Natural selection is simply the name for differential reproduction survival rates among a range of differences amongst a population. — schopenhauer1

This is an observation after the fact. It is not causal onto itself.

Literally, in your example, the observation of a mind is made the cause.

As I said, the sleight of hand gets more and more egregious as the story grows more complex, but the essential aspect of the trick is to slowly develop agreement between the storyteller and the listener that chemicals have the properties of mind. This is how magic works. The audience is slowly drawn into the trick.

This is an observation after the fact. It is not causal onto itself. — Rich

True. Is there a "what it's like aspect" to cells? Perhaps yes. However, if you are asking "Why did this trait appear?" I can easily say, a mutation occurred and it became stable as time went on and it was able to reproduce and survive at a longer and faster rate than other organisms without this feature.

Now, does mind need to exist for other things to exist? That is a bigger question, but this is a very specific one and can be answered in the framework of things already existing. Thus, this falls into the realm of easy problems and not the hard problem.

To be a materialist is to believe in the reality of substances. Stuff that exists in some brute fashion and has inherent properties. Dualists are just believers in two kinds of material - a matter stuff and a soul stuff. — apokrisis

The 'epistemic cut' implies a dualism between matter and symbol and so implies a duality.

The idea of 'soul stuff' is nonsensical, but it comes from the reification of the notion of 'being'. The original Aristotelean term that was translated as 'substance' was 'ouisia', which is much nearer in meaning to 'being' than 'stuff'. And what's the difference? 'Stuff' is an object of perception - something separate from us, something we can objectively measure or interact with. 'Being' never appears to us, because it is us - we are 'being' (i.e. 'human beings'). So if I were to ask 'what is the nature of being', then I'm not asking a question which is amenable to objective analysis at all. There is a lot of portentous waffle about such questions, of course, but that doesn't mean it's not a real question. As Thomas Nagel puts it in his book, Mind and Cosmos:

The scientific revolution of the 17th century, which has given rise to such extraordinary progress in the understanding of nature, depended on a crucial limiting step at the start: It depended on subtracting from the physical world as an object of study everything mental – consciousness, meaning, intention or purpose. The physical sciences as they have developed since then describe, with the aid of mathematics, the elements of which the material universe is composed, and the laws governing their behavior in space and time.

We ourselves, as physical organisms, are part of that universe, composed of the same basic elements as everything else, and recent advances in molecular biology have greatly increased our understanding of the physical and chemical basis of life. Since our mental lives evidently depend on our existence as physical organisms, especially on the functioning of our central nervous systems, it seems natural to think that the physical sciences can in principle provide the basis for an explanation of the mental aspects of reality as well — that physics can aspire finally to be a theory of everything.

However, I believe this possibility is ruled out by the conditions that have defined the physical sciences from the beginning. The physical sciences can describe organisms like ourselves as parts of the objective spatio-temporal order – our structure and behavior in space and time – but they cannot describe the subjective experiences of such organisms or how the world appears to their different particular points of view. There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all.

So the physical sciences, in spite of their extraordinary success in their own domain, necessarily leave an important aspect of nature unexplained.

The Core of Mind and Cosmos

So there is a deeper reality it would seem - the vagueness that is the boundless Apeiron. A sea of pure formless fluctuation. — apokrisis

I’m here addressing differences, not agreements. We may, and me thinks most likely will, choose to yet disagree. But so I may, hopefully, better elucidate the root difference between us on a metaphysical scale:

First off, once again, my realm of expertise is not that of maths. I don’t intend to purport otherwise. Still, I know enough so that the contents of your latest post to me are readily understandable to me – albeit, not in the “shut up and calculate” sense as regards the specifics. To each their own fields of interest.

As to the metaphysical issue:

You choose the Apeiron as the deeper/est reality: “boundless/formless fluctuation”. I so far further interpret you as expressing that one day all shall be Apeiron once again, aka end in a Heat Death. Correct me if needed.

To the extent I’m correct in so interpreting, the Apeiron then serves as the final telos.

Yet, in nevertheless yet holding “fluctuation”, this notion is not one of perfect symmetry.

The final telos (for there are innumerable more proximate teloi) is for me one of perfect symmetry. I think, thus expressed, you may then understand why I also at times state it is technically ineffable / inexpressible (if one seeks accuracy of expression), and impossible to represent via ideas, notions, etc., for none would accurately and fully correlate to its reality. (I don’t deny this correlative aspect of truth)

While it is true that for me this final telos is also, in part, that of absolute metaphysical objectivity (impartiality, hence fairness, hence justice) of which we are all (freewill-endowed) subjects to, absolute coherency/harmony/lack-of-conflict/peace/love (which brings about coherency, harmony, lack-of-conflict, etc.), absolute beauty/sublimity (which, complex as this topic in itself is, in part draws us to the unknown), and absolute selflessness of being, it is also true that—while inductively knowing, or at least believing, it to so be—I for logical reasons also know/uphold that what “it” in fact is is impossible to conceptualize, accurately represent, etc. (for technical metaphysical purposes, by anything that is endowed with selfhood; hence, by any psyche: be it ant, human, or (hypothetically) deity). Still, it, by definition, would likewise also need to be a state of perfect symmetry.

I don’t place this state at the metaphysical beginning, in part, because it is of no personal concern to do so.

At a metaphysical level, to me this end-state is not idealized but actual and obtainable. I’m not here addressing awareness of it, nor alignment with it, nor some kind of mystical vision of it, etc., but, rather, obtainable as a final state of being … which, maybe needless to add, prior to this is always in a state of becoming.

Again, focusing in on our differences:

To keep things relatively concrete and particular, the referents to the symbols of 0 and 1 are then, to me, in a sense, Platonic universals that emerge from this perfect symmetry’s reality in conjunction with the plurality of beings—quantifiable things (as becoming)—that occur. The referents to 0 and 1 are then (very intentionally so stated) more eternal/immortal than the referent to far more complex and context-specific mathematics that hold 0s and 1a as axiomatic givens. Though, upon eventual and contingent obtainment of this final end-state of perfect symmetry, the referents to 0 and 1 too will vanish.

[As to thermodynamics, different debates can ensue. Including those of: is information equivalent to energy? And: can information be created and nullified/erased, such as within the very center of a black hole? Different tangential topics, though.]

Back to the basic concept, though: The maths to me—again, in a simplified sense—emerge from this perfect symmetry as telos, which is itself a non-maths reality (again, not an idealization which is metaphysically impossible to obtain/actualize; but, rather, a metaphysical reality) ((I think we can both understand that minds, within this point of reference, are maths)). Whereas, to you, as far as I so far understand you as saying, this deepest reality of perfect symmetry is itself one of maths.

My contention is that the maths applicable to the physical world will work regardless of metaphysical outlook chosen. For instance, I so far know of no modern maths not in some way reliant upon the referents to 0 and 1. These two referents, then, can be explained to be both via they notion of the Apeiron you uphold and the notion of the factually ineffable final telos of non-maths, which I've previous expressed via its various faces (including that of perfect symmetry).

Again, the best answer I can give is that sensory noise would be what it is like to be modelling the world in that vague and undifferentiated fashion.

Why shouldn't richly structured modelling feel like something (and largely unstructured activity with no self concept feel like pretty much nothing to no-one)?

I don't recall you ever said why.

You choose the Apeiron as the deeper/est reality: “boundless/formless fluctuation”. I so far further interpret you as expressing that one day all shall be Apeiron once again, aka end in a Heat Death. Correct me if needed. — javra

No. The Heat Death for me would have to be an eternally determinate state. It would have a fixed spatiotemporal structure and a minimal presence of energetic action. So unlike Anaximander, there is no dissolution back into the Apeiron.

The Apeiron is generative potential and the Heat Death is a self organised or emergent finality, an enduring habit. So here I am switching to a Peircean view.

The final telos (for there are innumerable more proximate teloi) is for me one of perfect symmetry. — javra

In my scheme, the Heat Death is a perfectly crisp or definite state of symmetry, while the Big Bang arises from a perfectly vague state, or a symmetry of utter indefiniteness. So the change is a transition effected from the vaguest existence to the most definite existence. It is a change from a state of unlimited disequilibrium to one of universally stable structural equilibrium.

The telos is then not a glorious higher purpose but simply this tendency which is pointed in the direction of the Apeiron becoming maximally its own "other".

Time, space and energy differences (definite actions) all must co-arise as part of this trip towards "absolute other". Anaximander still had to take time, space and energy for granted at the start of things. That is why his Apeiron still sounds pretty materialistic or substantial.

While it is true that for me this final telos is also, in part, that of absolute metaphysical objectivity (impartiality, hence fairness, hence justice) of which we are all (freewill-endowed) subjects to, absolute coherency/harmony/lack-of-conflict/peace/love (which brings about coherency, harmony, lack-of-conflict, etc.), absolute beauty/sublimity (which, complex as this topic in itself is, in part draws us to the unknown), and absolute selflessness of being, it is also true that—while inductively knowing, or at least believing, it to so be—I for logical reasons also know/uphold that what “it” in fact is is impossible to conceptualize, accurately represent, etc. (for technical metaphysical purposes, by anything that is endowed with selfhood; hence, by any psyche: be it ant, human, or (hypothetically) deity). — javra

Once you start to talk about human notions of telos - The Good - then for me, that only arises along the path from the Big Bang to the Heat Death.

It turns out that the Big Bang couldn't achieve its end directly. Instead of expanding/cooling as a simple bath of light - pure radiation - it had its own secondary story of a Higgs field symmetry breaking which switched on gravity for particles that could feel the field through their mass. A lot of crud condensed out of the radiation to become heavy matter that lagged behind events. A gravitational symmetry was broken and you had a secondary action of massive particle falling together as clouds, stars and blackholes.

This was a major negentropic event - a backwards eddy against the general entropic flow. All the stars and black holes will eventually re-radiate that lagging mass back to radiation. But in the meantime, the stage is set for further levels of material complexity feeding off this gradient. ie: material structures like us.

So in my scheme, humanity is part of an interesting detour taken by a relatively small part of the original formless radiation bath. You could say that the great condensation of gravitating, sub-lightspeed, matter was a cosmic negentropic accident. And that then set the scene for complex material structure - like stars and humans - with the negentropic purpose of re-entropifying that matter, returning it to the general cosmic flow, as quickly as possible.

So my view is formed by looking at what we actually now know about the story of the Universe (and of course there is more to learn).

I can see how you may then apply the same metaphysical logic as me to the world as it seems from a very human-centric point of view. It does make dialectical sense that if our existence seems defined by its extreme self-centredness (not meant in any pejorative way), then the "other" of that - the obvious destination in terms of a radical change - would be a state of selfless being.

The particularity of selfhood is an extreme case of broken symmetry. That is the same story in my scheme too. There is nothing more negentropically a sore thumb sticking out in the Universe than a human self. And so the "other" of that would be to dissolve selfhood back to where it came from (back to entropy for me), or alternatively (for you) dissolve it forward to a state of pure selflessness.

So in terms of our differences, we likely agree on a dialectical understanding of cosmic history, but I would see humanity (and all its values or meaning making) as at best the culmination of a side detour to the big trip, while for you, it is the starting point for that big trip. Make sense?

I don’t place this state at the metaphysical beginning, in part, because it is of no personal concern to do so. — javra

I think this is where it gets tricky for you. If selfless being is truly the cosmic goal, then some kind of maximal or ultimate state of selfish being had to be its origin. We are talking about the journey that becomes possible because there is space between two complementary metaphysical limits on being.

So you would have to say more about this origin - this state of absolute selfish being - to justify the dialectical logic of your argument. (Just as you rightly push me to answer "well what is vagueness, what was there just before the Big Bang?".)

Including those of: is information equivalent to energy? — javra

My semiotic approach is based on these being equivalent at a foundational scale. If each is a complementary mode of action, then there is a starting scale at which each is the same size as the other.

I guess this is a dual aspect theory of matter (as opposed to a dual aspect monism of mind). :)

We know that at the Planck scale, information and material degrees of freedom become the same thing. Our measurements in term of Shannon entropy, or epistemic message uncertainty, equates to our measurements in terms of Gibbs free energy or countable physical degrees of freedom.

This is a profound fact that has given rise to the notions of event horizons, holographic principles, black hole radiation, and all the other good stuff of recent cosmology.

So modern physicalist theory already has a new foundation based on a measured equivalence between two complementary notions of entropy (and negentropy). It makes "no difference" whether it is regarded in terms of epistemic uncertainty or ontic degrees of freedom. The one maths encompasses both points of view. So we are in fact measuring the "subjectivity" of the Universe as much as its "objectivity" now. Physics has been turned upside down because it is a legitimate question: what does the Universe know about what is going on?

Quantum mechanics will hopefully be rewritten by this quantum information approach. We can make sense of quantum uncertainty as being due to the semantic impossibility of the Universe asking two opposite kinds of question of the same spatiotemporal locale. It can't enquire after variables like location and momentum simultaneously as each query requires its own separate and mutually incompatible point of view.

Back to the basic concept, though: The maths to me—again, in a simplified sense—emerge from this perfect symmetry as telos, which is itself a non-maths reality — javra

I'm puzzled here because your scheme would have to resolve the Platonic issue of how mathematical form might be itself related to the greater thing of The Good. If we are talking about beauty, love and truth as the ultimate telos, pure selfless being, then there is a gap to fill in when linking The Good back to mathematical forms.

In my own physicalist take, the summum bonum is a dissipative thing - the ultimate constraint which is to take the shortest path possible. The maths of metaphysical strength interest is the maths of symmetry breaking and dissipative structure. And that maths is an expression of the Least Action principle which is so central to physical theory.

So I accept the intuitive correctness of Platonism - some ultimate principle of "goodness" which then results in the more specific mathematical forms - but I can give a physicalist reading of that in dissipative structure terms which map to what modern science is discovering.

I don't see how you can do the same. Your version of The Good - if it is selfless being - has no necessary connection to the kind of maths (the 0 and 1 that is the omega and alpha of algebra) which you think is fundamental.

(And I don't mean to diss algebra as - another important fact since Descartes - algebra and geometry themselves turn out to be complementary modes of reality description. Any understanding derived from the one can be translated into the other.)

So anyway, to the degree that you are making a Platonic argument here, you would need to be able to flesh out how your summum bonum principle entails anything mathematical in terms of "pure structure". I'm sensing you appreciate the difficulty of making that connection and that is why you want to move on and treat The Good as essentially non-mathematical after all. And that then begs the question of why you want to claim any connection in the first place.

A systems thinker of course has to be able to wrap formal and final cause together in some satisfactory fashion. Platonism had some suggestions, but in the end, mostly paints over that crack in its logic.

The 'epistemic cut' implies a dualism between matter and symbol and so implies a duality. — Wayfarer

It implies a formally exact complementarity, which is a very different (triadic) thing.

The reason matter~symbol works, and mind~body doesn't, is that we have fundamental physical theories of the relation between physical degrees of freedom and epistemic degrees of uncertainty. I just explained that above - the equivalence of Shannon information and Gibbs/Boltzman free energy.

So it is a dichotomy that works. We know how to measure it as a physical reality. We can convert it to bit, and back again. This has become an insight of fantastic power.

And as I've mentioned with considerable enthusiasm, biophysics has now discovered in the past 10 years how this works for life and mind. There is an obvious reason now why - at the quasi-classical transition zone of the nanoscale - bio-semiosis and neuro-semiosis could take off. Again a unit of biological information and a unit of biological work (the two sides of Pattee's epistemic cut!) are zeroed at that scale for reasons that are just physically transparent (once you understand the physics).

This is huge. As big as DNA. Science has come through for us once again.

I can see how you may then apply the same metaphysical logic as me to the world as it seems from a very human-centric point of view. It does make dialectical sense that if our existence seems defined by its extreme self-centredness (not meant in any pejorative way), then the "other" of that - the obvious destination in terms of a radical change - would be a state of selfless being. — apokrisis

In fact, I don’t conceptualize selflessness to be the other relative to self. Rather, in tune with many an Eastern understanding, I conceptualize selflessness to be a core aspect of any (minimally, sentient) self—regardless of how selfish in intents it might be. (Eastern understandings such as that of Brahman, or of Nirvana as emptiness that is being, or of Akasha [which, in similar fashion to other Eastern cultures, can connote sky / ether / vacuity / void … again coming back to emptiness … though, not in contrast but in accord, sometimes connoting “heavens” ]). We as this … Akasha, I’ll for now call it … are formed via the information that surrounds (both materially and mentally); and, as Akasha, hold our top-down causal ability upon mind and body via intentions of goal manifestation. Hence, the obtaining of absolute selflessness is not the obtainment of other but, rather, the obtainment of our fundamentally true selves unperturbed by anything that ratios / divides or partitions / binds or contains or limits. [all this not to convince but to clarify]

I think this is where it gets tricky for you. If selfless being is truly the cosmic goal, then some kind of maximal or ultimate state of selfish being had to be its origin. We are talking about the journey that becomes possible because there is space between two complementary metaphysical limits on being.

So you would have to say more about this origin - this state of absolute selfish being - to justify the dialectical logic of your argument. (Just as you rightly push me to answer "well what is vagueness, what was there just before the Big Bang?".) — apokrisis

Placing this (or any other) end-state at the beginning is not in any way needed for the metaphysics to hold. Metaphysically, the more divided we are as individuated Akasha the more chaotic the total system becomes; the closer to the end-state of absolute selflessness (by this or any of its other expressions) we become the more orderly--more deterministic--the whole becomes. Theoretically, what prevents us from actualizing this end-state is our fear of being metaphysically, technically, devoid of a self, is our fear of an ultimate unknown … this though we know it to be, for example, the ultimate conclusion of a universally perfect love (again, love as process removes divisions, inclinations toward self(ishness), etc.). It’s a death/end of all ego--though not of being, not of the Akasha which is the very essence of us as conscious agents--and this can be quite unnerving to all of us in own ways.

So metaphysically, no ultimate beginning is required to be known for all else to hold. Epistemologically, no such metaphysical ultimate beginning can be confidently affirmed in any universal manner.

Physically, then, as a derivative understanding, the beginning of our physical universe (as we know it) could, for example, be explained in manners in tune with the stated metaphysics thus: given the unknowns of dark matter and dark energy, despite the universe currently expanding, it is yet conceivable that at some future time it will begin to contract. Fast forward to a cyclical model of the universe. Our current universe started as a near-but-not-quite obtainment of this endstate of absolute selflessness (conceived of in physics as the volumeless gravitational singularity) say, due to some aspect of all Akashas deviating from the end-state just enough to cause lack of homeostasis as regards the whole … this leading to a “Big Bang”, a starting from scratch with the same determinate end-state in place (I also hold that this telos as end-state is a determinate facet of reality as we know it).

As regards the metaphysics, there is no “must” in the universe being such that is conforms to a cyclical model. It only happens to me my present favorite approach to this issue of physical (again, not metaphysical) beginnings. And yes, it’s a personal bias.

I'm puzzled here because your scheme would have to resolve the Platonic issue of how mathematical form might be itself related to the greater thing of The Good. If we are talking about beauty, love and truth as the ultimate telos, pure selfless being, then there is a gap to fill in when linking The Good back to mathematical forms. — apokrisis

As I previously stated, all that you mention are facets (faces) of the same underlying given as telos, one such facet being that of perfect symmetry.

In a slightly more drawn out argument for the same, it’s not the telos itself that results in mathematical (as well as other) universals but the telos in simultaneous conjunction with multiple … again, for lack of better terminology … Akashas, always in plural till the end-state is obtained.

What this system does is not a focusing on maths, quantifications, and measurement but, rather, on what you for now seem to be taking for granted: the very nature of differentiable identity and, hence, quantity (regardless of how mathematically abstract, this still holds).

At the end of the day though, thank you for a further explanation of your own model. It seems like we for now can continue agreeing to disagree on the metaphysics while agreeing on numerous more immediate things.

Science has come through for us once again. — apokrisis

but outside of engineering and technology, what does it mean existentially? what is the place for 'the immeasurable?'

I keep dealing with the same points over and over. To be immeasurable is to be epistemically vague or an idea that is "not even wrong".

its the 'physicalism' that I won't accept, with the corollary that not to accept physicalism amounts to superstition.

And I'm saying that what you don't accept is the epistemology that is necessary to even underpin any ontic commitment either way. SX was correct about your stubbornness on that score.

Biology says the answer is just add semiotics to dissipative structure. — apokrisis

I read this as magic. Just stir in some semiotics, (the capacity to communicate), and bingo, you have a living being. Where would this semiotics come from?

The same applies to dissipative structure. That is magic too.

The trouble with you anti-materialists is that you don't even appreciate the self-organising wonder of nature's materials. How does energy ever find the substantial stability of "coming to rest" in some form?

I can't believe you guys take the passivity of matter so much for granted. You just want to rob material nature of all its beautiful and profound mystery. It's just dirt and gunk to you lot.

I read this as magic. — Metaphysician Undercover

It is. The secret sauce of the recipe is buried in 10,000 words hoping that no one will find it or notice. Everything single research paper supporting materialism follows the same recipe. Thousands of words with one magic one - Abracadabra.

I can't believe you guys take the passivity of matter so much for granted. . — apokrisis

So it's either take it for granted, or claim that it comes about by magic (take some dissipative structure and add some semiotics)? I choose neither of these.

SX was correct about your stubbornness on that score. — apokrisis

Or, alternatively, there's something fundamental that neither of you are getting.

You just want to rob material nature of all its beautiful and profound mystery. — apokrisis

It is, without mind to animate it, or appreciate it.

Incidentally, the etymological root of 'matter' and 'mother' are the same.

OK. How does energy come to rest to yield "solid matter"? What is your theory which isn't another "just so" story?

I thought it was Peirce's view that matter was effete mind (where effete means 'no longer capable of effective action'.) But mind itself is never amongst the objects of perception, is it? We see matter, but we don't see mind. In that sense, all we see are the crystallised habits of mind.

You just want to rob material nature of all its beautiful and profound mystery. It's just dirt and gunk to you lot. — apokrisis

In traditional theology and metaphysics, the natural was largely conceived as the evil, and the spiritual or supernatural as the good. In popular Darwinism, the good is the well-adapted, and the value of that to which the organism adapts itself is unquestioned or is measured only in terms of further adaptation. However, being well adapted to one’s surroundings is tantamount to being capable of coping successfully with them, of mastering the forces that beset one. Thus the theoretical denial of the spirit’s antagonism to nature–even as implied in the doctrine of interrelation between the various forms of organic life, including man–frequently amounts in practice to subscribing to the principle of man’s continuous and thoroughgoing domination of nature. Regarding reason as a natural organ does not divest it of the trend to domination or invest it with greater potentialities for reconciliation. On the contrary, the abdication of the spirit in popular Darwinism entails the rejection of any elements of the mind that transcend the function of adaptation and consequently are not instruments of self-preservation. Reason disavows its own primacy and professes to be a mere servant of natural selection. On the surface, this new empirical reason seems more humble toward nature than the reason of the metaphysical tradition. Actually, however, it is arrogant, practical mind riding roughshod over the ‘useless spiritual,’ and dismissing any view of nature in which the latter is taken to be more than a stimulus to human activity. The effects of this view are not confined to modern philosophy.

Horkheimer, The Eclipse of Reason.

Why shouldn't richly structured modelling feel like something (and largely unstructured activity with no self concept feel like pretty much nothing to no-one)?

I don't recall you ever said why. — apokrisis

I've stated why many times. You cannot get experience from fiat. Emergence of physical phenomena from physical phenomena is part of the easy problems. Emergence of mental phenomena from physical phenomena is different based on the fact that mental phenomena is actually needed to observe the rest of phenomena. It is that which needs to be in order for other things to be known. Without the knower, there is no known.. (whether it actually exists without the knower is a different question, so no this is not solipsism or Subjective Idealism necessarily).

To then claim that pansemiotics DOES claim to have a knower and a known all the way down is a sleight of hand, as mental and physical (according to YOUR physicalism) CANNOT be of the same substance with a dual aspect. There can be signs, referents, signifers, etc. in the physical, but no mental phenomena in the mix already. Thus we are back to the problem of physical can emerge other physical but how does physical produce EXPERIENCE (MENTAL)?. Well, when we have theories of "just so" like "blue is distinct from green which is distinct from x, etc. etc." we are discounting that the originary vague sight phenomena has to be there in the beginning before the connections/distinctions of person/world interaction even takes place. So the cart is put before the horse in your theory as the vagueness (however indistinct) is still something which needs to be there for the distinction to arise.

This "epistemic cut" you tout is very vague in itself and is never really satisfactory an answer for why the experiential (mental) exists beyond the material constituents. The FACT is, experience- this qualitatively different mode of existence, is so different than other properties (charge, mass, etc.) and processes (e.g. thermodynamic events) because it is indeed the backdrop for which all the others are ONLY known. All other phenomena are only known through the MAP, while THIS property is known directly through the territory of inner experience. It doesn't matter, by the way, whether this inner experience "distorts reality", but only that there is a direct, first person, "what it's like" of being rather than a "that which is observed".

You cannot get experience from fiat. Emergence of physical phenomena from physical phenomena is part of the easy problems. Emergence of mental phenomena from physical phenomena is different based on the fact that mental phenomena is actually needed to observe the rest of phenomena. — schopenhauer1

So you avoid my question as usual.

Are you saying information is "just physical phenomena"? How does that work in your ontology?

Again then, why shouldn't a modelling relation with reality not feel like something? Information or matter alone doesn't have reason to be feeling like something. But to form a lived model of the world - one where informational possibility and material circumstance are in close and pragmatic interaction - just does seem as though it should feel like something.

Can you tell me why it wouldn't?

I am still looking into the cockroach intracellular parasite story, and it is indeed similar to the mitochondrial story, but it does not serve to strengthen either of our cases. It only shows another instance of it.

Note the language.

I checked out the details of binary fission, but there was nothing there that showed the incorporation of DNA strands. The process is tightly controlled.

I then thought of a virus (I went from bacteria to bacteriophages and plasmids). One possible explanation that I will hand to you is that the early mitochondrion might have had features of both a virus and a bacteria. It may have tried to hijack the host cell's DNA to replicate itself and got caught.

Even so, the how a virus does what it does in terms of assemblage order etc is another (perhaps more managable from your perspective, dilemma).

Do you know what has started springing to mind though, starting with my drive to work this morning?
Something that may be a junction between chemistry and life - Operant Conditioning. You know Skinner - and how by controlling when you drop pellets you can get a chicken to cluck three times, flap its wings and spin around on the spot.

The Life/God approach is top down. We can start with the sentience of the mind and work down through consecutive levels of sentience, or we can start with chemistry and work up through consecutive levels of chemistry- with the drawback that chemistry is acting anti-entropically and does not create mind. AND both theories miss each other on the way up and down. One takes the stairs and the other takes the elevator.

Operant conditioning has intentionality and can probably be described in terms of your semiotics. Finding the link between the two may be the key to unravelling this whole thing and finding the missing link - a central unifying theory! :) .

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noncoding_DNA

Endogenous retrovirus sequences are the product of reverse transcription of retrovirus genomes into the genomes of germ cells. Mutation within these retro-transcribed sequences can inactivate the viral genome.[31]

Over 8% of the human genome is made up of (mostly decayed) endogenous retrovirus sequences, as part of the over 42% fraction that is recognizably derived of retrotransposons, while another 3% can be identified to be the remains of DNA transposons. Much of the remaining half of the genome that is currently without an explained origin is expected to have found its origin in transposable elements that were active so long ago (> 200 million years) that random mutations have rendered them unrecognizable.[32] Genome size variation in at least two kinds of plants is mostly the result of retrotransposon sequences.[33][34]

OK. How does energy come to rest to yield "solid matter"? What is your theory which isn't another "just so" story? — apokrisis

You have everything backward, as I've told you on numerous occasions. "Energy" according to it's conceptual structure is necessarily the property of something. It is commonly understood as a property of matter. You cannot abstract the property from the object which it is a property of, to give it independent existence without invoking some form of dualism.

You are claiming that energy is prior to matter, but this is just the nonsense of the idea that there could be an activity without something which is active. It is nonsense because "activity" is a concept which requires that there is something active, or else it's just an abstract concept, which has not been applied to describe anything active.. If your claim is that the concept of "activity", or "energy" is prior in existence to the thing (matter) which is active, then you need to support this idealism with some ontological principles. And this leads to dualism

You have two distinct forms of information in your description. You have information within the dissipative structures and you have information within the semiotics. There's a big gap between these two, because in "semiotics" information is a property of matter, and in your "dissipative structures" information is supposed to be prior to matter. Because your attempt is to conflate these two distinct conceptions of information, you have left yourself no idea of what "matter" even is. It's just some vague thing which emerges as "necessary", necessary to assume, in order to account for bodily existence. But it's not really necessary because it just emerges as random chance. And that's all nonsense, because as I say, you have it backwards.

So you avoid my question as usual.

Are you saying information is "just physical phenomena"? How does that work in your ontology?

Again then, why shouldn't a modelling relation with reality not feel like something? Information or matter alone doesn't have reason to be feeling like something. But to form a lived model of the world - one where informational possibility and material circumstance are in close and pragmatic interaction - just does seem as though it should feel like something.

Can you tell me why it wouldn't? — apokrisis

WHAT is this feeling in the first place? That is the hard question. You can keep pointing back to the map but all you are saying is a=a. It is analytic. It isn't SAYING anything other than what the physical constituents are. You will always have the problem of a dualism. Emergence only works when it is physical phenomena producing other physical phenomena. It is all MAP. The subjective/first person EXPERIENCE (what it "feels" like) is metaphysically different in that it is the thing which observes the map. It is the territory, so to say. WHAT is this territory? Well you keep pointing to the map, and we are no longer in map-world, we are in territory world.

I will also point here to a very well-written response close to mine from another poster:

You have two distinct forms of information in your description. You have information within the dissipative structures and you have information within the semiotics. There's a big gap between these two, because in "semiotics" information is a property of matter, and in your "dissipative structures" information is supposed to be prior to matter. Because your attempt is to conflate these two distinct conceptions of information, you have left yourself no idea of what "matter" even is. It's just some vague thing which emerges as "necessary", necessary to assume, in order to account for bodily existence. But it's not really necessary because it just emerges as random chance. And that's all nonsense, because as I say, you have it backwards. — Metaphysician Undercover

Good job, @Metaphysician Undercover

But it's not really necessary because it just emerges as random chance. And that's all nonsense, because as I say, you have it backwards.
— Metaphysician Undercover

Good job, Metaphysician Undercover — schopenhauer1

Once the act is exposed, the magician will never acquiesce. After all magic is his livelihood. It is up to the audience to shake its head and walk away knowing it was only an act of magic.

Besides death, one can be sure of one thing in life, that before death there was life. This, above all else, one can depend. It shall never be otherwise.

Semeiosis and operant conditioning.

The reason matter~symbol works, and mind~body doesn't, is that we have fundamental physical theories...This is huge. As big as DNA. Science has come through for us once again. — apokrisis

The only thing huge here is your ego. All hail, Science. Are you mad?

You believe in physicalism because it complements other aspects of your worldview, and yet refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of other beliefs and worldviews. So, why should anyone think that your beliefs and worldview are legitimate? Because they conform to the current majority opinion of the natural science community (i.e., an argumentum ad populum)?

In case you hadn't noticed, or more likely refuse to acknowledge as an inconvenient fact, Psychology and Sociology are sciences which investigate phenomena that are not physical.

Cue: retaliatory scorn, ridicule, condescension, browbeating, bullying, obfuscation, evasion, and other responses which typically accompany a lack of coherency (in spite of copious amounts of irrelevant data, scientific terminology, meaningless metaphor, and biased interpretation).

Does invoking Skinner close the gap between everyone's ideas? Operant Conditioning links both the mind and semiotics.

"B. F. Skinner was one of the most influential of American psychologists. A behaviorist, he developed the theory of operant conditioning -- the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, be they reinforcements or punishments, which make it more or less likely that the behavior will occur again. Skinner believed that the only scientific approach to psychology was one that studied behaviors, not internal (subjective) mental processes."