That sounds like you agreeing! My point was/is that we use a finite set of signs. — jjAmEs

how is that agreeing b/c sounds like you critiqued me arguing the opposite: " but expressing such a continuum would require an infinite number of signs." I answered the continuum is quantized into fuzzy categories so very finite.

A s — Saussure

The sound pattern is not actually a sound; for a sound is something physical. A sound pattern is the hearer’s psychological impression of a sound, as given to him by the evidence of his senses — Saussure

not true. a sound pattern, after being converted to its electrical wave analog, is broken up into all kinds of meaningful physical features, many of which are well known (e.g., Hz, power, envelope, wavelets, harmonics, echos, reverb, etc., etc.). all of those parametric features can be captured as non-verbal linguistic labels, some of which can later aggregate into verbal linguistic meanings. As such, verbal linguistic meanings are not necessarily based on signs from the raw sensory signal, but actual sensor features (like the visual example for leaves on the tree are not signs of leaves but observed pixel analog pattern of tree leaves). the simplest (yet still highly simplified) example is sound hits the ear, the tapered cochlea does an effective FFT the hairs at the end detect the high pitches and generate corresponding electrical signal, auditory circuits detect the high Hz signal content and trigger a non-verbal concept of high pitch is present and a verbal circuit for the word 'high pitch' is bound to and triggered by this pathway being stimulated. So, when the person said that sound has 'high pitch' they are not relating to a sign of the 'high pitch' in the sound but an actual measurement transducer into an abstract verbal linguistic analog. How would Saussure counter this actual way things work in our brain, documented for such simple cases.

The sound pattern may thus be distinguished from the other element associated with it in a linguistic sign. This other element is generally of a more abstract kind: the concept. — Saussure

not in my above example.

Add to this the arbitrariness of the sign (what sound or shape we use doesn't matter) and the 'immateriality' of language becomes vivid. All the same it needs a medium. — jjAmEs

this is just variance around central linguistic/visual model. There is nothing 'immaterial' about it. You just find the center of the training cluster and establish a linguistic category variance boundary (e.g., 1 standard deviation) to achieve a certain maximum error rate and you still have language based on actual raw data that is just characterized to be tolerant to parametric variation. Nothing to do with signs or abstractions creating immateriality. Please clarify further where my thinking is wrong there.

I'll share a link with you. It's pointless to debate Saussure without you looking into him and getting the big picture. Also, if you read over the last few pages of this thread, you'll have some context. Without that context, of course it's vague! — jjAmEs

OK. thx. I'll read it over soon and come back to you understandings, pros/cons. However, based on our above exchange, I'm not expecting it to overcome my counter examples...

In light of synechism (continuity) — Mapping the Medium

hogwash. there is nothing about continuity that precludes machine implemented emergent AI conscious agents. If anything, they could be more in touch with the quantum continuum via things like q-bits, quantum wells, single particle systems, etc.

Anyhow, that continuity concept seems unworthy of serious consideration b/c for it to matter the continuum chain would have to transmit a continuum of meaning, which I posit is impossible to preserve between dimensions and even between orders of magnitude in scale. For example, Peirce’s synechism concept fails in the simplest of examples like the party game where you get many people (say 10) side by side and have one at one end tell a message to their adjacent, and each repeats the same message to the next. The meaning of the message always is altered, even if subtlely, by the time it is repeated at the other end. Thus, it fails even in that ideal case, of nearly identical cognitive agents speaking the same language living in the same culture. So, we should have almost zero confidence in any kind of meaning existing in subparticles, in far remote locations, being able to communicate their meaning through quantum mechanical random fluctuations to neurons that communicate that as the same meaning to the conscious agent.

In light of … and the necessity of 'otherness' in the process of semiosis, ... — Mapping the Medium

More hogwash. My model creates a potential framework of otherness using very concreate, machine implementable means.

my hypothesis/theory/model under development, predicts otherwise. There is energy- Energy patterns as an entity in-and of itself. That is, in my model, consciousness, esp. the qualia kind, is pure energy create as a sort of new, and separate entity within the physical entity, yet part the system as a whole. In my model, the 'consciousness' entity is pure energy, being in a resonant whole with the cognitive and sensory/motor systems such that they are effectively a whole, unified entity with all parts in tune and sensing all other parts all at once. This is a physical 'thing' not a process b/c it is an instantaneous resonant wave system inseparable from the physical boundary and propagating media properties/constraints.

The closest analogy I can think of is a macro version of a Bose-Einstein condensate, so maybe a 6th state of matter. Can't say with confidence yet, but I currently see this, along with many other frameworks/mechanics, as a promising framework for me to achieve the qualia aspect of consciousness. For the access aspects of consciousness, I'm modeling that under a sophisticated non-verbal linguistic framework, which are mostly data-structures and processes and I do not expect those will be part of the 'qualia' experience.

'emergence' clearly is of an organic nature — Mapping the Medium

‘clearly’??? LOL. and the Earth is flat and the center of the universe, just because you say so... right?

I’ve presented more concreate “otherness” physical model hypothesis above that does not rely on any supernatural hocus-pocus, and showed a strong counter-example to a synechism requirement (which there is no evidence occurs in the human brain/mind), so how do you logically argue that Consciousness clearly is of an organic nature?


https://epochemagazine.org/the-continuity-of-being-c-s-peirces-philosophy-of-synechism-9fa5c341247e

"The challenge that Peirce’s synechism issues us [and Mapping the Medium], however, is this: if the universe really is found to be continuous, such that between any two things there is no unbridged gap but a gradient of infinitesimal degrees of difference — in at least potency if not actuality — if this continuity exists in fact and not only in theory (and a careful examination, I think, can only lead one to the former conclusion): what then explains this continuity, if not agapasm?"


http://www.commens.org/encyclopedia/article/esposito-joseph-synechism-keystone-peirce%E2%80%99s-metaphysics
Peirce did not explain continuity by reference to a continuous medium like space or time. He observed: “Now if my definition of continuity involves the notion of immediate connection, and my definition of immediate connection involves the notion of time; and the notion of time involves that of continuity, I am falling into a circulus in definiendo.” (CP 6.642) At times he argued that we have direct knowledge of continuity through immediate consciousness of our present feelings, (CP 1.167), and since those feelings must be past before we can interpret them, when we do so interpret them we must be in unmediated contact with the pasts continuously connected with the future. (CP 1.169; 4.641) Therefore, he argued, it is a sound hypothesis to believe that “time really is continuous.” But he also argued that “time logically supposes a continuous range of intensity in feeling.” (CP 6.132.) Unanswered in these considerations is whether time is continuous because our feelings are continuous or whether our feelings our continuous because they endure in continuous time.2

With regards to space, Peirce denied that three-dimensional Newtonian space was objectively real, adopting a Leibnizian conception over a Newtonian one. (CP 5.530) In his third letter to Samuel Clarke Leibniz argued that space as not absolute but “an order of coexistences, as time is an order of successions.” As Peirce described it, the order of space is not geometrical but dynamical and even dialectical: “Space is thus truly general; and yet it is, so to say, nothing but the way in which actual bodies conduct themselves. ”
…
Peirce recognized that continuity in whatever form manifested and was governed by generality: “continuity is not an affair of multiplicity simply (though nothing but an innumerable multitude can be continuous) but is an affair of arrangement also.” (CP 4.121) He realized that “[t]here is no continuity of points in the sense in which continuity implies generality.” (CP 5.205) and that “continuity and generality are the same thing.” (CP 4.172) And finally: “Now continuity is shown by the logic of relations to be nothing but a higher type of that which we know as generality. It is relational generality.” (CP 6.190)
…
However, his eventual objection was that the system broke down in the face of the doctrine of continuity, viz., that there may be states of the universe that are not strictly units or links, but vague in-between states that are given a false precision because we may refer to such states precisely using a discrete form of language. In fact Kempe’s entire system was a form of language that defined its terms as having the power to represent but could not be said to represent anything. Therefore, Kemp’s system did not have a way of characterizing our interpretation of it on its own terms. Kempe’s diagrams do not represent anything; therefore, “it is not surprising that the idea of thirdness, or mediation, should be scarcely discernible when the representative character is left out of account.” (CP 3.423) When Kempe refers to a process as a unit “the diagram fails to afford any formal representation of the manner in which this abstract idea is derived from the concrete ideas.” (CP 3.424) In other words, Peirce was not satisfied with a system of notation that could refer to all that may be denoted, for a spot could fully refer to the entire universe; he wanted a system that was “connected with nature” (CP 3.423) and that was also linked to a process of discovery: “The difference between setting down spots in a diagram to represent recognized objects, and making new spots for the creation of logical thought, is huge,” he concluded .(CP3.424) Kempe, to Peirce’s satisfaction, could not refute the claim that Thirdness was an undecomposable element of the universe, and that if continuity was relational generality representational capacity must be part of that generality.
…
Hormones and other signaling molecules circulate throughout the body to highly specific targets in order to activate through various transduction pathways other messengers that turn on or inhibit cascades of enzymes. However, such descriptions do not reach a level of relational generality that explains what is being described, and we are left to marvel at what we do not understand even while the picture may be clearly before us. What is the required level of generality—the subatomic, the cellular, the intercellular, that of functioning organs, the organism, the ecological? Peirce suggests that there may be a relatively few general algorithms that are capable of explaining the dizzying complexity of mushy biological systems. He would contend that the capacity to represent would be a part of this synechistic algorithm. Representation is a process of creating a virtual reality, a Hegelian ‘reflection’, the emergence of a Thou to an I. It is part of every physical process, according to Peirce:

Whatever is real is the law of something less real. Stuart Mill defined matter as a permanent possibility of sensation. What is a permanent possibility but a law? Atom acts on atom, causing stress in the intervening matter. Thus force is the general fact of the states of atoms on the line. This is true of force in its widest sense, dyadism. That which corresponds to a general class of dyads is a representation of it, and the dyad is nothing but a conflux of representations. A general class of representations collected into one object is an organized thing, and the representation is that which many such things have in common. And so forth. (CP 1.487)
Atomism collapses because it does not include a way of integrating itself into a theory, for example, of how biological sub-systems may ‘signal’ other sub-systems and generally of how representations could co-exist with atoms
…
Thirdness
Synechism may be regarded as Peirce’s philosophy of Thirdness, the category of mediation, regularity, and coordination, as well as of “generality, infinity, continuity, diffusion, growth, and intelligence.” (CP 1.340). To say that continuity is an illustration of Thirdness is to say that no continuous process could continue accidentally and without guidance. There are many instances in his writings where Peirce describes Thirdness. For example:

By the third, I mean the medium or connecting bond between the absolute first and last. The beginning is first, the end second, the middle third. The end is second, the means third. The thread of life is a third; the fate that snips it, its second. A fork in a road is a third, it supposes three ways; a straight road, considered merely as a connection between two places is second, but so far as it implies passing through intermediate places it is third. Position is first, velocity or the relation of two successive positions second, acceleration or the relation of three successive positions third. But velocity in so far as it is continuous also involves a third. Continuity represents Thirdness almost to perfection.(CP 1.337)
Every feature of synechism requires for its explanation reference to the category of Thirdness.

AI machines will never 'emerge' and be a natural processing organism of semiosis. — Mapping the Medium

I pray you are not suffering from the same mental issues as your philosophical mentor Peirce.

https://epochemagazine.org/the-continuity-of-being-c-s-peirces-philosophy-of-synechism-9fa5c341247e
Peirce’s life, as artfully depicted in Joseph Brent’s biography, fits the profile of tortured genius more than most. Born the son of a Harvard professor of mathematics, he was precocious, brilliant, unsure of himself, erratic, temperamental, by turns abstemious and lascivious. He suffered all his life from the pains of trigeminal neuralgia — which he treated by various chemical concoctions, including morphine and cocaine — and likely had bipolar disorder. He was, moreover, convinced that his left-handedness was a physiological deformity that rendered him at odds with the rest of society, and would experience agonizing paralytic spells to which no diagnosis fit. He believed in God seemingly more from philosophical conviction, and perhaps mystical (or drug-induced) experience, than from any religious habit or practice...Where his personal life was marred by interruptions — mania and depression, pain and addiction, rejection and isolation — his thought was marked by continuity. Not to say that Peirce never changed his mind or even that he was steadfast and consistent in his writings; but what more than anything else what he sought was the coherence of thought.

I understand your point, but expressing such a continuum would require an infinite number of signs. — jjAmEs

I disagree, at least b/c in reality/practice there are a very finite set of linguistic object categories. I think you misunderstand my linguistic continuum to be like a number line. It is a quantized parametric continuum with a cloud of parametric variances (or fuzzy linguistic membership degree labels) separating adjacent sub-categories on the multi-dimensional linguistic model. Also, it is quite easy for a cNN to be trained to learn the hyper-planes that separate/clusters into the various object categories, and those could be linguistically labelled as such.

ndividual human beings might have trouble choosing between 'bush' or 'shrub' in a particular situation. The boundary might be undecidable — jjAmEs

indeed, b/c they mean the same thing! :grin:

Definition of bush. (Entry 1 of 8) 1a : shrub especially : a low densely branched shrub. b : a close thicket of shrubs suggesting a single plant. 2 : a large uncleared or sparsely settled area (as in Australia) usually scrub-covered or forested : wilderness —usually used with the.

I think a better argument against Saussure is our intuitive notion that individual signs hook up to individual intuitive content. — jjAmEs

I don't understand. Seems way too vague to be useful. can you pls clarify in concrete terms, example(s) like I did mine.

If they do, and thoughts occur, then I exist? — Kranky

Before even being in a position to question one's existence as a 'thinker' by virtue of 'thinking' I think there are at least 3 prerequisites: 1. (self)consciousness and 2. some internal context/framework that 'you' as a consciousness cognitive agent ('thinker') can sense as operate within, and 3. the thinker's thoughts must have the ability to observe control/affect of it. A consciousness concluding it exists must have a need a framework to understand itself and what the answer would mean to itself, apart from external reference points. Like seeing one's self in the mirror, pinching your skin to feel the causal connection, hurting yourself to feel the pain, stopping your thought to prove your self-agency, etc.

More generally, I'd say the only reason why we believe in our own consciousness as being real and existing is because we have no strong experiential evidence to the contrary. In my current model, consciousness is a resonant condition within the internal and external boundaries the “I” operates within. However, the self-awareness aspect of experiential/qualia consciousness also tracks the time evolution of this resonant consciousness wave function (currently, I’m modelling that as a quantum pilot wave) and we call that (quantum knot) history as defining our unique thinking existence as a coherent, self-consistent emanation of the same consciousness cognitive agent, so we are completely calling that time evolved resonant wave pattern the “I” ‘story’ and concluding that we exist at least as a thinking being. This is at least one way that I believe Descartes gets it wrong. For example, in brain with a multiple personality disorder, I’d says that they do not have a single resonant consciousness wave function that collapses into one coherent, self-consistent emanation of the same consciousness cognitive agent, but many. So, any one of the resonant consciousness wave functions will only resonate with the resonant consciousness wave function (of its multiple personality choices) that is a coherent time evolution (quantum knot) history with its own wave function signature. That resonant consciousness would still be aware of the other a time evolution (quantum knot) histories (of the other people/personalities in their head) but ascribe those to supernatural hijacking of their brains/thoughts (e.g., demonic possession, spirits, other ‘people’ in their brains, etc.), thus they would not say that those other, equally valid versions of themselves, are part of them, but foreign mental invaders.

In this way, I’d say that consciousness can never be self-assess as a snapshot in time, but has to be part of a self-consistent path history (like a story/narrative) that all points to the same resonant focal point/pattern that you call you. Mess with that, and your sense of self consciousness/identity should degrade and vanish into a chaos ideas, facts, memories but without any form, function, or purpose, which I not call that ‘thought’ or ‘thinking’, so a problem to the Descartes way of evidencing oneself.

Furthermore, under my framework, to establish one’s self-consciousness we have to be able to explore all our boundary conditions that ware resonating within and their nature must be accessible/determinable wrt their form, function, or purpose in influencing the landscape that the consciousness agent in question is resonating with and within. Then, the consciousness agent in question would have to observe a time-evolution history path where their ‘thought’ could in-fact modify those boundary conditions and that had a correlated, esp. if *expected*, effect on their conscious state of being to ‘feel’ they are alive and the executive center of the (resonating) system. Then, the consciousness agent in question would have to learn and use those associations as tools to manipulate itself (the best it can) to achieve goal states of being. Towards a definition qualia consciousness, I’m thinking that the degree that the consciousness agent in question can do the above, it has ever higher orders of qualia consciousness.

In the context of the Cogito Ergo Sum vs. Solipsism points of view, I’d say that my above model applies to both, but both are malformed hypothesis b/c they lack to true mechanics of how consciousness works, so both are far to simplistic ways of forcing a circle into a square, and there will be arguments and evidence for/against each b/c neither is a suitable, complete model. To extend my largely Solipsism supporting framework to the Cogito Ergo Sum view, I believe I just extend the sensory motor boundary of one’s consciousness resonance condition to include other humans of like mind and all the same above mechanics work, and to the extreme case you get a mob, acting as one mind/ consciousness towards a unified form, function, and purpose. They lose individuality and together become the new consciousness of a superorganism much like individual atoms can become lost into a Bose-Einstein condensate fifth state of (consciousness) matter. Once they get out of the superorganism (Bose-Einstein condensate) consciousness state they almost have no memory or explanation of how they could come to think or act to kill/destroy/eradicate/etc. and go back to their comparatively boring mundane lives as individual consciousness agents. I’d say the human ability for this superorganism consciousness state of mind/being evidences against the purist Solipsism views.
I could go on and on, but these are my basic ideas so far on the subject.

Whereas I say — Wayfarer

Because, as Husserl explains in Crisis of European Sciences, Descartes' depiction of 'res cogitans' leads to it being characterised as a literal substance, something that objectively exists (or doesn't exist). Whereas I say that because you can never get outside consciousness, then it is never amongst the things that exist. It doesn't exist anywhere at all, certainly not 'in' brains or 'in' minds. — Wayfarer

That seems like some big leaps of assumptions to conclusions, resulting in an off-the-wall sounding position. Please clarify your logic/evidence why "It [consciousness] doesn't exist anywhere at all, certainly not 'in' brains or 'in' minds" In my current model, consciousness is in a unified resonance w/ the various brain/mind structures and I see some mechanics on how it could work.

You’re talking about language in the sense of stringing symbols together to form a communication. I’m talking about the relation between a conception we think and the symbolism assigned that makes language possible. Because the same thing can be said in many different languages across cultures, and because the same thing can be said in exactly the same language regardless of culture, re: mathematics, and....as if that wasn’t enough...the same symbolism across cultures can indicate very different things, re: football, then it is readily apparent that experience of the thing being talked about, grounds the symbolism for talking about it.
Disclaimer: I detest language philosophy; — Mww

you are talking about verbal language. However, under my theory I am working out a non-verbal linguistics that would certainly be independent of any verbal language or culture, and I'm not talking about anything like body-language. I see verbal language as the tip of the iceberg compared to all the non-verbal linguistics our brains/minds must use to ground our consciousness into sensory-motor & environmental realities.

This notion can be hard to understand since we may feel that an individual word such as ‘tree’ does have some meaning for us, but Saussure’s argument is that its meaning depends on its relation to other words within the system (such as ‘bush’).
...
Saussure emphasized in particular negative, oppositional differences between signs. He argued that ‘concepts . . . are defined not positively, in terms of their content, but negatively by contrast with other items in the same system. What characterizes each most exactly is being whatever the others are not’ (Saussure 1983, 115; my emphasis). — link

I think Saussure is wrong on that. I'm sure both modes are employed. It would make little sense to do it one way or the other. A bush is just a parametric variant of a linguistic tree concept, so there is no need to instantiate one as a negative of the other b/c they are in fact on a continuum of the same parametric variables on the same model (e.g., has roots, trunk, branches, leaves, etc.) where the bush might be a shorter, wider, more leaf/branching density, less trunk thickness, etc.

For Saussure, there are no objects (words/texts/others) that carry inherent, autonomous, "positive" meaning: there are only points of view whose meanings depend on their interrelatedness: Saussure states that "in language there are only differences without positive terms" (LT 88). Signifiers (sound images) and signifieds (concepts/meanings) are not fixed and universal and do not simply reflect or represent prior categories (the world/ideas/forms): language articulates or makes such categories and concepts possible. — Flores

how would Saussure (et. al.) refute my above positive meaning of a linguistic tree vs bush concepts?

Furthermore, math only supports knowledge, — alcontali

can you clarify what you mean here? I my mind, math support all faculties of the human mind, esp. since the operate under known physics and signaling types.

Furthermore, math only supports knowledge, i.e. justified beliefs, while knowledge is just one limited mental tool. Knowledge cannot possible be an essential or the primary ingredient in the discovery of new knowledge, because otherwise humanity would either have no knowledge at all, or else, have discovered all possible knowledge already. — alcontali

can you clarify in other terms what you mean here? I don't understand the logic/argument supporting "humanity would either have no knowledge at all, or else, have discovered all possible knowledge already"

At a bare minimum, all attribution of meaning(all meaning) requires something to become symbol/sign, something to become symbolized/significant and a creature capable of drawing a mental correlation, association, and/or connection between the two.

There are no examples to the contrary. — creativesoul

how are you so sure about that? For example, one type of meaning in something is if it, in-and-of-itself, contributes to an explanatory principle of something else; e.g., a causal reason for a process being triggered is not a symbol or sign.

No, thats more incestuous 'word salad'. What is 'knowledge' or 'belief' other than 'degree of confidence in the results of potential action' ?. — fresco

knowledge is not confidence . do you maybe mean the know-how to actions needed to achieve a certain result, with some degree of confidence in the causal connection between acting on the knowledge achieving the result?

As to what the concept of existence is. First, speaking generally, it is the quality of presence in the totality, or the rejection of the absence from the totality of things. In other words, it is a statement about the world. Your being posits that you are part of this totality and have agency in the universe. — simeonz

I see why you want to go there, but I'm not quite sure of that in general. Before even being in a position to question one's existence I think there are at least 3 prerequisites: 1. (self)consciousness and 2. some internal context/framework that 'you' as a consciousness cognitive agent can sense as operate within, and 3. have the ability to control/affect it. A consciousness concluding it exists must have a need a framework to understand itself and what the answer would mean to itself, apart from external reference points. Like seeing one's self in the mirror, pinching your skin to feel the causal connection, hurting yourself to feel the pain, stopping your thought to prove your self-agency, etc.

That is, I'd say the only reason why we believe in our own consciousness as being real and existing is because we have no strong experiential evidence to the contrary. In my current model, consciousness is a resonant condition within the internal and external boundaries the “I” operates within. However, the self-awareness aspect of experiential/qualia consciousness also tracks the time evolution of this resonant consciousness wave function (currently, I’m modelling that as a quantum pilot wave) and we call that (quantum knot) history as defining our unique thinking existence as a coherent, self-consistent emanation of the same consciousness cognitive agent, so we are completely calling that time evolved resonant wave pattern the “I” ‘story’ and concluding that we exist at least as a thinking being. This is at least one way that I believe Descartes gets it wrong. For example, in brain with a multiple personality disorder, I’d says that they do not have a single resonant consciousness wave function that collapses into one coherent, self-consistent emanation of the same consciousness cognitive agent, but many. So, any one of the resonant consciousness wave functions will only resonate with the resonant consciousness wave function (of its multiple personality choices) that is a coherent time evolution (quantum knot) history with its own wave function signature. That resonant consciousness would still be aware of the other a time evolution (quantum knot) histories (of the other people/personalities in their head) but ascribe those to supernatural hijacking of their brains/thoughts (e.g., demonic possession, spirits, other ‘people’ in their brains, etc.), thus they would not say that those other, equally valid versions of themselves, are part of them, but foreign mental invaders.

In this way, I’d say that consciousness can never be self-assess as a snapshot in time, but has to be part of a self-consistent path history (like a story/narrative) that all points to the same resonant focal point/pattern that you call you. Mess with that, and your sense of self consciousness/identity should degrade and vanish into a chaos ideas, facts, memories but without any form, function, or purpose, which I not call that ‘thought’ or ‘thinking’, so a problem to the Descartes way of evidencing oneself.

Furthermore, under my framework, to establish one’s self-consciousness we have to be able to explore all our boundary conditions that ware resonating within and their nature must be accessible/determinable wrt their form, function, or purpose in influencing the landscape that the consciousness agent in question is resonating with and within. Then, the consciousness agent in question would have to observe a time-evolution history path where their ‘thought’ could in-fact modify those boundary conditions and that had a correlated, esp. if *expected*, effect on their conscious state of being to ‘feel’ they are alive and the executive center of the (resonating) system. Then, the consciousness agent in question would have to learn and use those associations as tools to manipulate itself (the best it can) to achieve goal states of being. Towards a definition qualia consciousness, I’m thinking that the degree that the consciousness agent in question can do the above, it has ever higher orders of qualia consciousness.

In the context of the Cogito Ergo Sum vs. Solipsism points of view, I’d say that my above model applies to both, but both are malformed hypothesis b/c they lack to true mechanics of how consciousness works, so both are far to simplistic ways of forcing a circle into a square, and there will be arguments and evidence for/against each b/c neither is a suitable, complete model. To extend my largely Solipsism supporting framework to the Cogito Ergo Sum view, I believe I just extend the sensory motor boundary of one’s consciousness resonance condition to include other humans of like mind and all the same above mechanics work, and to the extreme case you get a mob, acting as one mind/ consciousness towards a unified form, function, and purpose. They lose individuality and together become the new consciousness of a superorganism much like individual atoms can become lost into a Bose-Einstein condensate fifth state of (consciousness) matter. Once they get out of the superorganism (Bose-Einstein condensate) consciousness state they almost have no memory or explanation of how they could come to think or act to kill/destroy/eradicate/etc. and go back to their comparatively boring mundane lives as individual consciousness agents. I’d say the human ability for this superorganism consciousness state of mind/being evidences against the purist Solipsism views.
I could go on and on, but these are my basic ideas so far on the subject.

you are hijacking the thread.. I've studied lots of ...and I'm pretty clear on what AI is and what it isn't. So forgive me if I don't accede to your stubborn, if myopic, fixation — Pantagruel

I disagree. You are talking about current AI state-of-the-art. I am talking about the philosophy of AI (in light of current AI state-of-the-art) as a framework for grounding the philosophy human mind-body. To ignore and discount that, IMHO, it tantamount to a philosophy about what is time ignoring what Physicist theorize time is about wrt the human condition and matter.

OK, I'll leave your thread in your feel-good, anthropomorphic bubble..., but don't be surprised if you are the only one commenting on your thread... b/c you have not otherwise motivated any philo interest in your topic... I was just trying to help you on that... best wishes..

Mind-body is about the interaction of thought and matter. — Pantagruel

that is only your anthropomorphic opinion, of course. Just b/c the ancient greeks could not ponder a thinking machine doesn't mean that modern philosophers should be stuck should be stuck in the mental box of the ancients. That is like if modern philosophers still believed Aristotle's philosophical belief that heavier objects drop faster in gravity. If physicists did not simulate falling bodies in a vacuum then Aristotle's philosophical conclusion on that would still dominate modern philosophical thought, and be completely wrong. Increasingly, mind-body philosophers might start looking more like endeavoring in a theology than a logically grounded quest for mind-body truth.

AI is about simulating thought. — Pantagruel

not true. AI is about reproducing human thought, which you may anthropomorphically call simulating it. So, you are saying that machines cannot have human kind/level of thought?

computational mimicry — Pantagruel

you can ponder hypotheticals and exalt the human mind as being uniquely non-corporeal all you want, but words mean something. And if the way you state/hypothesis something is using words, if those words also cover automata and simulacra of the ancient, medieval, or modern worlds then those/your definitions and/or theories cannot be seriously considered as meaningful/useful per my above.

Provide better definitions, words, and/or theories that cannot possibly be satisfied by automata, simulacra, etc. then you have something for us to talk about.

In any case, talking about a natural phenomenon most certainly has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that human beings also happen to create a model for that phenomenon. — Pantagruel

that is 'nonsense' in that Genetic algorithms automatically build models and solutions, some that even humans cannot think of. Also, NNs can create symbolic and pattern matching models of phenomenon which can also be used to automatically create programs that control physical bodies (incl. robots and conducting experiments). Sounds to me like those can already do Popper's model of Worlds 1, 2, and 3, material objects, psychological events, and abstract ideas.

I suspect you are heavily anthropomorphizing Popper's theories to exclude existing non-human examples of it. Also, you seem to be arguing degree, which is not on point b/c current machines have zero degree of mind or consciousness.

What does it even mean to be intelligent without having no any information about anything? — Zelebg

I think you have posed a malformed question that has mislead commenters into an wrong direction. I think you/we/they have to first address/answer "What does it even mean to be intelligent .".

The intent of your question, however, might relate to a notion I've had for >10 yrs concerning static intelligence vs dynamic vs ??. One aspect of my notion on that is that all objects/structures have various degrees of static intelligence related to the manner which their structure is organized to impart a *potential* ability to reduce uncertainty or transform other energy/structures into higher/lower forms of organization. e.g., a complex crystal structure and self-replicating growth could be thought of in this light as having higher static intelligence compared to a steel rod or drop of water. Likewise, a catalyst in a chemical process has a smart ability to transform other molecular structures into higher/lower forms of molecular organization.

In this line of my theories, an approach to address your question, I'd say that the healthy human is born with the high static intelligence (e.g., structures & catalysts) that affords it a high potential dynamic intelligence. Yet to unlock, mature, the potential dynamic intelligence requires information and an experience of the physics/mechanics that governs it. The static intelligence might be the 'nature' and the information/environment might be the 'nurture' that is required for an actualized human intelligence.

I am not wording this in any kind of tight manner, just quickly conveying the general concept direction.

Hope this contributes towards elevating the discussion.

I disagree. If anyone claims that the mind-body work are, or relate in, a certain way and that way also applies to current, man-made AI systems, then the theory is almost useless to modeling how the mind-body [problem] actually work. So, why both reading that? You recommend it, you also have to defend/sell it, to some extent, as well.

Popper's model of Worlds 1, 2, and 3, material objects, psychological events, and abstract ideas, fits in with his overall approach of "Scientific Realism". Basically, he points out that, when a mathematician writes down his discoveries, there is an overall interaction of World 1 to 3 objects, abstract ideas end up 'making marks on paper.' — Pantagruel

this is not helpful to resolve what the mind is and how to model it. For it to be worthy of discussion here, IMHO, you have to, in clear detail, explain why a current AI computer is not, and cannot be, doing Popper's Worlds 1, 2, and 3. If you cannot articulate that then it is a complete waste of time to ponder it applying to the human mind (body).

Consciousness is not only inside an individual brain, and this relationship explains the transition of life when the body dies. — Mapping the Medium

so, do you think full, human level Consciousness is possible to be implemented in an AI machine? Or, only organic wet-wear can possess it? Your arguments/views seem to conclude the later.

But I would argue that relation is meaning is information. — Possibility

I disagree. You omit utility. There is no meaning w/o some sense of utility. A mere ontology of info/data does not create knowledge if you have not gained any actionable path to beneficially use it. I look forward to your stab at your definitions re what I pose above, which will help ground all of our lose semantics here.

Well, then you appear to have a limited understanding of what information is, but you’re not alone. Information is ‘the difference that makes a difference’. — Possibility

BTW, I should have made it more clear in my above reply that you are technically right b/c I said "does not relate to" in "that state of being you describe is not related to information. that is empathy." In the context of my above answer, I should have originally said "that state of being you describe is not a data/]information driven process b/c that is empathy."

However, many in this thread seem to throwing around various definitions of info/data/knowledge/wisdom, apparently thinking that just 'relating' data/info is enough to do the transforms. Yet, that seems way too vague for a concrete discussion of the meaning of life wrt info consumption.

So, I think we should each set forth what we regard as the best definitions and relationships between each.

For me, the below definitions are a good starting place. How about you (all)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data
Knowledge is the understanding based on extensive experience dealing with information on a subject. For example, the height of Mount Everest is generally considered data. The height can be measured precisely with an altimeter and entered into a database. This data may be included in a book along with other data on Mount Everest to describe the mountain in a manner useful for those who wish to make a decision about the best method to climb it. An understanding based on experience climbing mountains that could advise persons on the way to reach Mount Everest's peak may be seen as "knowledge". The practical climbing of Mount Everest's peak based on this knowledge may be seen as "wisdom". In other words, wisdom refers to the practical application of a person's knowledge in those circumstances where good may result. Thus wisdom complements and completes the series "data", "information" and "knowledge" of increasingly abstract concepts.
Data is often assumed to be the least abstract concept, information the next least, and knowledge the most abstract.[9] In this view, data becomes information by interpretation; e.g., the height of Mount Everest is generally considered "data", a book on Mount Everest geological characteristics may be considered "information", and a climber's guidebook containing practical information on the best way to reach Mount Everest's peak may be considered "knowledge". "Information" bears a diversity of meanings that ranges from everyday usage to technical use. This view, however, has also been argued to reverse the way in which data emerges from information, and information from knowledge.[10] Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation. Beynon-Davies uses the concept of a sign to differentiate between data and information; data is a series of symbols, while information occurs when the symbols are used to refer to something.[11][12]

Well, then you appear to have a limited understanding of what information is, but you’re not alone. Information is ‘the difference that makes a difference’. The complexity of the process that relates information to produce empathy is six-dimensional: it takes into account the conflicting info and finds meaning in relating anyway, regardless of potential conflict. — Possibility

empathy could be not much more than an exercise in pattern matching requiring little info but mostly emotive bonding with your (info) projection to see what you want to see and bond with that. emotive states (including empathy via mirror neurons) tend to bypass information usage/processing so I'm personally far less comfortable including them as part of a information/reasoning process/framework.

No doubt everything we do is based on some kind of data/info, but when the outcome action is not a largely data/info/fact reasoning driven process I'll put them in the whimsical/made-up category of emotions/empathy which tend to distort facts/info to suit its desired emotive/empathetic state outcome/conclusion.

so how can any of that be used to explain or reproduce what the (philo of) human mind does? They tried decades ago to use things like symbolic, predicate calculus/logic but failed to anything useful beyond creating automatic theorem provers.

thanks for sharing that. cute, but not very useful in the relm of the mind. That is, my original statement/assessment still stands re " any property has to convey some kind of unique meaning/utility concerning the object it is a property ", except for trivial utility like concatenating, etc.- no meaning is conveyed/preserved to how is that useful to reasoning or the mind?

see "The undefinability theorem shows that this encoding cannot be done for semantic concepts such as truth. It shows that no sufficiently rich interpreted language can represent its own semantics. A corollary is that any metalanguage capable of expressing the semantics of some object language must have expressive power exceeding that of the object language. The metalanguage includes primitive notions, axioms, and rules absent from the object language, so that there are theorems provable in the metalanguage not provable in the object language."

I find Shannon's approach certainly interesting but I am not sure that his approach to information will ever be the "dominant" one. — alcontali

I expect that Shannon's metric cannot be dominant in the realm of the mind at least because there is no way to a priori know that the ultimate entropy new data/info will have relative to the cognitive agent's existing and future knowledge-base. Moreover, his metric does not apply to single bits/particles of info.

You, Frank and @Wayfarer agree, that mind is not something material. So if it's not made of matter, what is it made of? There is nothing to make things out of in this world, but matter. — god must be atheist

not true. my hypothesis/theory/model under development, predicts otherwise. There is energy- Energy patterns as an entity in-and of itself. That is, in my model, consciousness, esp. the qualia kind, is pure energy create as a sort of new, and separate entity within the physical entity, yet part the system as a whole. In my model, the 'consciousness' entity is pure energy, being in a resonant whole with the cognitive and sensory/motor systems such that they are effectively a whole, unified entity with all parts in tune and sensing all other parts all at once. This is a physical 'thing' not a process b/c it is an instantaneous resonant wave system inseparable from the physical boundary and propagating media properties/constraints.

The closest analogy I can think of is a macro version of a Bose-Einstein condensate, so maybe a 6th state of matter. Can't say with confidence yet, but I currently see this, along with many other frameworks/mechanics, as a promising framework for me to achieve the qualia aspect of consciousness. For the access aspects of consciousness, I'm modeling that under a sophisticated non-verbal linguistic framework, which are mostly data-structures and processes and I do not expect those will be part of the 'qualia' experience. While I have some potential ideas to try, I have not yet given much thought on how to merge the two, mostly b/c implementing the above qualia approach in a holographic projection framework I have in mind is intellectually quite challenging, to say the least. I have worked out enough formative concepts to intuitively sense that consciousness can be created in a machine as an emergent object. In this way, I would predict that the mind is an energy pattern that is at one with the material that confines/defines, they coexist as a 3rd entity within the system. BTW, under my model, I need something like qualia to get a coherent, accurate, and comprehensive state of being (e.g., how do "I" feel [about this or that[) within the very spread out and disparate cognitive/sensory/motor system.

All properties of information would be properties of their corresponding numbers. — alcontali

your idea on that is unclear to me. any property has to convey some kind of unique meaning/utility concerning the object it is a property of. How does a number, alone, impart/convey any meaning?

That would turn information into a sub-discipline of number theory. All properties of information would be properties of their corresponding numbers. — alcontali

numbers, alone, have no properties. so, your ideas here seem to be incomplete at best, flawed at worst.

The meaning of life is about relating to information - finding optimal ways to maximise awareness, connection and collaboration. — Possibility

then you disagree with the poster's (et. al.) premise/statement.

I’m not saying we all have to consume as much information as possible — Possibility

the poster (et. al.) are indeed saying this. So, you disagree with their premise...

you seem to think of information as only data or words, but that’s not what I’m referring to. We relate to information, for example, simply by looking a homeless person in the eye and acknowledging them as a fellow human being who happens to be down on his luck. That we often ignore this as ‘meaningless’ information is an example of the many and varied ways that we miss the ‘meaning of life’ - which isn’t about what is ‘practical’ as to a definition of one person’s life. — Possibility

that state of being you describe is not related to information. that is empathy. Empathy is not info, or knowledge most often is emotive, which suppresses all the conflicting info which would break the (often blind) empathy.

That we often ignore this as ‘meaningless’ information is an example of the many and varied ways that we miss the ‘meaning of life’ - which isn’t about what is ‘practical’ as to a definition of one person’s life. — Possibility

my friend, you are talking about wisdom, so you are completely off topic. recall the topic is 'Information - The Meaning Of Life In a Nutshell', nothing to do with knowledge or wisdom. So, I think you went off topic b/c the poster (et. al.) are talking about the raw consumption of information, not any consideration for its utility in making useful knowledge (let alone wisdom). The poster (et. al.) say that endless information accumulation alone is the meaning, goal, and happiness of human life. You (like me), looking towards wisdom, seem to believe otherwise?

There are also good things about a knowledge gatherer mentality — Qwex

recall the topic is 'Information - The Meaning Of Life In a Nutshell', nothing to do with knowledge. So, I think you are still off topic b/c the poster (et. al.) are talking about the raw consumption of information, not any consideration for its utility in making useful knowledge (let alone wisdom).

you have gone off topic. stay focused...

no computer can generate unknown shapes — Qwex

BTW, that is not true. Genetic algorithms have been easily doing that for decades.

no computer can generate unknown shapes — Qwex

cognitive ability has nothing to do with this thread. The poster (et. al.) say that endless information accumulation alone is the meaning, goal, and happiness of human life. You (like me), looking to cognitive/practical utility, seem to believe otherwise?

I don’t think you can exclude an ‘idiot savant’ from an opportunity to fulfil the meaning of life in their own unique way. If their capacity to engage in what you see as ‘meaningful’ relationships with information is impaired, does that make their life less meaningful? — Possibility

OK, lets take your (et. al.) line of logic/thinking further. Then, in your (et. al.) terms a modern, top supercomputer has achieved a greater meaning in life because it has accumulated (and can access) more information than any human could in his/her lifetime. So, our a modern, top supercomputers are the epitome of, and superior to, humanity in that they far surpass humans in what you (et. al.) say is the key (if not only) metric of human purpose/happiness? You can't have it both ways... pick one...

I would agree with the original post, but not for a happy long life. — Qwex

so, you ascribe the meaning of life to gather endless useless *new* information? Using your (et. al.) logic then food is a greater meaning in life than information b/c a lack of sufficient information will generally not kill you, but a lack of sufficient food will. And humans are generally far more focused on consuming food, whereby they are using information (like a tool) to get to the food. Hence, information/knowledge is merely a tool to humans, and endlessly accumulating useless (even if new) tools only serves to reduce your physical/mental capabilities (i.e., effectively dumb you down). Humans are also far happier (compared to information) when they have lots more food than when starving. If a human does not have enough food it generally does not care to seek any information (thus ignore/filter out) that does not help lead to food. This behavior is programmed in our genes, so I’d argue that is more fundamental as to life’s intent than what some philosophers (with plenty of food in there bellies) say/think. Continuing, IMHO, your flawed line of thinking/logic then one would say that eating endless empty calorie food is the meaning of life. However, the Pima Indians show us clearly that letting genetic urge for something funding take its natural (meaningful?) course in an environment filled with meaningless (i.e., empty calorie) food/information only leads to morbid obesity (like a 1970s PC having to process our Peta bytes of available stored information, which would likely take it millions of years/lifetimes), so no happiness just misery in violating life’s real meaning/purpose, to consume useful calories (information) that take you to healthy states of body (and mind) .

Where is my logic/metaphors wrong here?

Without tissue being equivalent to qualia, no qualia can exist, that's the entire mind/body problem from an empirical angle. — Enrique

with what evidence do to you back up that otherwise leap to conclusion?

Perhaps we can move from computational analogies and loose correlations that ignore all sorts of phenomena to a model of actual causality. — Enrique

how does my proposed model "ignore all sorts of phenomena " and fails to enable " model of actual causality". At minimum, philosophical logic should produce plausible/realistic systems in the context of the scientific method and known/likely true facts. So, if you cannot be factual, concrete and specific then these seem to be just feelings and conclusory ideas you have, which generally would not be so helpful moving us closer towards to the truth.

The ‘meaning of life’ is simply relation to ALL information as possibility - even if it’s false, bad, wrong or incorrect. It all has meaning - just maybe not meaning to you — Possibility

So, according to your (and the original poster’s) idea, a teenager spending all day on facebook consuming endless information of relationships between trivia and social gossip is fulfilling the meaning of life (yet they have a higher rate of suicides), but a Buddhist monk that prays and meditates all day, day in and day out, consuming little to no information of the world or its relationships, is not fulfilling the meaning of life?

The more we relate to information, the more meaning that information has. The more information we exclude, the further we get from this ‘meaning of life’, and the more limited our capacity in the world. — Possibility

Not true. Do you really think an idiot savant consuming with photographic memory all info and relationships is the meaning/purpose of human life? I’d argue that consuming and recording meaningless relationships of information reduces your net meaning/knowledge b/c of your very limited capacity, bandwidth, and time to continually process and sift through the ton of meaningless info to behold the little meaningful relationships of information. That is, the better you reject meaningless information and meaningless relationships of information the greater your ability to determine what is the meaning of the truly relevant relationships of information to produce meaningful knowledge to employ at your command. Any definition of meaning and information and life that is not throttle by our very finite mental faculties is certainly not practical as to the meaning of most, if not all, people’s lives.

Do you think algorithms (programs) exist eternally apart from a Programmer? — Gnomon

yes, b/c they are built into the physics of the universe itself. all algorithms can be implemented with a comparison function combined with an "IF...THEN" function, both of which physics implements to carry out almost any natural process.

Who created the algorithms of Nature? — Gnomon

According to big bang and string theories they were randomly created.

You seem to be thinking like a creationist not like a student of quantum mechanics and/or string theories, because they state our universe and its physics is not a miracle b/c it just randomly happened that the myriad of universal physics constants took on the specific values they have to give us the physics we currently have, making our universe mostly driven by linear superposition, related rates, conservation of energy/mass, path reverseable, based on algorithmic addition and subtraction of whole/fraction numbers , etc.

Moreover, they predict we exist in a foam of parallel universes with other physical constants in which none of our math could apply and indeed in which we could never have come to exist the way we are. No not a miracle, just every one of infinite combinations exist at once and we call the one we experience an ordered "miracle".

So, if you are going to loosely quote quantum mechanics to support your otherwise creationist/theological/supernatural views then you got to own all their theories too, not just the ones you cherry pick out of convenience.

I'm not a mathematician --- are you? — Gnomon

in this context, yes.

In fact, mathematicians are more likely than biologists to believe in some kind of God — Gnomon

so, your world view here is to sell God as the answer to all things you cannot otherwise explain with the science the non-God believers created for you? That is a dead-end for me as it does not give actionable answers/solutions to resolve factual problems, just allot of feel good spiritual stuff that gives opium to the masses.

Hope your god-centric philosophy of mind gives you the peace you are searching for... ;-)

So if others were all able to experience each others' thoughts, they would all experience them as their own thoughts — Pfhorrest

in my model, it does not work that way. I believe you are thinking about verbal thoughts, which are even more problematic than non-verbal. In my model of thinking, the cognitive agent has mostly hierarchical, non-verbal linguistic structures that are framed and rooted in their own meaning of the experience as filtered/morphed by their personality filter. So, if another cognitive agent had access to, say, ‘thoughts’ in terms of the first non-verbal linguistic layer then their different personalities and historic experiences would evoke different historic meanings and access/qualia experiences so the two agents would not be “thinking” the same thing and their flow of consciousness would quickly diverge from each other so could not “experience themselves (and each other) as a single collective mind”. I’m very sure this would also be the case in the human brain model.

. Basically, particle interactions are time-lagged, while perceptual consciousness isn't. — Enrique

this does not make any sense to me. For example, perceptual consciousness (which BTW requires many particle interactions) is measured to take at least 100ms b/c it require all the layers of neural nets, each to a delay, to aggregate their signals to form a mental perception for you.

We don't experience the world as a flurry of our constituent atoms, but rather as a perpetualized substrate, an integrated field of awareness. — Enrique

that is demonstrably not true. it is well documented that the brain pieces together its fake version of what your raw sensory data is providing and is certainly not coherent at first. For example, many autistic people exactly have this mental problem that their brains to no present them with “an integrated field of awareness”, it comes to them incoherently in fits and starts, bits and pieces. So, are you saying, for example, that those autistic people have less qualia consciousness than you do?

Because, by definition, Randomness alone cannot evolve any novelty. — Gnomon

that is not how it works. you are confounding many distinct mechanics. maybe you are unaware, but in AI (e.g., genetic algorithms, neural nets, boltzman machines, etc.) initial conditions of the model are very often set randomly (e.g., random GA gene populations, random weights in NNs, etc.) and thereafter algorithms are applied to evolve, train, anneal, etc. My statement was that with such random initial conditions you do not have to have any kind of “First Cause (or Enformer)” because all the algorithms are perfectly fine starting off with a random set and quickly evolving/converging to a solution from there. So, in this framework it is nonsense to say

Would you expect anything meaningful to emerge from the random noise on your TV screen? — Gnomon

.

I'm using a conventional mathematical probability concept for my own special purposes. Shannon information is abstract & mathematical. Bayesian Information takes into account human beliefs, which are subjective & metaphysical. It definitely has something to do with the ancient notion of "Spirit/Soul" — Gnomon

you do not seem to understand what those math formulations mean. Shannon information theory uses entropy to estimate the maximum information which a particular coding system can contain or a comm channel can transfer, which definitely has nothing "to do with the ancient notion of "Spirit/Soul".
Bayes rule (often employed in Baysian networks) is about optimal decision making using conditional probabilities when you have enough statistics of the events in question occurring together, alone, and have their probability density functions. Again, that definitely has nothing "to do with the ancient notion of "Spirit/Soul".

Please factually explain otherwise.

Thx.

so there may be uniquely cognitive working mechanisms for sustaining qualia at multiple levels against thermodynamic disorder, — Enrique

why are you so convinced that qualia consciousness must arise from the quantum effects instead of simply being a macro-scale phenomenon w/o requiring the quantum effects to do its cool stuff?

In non-living environments, these wavicles are perpetually disentangling and decohering also, so matter is composed of fleeting nanoscale qualia properties. — Enrique

that is pretty vague. So, zero point energy of free space has experiential/qualia consciousness? you define free space a having qualia consciousness?

When structures evolve to sustain and synchronize this additive facet of wavicle interactions, a mind can emerge. — Enrique

are you saying that is the necessary and sufficient condition for a mind to emerge? Could a qualia mind be made w/o that? why not? So, according to your hypothesis a worm could have experiential/qualia consciousness so long as it is in touch with its 'wavicles'?

what do you say is the special property of random quantum fluctuations that could conceivable be the basis for ones on personal sense of experiencing the mind/body/world in a sentient manner?