the relation between pain and pleasure, doesn’t it?

I understand that you’ve put a lot of stock into the pain-pleasure spectrum, and it seems logical. But it’s a constrained logic. You’re working within human experience and language, and then making inferences across all living systems based on assumed intentionality. Most humans would agree with the logic of your theory, but it has no practical value. You can’t apply it to improve your interactions with reality. It doesn’t change how we relate to the world, or to each other. It offers little more than a description of consciousness from within consciousness - like the geocentric model of the solar system.

If I can draw an analogy, describing gender as a ‘male-female spectrum’ is a false construct that allows reduction to a binary when it suits. Be careful what reductionism enables you to ignore, isolate and exclude in human experience. Take another look at the electromagnetic wave spectrum, to get an idea of the complexity that an open-ended spectrum would entail, and the ignorance, isolation and exclusion the structure supports when we define upper and lower limits. I’m persisting because I believe understanding the human perception of emotion in a broader context of effort and attention (energy) distribution for all matter with which we interact is a worthwhile challenge.

By studying expressions of consciousness, I've come to understand that consciousness is endlessly variable and open ended ( an evolving process of self organization with no upper limit :starstruck: ). So I look to its base for consistency. The trees are all different in their expression, but for a common reason. — Pop

Are you suggesting that we have an infinite capacity for both pleasure and pain? Or that consciousness exists beyond pleasure? You’ve said before that nothing dies in the universe, it just falls to a lower level of consciousness - I imagine that’s what you believe occurs when pain is unavoidably maximised? So, would that mean maximal pleasure may lead to a higher level of consciousness?

The upper limit is never an easy horizon to explore. No horizon ever is, but it’s always enabled a broader understanding of our complex and relative place in the world. You could start with the energy limitations of the system: self-organisation at every level of consciousness is limited by the capacity of the system to acquire energy/information from its environment and process it. As humans, we are the highest energy consumers, but as individuals, we have energy/information limits. We get around these limitations by connection and collaboration with each other, and with our environment.

Or alternatively, take a look at Kant’s Critique of the Faculty of Judgement - his aesthetic process towards transcendent, non-conceptual delight may be more appealing to your idealist perspective, if you can resist the reductionist urge to judge.

I've been there and found it to be a dead end. Emotion is the difference between a human being and a P.Zombie. Solving emotion, solves consciousness, in my opinion. Who would not want to do that? — Pop

Well, that’s a gross oversimplification, but I do agree that ‘solving emotion solves consciousness’, which is why I believe Barrett’s scientific meta-research into the classical theories of emotion are important to the discussion, even if you’re tempted to dismiss her constructionist theories off-hand.

My difficulty with you using the term ‘emotion’ is that it generally refers to a particular feeling, whereas the term ‘affect’ refers to feeling in general, whether or not it is apperceived as ‘emotion’. We don’t always identify affect as emotion, but emotion is always identified from affect, whether in self-reflection, or in rationalising behaviour. In this way, an animal is affected by feeling pleasant or unpleasant valence and high or low arousal, without assuming any particular ‘emotion’ can be identified in that animal’s experience. That we attribute a particular emotion, such as pain, based on our own conceptual structures is far less certain than attributing emotion to humans based on behaviour or facial expression. And despite decades of searching by essentialist researchers, there is no typical set of behaviour or facial expressions that would reliably identify a particular emotional essence across human experience anyway. Affect, on the other hand, is consistent across all living systems, regardless of the indeterminacy of emotion. So, if you’re going to jump between human and animal consciousness, then perhaps ‘affect’ is a more consistent term for what you’re referring to. Just a thought.

From an idealist perspective, you believe we have access to reality only through information, which you say is flawed and false in relation to some ‘physical world with real people’ that you believe exists - but from a monist perspective this, too, cannot exist as anything other than information. So we fill in the blanks with ‘hope’ - which you say consists mostly of emotion-information - to create a ‘belief’, and from the limitations of that belief system employ reductionism in relation to seeking a consistent belief statement, dismissing outliers and anomalies, to arrive at some common denominator that most people would currently agree to be ‘true’. This becomes our best approximation of reality. Am I close?

FWIW, I agree that we have access to reality only through information, and that what we receive is inaccurate and incomplete. But it’s because the information we receive is limited and skewed by the structure of the information system that receives and processes it, not because something different exists in reality.

The base consistency of reality is in its relational structure: All living systems consist of a four-dimensional integrated system of information, and evolve according to the sustainability of their self-organisation process to transform information/energy from their interaction with the world into a fulfilment of ongoing effort and attention requirements for the integrated system.

I think you mostly object to my reductionist approach. You interpret what I am saying literally and definitively. But I characterize the theory as a sketch. And in the instance of consciousness I state it works something like this.

Our affective state has to be reducible to something - note that it is always either painful, or pleasurable, or something in between. There is great complexity going on , as you state, and I doubt that such a thing as an instance of consciousness can exist, however this complex state has to be characterized in some way and I think the OP dose a fair job. It is not ignoring the complexity of the state, but trying to pin it to a simple, and widely understood expression. — Pop

I don’t object to reductionist methodology per se - I think it’s a necessary process from imagination and understanding to interaction, particularly for testing belief structures, and for the creative process to produce anything. But a widely understood expression seems a flimsy choice of something to pin a theory of consciousness to. As such, I think you’re bound by your interpretation of the expression. The success of a reductionist approach begins with the highest complexity of understanding, and aims to render that complexity in a simpler format, with minimal loss of information. I don’t think you’ve done that. As a result, you cannot account for experiences that are simultaneously both painful and pleasurable in your methodology.

I disagree that our affective state has to be reducible further than we require to interact with a reality that the system recognises as four-dimensional. To reduce it further is to take it out of the realm of living experience - I’m happy to go there, but you’ve already said it’s out of your area of interest.

This is where our philosophies diverge. From an idealists perspective all the things you mention are variable concepts in our mind. So it is not possible for me to construct a theory from the paradigm that you pose. I have to look to the trees, and find the elements that are common to every tree, and proceed from there. I think I have characterized a reliable emotional mechanism of consciousness, but you find it too simplistic for your paradigm. — Pop

As variable concepts in our mind, they’re unproven theories, hypotheses to be tested and refined with inter-subjective experience. It’s how we’ve constructed all our shared understanding of the universe and its history beyond empirical evidence.

Looking at what is common to every tree will not give you an understanding of the forest - it is how each tree differs from another and how they relate to each other that provides the information you need. But it appears you are looking only for certainty, not understanding. Labelling it a ‘spruce forest’ because most of the trees classify as spruce is not understanding it. This is the problem with reductionism for its own sake - it abandons understanding for fear of uncertainty.

If you do not agree that affective states are feelings that ultimately resolve to a pain / pleasure spectrum, then you are left in an affective limbo, with no possibility of answering the hard problem, as is the case with Barrett, I imagine. — Pop

How do you figure that? Firstly, Barrett never aimed to answer the hard problem, but to provide a more accurate theory of emotion that reconciles psychology with current neuroscience. Secondly, if according to idealism, everything exists in mind, then surely there can be no hard problem to begin with?

If we are to be scientific, we should be careful about believing in claims that cannot be verified. Nobody has ever verified the reality of unconsciousness of any kind in any sort of entity ever. We have no evidence whatsoever that such a condition is possible. Where we find no recognizable report of experience, that's all we have, simply a lack of a report, not evidence of unconsciousness.

What does evidence of consciousness look like? It always amounts for us to human-like behavior, and is often only seen as definitive when it involves verbal reports. This is obviously flawed. For one thing, we can create robots that move like humans and speak, making noises that sound like a person claiming they are conscious. Is this evidence? There are also situations like locked-in syndrome where even waking human experiences cannot be reported verbally.

It could be that mycelial networks are conscious. How would we know?

You probably see where this is going. We have no solid reason to believe that there is anything happening in nature at all with no consciousness associated with it. People who consider themselves to be scientific and to only believe based on evidence commonly believe in non-conscious, dead matter, saying that consciousness is "produced by the brain" under very special circumstances. Are they justified in their belief in non-conscious matter? Is this scientific? Should we believe in entities that have never been observed and cannot, even in principle, be observed by us? Is the existence of non-conscious matter falsifiable?

I am not suggesting that a rock might be conscious of being a rock, that rocks have thoughts, animal-like senses or any such thing. Rocks surely lack the right kind of integration for anything like that. But there could be very simple, poorly integrated experientiality in the matter that makes up rocks. This same matter, when arranged in the right way, might even become capable of reporting experience.

It might be that rather than producing consciousness, brains simply amount to a kind of organization that makes recognizable reports of experience possible.

Thoughts? — petrichor

Regardless whether or not we refer to it as ‘consciousness’, matter is, to some limited extent, interacting with its surroundings, and susceptible to change. A rock may not be aware of being a rock - may not recognise when it is split in half - but molecules of that rock suddenly exposed to the air will begin to oxidise. And picking up a rock from a cold creek bed and holding it in your palm will gradually alter the temperature of each rock molecule across the structure.

If we consider a verbal report to be ‘information’ that a system has about another system, one with which it interacts, then the capacity of ‘inanimate’ matter to ‘report’ experience at a basic level is not so far-fetched, so long as we don’t presume integration where it isn’t evident. The molecules of a rock are not integrated in the way that the molecules of a living cell are. But the molecules of a chemical reaction are integrated for the duration of the reaction, making the reaction itself (as an entity) susceptible to experiences such as temperature change.

The dominance of the idea of ​​Empire is not a theory: it is a fact, and a specific fact of Western History. — bcccampello

Nope - it is a specific fact of American history. The rest of the West (for the most part) have recognised (some more recently than others) that the failure of Rome is not worth repeating, and the false ‘individual’ pursuit of maximal independence, control and influence is a fool’s errand, that ultimately puts a ‘mad king on the Iron Throne’, who ‘fiddles’ while the city burns...

Hooray! I think we agree! It seems to me that this is what I'm characterizing in the OP instance of consciousness. In my estimation, and yours, consciousness at all times has an affective state, and the affective state reduces to a feeling, which is ultimately resolved to a point on a pain / pleasure spectrum. Affect / feelings are ultimately painful or pleasurable, that they have this affect on us orients us in our personal reality, and provides impetus to behavior. The affect creates an emotional bias - it colors the subsequent thinking / response with emotion. Hard to see when the affect is mild, but easy when it is severe. It is the element P.Zombies lack, that we posses, so this is the element that creates consciousness. In my thinking, the PPS is the base, thinking ultimately bounces off this base, to create more thinking and action. — Pop

Steady on - my point is that our affective state is NOT reducible to ‘a feeling’ or resolved to a point on a pain-pleasure spectrum, except through ignorance, isolation or exclusion of information. Subsuming an affective state under a singular value-concept of ‘pleasure-pain’ ignores the complexity of that state, and ultimately the complexity of consciousness itself.

Affect is not just a position on a linear scale between pleasure and pain - it includes an axis of arousal, and is part of a four-dimensional interoceptive state. This ongoing overall state is related to an ongoing four-dimensional prediction provided by conceptual reality, and the interaction generates an ongoing, predictive instruction of effort and attention towards an alignment of state and prediction. Most of that effort and attention is directed towards adjusting the state, with some directed towards adjusting the prediction, in anticipation of future states.

This works in a similar way to genetic information. The organism generates a predictive instruction of effort and attention towards an alignment of life-form and how it lives. Most of that effort and attention is directed towards adjusting how it lives, but some is directed towards adjusting the future life-form, including gene alteration or variability, the environment it is born into, child-rearing practises, etc.

Valence (pleasant/unpleasant) is one of two overall aspects of affect, but pain is not - rather, it often has a particular spatial location in the body. In this way, pain contributes to overall affect - both in terms of valence and arousal - but is not an overall measure in itself. So the impetus is much more complex than towards pleasure and away from pain. There are plenty of situations where we are motivated towards a particular instance of pain or away from a particular instance of pleasure. Your spectrum is unreliable as an explanation of the impetus. You need to explain why we are motivated, for instance, to persist with some pain of exercise but not others, or to avoid a caress in one situation but actively pursue it in another. Lasting pleasure in relation to short-term pain (or vice versa) or localised pain (with its accompanying arousal) in relation to overall pleasure is not accounted for in your reductionist methodology.

Thinking and behaviour are always affected by the interoceptive state of the organism, whether we identify an ‘emotion’ or not. The classical view assumes that thinking is always rational, and that emotion is an isolated element that runs interference on our behaviour from some ‘primitive’ area of the brain. But “affect is a constant current throughout your life, even when you are completely still or asleep. It does not turn on and off in response to events you experience as emotional. In this sense, affect is a fundamental aspect of consciousness, like brightness and loudness.”

I think you would characterize our position as being relative to the different dimensions of reality effecting us. I would simply say we poses a sanity that orients us in our world. Yes it is anthropocentric, as from an idealists point of view reality is personally constructed and only exists in an end user consciousness. There is an outside physical world with real people, but we have no access to it. We only have access to our personal construction of it, which is slightly different for everyone. Hence every instance of consciousness is unique. — Pop

I think we continually strive to orient us in our world by developing an extended relational structure through a process of prediction, interaction, error, adjustment and sampling. But each time we manage an accurate orientation, we become vaguely aware of a world beyond that external structure, and with that the inadequacy of the existing system to complete this orientation alone. A paradigm shift requires a redistribution of effort and attention away from preserving the existing system and increasing awareness and connection towards a collaborative effort to orient collectively in the world beyond. This describes the sacrifice (and rarity) of every dimensional shift in an increasing awareness: including atomic (1D), molecular (2D), biochemical (3D), biological life (4D), socio-cultural values (5D) and meaningful relations (6D). The words we use at each level differs, but the process is the same:randomness at one level is variation at another, or prediction or imagination.

While I agree that we rely for the most part on a personal construction of the world (inside and out), I disagree that we have no access to reality at all. Rather, our access is limited by the construction of the system and by its available energy - the attention and effort we can spare in the moment - and our efficiency in this has been developing at a rapid rate. How do you think we constructed our view of reality in the first place?

That you refer to ‘an outside physical world with real people’ is telling. The reality of the world beyond the ‘self’ does not really consist of ‘things’ and ‘people’, but of interrelated possibility or existence-information, which we organise into ideas, subsume under concepts, render as objects and reduce to physics for our various purposes. And it’s the same inside our skin - we are inseparable from this existence-information, except in our own ‘mind’ or socio-cultural construction through ignorance, isolation and exclusion.

If every instance of consciousness is unique, then why get caught up in the inaccuracy of defining consciousness from our own limited experience? Our understanding of consciousness will come not from the content, but from the structure. Not from the trees, but from the forest. Not from quanta or qualia, but from a tested and refined relational structure that renders this complexity of information reliable for every interaction.

This would be outside my skillset, and area of interest. I am really more interested in the psychology, belief, and sanity aspects of consciousness. I think you are correct, that it needs more information to be more credible. I see this information coming from research in biology. Proving cellular complexity to be a consciousness would seal the deal, I think, and there are good strides being made with cellular imaging and animation - at some point the penny must drop that this is too complex to be explained by chance — Pop

Well, we’ll put it down to a limitation of the system for them moment. I’ve found that the psychology, belief and sanity aspects of consciousness tend to fall outside most philosophers’ area of interest - if you’re not willing to venture outside of this particular area of interest, then you may struggle to develop your theory from a philosophical perspective.

The penny has dropped many times over, and there are many recent books fleshing out this ‘too complex to be explained by chance’ argument, and suggesting possible alternatives. But biochemistry research is hemmed in from both sides by some stubborn assumptions in materialism and evolutionary theory. Thomas Nagel, in his book ‘Mind and Cosmos’, offers some interesting speculation in the wake of these unravelling conceptions. He was unsurprisingly criticised for an open-mindedness to teleological alternatives, but the questions and structural process he proposes make his book worth a read.

You can’t make someone else learn something if they don’t want to, or if it takes too much effort.
— Possibility

How did you learn about E=mc² ?

Did you read about it in a book? Or do people just go around repeating it? You most likely know the basics of what it means, but you do not question whether it is important. You just accept it. — dussias

Ha - You obviously don’t know me very well, then.

Being able to repeat the formula does not mean you’ve learnt anything about it. For most people, all they know about it is that it’s important to what scientists do, which is important to them, so they believe the formula without wanting to learn what it means. Besides, it takes too much effort.

I’m not sure how this refutes my comment.

No, that's ok, I'm glad you explained it. My problem is, as I do not think as you, I can not not always evaluate what you are saying, but I'm glad to get your alternative view, and perspective. I'm a plain old reductionist - too old to change now. — Pop

Yeah, not many people think like me, I’m afraid.

The way I see it, reductionism seeks accurate methodologies to render the world into more efficient forms of information. The problem is that the methodologies we currently rely on and have built into our language and logic are based on old assumptions and anthropocentrism that no longer stand up to scrutiny. Somewhere along the way, we figured it was more important to reliably understand each other (either quantitatively or qualitatively) than to reliably understand reality as a whole. It’s a compromise that most reductionists seem comfortable with, but only because they’ve convinced themselves of certain limitations.

As a reductionist-idealist, it appears that you view consciousness as the base existence, with the ‘pleasure/pain spectrum’ and ‘zero point energy’ as upper and lower limitations in relation to an assumption of ‘mind’. Your notion of ‘emotion-information’ seems to me just another form of anthropocentric logic - albeit one with a bias towards qualitative information, dismissing quantitative information as ‘irrelevant’. That’s how I understand it, at this stage, anyway.

At some point, like every other theory of consciousness, you’re going to have to reconcile your theory with quantum physics (the home of reductionist-materialists) - just like any quantum physics interpretation is going to have to reconcile with general relativity, gravity, the measurement problem and, of course, qualia.

The way I see it, it’s never too late to change. You seem to otherwise have an active, inquisitive mind.

a negative value affect perceived in the organism, attributed to the affecting area/object/event, that gives impetus to repellent action.
— Possibility

- I'll take this, as you are describing a process of self organization with an affective bias. — Pop

Sort of. Our self-organisation process from intentionality to action will always be subject to affect: every thought, word and movement contains at least some reference to our affective state, no matter how ‘rational’ we think we are. As far as I can see it’s only a ‘bias’ if it’s excluding or unfairly dismissive of information, though.

We can not know this for sure with other humans either. I doubt vey much that it would be exactly the same pain that I, or you, would feel, but it is an emotion that gives impetus to behavior. There is information processing going on, and a decision is made, however limited it may be. — Pop

True. It may not even be ‘pain’, and the ‘emotion’ may be misinterpreted, as well as the cause. It is, however, a negative value affect perceived in the organism, attributed to the affecting area/object/event, that gives impetus to repellent action.

I'm having trouble understanding you as I don't think in terms of dimensions, but I think you are confirming that emotion cannot be separated from information. That would be how I understand it, from a reductionist point of view. I would say, from an idealists perspective, everything can be reduced to information, and everything has qualia, including information. How it is formed and processed is the question. I need to consider this, as you have instilled some doubt. — Pop

That’s okay - most people don’t think in terms of dimensions. The reason I do is because it helps me to keep everything in perspective. Much of our confusion in discussion comes from treating ideas or concepts (5D) as actual observable events (4D), or even as physical ‘objects’ (3D), and ignoring the relative value we would attribute from our own experiential position.

I would say that as humans we CAN (and do) differentiate and therefore ignore, isolate and exclude our emotional position as ‘irrelevant’ information in relation to how we conceptualise the world - but NOT in our temporal existence. Once the Will gets involved - the function by which one determines and initiates action - all bets are off. Because the organism’s effort and attention is allocated according to affect - always. It’s a limitation of our existence.

For me, though, the base binary of information is not Shannon information, but existence. It goes deeper than a material manifestation of knowledge. Shannon information is a logical ratio that effectively assumes an aligned spatial position - and then disregards the first three dimensions. So each ‘bit’ of information relies on physical contact as its base existence: 0 is no relation on contact; I is relation on contact, and therefore Shannon information exists relative to physical contact. Those who prescribe to digital logic tend to take material existence as a given, or ignore it altogether.

All logic works in a similar way, usually relying on anthropocentrism as a base existence: zero and positive/negative infinity are its value limits in relation to an assumption of ‘life’ as a four-dimensional event. This seems more intuitive, assuming an aligned spatio-temporal position - except, like digital logic, it only assigns one value at a time.

This one-value problem corresponds to the uncertainty principle, and the irreducibility of conjugate variable pairings that mess with the qualitative/quantitative divide: position/momentum; matter/energy; valence/arousal; attention/effort.

If we take the base binary of information instead to be existence/non-existence, then a relational structure develops in a dimensional form that can account for the quantitative/qualitative divide more objectively than either human or digital logic.

Sorry, this got a little heavy.

I don't think anybody really believes that they are the only thing that exists, even if logic would show that is the only thing we can be certain of.
— ChatteringMonkey

Going through this discussion, this statement made me uneasy. You may not be the only thing that exists, however, the entire outer Universe is egocentrically attached to your perception of existence. — Gus Lamarch

Perhaps we rely too much on certainty and logic to determine our relation to the universe. It’s not as if I exist as a singular, fixed central perspective, around which the world revolves, is it?

So we call it ‘painful’ because the behaviour response is generally repellent. I’m not suggesting it’s something other than pain, I’m just making sure you understand that there is no awareness that something particular is ‘painful’ as such. There are no objects or emotions: there is a two-dimensional affected area of information, which aligns in effort and attention with a two-dimensional affecting area of information. That’s all. The cell evaluates affect - an overall prediction of valence and arousal in the system, which it differentiates into two-dimensionally mapped effort and attention instructions within a four-dimensional existence: stop interacting now (ie. reduce affected/affecting area), or direct attention and effort over time towards a more valuable affecting area in which to interact.

But you can’t separate out the qualitative information from the quantitative in this process. The two-dimensional map alignment is based on all of it. The main difference between us and the paramecium is that we can now adjust and align complex four-dimensional maps - using the same valence/arousal-to-effort/attention system. We also have the capacity to differentiate between potential map alignment instructions, and evaluate them in relation to each other, through our conceptual systems. And with self-reflection and abstract language, we can even adjust and align five-dimensional maps or conceptual systems and relate them to each other.

So the separation of qualitative and quantitative information is an arbitrary differentiation of possible map alignment instructions (ie. reductionist methodology), that is incompatible with the way we actually interact with reality. We’ve grown so used to interacting with each other on a purely conceptual level, that we haven’t accurately developed our understanding of five-dimensional reality in order to adjust and align our conceptual systems for actual interactions.

Reality exist only as we perceive it, surely? — Roy Davies

Who’s we?

We all have different conceptions as to what consciousness is. I have defined it as a system of self organization. But yes microorganisms do react to painful stimuli, so I would assume the absence of pain would be pleasure. — Pop

How do you know if the stimuli is ‘painful’? Is it because it would be painful to you? Or is it assumed from the microorganism’s repellent reaction?

I'm curious about the nature of sentience. As I understand it, a sentient entity exhibits what I can recognise as sentience, based on the only model I can really know - myself. So, my heatpump can sense and control its environment (temperature) and appears to be trying to communicate with me through beeps and the remote control. I admit this is not much like me, but I can see some basic similarities. If I delve into its innards, it looks rather complex, so as far as I can tell, there could be something in there that is complex enough to harbour a 'mind'. What am I missing here? — Roy Davies

What you’re missing is the integration level of the system. If you remove the cover, it makes no difference to the system. No doubt there are a number of other elements of the heat pump that you could remove which would not alter the system in any way, or else would impair only one aspect of the system while the rest would continue as if nothing happened (the significance of that aspect to your interaction with the system notwithstanding). If you suddenly remove one of the sensors, for instance, the rest of the heat pump would continue as if the sensor was working. But if you suddenly lost your sight, then your whole system would respond, and eventually adjust. I wouldn’t need someone else to notice from my behaviour that I could no longer see...

Sentience is not contingent upon the capacity of a system to respond to its environment. It is, however, contingent upon an integrated, system-wide response. When you change or remove something in a sentient system, every aspect of the system responds according to its capacity/function in relation to the whole. In other words, it responds as a system, for the system.

Not sure if that’s really a technique, as such. How would you ‘make’ someone learn something? By employing persuasion and rhetoric?

The way I see it, the ultimate technique in persuasion and rhetoric is in eliciting both effort and attention in the other towards aligning conceptual structures. You can’t make someone else learn something if they don’t want to, or if it takes too much effort.

As Hitch would say, “Go ninety. Whatever you’re doing, just go ninety and let the other person come ten.”

In other words, meet them where they’re at.

The role of emotion has not been pinned down by science, and it is not a topic materialism can easily deal with. The way I see it, the biological system already understood emotion - why would it need a second emotional processor? I don't think it did, It needed a triangulation processor. Something to strip away the emotion from the information. A P.zombie can do all the things that a person can mentally, but it has no impetus to do them - it lacks the impetus that emotion provides as it has no Pain / Pleasure spectrum. Emotion seems to be the force providing impetus to consciousness. In science a bias is a systemic error, so there can be no advantage in possessing a systemic error in your computation. The best computation will be hard cold reason / logic , an emotional force can only hinder this, in my view. But this all takes time to integrate, so in the meantime I will look forward to your objections. — Pop

Post quantum era science can no longer afford to simply dismiss the systemic errors in its computations. Electromagnetism and gravity cannot be reconciled with quantum mechanics in relation to our predictions, because one computation treats the qualitative aspects of energy and matter as a purely quantitative value, and the other computation excludes it altogether. So, in my view, the biological system didn’t develop a second ‘emotional processor’ - it developed a more complex system to process differentiated value relations. As William James said: “‘Fear’ of getting wet is not the same fear as fear of a bear”.

As an idealist this is not such a big problem for me as ultimately, I believe, reality only exists in mind, so minds that rely on physical proof might be unreachable, but there are plenty left over. All I can hope for realistically is to plant a seed or two.

I will have to brush up on structural realism. — Pop

Try to keep an open mind when you do - such as it is. It’s a valid alternative to idealism, in my view. If you believe that reality exists only in mind, then why do so many different minds exist? And what is this ‘emotion information’ as a relational structure between minds? And how does emotion exist outside of mind? When we posit the existence of an external ‘force’, we imply an aspect of existence beyond what that force acts between. It would be ignorant to not then strive to relate to that ‘force’ as if it, too, were an aspect of existence, with properties and attributes, such that we might collaborate with it.

So, do you believe that the universe is conscious but not self aware - a process of self organization with a bias to resist zero point energy? creating order from chaos? It seems this is what consciousness is - the order from what otherwise would be chaos? It is a different order in everybody, and everything. — Pop

I believe that humanity is the self-aware aspect of the universe, that life is the conscious aspect, and that all other elements of the universe have dimensionally reduced capacities for awareness, connection and collaboration, on account of the attention and effort (energy) limitations of their integrated relational structures. We may appear to be ‘creating’ order in our mind, but this ‘order in chaos’ exists regardless: as a fundamental possibility. All we’re really doing is understanding it in order to collaborate with minimal prediction error (our source of suffering). And it only appears to be a different order for everybody and everything because we’re still developing a system to reliably distinguish between value and meaning - this is the impending paradigm shift. Beyond this horizon, the ‘zero point [potential]’ becomes not death but nihilism: the p-zombie state of existence.

Clothing provides us with protection from our
vulnerability, physically and psychologically, Independnt from our bodies and other people aesthetics, as well as the fragility of our emotions, as well as beyond heterosexuality and the binary of gender, this is central to rational philosophy. Philosophy, whether in favour of rational arguments or empirical cannot cast this aside without disregard for our fundamental humanity. — Jack Cummins

The aim is not to cast it aside, but to recognise it and account for it in our interaction with the world. If we would relate to an aspect of reality in exactly the same way without clothes, then clothing has no bearing on our understanding of reality.

I was referring to the issue at hand. Of course my theory exists within a larger theory. As a philosopher you would like to see it in this context, understandably, but even in its cut down version my web site stats tell me nobody has read the theory completely - average time spent being 3mins. :sad: — Pop

Unfortunately, your website does not lend itself to being studied at length. Breaking your theory up into bite-size chunks addressing particular questions or areas of inquiry would be my suggestion (from a strictly marketing/communication standpoint).

I wanted to ask you about a thread about six months ago, where you posted : "The learner is the universe itself, and the learned is the universe." Given we are talking about a situation in consciousness / mind, how did you know this?

I kind of agree with what you said, and suspect that this information is buried deep in DNA information or somewhere. If the fundamental bit of information is preserved in everything, so might be other information. I understand this is all highly speculative stuff, if you would rather not go into it. — Pop

Well, I don’t claim objective knowledge - I can only try to express what I currently understand from continually imagining, conceptualising, experiencing/evaluating and then reimagining and re-conceptualising inter-subjective relational structures of potential/value from six-dimensional possibility. It’s a process similar to the scientific method, and extends into it, but accounts for qualitative as well as quantitative information, and the indeterminacy (uncertainty/subjectivity) or dimensional relativity of all relational structure.

My own philosophy (highly speculative) suggests that universal existence is fundamentally driven to interrelate - to increase awareness, connection and collaboration - but is perpetually haunted by the simplest of information: the possibility (and sublime effortlessness) of non-existence. The 0 of the absolute binary. It is this binary that is eventually interpreted by life forms (four-dimensional events) as ‘live and do not die’. A similar binary interpretation forms the perceived limitations of universal existence at every dimensional level of relational structure, from one-dimensional sub-atomic particles to five-dimensional conceptual systems.

So, the ‘bias’ you’re referring to is fairly obvious at this fundamental level: to exist, or to not exist, that is the question. You may call it ‘emotion information’, but you have to recognise the anthropocentric lens this interpretation has, and account for it in relation to physics (which struggles to reconcile the quantitative/qualitative bias - eg. QM/gravity). The less energy or information a system has or is aware of, connected to or collaborating with, the stronger the tendency to fall back towards a lower dimensional level of relational structure, or ‘consciousness’: to ignore, isolate or exclude information that requires more effort and attention to integrate than appears to be available. But, like the electron in its orbit, it takes a surge of effort to traverse either the upper or lower limit. So the system tends to ‘bounce’ or oscillate between its determined limits, for the most part. Until a ‘chance’ interaction enables a collaboration or exclusion strong enough (qualitative-attention and quantitative-effort) to tip the bias - like the behaviour of a magnetic ‘force’.

As a monist and structural realist, my aim has been to understand a relational structure of existence that is consistent and rational (without reliance on, or rejection of, logic or ‘reason’) from ‘the All’ to ‘the Big Bang’ and back again. In my view, our biggest hurdles in understanding have all derived from an either-or approach to the quantitative/qualitative aspect of information, including the singularity, the Big Bang, abiogenesis, the advent of multi-cellular organisms, consciousness, culture and even the notion of ‘love’. Barrett’s theory goes some way towards accounting for our system bias, in my view - whether or not she would agree with me. But I’m happy to put a pin in that disagreement, although I will probably continue to refer to her model.

In this context, that's kind of sad. To become another person for a day, might yield interesting results. Think of it this way, does having a life altering experience change one's approach, perspective, or philosophy about a given subject matter? — 3017amen

Sure - but it’s only a life altering experience because it changes one’s approach, etc.

Exception taken as noted: it's called philosophical pragmatism. — 3017amen

What you wrote in response to my post was not. I presented my issues with your theory as a way to re-examine the experience, and in response you attacked my theoretical approach, instead of addressing the issues. I’m not offended, I’d just prefer you to address the issues.

Your theory put into practice once is not the same as Maslow’s years of practice put into theory - it seems to me a reverse of his methodology. Your experience was useful to you in that it achieved its set purpose: to subjectively validate your particular theory in your experience. While I applaud your courage, personally relate to the ‘facts’ of your experience and find them pertinent to the discussion, for me it does not follow that your theory is correct.

Philosophical theory put into practice is living and interacting with the world - I’m doing that just fine, thanks, but I certainly don’t consider any ‘facts’ of my experiences to be proof of my theories.
— Possibility

Should I interpret that as the repudiation of empiricism? — 3017amen

That’s not how I intended it - perhaps I was a little too sweeping in my generalisation, or perhaps you’re reading more into it than is there (incidentally, I believe the validity of empiricism is dependent on what one understands to be ‘experience’, but let’s not stray even further off topic). The ‘facts’ of a single experience cannot ‘prove’ a metaphysical theory - they can be interpreted to support it as one of many possible instances. Your limited introspection is the main source of empirical support for your theory, which is interpreted by you through the lens of your philosophical pragmatism before you articulate it here, so of course it supports your theory as described. Frankly, I’d be surprised if it didn’t - it would demonstrate a cognitive dissonance on your part. These ‘facts’ cannot be presented by you independent of your subjective lens. I can relate to them from my position, but my interpretation will be different. Likewise, I can describe my personal experiences (and I have done in previous discussions with you) to support my own theory, but it doesn’t follow that I have proven my theory with the ‘facts’ of my experience, because you will invariably interpret them in a way that counters mine and supports your own. So, just how useful is personal experience in such a discussion, except to shore up our own positions in our minds? I don’t realistically expect you to take up the challenge I suggested, because we both appear to be on the defensive here, which is getting us nowhere. I think it was William James who said something like: the harder we try to avoid error, the more likely it is that we will miss out on truth...

Quantifying or qualifying life makes no difference to death - regardless of how long or well one lives, we ALL die.

It certainly appears to those of us still living that a longer or a higher quality of life is somehow better than a short, painful one. But in death, it makes no difference either way.

You can argue all you want from the perspective of life, but death really does have the same (infinite) quality for everyone who is dead.

Yes, I will have to rephrase this. I was really referring to a low energy state - the boundary of life and death. Classical mechanics has no such theory. Ground state is inadequate. Zero point energy is good, but then people focus on quantum rather then classical matter - which is understandable.

The way I see it, your death pain / pleasure life spectrum is just a small part of this
— Possibility
Yes - I am only interested in the matter that jumps to life. — Pop

With all due respect, this is the main problem I have with your theory - by excluding what transcends this ‘boundary of life and death’, your understanding of reality is limited. It’s similar to the geocentric model prior to Copernicus - the planets each had their own complicated movement pattern, and there was no way to predict this pattern until it was observed in action. When we recognise, firstly, that our position itself is variable, and secondly, that our variable perspective is not the central but rather one of many possible perspectives, we can account for this relativity in our understanding, enabling us to determine a less complicated and more accurately predictable model by imagining a transcendent perspective - a critical point of reference outside of the model.

Your theory has no such reference point. The extent to which one’s description of the event horizon deviates from your own is not a challenge to your theory, because in most cases there’s enough wiggle room in the meaning of words (ie. apologetics) so that their view appears to align with your model. This method historically guards against any paradigm shift that may render the existing model obsolete.

The problem that reason has with emotion is that it can not describe it. If the interoceptive network processes emotions then emotions would be describable by reason - they can not be. they must be experienced and their effect felt. - body wide. The other problem is that the end construction must be self interested - ie pleasurable. The interoceptive network is primed to construct self interested constructions because in the end they resolve to a pain / pleasure spectrum - in my view. — Pop

The interoceptive network does not require emotion to be describable by reason in order to make use of it. Rather, it requires both reason and bodily feeling to be describable by affect. Reason - having no interaction with reality outside of the brain - recognises bodily feeling only as ‘emotion’ concepts, which it translates from affect through the interoceptive network. This is why we think of emotions as inherent in our physical existence, even though they’re constructed by the interoceptive network from internal sensory information into predictive patterns of affect, and available to the brain as pre-qualified, value-laden concepts.

What gets forgotten here is that it is cellular complexity that has created all this stuff. It doesn't seem to use a reasonable means of self organistion - it had no brain. Through evolution it created a brain to facilitate the triangulation and mechanics necessary for hearing and eyesight, etc and subsequently reason grew. But the whole extracellular / brain system has to slot into the underlying biological system somehow, and inform the underlying system in terms it understands. What I postulate creates a model that dose this. — Pop

Not quite - cellular complexity allowed for external relational structures, but it was cellular diversity and the capacity for complex cells to transcend their cell boundaries and de-centre certain interactions that created organisms with a brain. We have this idea that individual survival, dominance and proliferation is at the heart of all living systems, but the impetus of every evolutionary leap (including abiogenesis, multi-cellular life, community and self-reflection) is closer to self-sacrifice for a broader perspective, increasing awareness, connection and collaboration. Your description here sounds like the extracellular/brain system formed separately from the biological system. But that cannot have been the case. The brain system must have developed as required by the biological system in relation to its environment. The classical perception of a primitive, underlying ‘emotional brain’ with which the ‘logical brain’ wrestles for control is outdated.

From the perspectives that you have characterized, the hard problem of consciousness can not be solved. For this reason the paradigm is likely false. — Pop

That’s a rapid jump to a dismissive conclusion. There’s much more to my position than what I’ve outlined here in response to your theory. The hard problem of consciousness assumes that inanimate matter is unable to ‘experience’. But reason assumes that ‘experience’ is only what we cannot quantify, what’s left once it has reduced everything else to logical objects in space and time. Experience is not an ‘extra’ dimension - in my view it encompasses what reason understands conceptually as ‘objects’, ‘space’ and ‘time’ - PLUS whatever reason isolates as qualia/phenomena or dismisses as feeling/imagination.

Carlo Rovelli’s book ‘The Order of Time’ de-centres our classical conceptual notion of reality as objects in space and time by dismantling ‘time’ as we understand it, and presents a four-dimensional, quantum conceptual reality consisting of interrelated events, not ‘objects’. It’s worth a read. His process is backed by quantum field theory as an external position, but I can see its further application in positing a five-dimensional reality consisting of interrelated potentiality - by de-centring conceptual reality and dismantling what we refer to in our limited perspective as ‘experience’.

The beauty of my theory is that it is easily provable, or negated by the end user. In the OP is an instance of consciousness. I am postulating this is the state of consciousness roughly at all times - sometimes the information source is memory rather then external. There are many other things going on of course, and the mechanics of it are exceedingly complex, and as you point out, but essentially this is what is happening. The related qualia articulation, I take to be a sort of logic. I think everybody has the ability to introspect and reflect on this. Thus prove or negate the theory.

I don't expect many converts of course - it is a monism, and we are talking consciousness. But it is a viable contender, currently rough around the edges, but difficult to reasonably dismiss. Very easy to dismiss off hand as most people will, and as it predicts. — Pop

I dispute this, for reasons I believe I’ve explained to some extent above. What you may think is a process of either proving or negating the theory - based on introspection - is merely a subjective evaluation in relation to the structure of their own conceptual reality. As you go on to describe, you will either have ‘converts’, or it will be ‘dismissed off hand’.

I tend towards monism myself, and I can relate to your line of thinking. But I can also see some limitations, which you seem resigned to, or perhaps a little too dependent on, I’m not sure. Your theory is a credible, if anthropocentric, perspective of what’s happening, and aims to legitimise the significance of qualitative information, which I wholeheartedly support. But at this stage I find the theory itself insufficient as an explanation of consciousness, because it cannot posit a perspective outside of consciousness itself.

Inanimate matter falls to zero point energy, whilst life resists zero point energy. In death we fall to zero point energy. This resistance to zero point energy is uniform amongst living creatures. Given genetic information leads to life, it means DNA contains this common bit of information. The information is to resist zero point energy - live and do not die. This seems to be the first bit of information in DNA. Compare this to the Death Pain / pleasure Life spectrum. — Pop

If you are saying here that all inanimate matter falls to zero point energy without resistance, then we may struggle to reach an understanding. In my view, all matter seeks to resist zero point energy to a certain extent - this impetus of possibility doesn’t just drive the evolution of life, but the evolution of matter itself. The way I see it, your death pain / pleasure life spectrum is just a small part of this - much like the visible colour spectrum is just a small part of the range of electromagnetic waves. Placing it in this broader context enables us to recognise what we refer to as ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain’ for what they are objectively, in much the same way as we now recognise ‘white light’ and ‘blackness’ for what they are: the limitations of our sensory awareness.

There is no way to evaluate two unrelated experiences other then as values on a common measure for qualitative information. Qualitative information is essential for reality orientation. Each experience is self contained, experienced only once, so unique and unrelated, To ascertain its quality we must compare it to other experiences, and the only way to do this is by assigning the experience a value on the PPS. Once the experience has a value, we can compare the experience to other experiences. From this process we orient ourselves in reality, via an emotional gradient.
A PPS value grounds us in reality by telling us whether the experience is ordinary or extraordinary, painful or pleasurable. Reason alone cannot do this – every moment would require a theory of the moment to resolve - can you imagine comparing every moment to every other moment in life reasonably? I don't think we would have the computational power to do so even once, let alone all the time. — Pop

I agree that each experience is unique, but NOT that each is unrelated nor self-contained. It is only possible to isolate an experience as a conceptual structure in the mind. Each experience also consists of far more information than the system can process in the moment. The interoceptive network has developed to streamline this with conceptual systems constructed from past experiences based on affect - an ongoing prediction of valence (positive/negative) and arousal (high/low) in the overall system - which informs a predictive energy distribution of attention and effort across the body in relation to its environment, as an ongoing four-dimensional event. Affect directs our focus in an experience towards relevant information in each moment - only ‘the difference that makes a difference’ to our conceptual systems or predictions. Similar to sampling in computing, this is the most efficient ongoing streaming of such detailed information.

also : Having faith in this construction, I realized that the qualia of a moment could not be stored in memory. We cannot recall an emotion any more then we can describe an emotion. We must recall the memory that gave rise to the emotion, and experience the emotion on the PPS afresh every time. Which is interesting - as this way the memory and associated emotion would likely be different, as present circumstances add their qualia to the moment of recollection. When I introspect and recall my first heartbreak and this time smile, this would seem to be true.

This view prejudiced my willingness to explore what Lisa Fieldman Barrett had to offer as she speaks of emotions being made by brains. I will check her out, but if you agree with the above statements, then you will understand that brains are not handling emotions - the emotions are being felt body wide via values resolved to a death / pain / pleasure / life spectrum - an emotional gradient. — Pop

Barrett’s theory of emotions might surprise you. The body feels not emotion but affect - the brain processes this affect through the conceptual systems as an emotion concept by recognising interoceptive patterns from previous experiences: not just when my body was in this situation, but in this affected state. The brain doesn’t store the memory in one location and the emotion in another - rather the memory experience is stored as a pattern of affect - this is the ‘language’ of the system.

With regards to recalling your first heartbreak with a smile, this demonstrates the complexity of conceptual systems, and the effect of adjustments on the entire structure. It’s not just present circumstances that have altered your recollection - it’s likely also the relativity of that particular pattern of affect to subsequent experiences. In relation to both current and previous experience - summarised efficiently in the interoceptive network - this past heartbreak has a comparatively positive valence to it.

Of course the PPS may well reside in the brain, but note how there are two languages of consciousness - Reason and emotion, they are not miscible. They are not languages that belong to one system. A computer could not work with two different languages unless there was something in between to translate the languages
Why would one system have two languages? It doesn't make sense. It makes sense that there are two systems each with their own language. A brain based extracellular consciousness using reason and a biological intracellular consciousness using emotion. With a PPS translating in between - this makes sense, to me at least. :lol: — Pop

There are not two languages - the language of consciousness is affect: valence-attention and arousal-effort. The interoceptive network converts sensory input into valence/arousal, which aligns easily with an output of attention/effort. All experiential information is also stored and retrieved in this format. The complication is that reason employs a quantitative logic and seeks certainty through reductionist methods that ignore, isolate or exclude qualitative information.

My greatest frustration is articulating the ideas, and finding a balance between sufficient explanation and wide accessibility, which I don't feel i've achieved. I have condensed 90 pages into 9, and lost a lot of detail in the process which must make it sound a little glib and simple. — Pop

I can relate to your frustration - I think you explain your ideas clearly, though, and while I can see that it’s condensed, I’m not left wondering what you’re on about.

I would question the accuracy of implying ‘pleasure’ and ‘pain’ as two extreme points of a spectrum, though. There’s a certain ambiguity to this description that enables a reduction of its complex relation to a binary structure. Value spectrums such as affect (pleasure/pain), morality (right/wrong) or light (black/white) described in these binaries create false dichotomies that suggest little more than a linear complexity to the relation. The variable position of the subject-object relation across multiple dimensions is ignored, and we assume that everyone is in the same ‘super-positioned’ state of mind. We’re not, of course - but we don’t yet have a sufficiently accurate relational structure that enables us to align our positions according to these value/potential spectrums, like we do with global time-zones (within a broader four-dimensional spacetime). The electromagnetic waves spectrum, for example, is much more complex, and broader, than our limited human perspective of ‘light’ suggests. My suspicion is that our understanding of both affect and morality may go a similar way.

I will take another look at Lisa Fieldman Barrett, as you suggest, and see if I can interpret her understanding from my model. Thanks again. — Pop

See if you can challenge your model with her understanding. Your confidence in this ‘pleasure-pain spectrum’ might be shaken - just be open to the spectrum being more complex and broader than the binary suggests...

Informative pain is like the pain of a broken leg which tells you tissue is damaged and forces you to take weight off the injured limb. In a way this kind of pain makes us want to turn it into pleasure. Reducing pain can cause pleasure like the sense of relief I feel when nausea goes a way. — Andrew4Handel

Only because the limited allocation of effort and attention in the body in that moment is more efficiently and effectively applied to repairing the damaged tissue. Not because ‘pain’ itself is telling you this or forcing you to do anything - that’s just how we interpret it, because it’s simpler (ie. more efficient) to conceptualise it as a binary relational structure: pleasure vs pain. But it’s more complex than that. Pain information is a part of our interoceptive network, and its relation to pleasure is neither binary nor linear. It is sensory feedback that enables us to evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of our applied predictions.

But pleasure only seems to inform us that we are in a state of pleasure as opposed to telling us if our body is in good health or that we are taking the right course of action. In this sense pleasure seems hedonistic being pursued simply for itself not its instrumentality. — Andrew4Handel

Pleasure is a prediction that the overall experience is informative in a highly efficient way - that our limited allocation of effort and attention in the next moment would yield more than its fair share of potential information: including pain information. The more potential information we have available in the system, the greater our capacity. So pleasure is an overall prediction of value/potential in the system - including the potential for pain. Pursuing pleasure simply for itself can result in ignoring the temporal or spatial aspects of experience that distinguish between immediate, localised pleasure/pain and long-term, overall capacity/limitations.

Avoiding the potential for pain at all cost can result in ignorance of the long-term or overall benefits of increasing awareness, connection and collaboration with the limits of our capacity. We learn that we can tolerate a certain amount of pain in an experience that we understand to be pleasurable overall. We can also endure pain for a time or repetitively in an activity that we understand to increase our potential/value long term in other areas. Understanding the complexity of this relation between pleasure and pain - particularly the dimensional shift in information between potential/predictive and actual/sensory - is a key to understanding consciousness itself.

I think there are facts such as 2 + 2 = 4 that do not rely on our emotional response to them. — Andrew4Handel

Mathematical ‘facts’ rely on our emotional response to them in application. ‘Two friends plus two friends equals four friends’ has a different qualitative value than ‘two strangers plus two strangers equals four strangers’, for instance.

I agree that pleasure is motivational but it seems not to value facts.

That said I think pain is good indicator of something being wrong (whatever wrong means) I have focused on pleasure here but ironically pain seems to be a more powerful informant. — Andrew4Handel

Pain is an indicator that more effort/attention is required than predicted. How ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ this is depends on a perceived capacity to make the necessary adjustments.

I like where you’re going with emotion-information, but I think your reliance on an essentialist view of emotions in relation to reason could be oversimplifying your process in some areas, and over-complicating it in others.

I would recommend reading some of Lisa Feldman Barrett’s work on emotions in neuroscience/psychology. Her book ‘How Emotions Are Made’ is written as pop-science, but she’s also published academically - her theory of constructed emotion and the ‘concept cascade’, as well as her extensive meta-research from a neuroscience/psychology perspective may be informative for your own work here.

It’s not about the process of forming or acquiring the javelin that gives it value. Neither is the potential of the javelin necessarily a property of its ‘legitimate’ owner/creator. The javelin’s value and potential exists as a relation to one who perceives it, but is only manifest in the interaction.

To the young man who threw the javelin 50 metres, there is resentment for the javelin’s untapped potential, going to waste under glass, and the price he cannot afford to access it. And resentment for the javelin’s owner, who perceived the 50m potential demonstrated as humiliation, threatening his ‘legitimate’ relation to the javelin’s value as property. For me, there’s a certain sadness on behalf of the original creator of the javelin: whether or not he perceived the javelin’s potential as 15 or 50 metres, it was likely created more to be thrown than displayed.

There’s no reason why the young man can’t eventually fashion his own javelin to throw further than 50 metres - especially if he’s willing to learn from anyone. But I understand his frustration at the cost of acquiring pre-existing, proven knowledge and expertise.

Sometimes the word "valuable" seems synonymous with creating pleasure

For example I value music because it gives me pleasure and I value charity because it increases well being.

But does pleasure have a value in itself?

I am using this definition of value "the regard that something is held to deserve; the importance, worth, or usefulness of something." A situation I am thinking of is enjoying food.

Is the mere fact that you are in a state of pleasure valuable outside of any other context. Or is pleasure only of value when it is attached to a meaningful or ethical outcome. Definitions are tricky here because valuable, meaningful, pleasurable and ethical may have multiple meaning but also may rely on each other for part of their meaning.

Is there a value higher than pleasure? Does pleasure equal hedonism and act more like an insatiable addiction? — Andrew4Handel

Your ‘state of pleasure’ is not a fact - it’s a subjective relation.

Value in its simplest form has three categories: positive, negative and infinite. But it also has both qualitative and quantitative aspects. ‘Pleasure’ is a positive qualitative relation, and is itself variable according to arousal: how much you are enjoying the food, for example. You cannot accurately measure or define pleasure without also referring to a level of arousal in the subject. Likewise, an application of effort or arousal must be qualified in the subject as a relation of valence (attraction/repulsion).

It is the phrase ‘in the subject’ that is often forgotten. From our subjective position, we can reduce qualitative values of an ‘object’ to a relational binary, and we can reduce any quantitative value to an ‘objective’ numerical position. But in order to understand their objective relation to each other, we need to accurately position the subject in a six-dimensional structure of meaning, value, time, space, direction and distance. Otherwise, any ‘definition’ must be understood as relative to the position of the subject.

So ‘pleasure’ in itself refers to an idea: the imagined quantitative limitation of a positive qualitative relation. It’s a five-dimensional horizon, so to speak. Beyond it is pure relation: what meaning exists regardless of perceived value.

What you refer to as ‘space’ in this overarching sense I see as the relational structure of reality itself.
— Possibility

It's relational in regards to the positioning of things. Things do exist, but are so small in comparison to space I wonder if it makes sense to define space by such tiny details? Would that be like defining me by the nature of one of my toe nails? — Hippyhead

Nothing to do with ‘things’ - they’re heuristic devices only. How should you be defined? By all the cells in your body? By all your bodily functions? Your actions? Thoughts? Words? Or should you be defined by what you’re capable of? By what you could be at your best? Or by the relative ‘space’ between the worst and best of your potential?

Its existence transcends any notion of value or meaning.
— Possibility

Sounds good, yes, value and meaning exist only in our tiny little minds. — Hippyhead

That’s not what I said. Value and meaning exist as much beyond my mind as within it. I do not have a monopoly on either.

It does seem we relate to space as if it were just another thing, and then we calculate it's value based on it's relationship to our needs, just as we do with all things. Predator=bad, banana=good, space=?? We could now proceed to examine and debate the value of space, but if space is not a thing after all, what happens to our evaluation? — Hippyhead

Exactly. The challenge is to venture beyond value. What has meaning without value? If it has no relationship to our own needs, then what is it to us? For example, if someone important to me is passionate about something that I have zero interest in at all, then what is my relationship to that?

One answer I'm floating for examination is...

1) The appropriate way to relate to real world things is with mental things, ie. philosophy.

2) The appropriate way to relate to real world zero is with mental zero, ie. meditation.

3) The vast majority of reality is not things, but zero.

So if we accept the premise that our philosophy should align itself with the real world, our philosophy would be mostly silence, with a few bright stars sprinkled here and there throughout. — Hippyhead

This makes sense to me only metaphorically. We try to align our philosophy with what we think the real world is, but we fail to recognise that we are the missing connection.

What do you believe ‘real world zero’ refers to? Philosophy and metaphysics in my view do not equate to ‘mental’ as distinct from ‘real world’. What we believe to be ‘real world things’ are just as much ‘mental things’ - five and six-dimensional relations - that we’re able to render as four, three, two and one-dimensional information for sharing. The way I understand metaphysical dualism, zero refers to the relative position of ‘I’ between ‘mental’ and ‘real world’ things.

Objectively speaking, therefore, reality is not so much mostly zero as all zero - referring to its infinite quality. This philosophy can be equally understood as silence and/or noise, from which one derives what meaning one can, and from there manifests and shares what information one has.

What you refer to as ‘space’ in this overarching sense I see as the relational structure of reality itself. Its existence transcends any notion of value or meaning. We don’t have to make it into a means to some end, but this is how we value it.

The question is, how do we relate to space in itself without assigning value? How do we relate to zero?

When you stop typing and just sit quietly, is that ‘space’ really empty, though? Or is it a meeting point for ideas, thoughts, experiences, etc? Is it a gap in our understanding? Is it what we cannot subsume under concepts? The idea isn’t necessarily to try and empty the space by force, but to recognise what possibilities exist within it, despite anything ‘being’ there. To understand that a void has as much possibility of meaning as a ‘thing’.

A principle that may earn wide agreement is the notion that one's philosophy should be built upon observation of reality. Reality at every scale appears to be overwhelmingly dominated by the phenomena of space. And thus it seems reasonable to ask whether one's philosophy should be dominated by mental space, an absence of ideas. If our philosophy is to mirror reality, it seems it would be mostly silence, punctuated sparsely by a collection of bright stars.

It seems evolution has trained our minds to focus on things. Watch out for the predator, and grab the banana, that's how we survived this far. While our continued existence would seem to prove the usefulness of such a thing-centric focus, our existence is immeasurably small, a very local matter, in comparison to reality as a whole.

One wonders whether a focus on things is a form of bias which obstructs our view of reality. As example, astronomers seem to spend most of their time focused on things in space, instead of space itself. To the degree this is true, they are focused on tiny details instead of the big picture, a cosmos dominated by space.

Philosophy typically involves the construction of sophisticated mental concepts, an attempt to use logic to build a tower to the truth. What if all this conceptual construction is travel in the wrong direction? As our minds become clogged with mental "things" do they increasingly fail to mirror reality, which is dominated by space, emptiness, a void?

We philosopher types like to weave all kinds of theories about the nature of reality. Given our passion for that enterprise, is it useful to observe how relatively little interest we seem to have in the phenomena of space? Are we like the astronomers who get so wrapped up in the tiny details that we miss the big picture? — Hippyhead

Interesting perspective. When I was studying art in school, we were taught to focus as much on the negative space between objects as the objects themselves. A trained artist’s eye looks not at the ‘object’ but the lines, shapes and space as they appear to the artist in relation to each other. The accuracy of their rendering is dependent upon the artist’s understanding of the relational structure, rather than the ‘things’ themselves.

Are you looking for temporary or permanent transfer? A porter provides a temporary service - the burden is returned to you at the completion of their service, and was never really theirs. Is it a ‘whipping boy’ you’re looking for?

People transfer their psychological burdens to others all the time - often to those they purport to love, or at least need. They do it with words, but they can also do it with non-verbal communication, with a look or expression, or with action. Some believe they have ‘paid’ for the service, whether with money or with their affection, with their love.

I voted ‘other’.

While I understand the notion of ‘information’, it is the question of what information is without the existence of mind that is problematic.

In my view it is relation that is fundamental.

I just find your descriptions to be objectionable like you say this;

Can we be human without clothing?
— Possibility

but who is that even in response to? — Judaka

I’m not sure why this needs to be in response to anyone.

I suppose it does seem like I’m asking pointless questions. It’s not that people can’t answer why clothing is necessary (it seems that’s the easy part) - instead they struggle to recognise that it really isn’t: they’re not willing to unravel this learned compliance and examine the fear of pain, humiliation and lack at the heart of it. Why bother? We constructed law and society to shield us from this reality - I get that - but the reality exists despite our attempts to hide from it. I don’t agree that it’s a history question, mainly because I’m not after the logical ‘why’ that justifies the law, but our relation to the reality that the law conceals - the one we explain away.

I guess I’m asking for more self-reflective honesty than most people can manage, or believe they need to. It can venture into psychology, too - which many seem to think takes them out of the philosophical domain, for some reason.

Still, I appreciate you commenting.

I have never encountered an example of someone thinking clothing is necessary. I also have not really encountered anyone saying that the issue of whether clothing should be mandatory is complex. Most people would just say "ew" and that's done and dusted. Sure, some factors like religion make it complex but religion does that with many concepts. Why do you think this is a complex issue and why should people even care? — Judaka

It was in response to the statement made in another thread - to be honest, I didn’t expect this much discussion on it. I thought it was well understood, and that the statement was an attempt to shut down part of a more complex discussion on the necessity of the ‘physical object’ in human experience.

We often take for granted or assume certain limitations or essentials in the human experience at an interpersonal level. That ‘nakedness is bad’ is one of these automatic responses even though, in thoughtful discussion, we can acknowledge the narrowness of this position.

What intrigued me here, though, was how many responded initially by justifying it as a limitation, and then took some discussion before admitting for the record that it isn’t really necessary. The question isn’t ‘whether clothing should be mandatory’, but whether it is either essential or necessary to human experience, existence or survival as a whole. Can we be human without clothing? If it isn’t necessary, then what is it about nakedness that threatens our humanity, such that we are so hesitant to admit this? The answer lies as much in what humans are capable of, as in our vulnerability as a result.

Moral judgement on clothing/nakedness presents an horizon, beyond which some would rather not risk ourselves. We won’t learn much from the horizon (except to face our own fear and fascination), but I don’t believe it’s necessary to actually cross this horizon ourselves. It is our capacity to increase awareness, connection and collaboration with others - genuinely and beyond moral judgement - that enables us to better understand the complex, inter-subjective relational structure between our various limitations and the diversity of what we’re capable of.

seems to me, though, that your preference is instead to regress your awareness, to retreat into ignorance and deny this vulnerability, and in doing so to retrieve a false sense of ‘innocence’. I’m thinking you might have missed the point of it being a thought experiment...
— Possibility

Actually I think it is you who is denying your vulnerability. And that was evidenced by your foregoing arguments concerning denial over the objectification of women.

Further, and don't take this the wrong way, this is another reason why I respect Maslow (and Pragmatist William James), as he was a psychologist turned philosopher; not just all theory and philosophical jibberish. He put practice into theory. Just like my theory was put into practice by visiting the nudist colony. Whereas you my dear, are all theory.

I would recommend either applying for the reality show 'naked and afraid' or simply visiting a nudist colony then come back with relevant facts from your experience. — 3017amen

With all due respect, none of this constitutes an argument. You’re taking aim at my speculative approach because I challenged yours. I’m not expecting you to agree with me, but I did expect more from you than this.

A visit to a nudist colony neither constitutes proof of your theory, nor a thought experiment in itself. It’s a particular subjective account. Useful, but only if you’re willing to be honest about your experience and accept the challenge of an alternate interpretation.

Consider the possibility that your ‘thought’ process consisted only of subsuming ‘feelings’ under your theory. Now, consider the possibility that your theory might be inaccurate, and allow your full experience to challenge this original thinking, instead of submitting to it. In other words, engage all three faculties of imagination, understanding and judgement in the process of critiquing your own theory in relation to your experience - that’s what they’re for.

FWIW, I don’t pretend to engage in anything more than speculative philosophy. All I have is inter-subjective experience and my faculties, in the end. Philosophical theory put into practice is living and interacting with the world - I’m doing that just fine, thanks, but I certainly don’t consider any ‘facts’ of my experiences to be proof of my theories.

You are missing my point, which is to refute what you said when you said "it's about recognising we can change it", I am addressing desire only to address reality. What else is your point? That views on nakedness aren't part of the laws of the world but just based on culture and preference? Why would that even need to be said? — Judaka

To refute claims to universality, to inherence, in the statement ‘clothing is necessary’. To critique the moral judgement surrounding ‘nakedness’ as a concept. Reality is not necessarily about what we do, but what we are capable of.

Do you mean the nakedness of the nudist or forcing someone to be naked who wanted clothing? If it is the former, then that's how it is already, be naked in your house nobody cares and if it is the latter then I disagree and I never imagined the law would be "you must be naked in public". — Judaka

I also disagree with the latter. But these are not the only ways to experience nakedness. My point is that the human experience of nakedness is more complex than morality or the law implies. When we recognise that clothing is not necessary, then this complexity becomes obvious, and we are faced with the reality of our human potential, for better or worse.

If what you say is true then, as I said, morality is, well, man-made in the sense it's just one of those systems of rules we build to make living easier. By that logic slavery or murder or rape aren't actually immoral - they're just agreed upon to fall in the category of bad deeds. Yet, moral systems, all of them, are based on a happiness/suffering paradigm, and we know for certain slavery, murder, and rape, all, induce suffering in the victims and their loved ones. In other words, morality is objective to the extent it's based on a hedonistic metric abd being so must count as a discovered item. — TheMadFool

Moral systems are man-made in the same sense that the laws of physics are man-made. They are constructed conceptual systems to make living understandable from our perspective. The main difference is that morality is still bound by human interoception of affect, because we struggle to imagine a qualitative value system in which this happiness/suffering paradigm is irrelevant. So our moral systems are applicable within a human interactive context, but beyond this they can say nothing accurate or objective about our relation to existence.

The Copernican Revolution was more than rejecting the assumption that the Earth is motionless - it led to rejecting the assumption that our perspective of the physical universe is a necessarily central orientation. Kant’s own attempt at a similar paradigm shift was hampered by his essentialist perspective of human reason. Without Darwin’s Evolution of the Species, he still assumed that our human perspective of the unfolding, temporal universe was a necessarily central orientation - and his metaphysics reflected this. To complete Kant’s Copernican Turn, we must first complete Darwin’s, and then de-centralise human reasoning itself. Only then can we re-examine an objective critique of moral systems.

It does not follow from this that slavery, murder or rape aren’t immoral - only that there’s more to human experience than what we can conceptualise according to morality. Regardless of whether nakedness is conceptualised as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, our relation to the experience is more complex, and our capacity for nakedness transcends the moral concept itself. My argument is simply to recognise that morality is not the ‘event horizon’ of human experience that we make it out to be. Our capacity to imagine a non-conceptual or disinterested experience of nakedness (for instance) allows for ‘free play’ between the faculties of understanding and judgement.

But disinterest is not denial. We are vulnerable - more than we’d like to admit. However, this appearance of vulnerability we experience is also inclusive of potential and possible harm, and the forms in which they appear are further away from us in reality than they seem.

Consider moral systems as analogous to the geocentric model that acts as an horizon: bringing order and sense to an unknowable reality based on observations from a fixed, central orientation. The cosmos appears as a container, and the stars line its walls, for all we knew. Two steps must occur for the paradigm shift: first, imagine that this supposedly fixed position is actually in motion itself (this is what Kant was aiming for); second, imagine that this supposedly central orientation is merely a particular position - one of, rather than singular or universal.

The result is a recognition that this aspect of reality is not as unknowable as we once thought. What was once the 3D horizon (our observation/measurement of space) becomes a particular variable perspective in a container with a broader 4D horizon (our empirical knowledge of the unfolding universe), which is itself a particular variable perspective in another container with an even broader 5D horizon (our conceptual reality, or our inter-subjective understanding of the potential universe). Dare we take this further? If we can engage imagination to understand the most remote potential of the universe, what is stopping us from understanding the scope of human potentiality, without necessarily going there? In other words, what can we learn about ourselves and our capacity - beyond this horizon of moral judgement - from the shared experiences of those who perceive (or are confronted with) this human potential for nakedness; even for slavery, murder or rape?

So when I ask “Is clothing necessary?” the challenge is not to answer with reasons why we need it, but to imagine who we are beyond it...

I think you're confusing learning morality with knowledge of morality- the difference between the two being that the former is dynamic - morphs over time - and that the latter is static - unalterable. The learning process is characterized by changes, big and small, results of new understanding and this appears to us as if we're building a moral edifice from scratch, so much so that it might even seem that we're inventing morality as we go along. This isn't true.

First understand that morality, if it has a rationale, should resemble an axiomatic system with a few basic postulates that underpin a body of do's and don't's of a moral nature. Morality sits there, complete and whole, in, what some might even say, the Platonic world of forms, perfect in every way, waiting to be discovered.

Were this not true, morality would be a subjective affair - people would invent rules and issue injunctions of any kind, their whims and fancies ruling the roost. This is clearly not how people view morality - they see it as consisting of truths based on some rational foundation i.e. people think of morality as objective. — TheMadFool

I’m not confused - this is where we disagree. Don’t get me wrong - I do agree that any supposedly moral system should aim to be axiomatic, eternally viable and perfectly complete. But I disagree that morality refers to a pre-existing body of ‘knowledge’ waiting to be discovered. Rather, it’s an inter-subjective value system we are in the process of constructing and refining from our collective human experience of the unfolding universe. Over the centuries and millennia it has been re-defined by changes, big and small, results of new understanding, etc - and if it were truly ‘objective’ then it wouldn’t necessarily exist. Because any system of relating to the world objectively would not advocate exclusion, isolation or ignorance on the grounds of value.

But the canary is there precisely because we accept our vulnerability. — TheMadFool

No, we project this perception of vulnerability onto the canary, and then save ourselves when it dies - no consideration for the bird, no responsibility for its death. That’s not accepting our vulnerability at all.