↪Gnomon
We have a disagreement here on which are the best options for an analogy: you think it's the organisation of a business I think it's a matrix where the conscious part is imprisoned in the matrix and dosn't even understand what the matrix does or that there is one. — FalseIdentity

I apologize for reminding you that The Matrix movie, like Hoffman's thesis, was also based on a computer metaphor. But perhaps, it seemed more realistic, because the fake-reality program's sub-routines had human faces, instead of abstract icons. Anyway, you are welcome to whatever "analogy" has personal meaning for you. I happen to prefer smiley-face icons, instead of evil icons. :smile: :naughty:

Essentially I'm now faced with a choice whether pursue path of learning in that direction that may ultimately lead me nowhere — DenverMan

Before I retired, I was interested in Science and Philosophy, but my time was mostly wasted in the rat-race of making a living. Now that "living" is behind me, and I am merely waiting for rigor mortis to set-in, I am free to work for free. And the only practical product of my valuable time is increased confidence that I have a reasonable worldview. That, and 50cents five ten dollars will buy you a cup of nutritious cappuccino. :joke:

I do not have a monopoly on how one arrives at that which I know-but-cannot-articulate. . . .my understanding of why a person who knows might appear sanctimonious to those who don't, only arose when I see what I perceive (mistakenly?) as a prevalent pre-emptive defensiveness to the idea that another might know something which they can't explain — James Riley

I understand your problem with being perceived as sanctimonious. But that's to be expected on a philosophy forum. Greek Philosophy, and its offspring empirical Science, are not in the business of private beliefs, or secret wisdom. Instead, they are attempts to shine a light on beliefs hidden in the darkness of subjectivity. So, they have developed a variety of methods to reveal those inner truths to public scrutiny, in order to share any validated wisdom therein. Of course, I'm no scientist, so I am limited to the ancient philosophical tools of reasoning, as a way to test any proposed truths, before I add them to my personal collection.

Unfortunately for you, Philosophy & Science make it mandatory to defend your own beliefs in a public forum. And it may be that skeptical attitude toward Truth that you perceive as "pre-emptive defensiveness". Because that's what it is : a defense against the "Dark Arts". For example, I just read an article, a moment ago, about a physicist, who has a novel theory to explain Black Holes. Contrary to popular opinion among scientists, he thinks they are actually stars composed of Dark Energy. Unfortunately for him, "Chapline’s papers on this topic have garnered only single-digit citations." His private beliefs at this moment are merely hypothetical, and are met with "defensive" disbelief from his peers. Unlike you, though, as a scientist, he doesn't expect his peers to take his word for the new "wisdom". So, he is not offended, but content to take his time to compile supporting evidence, which is hard to come by.

My purpose in responding to your post is not to ridicule your beliefs, but to make you aware that, on a public philosophical forum, you are expected to defend your assertions. So, explaining that your secret wisdom "cannot be articulated" will not gain you much sympathy here. I "know" that first hand, because some of my feeble attempts at articulation of un-orthodox ideas are also meet with defensive disbelief. We are always on guard to defend Philosophy from Sophistry. :smile:

I think knowing the one thing that can't be articulated may be enough. Maybe "A". Nevertheless, western philosophy has it's hooks in me, so I struggle anyway. — James Riley

I feel your pain. You feel the need to somehow share your private wisdom, but analytical & empirical Western Philosophy does not accept your pointing & gesturing as a legitimate argument. Eastern Philosophy may have been somewhat more accepting of personal confidence as evidence of truth, but that won't fly on this forum. Of course, there's a variety of alternative Eastern and New Age forums to choose from on FaceBook, where alternative truths are acceptable. :cool:

The Difference Between Sophistry & Philosophy :
Many people confuse “sophistry” with “philosophy.” They think that philosophers are arrogant charlatans who foolishly think they know something. However, that description better fits those we now call “sophists.”
https://ethicalrealism.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/the-difference-between-sophistry-philosophy/

Philosophy vs Sophistry - What's the difference? :
the difference between philosophy and sophistry. is that philosophy is an academic discipline that seeks truth through reasoning rather than empiricism while sophistry is cunning, sometimes manifested as trickery.
https://wikidiff.com/sophistry/philosophy

Note -- Sophistry is a sort of Gnosis that is over-articulated, in an attempt to give the impression of logical argument.

I perceive, not just in your post but in others in this thread, a certain defensiveness in the need for clarification about charlatans, or those so-called "gnostics" who pretend to superiority or secret. I don't know where that comes from, since it's as easy as breathing for me to spot the pretenders. — James Riley

Defending the truth was bred into me, as I was raised in a fundamentalist Christian church. We learned to be critical of other religions' erroneous beliefs -- most based on ancient revelations -- but not so much of our own baseline beliefs. As I matured though, I learned to be objective & analytical toward my own beliefs, and eventually left the church. Since then I have been constructing a belief system (worldview) of my own. It gives me a new baseline for critiquing suspicious "facts". But I don't make any absolute-Truth claims for it.

Consequently, I find it much easier now to spot suspect "truths", especially those hiding behind unverifiable claims of Gnosis. But it's still not that easy, because most strong belief systems are guarded against apostasy by either defensive or offensive reasoning (Theology). Early religions, such as Judaism and Catholicism, didn't have much local competition, since they usually had a monopoly on their home turf. But today, in the Information Age, we are exposed to a long menu of alternative belief systems. And that includes the long-defunct Gnosticism, that was put out of business by the Catholics.

So, my policy is not to adopt any new creed wholesale, but to pick & choose whatever elements fit into my personal worldview. For example, I can accept some general philosophical concepts from Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, but not their specific religious beliefs & practices. It may be "easy as breathing" for you to "spot the pretenders". That sounds like a simple Black & White worldview. But, since I try to keep an open mind to other perspectives, I have to take a BothAnd approach.

Consequently, it takes hard philosophical work to separate the sheep from the goats. As Pilate replied to Jesus, "what is truth?" And that question still founders on the complexity & ambiguity of competing claims to truth. Therefore, you could say that my "religion" is Philosophy : the search for practical wisdom -- pragmatic truth value -- not for comforting illusions or secret ego-boosting beliefs. :smile:

PS__I've never had any personal spiritual insights or Gnostic revelations from above. My mundane belief system is derived from careful analysis of my personal experiences, and those of others, to find what is useful for me, not necessarily absolutely True. Does that sound selfish or egotistical? If so, that's because my personal philosophical Karate is not used for offense, but for self-defense against a world full of false prophets and self-deluded gnostics.


Knowledge (or gnosis) in Sufism refers to knowledge of Self and God. The gnostic is called al-arif bi'lah or "one who knows by God".
Do you accept Jewish, or Christian, or Sufi gnosis as truth? Is their "Truth" the same as yours? Or do you go your own way, with your own personal relationship with God?

Both/And Principle :
My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Yes. Wisdom, unlike science, does not need to be repeatable, shared or reviewed. — James Riley

That's true of personal wisdom, as long as you don't try to proselytize. As soon as you tell someone else that you want to pass-on some "secret knowledge" though, you may legitimately be asked to prove it. But Gnostic revelations and Buddhist insights are entirely subjective. So, they can only reply : "try my method and see for yourself". By definition, subjective truth cannot be shared.

But most folks are not inclined to live as monks in silent meditation on a mountaintop. So, they may follow the advice of the Apostle John "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world." The Old Testament is full of stories about deceiving prophets being shown-up as phonies by the "true" prophets, usually in the form of miracles. The moral of such stories is, if you want me to believe your truth, you prove it to me.

However, some Gnostics (and Bhuddists) have not been content to keep their spiritual wisdom to themselves. So, they have responded to skeptical challenges by predicting future events or by performing minor miracles -- usually of the type that were unrepeatable and difficult to disprove. Another private obstacle for Gnostics is how to make sure that their visions & revelations come from the "True" Good God, and not from the "False" Evil God.

Whatever you believe is "legitimate" wisdom for you. But for me, any postulated truths must meet my minimum requirements. And I don't take anyone's word on faith. As they say in Missouri, show me! :cool:


A Course in Miracles and Gnosticism :
https://translatedby.com/you/a-course-in-miracles-and-gnosticism/original/

I'd be more concerned with their diseases. — James Riley

True. But how could we convince a superior power to spend a month in quarantine, while we check them out.? Hopefully they will quarantine themselves, as humans do, by encapsulating themselves in spacesuits until safety is confirmed. That would be better for both of us. Many, if not most, early sci-fi movies portrayed invasive aliens as naked & unafraid. :joke:

Basically, the point I'm trying to get across is that predators need to be more intelligent than prey. Planet earth is a case in point -the most intelligent organism viz. humans are predatory, in fact they're the apex predator. Makes me wonder about the wisdom of the Arecibo Message, SETI, Voyager Golden Record. Are we sending out an invite for a gala feast, us on the menu? — TheMadFool

Yes. Technologically advanced aliens would presumably also be somewhat smarter in general. But it's not their intelligence that we need to look-out for -- it's their motives. Historically, when advanced humans invade a new territory, the inhabitants usually become extinct, or learn to survive as slaves. It's not only selfish predatory Genes though, but also the self-aggrandizing Memes, that disrupt the former balance of power. The conquistadors and colonizers were not primarily motivated by scientific exploration, but by the mandate for new resources to exploit.

I wonder if a democratic society would be more peacefully scientific, and less aggressively predatory, than the old-fashioned autocratic civilizations. Kings & emperors were typically lauded for their predatory exploits as warriors, not for their concern for civil rights & infrastructure. Modern leaders of market-driven democracies, even including hybrid command economies like China, tend to be more in favor of cooperation than domination. Steven Pinker, in The Better Angels of Our Nature, presented evidence that more technologically advanced societies are also more democratic and peaceful. I hope he's correct.

Of course, we are still in a transition phase between the old insular tribal warring, and the we're-all-in-this-together global civilizations. I suspect that Carl Sagan, and his we-come-in-peace gold record, envisioned space-faring aliens as scientifically-motivated for cerebral knowledge, instead of predatorily-inclined to appease their visceral & power hunger. For example, more Star Trek than Star Wars. :smile:

I realize physicalist believe the mind is caused/emerges from matter but do they believe the mind is non spatial. İf yes than how is that monism ? there are still 2 “substances”. The only main difference is that spatial matter(brain) is primary and the non spatial mind(mental states) is secondary. — Quickquestion1233457

As a model for philosophical analysis, I would compare spatial Matter with non-spatial Energy. The current understanding of Energy is that it is an all-pervasive mathematical, immaterial, field of Potential. Only, when it is condensed into a material form can we say that Energy is embodied. Likewise, if Mind is like a field, our senses could only interact with it in some material form. So I would say that the Brain is the embodied form of Mind. Also, the field of energy Potential is not real until the virtual photons are actualized into real photons that our eyes can detect, in the form of a chemical change in the material Visual Purple. So, in Einstein's equation of E = MC^2, each side is a different "substance" in the sense that one is Real (material) and the other is Ideal (mind).

To be clear, there are no virtual photons cruising around in 3D space. Instead, they are virtual figments of scientists' imagination as the massless matter we call photons-on-the-move. Only when they come to a halt do photons have a "rest mass", as they convert into material structure. Energy is a "substance, only in the definition of Aristotle : the logical (Potential) Form of a thing. And Matter is a different "form" of the same potential "substance", which exists in the commonsense "form" of ordinary sensible stuff. Potential only exists in the mind, including the potential Voltage of a battery that is not connected into a material circuit.. The meaningful difference between the two substances is that one is exists as non-spatial Potentiality (imaginary), and the other as spatial Actuality (sensible stuff).

So, to answer your implicit question : No, there is no Actual Mind out there in space, thinking cosmic thoughts. Of course, there may be Potential Mind out there as a field of Universal Logic, that could be parceled-out into embodied particles of Mind. But, we'll never know for sure, except in our non-space-bound imagination. :joke:

Massless Particles of Pure Energy :
Since photons (particles of light) have no mass, they must obey E = pc and therefore get all of their energy from their momentum. ... Therefore, if an object with no mass is to physically exist, it can never be at rest. Such is the case with light.
https://www.wtamu.edu/~cbaird/sq/2014/04/01/light-has-no-mass-so-it-also-has-no-energy-according-to-einstein-but-how-can-sunlight-warm-the-earth-without-energy/
Note -- when light particles are on the move, at light speed, they are only Potential Energy. Yet, when that Energetic Potential comes to a rest, it converts into Actual Matter, and we call that conversion "Energy". This is my personal interpretation of the paradoxical relativity theories.


Voltage is the electromotive force, or the electric tension. Potential difference is a measure of stored energy of any form.
https://socratic.org/questions/what-is-the-difference-between-potential-difference-and-voltage

predatory logic — FalseIdentity

I had never heard of "predatory logic" before. But, after a brief review, I see it's not talking about capital "L" Logic at all. Instead, it refers to the innate evolutionary motives that allow animals at the top of the food chain to survive and thrive. PL is more of an inherited hierarchical motivation system than a mathematical logical pattern. Logic is merely a tool that can be used for good or bad purposes. To call the "logic" of an automobile "evil" is to miss the point that a car without a driver, is also lacking a moral value system. It could be used as a bulldozer to ram a crowd of pedestrians, or as an ambulance to carry the wounded to a hospital. The evil motives are in the moral agent controller, not the amoral vehicle.

It may be true that predators possess an innate "logical" pattern of predation. But it's also true that their prey have a "logical" pattern of evasion. Those patterns are simply what actions have worked in the past to allow the animal to survive long enough to reproduce. For example, african ungulates have typically relied on their speed & evasive maneuvers to outrun their predators with sharp teeth & claws. Yet, on the whole, there is a balance of power between prey & predator. Only in unusual circumstances does that balance tip one way or the other. If the prey escape every time, the predators starve. But, if the predators are too successful, again some of them starve. So generally, the predator/prey equation remains balanced, Hence, there is no moral inequity that one could justify labeling Nature or Logic as "Evil".

The term "Evil" is a generalization or personification of the outside world, as related to the self. And it would more accurately be labeled "imbalance" or "unfairness" or "injustice". Is it unfair for a lion to use its "predatory logic" & natural weapons to overwhelm a gazelle? Philosophically, we tend to think of Nature as amoral, and reserve immoral or "evil" labels for human behaviors, assuming that they should know better. Yet, only recently has the notion of Ecological Balance occurred to humans. And we are only gradually learning how to apply that knowledge, without tipping the balance against the survival of homo sapiens. To do so, would be Misanthropy, which is an injustice to the majority of innocent humans, who live modest & moral, sometimes oppressed, lives.

BTW, None of that Natural Logic is what Hoffman was talking about in the OP video. He was talking specifically about our innate blindness to the underlying logical mechanisms of nature, which we "see" only in the abstract. Yet again, that's normally enough information for our species to survive and thrive. Those short-sighted "wise apes", as a group, are indeed at the top of the world's food chain. And the natural balance has certainly become temporarily imbalanced, due to human Culture (reason) & Technology (tools). So, predatory humans do use their innate advantages, including the applied logic of Science & Engineering, to modify natural niches to suit human preferences. But, I wouldn't put the blame on the tool : Logic. As gun advocates accurately point out : "guns don't kill people -- people with guns kill people". Should we lobotomize people who are guilty of using Logic?

We civilized apes just happen to be in a position similar to the (formerly extinct) wolves, returned by humans to Yellowstone, to reset the imbalance of over-populated prey animals. Due to their innate talents & tools, including Predatory Logic, they quickly became too successful. So now, environmentalists are calling for culling. Not because their (wolf & human) logic is evil, but because "success" is a two-edged sword. Fortunately, humans, being moral agents, are capable of setting limits (government, laws) on their own group behavior. That doesn't convert Devils into Angels, it merely restores temporary balance to a dynamic world. :naughty: :halo:


Moral agency is an individual's ability to make moral judgments based on some notion of right and wrong and to be held accountable for these actions. A moral agent is "a being who is capable of acting with reference to right and wrong."
___Wikipedia

FOOD CHAIN JUSTICE


PS__A logical system without a good/bad value system is merely a dumb mechanism.

To be able to occasionally overrule the motivation it must always have the first access to information and decision about such informations or the occassional overuling would not work reliably — FalseIdentity

In the business model example, there are different levels of "access to information". The workers on the front lines (physical senses) typically receive new information first. They then pass it up the hierarchy, where it is sorted based on the need to know. So the CEO at the top is usually unaware of the bulk of information flow. He/she only receives the most important or urgent data, after it is filtered up through the system. However, an alert CEO may also have his/her own "spies" to actively look for relevant unfiltered information, before it is affected by the mundane priorities of lower levels.

Presumably, an alert rational mind also has feelers out for direct access to what's happening inside and outside the system. That doesn't come naturally though. It is learned through experience and special training for the job of chief executive. Philosophy is one method for training the mind to be prepared for unexpected events and sudden crises. You learn to be on the lookout for the warning signs of danger, before it becomes obvious to the lower level senses. Some people call this a "sixth sense", but it's simply what Reason does. The Boy Scout motto was "be prepared".

For a different metaphor : the sailors run the ship, even while the Captain is asleep. But once the ship hits an iceberg, the Captain is aroused, and begins to issue direct orders to all levels of the hierarchy. Even though the Captain didn't have first access to the knowledge that the ship was in danger, and even based on limited knowledge of what's happening, the Captain's general orders overrule the specific instincts of the sailors attempting to repair the breech. For example, don't try to fix the devastating damage, just seal-off the compartment, and retreat to a safer place. :smile:

In my opinion the true reason/motivation why your subconscious allows you to think in some situations and not in others could be key to understand if logic is of any value at all. — FalseIdentity

I doubt that the subconscious mind "allows" you to think rationally. Instead, the executive Conscious mind must occasionally overrule the default motivations of the Subconscious. If your worldview is somewhat Fatalistic, you may not believe that you have Freewill to choose a conscious logical method, instead of being driven by the animal-like, automatic, subconscious, instinctive reaction to every situation.

To clarify the long-debated question of FreeWill, I have developed a philosophical scenario of the human Mind, based on the model of a large business. It has many well-trained low-level subordinates, a few mid-level managers over departments, and one chief executive officer who rules them all. Typically, the business runs smoothly without direct orders from the top, as each subordinate level does its job almost automatically. But when the firm faces an unusual or difficult problem, the subordinate subconscious (instincts ; emotions) may report to the top, with a quick pre-set solution, or with a menu of options.

If the dire situation is too complex & critical, or portends bad consequences for the business (as a whole system), it's the job of the executive (conscious Reason) to leave the golf-course, and come into the office, to make the hard choices, as a singular official decision. Normally, the rational faculties lie dormant, until the quarreling instincts report that they are confused, and unable to reach a unified decision. That's why a past president once said, "the buck stops here", at the top. The human mind is not a discordant anarchy, or an oppressive dictatorship, but it does have a remote semi-retired chief executive officer : Reason.

Some of the subordinates may think the golf-playing CEO is a freeloader, who doesn't do any of the "real" work. But when a crisis portends, they all look to the Boss to set a direction for the company. David Hume may have spoken tongue-in-cheek, when he said, "reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions". By "passions", Hume was referring to the emotionally-mature Character (virtue) of a person (a logical value system of what's important), not to irrational, crazy, anything-goes, spontaneous, emotional outbursts. :cool:


I summarize my personal hypothesis of FreeWill Within Determinism as follows : Freewill is the ability of self-conscious beings to choose preferred options from among those that destiny (or subconscious) presents. In the complex (non-linear) network of cause & effect, a node with self-awareness is a causal agent. With multiple Pre-determined inputs, and many Potential outputs, the Self can choose from a wide range of Possibilities, creating local novelty within a globally-deterministic system.
http://bothandblog5.enformationism.info/page14.html

Hume's Passions :
https://psyche.co/ideas/neuroscience-has-much-to-learn-from-humes-philosophy-of-emotions

Moral Character :
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-character/

Dopamine works to create refreshment, calibration, etc. To appease the side effect of calibration as a reward is criminal-ish, no(petty)? — Varde

Neurotransmitters all work together. But I was referring specifically to the "pleasure & reward" system, which lets you know that what you did was good for you. Or, rather, for your genes. Sometimes, what's good for your amoral genes is not so good for your moral "self". I suspect that most criminals feel good about themselves, until they face the legal consequences. :smile:

Dopamine and serotonin regulate similar bodily functions but produce different effects. Dopamine regulates mood and muscle movement and plays a vital role in the brain's pleasure and reward systems. Serotonin helps regulate mood, sleep, and digestion.
https://www.verywellhealth.com/serotonin-vs-dopamine-5194081

↪Gnomon
Nice idea but not falsifiable. It could be an evolved intuition and a dopamine shot but it could as well be something else. — FalseIdentity

Of course it's not that simple. But, the dopamine reward may allow Dunning-Kruger types to feel good about their hobbled rationality, even while they restrict the rational method to defending their prior beliefs. As David Hume asserted "reason is . . . a slave to the passions". And dopamine is essential to passion.

However, Pinker notes that Reasoning is not an end in itself, but merely the means to an end. And people have a variety of non-rational methods for achieving their goals, which are defined by their "passions". For example, a self-confident D-K person may choose to convince you of their belief by force. That's how the medieval church dealt with infidels, not with Reason, but with Fire. So, I still think that a confidence-inspiring dopamine boost could be one mechanism for making sure that certain intuitive beliefs are protected from the weeding-out chopping block of natural selection, by marking then as "good for you", if not "true for everybody".. :smile:

↪Gnomon
I approve of good intuition as an argument in this context :) It could be from a place beyond logic. However I would love to think more about how this place could look like and why it is protected against logic. — FalseIdentity

I am currently reading Steven Pinkers' new book, Rationality. And his first step was to discuss the complementary roles of Rationality (Logic) and Irrationality (Intuition). Each is appropriate in some contexts and not in others. Ironically, the stumbling block for Intuition is Probability : conjecturing about future events and outcomes. Intuition reaches its assessment quickly, but is subject to gaps in knowledge & experience that result in erroneously biased projections. Calculating likelihood comes easily to intuition, but all too often goes astray due to Cognitive Illusions.

On the other hand, slow step-by-step reasoning is more likely to find the gaps & pitfalls, but it may not reach a conclusion in time to be useful. Fortunately, humans have developed beyond the quick intuition of their animal nature -- sufficient for the simple eat-or-be-eaten milieu of cavemen -- in order to see the invisible logical structure of reality -- necessary for the complexities of the modern urban jungle. Unfortunately, reasoning is hard mental work, and some of us are too lazy to put in the time & effort to make use of our logical faculties. Yet, others (e.g. mathematicians & analytical philosophers) are so motivated to parse the world into fine details that they can't "see the forest for the trees".

So, it seems that the "place beyond logic" (e.g. heart ; gut feelings) provides emotional rewards, by simplifying the world into knee-jerk reactions. Therefore, I would say that the Heart is protected against Logic by the shot of dopamine that gives us the satisfied feeling that we know what's-what, even when what we know is illogical. :smile:

Note -- we tend to switch between Intuition and Reason depending on the context. Intuition is better suited for concrete real-world situations, but Logic is more accurate for abstract hypotheticals.
". . . people do apply logic when the rule involves shoulds and shouldn'ts of human life rather than arbitrary symbols and tokens." quote from the book.

Logic is evil. Change my mind!

If Logic is "evil", hence unacceptable, the only way I could change your mind is via "good" Intuition or Emotion. Would you accept that kind of argument, in place of fallible human reasoning? Perhaps the problem with Platonic Logic is that it is filtered through innate human biases, resulting in cognitive errors. :smile:

"Non-self" would be whatever AI "observed" that it could not control or it would have to use its executive functions to manipulate. Such a system maps its environment to include itself as a token which is also a parameter (or axis). — 180 Proof

That seems to be a semantic quibble. A morally responsible agent maps its environment, with Self as a as a You Are Here "token", in order to properly execute its cybernetic responsibilities. In other words, executive self-control must precede other-control. Yes?

Cybernetics :
Margaret Mead emphasised the role of cybernetics as "a form of cross-disciplinary thought which made it possible for members of many disciplines to communicate with each other easily in a language which all could understand".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics

Executive :
of, relating to, or suited for carrying out plans, duties, etc.:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/executive
Note -- by controlling others

For our descendants' sakes, let's hope not. I think 'human-level artificial intelligence' without any unnecessary atavistic, evolutionary-baggage like that metacognitive bottleneck "self-awareness" would be optimal. — 180 Proof

Humanoid descendants without "self-awareness"??? Where's the fun in that? Our self-oriented egos may be an atavistic bottleneck. But at least it allows us a perspective from which to critique the non-me world. A rock on a mountain cannot see the stars, because it's not self-motivated to look up. :cool:

PS___Artificial Intelligence without a self-image would also lack free-will. Because it would not be able to distinguish Self from Non-self. Hence, no firm grounds for making choices. That might make a good slave Robot, but a rather boring Person. Besides, with no self-perspective, those arrogant AI would not see us metacognitively-confused NI (Natural Intelligences) as ancestors. Perhaps only as insignificant bits of their highly-evolved post-genetic code. :joke:

That's a perspective I haven't seen in a long time. Good to know people aren't using their brains for just mundane activities. Imagination is a marvelous thing - there are so many possibilities to think about. Our abject ignorance is duly compensated for by the richness of our hypotheticals. — TheMadFool

Where have you seen a similar perplexed perspective? Are you referring to PanEnDeism, or to Mysterianism, or simply to Inquisitive Agnosticism? :smile:

"All I know is that I know nothing"
___attributed to Socrates
This is technically a shorter paraphrasing of Socrates' statement, "I neither know nor think I know" (in Plato, Apology 21d).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing

I'm interested to hear about other terms, or sets of terms, that have a habit of stagnating discussions in philosophy and of ideas about how to deal with this. — I like sushi

We could always go back to the grunts & gestures of cavemen. :joke:

Ultimately, in the very distant future, God will come into existence (The Omega Point). — TheMadFool

In Teilhard deChardin's Omega Point, the future-god was imagined as the prophesied return of The Cosmic Christ. But his fellow Catholics were not impressed by his tainting of Faith with scientific evidence. First century Christians expected Jesus to return in their lifetime. So the idea of a trillion year delay is not very supportive of fragile Faith.

Likewise, the Anthropic Cosmological Principle seems to be a stretch, if it is intended to reinforce any religious belief. The book took it on faith that the Big Bang was the creative act (insemination) of an eternal deity. And it seemed to view Evolution as as sort of gestation process to give birth to the Son of God. The authors didn't say that in so many words, but it's my takeaway.

My own worldview is also based on the axiom of an eternal creative force. but remains agnostic about the deity's specific intentions [1]. I label that model as "PanEnDeism" because our current understanding of physics is information-centric. In that case, both the Creator (Enformer) and the Creation (Enformed) are essentially the same stuff : infinite Potential-to-Be. And Evolution is the creative work of enforming, as performed by EnFormAction. In other words, it's all Information from Energy to Matter to Mind, and from Alpha to Omega.

That said, I still must label myself as Agnostic, because my personal worldview is just an educated guess, not a revealed prophecy. And it's not beholden to any religious tradition. So, this rather abstract model of Reality does not provide any of the emotionally appealing mythical elements, that would serve as a popular religion. It's more along the lines of Plato's LOGOS, and Lao Tse's TAO :meh:


PS__I did at one time play around with the idea of writing a mythical version of the Intelligent Evolution postulate : beginning with a self-fertilized goddess. Unfortunately, I have no talent for dramatic or romantic Fiction, and I have scruples against pandering to popular beliefs. So, I'll have to leave the myth-making to someone else. Any volunteers?

[1] One possible scenario imagines that the disembodied deity created a material world as a way to know itself through the metaphorical eyes of millions of little gods. But, for now, I am resigned to remain a Mysterian regarding the Creation. Although I do have a theory about the emergence of Life & Consciousness. Which is more amenable to philosophical & scientific methods than the God Problem.

Mysterian :
Martin Garner -- "I belong to a group of thinkers known as the 'mysterians.' It includes Roger Penrose, Thomas Nagel, John Searle, Noam Chomsky, Colin McGinn, and many others who believe that no computer, of the kind we know how to build, will ever become self-aware and acquire the creative powers of the human mind. I believe there is a deep mystery about how consciousness emerged as brains became more complex, and that neuroscientists are a long long way from understanding how they work."
http://martin-gardner.org/MYSTERIAN.html

↪Gnomon
The link in my previous post sketches where my conception of pandeism (xaos redux) deviates from Chardin / Tipler's omega point (cosmic telos). — 180 Proof

This is the basis of pandeism: the deity annihilates itself by becoming the universe in order to experience not being the deity. The end of time, maximum universal expansion, "heat death", etc is the deity reborn? Works for me, closes the eternal loop ouroboros-like. If I was in need of such a (minimal) metaphysical extravagance, I'd be a committed pandeist. — 180 Proof

That description sounds like the God's Debris story, in which the deity, due to a bad case of eternal ennui, made like an Islamic suicide bomber, and blew herself into smithereens. Except that in this case, the "debris" is not simply splattered blood & guts, but is our complexly evolving universe. Which, instead of dissipating into thin air (xaos redux), has developed into the highly organized & beloved world of living thinking beings, in which we now live & breathe & sh*t & love.

For me, Deism was a rather vague & pointless alternative to the faux certainties of traditional Theism. And PanDeism is somewhat fatalistic, in that "what you see is all you get", and leaves the beginning & end of the story unresolved. Moreover, your notion of PanChaos pictures our world as "in a state of complete confusion and disorder". But I don't see it that way. I doubt that Steven Pinker is a Deist of any prefix. But he has written some well-informed & erudite books that dispel the cynicism of the intelligentsia class, and the despair of the downtrodden class. They include, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Enlightenment Now, and most recently : Rationality. These works illustrate that our world, which began in Chaos (Bomb Bang), but is now evolving & progressing, not only in technology (cybernetics), but also in moral progress and social justice. Fake news, from both Left & Right, focus their spotlight on the ugly underside of reality, ignoring the beauties of the upside.

Therefore, as I see it, the world is far from perfect, but it is also far from worthless debris. So, the Deus, whatever its other qualities, is not an Evil Genius, or a bored know-it-all. Instead, it's more like a scientist experimenting with the volatile alchemy of random Chance & rational Choice (determinism & freewill) -- what could go wrong? Anyway, our world is a living growing maturing organism with innate Potential for both Good and Bad. Therefore, instead of hopelessly killing myself, I'm going to stick around to see what happens next, in the unfinished Story of Life. :joke:


[1] God's Debris : A Thought Experiment is a 2001 novella by Dilbert creator Scott Adams.
God's Debris espouses a philosophy based on the idea that the simplest explanation tends to be the best. It proposes a form of pandeism and monism, postulating that an omnipotent god annihilated himself in the Big Bang, because an omniscient entity would already know everything possible except his own lack of existence, and exists now as the smallest units of matter and the law of probability, or "God's debris".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_Debris

Note -- I went through the stages of Agnosticism, then Deism, then PanDeism, and am currently in the unstable state of PanEnDeism. But so far, I have avoided the pitfalls of Atheism and Cynicism. Like the world around me, I continue to evolve.

Sorry. I seem to have wandered off into sermonizing. :roll:

I can't parse how a deity becomes one or merges with the universe? Do you mean like a cyborg, one of the predicted futures of humanity when man and machine become symbionts? — TheMadFool

They seem to think that human culture will continue to evolve in intelligence and causal power, until their technological descendants become almost omniscient and omnipotent. For the details, you'll have to read some of the Omega Point theories of deChardin or Tipler, to see how they propose the transition from non-deity to deity.

In my worldview though, the deity -- whatever else S/he might be -- is, and must be, eternal (BEING ; Brahman ; Tao), always existed and always will. It's our temporary world that is contingent and emerging. Also, the notion of a deity "merging" with its creation may be misleading. In my view, the so-called deity is not a physical thing, but instead the timeless immaterial Potential for enforming (creating) physical things. So, the merging was from the top-down, and from the beginning to the end, not as an after-thought, or bottom-up evolution. The deity doesn't evolve, but the creation does.

Some versions of Deism do indeed imagine that the Creator "became" or "merged with" the Creation [1]. But the ACP is not overtly Deistic, only implicitly. On the other hand, in my view, the Creative Principle is PanEnDeistic. Which means that the Deus has always existed, but for some unfathomable reason, decided to Enform a temporary experiment in world-building. In that case, the "how" was probably like any other act of En-form-ation : eternal Potential (Platonic Form-giver) actualized the concept of an evolving world, maybe with "let there be light", or with "Shazaam!" or "Bang!", and suddenly a world (Matter) appeared in the midst of nothing (Space), and the clock of Time began ticking. "Voila!"

The rest of the story is pretty much as the typical creation myths, and evolutionary theories, and Big Bang theories have laid it out. Of course, I was not there to witness the creation. And I have no divine revelation. So I'm just making it up as I go along, by piecing together bits & bytes of previous stories. And by binding it all together with the Enformationism Thesis, based on the latest scientific hypotheses, that shape-shifting Information (power to enform) is the essence of Reality. [2] :cool:


PanEnDeism :
"Panendeism is an ontological position that explores the interrelationship between God (The Cosmic Mind) and the known attributes of the universe. Combining aspects of Panentheism and Deism, Panendeism proposes an idea of God that both embodies the universe and is transcendent of its observable physical properties."
https://panendeism.org/faq-and-questions/
Note --- PED is distinguished from general Deism, by its more specific notion of the G*D/Creation relationship; and from PanDeism by its understanding of G*D as eternal creative Potential, rather than the emergent Soul of Nature. Enformationism is a Panendeistic worldview.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

Enformationism :
* As a scientific paradigm, the thesis of Enformationism is intended to be an update to the obsolete 19th century paradigm of Materialism. Since the recent advent of Quantum Physics, the materiality of reality has been watered down. Now we know that matter is a form of energy, and that energy is a form of Information.
* As a religious philosophy, the creative power of Enform-ationism is envisioned as a more realistic version of the antiquated religious notions of Spiritualism. Since our world had a beginning, it's hard to deny the concept of creation. So, an infinite deity is proposed to serve as both the energetic Enformer and the malleable substance of the enformed world.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

Note -- If you don't like my story, try this one :

[1] God's Debris: A Thought Experiment is a 2001 novella by Dilbert creator Scott Adams.
God's Debris espouses a philosophy based on the idea that the simplest explanation tends to be the best. It proposes a form of pandeism and monism, postulating that an omnipotent god annihilated himself in the Big Bang, because an omniscient entity would already know everything possible except his own lack of existence, and exists now as the smallest units of matter and the law of probability, or "God's debris".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God%27s_Debris

. . . . or this one :

[2] The EnFormAction Hypothesis :
http://bothandblog3.enformationism.info/page23.html

↪Gnomon
Pandeism is "my omega point". — 180 Proof

That seems to also be the implication of physicists Barrow & Tipler in their 1985 book : The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. It was a sort of scientific update of Teilhard deChardin's Omega Point theory. However, in my personal worldview, the Alpha Point or First Cause is also Pantheistic, or as I prefer : PanEnDeistic. The "Omega" term is sufficiently suggestive & ambiguous, that many interpretations would fit the tenuous evidence at the current mid-point of Evolution. So, I don't pretend to know exactly where this evolving organism is headed. :smile:

The Anthropic Cosmological Principle : blog post
http://bothandblog7.enformationism.info/page10.html

1. It was assumed that the correct vowels were universally known. Ergo, there would be no confusion. — TheMadFool

I suspect that written language without vowels was only possible when the vocabulary was small. As writing and literacy and intercultural communication became more common, the sheer number of words would make a more explicit coding necessary. For example, the total number of separate English words is almost 200,000, and expanding every day. And a single person's vocabulary would be a fraction of the total. But, with vowels, we can sound them out, and perhaps guess at their meaning.

Besides, even YHWH became a taboo word and the vowels for a different word (Adonai ; Lord) were substituted. So, the inherent ambiguity was convenient for coded messages and magical implications. And the Hebrews made liberal use of both. :smile:

I wonder which of the two futures will come true? It doesn't hurt to look at the bright side, does it? :chin: — TheMadFool

Yes. The current mood, especially in the US, and on this forum, is pretty dismal. For example, it seems that the majority of movies in recent years have an end-of-world or post-apocalyptic theme. But downtrodden people are still motivated enough to push for positive change, despite their long history of struggling against all odds. So, for privileged people like me, pessimism is pretty petty.

Physicist Neils Bohr, channeling Yogi Berra, once said “Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future!” Typically, like weathermen, our future forecasts are merely short-term projections of current conditions. But history has a roller-coaster track-record of ups & downs. That's why I prefer to take the long-term view of Hegel, who despite the short-term oppositions, derived a somewhat optimistic view of the future.

That's because he inferred an overall tendency or positive principle, the "World Soul", which keeps the undulating universe on an upward track. In my personal worldview, that positive trend or principle is labeled "EnFormAction". It's similar to Plato's Logos, in that it's not just aimless Energy, but also the Rational power to enform. It's not just Tele-, it's also -Logical. :joke:


Hegelian dialectic :
an interpretive method in which the contradiction between a proposition (thesis) and its antithesis is resolved at a higher level of truth (synthesis)
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/hegelian-dialectic

EnFormAction :
Logos & Spirit

Logos …..pattern forming
Spirit …….active principle

En ………..direction, intention
Form …….meaningful pattern
Action …...creative force

COSMIC PROGRESSION

The real issue for me is that this understanding of information ( If we bundle the above definitions into one ) is really quite divergent from the normal understanding, which is various and situationally specific. — Pop

That situation is indeed ironic, since the original meaning of "information" referred to ideas situated in an immaterial mind. Before early humans developed explicit speech & writing, they were like chimpanzees, who communicate their ideas in implicit hoots & gestures. Today, we are so accustomed to the ease of moving memes from one mind to another, that we take it for granted. And sharing information is the essence of human culture. Yet, Shannon focused on one specific situation (mechanical movement of information), to the exclusion of other means of sharing memes.

Consequently, most applications of the term "information" now refer to machines instead of minds. And machines only have the values (meanings) that were programmed into them by others. Yet, humans are still capable of self-programming, by actively seeking relevant information*. It remains to be seen, if humans can develop machines capable of a personal self-image, which would add self-reflective value (meaning) to a stream of impersonal data. If and when that happens, we will see the beginning of machine Culture, as envisioned by sci-fi writers, e.g. The Matrix. :gasp:

* Note -- Current AI computers are programmed to actively seek "relevant information". But the motivation (and the relevance) comes from the programmer, not the machine. Hence, lacking freewill, they simulate communication of meaning without the ability to make sense of it. In that situation, they are not even on a level with apes in intelligence. They are merely processors of information, without actually possessing it.

Here's an article on the math of Self-Oganization. You may already be familiar with the math of organized chaos. But the article has some images to illustrate the result, based on the mandala math of a fractal sandpile. :smile:


https://nautil.us/issue/107/the-edge/the-math-of-the-amazing-sandpile?utm_source=pocket-newtab

If consciousness is like a radio signal and brains are radio receivers, doesn’t this posit a dualism between the physical and consciousness? Like a sort of ‘pandualism’ where there’s a non-physical/immaterial ‘field’ of consciousness that is tuned into by the brains of organisms composed of entirely non-conscious physical substance? — Paul Michael

Most of the early theories of Life & Mind assumed that some physical substance was the cause. For example, the Soul/Anima/Life was compared to Breath (intake of air). So they assumed that life could be breathed into a body like CPR. What they didn't know was that an invisible substance, Oxygen, was the essential ingredient. But we now know, that even oxygen is not capable of reviving a dead body. So there must be something more to life.

We now are capable of understanding that, the life-giving "something more" is not any physical stuff that could be taken like medicine. Instead, Life is a Holistic Metaphysical Process, not a single thing. So, that Whole Organized System is the missing element in the duality of Body/Mind, and Life/Death. In-organic substances lack Life. But organic systems live & breathe & think.

Therefore, what remains to resolve the apparent duality is a way to convert dead stuff into a living organism : like Frankenstein. Unfortunately, even the power of lightning energy is not sufficient to organize inert matter into a living being. And that's the basic problem with the "naturalistic model" : it's strictly materialistic, with no organizing essence -- soul/anima/psyche. :smile:

But a bit is not meaningful. We need a meaningful bit. — Pop

Yes. Any single isolated thing is meaningless. The meaning is in relationships (e.g. ratios ; values). So, if you put two Bits together, the result many be an "interaction". Therefore, the basic element of meaning is the Byte -- an ensemble of bits; a system ; an integrated whole.

Likewise, the basic element of Energy is interchange, an active relationship that causes change. That change may be of physical Shape, as in protein folding, or of metaphysical Form, as in a change of mind or memory. In my thesis, physical Energy is only one facet of cosmic EnFormAction : the power to cause change in both physical Shape, and metaphysical Form. :nerd:

Byte :
The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit of memory in many computer architectures.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte

Interchange :
the action of interchanging things, especially information.
Note -- interchange of energy/information is what we call Communication of Meaning : the act of enforming a mind.

Ensemble :
a group of items viewed as a whole rather than individually.
Note -- meaning is not in the parts, but in the whole

Energy :
Scientists define “energy” as the ability to do work, but don't know what energy is. They assume it's an eternal causative force that existed prior to the Big Bang, along with mathematical laws. Energy is a positive or negative relationship between things, and physical Laws are limitations on the push & pull of those forces. So, all they know is what Energy does, which is to transform material objects in various ways. Energy itself is amorphous & immaterial. So if you reduce energy to its essence of information, it seems more akin to mind than matter. Likewise, all we know of God/First Cause/Logos is what it does : create novel forms. That's why I think of Energy as the “power” aspect of the willpower of G*D, which is guided by the intentional (lawlike) “will” aspect. Together I call them : EnFormAction.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

To put this another way, it could be the case that when one’s consciousness ceases to exist but other contexts of consciousness still exist and new contexts of consciousness come into existence, one of those existing contexts of consciousness or one of the new contexts subsume the disappearance of the consciousness that stopped existing. For the person that died, it would be as if they became that new context of consciousness, but with nothing linking the person that died to the new context. — Paul Michael

I'm not sure I followed all that mind-hopping. But the crux of the Consciousness debate hinges on whether it is simply an ongoing process generated by the body/brain, or is a substance floating out-there in the ether, or is received as a signal from some transmitting source. If it's like a radio signal, then of course any physical radio mechanism (receptive context) could tune into it. But if Self/Soul/Consciousness is unique to each person, then death of the personal body would terminate that particular process of person-oriented awareness.

I'm reminded of some old Star Trek episodes that dealt with a similar issue of human personality. The hypothetical (imaginary) "Transporter technology" was described as somehow "reading" the information patterns of each person on the platform, converting them into something like a radio signal, and then "beamed" down to a planet like radar. There both body & mind would be recreated in a different location. But some members of the crew panicked at the possibility of losing the essence of their personality in the process of intake & export & re-constituting of information. This philosophical quandary has been explored in various science fiction stories. But it all comes down to the question : is Consciousness physical (like radio waves), or meta-physical (like souls & ghosts)?

The Star Trek scenario is also similar to the notion of Reincarnation or Transmigration of souls (old soul in new "context"). So theologians & philosophers have long debated how such an exportation of essence could work. If the "essence" is a physical substance, no problem. But if the essential Self is simply a metaphysical pattern of relationships, the problem would be how to map that unique pattern into some different material substrate. In the old horror movie, The Fly, a man was transported from place to place, but a fly happened to be in the capsule at the moment of transmigration. Hence the reincarnated body was a hybrid of homo sapiens and fannia canicularis. Their physical essence was blended, as was their mental nature.

Most scientists seem to view Consciousness as simply a side-effect of neural mechanics. But they still must admit that there is no known technology for capturing Consciousness in a bottle. So any talk of exporting or transporting or migrating Self or Soul, is based on a material model, which may be pure fantasy. For example, Dragons & Unicorns are well-understood hypothetical images (mental representations) based on well-known models. But, at this moment, their actual existence remains imaginary, not empirically proven. So, is the Conscious Mind a physical thing that can be replicated by technology, or simply a unique pattern of centered relationships that can only be reproduced in approximation via genetics? :chin:

What, may I ask, does this have to do with our inability to imagine smells, tastes, touch, sounds like we can sights? — TheMadFool

I hadn't given that much thought. But the inability to "imagine" non-visual sensations may be due to a lack of need, or practice. Since humans and apes are mostly visual creatures, we don't feel the need to "sense" those sensations apart from incoming stimuli. But the brain does seem to be capable of generating imaginary sensations when certain "wires" get crossed. However, I suspect that dogs may dream of smells at times, because such sensations are more important to them than to us anosmic (smell deficient) animals. :wink:

Phantosmia (phantom smell), also called an olfactory hallucination or a phantom odor, is smelling an odor that is not actually there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantosmia

I was wondering how if our senses don't give an accurate picture of reality, it would aid us in survival? That goes against the received wisdom that to be in touch with reality is key to living a happy and healthy life (most cases of death and injury occur when we believe falsehoods or ignore facts). — TheMadFool

In his analogy with icons on a computer screen, Hoffman explains how a low-resolution representation of Reality is good-enough to keep us alive long enough to reproduce. Computer users interact with crude icons that represent messy reality in abstract outline, while hiding the complex mechanical and information-processing going on down below the surface.

However, philosophers, and scientists, (unlike most animals) are not content with "good-enough", and bare survival. Instead, they strive, not for pragmatic Science, but for ideal Omniscience ; not for adapting ourselves to the world, but for modifying Nature to suit human nature. :cool:

Interface Reality :
In other words, what we think we see, is not absolute reality but our own ideas about reality. Donald Hoffman calls those mental models “Icons”, serving as symbols that merely represent the unseen information processes within the computer system.
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html
Note -- According to Hoffman, our symbolic interface gives an adequate (not accurate) picture of reality


Icon :
Semiotics. a sign or representation that stands for its object by virtue of a resemblance or analogy to it.
Note -- our senses and brains convert incoming signals from the environment (that are already encoded into abstract patterns of color & contrast) into neural patterns, that are abstracted further, and merged with prior knowledge from memory, into the low resolution patterns we call thoughts and ideas. Although those ideas are merely crude analogies of reality, they form our beliefs about reality. So, yes, we can be deluded by incomplete representations (perhaps based on "fake news") into believing falsehoods. Fortunately, some of us are aware of that pitfall, and take steps to make our symbols & icons & beliefs more accurate, by obtaining more & more detailed information to flesh-out our not-quite-good-enough mental models..

But I think the time is ripe, and in so doing one virtually obliterates all previous philosophy, and in it's place one gains a theory of everything as self organizing informational bodies. Life and consciousness emerge and evolve along with the complexity of information integrated - everything is solved - end of enquiry - How do you like it? — Pop

Yes. (self-aggrandizement aside) I characterize the Enformationism thesis as a sort of Theory of Everything, because it reveals the foundations of both physical Reality, and meta-physical Ideality. The new Atom is the Bit. Of course, my amateur thesis is not a scientific TOE, but as a preliminary philosophical TOE, it could form the kernel of a new scientific worldview. And I think information-based science & philosophy is already in the early stages of a New Enlightenment.

However, we are still just scratching the surface of a full understanding of the role of EnFormAction in the world. It's not just physical energy, but Enformed Energy : energy with a mission, or programmed Energy, so to speak. It both integrates (organizes) and disintegrates (disorganizes) existing matter, in the process of building a world from scratch. And we seem to be right in the middle of that incremental evolutionary development --- with a long way to go, before the program plays itself out. So, it's not "the end of enquiry", but merely a new path of inquiry. :nerd:


Enformationism :
A philosophical worldview or belief system grounded on the 20th century discovery that Information, rather than Matter, is the fundamental substance of everything in the universe. It is intended to be the 21st century successor to ancient Materialism. An Update from Bronze Age to Information Age. It's a Theory of Everything that covers, not just matter & energy, but also Life & Mind & Love.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page8.html

It makes sense if survival is the prime directive, the be all and end all of life in general and humans in particular. I don't see how that's got anything to do with why mind-generated silumations are done in halves - some senses are not activated as mentioned in the OP. — TheMadFool

I think Donald Hoffman's notion of our senses as an "interface" between us and the real world, may offer a clue to "what gives?" In The Case Against Reality, Why Evolution Hid the Truth From Our Eyes, he has concluded that our sensory perceptions have “almost surely evolved to hide reality. They just report fitness”. Even so, humans have also evolved another form of “perception” that we call “conception”.

And that’s where the philosophical debates divide. Via conception, we can imagine things we can’t see, and we sometimes find those subjective “ideals” to be more important than the objectively real objects of the physical realm. That sometimes leads to Faith, in which we “believe in things unseen”. Most of what we "know" about the physical world takes the form of abstractions or simulations (or "silumations", if you prefer), that contain only enough detail to allow us to survive the hazards of nature long enough to replicate our genes. But that pragmatic worldview falls far short of omniscience. So, "what gives" is an illusion of reality, not the ding an sich. :wink:


Interface : Window to Reality : Reality is not what you see
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html

Postscript to my previous post about the "self-organizing" function of Information. In the same book and chapter, philosopher Rolston mentions "autopoiesis" (self-creating) in passing. That seems to be a more provocative term, in that it could imply a teleological tendency, intrinsic to the mechanism of evolution, toward the emergence of self-aware entities. Such organisms are "unique" in the universe, which remains -- after all these years of incremental evolving -- mostly inorganic, and unaware.

In my own writing I often use "Self" as a bare-bones substitute for the ancient notion of "Soul", which carries a lot of mythical baggage. Even so, the concept of a self-organizing, self-producing, self-creating, and self-aware being is essentially what it means to be human. We don't literally create our bodies from scratch, but we do create our mental self-image from our self-centered experience. And that immaterial image consists of a custom-made pattern of Information.

But that's not the end of autopoiesis. Even dolphins and apes seem to have a self-image of some sort. Yet only humans are engaged in the creation, or re-creation, of a world in their own self-image. If the world today is not entirely suitable for own selfish purposes, we (collectively) are able to imagine giving it a make-over to suit ourselves, Of course, some of us envision going backward to the Garden of Eden, while others imagine going forward to a technological Utopia. Now, isn't that unique? :wink:

"The notion of autopoiesis is at the core of a shift in perspective about biological phenomena: it expresses that the mechanisms of self-production are the key to understand both the diversity and the uniqueness of the living." ___Francisco Varela
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/autopoiesis

Self/Soul :
The brain can create the image of a fictional person (the Self) to represent its own perspective in dealings with other things and persons.
1. This imaginary Me is a low-resolution construct abstracted from the complex web of inter-relationships that actually form the human body, brain, mind, DNA, and social networks in the context of a vast universe.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page18.html

Speaking of "what is information?", which we were discussing way back in the beginning of this thread : I just came across -- in a book I read before but picked-up to browse -- some comments relevant to your "self-organization" definition.

The book is Information and the Nature of Reality, edited by physicist Paul Davies. In a chapter by an American philosopher, Holmes Rolston says, regarding spontaneous patterns of organization in matter such as crystals : "these patterns may further involve critical thresholds, often called self-organized criticality. Such processes are 'automatic', sometimes called 'self-organizing', Initially, the 'auto' should not be taken to posit a 'self' but rather an innate principle of the spontaneous origination of order". In the next sub-heading, he quotes biologist Stuart Kauffman : "spontaneous formation is a starter . . . 'forming' becomes 'informing". Later, he notes that "Darwin could not have suspected the existence of self-organization . . . We may have begun to understand evolution as the marriage of selection and self-organization". Which is the function of what I call EnFormAction. :smile:

Information and the Nature of Reality : From Physics to Metaphysics :
https://books.google.com/books/about/Information_and_the_Nature_of_Reality.html?id=0k6oQq8lN-YC
Heads up! From a review -- "The symposium on which the book is based having been sponsored by the profoundly misguided Templeton Foundation, the last 5 chapters (~120 pages) and some other parts are garbage (theology),"
Actually, I found even the theologian's philosophical understanding of the role of Information to be compatible with my own. Of course, they may apply these ideas to defending Intelligent Design, but that's not so far off from my own myth of Intelligent Evolution.
http://gnomon.enformationism.info/Essays/Intelligent%20Evolution%20Essay_Prego_120106.pdf

↪Gnomon
What's your take on: — TheMadFool

You got me there. I was never good at math or logic. As far as I'm concerned, Socrates was a myth. :joke:

I don't think that making progress is the point. — T Clark

Perhaps not. That depends on who's pointing. And some modern philosophers have developed a case of Physics Envy, on the assumption that Philosophy is supposed to make some kind of progress. But then, Postmodern philosophers have gone to the opposite extreme, and denied that there is any objective True/False --- it's all political. But traditionally, philosophers have at least hoped to get "closer to truth". In which case, 80% truth value may be close enough for practical purposes. :cool:

Free will vs. determinism was never difficult and mysterious. Philosophers made it so. — T Clark

I wouldn't blame the mystery on philosophers. They merely accepted the challenge of explaining why some of us feel free to choose, even in the face of scientific evidence that the world is strictly determined by initial conditions and natural laws. In fact, Freewill is not a physical problem, it's a moral quandary, And flakey philosophers fee free to foray where angels fear to tread. :gasp:

What is philosophy? — Bret Bernhoft

FWIW, here's my attempt to define "philosophy", for the purposes of my personal worldview. :

Philosophy :
The ancient Greeks began to distinguish the rational search for understanding of the world from the myth-making of religion. They became skeptical of prophets & seers, who were often ambiguous or dead-wrong in their proclamations. So they decided to rely on the only source of knowledge they could trust implicitly, their own personal reasoning ability. Unfortunately, the disciples of philosophers, like those of religious founders, tended to turn their time- & culture-bound doctrines into dogmas for all times & places. But by judicious application of information from all three forms of knowing, we can enjoy the practicality of Science, the Mystery of Religion, and the Rationality of Philosophy. [See Philosophy popup]

Since modern Science has become very successful at discovering practical physical knowledge, and Religions still have mass appeal as the gateway to supernatural wisdom, Philosophy has been relgated to the nerdy niche of metaphysical understanding. So philosophers usually offer their expert opinions on a few basic questions : 1. How can we know what’s real & true? (Ontology), 2. What is the right thing to do? (Ethics), and 3. What should we believe? (Values) The latter is not about blind Faith, but about the science of Probability. Philosophy is not a practical method for influencing Nature, or other people, but only for self-control. So it’s purpose is merely to correct your own worldview, your vision of reality.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

Most of the difficult issues we discuss in philosophy are metaphysical issues - they relate to the underlying assumptions we bring to the discussion. Metaphysical issues; like free will vs. determinism and the nature of reality, do not have true or false answers. They have no truth value. They are merely more or less useful for dealing with particular issues. — T Clark

Yes. That's why theoretical Philosophy, as contrasted with empirical Science, has not made much measurable progress over the centuries.

We still debate some of the same questions that Plato addressed in his writings. What progress we find in the evolution of Philosophy results mostly from the discoveries of Science, which gives us new technical terms, with which to discuss the same old mysteries, such as Body/Soul. Today, we can use theories of Information to find commonalities of Mind & Body ; freewill & determinism, etc. Those topics are still "difficult" and mysterious, but with our modern understanding of how reality works on a fundamental level, we can look at those ancient topics from new perspectives.

Our conclusions from such observations, still have no absolute True/False values, but they do offer some relative values in specified contexts, especially situations that are unique to modern times, and that would have sounded like fairy tales to the ancient Greeks. To me, that's philosophical progress. :smile: