it means 'irreducible' — Wayfarer

That is exactly what energy is: an irreducible simple. We only have access to it by way of information. In the stated case: amplitude, frequency, charge, polarity, etc

Information is a fundamental simple - we only have access to anything by way of information, and the information reaches us by way of energetic frequency and vibration, to become vision and hearing.

We don't interact with things, we interact with the information we have of things. Information is the thing that links everything, or perhaps better put: everything that is linked can be thought of as being linked by information.

I guess this is the difference between realism and a more idealistic understanding. Information flow is really quite simple to understand if you are already idealistically inclined. I imagine your frustration is in part that an idealistic paradigm is being forced upon you?

That is exactly what energy is: an irreducible simple. We only have access to it by way of information — Pop

Sorry, I don't think that works.

We have access to electrical energy, courtesy of the power grid.

What does 'access' mean?

the means or opportunity to approach or enter a place.
obtain or retrieve (computer data or a file).

So it's a metaphor from data science.

An irreducible simple is composed of no parts. Everything you're reading here is composed of parts, namely, letters, phrases, sentences and so on. It's not simple, and indeed only a human can meaningfully interpret it.

I imagine your frustration is in part that an idealistic paradigm is being forced upon you? — Pop

I'm not frustrated, I'm simply not agreeing. ;-) I'm one of the diehard idealists on this forum, but idealism comes in many flavours.

What does 'access' mean? — Wayfarer

Get in touch with.

I'm not frustrated, I'm simply not agreeing. ;-) — Wayfarer

Fair enough. :smile:

Hey don't feel bad. Overall I like your philosophy. Just did a random lookup on Amazon and found this book

https://amzn.com/3030036316

I think it's the kind of understanding your into? (I might check it out, although I'm overloaded with reading right now.)

I don't feel bad thanks. I realized that to continue my line of argument would clash with your paradigm, so I backed off.
I have skimmed through the book you mentioned - @gnomon recommended it a while back. It covers many areas rather inconclusively, as I suppose you have to, in order to show you know something about what you are writing about. The author makes one notable conclusion, which I would agree with - that things are relational, but pretty much ends there. However I did not really read it in great depth.

Imo, things are relational, and the first relation is energy and information, so I'll leave it at that. :smile:

There are terms in various cultures which invariably end up translated as 'spirit' in modern English, which I think overall is a very poor word, not least because it too has many meanings (like, something you get drunk on or find levels with). Anyway, I believe that whatever that is, is fundamental. It's not just 'energy' because it's also intelligence. It's not information, but the source of information. But you have to set up a framework within which it can be spoken of meaningfully, which is what I guess I'm attempting.

But you have to set up a framework within which it can be spoken of meaningfully, which is what I guess I'm attempting. — Wayfarer

Yes, its uncanny how there is an intuition about it, but the articulation just falls short of explanation.
Throughout my life I have heard vague mutterings from various sources how everything is consciousness. I could never quite understand it, and I wondered what sort of magical thinking is required for such ideation. But as I explore it myself from various paradigms - Cartesian, materialist, Yogic, Idealist, scientific it all points to it. But to articulate it in such a way so there is broad understanding may be beyond me. It may be beyond anyone. It really requires an articulation that at the same time unifies all the paradigms. What could that possibly be? How can that possibly be? Perhaps it cannot be. :smile:

I have a strong suspicion that a lot of the terminology around 'consciousness' as an object of philosophical enquiry actually came into popular (and even academic) discourse from Eastern religions.

William James' book Varieties of Religious Experience was one source, and he was influenced by the New England Transcendentalists, Emerson and Thoreau, who in turn were influenced by Eastern sources, still quite newly discovered in their day.

And then there was the World Parliament of Religions, which followed the Chicago World Fair, in the 1880's, following which the charismatic Swami Vivekananda toured America for six months by railway, giving many lectures to packed halls.

The Vedanta Society set up shop in California in the 1920's. That had an influence on the 'new consciousness' movements, Christian Science, and so on (as did Theosophy.)

I think that's a part of the often-unstated background in talk about consciousness. Those Towards a Science of Consciousness conferences hosted by David Chalmers had a lot of those ideas in them. Deepak Chopra was always a feature.

I have found the eastern way of thought to be invaluable to myunderstanding. Chakra is great, but Osho I found to be the best source. It took a long time to get over the cloths and style however. :smile:
Not everything mind you. I'd say 50% is worthwhile, and of that 5% is invaluable, but then some of the other stuff I can not buy into.

In the west of course, a study of consciousness would clash with the soul, so would have been a no go area. Hence we only have a recent tradition of it.

Its amusing to see academics so knowledgeable about so many things, yet not having much knowledge about consciousness at all - beyond conscious / unconscious. And then again who would dare solve the problem of consciousness? As we said before, you really can only solve it for a particular paradigm at best. Still I find its something I can get my teeth into. Its a very interesting and challenging problem. I often wish I had as much energy for practical matters. :smile:

I have skimmed through the book you mentioned - gnomon recommended it a while back. It covers many areas rather inconclusively, as I suppose you have to, in order to show you know something about what you are writing about. The author makes one notable conclusion, which I would agree with - that things are relational, but pretty much ends there. However I did not really read it in great depth. — Pop

The book referenced is Consciousness -Information-Reality, by James Glattfelder. Since he covers a lot of ground in the early chapters, they are necessarily "inconclusive". He presents lots of evidence, both pro & con -- regarding the relationship of subjective Consciousness to objective Reality. In the later chapters though, he makes his case for Panpsychism and a "Participatory Ontology". But he leaves the conclusions up to the individual readers.

Also, he insists on making his Metaphysical speculations compatible with the available scientific knowledge. For example, the notion that "things are relational" is compatible with Einstein's Relativity, even though that perspective has some counter-intuitive implications. He also quotes Carl Sagan : "Science is not only compatible with spirituality, it is a profound source of spirituality". But each person's acceptance or rejection of that assertion will depend on their subjective definition of "spirituality". That's why we have philosophical forums, to hash-out those clashing definitions. :smile:

. It's simple Mr. ...

. There is no theory about consciousness ... because ... if you have theories about something ... that ... so-called something won't be known at all ... cannot be known ... but rather ... it's theories ...

. Your knowledgeability ... expressed through theories, dogmas, doctrines ... are a way to deviate away from reality ... from that which is ...

. And ... that which is ... is ... in spite of ... your so-called theories about Life ...

. Drop all the abouts ... they're all nonsense ... drop all the theories ... and you'll have and know Life ... you'll know the unknowable ... more than having ... you'll be Life ... on it's totality ...

. Philosophers have theories about Life ... but ... they don't have Life ... their knowing about Life is just like the knowing of a blind Man about Light ...

. You cannot have any theory about Life ... you can live it ... intensly ... lovingly ...

. Put the question ... rather ... on this way - "What is the source of consciousness?" ...

. Consciousness is the source of all. Consciousness is the stuff existence is made of. But there is no source of consciousness itself. Consciousness is another name of God – a better name, more scientific, less mythological.

. People like Gautam Buddha, who had a greater clarity than anybody else ever had, say that bringing God in is in itself absurd. Existence has always been here. Nobody has created it, and nobody can destroy it. But that does not mean that Gautam Buddha is an atheist. It simply means he has a more scientific and less mythological approach.

. He says existence consists of consciousness. Existence itself is made of consciousness. And consciousness has always been here, is here, will be here. It can be asleep, it can be awake, but it is consciousness all the same.

. When it is asleep you work blindly, unconsciously. When it becomes awake you are enlightened.

. But there is no source of consciousness.

. Consciousness itself is the very foundation of the whole existence. Nothing is deeper than that. You cannot go beyond consciousness.

Consciousness — Gnomon

What the meaning to this play we’re befit,
From dirt to dust within the script that’s writ?
The wise in search have thrown themselves to waste;
Experience alone is the benefit.

Physics describes but the extrinsic causes,
While consciousness exists just for itself,
As the intrinsic, compositional,
Informational, whole, and exclusive—

As the distinctions toward survival, 
Though causing nothing except in itself,
As in ne’er doing but only as being,
Leaving intelligence for the doing.

The posterior cortex holds correlates,
For this is the only brain region that
Can’t be removed for one to still retain
Consciousness, it having feedback in it;

Thusly, it forms an irreducible Whole,
And this Whole forms consciousness directly,
A process fundamental in nature,
Or’s the brain’s private symbolic language.

The Whole can also be well spoken of 
To communicate with others, as well as
Globally informing other brain states,
For nonconscious parts know not what’s being made.

…

Oh, those imaginings of what can’t be!”
Such as Nought, Stillness, and Infinity,
As well as Apart, Beginning, and End,
Originality, Free Will, and He.

0 Thanks for that. I didn't mean to be quite so flippant.

Physics describes but the extrinsic causes,
While consciousness exists just for itself, — PoeticUniverse

Yes! Consciousness is meaningless without a Self-concept. And that's why Physics without Meta-physics will never understand the human mind.

Thusly, it forms an irreducible Whole,
And this Whole forms consciousness directly, — PoeticUniverse

Yes, again. Consciousness is not reducible to neural correlates. It is an emergent quality of the Brain-Body complex. It's ironic that the bicameral brain can have a singular viewpoint : the "what it's like" to be me.

Oh, those imaginings of what can’t be!”
Such as Nought, Stillness, and Infinity,
As well as Apart, Beginning, and End,
Originality, Free Will, and He. — PoeticUniverse

Meta-physics is the science of "what can't be". It's how we discover the ethereal "existence" of Zero & Infinity -- as concepts, not things. From a reductive physical perspective FreeWill "can't be". :cool:

Meta-physics is the science of "what can't be — Gnomon

I thought metaphysics was the science of the conditions of possibility of ‘what can be’. As such it includes within itself things and concepts.

It was just an idea, that i had. Thinking about water that can store "information", why not have another substance that can do the same thing ?




For me is very simple to understand what "information" is.
I am not talking only about biological or some specific area.
Let's say two things (A and B) that interacts and the result of interaction does not destroys A or B.
The result of the interaction that is stored in A or B(or both), i called it "information" .

I will try to explain it with real life examples :

Ex.: 1.If you go to the gym for 30 days and your arm muscle grows. The result of lifting the heave weight against the earth gravitation that is stored on your muscle is called "information" .
2.You reading this post with your eye and remembering some words next day after your away from the computer is "information".
3.Saving a file on your computer hard disk, that you can open next week for review is also "information"

The third example is not biological, as i tried to have at least non biological example.

Any interactions between two energies that does not destroy each other, but still store "marks" of the interactions is called " information" .
If the interactions destroy both energies, then there is no "information" and nothing is stored.
If only one energy is destroyed, then only the energy that remains have the "information" of the interaction.


Of course if you look deep at how those interactions where made and why one energy is destroyed and the other not it will make things much more complex. This is the same for multiple point of views science, physical or biological.
In my opinion to the universe this does not matter, only the end result matters. If you can store is ok, if not you will go back to "the beginnings".

I believe Pop made a good definition of how "information" is preserved to sustain ordered and complex cells or complex material structures(it does not need always to be a living cell).

To All,

Consciousness is a special kind of memory. It is memory, because it is not possible to have a conscious experience in only an instant (in the sense of a spatial point). There is no consciousness without temporal extension. Indeed, anything that “exists” without temporal extension (duration), however brief, simply does not exist. So that, any action of the body, conscious or unconscious, is possible because of memory

But, what is the special kind of memory that makes the actions of the body what we call “consciously made”? Unconscious actions, such as reflex action and so-called muscle memory, we know are not consciously made. But, what exactly does this mean? Simply put, it means that these actions occur “automatically” (without the intercession of consciousness).

Yet, we know that we can consciously dictate our bodily actions. This we call the will. We also know that without consciousness, there can be no will [simply because we cannot make a decision of any kind unless we are conscious].

Thus, we may be confident in saying that it is consciousness that makes the will possible. We may say further that consciousness was naturally selected to allow the exercise of the will. The latter gives us the capability to do one thing and not another when we have the power to do either. We can weigh the alternatives and plan our actions. Who can deny that such a thing has great evolutionary value? Indeed, it has allowed us to dominate the earth.

It does not define consciousness to declare that it is “irreducibly subjective,” for this means only “self-centered.” [Not in the sense of selfish but rather in the sense of self-generated.] Thus, for example, the actions of a cockroach are subjective, in the sense that they are generated by its own nervous system and not that of any other cockroach--even though we know are all such insects are fundamentally similar. However, their similarity does not prevent them from acting individually.

In humans, subjectivity means essentially the same. The conscious experiences of any particular person are limited to the spatial extent of the brain. Thus, those experiences are private in the sense that they are not directly accessible by others. However, this state of affairs reveals a feature of consciousness [subjectivity] but does not explain exactly what it is. Indeed, such a thing is impossible.

One cannot give an objective account of consciousness; for any such account can only be expressed and understood through language. Yet consciousness in presumed in all linguistic intercourse. In other words, individuals cannot communicate through language without being conscious in the first place. One cannot give a meaningful account of a thing necessarily presumed in the explanation itself.

One can only know consciousness by experiencing it, and one can speak of consciousness only to those who are conscious. In such case, the use of the expression, “conscious,” is meaningful to all, because all have experienced it. One cannot, for example, express consciousness to a computer; for this device is not conscious and experiences nothing.

:up: :clap:

I thought metaphysics was the science of the conditions of possibility of ‘what can be’. As such it includes within itself things and concepts. — Joshs

Yes. But I was talking about the fact that Meta-physics is the study of non-physical ideas, such as "Zero". Physicists can't experiment with "Zero", because it doesn't exist in actuality, but only in potential. So, it's left to Philosophers to imagine such possibilities. Eventually, they realized that the concept of "that which does not exist" is a useful tool in mathematics. Although it took millennia for thinkers to accept that non-existence could be a logical operator. That's why computer programs use the simplest logical concepts : All (1) or Nothing (0).

So, you are correct that Meta-physics is a legitimate science of Possibilities and Probabilities -- things that "are not", but "could be". Plato is best known for his dialogues about the non-physical aspects of the world : most famously, the concept of such logically possible notions as "Ideal Forms", as contrasted with Real Objects. Those perfect patterns don't exist in a real sense, but we can recognize their incomplete logical structure in real things that fall short of seemingly impossible perfection. We never see Ideal things with our senses, but we know them with our reasoning ability, regarding what seems "possible" given what's "actual". :smile:

So, you are correct that Meta-physics is a legitimate science of Possibilities and Probabilities -- things that "are not", but "could be — Gnomon

I am more familiar with Kant than with Plato. Would you agree that for Kant the the physical exists but is unknowable in itself , the mental exists in itself but is empty without sensations from the world ('concepts without percepts are empty; percepts without concepts are blind‘). So Kant’s metaphysics shows us that the physical is an ideal , not an actuality. It is an ideal in a different sense than the mathematical concept of zero, yet still an ideal. Therefore his metaphysics is showing us that ‘what is’ ( both as fantasized concept and as physical ) is the product of an indissociable interaction between external reality in itself and subjective mental process.

Joshs,

I disagree slightly with your interpretation of Kant. It is true that he held that ”the physical exists but is unknowable in itself,” as you put it. However, to him, physical things were empirical realities and not ideals.

The percepts arising from encounters with such realities, on the other hand, did not exist outside of the mind and accordingly could be called “ideal.”

Kant insisted that the percepts in no way resembled the realities. He did not maintain that real things caused the percepts; for if they did, they would reveal some aspect of those realities. Instead, Kant argued that the percepts arose from encounters with real things in such a way that they in no way resembled real things. Further, Kant had maintained that causation was a thing of the mind that represented nothing real in itself.

Thus, the percept and the real thing were completely separable. The latter would exist without the former, but the former would not exist without the latter. None of this makes a great deal of sense to me, and I am not alone in this. Many have questioned the validity of Kant’s aesthetic.

Kant also denied that time and space, (and therefore motion and change) were real in themselves. To him they were pure creations of the mind.

Kant argued that thought was not at all as it seemed. Our experience of time is based upon the impression that one thought follows another. However, Kant argued that thought was in reality a perfection wherein all thinking was unified without any unfolding of successive thoughts. This explanation is hard to swallow. Apparently, Kant painted himself into this corner, because there seemed no other way to deny the reality of time.

I am more familiar with Kant than with Plato. Would you agree that for Kant the the physical exists but is unknowable in itself , the mental exists in itself but is empty without sensations from the world ('concepts without percepts are empty; percepts without concepts are blind‘). So Kant’s metaphysics shows us that the physical is an ideal , not an actuality. It is an ideal in a different sense than the mathematical concept of zero, yet still an ideal. Therefore his metaphysics is showing us that ‘what is’ ( both as fantasized concept and as physical ) is the product of an indissociable interaction between external reality in itself and subjective mental process. — Joshs

I'm not an expert on Kant or Plato. But I would hazard to say that Kant's Noumena is equivalent to Plato's Ideal. However, the Ontology of those terms is debatable. By definition, the "Ideal" is not "Real" -- they are contrasting Either/Or concepts. But what does that mean in practice? My full-spectrum worldview is Both/And.

As you noted, our mental Concepts are mostly based on our physical Percepts. Our mental worldview is constructed from basic elements of perception and sensation. But we also create abstractions that bear little resemblance to concrete Reality. Yet, I can't imagine a mind that is completely disconnected from the physical world. And yet, it's true that our self-created conceptual worldview (e.g. Surreal Art) can mix & match the elements of mundane Reality into bizarre unreal forms. For example, Psychonauts, who experiment with drugs (opening the Doors of Perception), claim to experience a "higher" mental or spiritual realm divorced from reality, where the body & ego don't exist. Personally, I have had no such subjective experience. So, I have to take their word for it . Such noumenal "sensations" are completely foreign to my own drug-free mundane reality.

That said though, as a way to scientifically conceptualize the distinction between our Percepts and Concepts, I like the metaphor of an "Interface Reality" used by Don Hoffman in his book, The Case Against Reality. He doesn't deny that there is something "out there" for our senses to perceive. But like Kant, he concludes that our personal conception of that underlying Reality is a simplified symbolic abstraction of "what-is". :cool:

Interface : Window to Reality :
Now, cognitive scientist Hoffman has produced an updated version of Kant’s controversial Occult Ontology. He uses the modern metaphor of computers that we “interface” (interact) with, as-if the symbolic Icons on the display screen are the actual things we want to act upon.
http://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page21.html

Both/And Principle :
* My coinage for the holistic principle of Complementarity, as illustrated in the Yin/Yang symbol. Opposing or contrasting concepts are always part of a greater whole. Conflicts between parts can be reconciled or harmonized by putting them into the context of a whole system.
* Conceptually, the BothAnd principle is similar to Einstein's theory of Relativity, in that what you see ─ what’s true for you ─ depends on your perspective, and your frame of reference; for example, subjective or objective, religious or scientific, reductive or holistic, pragmatic or romantic, conservative or liberal, earthbound or cosmic. Ultimate or absolute reality (ideality) doesn't change, but your conception of reality does. Opposing views are not right or wrong, but more or less accurate for a particular purpose.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Ideality :
In Plato’s theory of Forms, he argues that non-physical forms (or ideas) represent the most accurate or perfect reality. Those Forms are not physical things, but merely definitions or recipes of possible things. What we call Reality consists of a few actualized potentials drawn from a realm of infinite possibilities.
1. Materialists deny the existence of such immaterial ideals, but recent developments in Quantum theory have forced them to accept the concept of “virtual” particles in a mathematical “field”, that are not real, but only potential, until their unreal state is collapsed into reality by a measurement or observation. To measure is to extract meaning into a mind. [Measure, from L. Mensura, to know; from mens-, mind]
2. Some modern idealists find that scenario to be intriguingly similar to Plato’s notion that ideal Forms can be realized, i.e. meaning extracted, by knowing minds. For the purposes of this blog, “Ideality” refers to an infinite pool of potential (equivalent to a quantum field), of which physical Reality is a small part.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page11.html

↪Pop
It was just an idea, that i had. Thinking about water that can store "information", why not have another substance that can do the same thing ? — Adughep

We currently have the internet, which has led to a quantum shift in my understanding, but you are probably thinking about something like Neuralink?

Water memory would fit beautifully, but there is so little supporting research. :rage: And then a Helix copies its double! So its still a physical memory at the cellular level.

Thus, the percept and the real thing were completely separable. The latter would exist without the former, but the former would not exist without the latter. None of this makes a great deal of sense to me, and I am not alone in this — Neri

Today we can imagine an energetic reality ( E=mc2, and Rutherford's experiments ). When we imagine such a reality we mustn't forget that everything including us is made of an energetic stuff. We receive information of this stuff via energetic frequencies and vibrations that we call sight and sound. So it would seem we are well oriented in an energetic reality in that an energetic person receives energetic signals from an energetic external world. It would seem to be a one to one connection, a like with like entanglement. So a real relationship.

Where the dissonance occurs is in the translation of energetic frequency and vibration to anthropocentric symbols of sight and sound, etc. What seems to occur is that frequencies are recognized and symbolized, say to a color, or a sound, pattern recognition style. Suppose each pattern/ frequency has its own symbol, and suppose each symbol has its own neuron, once all the neurons are related then a big picture is created, similar to the pixels of a computer screen, only in 3D.

Now if we shut our eyes and ears so no more frequency and vibration is sensed, the symbols still remain in our neurons and continue to be variously related without any external input. This relationship we understand as mind. Of course it contains symbols of all sorts of things, not just frequencies of light (sight ), and vibrations ( sound ), but all sorts of biologically created, and culturally derived symbols / concepts.

But, if we accept that matter is energetic, is this absolute reality? No, because we do not know what the ingredients that make up energy are. And when we find that out, we wont know what the ingredients that make up the ingredients are, and so on an on. So If this is what Kant was saying then he is correct , we cannot get in touch with reality absolutely. The best we can do is symbolize it meaningfully at any level, and that is what we have done. :smile: Hope this helps.

Well argued and welcome to the forum. :up:

Joshs and Gnomon,

I think we have reached the stage of beating a dead horse. However, I will make just a few more observations, first as to Kant’s ontology:

1. Kant considered reality to consist of material things (noumena) [note the plural]. He denied that he was an idealist, calling himself instead an empirical realist. His sole claim to that title lay in his belief that reality consisted of material things that were real in there own right.

Kant contrasted himself with Berkeley who denied the reality of matter and believed that the real world consisted of souls.

[Plato states in the Dialogues what he claimed were the ontology and epistemology of Socrates. We will take it that they were in fact Plato’s own views and set them down hereinafter in simplified and abbreviated form.

The ultimate reality consists of a world of ideals or “forms” These are generalities, like the good and the beautiful, as well as the axioms of geometry. They have a discrete realty independent of the human mind, and are outside of time and space, unchanging, eternal and without weight and size. They are perfections and not sense impressions, for the latter give us only “shadows” of the real world, the world of ideals. Thus, the latter is not accessible to us by way of the senses. The ideals can only be understood by the use of pure reason.]

Kant’s epistemology can properly be called antirealist. He argued that the nature of material things real in themselves was completely inaccessible to us. When the senses, principally sight, encountered such a thing, the perception of it was conditioned in the mind by intuitions such as time, space and causation. Although this process yielded a percept sensible to us, it did not re-present the thing as it was in itself. Thus, Kant denied us any window to reality.

Kant maintained that time, space and causation were not things real in themselves, nor were they conditions of things real in themselves. They were real to us because of the particular way the human mind deals with reality. Thus, the world that we experience is not the real world but a world of our own making.

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Hello all, seems there is few activity in the last month.
Hope everyone is well.
Here is a web page where human consciousness is linked to quantum physics( energy interactions ) https://www.sciencealert.com/is-consciousness-bound-by-quantum-physics-we-re-getting-closer-to-finding-out

Thanks for that. My question would be, If consciousness was possible in the quantum state, why the need for matter?

Matter is just a stage phase result of those multiple energy interactions.Those energy interactions in depth had a mixture of quantum states to create the matter as we perceive it today with our senses.

Stage 1 - very high energy interactions with very big dimensions like galaxy interactions (this is just the first phase i could imagine after Big bang, lets say this could have created black holes)
Stage 2 - high energy interactions that created the Higgs boson particle and other quantum particles ( energy levels similar to black holes )
Stage 3 - energy interactions from a billion or more quantum particles that created the matter
Stage 4 - matter energy interactions which created consciousness

You can try to change the order if you feel like or maybe add more stages in between .
Hope is more clear now that matter is not the first and not the last step of evolution.
Consciousness that we see now is just the result from those interactions. This result you call it "matter" or mixture of quantum states.

:up: Welcome to the forum. :smile: