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:

So the way I see it intelligence identifies problems and wisdom formulates solutions. — HardWorker

Another way to say it, is that "Wisdom is the practical application of Intelligence". For example, homo sapiens is noted for its Intelligence relative to animals, but not so much for its collective Wisdom. That's why the world needs a few Philosophers to ascertain the difference between raw Intelligence and mature Wisdom. To keep us smart apes headed in the right direction. :joke:

Is it possible for things to be both true and false at the same time or neither true or false at the same time? Or must things be either true or false at any given time? — TiredThinker
This is my old refrain. Most things that get people, at least philosophers, excited are neither true nor false. Examples:
Free will vs. determinism
The nature of reality
The nature of truth — T Clark

This is also the old Reductive versus Holistic refrain. If you look at particular things or events, each can be evaluated as Good or Bad, in the specified context : relative to me, to you, to everybody. But if you look at everything-in-general, the values are not so Black & White.

That's why my personal Holistic philosophy is summarized in the BothAnd Principle. From that perspective, it's hard to get too excited about any single example of the duality of reality. It's characterized by neither of the extremes (all-good or all-bad), but a moderate mixture of both. Otherwise life in the real world would be heavenly or hellish. So, the job of Philosophy (Wisdom) is to evaluate in terms of relative values : more-or-less Good or Bad ; True or False ; Real or Ideal. The Middle Path, the Way of Tao. :smile:

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

Einstein's Special Relativity applies to physical objects. But General Relativity includes the subjective observer in the network, as a node in the whole pattern, by taking a god-like perspective, from outside the system looking in — Gnomon
I think both special and general include observers. That's not the usual distinction. Accelerated motion and other features are considered in general. — jgill

I doubt that Einstein himself made the distinction I was referring to. It was just my interpretation. I was extrapolating from the terms "Special Relativity" (reductive) and "General Relativity" (holistic). If my reference to "Einstein" -- to make a long story short -- seems wrong to you, please delete the name from the sentence. It's not essential to the concept. :smile:

Yes, cause and effect. Equal and opposites. The point is that humans, being that their ability to modify themselves and their intelligence is fundamental, not physical, makes them capable of true self-modification. Whereas a robot requires transistors, hard drives, memory or whatever it has to do it's processing therefore must depend on them working correctly to continue functioning. — AlienFromEarth

AFE, I generally agree with your position on the distinction between human intelligence (HI) and artificial intelligence (AI). But I just finished reading The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, by physicists Barrow and Tipler, and with a foreword by famous physicist John A. Wheeler. Using the language of Physics & Mathematics, they argue for teleological evolution toward a far future "Omega Point". Even though there is no religious language in their argument, it's what would call "non-physical woo-of-the-gaps". That's because the Primary Protagonist of the argument is not an individual flesh & blood human, but the metaphysical abstraction : "Intelligent Life". (IL)

The authors concede that the current form of IL (homo sapiens) may die-out in the not-too-distrant-future, but that some form of Intelligent Life -- including self-reproducing & self-repairing robots -- will continue the mission of becoming-the-universe (my words) at the Omega Point. "When life has encompassed the entire universe and regulated all matter contained therein. Life begins to manipulate the dynamical evolution of the universe as a whole". In other words, the non-physical abstraction "Life", will essentially become God. When summarized in such terms, this sounds like Science Fiction. And it is, in the sense that conjectures about millions of years into the future are inherently fictional. But the authors support their speculations with state-of-the-art Physics, as of 1986. Most of which still holds-up to attempts at falsification.

I don't know if their positive assessment of the Future of Life, is correct. And I don't expect to be there to witness the apotheosis of Life. But it gives us a lot of positive plausible information to consider, when faced with hopeless negative apocalyptic worldviews. :cool:

Apparently everything in this world has a mathematical foundation, and Math is an abstract form of Generic Information. — Gnomon
Is it that the world has a mathematical foundation or that the ability to measure and count is what enables us to get its measure? Math starts with the process of abstraction, whereby the measurable attributes of a given phenomenon are abstracted and quantified. But it's not as if that mathematical abstraction is inherent in the object, rather it is the only means by which we can subjugate the object to mathematical analysis — Wayfarer

I agree. When I said that the physical world has a mathematical foundation, I was referring to the pattern of inter-relationships that the human mind interprets as Logic. Math is not a physical object, but a metaphysical network of relative values (relationships ; proportions). The interpreted values, or meaningful patterns, are not inherent in any particular thing, but are evaluated by the observing mind, relative to self and to the whole system. Einstein's Special Relativity applies to physical objects. But General Relativity includes the subjective observer in the network, as a node in the whole pattern, by taking a god-like perspective, from outside the system looking in.

As I view it, the rational Mind "measures" those invisible links between things, and assigns both numerical values and emotional values. The numerical values are abstractions that we can convey to others in language, including mathematical notation. But the emotional values must be inferred from the behavior of the observer, including inflections of speech and emoticons in text. Disclaimer : I don't really know what I'm talking about. I'm just extrapolating from my personal worldview of Enformationism. :wink:


Logos :
Greek term meaning “word”, “reason”, “proportion”. It was used by philosophers in a technical sense to mean a cosmic principle of order and knowledge. In ancient Greek philosophy and theology, Logos was the divine Reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html
Note -- Reason is applied Logic, which "enables us" to recognize the design (order, organization ; form) in the objects of our perception. The mental evaluation of such an observation is what we call a Concept.

PATTERN RECOGNITION :

I do tend to avoid metaphysics because my interest is in physically based processes. Things like the physical basis of information, time perception, artificial intellegence and computing. — Mark Nyquist

That's fine with me. But, if you are not interested in metaphysics, my views on Information won't interest you. That's because Enformationism is a philosophical treatise, not a scientific report. In the beginning of philosophy, the Greeks especially, didn't make a distinction between Physics & Metaphysics. They had no sense-expanding instruments, so had no choice but to use their rational faculties to investigate mysteries.

But then, Aristotle wrote two books summarizing the current state of philosophical understanding. The first was labelled The Physics, because it was all about specific aspects of Nature (matter + energy). And the second volume was later designated The Meta-Physics, because it discussed various general notions about Nature (ideas, information). However, by the "age of Enlightenment", knowledge of the physical had made little progress, and the focus was on religious beliefs & speculations, on idealized concepts and spiritual matters. That's why the early scientists, Galileo etc, turned away from ivory-tower ideal metaphysical conjectures, and turned their attention back to the "real" world.

Today, however, modern Science has revealed that the foundations of Reality are not as firm as once assumed. Relativity & Quantum Theory have undermined our Classical worldview, and re-opened our axiomatic beliefs to question. Now, instead of solid Atoms & Matter, scientists talk about Virtual Particles and Abstract Mathematical Fields. As a consequence, even sober scientists are forced to think like philosophers. You might call this era "The Re-Enlightenment" or "The Information Age".

Therefore, while my Enformationism thesis is grounded in modern Physics, and Information theory, it is theoretical, not empirical. The website discusses such things as "the physical basis of information, time perception, artificial intelligence and computing". But, it is more concerned with general & universal concepts, than specific details and data. :nerd:


Meta-physics :
The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value.
1. Often dismissed by materialists as idle speculation on topics not amenable to empirical proof.
2. Aristotle divided his treatise on science into two parts. The world as-known-via-the-senses was labeled “physics” - what we call "Science" today. And the world as-known-by-the-mind, by reason, was labeled “metaphysics” - what we now call "Philosophy" .
3. Plato called the unseen world that hides behind the physical façade: “Ideal” as opposed to Real. For him, Ideal “forms” (concepts) were prior-to the Real “substance” (matter).
4. Physics refers to the things we perceive with the eye of the body. Meta-physics refers to the things we conceive with the eye of the mind. Meta-physics includes the properties, and qualities, and functions that make a thing what it is. Matter is just the clay from which a thing is made. Meta-physics is the design (form, purpose); physics is the product (shape, action). The act of creation brings an ideal design into actual existence. The design concept is the “formal” cause of the thing designed.
5. I use a hyphen in the spelling to indicate that I am not talking about Ghosts and Magic, but about Ontology (science of being).
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

Philosophy and Its Contrast with Science :
Science is about contingent facts; philosophy is also about necessary truths (if they exist). Science is about descriptive facts; philosophy is also about normative truths (if they exist). Science is about physical objects; philosophy is also about abstract objects (if they exist).
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=science+vs+philosophy+debate

FWIW :
http://enformationism.info/enformationism.info/


Science vs Philosophy debate :
https://medium.com/predict/science-vs-philosophy-a-debate-on-youtube-between-physicists-and-philosophers-45c5bc103604

That's the first and last time I will ever use the words Qualia and Quanta. I maybe don't understand parts of it. Thanks for the explanation. — Mark Nyquist

Unless you are a professional philosopher, you may never have to use those technical terms for the fundamental distinction of Reality (quanta) and Ideality (qualia). But if you intend to post on this forum for amateur philosophers, you will often need to make that crucial discrimination between Things and Ideas-About-Things. :smile:

I can't back off on brain only information being the best model... and communication becomes a simple process of encoding and decoding physical matter. — Mark Nyquist

If you are a professional scientist, the physical brain is indeed the best subject for study. But if you are a layman, it will be useful to be able to distinguish between Physical Matter and a Meta-physical Process. The process we call "Thinking" does not take place in space, but in time. That's why it is not subject to empirical testing, but only to theoretical modeling. Your "brain only" view is missing half the picture. :cool:

I'm still not sure if you think information should be both brain internal and brain external? — Mark Nyquist

Let me clear-up that uncertainty. I do think that Information is both physical (brains) and meta-physical (minds). It's common nowadays for philosophers to claim that there is no such thing as a Mind. They justify that view by labeling the Conscious Contents of your brain as "illusions". If that is the case, then everything you think you know, including your model of the world, is an illusion. But the question arises : who is deluding who? Are you constructing a fake world in your brain? If that mental model has no relevance to reality, what good is it? And if the other posters on this forum are likewise deluded by their private illusions, what's the point of communicating with them?

Speaking of communicating, your "brain only" model implies that communication of Information would have to send a little chunk of your brain (the material machine) to the brain of the receiver. But physicist Paul Davies refers to the immaterial contents of your brain as "the demon in the machine" (the Mind or Soul). http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page6.html

Now that I have introduced that taboo term "Soul" into the conversation, let me quote from a book by astrophysicist John Barrow, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle. In a chapter on Life and the Final State of the Universe, he says : ".. . an intelligent being -- or more generally, any living creature -- is fundamentally a type of computer [an information processor] . . ." Then, ".. . we may even say that a human being is a program designed to run on particular hardware called a human body . . . the essence of a human being is not the body but the program which controls the body; we might even identify the program which controls the body with the religious notion of a soul". So, the distinction between Qualia and Quanta is equivalent to the ability to discriminate between a Computer and its Program. The machine (quanta ; hardware) without a program (qualia ; software) is a "brick". Likewise, a Brain without a Mind is a Philosophical Zombie. Is your Brain running a Program, or are you a Zombie? :joke:


Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures designed to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike the ones in films or witchcraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like us, and some even spend a lot of time discussing consciousness.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/zombies/

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

Note : in order to avoid the obsolete religious connotations of "Soul", I prefer to refer to the human Program as the "Self" or "Self Concept".

If you are arguing for this kind of externally mobile information you might need to explain how that works. — Mark Nyquist

FYI -- I do "explain how that works" in my website and blog. If you are really interested, I'll give you some links. :smile:

It almost seems this invisible intangible mental model is what you are arguing for. But I'm not sure. Since you mentioned Qualia and Quanta, do you view them as inseparable or stand alone objects? I don't see how Qualia can exist in the absence of Quanta. — Mark Nyquist

That's because you are confusing two separate methodologies : Empirical Science and Theoretical Philosophy. Qualia and Quanta are not real things, but ideas about things. And those terms were invented specifically so we could separate them in our minds -- to examine their properties and qualities in isolation. In the real world, Information is always embodied -- as far as our physical senses are concerned. But Rational Analysis is not a physical dissection of objective objects -- it's a meta-physical scalpel for parsing subjective ideas. It does not literally cut any material object, but it metaphorically slices & dices human concepts about such objects. Philosophy is not a physical science ; it's a meta-physical science. Qualia (attributes) can "exist in the absence" of Quanta (properties) only when abstracted into the ideal vocabulary of the rational mind. Where there are Minds, there are Qualia. :smile:

Physics & Metaphysics :
Two sides of the same coin we call Reality. When we look for matters of fact, we see physics. But when we search for meaning, we find meta-physics. A mental flip is required to view the other side. And imagination is necessary to see both at the same time
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page14.html

Aboutness :
Philosophers often remind us, and each other, that mental contents have the property of 'aboutness'. Indeed, this is their distinguishing feature.
About Aboutness | Issue 132 | Philosophy Now
https://philosophynow.org › issues › About_

Qualia : Individual instances of subjective, conscious experience

Isn't just a physical signal delivered to our brains sufficient to form mental models? If you are arguing for this kind of externally mobile information you might need to explain how that works. Brain only information is a simpler model as you only need to identify information as brain state. — Mark Nyquist

1. Regarding the "mobility of Information", it's what we call "communication". And we don't communicate by boring holes in heads, in order to rearrange their neurons into "states". Instead, we package ideas into Memes, and transmit them in the form of Words. Communication uses physical media, but is not itself physical. McLuhan was not speaking literally, when he famously noted that "the medium is the message".

A statement by Marshall McLuhan, meaning that the [container] of a message (print, visual, musical, etc.) determines the ways in which that message will be perceived.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/the-medium-is-the-message
Note -- I added the brackets, replacing "form", to indicate that the Amazon box your new phone is delivered in, is not the object you ordered, but its easily recognized smile carries a message of its own, that a porch pirate can interpret : valuables within.

2. Since when are philosophers content with simplistic models? Occam's Razor is a pragmatic rule-of-thumb for reductive empirical science. But for holistic theoretical science (philosophy) the situation is seldom that simple. Neurologists study physical neurons. and infer (hypothesize) related non-physical brain states. But they don't claim to actually "see" the states we call "Meaning". Philosophy is all about Meaning. :nerd:

Intel launches its next-generation neuromorphic processor—so, what’s that again?
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09/understanding-neuromorphic-computing-and-why-intels-excited-about-it/

An Internet meme, more commonly known simply as a meme (/miːm/ MEEM), is an idea, behavior, or style that is spread via the Internet,
___Wiki
Note -- a Meme is the meaning (content), the medium (internet) is merely the vehicle (container)

I'm sceptical of the comments on information existing as 'form' where you still need a brain as a placeholder for form...forgot who...I forget more in a month than I remember. — Mark Nyquist

That dualistic Cartesian worldview -- mental Form vs physical Brain -- is a common stumbling block for discussions of Information : 1> the ideal essence (concept, design, idea, theory, abstraction) of a thing, and 2> its real physical embodiment. Ironically, for a philosophy forum -- where many posters are influenced by Physics Envy -- the notion of disembodied (non-empirical) ideas seems to be off-limits, because they can't be dissected under a microscope, or accounted with numbers.

We only infer the existence of ideas in another brain, by projecting our personal subjective experience onto the other person. Doubting that inference leads to Solipsism. We can cut the other person's head open to confirm that he has a Brain. But we can't verify that he has a Mind. He might be a philosophical Zombie. However, partly due to our mammalian trait of Empathy, humans have almost always assumed that other humans experience, and model the world, in a manner similar to our own. So, it's that invisible intangible mental model that we have to take for granted, in order to empathize and socialize.

Unfortunately for the Solipsistic Skeptic, Platonic "Form" is the core concept of the modern word "In-Form-Ation". Yet, in modern usage, there are two referents for the same term : the ghostly mental platonic qualities (Qualia), and its tangible physical empirical properties (Quanta). For clarity, I call the subjective qualia "Form", and the objective quanta "Shape". Our physical senses deliver information to our minds about the physical shapes, as abstracted from the world outside our mental model into mentally-meaningful Forms. However, unlike animals in general, rational philosophers do not have to rely on apparent Shapes for all knowledge of the real world. They also construct mental models of their environment, that are imbued with personal meaning. But, when we dissect their brains, those meanings or essences or Forms are nowhere to be found.

It's a simplistic truism that all Information accessible to our physical senses is embodied in physical matter. But, in the process of embodiment, the subjective meanings are stripped-out. So, in order to know what another person is knowing and feeling, we are forced to empathize with them, by imagining what we would know and feel, if we were in a similar situation. By communicating & comparing our mental models (our ideas about reality) via the process I call "Enformation" (the act of communicating Forms between Minds). Therefore, if the brain is nothing-but "a placeholder for Form", we would all be Zombies. :cool:


Physics envy :
"Physics envy" refers to the envy (perceived or real) of scholars in other disciplines for the mathematical precision of fundamental concepts obtained by physicists. It is an accusation raised against disciplines (typically against social sciences and liberal arts such as literature, philosophy, and psychology) when these academic areas try to express their fundamental concepts in terms of mathematics, which is seen as an unwarranted push for reductionism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics_envy

Infer : deduce or conclude (information) from evidence and reasoning rather than from explicit statements.
Google (Oxford Dictionary)

Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds :
Rather, the solipsist can attach no meaning to the supposition that there could be thoughts, experiences, and emotions other than his own.
https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy
Note -- none of those objects of philosophical study are physical objects made of Matter. Instead, they are all made of Mind-stuff (ideas). And they are all General concepts, that can exist simultaneously in a variety of Brains.

All the three above senses, their nature (quantitative), falls within the domain of physics and, by extension, mathematics — TheMadFool

That's an interesting observation. Which leads me to postulate that the Sixth Sense of Reason is also a sort of mathematical discrimination. Rational thought compares two or more ideas or objects in terms of ratios, evaluated on a range from 0 to100%, or False to True. I'm not sure what the cosmic implications of that might be, other than the Mathematical Universe hypothesis, or the Information Universe theory. Apparently everything in this world has a mathematical foundation, and Math is an abstract form of Generic Information. Perhaps the "number sense" is just a specialized aspect of the typical human ability to parse the world into qualitative Good / Bad relationships, relative to Me & Mine. :nerd:

Yeah. I would think of information as being the change in mental state, due to an interaction with an externality. So much the same thing. — Pop

Yes. EnFormAction causes changes in physical material, and in meta-physical states. It's the subsequent causation after the First Cause. That initial impetus had potential for both physical effects and meta-physical effects. That's why our current reality includes both Matter and Mind. The Big Bang was not just a fireworks explosion of matter & energy -- no room in the Singularity for a universe full of 3D spatial matter. Instead, I envision it as the engagement of a no-D Program of Potential EnFormAction, which being metaphysical (mind stuff) requires no space for storage, or time for its static state. That's how a sub-Planck-scale pinpoint of Potential could give birth to a universe, which is currently a zillion times larger, and has existed for zillions of Planck seconds. *

Of course, this being a material world, the change in mental state we call Consciousness or Meaning is preceded by a change in the physical state of the brain. The external patterns ** we observe make a difference in the mental patterns of our Mind. This may sound like mere semantics to a Materialist, but it helps to explain what Bateson labelled The Difference That Makes a Difference. In other words, its the change that makes a meaning (some pattern that is significant to the observer). The difference is expressed mathematically as a ratio, such as the difference between Life & Death. :gasp:

The Difference :
Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist is credited with this phrase. He was talking about information and how it can affect things. What information can we know that will completely change the situation/experiment/culture?
https://www.stephanie-burns.com/blog/2017/3/25/the-difference-that-makes-the-difference
Note -- in physical terms : "The potential difference (which is the same as voltage) is equal to the amount of current multiplied by the resistance." And metaphorically, a mental difference has the potential to complete a circuit (meaning ; meme) in another mind.

* Some physicists are still trying to imagine an explanation for the beginning and expansion of the universe, which doesn't require a miraculous something-from-nothing beginning. But so far, all of those woo-ish proposals assume the eternal existence of The Potential for a new world. And like Voltage, Potential is the idea of a future something -- an imaginary state of mind ; a snap-shot of the future -- not necessarily a physical substance -- nor even a ghostly "weird probability field". "Potential" is merely probability with the power of Intention. :chin:

What would have happened if there was no Big Bang? :
What if there was no Big Bang, no dark matter, no dark energy, and everything is swamped in some kind of weird quantum probability field. ... The Big Bang, as we currently understand it, says that everything in the universe started out as a single, infinitely small point, or singularity.
https://www.seeker.com/what-if-the-big-bang-never-happened-1792546415.html

** Pattern is an intelligible form. We see the invisible relationships between a group of material objects, and recognize it as a form we are already familiar with.

But other than worrying about food, threats or a mate - ie sex they do not appear to worry. — David S

Yes. That's why humans were forced by their internal rational conflicts to develop Laws, Ethics, and Morality : we worry too much about the unintended consequences of our freedom. :smile:

There is an asymmetry in the interaction of forms, otherwise they annihilate. — Pop

Absolute symmetry is perfect & changeless. Change requires asymmetry (difference) in order to allow room for something new to happen. :smile:

which would imply that "meaning" is the last information integrated by a body of information? — Pop

Yes. Metaphorically, meaning is like the right-hand image in my last post. It begins as isolated dots, with no apparent connection. But the mind connects-the-dots or fills-in-the-blanks (integrates), resulting in a meaningful pattern of information. No longer random, that mental pattern relates to our personal experience in some way. :nerd:

Thanks for the answer, and for humoring my speculations. — Pop

You're welcome. Us "woo-mongers" don't get much positive reinforcement on this forum. We are talking about unconventional concepts, that sound "weird" (like Quantum Physics) to those with a classical mindset. :joke:

It's by exchanging views that we learn to see things from a different perspective. And we gain a new vocabulary in which to express our private mind-states. For example, I hadn't thought of Information in terms of "self-organization" before your post on a Short Theory of Consciousness. But that's exactly what EnFormAction is. It causes disorganized random patterns to organize into orderly meaningful patterns of information. Although technically, each transformation (change) has an external cause, since that cause is invisible, the new form appears to be "self-organized". Some think that the Big Bang organized itself from nothing-but invisible "Laws", which are necessarily Causal. Only the First Cause would be self-caused.

Even the universe itself can be understood as an Organism. Ironically the question remains : "is the Universe self-organized, or is it organized by an outside Self"? Is our world self-conscious? I don't know the answer, but it's worth looking into. :chin:

PS__Sorry, I got carried away with imaginary nonsense and speculative pseudo-woo. :cool:

Yeah. I would think of information as being the change in mental state, due to an interaction with an externality. So much the same thing. — Pop

Yes. EnFormAction causes changes in both physical material, and in meta-physical states. It's the subsequent chain-of-causation after the First Cause. That initial impetus necessarily possessed Potential for both physical effects and meta-physical effects. That's why our current reality includes both Matter and Mind. The Big Bang was not just a fireworks explosion of matter & energy -- no room in the Singularity for a universe full of 3D spatial matter. Instead, I envision it as the execution of a no-D Program of Potential EnFormAction, which being metaphysical (mind stuff) requires no space for storage, or time for its virtual static state. That's how a sub-Planck-scale pinpoint of Potential could give birth to a universe, that is currently a zillion times larger, and has existed for zillions of Planck seconds. *

Of course, this being a Real material world, the change in Ideal mental state we call "Consciousness" or "Meaning" is preceded by a change in the physical state of the brain. The "external" patterns we observe make a difference in the mental patterns of our Mind. This may sound like mere semantics to a Materialist, but it helps to explain what Bateson labelled The Difference That Makes a Difference. In other words, its the change that makes a meaning (some pattern that is significant to the observer). The difference is expressed mathematically as a ratio, such as the difference between Life & Death. :gasp:

The Difference :
Gregory Bateson, an English anthropologist is credited with this phrase. He was talking about information and how it can affect things. What information can we know that will completely change the situation/experiment/culture?
https://www.stephanie-burns.com/blog/2017/3/25/the-difference-that-makes-the-difference
Note -- in physical terms : "The potential difference (which is the same as voltage) is equal to the amount of current multiplied by the resistance." And metaphorically, a mental difference has the potential to complete a circuit (meaning ; meme) in another mind.

* Some physicists are still trying to imagine an explanation for the beginning and expansion of the universe, that doesn't require a something-from-nothing beginning.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2020/09/17/if-the-big-bang-wasnt-the-beginning-what-was-it/

This is important to the idea that information is an interaction of forms. It would be a helpful if you could confirm, or deny this? — Pop

I'm not qualified to confirm or deny your concept that "information is the interaction of forms". But I tend to focus on information as meaning, which is something more than a simple collision of "forms". In the absence of an observer, the forms may simply annihilate, like matter/anti-matter. Any meaning of that "interaction" is enformed only in the mind of the independent observer.

However, the Wiki article (below) on the double-slit experiment concludes that a conscious Observer is not the cause of the collapse of the wave form into a particle form -- merely a by-stander. If so, it would imply that the slit effect is caused by a meaningless mechanical interaction of matter/energy (particles), with no input or output of meaning. It would also deny my assumption that the extraction of meaning by a conscious observer is, perhaps not necessary, but sufficient to cause an amorphous wave of potential to convert into a point of actual matter. By that I mean, the interaction could be meaningful or meaningless, depending on the context (the experimental setup). If no observer, there is no memory of that ephemeral event. If no-one ever looks into Schrodinger's box, how would we know what happened?

I have never bought into the woo-ish interpretation that Consciousness is capable of magical mind-over-matter effects. Instead, I imagine the cause/effect in terms of ordinary energy exchanges, which I label EnFormAction. Energy is one form (a waveform) of Generic Information, while Meaning is another form (meta-physical) of the same universal substance. Since I'm not an expert in quantum physics, all I can say is that the "cause" question is controversial and debatable. In any case, I can generally agree with your formulation of the conclusion, that interacting "forms" result in producing new "information", i.e. new forms (particles), that may be different from the original forms (waves). From my perspective though, the original "forms" possess the Potential for causing novelty. And the interaction of two old forms will usually cause a change in both of the originals.

That "interaction of forms" I would liken to the mechanism of Evolution. For example, an existing species can mutate into a potentially viable or non-viable form. Such mutations are equivalent to the non-local un-certain waveform of the slit experiment. But when two or more of those different forms combine (via sexual or asexual pathways), the output of that "interaction" is a novel combination of the original genes (potentials). Then, statistical natural selection weeds-out (annihilates) the non-viable forms, and allows the viable forms to continue the process of evolution. In the slit analogy, the random formless potential of a light wave, when perturbed by interaction with a physical obstacle (the slit), is forced to materialize into specific enformed particles of energy. :smile:


Observer Effect :
The need for the "observer" to be conscious is not supported by scientific research, and has been pointed out as a misconception rooted in a poor understanding of the quantum wave function ψ and the quantum measurement process.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_effect_(physics)

Quantum Consciousness :
Does the change in the behaviour of particles seen in Young’s double-slit experiment really suggest that consciousness can alter matter and exist separately from the brain?
https://medium.com/science-first/the-double-slit-experiment-demystified-disproving-the-quantum-consciousness-connection-ee8384a50e2f

Interacting Waves result in positive (reinforcement) or negative (null) changes :
reinforcement = particle . . . . . null = annihilation

I think Landauer's principle might be relevent to it. I think we are saying something similar just with different language and concepts. — Pop

Landauer says that "erasing" information is equivalent to Entropy, which is the result of deleting Energy from a system. So, extracting Energy is also the removal of Information, and vice-versa. That's why I conclude that when a human observer "measures" an experiment, he is literally extracting Information from that system, into his own mental system. The energy loss may be minor, but the gain in meaning could be significant to the observer. In any case, that act of measurement makes a change in the thing observed : such as a wave collapse. :smile:

there is no information before collapse. — Pop

I would re-phrase that assertion, to say that "there is intrinsic information, but no meaning to the observer, until the collapse. Before the observation, the meaning of that information is merely Potential. But the act of measuring converts it into Actual (manifest) meaning (knowledge) in the mind of the observer. :cool:

Potential :
Unrealized or unmanifest creative power. For example the Voltage of an electric battery is its potential for future current flow measured in Amps. Potential is inert until actualized by some trigger.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html
Note -- EnFormAction is analogous to Energy : it exists in both Potential and Actual forms.

PS__(re: "different language") I think you have more of a formal philosophical or scientific background than me. I have only seriously pursued Philosophy in my old age. So my language tends to be idiosyncratic and eccentric.

In the double slit experiment, an observer is replaced with a measuring device, and the wave collapses just the same. — Pop

Some have noted that it's not the dumb measuring instrument, but the intelligent scientist who looks at the abstract read-out, and realizes what just happened. In that case, the collapse doesn't occur until the experimenter opens Schrodinger's Box, and realizes the the cat is not half-dead, or all-dead, but fully alive. In other words, it's not the measuring stick that does the trick, but the extraction of that information into a receptive Mind. The mind is the ultimate "measuring device". Those mechanical devices don't care one way or the other. What matters is the meaning. :nerd:

Does Consciousness Cause Quantum Collapse? :
On this view conscious experience is something in addition to the brain processes that accompany it, something non-physical.
https://philosophynow.org/issues/121/Does_Consciousness_Cause_Quantum_Collapse

What is the meaning of Mensura (to measure)? :
a doctrine first propounded by Protagoras holding that humankind is the measure of all things, that everything is relative to human apprehension and evaluation, and that there is no objective truth.
(Latin, mens- = mind)
mind, intention, brain, intellect, faculties, understanding
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=latin+mind