Seeing red

[emjay]

This basically illustrates the problem with my theory. I go down to the level of nodes and relationships in a network, but no further. So from my perspective it doesn't matter whether the nodes are neurons, man-made chips, or implemented entirely in software; it's the states and relationships they represent that counts. But that therefore means that I've imposed my own abstract 'informational' layer between mind and matter that feels like it helps bridge the gap but doesn't really... it helps me understand it functionally and seems to correlate but it still doesn't bridge that gap. Because go low enough looking at a neuron... or anything else for that matter... and all you'll find is atoms in flux. So what is a neuron when it's representing a value? It is essentially just the flow of ions into and out of a cell. So looked at at that level the brain's neural network, in situ in the extracellular space is a maelstrom of activity with ions essentially being recycled as they move into and out of cells. Hard to pin anything down when looked at at that level. Likewise, relationships at that level just add synapses to the maelstrom.

So perhaps it is more like your theory where the states to be represented are not the abstract informational states in my intervening layer - which fails to bridge the gap - but the actual states of matter in the universe... and therefore as you say, energy/matter/mind. Something to think about

Yeah, if you remember my PM, that's why I identify as an agnostic ambiguist: it seems to me that at boundary conditions, things that we think are very different are indistinguishable from each other.  It happened with energy and matter; and I suspect the same paradox-conflation will eventually be the normal view with regard to the mind-body problem too.

Very nicely put   

But just pondering again... the physical brain still does a job... and it's the same job. It still uses a neural network to represent values and relationships in order to get stuff done. If I choose not to refer to it at that functional/structural level, and instead look at the underlying matter, it is still the case that matter has been concentrated, organised, and structured within the brain in a certain way that is different from the organisation of matter outside the brain. The level I'm looking at it, for the sake of argument, is the particle level, but there is still a real physical layer of understanding above that when it's represented as brain structures, and yet another level... an abstract level... above that representing states, relationships, and function (the level I'd usually be looking at it from).  So for the sake of argument saying that all matter has mind... that all particles have a property of mind... then I wonder if even at the level of particles the way they are confined and organised in the brain allows them to represent the same states and relationships as the neural network level of understanding. Because I still cannot ignore the correlation between mind and neural network, whatever way I go on this question. So if mind does not arise from the neural network level and instead from the particle level, there has to be a reason why mind correlates with what would be functionally expected of the neural network level of understanding. So in other words, what would be a state at the particle level? Would concentrated ions count as a state for instance, where one concentration is a different state from another concentration? Or would a molecule count as a state in the sense of being a structural organisation of atoms etc? This is not the way I usually think about these things so I'm having trouble with it.

Then there's another question that is worth thinking about, both from your position and mine. What about subconscious processes (or indeed non-conscious processes). From my original theory's perspective, there'd have to be a reason why certain neural circuits did not contribute to consciousness despite still being states and relationships. And the same question would apply to your theory... why would certain particles contribute and not others to consciousness, especially given the essentially uniform physical structure of neurons?