A Conscious Universe

[The Grand Nudger]

I experience stuff that others do not. That is my subjective experience. I don't see a lot of baggage there.

and -as expressed- I don't see any baggage either. The comp system experiences things that other comp systems do not. My PC and your PC experience different stuff. Bricks in different walls experience different loads applied to them.

I don't know, no one does, we can point to a region, but thats it.

Can we? As far as I've seen, there are several regions required for consciousness to happen.

I'm not saying it's a mystery, though I think it is. What I'm saying is that if you want to explain the brain as a mechanism of mind, you have to explain where the sense of unity of experience comes from. What's at the core of it all?

a description of the physical system by which it's functions are arrived at.

My view is not a hypothesis. It is a response to the existence of "things" which cannot be expressed unambiguously in 3D space, which I feel invalidate the semantics of a physical monism.

You disagree with the language.....iow?

Again, you are expressing yourself with your world view presupposed. The fact is that I DO see things.

I don't doubt this at all.

I'm currently looking around my room and yup, I can verify that I see stuff.

-and both of us can verify the mechanical systems function if we pleased. We pay alot of attention to eyes.......we aren't in a position of ignorance here.

You disagree with the language I use to describe it, but do you disagree with the explanation? Do you, for example, with the notion that information is the fundamental stuff - also conceptualize a computational process which creates this reality -as we experience it- and even the mechanism capable of experiencing it......even if it isn't, outside(if there is an outside)....exactly -as is-, yes?

Absolutely. The subjective experience of sight is best thought of as something other than mechanical.

Wonderful, can you elaborate?

[IATIA]

I have been more or less keeping up with this thread, though I have seldom posted or commented on it.

I just thought it was time to throw in my two cents.

To me, awareness is nothing more that the ability to respond to input and I believe all living creatures to be aware, even the single celled creatures. Food will elicit a response even in the most basic of lifeforms. Being conscious of this awareness is quite a different story.

Though I got slapped for using evolution as the progenitor to consciousness, it must be so. As the number and levels of inputs increased, it was necessary to coordinate this information. An inability to systematize this information would not have allowed the organism to function properly and it would fail to survive.

There may even be a certain awareness within the computer, after all, it has as much input as some lower lifeforms. Granted there are no instincts within the system, no life force that needs to survive or be fed, no emotion or desires.

I believe emotions and desires require consciousness and, IMHO, mainly birds and mammals have any level of consciousness in, albeit, varying degrees. With the non-conscious lifeforms, the responses are as predictable as any computer program.

Consciousness then, is no more than the awareness of the the brain's averaged compilation of the multitude of inputs. There will be favored responses to favored inputs. Fire, as an example, would be a favored input and would require the most immediate response. In the absence of extreme inputs, free will would be subject to Pavlovian responses, if any, or simply a favored response based on memory.

[bennyboy]

My view is not a hypothesis. It is a response to the existence of "things" which cannot be expressed unambiguously in 3D space, which I feel invalidate the semantics of a physical monism.

You disagree with the language.....iow?

No, I disagree that the current state of physics actually fits the idea of a geometric space. This is because at least some objects (like the photon) cannot be expressed in geometrical terms, and because mind cannot be directly observed, even though in a physical monist reality, nothing should be unobservable in this way.

[Pizza]

You disagree with the language.....iow?

No, I disagree that the current state of physics actually fits the idea of a geometric space. This is because at least some objects (like the photon) cannot be expressed in geometrical terms, and because mind cannot be directly observed, even though in a physical monist reality, nothing should be unobservable in this way.

I'm confused by your usage of the term physical monist since it seems philosophers use the term physicalism to mean different things. I know one modern usage of physicalism is that [full in the blank] is dependent on or reduces to the things physics is about. Philosophers seem to define physical properties as the things physics is about. Is Rhythm arguing for some weird version of physicalism?

[Surgenator]

I disagree that the current state of physics actually fits the idea of a geometric space. This is because at least some objects (like the photon) cannot be expressed in geometrical terms [...]

What makes you think this?

[bennyboy]

No, I disagree that the current state of physics actually fits the idea of a geometric space. This is because at least some objects (like the photon) cannot be expressed in geometrical terms, and because mind cannot be directly observed, even though in a physical monist reality, nothing should be unobservable in this way.

I'm confused by your usage of the term physical monist since it seems philosophers use the term physicalism to mean different things. I know one modern usage of physicalism is that [full in the blank] is dependent on or reduces to the things physics is about.

No, that's circular. Physicists study reality, and so in this sense saying that reality is physical is just restating a definition.

Since this thread is about idealism vs. non-idealism, then you can call it materialism, physicalism, or whatever you want.

My definition of physicalism has been restated a few times, but maybe not so recently: a physical universe is one in which forces and things interact in an independently-existent 3D space, and that "things" should be unambiguously expressible in that space.

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I disagree that the current state of physics actually fits the idea of a geometric space. This is because at least some objects (like the photon) cannot be expressed in geometrical terms [...]

What makes you think this?

What shape is a photon?

[The Grand Nudger]

You keep saying that, I don't know that it's actually true, or at least that it means what you think it does....but. You could conceptualize a photons size by the distance at which you'd start to feel it "pushing" back..a little less than half a fermi - as has already been mentioned. I would be entirely unsurprised to find that you don't feel this to be a satisfactory answer...thats a hell of alot smaller than our experience, and you're thinking in terms of the shapes of tables and chairs - which take s a bit more than a photon to express itself intuitively to us


- do you not also envision some sort of computational process to be involved in a universe with information as the fundamental stuff?

Does it actually matter, in the context of our conversation? Are you a photon? Is a neuron a photon? Do the behaviors observed with regards to photons translate directly into behaviors observed at the level of flesh and blood human beings - even if they do behave the way you seem to think? I'm simply proposing a method by which, if it's computation of any form - this could be accomplished with just what we see, just what we possess. No wondering about the inner workings of the universe at any level deeper than I have to. I'm content to say that - if it's computation- we have equipment on board that plainly can meet the requirements, and it's all decidedly made of physical stuff, even if that physical stuff is made of information stuff, so far as we can tell. Can we agree to that?

[bennyboy]

You keep saying that, I don't know that it's actually true, or at least that it means what you think it does....but. You could conceptualize a photons size by the distance at which you'd start to feel it "pushing" back..a little less than half a fermi - as has already been mentioned.

Guess what? When the only way you can physically represent a thing is by an arbitrary conceptualization, then you are probably not talking about a thing at all.

- do you not also envision some sort of computational process to be involved in a universe with information as the fundamental stuff?

Of course. That's because photons, their "push back zones," and everything else about them are ideas-- they do not actually need to be represented in a 3D geographical space.

Does it actually matter, in the context of our conversation?

Yes, of course it does. If reality as we observe it is a complex interaction of ideas and no more, then we can drop some of the expectations and biases of a physical monism, and have a chance to expand science into new areas. But the good news is we're already doing so.

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--update--

A bit of a diversion, but damn.

http://physics.aps.org/articles/v5/86

[Pizza]

I'm confused by your usage of the term physical monist since it seems philosophers use the term physicalism to mean different things. I know one modern usage of physicalism is that [full in the blank] is dependent on or reduces to the things physics is about.

No, that's circular. Physicists study reality, and so in this sense saying that reality is physical is just restating a definition.

You are using a non-standard definition of physics. By your definition metaphysics would count as a branch of physics. I don't see how this definition of physicalism is circular unless you're already defining reality as physical, which is not what idealist define reality as. Given the patchwork nature of language you're going to get circular imperfect definitions often when trying to discussion philosophical and technical issues. This is something I'm starting to learn to just live with.

Physics (from Ancient Greek: φυσική (ἐπιστήμη) phusikḗ (epistḗmē) "knowledge of nature", from φύσις phúsis "nature"[1][2][3]) is the natural science that involves the study of matter[4] and its motion through space and time, along with related concepts such as energy and force.[5] More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.[a][6][7]

[The Grand Nudger]

Guess what? When the only way you can physically represent a thing is by an arbitrary conceptualization, then you are probably not talking about a thing at all.

I'm pretty sure I could point to a wide range of things so small that you'll have to conceptualize their size and structure - and that it will be completely non-intuitive.....long before I reach a photon. If you have a gripe with "things" and resistance go kick a rock, honestly. Even if it's an idea...just info...it's apparently info that expresses itself with -some- shape, some boundary - same as the info that generates us.

Of course.

Then there we go. You don't disagree with me -at all- in principle. Now that we both agree that we're talking about computation of some sort - I'll continue to show you examples of computational systems in a physical implementation, and if you think that the comp system is somehow different from ourselves..it'll only be window dressing.

That's because photons, their "push back zones," and everything else about them are ideas-- they do not actually need to be represented in a 3D geographical space.

-and yet they can be, and are.

Yes, of course it does. If reality as we observe it is a complex interaction of ideas and no more, then we can drop some of the expectations and biases of a physical monism, and have a chance to expand science into new areas. But the good news is we're already doing so.

Sure, but at what point will we be dropping an invocation of a structure -necessary for computation-? This is where you need to elaborate on your idea before it reaches anywhere close to the explanatory power of what I'm proposing. I'm simply referencing observed physical structures which meet the requirements for a comp system - both within us and without us- (and, as it so happens, descriptions of experience or qualia as they relate to computation - as layed out by yourself). You think there's "something underneath" - I'm telling you that there doesn't -have to be-. It works here, at this level, without reference to the "underneath". Get it?

You seem to be describing us as information machines...while I'm describing us as physical machines. It's an awfully fine line...I certainly don't understand the resistance from you given this vast common ground.

How does data do data to data? - We know how stuff does stuff to stuff and how all of this translates to data -to us-. Computation can be, and is, very exhaustively described and explained by a physical monism. You think that there's an else, an under, an other - but I see no need, especially since we both agree that its comp either way. Give me some description of how this process is or could be achieved from your framework? Why do ideas/data/info, for example, meet the requirements for performing a logical function (this is something I've explained from a physical standpoint) - how is that accomplished - how does the non-physical comp system do work, in principle? We can start from the simplest possible function, describe an inverter, built out of ideas/data/info?