Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 5

[TheBitterOne]

I meant to come back to this ... papanca is well defined, you actually define it right after you question it's meaning:

It's a good example of the difference between simplification and obfuscation.

that is papanca.

'papanca' and 'mental proliferation' are jargon though, aren't they?

Reductive labels are necessary and useful in certain contexts, but 'words are not the things they point to' so we need to be careful that we don't collapse the insight along with the paragraph.

You can't experience silence by shouting the word for it.

 

[smcder]

'papanca' and 'mental proliferation' are jargon though, aren't they?

Reductive labels are necessary and useful in certain contexts, but 'words are not the things they point to' so we need to be careful that we don't collapse the insight along with the paragraph.

You can't experience silence by shouting the word for it.

words are not the things they point to - Bruce Lee

Don't think, feeeeeel! It is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory. Do you understand?

Enter the Dragon, 1973

 

[Pharoah]

@Soupie re my comment: "wiki: "information is the reduction in uncertainty regarding the state of a variable". Does that make information a verb? I'm not too good on grammar. It seems to be a 'doing' thing. Or is it a noun?"

If I run with the traditional understanding of the term 'infrmation'...
Let's say that in any given second the human brain receives from its senses a trillion bits of data; a trillion neurons firing. In that moment, a unitary experience we call consciousness occurs. A single behavioural expression seems to occur.

It seems therefore, that a lot of information is condensed into a smaller amount of useful/usable/used information—by the brain.
In this way, IIT seems intuitively to make sense: information is a process (using the wiki definition) that reduces uncertainty. By taking place in the brain, this indicates that the process is integrated.

On the face of it, this does seem to have something going for it, that is, if we ignore the problem of the traditional use of the term information: most people are happy with the idea that the brain condenses/segments/processes a lot of sensation into not so much information; information that is the content of our consciousness.

The problem is, as with so many theories of consciousness, how we get meaning into the equation i.e. qualitative meaning. It is not good enough to bring qualia into the workspace as IIT states. Isn't that one of the flaws of inferential argument that lawyers look out for:
II = qualia = consciousness
Therefore, consciousness = II

 

[Randall]

I think HCT has

Well I'm clearly out of the loop here now. I've been through the paper and done several searches within the paper, and I've scanned back through a bunch of posts several times, but I still don't see HCT defined by identifying what the letters correspond to and how that relates to the issue at hand. So if it's not too much trouble can you please post a couple of paragraphs that summarize what the "H" stands for, What the "C" stands for, and what the "T" stands for, the assumptions made, and what inferences you have made as a result? While we're waiting for that, let's start here:

"... when an individual possesses neural mechanisms that have the capacity to evaluate the comparative importance (or value) of spatiotemporal causes as they relate to the organism’s particular and constantly changing motivations and affectations ... the objective cause–effect world becomes, for the individual concerned, delineated into a fluid ( i.e., a constantly changing ) subjective spatiotemporal and qualitative world-view—a view that is experienced and acted upon as the individual feels and thinks fit." Part II, 5, Par. 3
​

Are you suggesting above that before this point the individual isn't experiencing qualia, and that afterwards they are, or are we still waiting for that aspect of consciousness to emerge?

 

[Randall]

@smcder this is just a note to say thanks for your continuing efforts to engage the subject matter here. Because of the information you've brought to our attention, I now find that it's easier to express the ideas I have. For example, revisiting the concept of qualia, and Chalmer's Hard Problem of Consciousness, these are both important ideas with relevance to the issue at hand, and I keep falling back to them. Now because of that, in retrospect, I'm thinking maybe I was too hung-up on the idea of the Hard Problem as a problem, that if solved, would tell us all about what consciousness is and where it comes from. I think that if it had been called Chalmers' Hierarchy of Consciousness, I'd have had no issues with it whatsoever.

 

[Pharoah]

Well I'm clearly out of the loop here now. I've been through the paper and done several searches within the paper, and I've scanned back through a bunch of posts several times, but I still don't see HCT defined by identifying what the letters correspond to and how that relates to the issue at hand. So if it's not too much trouble can you please post a couple of paragraphs that summarize what the "H" stands for, What the "C" stands for, and what the "T" stands for, the assumptions made, and what inferences you have made as a result? While we're waiting for that, let's start here:

"... when an individual possesses neural mechanisms that have the capacity to evaluate the comparative importance (or value) of spatiotemporal causes as they relate to the organism’s particular and constantly changing motivations and affectations ... the objective cause–effect world becomes, for the individual concerned, delineated into a fluid ( i.e., a constantly changing ) subjective spatiotemporal and qualitative world-view—a view that is experienced and acted upon as the individual feels and thinks fit." Part II, 5, Par. 3
​

Are you suggesting above that before this point the individual isn't experiencing qualia, and that afterwards they are, or are we still waiting for that aspect of consciousness to emerge?

Beforehand, qualitative aspects of the environment are represented physiologically and, therefore, are not individual but species specific. Consequently, I would say (to answer your question) that such an individual is not conscious of the qualitative nature of its experience.
Afterwards, individuals have an individuated spatiotemporal relation to qualitative experience. By evaluating the comparative imporatnce of that experience, I say they ar consicous of the qualitative phenomenon of their experience. This becomes the definition for what phenomenal consicousness is.

ref. last line of the paper "Hierarchical Construct Theory"

 

[Randall]

Beforehand, qualitative aspects of the environment are represented physiologically and, therefore, are not individual but species specific. Consequently, I would say (to answer your question) that such an individual is not conscious of the qualitative nature of its experience.
Afterwards, individuals have an individuated spatiotemporal relation to qualitative experience. By evaluating the comparative imporatnce of that experience, I say they ar consicous of the qualitative phenomenon of their experience. This becomes the definition for what phenomenal consciousness is.

ref. last line of the paper "Hierarchical Construct Theory"

Thanks. As obvious as that should have been to me, I didn't make the connection. I was too busy looking for a title e.g. " ... this is the Hierarchical Construct Theory". So I was looking for upper case "H", "C", and "T", and for "HCT". You might consider putting that up-front someplace to save other dozebrains besides me the same embarrassment

.

Given your answer to my question I think I also have the ideas in their hierarchical order now. Obviously you've put some serious reflection into the topic , but I'm not sure how it might be applied, other than to point us in a particular direction, that if correct, might serve as a sort of rule of thumb, e.g. Given that these facets appear within the hierarchy checklist, we can assume that consciousness is more likely. However some might still argue that there isn't an adequate explanation for exactly where "capacity" comes from: e.g. "the capacity to evaluate the comparative importance (or value)."

Simply imparting the capacity to "neural mechanisms" doesn't explain what it is about those mechanisms that results in qualia. That's not to say I'm disagreeing that neural mechanisms play a crucial role. I believe they do. However I'm not so sure that it's the neural mechanisms that possess the capacity. Rather I tend to think that they are components that give rise to a new physical phenomenon we call consciousness, and it is that phenomenon which has the capacity.

 

[Pharoah]

Thanks. As obvious as that should have been to me, I didn't make the connection. I was too busy looking for a title e.g. " ... this is the Hierarchical Construct Theory". So I was looking for upper case "H", "C", and "T", and for "HCT". You might consider putting that up-front someplace.

Given your answer to my question I think I also have the ideas in their hierarchical order now. Obviously you've put some serious reflection into the topic , but I'm not sure how it might be applied, other than to point us in a particular direction, that if correct, might serve as a sort of rule of thumb, e.g. Given that these facets appear within the hierarchy checklist, we can assume that consciousness is more likely. However some might still argue that there isn't an adequate explanation for exactly where "capacity" comes from: e.g. "the capacity to evaluate the comparative importance (or value)."

Simply imparting the capacity to "neural mechanisms" doesn't explain what it is about those mechanisms that results in qualia. That's not to say I'm disagreeing that neural mechanisms play a crucial role. I believe they do. However I'm not so sure that it's the neural mechanisms that possess the capacity. Rather I tend to think that they are components that give rise to a new physical phenomenon we call consciousness, and it is that phenomenon which has the capacity.

@ufology you say,
"However some might still argue that there isn't an adequate explanation for exactly where "capacity" comes from: e.g. "the capacity to evaluate the comparative importance (or value)." "
This is a neuroscientific question imo. How might neural mechanisms function in a way that, essentially, prioritises one qualitative stance over another?
I obviously don't have the answer to these kinds of questions, but it seems highly plausible to me that such mechanisms are possible if not extremely likely.

The objective of the paper is to give an account of how subjectivity emerges from objectivitiy.
Hiw the buichemisty and neurology might facilitate this will take decades of research. In its more abstract rendition, HCT indicates that the maintenance and acquisition of states of equilibria is key at the different levels... in this regard

 

[Constance]

The objective of the paper is to give an account of how subjectivity emerges from objectivity.

I've harbored the notion that the continual interactions observable in the quantum substrate seed subjective-objective interaction all the way up to classical reality including conscious life. This impression (a sense, not a scientific understanding in my case) began when I read several papers by Carlo Rovelli about five years ago concerning information exchange between physical fields bringing about first disorder and then more complex and integrated or entangled order. Rovelli has developed a theory referred to as Relational Quantum Mechanics, and in a search last night I reached a recent extension of it in a paper shared two years ago at the FQXi site, discussed in peer comments which I will link below with another paper.

CATEGORY: FQXi Essay Contest - It From Bit or Bit From It?
TOPIC: Relative information at the foundation of physics by Carlo Rovelli

Essay Abstract: I observe that Shannon's notion of relative information between two physical systems can effectively function as a foundation for statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics, without referring to any subjectivism or idealism. It can also represent the key missing element in the foundation of the naturalistic picture of the world, providing the conceptual tool for dealing with its apparent limitations. I comment on the relation between these ideas and Democritus.

Author Bio: Carlo Rovelli is professor of theoretical physics at the University of Aux-Marseille. His main interest is quantum gravity, but he has worked also on the foundations of quantum theory and general covariant statistical mechanics, and on the ancient history and philosophy of physics.

Download Essay PDF File

From the comments:

Conrad Dale Johnson wrote on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 15:18 GMT

Dear Carlo -

I'm very glad to see a new essay of yours revisiting some themes of Relational Quantum Mechanics. I've always considered that paper a milestone, or rather a signpost pointing a way that remains to be explored. Maybe the time is ripe... there are a few other essays in this contest - Knuth's, for example - working with the idea that all of physics concerns "the information systems have about other systems."

I very much agree with your conclusion - "The universe is not just simply the position of all its Democritean atoms. It is also the net of information that all systems have about one another. Objects are not just aggregates of atoms. They are particular configurations of atoms singled out because of the manner a given other system interacts with them."

However, I agree with Walter Smilga's comment above - in order to grasp what it means for things to have information, even in physics, we need to deal with contexts of meaning. You want to stick with Shannon's definition, as you wrote, to show "that there are meaningful notions of information and relative information in simple physics, without need to refer to semantic meaning." As in the RQM paper, here also you define "having information about" a system just as "being correlated" with it. (Knuth's contest essay likewise uses an abstract notion of systems "influencing" each other. And even Smilga, who wants to bring semantics into the picture, uses a very generalized notion of "semantic frames of reference.")

I don't doubt that your approach gets at something very important about the structure of physics. But the point of my essay is that something else that's important is missed when we abstract from the specific kinds of contexts in which information actually becomes measurable.

These contexts are not mysterious - we know all about how to assemble them when we make measurements. There's nothing subjective or mental about them - the same physics we use in the lab describes how any system gets information about other systems. But there are major obstacles to formulating any realistic general definition of a "measurement-context". It's not just that such arrangements are never physically simple, but also that any way of measuring something depends on other ways of measuring other things. I argue that this complex interdependency of different ways of "observing" is really what's behind the measurement problem in QM.

In physics we're always trying to show how the underlying structure is basically simple - so the many different ways in which things actually "have information about each other" give us a picture that hardly seems as though it could be relevant to the physical foundations. Yet if we only think about abstract and generalized information-processes, we lose touch with the way information is physically present in the world.

My suggestion is that measurement can be conceived as fundamental, if we can see it as an evolving process. Though it takes a very complex interactive environment to communicate definite information about and between its subsystems, this kind of environment can exist and maintain itself for the same reason that life does, if it's the kind of system that can evolve through random selection.

Thanks again for the new essay - Conrad


Author Carlo Rovelli replied on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 16:23 GMT

Dear Conrad,

you touch something basic here. I agree that what you talk about is a central issue, and I am uncertain myself.

We certainly agree on the relevance of context, and I feel everybody would agree, at least after a good discussion clarifying what we mean. But I have tried to bring this down to good old physics. You are right that in quantum mechanics this affects the measurement issue and you are right that it affects the definition of what is a measurement context. But the central point of Relational Quantum Mechanics is to solve this issue by accepting the idea that *any* physical interaction is a measurement. When an atom in a SternGerlack apparatus is deviated by the magnetic field, the position of the atom is measuring the spin. This seems to me the only possible solution; I have never found a convincing alternative. The price to pay is of course the Relational Quantum Mechanics observation that events are indexed by the context. That is, in this case the spin is measured by the position, and does not take value with respect to a system not interacting with it. This allows interference to affect possible later interactions with position or spin. Thus, in this sense I agree with you that measurement is fundamental, but I prefer to view it as synonymous of interaction, rather than trying to view it, as you suggest to attribute it to "a very complex interactive environment".


Conrad Dale Johnson replied on Jul. 2, 2013 @ 14:36 GMT

Carlo - thanks for your response, and I get your point. In fact, I pulled out my old marked-up copy of the RQM paper and was reminded again what a thorough piece of work it is, given its limited scope. It lays out - more carefully than any work of philosophy I know of - the basic philosophical issues involved in the meaning of objectivity.

It is just the notion that events are indexed by the observer-relative context that's important to me. The world only exists from the standpoint of some observer. This isn't subjective (mental), in that anything counts as an observer. It's not solipsistic, in that communication between observers is as fundamental as observation itself - in fact, from the QM viewpoint there's no difference between these two. But as you say, it's an error to describe this world of multiple observers as if it could be envisioned "from outside", from no point of view - as if there could be well-defined information without a context to define it from a specific point of view.

This is a very radical notion, and I think it will be some time before we have the conceptual tools we need to be clear about it.

So I understand your "only possible solution" - treating any interaction as a measurement. But I would remind you of the point you make in RQM, that even the correlation between two systems is only definable from the standpoint of a third system. And the position of the atom "measures" the spin, insofar as something else observes the atom, in some context in which its position is definable over time.

There's no specific level of complexity at which interactions become measurements, or systems become observers. To that extent I agree, it's better to treat all systems as observers and all interactions as measurements. But this does not really "solve" any problem. Many different kinds of interactions are still needed to define / measure any physical information, and though I well understand your preference for "the good old physics", ultimately I think we can't set this fact aside as insignificant.

In my essay I acknowledge the difficulty of dealing with it, and try to show how they can be addressed. In the end this points to a way of answering the basic question that's left - in my mind, anyway - by RQM: how and why do things work out so that at the macroscopic level, the quantum world of communicating observers ends up looking so much like the objective, deterministic reality of classical physics?


Author Carlo Rovelli replied on Jul. 2, 2013 @ 16:18 GMT

Ok, you definitely convinced me to read with care what you have written! I will now print it out and study it... thanks! Carlo”



I haven’t looked yet for further discussion between Rovelli and Johnson in the long thread at FXQi, and it may be that Rovelli and Johnson corresponded privately afterward. The links to the Rovelli and Johnson papers are repeated here:

Johnson, On the evolution of determinate information
http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Johnson_CDJohnson_fqxi2013.pdf

Rovelli, Relative information at the foundation of physics
http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Rovelli_information.pdf
and comments at Relative information at the foundation of physics by Carlo Rovelli

 

[Constance]

Here is another paper, this one from this year's FXQi contest, with comments by Conrad Dale Johnson.

CATEGORY:FQXi Essay Contest - Spring, 2015
TOPIC:Physics as Mathematics of Information by Gerald Vones

Author Gerald Vones wrote on Mar. 5, 2015 @ 16:32 GMT

Essay Abstract

It is argued that physics is mathematics of information, hence any physical entity is mathematical, but not vice versa. As a necessary basis, the concept of “information” is discussed. As a result, there is no freedom in setting physical scales, rather the Planckian scales are to be used according to the density at which nature stores information.

Author Bio

Educated as a physicist, I worked in the field of High Energy Physics at the University of Graz in the 1980ies. After that, I have taken a position in the administration, where I am involved in technology-related activities. In parallel, I have retained and even increased my personal interest in fundamental questions.

Download Essay PDF File

From the comments:

Conrad Dale Johnson wrote on Mar. 7, 2015 @ 14:16 GMT

Gerald –

I agree with you about the basic role played by information in physics. But I think something crucial is lost in your notion that "the concept of information is absolutely simple and transparent: Information... is a pure number."

As Shannon noted, this is only one aspect of information. In my essay on semantics, I emphasized that physics involves many kinds of information – e.g. length, mass, charge, spin etc. The fact that these are all related to each other mathematically doesn't mean they're all reducible to the same thing, or that their differences aren't fundamental. On the contrary, the equations of physics give each one a unique role in the structure of the world, in relation to other kinds of information. The fact that length can be expressed as a number of Planck units doesn't make it the same as electric charge, which is also expressed in basic units. So I doubt that we can get to the heart of physics by abstracting from these important differences.

Electric charge can be meaningfully defined only if length, velocity, force, etc. are also meaningfully defined. This kind of meaning is entirely physical; it doesn't involve human perception or imagination. Since the relationships between physical parameters can be expressed in mathematical equations, no doubt physics is profoundly mathematical. But apparently it takes a very complex combination of very different mathematical structures to support a world like ours, where many different kinds of information are all physically definable in terms of each other. This is not at all the kind of system studied in pure mathematics.

Thanks for the chance to respond to your interesting essay –

Conrad




Author Gerald Vones replied on Mar. 8, 2015 @ 08:55 GMT

Conrad,

thank you very much for your interest.

I do understand your concern and your aim of „Finding Meaning“ as the title of your essay says. Information appears as inextricably linked with meaning. In this light, it had confused and dismayed me over a long time that what Shannon ended up with is not more than a mathematical formula telling how to compute a number. Maybe I gave up hope then and became too radical, but I am not sure. It has happened over history of science that entities whose existence had appeared as undisputable turned out as misconceptions.

I well agree that length, mass, charge, spin etc. are different. But aren’t they quantum numbers alltogether (what regards the first two, some explanatory discussion would be necessary)? And doesn’t the existence of quantum numbers „mean“ that there are associated symmetries, eventually hopefully recognized as one single symmetry comprising all of them? Physic appears to me as very homogeneous at the basic level – everything is in terms of symmetries, and any symmetry corresponds to a mathematical group / algebra. This is the case even for theories looking so much different as General Relativity and quantum physics do. Starting from the U(1) group, electric charge is immediately defined without necessary reference to any other physical entity. But I agree that the discovery of charge exactly went the way you describe: the concepts of length, velocity and force were necessary. The situation is even more intricate: physics hardly will be able to comprehend the entirety of our world – like the aspects associated with Picasso. The only way out I found is pragmatism, thus considering oneself satisfied with what can realistically be achieved at this point in time.

For such price paid, we possibIy will get something back. I elaborated on this in a paper, which I did not refer to because it still may have some flaws. But in the light of your post, yesterday I put the most recent version on my personal website. At the introduction you find a reference to Keith Devlin’s book „Logic and Information“, while in the second section I discuss „the Enigma of Information“:

http://magnific.at/r0g/loads/law7.pdf

One can say without exaggeration that information has remained a mystery. Devlin starts his book with a metapher. He compares us Information-age people with a blacksmith living in the Iron-age. While being very skillful in handling information, we may have no idea of what it actually is. This influenced me strongly and eventually I came to the conjecture that there exists no other meaning – semanticity - than that of numbers. The implication would be a self-consistency relation: nature would encode nothing but its number of degrees of freedom - what only consumes logarithmically few such degrees of freedom. This leaves a vast room for redundancies, what not only explains why there are laws of nature, rather even gives a quantitative measure.

I have to apologize in advance if I do not quickly respond to further posts. But I need time for reflection to have at least some chance of avoiding bad logic mistakes in my argumentation.

Gerald

Physics as Mathematics of Information by Gerald Vones


Here is the link to Johnson's paper for this year's FXQi contest, "On Finding Meaning in the Language of Physics," followed by peer comments.

On Finding Meaning in the Language of Physics by Conrad Dale Johnson

 

[smcder]

@smcder this is just a note to say thanks for your continuing efforts to engage the subject matter here. Because of the information you've brought to our attention, I now find that it's easier to express the ideas I have. For example, revisiting the concept of qualia, and Chalmer's Hard Problem of Consciousness, these are both important ideas with relevance to the issue at hand, and I keep falling back to them. Now because of that, in retrospect, I'm thinking maybe I was too hung-up on the idea of the Hard Problem as a problem, that if solved, would tell us all about what consciousness is and where it comes from. I think that if it had been called Chalmers' Hierarchy of Consciousness, I'd have had no issues with it whatsoever.

laboris, et caritatis

I believe in the Forum, the Thread and the Holy Post



Sent from my LGLS991 using Tapatalk

 

[Pharoah]

I've harbored the notion that the continual interactions observable in the quantum substrate seed subjective-objective interaction all the way up to classical reality including conscious life. This impression (a sense, not a scientific understanding in my case) began when I read several papers by Carlo Rovelli about five years ago concerning information exchange between physical fields bringing about first disorder and then more complex and integrated or entangled order. Rovelli has developed a theory referred to as Relational Quantum Mechanics, and in a search last night I reached a recent extension of it in a paper shared two years ago at the FQXi site, discussed in peer comments which I will link below with another paper.

CATEGORY: FQXi Essay Contest - It From Bit or Bit From It?
TOPIC: Relative information at the foundation of physics by Carlo Rovelli

Essay Abstract: I observe that Shannon's notion of relative information between two physical systems can effectively function as a foundation for statistical mechanics and quantum mechanics, without referring to any subjectivism or idealism. It can also represent the key missing element in the foundation of the naturalistic picture of the world, providing the conceptual tool for dealing with its apparent limitations. I comment on the relation between these ideas and Democritus.

Author Bio: Carlo Rovelli is professor of theoretical physics at the University of Aux-Marseille. His main interest is quantum gravity, but he has worked also on the foundations of quantum theory and general covariant statistical mechanics, and on the ancient history and philosophy of physics.

Download Essay PDF File

From the comments:

Conrad Dale Johnson wrote on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 15:18 GMT

Dear Carlo -

I'm very glad to see a new essay of yours revisiting some themes of Relational Quantum Mechanics. I've always considered that paper a milestone, or rather a signpost pointing a way that remains to be explored. Maybe the time is ripe... there are a few other essays in this contest - Knuth's, for example - working with the idea that all of physics concerns "the information systems have about other systems."

I very much agree with your conclusion - "The universe is not just simply the position of all its Democritean atoms. It is also the net of information that all systems have about one another. Objects are not just aggregates of atoms. They are particular configurations of atoms singled out because of the manner a given other system interacts with them."

However, I agree with Walter Smilga's comment above - in order to grasp what it means for things to have information, even in physics, we need to deal with contexts of meaning. You want to stick with Shannon's definition, as you wrote, to show "that there are meaningful notions of information and relative information in simple physics, without need to refer to semantic meaning." As in the RQM paper, here also you define "having information about" a system just as "being correlated" with it. (Knuth's contest essay likewise uses an abstract notion of systems "influencing" each other. And even Smilga, who wants to bring semantics into the picture, uses a very generalized notion of "semantic frames of reference.")

I don't doubt that your approach gets at something very important about the structure of physics. But the point of my essay is that something else that's important is missed when we abstract from the specific kinds of contexts in which information actually becomes measurable.

These contexts are not mysterious - we know all about how to assemble them when we make measurements. There's nothing subjective or mental about them - the same physics we use in the lab describes how any system gets information about other systems. But there are major obstacles to formulating any realistic general definition of a "measurement-context". It's not just that such arrangements are never physically simple, but also that any way of measuring something depends on other ways of measuring other things. I argue that this complex interdependency of different ways of "observing" is really what's behind the measurement problem in QM.

In physics we're always trying to show how the underlying structure is basically simple - so the many different ways in which things actually "have information about each other" give us a picture that hardly seems as though it could be relevant to the physical foundations. Yet if we only think about abstract and generalized information-processes, we lose touch with the way information is physically present in the world.

My suggestion is that measurement can be conceived as fundamental, if we can see it as an evolving process. Though it takes a very complex interactive environment to communicate definite information about and between its subsystems, this kind of environment can exist and maintain itself for the same reason that life does, if it's the kind of system that can evolve through random selection.

Thanks again for the new essay - Conrad


Author Carlo Rovelli replied on Jul. 1, 2013 @ 16:23 GMT

Dear Conrad,

you touch something basic here. I agree that what you talk about is a central issue, and I am uncertain myself.

We certainly agree on the relevance of context, and I feel everybody would agree, at least after a good discussion clarifying what we mean. But I have tried to bring this down to good old physics. You are right that in quantum mechanics this affects the measurement issue and you are right that it affects the definition of what is a measurement context. But the central point of Relational Quantum Mechanics is to solve this issue by accepting the idea that *any* physical interaction is a measurement. When an atom in a SternGerlack apparatus is deviated by the magnetic field, the position of the atom is measuring the spin. This seems to me the only possible solution; I have never found a convincing alternative. The price to pay is of course the Relational Quantum Mechanics observation that events are indexed by the context. That is, in this case the spin is measured by the position, and does not take value with respect to a system not interacting with it. This allows interference to affect possible later interactions with position or spin. Thus, in this sense I agree with you that measurement is fundamental, but I prefer to view it as synonymous of interaction, rather than trying to view it, as you suggest to attribute it to "a very complex interactive environment".


Conrad Dale Johnson replied on Jul. 2, 2013 @ 14:36 GMT

Carlo - thanks for your response, and I get your point. In fact, I pulled out my old marked-up copy of the RQM paper and was reminded again what a thorough piece of work it is, given its limited scope. It lays out - more carefully than any work of philosophy I know of - the basic philosophical issues involved in the meaning of objectivity.

It is just the notion that events are indexed by the observer-relative context that's important to me. The world only exists from the standpoint of some observer. This isn't subjective (mental), in that anything counts as an observer. It's not solipsistic, in that communication between observers is as fundamental as observation itself - in fact, from the QM viewpoint there's no difference between these two. But as you say, it's an error to describe this world of multiple observers as if it could be envisioned "from outside", from no point of view - as if there could be well-defined information without a context to define it from a specific point of view.

This is a very radical notion, and I think it will be some time before we have the conceptual tools we need to be clear about it.

So I understand your "only possible solution" - treating any interaction as a measurement. But I would remind you of the point you make in RQM, that even the correlation between two systems is only definable from the standpoint of a third system. And the position of the atom "measures" the spin, insofar as something else observes the atom, in some context in which its position is definable over time.

There's no specific level of complexity at which interactions become measurements, or systems become observers. To that extent I agree, it's better to treat all systems as observers and all interactions as measurements. But this does not really "solve" any problem. Many different kinds of interactions are still needed to define / measure any physical information, and though I well understand your preference for "the good old physics", ultimately I think we can't set this fact aside as insignificant.

In my essay I acknowledge the difficulty of dealing with it, and try to show how they can be addressed. In the end this points to a way of answering the basic question that's left - in my mind, anyway - by RQM: how and why do things work out so that at the macroscopic level, the quantum world of communicating observers ends up looking so much like the objective, deterministic reality of classical physics?


Author Carlo Rovelli replied on Jul. 2, 2013 @ 16:18 GMT

Ok, you definitely convinced me to read with care what you have written! I will now print it out and study it... thanks! Carlo”



I haven’t looked yet for further discussion between Rovelli and Johnson in the long thread at FXQi, and it may be that Rovelli and Johnson corresponded privately afterward. The links to the Rovelli and Johnson papers are repeated here:

Johnson, On the evolution of determinate information
http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Johnson_CDJohnson_fqxi2013.pdf

Rovelli, Relative information at the foundation of physics
http://fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Rovelli_information.pdf
and comments at Relative information at the foundation of physics by Carlo Rovelli

I was quite excited to first read Rovelli. I wrote to him as it happens. What interested me was the possible QM applications (or underpinning) for HCT. I think we are onto the same thing basically, but I don't understand his language. I have written about his RQM paper... it's on my website I think.
I was particularly taken with this comment in the exchange between Rovelli and Carlo:

'But as you say, it's an error to describe this world of multiple observers as if it could be envisioned "from outside", from no point of view - as if there could be well-defined information without a context to define it from a specific point of view.'

This is absolutely the point I try to make in HCT regarding how information needs to be thought as observer-dependent, (where 'observer' refers to a coherent unified system.)

Another quote very important and relevant to HCT:
'it's better to treat all systems as observers and all interactions as measurements.'

 

[Michael Allen]

'papanca' and 'mental proliferation' are jargon though, aren't they?

Reductive labels are necessary and useful in certain contexts, but 'words are not the things they point to' so we need to be careful that we don't collapse the insight along with the paragraph.

You can't experience silence by shouting the word for it.

"She blinded me with science..."

 

[smcder]

@ufology you say,
"However some might still argue that there isn't an adequate explanation for exactly where "capacity" comes from: e.g. "the capacity to evaluate the comparative importance (or value)." "
This is a neuroscientific question imo. How might neural mechanisms function in a way that, essentially, prioritises one qualitative stance over another?
I obviously don't have the answer to these kinds of questions, but it seems highly plausible to me that such mechanisms are possible if not extremely likely.

The objective of the paper is to give an account of how subjectivity emerges from objectivitiy.
Hiw the buichemisty and neurology might facilitate this will take decades of research. In its more abstract rendition, HCT indicates that the maintenance and acquisition of states of equilibria is key at the different levels... in this regard

I'm still working through the HCT paper you linked and I printed a copy for my father to read ... but is this correct:

is the overall idea that HCT is a narrow expansion – using what we now know but transforming the way we understand knowledge, information, representation, intentionality - that HCT will give an account of how subjectivity emerges from objectivity ... and this will provide a guide for the next decades of research in biochemistry and neurology, is that correct? And it will do so in a way that is revolutionary compared to current models?

 

[Constance]

I have written about his RQM paper... it's on my website I think.

I'd like to read what you've written, Pharoah. Can you give me a direct link? You seem to have two different websites?

 

[smcder]

I'd like to read what you've written, Pharoah. Can you give me a direct link? You seem to have two different websites?

@Pharoah

The website is out of date now. I want to do a major revamp but am concentrating on other things atm.
I think, currently, my best writing on HCT is this:
http://mind-phronesis.co.uk/18-9-15-HCT-MP.pdf

 

[Soupie]

@Soupie re my comment: "wiki: "information is the reduction in uncertainty regarding the state of a variable". Does that make information a verb? I'm not too good on grammar. It seems to be a 'doing' thing. Or is it a noun?"

If I run with the traditional understanding of the term 'infrmation'...
Let's say that in any given second the human brain receives from its senses a trillion bits of data; a trillion neurons firing. In that moment, a unitary experience we call consciousness occurs. A single behavioural expression seems to occur.

It seems therefore, that a lot of information is condensed into a smaller amount of useful/usable/used information—by the brain.
In this way, IIT seems intuitively to make sense: information is a process (using the wiki definition) that reduces uncertainty. By taking place in the brain, this indicates that the process is integrated.

On the face of it, this does seem to have something going for it, that is, if we ignore the problem of the traditional use of the term information: most people are happy with the idea that the brain condenses/segments/processes a lot of sensation into not so much information; information that is the content of our consciousness.

The problem is, as with so many theories of consciousness, how we get meaning into the equation i.e. qualitative meaning. It is not good enough to bring qualia into the workspace as IIT states. Isn't that one of the flaws of inferential argument that lawyers look out for:
II = qualia = consciousness
Therefore, consciousness = II

I think IIT, which assumes evolution, brings qualitative meaning into the equation in the same manner as HCT.

This is what @smcder and I have been trying to communicate to you. We do not see where HCT differs from TENS.

The idea that organisms have become adapted to their environments via natural selection. Like HCT, IIT assumes consciousness is essentially representation. That is, the phenomenal landscape is a representation of the organism's physical environment. ITT, like HCT, assumes there is an accurate correspondence between the environment and the organism's neurophysiology by way of TENS.

So in this regard, IIT and HCT do not differ.

However, what IIT proposes that these corresponding neurophysiological processes and the information they embody "feel like something" because these neurophysiological processes involve integrated neurons which manifest the property of "experience."

It's a radical claim and may be utterly wrong.

On the other hand, I do not find in HCT an explanation of how these corresponding neurophysiological processes manifest, generate, or become associated with "experience."

You seem to feel that HCT explains the origin of phenomenal consciousness. I don't see it. Will read latest paper asap.

 

[Pharoah]

I'm still working through the HCT paper you linked and I printed a copy for my father to read ... but is this correct:

is the overall idea that HCT is a narrow expansion – using what we now know but transforming the way we understand knowledge, information, representation, intentionality - that HCT will give an account of how subjectivity emerges from objectivity ... and this will provide a guide for the next decades of research in biochemistry and neurology, is that correct? And it will do so in a way that is revolutionary compared to current models?

Yes to first question.
Second question: I think the model binds theory (philosophical theory) to empirical sciences in a way that no other philosophy model has before (it has an evolutionary and developmental foundation that is consistent with current understandings). It helps identify what the sciences need to look for in terms of mechanisms and function in their quest to understand phenomenal consciousness.
I think it moves the philosophy goal posts quite a bit...

@Constance
My essay on Rovelli Information unravelling with Rovelli | Philosophy of Consciousness
I have not read it recently. Can't even remember what I say and don't recognise the opening text that I wrote; I have no idea if it is any good.
I have a limited understanding of Rovelli's work btw.

 

[smcder]

Yes to first question.
Second question: I think the model binds theory (philosophical theory) to empirical sciences in a way that no other philosophy model has before (it has an evolutionary and developmental foundation that is consistent with current understandings). It helps identify what the sciences need to look for in terms of mechanisms and function in their quest to understand phenomenal consciousness.
I think it moves the philosophy goal posts quite a bit...

@Constance
My essay on Rovelli Information unravelling with Rovelli | Philosophy of Consciousness
I have not read it recently. Can't even remember what I say and don't recognise the opening text that I wrote; I have no idea if it is any good.
I have a limited understanding of Rovelli's work btw.

@Soupie's post which just came through and I skimmed and this response are just in line with the post I'm working on, which is to try and nail down what it is that HCT claims and how it is different from other theories - this specific claim of yours:

HCT binds philosophical theory to empirical sciences in a way that no other model has before ...


that's helpful and maybe we can pin it down even more specifically ...

 

[smcder]

I think IIT, which assumes evolution, brings qualitative meaning into the equation in the same manner as HCT.

This is what @smcder and I have been trying to communicate to you. We do not see where HCT differs from TENS.

The idea that organisms have become adapted to their environments via natural selection. Like HCT, IIT assumes consciousness is essentially representation. That is, the phenomenal landscape is a representation of the organism's physical environment. ITT, like HCT, assumes there is an accurate correspondence between the environment and the organism's neurophysiology by way of TENS.

So in this regard, IIT and HCT do not differ.

However, what IIT proposes that these corresponding neurophysiological processes and the information they embody "feel like something" because these neurophysiological processes involve integrated neurons which manifest the property of "experience."

It's a radical claim and may be utterly wrong.

On the other hand, I do not find in HCT an explanation of how these corresponding neurophysiological processes manifest, generate, or become associated with "experience."

You seem to feel that HCT explains the origin of phenomenal consciousness. I don't see it. Will read latest paper asap.

@Pharoah

I think this is the crux of it:

On the other hand, I do not find in HCT an explanation of how these corresponding neurophysiological processes manifest, generate, or become associated with "experience."

and where a misunderstanding must be located

@Pharoah your latest post is helpful in terms of getting at what exactly you claim makes HCT unique, so we can look at this