Philosophy Discussion Forums

Leo, would you please define "information" in the sense you are using it? (As in your statement: "Non-linear dynamic systems need only two variables to work their self-organisational magic, these being information and time.") It is not clear to me. Thanks.

Bohm, I agree with you that the human brain, with its 100 trillion synapses, is much too complicated for our current investigatory tools to follow its operation in any detail. I suppose in the distant future anything's possible, but my guess is that we'll never have that capability. At present our state of the art is that we can tell that a particular part of the brain lights up when certain kinds of thoughts or actions are carried out, and that's fascinating science, but let's face it - that's far from understanding what's actually going on in there in detail. And consciousness - self-awareness - is a mystery. Presumably it's a conversation between two parts of the brain - two characters - in which at least one of them is convinced that it - in the form of a "mind" - is more than simply the neurons and synapses, and considers the physical body as the same entity as itself, and feels that it is free to think in any direction it wants, independent of the brain's configuration and state (in which it is mistaken). To collect and analyze the activity involved in such a process - even if if were technically possible - would probably require more processing power than the world has at present. So we can hope that one day science gains an understanding of how consciousness works, but wishing will not make it so.

Felix wrote:Leo, would you please define "information" in the sense you are using it? (As in your statement: "Non-linear dynamic systems need only two variables to work their self-organisational magic, these being information and time.") It is not clear to me. Thanks.

Felix. You'll have to give me some time. You ask a very obvious question and you're entitled to a proper answer. I can and will give you this answer but I refuse to leave your answer incomplete. I promise you an answer that you will completely understand because the philosophy of the bloody obvious is an Everyman philosophy accessible to the average man of common sense with a reasonable modern education.

However I have to think carefully how to go about this because your answer is currently scattered throughout dozens of separate essays amounting to hundreds of thousands of words, most of which I won't need. By the normal standards of this forum your answer can't be brief but compared with the scope of your question it will be astonishingly brief, and this I promise you. I can tell that you're genuinely interested and therefore I'll give you the answer you deserve and you'll have it within day or two. I would hope to be able to do this in a few thousand words or less but this means I'll have to strive for brevity, which is not my default setting. Answers have a bad habit of evolving.

Watch this space.

Regards Leo

-- Updated July 29th, 2014, 9:31 am to add the following --

Wilson. I agree with most of what you say but don't share your pessimism. I reckon within a billion years we'll have much of the human mind figured out, which is a bloody good effort for such a big project. Those who want their answers more quickly will have to make their own arrangements.

Regards Leo

A billion years, if humanity still exists - yeah, maybe that's possible.

Thank you Leo, you're obviously not using the word in the standard way....

Information: Origin: 1350–1400; Middle English: instruction, teaching, a forming of the mind < Medieval Latin, Latin: idea, conception.

1. knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance.

2. knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction, etc.

Felix wrote:Thank you Leo, you're obviously not using the word in the standard way....

Depends what you mean by standard, mate. I use it in the standard way that it is used in information theory, which should come as no surprise since that's what complexity theory is. It's also the same concept as is used in physics, particularly black hole physics. Hawking radiation, for instance, is information, which not so coincidentally leads to one of the biggest paradoxes in physics, known as the firewall paradox. The non-linear systems approach makes this paradox disappear, along with all the others.

Regards Leo

Obvious Leo wrote:I dispute this, although I have a great admiration for Chalmers. I believe that the "hard problem" of consciousness is no more than a case of using the wrong tools to deal with this problem...Autopoesis is the Theory of Everything, the holy grail of physics which will be the last of the sciences to acknowledge this... They know damn well that physiology is nothing more than a physical substrate for the evolution of mind and that the whole cannot be understood in terms of the sum of its parts. Reductionism is dead, will stay dead forever, and humanity will not mourn its passing. I can answer your question in more depth than you could possibly imagine because the philosophy of the bloody obvious has been my life's work. I don't lay claim to the synergy of the entire suite of human knowledge but I do claim that complexity theory is the mechanism by which this synthesis can be achieved.

I've read some papers on autopoesis from Alicia Juarrero, Evan Thompson and Terrence Deacon. I didn't find anything that shed light on the "hard" problem. Similarly with holism (whole is greater than sum of parts, etc.). In fact, experiments demonstrating violation of Bell's inequality already arguably imply this at the micro level (physics). But I still don't see how this sheds light on the "hard" problem. I also don't see how mere self-organization can generate the subjective character of conscious experience. With respect to information theory, etc as McGinn writes:

As I clearly stated, the activities of mind depend completely upon activity in the brain, so every mental act has its neural correlate and mechanism. The study of the brain is thus highly relevant to the study of the mind. But it doesn’t follow from these truisms that the brain understands, reads, thinks, feels, or processes information. The brain is rather the enabling mechanism of these essentially mental acts. Herbert’s own analogy makes the point clearly, though he misses it utterly: wings indeed enable a bird to fly, but it is false and confused to say that wings fly—birds do. Neurons enable people to think and read and process information, but they don’t themselves do any of these things...

But it is another matter with respect to the second kind of neural activity: here there is no mental correlate to justify the attribution of mental descriptions—we just have a collection of neurons engaging in electrical and chemical activity without any corresponding mental process. In this case describing the neurons as thinking or reading or processing information cannot be regarded as shorthand for a psychological truth about the person—it is simply unjustified homunculus talk.

There is nothing wrong with describing the brain as involved in information processing, as there is nothing wrong with describing the telephone system that way; but we have to recognize that such talk is entirely derivative upon the fact that these systems are connected to people who have real conscious informational states (which of course depend upon brain activity)...

All information is information—to some conscious agent. Accordingly, neurons do not, considered in themselves, process information or send signs or receive messages—to indulge in such talk is a clear case of the homunculus fallacy.

‘How to Create a Mind’
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archive ... -kurzweil/

I think it's okay to say that the brain thinks and is self-aware, just as it's okay to say that an arm can throw a spear. As long as we agree that thinking and self-awareness are products of what's going on among the neurons, and not dependent on some extra-corporeal "mind" entity, aren't we all saying the same thing, and arguing semantics?

Wilson wrote:I think it's okay to say that the brain thinks and is self-aware, just as it's okay to say that an arm can throw a spear. As long as we agree that thinking and self-awareness are products of what's going on among the neurons, and not dependent on some extra-corporeal "mind" entity, aren't we all saying the same thing, and arguing semantics?

But it's not just semantics when we are trying to understand how nerve activity leads to things like qualia/experiential stuff/consciousness. For more details see previous thread (particularly post # 19, 44):

Panpsychism: credible or not?
http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/ ... =2&t=10745

Or to summarize:

The homunculus fallacy is to take predicates whose normal application is to complete human beings (or animals) and apply them to parts of animals, typically to brains, or indeed to any insufficiently human-like object. The fallacy properly so-called is attempting to argue from the fact that a person-predicate applies to a person to the conclusion that it applies to his brain or vice versa. This form of argument is non-truth-preserving as it ignores the fact that the term in question must have a different meaning if it is to be applied in these different contexts...

‘Homunculus’ means ‘miniature man’, from the Latin (the diminutive of homo). This is an appropriate name for the fallacy, for in its most transparent form it is tantamount to saying that there is a little man in our heads who sees, hears, thinks and so on. Because if, for example, we were to try to explain the fact that a person sees by saying that images are produced in his mind, brain or soul (or whatever) then we would not have offered any explanation, but merely postulated a little man who perceives the images. For exactly the same questions arise about what it is for the mind/brain/soul to perceive these images as we were trying to answer for the whole human being. This is a direct consequence of the fact that we are applying a predicate—‘sees’—that applies properly only to the whole human being to something which is merely a part of a human being, and what is lacking is an explanation of what the term means in this application. It becomes very clear that the purported explanation of seeing in terms of images in the head is no explanation at all, when we reflect that it gives rise to an infinite regress. If we see in virtue of a little man perceiving images in our heads, then we need to explain what it is for him to perceive, which can only be in terms of another little man, and so on.

Quantum Information Theory and The Foundations of Quantum Mechanics
http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0412063.pdf

Bohm2. Complexity theory is still a very new science and although it's rapidly being extended across all the other sciences its basic principles are still the basis of lively conjecture. I make no claim that it will resolve the "hard problem" overnight but merely suggest that this is the only philosophical approach by which it can possibly be resolved. Self-organisation is more than just a new scientific theory. It's an entirely new way of thinking the world, which makes it not only metaphysical but also meta-mathematical. It is completely non-reductionist and thus incompatible with spacetime. The papers you refer to derive from the current physical models which are Newtonian and classical. I know bloody well that physicists will deny this but any philosopher of mathematics will tell you they are wrong. They use classical Newtonian mathematics to describe a non-Euclidean geometry and this is a complete and metaphysically coherent explanation for why these models make no sense.

They had no choice but to do this back in Einstein's day because Newtonian mathematics was the only tool they had. Einstein was well aware of this problem and pointed out throughout his life that his models were mathematical ones and not physical ones. He didn't realise that this was the cause of the "observer problem", also known as the "measurement problem", but he knew bloody well that it meant that spacetime should NEVER be regarded as physically real, a stance he maintained until his dying day.

Regards Leo

Obvious Leo wrote: Einstein was well aware of this problem and pointed out throughout his life that his models were mathematical ones and not physical ones. He didn't realise that this was the cause of the "observer problem", also known as the "measurement problem", but he knew bloody well that it meant that spacetime should NEVER be regarded as physically real, a stance he maintained until his dying day.

Of course, his models were mathematical as is all of physics, but mathematical models of what? Einstein was definitely a "realist". Moreover, Einstein was deeply sceptical of QM because he realized it was clearly at odds with the local classical field/his theory of GR:

It is further characteristic of these physical objects that they are thought of as arranged in a space-time continuum. An essential aspect of this arrangement of things in physics is that they lay claim, at a certain time, to an existence independent of one another, provided these objects ‘are situated in different parts of space’. Unless one makes this kind of assumption about the independence of the existence (the ‘being-thus’) of objects which are far apart from one another in space—which stems in the first place from everyday thinking— physical thinking in the familiar sense would not be possible. It is also hard to see any way of formulating and testing the laws of physics unless one makes a clear distinction of this kind. This principle has been carried to extremes in the field theory by localizing the elementary objects on which it is based and which exist independently of each other, as well as the elementary laws which have been postulated for it, in the infinitely small (four-dimensional) elements of space.

Thus, "Einstein notes that in classical field theory all of the beables are local, and local in the strongest sense: the entire physical situation is nothing but the sum of the physical situations in the infinitely small regions of space-time."

I'm not sure what his view would have been if he had lived to witness Bell's theorem and experiments demonstrating violations of Bell's inequality. As an aside, with respect to reductionism, even in physics, violation of Bell's inequality implies non-reductionism:

The classical picture offered a compelling presumption in favour of the claim that causation is strictly bottom up-that the causal powers of whole systems reside entirely in the causal powers of parts. This thesis is central to most arguments for reductionism. It contends that all physically significant processes are due to causal powers of the smallest parts acting individually on one another. If this were right, then any emergent or systemic properties must either be powerless epiphenomena or else violate basic microphysical laws. But the way in which the classical picture breaks down undermines this connection and the reductionist argument that employs it. If microphysical systems can have properties not possessed by individual parts, then so might any system composed of such parts...

Were the physical world completely governed by local processes, the reductionist might well argue that each biological system is made up of the microphysical parts that interact, perhaps stochastically, but with things that exist in microscopic local regions; so the biological can only be epiphenomena of local microphysical processes occurring in tiny regions. Biology reduces to molecular biology, which reduces in turn to microphysics. But the Bell arguments completely overturn this conception...

For whom the Bell arguments toll
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/H/James.A.H ... s_Toll.pdf

But I still see theses as 2 different issues. Non-reductionism, complexity theory, downward causation, self-organization, etc. has no implications on the "hard" problem, in my opinion, for some of the reasons pointed out in the Chalmer's quote posted above. I also think that neuroscience has made zero progress with respect to the "hard" problem.

Bohm2 wrote:Of course, his models were mathematical as is all of physics,

Agreed. We make progress. Mathematical models can only make mathematical predictions and they can only model mathematical entities. That clears up Albert's justifiable anxieties about the dice-playing god. The particles aren't real. Because the predictions are solely mathematical ones it becomes the responsibility of the observer to interpret what the data shows. If he gets it wrong his model will make no sense. These models make no sense hence the interpretations are incorrect. This clears up the "observer problem", sometimes known as the "measurement problem". I'm gald we've got that nicely sorted out.

As far as the Bell arguments go all this nonsense is about making an easy problem hard. Causation is non-linear and operates top-down as well as bottom-up. So blindly bloody obvious is this that it's almost embarrassing to point this out. You feel thirsty. The cells in your body are in need of water and send a signal to the brain via a complex hierarchy of interconnected networks. You walk to the tap and have a glass of water. The information that you've done this travels all the way back down to the cells who politely say Thank you brain. You should get more exercise.

Regards Leo

-- Updated July 30th, 2014, 2:57 pm to add the following --

In physics of course we also have the idea of circular causality, usually know as thermodynamic equilibrium.

Regards Leo

-- Updated July 30th, 2014, 3:10 pm to add the following --

With any luck an autopoietic philosophy will put the free will arguments to bed forever. You could be a pig-headed bugger and not respond to the cells' request. You could literally die of thirst solely by an act of will. Organisms without brains don't have this option. If water is available the cells will get it.

Regards Leo

Obvious Leo wrote: Mathematical models can only make mathematical predictions and they can only model mathematical entities.

This doesn't make sense to me. And I can't think of many scientists who subscribe to that view. Most scientists tend to view mathematics as a very useful scaffolding to attach our claims about physical systems. It seems that there is something more to physical reality (or even our models of physical realty) over and above the mathematics. The mathematical theories/objects are not the same type of entities that appear to exist in the physical world. We can't get to the physical world without using mathematics because non-mathematical versions of scientific theories just seem to be practically very difficult to do. As the cosmologist Eddington pointed out,

Physics is mathematical, not because we know so much about the 'physical world' but because we know so little: it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover. For the rest, our knowledge is negative...

But, even though the mathematics may be indespinsible and the mathematical equations we use ultimately decide what we believe about the physical world there still seems to be this difference between the two, as I'm pretty sure most scientists do not subscribe to radical Platonism. And from what I recall, either do you.

This is a post duplicated from another thread. It also belongs here. It is about time I did this because it is about time.

The easiest way to understand time is to simply accept it for what it appears to be, namely a sequence of moments in which events occur. Just think of time as continuously coming into existence, just as your most basic intuitions tell you it does. Your intuitions are not fooling you because this would completely contradict evolutionary law. Our moments arrive and pass in an ever-moving stream of time, like Omar Khayyam's Moving Finger. Each event has its moment in the spotlight and then exists no more. The past is gone and can never be retrieved because the Moving Finger has moved on. The present is only the present and is also irretrievable. These are the only moments in which reality can truly be said to exist. The present has been caused by the events of the past and by the time we can observe these moments they too have become the past. This is physical law. The only moments that have any meaning to the human mind are those that lie in our future. These moments do not exist yet and thus the events of these moments are yet to be caused. The truth of the human experience cannot be denied and the meaning of our own existence lies in this truth, which stands before us like an elephant in the room. This is also the meaning and the truth of the entire universe, as I've desperately been trying to explain elsewhere. The events which will occur in our moments of the future have not yet been determined. The great evolutionary milestone that is a sentient mind reveals this simplest of all truths to us. We are both observers and players in a never-ending cosmic opera. Most of the events of the future moments will occur with or without our own existence. However some of those events which form a part of our personal experience of these moments are our own privilege to cause. A mind is a future-maker.

In a nutshell, my friends, this is the philosophy of the bloody obvious. So exquisitely simple and intuitive is this proposition that I hold it to be a self-evident truth. However because it contradicts the current models being used in physics, I assert that these models must be false. This is all I'm getting at.

Regards Leo

Obvious Leo wrote:The easiest way to understand time is to simply accept it for what it appears to be, namely a sequence of moments in which events occur. Just think of time as continuously coming into existence, just as your most basic intuitions tell you it does. Your intuitions are not fooling you because this would completely contradict evolutionary law. Our moments arrive and pass in an ever-moving stream of time, like Omar Khayyam's Moving Finger. Each event has its moment in the spotlight and then exists no more. The past is gone and can never be retrieved because the Moving Finger has moved on. The present is only the present and is also irretrievable. These are the only moments in which reality can truly be said to exist. The present has been caused by the events of the past and by the time we can observe these moments they too have become the past. This is physical law. The only moments that have any meaning to the human mind are those that lie in our future. These moments do not exist yet and thus the events of these moments are yet to be caused. The truth of the human experience cannot be denied and the meaning of our own existence lies in this truth, which stands before us like an elephant in the room. This is also the meaning and the truth of the entire universe, as I've desperately been trying to explain elsewhere. The events which will occur in our moments of the future have not yet been determined. The great evolutionary milestone that is a sentient mind reveals this simplest of all truths to us. We are both observers and players in a never-ending cosmic opera. Most of the events of the future moments will occur with or without our own existence. However some of those events which form a part of our personal experience of these moments are our own privilege to cause. A mind is a future-maker.

In a nutshell, my friends, this is the philosophy of the bloody obvious. So exquisitely simple and intuitive is this proposition that I hold it to be a self-evident truth. However because it contradicts the current models being used in physics, I assert that these models must be false. This is all I'm getting at.

Regards Leo

I find it absurd to view our cognition of time as objective. If the past is really 'gone' and the future really isn't 'here', then how can the present be said to have any real existence? As you noted, quite correctly, what we take as the 'present' is in reality the very very recent past, as it takes time for our cognitive, perceptive, and sensory apparatuses to 'assemble' our present. The ordinary view of time makes no sense whatsoever. A fleeting 'reality' which fades into non-existence continually and also comes from non-existence continually. As if the entire Universe was like the sparks of a campfire, each spark existing for a moment and then absolutely disappearing, only to be replaced by another. It's like the view of the 'stupid nomad', who believes that the city from which he has left exists no longer, and that the city to which he is going is being hurriedly built for his arrival. The places from which he has left have disappeared, and the places to which he is going do not exist yet.

This was the reason that the idea of higher dimensions of space, or so called 'space-time', was formulated in the first place. If we imagine an ordinary timeline, which represents each moment of time laid out side by side to form a line, the idea here is that the timeline really exists, i.e. each moment of time exists side by side, but only the point we are on at the moment we take as 'reality'. The points we have passed on the timeline still exist, our awareness has merely passed them by. And the points we have yet to reach on the timeline also exist, but we don't realize them until our awareness (the point on the timeline which represents the present) reaches it.

To think that the points already crossed, and that the points not yet crossed, actually do not exist is a very shallow and subjective view that simply defies the free mind that demands to know to where does the present go, and from whence does the present come? To/from 'nowhere' or 'non-existence' simply makes no sense and the theory of higher dimensions resolves this dilemma quite nicely.