How does that follow from the premise that the universe has been partly negentropic from the Big Bang get go? This being something you’ve previously stipulated in other threads. — javra

What I've emphasised in the past is that entropy and negentropy are two sides of the one coin. You have to have structure to dissipate, and dissipation to have structure.

So yes, the Big Bang can be talked of as just dissipation - a great cooling. But that in itself requires structure - the expansion of spacetime which creates the "sink" in which the material contents of the Big Bang can cool.

In cosmology, that makes entropy counting a tricky business. In the end, the amount of entropy and the amount of negentropy have to come out the same. The two add together to sum to nothing.

Upholding a partly negentropic universe that is, and has always been, governed by teleological and formal principles is nothing short of a proposal for an Anima Mundi, i.e. for an animated cosmos with teleological strivings, this being a form of panpsychism. — javra

A pansemiotic approach is Aristotelean in accepting that there are all four causes in nature. And that maps to a physics of thermodynamics and cosmogenesis that gives equal dues to negentropy (or informational structure) and entropy (or dissipation).

But it doesn't support panpsychism for the reason I gave. There is still a clear line to be drawn between the inorganic realm and the organic realm. Science also talks about that.

On the other hand, if there indeed is upheld a sharp division between the entropic and the negentropic, as you’ve here asserted, then how can a fully entropic system logically give rise to negentropy? — javra

Again, the thesis is that they are two sides of the one coin. A case of dependent co-arising if you take the Buddhist view. A dichotomy if you take the Greek one.

So it is a division that arises and grows sharp. And it can do so because those are the two contrasts embedded in the very beginnings.

With one example being that of the objective world being effete mind; another being the difference in where the cosmos is headed: a difference that is exceedingly substantial. — javra

The "effete mind" quote is easy to misinterpret as one sentence picked out from a large corpus.

Peirce was clearly trying to move beyond Cartesian dualism in toto, not merely declare against materialism and for divine soul. His focus was on the semiotic relation between impersonal information and informed material being.

Either you critique that machinery - the thirdness of a modelling relation - or you are avoiding the point of his metaphysics.

But I gather the primacy of awareness is a bit too theistic reeking for the materialistically minded. So, to avoid that slippery slope into monotheism or some such, it must be denied tout court. — javra

Primacy itself is the problem here.

Whether you are an idealist or realist, theist or materialist, the problem with your scheme is the drive to declare one metaphysics right and its opposing metaphysics wrong. That is the faulty mindset that defines the Cartesian bind.

As I have reminded here, my pansemiotic approach is all about dependent co-arising and dichotomistic symmetry breaking. You have nothing at all unless there is already a division in nature towards its two logically opposed limits. There is no yin without yang.

Furthermore, any successful dichotomy has to show the relation that makes its two halves logically connected. They must be thesis and antithesis - each obviously the other of the other.

With spirit and body, these aren't a dichotomy as we have no such explanatory connection. It is just a simple dualism aching to be resolved into a monism.

It is only if you can follow Peirce and other triadic system thinkers that you can go in the other direction of arriving at a duality that in fact is the trinity of a self-organising and synergistic relation.

Peirce nutted that out as a formal logic - his semiotic. And it happened to map to the way science has now gone as it gets to proper grips with nature.

A car is in fact the worst kind of example as a car is a machine and not an organism. — apokrisis

The car was the choice of TheMadFool as an example of a fallacy of division. I explained how it was not really a fallacy of division.

So, when there's a whole car there are no parts and when there are parts there's no car? — TheMadFool

No, I went through this with you already, twice now I think. The car has parts, but as "part", they are not independent objects. Therefore you cannot speak of them as if they are independent objects, in the same context as you speak of the car as an existing object. It's the same principle as the issue with your four meter plank of wood. It cannot be a four meter plank, and also a whole bunch of short pieces in the same context. It must be one or the other to avoid contradiction.

So, when the car is being assembled piece by piece the souls of the parts conveniently vanish and the soul of the car comes into existence when the car is being disassembled, the souls of the parts magically reappear and the soul of the car vanishes? Is this what you're saying? — TheMadFool

Now you're on the right track. These are the mysteries of the soul which no one seems to be able to adequately answer. Here's another similar mystery for you. How does a single celled organism divide and go from being one soul to two souls?

If you are then everything doesn't have a soul for the simple reason that the parts are still things even when they're all assembled together into a car and, according to you, they don't have souls when they are so. — TheMadFool

This is not true though, for the reasons I've explained. When a part is united as a part of a whole, it gives up its identity as "an individual entity", for this new identity, "part of a whole". The two identities are distinct and incompatible, contradictory, such that it cannot be both at the same time.

...Consciousness - in that view - is simply what it is like to be in a meaningful and intentional semiotic modelling relation with the world... — apokrisis

Sounds about right to me. Generally I mean. I disagree with the semiotic distinction between syntax and semantics when it comes to meaning, but other than that... Yeah, that sounds about right.

Conscious experience is meaningful to the creature having it.

Haven't read up on dolphins but, as a fun tidbit, chimpanzee cohorts have their own unique cultures (with a small "C"). — javra

Yes. Most of the higher animals have some form of culture, including ants & bees. But I wouldn't put them in the same category with human culture. I'm aware that some people prefer to belittle the accomplishments of humans, in order to avoid the notion that they are something more than mere animals. I assume it's a rejection of the notion of human souls, and a unique "human nature". But that's not what I'm talking about. There's no need for the miraculous addition of a soul to turn a sheep into a shepherd. Evolution does that trick naturally, but it takes time, lots of it. :smile:

Animal Culture : Animal culture involves the current theory of cultural learning in non-human animals, through socially transmitted behaviors. The question as to the existence of culture in non-human societies has been a contentious subject for decades, largely due to the lack of a concise definition for the word "culture".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_culture

Anti-Humanism : Central to antihumanism is the view that philosophical anthropology and its concepts of "human nature", "man" or "humanity" should be rejected as historically relative, ideological or metaphysical.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antihumanism

But it doesn't support panpsychism for the reason I gave. There is still a clear line to be drawn between the inorganic realm and the organic realm. Science also talks about that. — apokrisis

Other than via mischaracterization or willful strawmaning, panpsychism does not deny the (somewhat) clear line between the inorganic realm and the organic realm (unless we forget viruses, viroids, and prions - which are organic and replicate but are nonliving, or, at the very least, non-metabolizing).

Recall that, of itself, panpsychism "is a difference that makes no difference".

The "effete mind" quote is easy to misinterpret as one sentence picked out from a large corpus.

Peirce was clearly trying to move beyond Cartesian dualism in toto, not merely declare against materialism and for divine soul. His focus was on the semiotic relation between impersonal information and informed material being.

Either you critique that machinery - the thirdness of a modelling relation - or you are avoiding the point of his metaphysics. — apokrisis

I'd don't believe that I misinterpreted the notion of effete mind. Peirce, after all, was an objective idealist, not a materialist. And yes, the concept is vastly more complex than what can be conveyed by two words.

As to Peirce's point, agapeism was a part of it. Something your system appears to conveniently overlook.

Primacy itself is the problem here.

Whether you are an idealist or realist, theist or materialist, the problem with your scheme is the drive to declare one metaphysics right and its opposing metaphysics wrong. That is the faulty mindset that defines the Cartesian bind. — apokrisis

Misplaced words. The dichotomies offered are faulty. Plato, for instance, was a realist. Moreover, isn't it about truth and that which is real? As one example, if one rejects the notion that a first-person awareness can be reincarnated, is this not about one's belief in what is true? In what can and cannot be real? Or is this conclusion the "faulty mindset that defines the Cartesian bind"?

Yet even if we accept a physics which says "everything is an informational process all the way down, rather than a material process all the way up," this same ToE must make a hard distinction between "mindless physical systems" and "mindful living systems". — apokrisis

That is the point of my Enformationism thesis. It's not just dumb Information all the way down. Instead, it's the upward evolution of Information over the ages. The information in the Big Bang singularity is imagined as a simple mathematical algorithm. That simple expression must have included self-reference to create feed-back loops in the program.

And that non-linear loop was the beginning of complexification, which has resulted in the current form of Information that we call "Ideas in a Mind". That distinction may not be "hard" enough for you, but it postulates a continuous logical progression of Information processing, as a natural solution to Chalmer's "hard problem". :nerd:

Evolutionary Algorithm : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_algorithm

Do Loops Explain Consciousness? : Review of Douglas Hofstadter's book, I Am a Strange
Loop
https://www.ams.org/notices/200707/tx070700852p.pdf

Evolutionary (Genetic) Programming :
The program does not specify the final outcome. But it does define a “fitness function”, which sets the criteria for acceptable solutions. With-out those limits, the process could go on indefinitely.
We can see that natural evolution is circling around some future state, like a moth to a light. The ultimate fitness point functions like a Strange Attractor to “pull” the present toward that future state.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page13.html

I disagree with the semiotic distinction between syntax and semantics when it comes to meaning, but other than that.. — creativesoul

I'm not sure what you mean. You may be making a point from linguistics that is not that relevant to semiosis in a more general triadic sense.

But syntax and semantics would be an example of a dichotomistic opposition here. A sign intrinsically refers to nothing. And so it can be take to mean anything.

In causal terms, the apparent impotence of a symbol - its lack of meaning - is likewise the source of its omnipotence. It is now completely up to a community of speakers to agree as to the semantics of any utterance.

And in that, an epistemic cut becomes a physical possibility. A Cartesian-style division between worlds and minds can arise with the syntax - the naked symbol - as the universal fulcrum to lever the situation.

So as a general story, semiosis is about how a system of reference can arise in a materially constrained world. The possibility of a relation emerges on the back of some state of physical meaninglessness that thus enables a matching degree of informational meaningfulness to be injected into the equation.

That is what the evolution of semiotic codes - like genes, neurons, words, numbers - is all about. Each level has less to do with concrete physics and thus more to do with abstract information.

A gene can speak about any possible protein structure, but also, only about possible proteins. A neuron can encode any physical stimulus in terms of a behavioural response. Words and numbers encode for material social relations and logically abstract ideas. (Eventually, Platonia is achieved. :grin: )

So there is a constant thread. Syntax is how the material and informational aspects of being get divided into their two distinct halves by the time you get to that Western philosophical ideal of the abstract mind in opposition to a brute meaningless world. The mathematical understanding of nature.

But Peircean semiotics brings us back to the fact that a code - a syntax - is simply a mediating device. There is nothing at all unless the two sides being divided are also then in a pragmatic modelling relation. The full triadic relationship has to be "meaningful" in that it represents now "a point of view acting on the world with intent".

Conscious experience is meaningful to the creature having it. — creativesoul

Or to generalise that, semiosis is all about the possibility of a point of view. And that possibility hinges on the machinery of a triadic modelling relation.

We can thus see an amoeba is as semiotic as any human at the level of general natural mechanism, even if we might not have reason to think of the amoeba as "conscious".

In some sense, every organism has a first person perspective. And so the proper target of a theory of mind and life is just that.

The explanation for consciousness is then focused on animals with a running neural model of their worlds.

And for human introspective self-awareness, that is a story all about the difference a linguistic code makes to the running relation humans have with their sociocultural worlds.

Numbers in turn are constructing an even higher and more abstracted semiotic reality beyond that. A noosphere or singularity some might speculate. An AI Platonia or Borg colony possibly. Heh, heh.

I disagree with the semiotic distinction between syntax and semantics when it comes to meaning, but other than that..
— creativesoul

I'm not sure what you mean. — apokrisis

No biggie. I'm stoked to see the genuine agreement between our views regarding conscious experience(consciousness).

Most of the higher animals have some form of culture, including ants & bees. But I wouldn't put them in the same category with human culture. — Gnomon

Bees and ants do not have socially transmitted behaviors as far as I'm aware - hence, no culture. If you know otherwise, please provide a reference.

No, human culture is not chimpanzee culture, nor vice versa. The question isn't whether human culture should be placed into the same camp as the culture of some lesser animal species or another. The issue is one of whether humans are metaphysically divided from the rest of life, or, else, are a progressive aspect of life in general - this despite the massive punctuated-equilibrium leap which our species has undergone.

Panpsychism is a non-starter for a science-informed metaphysics because "consciousness all the way down" explains nothing and just defers explanation. — apokrisis

I agree. But I'm not talking about PanPsychism, but about PanEnformationism.
See my reply to above. :cool:

The question isn't whether human culture should be placed into the same camp as the culture of some lesser animal species or another. The issue is one of whether humans are metaphysically divided from the rest of life, or, else, are a progressive aspect of life in general - this despite the massive punctuated-equilibrium leap which our species has undergone. — javra

I would say that Humanity is "metaphysically divided" from animals as an Aristotelian ten-fold conceptual category. Perhaps number (3) Quality. Christians would call that "quality" a "Soul". But I don't use that terminology. :smile:

Other than via mischaracterization or willful strawmaning, panpsychism does not deny the (somewhat) clear line between the inorganic realm and the organic realm — javra

That is where panpsychism becomes even more intellectually dishonest. People do argue that neural complexity somehow amplifies the dilute awareness that is already a property of the material realm.

This is called having your cake and eating it. You can agree with the material emergentist while also disagreeing.

But that is a failure to engage with the actual position that a biosemiotician would be advancing on the how and why of this "clear line".

Recall that, of itself, panpsychism "is a difference that makes no difference". — javra

Yes. That was my criticism. It is not an advantage to argue a theory that "isn't even wrong" in this fashion.

I'd don't believe that I misinterpreted the notion of effete mind. Peirce, after all, was an objective idealist, not a materialist. — javra

As to Peirce's point, agapeism was a part of it. Something your system appears to conveniently overlook. — javra

Peirce offers any number of hostages to fortune. It is the totality of his life and work that must be weighed here.

And even if modern biosemiotics only picked and choosed what best fits a science framework, that would be OK too.

My approach is that of a pragmatic scientist, not a theist who must defend a holy text. It just so happens that Peirce turns out to be such a rich resource for any systems thinker seeking to go beyond scientific reductionism.

Then we sharply disagree.

That is where panpsychism becomes even more intellectually dishonest. People do argue that neural complexity somehow amplifies the dilute awareness that is already a property of the material realm. — apokrisis

People are sometimes also fond of arguing that ameba do not hold a first-person awareness of light and dark, not to again mention of what is relative to them predators and prey. They hold no "neural complexity" to speak of. But then, this can get boosted all the way up the to the supposed metaphysically unique status of humans - as divided from everything else in the cosmos.

At the begining was the word, and the word was with God. John 1 — Olivier5

Be aware that Christian theology appropriated many of these ideas from Greek philosophy, and then adapted them so they would confirm their dogma. And now such ideas are tacitly rejected BECAUSE of their association with that dogma. It's a tangled web.

Consciousness - in that view - is simply what it is like to be in a meaningful and intentional semiotic modelling relation with the world. — apokrisis

I mentioned 'enactivism' recently.

Enactivism argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment.[1] It claims that our environment is one which we selectively create through our capacities to interact with the world.[2] "Organisms do not passively receive information from their environments, which they then translate into internal representations. Natural cognitive systems...participate in the generation of meaning ...engaging in transformational and not merely informational interactions: they enact a world. — Wikipedia

Similar to what you're arguing, I think.

However, I'm dubious about the notion of 'information' as a kind of fundamental or foundational category. Whenever the word 'information' is used, I'm inclined to ask, 'what information, in particular?' or 'what do you mean by "information"?' I'm aware of that well-known quote by Norbert Weiner that 'information is information, not matter or energy'. But 'information' is not, as it were, a metaphysical primitive, or so it seems to me. To say that 'everything is composed of matter and information' is a kind of modern update of hylomorphic dualism, but 'information' is a very different conception to 'form'.

My question to khaled was: what properties do they [experiences] have that are not accounted for neurologically? — Kenosha Kid

Apart from anything else, because a neurological account requires an interpreter. Neurological accounts, or any accounts, are symbolic representations, they have no intrinsic reality. That act of interpreting data is also internal to thought, you won't find that anywhere in the data of neurology or in the analysis of brain states.

On a more mundane level, the description of a thing is not that thing. Knowing about the physiology of pain or fear, does not amount to 'knowing pain' or 'knowing fear'. You can describe the physiology of a bee sting or a shark bite but the description doesn't amount to the experience.

And besides, as I've pointed out to you previously, neuroscience has had to acknowledge the 'neural binding problem' - which is that it can find no neural mechanism which accounts for the subjective unity of experience.

As is well known, current science has nothing to say about subjective (phenomenal) experience and this discrepancy between science and experience is also called the “explanatory gap” and “the hard problem” (Chalmers 1996). ....What we do know is that there is no place in the brain where there could be a direct neural encoding of the illusory detailed scene (Kaas and Collins 2003). That is, enough is known about the structure and function of the visual system to rule out any detailed neural representation that embodies the subjective experience. So, this version of the neural binding problem really is a scientific mystery at this time. — Jerome S. Feldman

If one accepts both a) the primacy of awareness in one form of another, together will all that this entails (e.g., goal, and thereby telos, driven behaviors), this as an idealist would; and b) the logical necessity that life - and, thereby, the first-person awareness it can be deemed to necessitate - evolved from nonlife; what other conceivable, logically consistent inference could one arrive at other than that of panpsychism? — javra

A very insightful post.

The concept of evolution in the Darwinian sense doesn't really account for the origin of life, as such (notwithstanding Darwin's musings about the 'warm little pond'). And so I question whether the notion of evolution can be extended to the origin of life. I think this comes from the way in which Darwinian biology displaced the traditional account of the Creation, and so therefore is expected to be able to provide a comprehensive account, in the way the creation story purportedly did. So it is 'naturally assumed' that life evolved from non-life. But then, before Louis Pasteur came along, it was 'naturally assumed' that mice spontaneously generated from damp cloth.

I noticed once an item of dogma from one of the Hindu religious sects: 'life comes from life'. To my knowledge, this supposition has not yet been overturned by an empirical observation.

In very general terms, the appearance of life anywhere in the cosmos represents the manfestation of subjective awareness. I think I would like to argue that this is because there is an inherent trend towards self-awareness, so as to disclose horizons of being which cannot otherwise be realised. (This is an idea is not allowed in mainstream thinking, as it is 'orthogenetic'. However it is discussed in rudimentary form by Nagel in several of his essays and books. And I also always liked Bohr's (tongue in cheek?) remark that 'a physicist is an atom's way of looking at itself'.)

My objection to Strawson's argument is: basically that 'everything is material' (i.e., he's a materialist); but you can't deny the reality of experience; so matter itself must somehow embody the capacity for experience. So, again, he's trying to maintain or validate materialism, whilst acknowledging the apodictic nature of first-person experience.

Whereas, I question materialism, on the grounds that physical matter has no intrinsic reality at all. It is real in some sense, it's not simply an illusion, because you can stub your toe on it. But it has no intrinsic or inherent reality; as Buddhists say, whatever reality it has, is imputed to it. But I'm not claiming to know what 'the origin of life' is. I simply question that the widespread assumption that it must have somehow sprung from matter, like mice from damp cloth.

conscious of, say, a red ball — Kenosha Kid

This. This is basically exactly as I defined it but although you were apparently confused by my definition you still reused it. Which shows that maybe it's not confusing or vague, at least for the purposes of this discussion.

If I say the red ball has a soul (a rubber soul, natch) but you can't do anything that proves or disproves it even in principle, or some new property that interacts with nothing in the universe, even other things having that property, it would be foolish to believe me. — Kenosha Kid

What is happening in the case of consciousness is sort of similar. We all jointly claim to have some sense of experience/qualia/consciousness-of-red-balls whatever you wanna call it and we do not know whether or not that property interacts with the universe or how it would do so. And we cannot show how this property interacts with other things that have this property. Would it be foolish for you to believe me if I say "I am conscious"? Regardless of your answer, how do we scientifically go about confirming the existence of this property and what brings it about, when we do not know how it interacts with the universe or similar things that we believe (or don't believe) have that property.

primacy of awareness — javra

How would you define this?

Be aware that Christian theology appropriated many of these ideas from Greek philosophy, and then adapted them so they would confirm their dogma. And now such ideas are tacitly rejected BECAUSE of their association with that dogma. It's a tangled web. — Wayfarer

Indeed, the important point is that panpsychism is a (at least) 2000 yr old mythology. Doesn’t make it false but it cannot claim to be original thinking.

No, we do not; what is seen, is a mechanical representation of my thinking. — Mww

Therefore:

I will admit that pure reason is an individuated closed system and by association, is inaccessible to general external inquiry. — Mww

must be false, since observing that mechanical representation is a form of external enquiry.

Difficult indeed. And with a neural connectivity average of 12.9 x 10^8/mm3**, the physical process of burrowing down to specific network paths in order to correlate them to specific cognitive manifestations, may very well destroy that path.
**Alonso-Nanclares, et. al., Department of Anatomy/Compared Pathological Anatomy, Madrid, 2008) — Mww

Hurry up, quantum computing!

In order for science to study consciousness, it must reify it, or, which is the same thing, turn it into a phenomenon — Mww

Okay, so I wasn't that far off. It's still not shown why this is problematic. There are good methods precisely for this.

Oh...forgot: in what sense do you say metaphysics is doomed? — Mww

Well... who would win in a fight between Superman and The Rock?

On a more mundane level, the description of a thing is not that thing. Knowing about the physiology of pain or fear, does not amount to 'knowing pain' or 'knowing fear'. — Wayfarer

Good point. And this is interesting precisely because this sort of argument pits personal testimony -- the narratives we construct around experience -- with physical activity. Why is experiencing pleasure more than having one's nucleus accumbens stimulated? Because some people insist they experience more, although they can't quite pin it down. But their description of the thing is not the thing itself. We've considerable amounts of evidence to show that people are not great judges as to what happened, why they did what they did, etc.

The same also must be true for any description of experience, which might explain why it can't be pinned down better. Be it a metaphysical description, a neurological description, or personal testimony, we are always making some transform between description of experience and experience itself or vice versa.

You can describe the physiology of a bee sting or a shark bite but the description doesn't amount to the experience. — Wayfarer

Yes, seeing someone have an experience is not the same as having the experience. The experiencer is different.

And besides, as I've pointed out to you previously, neuroscience has had to acknowledge the 'neural binding problem' - which is that it can find no neural mechanism which accounts for the subjective unity of experience. — Wayfarer

This is an -of-the-gaps argument.

In very general terms, the appearance of life anywhere in the cosmos represents the manfestation of subjective awareness. — Wayfarer

Which, @khaled, is a different definition of consciousness to the one I had in mind re:

conscious of, say, a red ball
— Kenosha Kid

This. This is basically exactly as I defined it but although you were apparently confused by my definition you still reused it. Which shows that maybe it's not confusing or vague, at least for the purposes of this discussion. — khaled

Above you're saying that any use of 'conscious' is how you mean it. But you're entertaining panpsychism, which is not compatible with consciousness as I define it. Seeing that I use the word is not evidence that you and I use it in the same way. Pfhorrest uses it synonymously with reactivity, any change in a system due to changes in its environment counts. That is not my definition, or most people's. Panpsychists generally hold consciousness or mind to be something that an atom has. That's not compatible with most people's views either.

The question is: what properties does consciousness have such that one could say a computer has or doesn't have it, or an atom has or doesn't have it. In Pfhorrest's schema, these properties are well-defined. Mine are less well-defined, but are nonetheless incompatible. Chalmers' are at once under- and over-defined and fail to show, merely insist upon the existence of, distinction.

To put it another way, I place a cup, a ball and a towel in front of you. One of these has property X. Which one?

Similar to what you're arguing, I think. — Wayfarer

Yep. Enactivism is another recent incarnation of the general idea.

To say that 'everything is composed of matter and information' is a kind of modern update of hylomorphic dualism, but 'information' is a very different conception to 'form'. — Wayfarer

This is tricky as information is both a primitive, and also stands against the notion that a primitive is something concretely material.

Information could be considered the atoms of form. A bit of information is a countable degree of freedom. So it is elemental in the sense of existing as some constraint on material possibility. It is thus a top-down way of defining a concrete primitive - one that denies primitives have the brute material existence that a materialist wants to presume.

Atomism presumes that matter has some divisible limit, otherwise matter would crumble to nothingness. Nothing could be composed unless matter is grounded in uncuttable atoms.

Information in physics also speaks to such an ultimate limit. But now in terms of form rather than matter. There is some smallest Planckscale notion of an event or action. And so that is what grounds a composable reality. There is a smallest signal or definite countable possibility. An atom of form.

Information and form in the Aristotelian sense can be seen as broadly synonymous. Comes from latin informare: give form to, and also educate (metaphorically as in giving form to a mind, shape a mind through education).

A sign intrinsically refers to nothing. — apokrisis

You are showing the incoherency of your ontology here. A sign, as a sign, is created intentionally to have some reference. Without that it is not a sign. So your attempt here, to remove the essence of "sign" from the sign, and say that "a sign intrinsically refers to nothing" is self-contradicting. Removing the intentionality (source of meaning) from the sign leaves it as something other than a sign. So that you'd need to replace "sign" in this proposition with something else, "a ... intrinsically refers to nothing". From here, we can proceed to acknowledge that an act of authority is required to make something (the supposed sign) refer to something when previously it did not.

If and when you realize that your premise is self-contradicting, you'll see your system theory fall like a house of cards. The intent of the author then becomes the most important factor in meaning, validating "what is meant by", so that the premise of infinite possibility, and your assumption that it is "completely up to a community of speakers to agree as to the semantics of any utterance", is falsified.

I can be unaware of my surroundings and still be conscious. And idk what informed has to do with it. — khaled

But you are aware that you are conscious and you being conscious is part of your surroundings, no? Informed, as in possessing knowledge. Are you conscious, or aware, of your knowledge?

as in only you have this view and no one else does?
— Harry Hindu

I don't know. Will get back to you after I become someone else and compare. — khaled

Then what did you mean by "first-person"? You still haven't clarified what that even means, or how ti compares to zero-person or second-person experiences.

But you're entertaining panpsychism — Kenosha Kid

I am but I didn't mention that in my discussion with you because it is unrelated to my argument. Whether or not I am a panpsychist should not change what I said.

which is not compatible with consciousness as I define it — Kenosha Kid

I don't see how that follows. Maybe if you were to define it I'd see why it's incompatable with panpsychism. I don't see how it follows because if I entertain the notion that everything in the world has the property "red" that doesn't necessarily mean that our uses of the word are different. They could be the same, but one of us is just outright wrong. In the case of "pan-redism" I am obviously wrong. In the case of panpsychism I don't know which is wrong and which is right (assuming either of us are)

Seeing that I use the word is not evidence that you and I use it in the same way. — Kenosha Kid

Again, it would help if you defined what you mean by it.

The question is: what properties does consciousness have such that one could say a computer has or doesn't have it, or an atom has or doesn't have it. — Kenosha Kid

This is putting the cart before the horse. You already assumed that computers and atoms don't have consciousness before even coming up with a theory that explains what consciousness is. What you're doing here is you're defining this word "consciousness" as a capacity or other that humans possess that computers and atoms don't. But again, I think the word already has an associated meaning, and what you're doing here is simply hijacking the word to detect something else.

But you are aware that you are conscious and you being conscious is part of your surroundings, no? — Harry Hindu

Saying "aware that you are conscious" is like saying "wet water"

Informed, as in possessing knowledge. Are you conscious, or aware, of your knowledge? — Harry Hindu

Can't remember a point where I possessed no knowledge so I can't tell you if you need to know things to be conscious.

Then what did you mean by "first-person"? You still haven't clarified what that even means, or how ti compares to zero-person or second-person experiences. — Harry Hindu

Zero person doesn't make sense. Second person also doesn't make sense in this context. Third person is your view of something from a distance. First person is the view from my perspective. I'm just saying the same things over and over again because this definition cannot be simplified. Maybe check what the difference is between "first person shooter" and "third person rpg"

And I don't get why this quote prompted your question:

as in only you have this view and no one else does? -> I don't know. Will get back to you after I become someone else and compare — khaled

What I meant there is that for example if we're both stuck in identical rooms in identical locations in identical positions in identical everything (physical), I cannot tell if we would have the same experience.

Saying "aware that you are conscious" is like saying "wet water" — khaled

I don't think so. Can you report anything that you aren't aware of, like being conscious? By what means do you know things, like that an apple is on the table and that you are conscious?

Can't remember a point where I possessed no knowledge so I can't tell you if you need to know things to be conscious. — khaled

Do you know anything when not conscious?

Zero person doesn't make sense. Second person also doesn't make sense in this context. Third person is your view of something from a distance. First person is the view from my perspective. I'm just saying the same things over and over again because this definition cannot be simplified. Maybe check what the difference is between "first person shooter" and "third person rpg" — khaled

third person and first person seem to be the same thing as "from a distance" is just a different location of the first person experience.

You're saying the same things over and over because you seem to be unwilling to even try to make any sense and be consistent.

Can you report anything that you aren't aware of, like being conscious? — Harry Hindu

I was not doing some reductio ad absurdum here. I was implying that this point of contention is useless. No one cares whether or not water is wet and it doesn't help in whatever discussion you decide to have about water. In the same way I don't think "are you aware of being conscious" is important.

Do you know anything when not conscious? — Harry Hindu

Depends on your definition of knowledge. And that says nothing about the original statement even if I answered yes or no.

is just a different location of the first person experience. — Harry Hindu

Oh so you understand what it means now all of a sudden? You just used it to form a correct sentence. Congratulations!

You're saying the same things over and over because you seem to be unwilling to even try to make any sense and be consistent. — Harry Hindu

No. It's because no matter how hard I drill down into this definition all I will do is make it more complicated and you will forever keep asking for more drilling. You clearly understand what "first person view" means since you just used it in a sentence, yet you keep asking for more and more pointless drilling.

what is seen, is a mechanical representation of my thinking.
— Mww

Therefore:

I will admit that pure reason is an individuated closed system and by association, is inaccessible to general external inquiry.
— Mww

must be false, since observing that mechanical representation is a form of external enquiry. — Kenosha Kid

Categorical error: seeing a mechanical representation, an altogether empirical enterprise, is very far removed from the a priori originating cause it. Ther’s precious little difference between that, and this:

the description of a thing is not that thing.
— Wayfarer
Good point. — Kenosha Kid

Not to mention, given that observation implies attention, you are in the metaphysical position of turning the mechanical representation into a cognitive representation of your own. And, if that wasn’t un-scientific enough fer youse guys, you probably should invoke a judgement relative to your understanding of the mechanical representation of my thinking about fooling you by intentionally mis-tying my shoe. Which of course, you will never be able to do, for no judgement is at all possible with respect to second-hand, non-empirical predicates. You may certainly think I purposely did what I did, but such thinking on your part can have no sustaining visibility from the device you put on my head to watch my brain.

Barbarians, 42; lions, 0.
————-

In order for science to study consciousness, it must reify it, or, which is the same thing, turn it into a phenomenon
— Mww

It's still not shown why this is problematic........

It is problematic by implication, insofar as turning a thing into something else presupposes that thing never was what it’s being turned into. The question remains...is it still possible the presupposition itself is false, such that there never was any turning into, in the case at hand, consciousness always was a phenomenon so science didn’t have to reify it in order to study it.

You have sufficient reason to suppose consciousness is already a phenomenon insofar as you suppose properties belonging to it, hence available for scientific study, and I have sufficient reason to suppose consciousness is merely a quality to which no such thing as properties can ever belong, hence cannot be a phenomenon and therefore invisible to scientific study.

Given that the criterion of the truth of a conception, that is to say, the constituency of the manifold of representations possible to subsume under it without contradiction, I would ask.....how is consciousness defined from a perspective of it being a phenomenon? And a follow-up would ask...is there any doubt that being conscious-of is not the same as conscious-ness?

.......There are good methods precisely for this. — Kenosha Kid

Good methods for precisely this taken to mean methods for the scientific study of consciousness.

Are you going to bring in psychology? Or are you going to restrict scientific study to the conditions explicit in the scientific method pursuant to the hard sciences?
——————

in what sense do you say metaphysics is doomed?
— Mww

Well... who would win in a fight between Superman and The Rock? — Kenosha Kid

I don’t know what to do with that. Sorry.

I don't see how that follows. Maybe if you were to define it I'd see why it's incompatable with panpsychism. — khaled

Because in my view, states of consciousness are just brain states, and atoms don't have brains. You seem to be reacting with faux surprise at the idea that a panpsychist-compatible idea of consciousness isn't to be taken as a given. This is nonsense. Even panpsychists know that their idea of consciousness is not in any way mainstream.

Again, it would help if you defined what you mean by it. — khaled

That's been my question to you. You asked me if a computer has it or not. State what it is. (Of course, I'm not really expecting an answer. Conversations like these exist precisely because people cannot or will not say what it is they are talking about, viz. Chalmers' chain of synonyms.)

This is putting the cart before the horse. You already assumed that computers and atoms don't have consciousness before even coming up with a theory that explains what consciousness is. — khaled

That is a false representation of the facts. You asked me whether a computer has it. I have not answered that because you cannot say what 'it' is. You are putting the cart before the horse by asking whether something has a property but refusing to say what that property is. I did the same when I asked:

I place a cup, a ball and a towel in front of you. One of these has property X. Which one? — Kenosha Kid

Yes, I can answer your question according to my own definition, but it's you asking, not me, so it's your definition that matters. Since you do not have one, its a meaningless question.