A Systems Approach to the Mind-Body Problem
(1) The fundamental nature of reality.
The fundamental nature of reality is a multiverse of unbounded potential:
"In the quantum model there are no explicit individual entities. There is only the unified quantum system and its state transitions. It is only once we shift to the classical equivalent that the individual systems are explicitly represented. Due to the unified quantum foundation the interactions between the individual systems exhibit global coherence.
This suggests that fundamentally there is only a single unified system that undergoes state transitions.
The quantum state vector represents a multiverse wherein all possible universal configurations are represented as potentialities.
Thus there are no explicit systems or system interactions, there is only a unified whole that is represented by changing probability distributions within a multiverse.
However the classical picture is logically equivalent, thus another way of looking at the situation is in terms of individual systems and system interactions.
Thus there are two ways of interpreting the same situation.
Either everything is one and whole or all things are separate and individual. This apparent duality can be inferred from the same reality generative information process by interpreting it in different ways. (Ringland 52)"
When we interpret reality as consisting of individual, interacting systems, it provides us with a powerful conceptual approach to the Mind-Body Problem.
(2) Systems and the Nature of Perception
"An individual system has 4 aspects:
1. It has a state.
2. It has interfaces:
• an input interface,
• an output interface,
• a self-interaction channel where its input and output interfaces intersect,
• input channels where its input interface intersects another system’s
output interface,
• output channels where its output interface intersects another system’s
input interface.
3. It has an "animating" process, which is the operation of "computing" a new system state. (Which I interpret as a causal/interactive nature.)
4. It has an observable form or appearance, i.e., when the system's output interface intersects with the input channels of another system. (heavily edited from Ringwald 15)"
These 4 aspects of a system lead to the following 4 aspects of system perception:
"1. A system can only perceive the information that flows through its input interface. This information only informs the system of the appearances of itself and other systems. Hence the other aspects such as state, interfaces and animating process are imperceptible.
2. Thus
from a system’s perspective it appears as if it is an individual entity that simply exists within a space filled with interacting entities, all of which are known by their appearances.
3. The interactions between these entities are tangible and for all intents and purposes they seem ‘physical’ because all systems are emergent from and embedded within the same information space.
4.
The systems respond to the perceived appearances as if they were all that exists because this is all that they can experience. Thus perceptions are constructs of the appearances of systems and the systems experience of perceptions as their (physical) universe. (heavily edited from Ringwald 15)"
(3) How this Relates to the Mind-Body Problem
The Mind-Body problem is the problem of explaining how the seemingly physical body interacts with the seemingly non-physical mind.
Applying the systems approach to the problem gives us the following:
(1) The fundamental nature of reality is neither physical nor mental.
(2) The fundamental nature of Being appears to be a multiverse wherein all possibilities exist.
(3) Out of this unbound potential emerge systems such as atoms, molecules, cells, and organisms.
(4) These systems interface inducing state changes within one another.
(5) The state changes (or animating process) that each system undergoes is equivalent to perception.
(6)
However, since organisms perceive only the appearances of other systems (by way of their own input interfaces), the world is perceived as being only "physical" and subsequently devoid of experience/feeling/consciousness/what-its-likeness.
However, just because we only perceive appearances of systems (including ourselves)--and not the experiences of systems (including ourselves)-- does not mean that systems (including ourselves) do not have experiences.
On the contrary, the systems approach gives us very good reason to believe that all systems have/are experiences. However, this is
not to say that atoms, molecules, and cells have self-conscious
minds such as ours.
"It is far more plausible that systems experience each other and respond, thereby changing state. It is only from a naïve realist perspective, which focuses solely on the appearances (content of experience), that one may postulate the existence of ‘inanimate’ systems and then formulate equations that describe the changing appearances. Then, being totally unaware of the underlying experiential processes that actually drive the system dynamics, it is proposed that
the equations themselves are some kind of ‘law’ that the inanimate systems mysteriously ‘follow’. (Ringwald 66)"
(4) The Systems Approach to The Combination Problem
If a system, such as an organism, is really a system of systems, how is it that this Super System experiences one stream of consciousness (if indeed an organism does experience only one stream of consciousness)?
"Regarding the mental aspect (felt inner experience) we cannot observe another’s experiential process, however our own experiential process proves that systems can have such a thing as an experiential process. Furthermore, all of the easy problems of consciousness mentioned above can be explained in terms of information processing by sub-systems such as sensory organs, nervous systems, brains, neurons, synapses and so on.
Thus awareness of felt experience is a subjective observation of the inner processes of many interacting sub-systems, which integrate and result in the experiential process of a super-system.
This is related to the way that interacting sub-systems produce the appearance of a single super-system via a meta system transition, which was discussed in sec. 2.5.1. Hence a meta system transition can be empirical; producing complex objects of perception (‘physcial’ objects), or it can be subjective; producing a complex experiential process (mind).
Thus our awareness of having a mind can be conceptualised as a subjective meta system transition by which the experiential processes of sub-systems appear to form into a single experiential process. Given that the sub-systems are animated by information processes, this explains the manner in which information processes can produce an experiential process that seems, in every respect, to be mental [Soupie: That is, seeming to be distinct from the "physical."] (Ringwald 65)"
Section 2.5.1
"This approach also highlights the connection between interaction and complex systems. If the two systems A and B interact then we need to model their joint probability, likewise if they interact they participate as sub-systems of the complex system AB. Thus the fact of interaction and the fact of being sub-systems are different ways of thinking about the same situation. If a group of systems are strongly interacting it is perceived as a single complex system whereas weakly interacting systems are perceived as separate systems. The process whereby a group of sub-systems is perceived to become a single super-system is called a meta system transition. However, as we see here, nothing fundamentally new is created when a super-system seemingly comes into existence; rather the super-system is an emergent property of coordinated sub-system interactions. (Ringwald 21)"
That whole section is incredibly interesting and expresses the same ideas regarding scale/emergence as Theile and Kafatos.
(5) The Nature of Fundamental Reality
What is the nature of the animating process that powers the state changes of systems?
"There are two logically equivalent mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics; matrix mechanics (developed by Heisenberg) and wave mechanics (developed by Schrodinger). In the early days of quantum mechanics both of these emerged at much the same time. There was much debate over which approach was preferable and people gravitated towards wave mechanics because the matrix mathematics was unfamiliar and the mathematics of waves was already familiar due to its application in classical physics. It was also believed that waves were more ‘physical’ than abstract information processes represented by matrices.
However it was later noticed by Max Born that quantum waves were distinctly non-physical in the sense that they were not a physical wave travelling through something but instead they were waves of the complex square root of probabilites, which had to be squared in order to result in anything physically meaningful. They were therefore numbers that cycled in the manner of waves in order to participate in a purely computational process. Thus the ‘physicallity’
of wave mechanics was only superficial. (Ringwald 58)"
"The superficially ‘physical’ waves, or any physicalist interpretation of quantum mechanics, cannot lead towards any great insight into the nature of quantum processes. Hence there have been many statements such as
“The theory has, indeed, two powerful bodies of fact in its favour, and only one thing against it. First, in its favour are all the marvellous agreements that the theory has had with every experimental result to date. Second, and to me almost as important, it is a theory of astonishing and profound mathematical beauty. The one thing
that can be said against it is that it makes absolutely no sense!” (Ringwald 59)"
"
In the context of the systems paradigm the “laws of physics” are descriptions of observable behaviour, whilst the causative principle is the animating process of the whole system, which gives rise to the experiential processes of all systems. The laws of physics provide insights into the structure of the system model that the simulator uses to animate the simulation, but they are not causative in themselves. Thus ‘experience’ is not something that must arise from the interactions of inanimate systems; rather, it is the driving force of all interactions between animate systems. (Ringwald 66)"
Source:
System Science of Virtual Reality: Toward the Unification of Empirical and Subjective Science
