There's just the world-from-perspectives, an utter fusion of the subject and object. — plaque flag

The world from perspectives is not the fusion of subject and object, but the separation of them. Of course, as you must know by now, I agree that we can only talk about the world from some perspective or other, but we are also able to think that the world is, in itself, beyond all and any perspective. Our experience is itself, prior to the attempt to discursively describe and explain it, pre-perspectival.

The world from perspectives is not the fusion of subject and object, but the separation of them. — Janus

As far as I can make out, you still don't get it, though it I admit that it's hard to find the right words. And it's hard to let go of indirect realism. [ If you think I'm an indirect realist, then you just don't understand me. ]

You seem to think (?) of everyone getting their own representation of the world. As if everyone lived in their own bubble of 'appearance.' In other words, the world is X and every person's experience is only f(X), where f is that person's cognition, which never gives X in its purity. So there's Real World out there but we only get the mediated version.

But that's not what I'm saying at all. There is no [hidden] X. X just is only perspectively. Not mediated. The structure of X itself (in each of its streamings) is ego-like, but consciousness does not exist. No witness is needed. There is only world.

****
To be a little more careful, there are fundamentally only 'neutral' (nondual, no-category-needed-really) 'beingstreams' or 'becomings.' The 'same' 'worldly objects' and characters appear in different streams. All of the items of the world appear only in such streams. The being involved is the deepest meaning of 'first person consciousness,' but being in its purity can't be operationalized. Is existence in the deepest sense a predicate ? I don't think so. The merely practical appearance / reality distinction is a red herring, for that's about sorting daydreams from dandruff. There is only reality, though different entities exist differently, and empirical egos very much care about whether it's 'real' money or the [still real] idea of money.

****

X in its aperspectival 'purity' is a maybe the official Round Square of metaphysics. It's like a story told in no language at all. But indirect realism of the softer Hobbes/Locke variety does make sense when applied only to the worldly or psychological ego. These are just the typical functional relationships discussed here.

we are also able to think that the world is, in itself, beyond all and any perspective. — Janus

So you claim, but one can also make the phrase 'round square.' I continue to claim that beyond all and any perspective is nonsense. Kant sometimes seemed to want to 'cure' people of such talk, but his cure was more of the poison, because he didn't have the nerve to go all the way. But Mach, who studied Kant closely, finally broke through.

In case it's helpful, here's another example of an innocent phrase that turns out to have no meaning (or only a kind of 'failed' or unstable meaning.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_paradox

As far as I can make out, you still don't get it, though it I admit that it's hard to find the right words. — plaque flag

Ah, the old 'if you don't agree then you must not understand' gambit; a tried-and-true deflection.

You seem to think (?) of everyone getting their own representation of the world. As if everyone lived in their own bubble of 'appearance.' In other words, the world is X and every person's experience is only f(X), where f is that person's cognition, which never gives X in its purity. So there's Real World out there but we only get the mediated version. — plaque flag

I understand what you're saying but I just don't agree. We each have our own unique experiences, interpretations, understanding and beliefs; there are as many as there are people. We each assess ideas as to their seeming plausibility, which is measured against what we know and what we take ourselves to know. We all experience the same world of phenomena, and I see every reason to believe that no individual experience nor the totality of individual experiences exhausts the real. I see no reason to believe that the unknowable does not exist, or that our inability to know it logically entails its non-existence.

So you claim, but one can also make the phrase 'round square.' I continue to claim that beyond all and any perspective is nonsense. — plaque flag

That's a poor analogy: 'round square' is incoherent in that it is a contradiction. The idea of things existing which we cannot, even in principle, know about is not a contradiction. It might seem to be nonsense to you but that says more about your attitude than it does about the idea.

I am not getting your drift here—I see the question as decidable two plus two does not equal either three or five. If the question is whether reality is foundationally matter or mind, or something else, we cannot answer; and that is what I mean by undecidable. — Janus

The first question is undecidable because the correct answer is not included in the question. I'm saying that the same problem arises for the mind-matter question. The correct answer in both cases is no.

The closest we might get to a decision there would be to say the question is inapt, that no answer we give can state the actuality.

Yes, the question is inapt. It asks us to decide between two wrong answers. This is my point. There's no need to decide these undecidable questions and they really are undecidable. But they are answerable. . . . .

I think the same goes for this answer. We don't know, discursively, what "being. consciousness, bliss" is, so discursively speaking it is a non-answer.

It's a non-answer when stated blankly with no argument or explanation. When justified it's an answer that works. .

One might enjoy an altered state of consciousness wherein one feels and thinks intuitively "Oh, this must be the satchitananda the sages speak of", but this remains an experience, open to different interpretations. Another person might say "I saw God". These kinds of experiences are ineffable and discursive interpretation necessarily distorts them because thought and language are inherently dualistic, and such experiences, in fact I would say all experiences, are inherently non-dual.

This is why a different argument is required, one that makes no appeal to experience..Such an argument is possible in metaphysics, as is shown by Nagarjuna. ,

Experiences require an experience and an experiencer so are inherently dualistic. . .

... though I'm not convinced we should expect any discursive or analytic investigation to be able to see beyond intentional consciousness.

There is such an argument and it's not difficult to make. But few people investigate these issues.or seem interested in doing so.

One might have an experience that convinces one that one sees beyond intentional consciousness, but the belief that one sees beyond intentional consciousness is itself a dualistic interpretation of a non-dual experience.

I'm not sure why you would think this. You seem to be saying that Buddhism and more generally the Perennial philosophy is nonsense. . .

Yes, I think this is analogous to what Hadot says about some ancient philosophies: that they were systems of ideas designed to be aids to spiritual transformations and realization, not discursive propositions to be debated.

This is simply wrong. This is not just an ancient philosophy but also bang up to date. Do you not know the role of debating in Buddhist practice? Do you not read the proofs of Shankara, Nagarjuna, Bradley, Spencer Brown et al? Do you suppose non-dualism is woolly nonsense with no philosophical basis? Why would you take any notice of the historian Hadot, who appears to have known nothing of this topic? His low view is common but does not withstand a bit of study.

I don't know how to make progress in these discussions. I'm going to withdraw from the forum at least for now. as Its too time-consuming and generally opinions seem to trump analysis. I'll happily respond here if you want to continue this current chat, but once we're done I'll depart.


:

I see every reason to believe that no individual experience nor the totality of individual experiences exhausts the real. — Janus

Our human world is wrapped in darkness. Of course. The only impossibility is logical possibility. This (pseudo-)proposition, which I embrace, manifests a radical openmindedness. But 'aperspectival reality' or a 'story in no language' has no [ stable, achieved ] sense.
The issue is approximately what we [can ] mean by 'exists.' An aperspectival object is like a round square. It's a good analogy if you focus on the issue and don't fall back on the same undisputed platitude that we might find ourselves surprised.

I'd say it's an empty phrase. If you give it the least bit of content, the contradiction appears. — plaque flag

The emptiness consists only in the fact that we don't know the nature of that existence, since it is inaccessible to the senses it cannot become concrete for us. On the other hand, our experience naturally convinces us of that extra-experiential existence, of which we can know and say nothing other than that it must be. So no, not empty in any way except sensorially.

,

Of course. Who disagrees with this ? That you bring it up again suggests that you don't understand my point, which is more semantic than epistemological. — plaque flag

So, are you suggesting that your assertion that saying things may have an existence apart from any possible relation to us is an empty phrase is true semantically, but not epistemologically? If so, I have no idea what that could mean.

It no more seems to me that you understand what I'm saying than it apparently seems to you that I understand what you are saying. So, it seems we cannot but talk past one another. There is no fact of the matter in this, as to whether it is empty or incoherent to say that we cannot even in principle know everything about things, that their existence apart from our possible experience of them is beyond our possible ken, so it is just a case of disagreement pure and simple, so best leave it here I think, since repetition of empty assertions quickly becomes tiresome.

(from here.)

Well I say this for several reasons:

1. You say information is about sending and receiving, about behaviour of systems. I agree with this. Moreso, neuronal transmission and brains satisfy this: so we can call them information processing systems. We know brains support experience.

2. I think information in the way we normally use it boils down to distinctions - the ability to learn or make distinctions. I think that is a very primitive concept and you cannot really boil it down to anything more basic than that.

3. What are experiences? At its most primitive, isnt this concept just about immediate distinctions we can make as observers - experiences are or have information in the sense that we distinguish or recognize or can differentiate them. When I see something, experience something, it is a subjective distinction I have made.

4. So what is the relationship between distinctions brains make and distinctions of my subjective experiences? Well they are inextricable. I experience red because of the distinctions my brain can make with regard to its sensory inputs. Its hard to say that I am not in some sense my brain.

Aren't experiences just the what its like to be the information in my brain? If thats the case, isn't it plausible that other information processing structures have experiences of that information which are completely different to our experiences? Where exactly is the limit on this? What exactly doesn't count as an experience?

Seems hard for me to rule out that there could be a mapping between experiences and all possible forms of information.

What are experiences? At its most primitive, isnt this concept just about immediate distinctions we can make as observers - experiences are or have information in thesense that we distinguish or recognize or can differentiate them. When I see something, experience something, it is a subjective distinction I have made. — Apustimelogist

The capacity for experience is not itself an experience. The capacity for experience is an attribute of sentient beings. In addition to that basic capacity, rational sentient beings, such as ourselves, can reflect on experience and ask what is the meaning of this or that experience, or what experience means, generally. But anything that has the capacity to experience is in some sense a subject of experience. At its most primitive, that is the description of a very simple organism.

Any attempt to account for the qualitative dimension of experience that does not take into account that attribute will fall foul of the hard problem argument in my view. It’s pointing to an inherent limitation of objective analysis. (Have a read of the beginning of this column as an illustration.)

If thats the case, isn't it plausible that other information processing structures have experiences of that information which are completely different to our experiences? — Apustimelogist

Is an abacus falling through the air, the beads moving this way and that, processing information? Does it have experiences?

I wasn't trying to imply anything to do with capacity in the definition I said. I am just making the point that experiences are clearly information for us in a very trivial way. I see something, I am distinguishing something: that is information.

And I am not trying to make an account of experience because information is about as difficult to describe and account for as experience, so saying that experience is information doesn't really explain anything.

So this is not an attempt to explain away, but making a plausible equivalence between two concepts which are equally difficult, or at least primitive, in their characterization.

Again, I think the experiences we have seem to map to information in the brain. You don't need to say that brains explain information in any deep metaphysical way to say this is the case I think. I would be interested to hear why you would think this mapping does not hold up, if you did believe that it did not.

The remaining question is then: where do you draw the line on what information can and cannot be mapped to experiences.

If I cannot draw the line, who's to say that experience is not just what it is like to be information?

Is an abacus falling through the air, the beads moving this way and that, processing information? Does it have experiences? — RogueAI

Arguably, it could be. I mean, obviously it is a complicated system that we cannot predict easily, but presumably it is actually behaving according to the kinds of regularities that underlie the laws of physics where particular inputs have outputs which are computable. Doesn't seem an inherent difference from what neurons do. Could a system of chaotically behaving abacuses not self-organize into a brain under the right circumstances? Where is the dividing line?

Arguably, it could be. I mean, obviously it is a complicated system that we cannot predict easily, but presumably it is actually behaving according to the kinds of regularities that underlie the laws of physics where particular inputs have outputs which are computable. Doesn't seem an inherent difference from what neurons do. Could a system of chaotically behaving abacuses not self-organize into a brain under the right circumstances? Where is the dividing line? — Apustimelogist

That's a good question. Consciousness as information processing would seem to lead to some variation of panpsychism. I personally think there is no information processing without a mind to interpret it as such. A computer running a simulation of something with no one looking at it isn't running a simulation; it's sounds and pixels on a screen lighting up. There needs to be a mind observing the result to make it a simulation.

I am just making the point that experiences are clearly information for us in a very trivial way. I see something, I am distinguishing something: that is information. — Apustimelogist

Right. I moved your comment from that other thread to here because we're touching on the debate about qualia, which is generally associated with the hard problem.

Of course it is true that when we see something we 'distinguish information' but in the case of perception, there is much more to it, because there are factors such as judgement, context, interpretation, and so on. The same information can mean something quite different to two subjects.

I would be interested to hear why you would think this mapping does not hold up, if you did believe that it did not. — Apustimelogist

I'm not sure why that's significant. Anecdotally, I recall reading that studies indicating that the brain can and does re-organise its operations dynamically, so any kind of mapping is hardly a simple 1:1 operation, and again, the human mind deals with many other factors than information.

who's to say that experience is not just what it is like to be information? — Apustimelogist

Speaking of mapping, that doesn't map! The expressions 'what it is like to be a bat' or 'to experience music' or 'see the deep blue of the sea' draw attention to the fact that states of experience are qualities of being. Information, as such, is an abstract term, as we've already suggested, so I don't see how that maps.

There needs to be a mind observing the result to make it a simulation. — RogueAI

:up: That is connected to the topic I explore in The Mind Created World.

because there are factors such as judgement, context, interpretation, and so on. — Wayfarer

Yes, sure: what is more information in the mind.

so any kind of mapping is hardly a simple 1:1 operation[/q]

Maybe not a mapping to physically unique neurons, but surely a mapping to ongoing activity.
— Wayfarer

Speaking of mapping, that doesn't map! The expressions 'what it is like to be a bat' or 'to experience music' or 'see the deep blue of the sea' draw attention to the fact that states of experience are qualities of being. — Wayfarer

Well so is the phrase 'what its like to be information' and in fact. When we hear music, that is information transmitted into our heads. Distinctions we make about sound regarding things like pitch or timbre etc etc. The question is what information cannot be experienced and what experiences are not information? I think its quite hard to give examples for any of those things.

When we hear music, that is information transmitted into our heads. — Apustimelogist

No, that's an analogy for 'hearing music'. Another example: what you're reading right now may be described in terms of 'pixels on a screen' but what it means is something else again.

Another example: what you're reading right now may be described in terms of 'pixels on a screen' but what it means is something else again. — Wayfarer

But is there ever a way to describe it in which it is not information?

The question is what information cannot be experienced and what experiences are not information? I think its quite hard to give examples for any of those things. — Apustimelogist

I'll give this a shot.

Information that goes past a black hole's threshold toward the singularity within the black hole cannot be experienced - at least not when at the singularity itself.

The experience one holds of oneself (as the observer of information) being certain about what is observed ... is not itself information; it, instead, is a mere direct awareness of one's own being as that which observes information (though it can become information when later on remembered and possibly contemplated as a remembered former state of personal being, this by oneself as observer of the remembrance).

If you disagree with these examples, I'd like to understand why.

Information that goes past a black hole's threshold toward the singularity within the black hole cannot be experienced - at least not when at the singularity itself — javra

Why is that?

instead, is a mere direct awareness — javra

To me, this is having information. Though I think we are getting into the territory where we will have disagreements about the contents of experience or philosophy of mind generally, which would hinder agreement.

Why is that? — Apustimelogist

Space, time, and matter no longer make any mathematical sense within a black hole's singularity, are often enough said to "break down" at such juncture, and with some affirming that information itself becomes erased therein.

Again, why would information be assumed to survive at such juncture?

To me, this is having information. Though I think we are getting into the territory where we will have disagreements about the contents of experience or philosophy of mind generally, which would hinder agreement. — Apustimelogist

Most likely, yes. How do you define information? For me, quintessentially, information is to be defined by that which informs, or else "gives form to" ("form" in the Aristotelian sense). In so holding, I then take awareness to be informed by its percepts but to not of itself be information.

Another example: what you're reading right now may be described in terms of 'pixels on a screen' but what it means is something else again.
— Wayfarer

But is there ever a way to describe it in which it is not information? — Apustimelogist

I can provide information which describes it, but remember the point at issue was your claim that

When we hear music, that is information transmitted into our heads. — Apustimelogist

I am making the point, there is something other than 'information transmission' at work when you hear music, although I guess it's the kind of point which I feel shouldn't have to be made.

“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.”
― Albert Einstein

I can provide information which describes it, but remember the point at issue was your claim that — Wayfarer

So you don't think the act or event of distinction itself is information? That just hearing something and knowing it is not information? As far as I am concerned, what I am reading, what I am experiencing right in front of me is information. Because I am distinguishing, recognizing, having immediate awareness of something. Sure, I can describe it in terms of something like pixels and that is information.

I am making the point, there is something other than 'information transmission' at work when you hear music, — Wayfarer

Well I think its just question begging here either side because I am just making the claim that information could be simply what its like to be information. And you just disagree.

It makes sense for me that experiences are what its like to make distinctions because effectively thats what brains are doing... making distinctions. We can talk about it in a formal sense of information theoretic descriptions of neuronal activity, or just in simple sense of organisms perceiving distinctions in their environment, but it all boils down to making distinctions. Nothing technical about that concept... just the primitive concept of a distinction... a difference... any symonym you like that is sufficiently general. That seems to be what our perceptions do and so if our perceptions are experiences, then it seems to me that they are experiences of those distinctions brains make... what it is like to be those distinctions being made. Its almost tautological to me because experiences themselves are obviously distinctions so ofcourse, experiences are what its like to make those experiential distinctions. The question is then: are experiences just what it is like to make any distinction at all? And given that my intuition wants me to think there is no limit on the possible experiences that could exist, then couldn't they encompass all possible distinctions that could possibly be made, and so would be what it was like to make those distinctions?

Note: I have not been stating an identity between experiences = distinctions or experiences = information per se (though as I have said, I do think experiences trivially are information [e.g. like saying Mary has learned or even sees some new information when she experiences green for yhe first time]).


Rather I have been making an identity between experience and what it is like to be information. There should be no hard problem issue here because I am not making an equivalence between experiences and some technical definition, but experiences and what it is like to be a kind of thing. If experiences can be defined as what it is like then I am clearly equating experiences with experiences. Just like saying that my experiences are what it is like to be a brain is slightly different to saying experiences are brains, or experiences are atoms.

Space, time, and matter no longer make any mathematical sense within a black hole's singularity, are often enough said to "break down" at such juncture, and with some affirming that information itself becomes erased therein.

Again, why would information be assumed to survive at such juncture? — javra

Well, possibly. I don't know. I don't know enough to make a judgement about this or what I think it even means in order to disagree.

Most likely, yes. How do you define information? For me, quintessentially, information is to be defined by that which informs, or else "gives form to" ("form" in the Aristotelian sense). In so holding, I then take awareness to be informed by its percepts but to not of itself be information — javra

I will be lazy and quote myself from my most recent post:

"but it all boils down to making distinctions. Nothing technical about that concept... just the primitive concept of a distinction... a difference... any symonym you like that is sufficiently general."

I think here we have different fundamental understandings of mind because I don't really take awareness to be like a thing independent of percepts. For instance, some have said they believe in something like pure awareness. I don't believe in something like that.

So you don't think the act or event of distinction itself is information? — Apustimelogist

No, I don't. Information is part of it, but it is not only that, as I've said already.

I am just making the claim that information could be simply what its like to be information. And you just disagree. — Apustimelogist

I don't just disagree, I gave an argument, which you haven't responded to, or don't recognise.

For instance, some have said they believe in something like pure awareness. I don't believe in something like that. — Apustimelogist

Whether you believe in it is beside the point. It has been documented extensively in books on meditative awareness and trance states.

The problem with your argument is that it is essentially reductionist. While it aligns well with information theory and cognitive neuroscience, which view experiences in terms of the brain processing and distinguishing environmental stimuli, explaining how physical processes (like neuronal activity and the making of distinctions) amount to subjective experiences is a different matter. While your argument deals with the functional aspect of cognition (i.e., the brain making distinctions), it doesn't address the explanatory gap between descriptions of physical processes and the subjective quality of experiences—how they occur to, or feel to, a subject of experience. For another example, while it's true that one can develop a deep understanding of the physiology of pain - say for example if you were studying pharmacology or anasthesia - the actual experience of pain is a very different thing to a theoretical understanding of the causes of pain. Until you address that issue you're not actually addressing the problem.

Argument that there is more to perception than information? All thrme factors you mentioned I would say come under the banner of information in the same way as perception, at least under my philosophy of mind.

Whether you believe in it is beside the point. It has been documented extensively in books on meditative awareness and trance states. — Wayfarer

Yes, sure it has been documented; I just wouldn't interpret it in the way that those people would i.e. that there is some kind of thing called oure awareness independent of our percepts.

The problem with your argument is that it is essentially reductionist. While it aligns well with information theory and cognitive neuroscience, which view experiences in terms of the brain processing and distinguishing environmental stimuli, explaining how physical processes (like neuronal activity and the making of distinctions) amount to subjective experiences is a different matter. — Wayfarer

It isn't reductionist.
I haven't said experiences are the same as brains or information in information theory, and if anything you could argue that all of those concepts are constructs we have created rather than the things in themselves.

Information is about distinguishing things.

I have said that experience is what it is like to be information.

That corresponds to saying experience is what it is like to distinguish something.

In a panpsychist universe, that is very obviously trivially tautological.

In a dualist universe where there were experiences AND something else where you could define distinctions or perhaps correlations then I think a mapping between experiences and those distinctions is sufficient. And I think neuroscience tells us that mapping exists. In the panpsychist case, you could argue that you were simply mapping something to itself vicariously through a constructed representation of scientific objects or information.
I don't need to make a reductive explanation to assert a mapping. I haven't tried to explain anything about experiences. Just seems trivial to me that when I experience something, I am making a distinction, which is what my notion of information is all about. Almost trivially, anything is in some sense a distinction, so to say the relationship between experience and distinctions doesn't really make sense.

It isn't reductionist — Apustimelogist

…

but it all boils down to making distinctions — Apustimelogist

Sorry, but that is what reductionism is.

In my view, you've developed an idiosyncratic synthesis of reductionist or 'eliminativist' philosophies of mind. I don't know if you've presented it elsewhere, or had your ideas subjected to criticism by others, for example by writing term papers about it, but here you're essentially repeating the same claims such as 'experience is what it is like to be information'. I've tried to explain why I don't think idea holds up, but as my criticism has obviously not struck home, then I'm not going to pursue it any further. Perhaps someone else will chime in at this point, and so long.

Well I think its just question begging here either side because I am just making the claim that information could be simply what its like to be information. And you just disagree. — Apustimelogist

Sorry to butt-in here, but it seems to me that this "disagreement" is not about "question begging" but about Question Defining. I think I understand what you are aiming-at with the equation of a "bit" of incoming Information, and the "what it's like experience" of meaning in the mind. But, saying that "Information is what it's like to be information" comes dangerously close to a tautology. And strays near the Cartesian Theater's observing homunculus, that has baffled better minds than mine. Because "information" is inherently ambiguous.

Unfortunately, the term "information" has been defined in various ways. For example, as both a physical Quantum out there, and a metaphysical Qualia in here. To be Informed is to experience a "Difference (A) that makes a Difference (B)". The A> Distinction may be a "bit" of incoming physically embodied information, but the B> Distinction is an internal metaphysical idea or image that makes a difference (meaning) to the Observer. Our difficulty with defining such subjective distinctions objectively may be due to the fact that Information is both Objective and Subjective. There's an inherent ambiguity. So, don't give-up on your definition, just try to grasp the other (complementary) meaning of "information". :smile:


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.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

I am just making the claim that information could be simply what its like to be information. — Apustimelogist

I don’t know if you’re aware of ‘the information philosopher’ site but he says something similar. See

https://www.informationphilosopher.com/mind/

Sorry, but that is what reductionism is. — Wayfarer

You misread me there because that statement about boiling down was referring to what brains do.

But anyway, I don't think it is reductionism or eliminativist because I am not trying to explain experiences or suggest any kind of breaking down or explaining away of experiences into components of something else like that. In principle I don't think that kind of thing is possible.

But, saying that "Information is what it's like to be information" comes dangerously close to a tautology. — Gnomon

Well my notion of information here is even more basic than what you are talking about. Its just about distinctions. Experience and information are both primitive concepts in the sense that they cannot be further defined. So this tautology doesn't really add any danger that wasn't already there.

So what do you make of the essay behind this discussion, Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness, by David Chalmers?