↪RogueAI I would agree. But I'm unsure parsimony is hte best way to answer questions about what already is. — AmadeusD

Well, it's the best way to put the consciousness issue to rest: there it no matter for consciousness to emerge from!

:ok: I should think so. Im unsure what the property is that Christoffer is talking about which makes the difference...

Well, it's the best way to put the consciousness issue to rest: there it no matter for consciousness to emerge from! — RogueAI

I would think easiest... But that opens up much more difficult questions, like what is consciousness, if not an emergent property? Not aht this is news, but like with Kastrup we end up with 'there's one mind'. Ok, but why, what for, what's its basis, what even is it, how could it reflect on itself etc... I see idealism the same way I see God. "Oh, well, it's just the way it is.."

They're so opposed to idealism, they will seriously consider they might be zombies or "there is something it's like to be a sewer system". — RogueAI

I think it's the unconscious desire (and pardon the irony) to avoid the burden of existence.

But duality separate the physical and mental in a way that feels too religious for my taste — Christoffer

As I've noted, this conditions a lot of what you write. Hence, 'the blind spot'.

I see weak emergentism as most reasonable, and in the context of weak emergence the emergence is only epistemic. So on this way of looking at things there is nothing for emergence to do, except provide cognitively limited being like ourselves with conceptual frameworks that are manageable.

Perhaps this should have been spelled out more clearly earlier in the thread. In any case, I don't know if Christoffer shares this view.

E.g. Mermin: "the Moon is demonstrably not there when no one is observing it." — Count Timothy von Icarus

I expect you know that idea is about 300 years old. Berkeley articulated and defended it. It drove people crazy then. Nothing changes. Curiously enough, he also re-inscribed dualism back into his system.

The idea is that you don't get those blocks to form a sphere, etc. unless you radically alter the paradigm, the equivalent of pulling out a Sawzall and some wood glue and tearing your blocks apart. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Or you could make your blocks a slightly different shape.

Such a house built with the blocks is reducible to the blocks. You can compute the "possible houses," and their properties from knowledge of the blocks alone. The structure of the house would be analogous to some sort of "weak emergence." Strong emergence is irreducible, and thus "physically fundamental." If substance metaphysics, causal closure, and supervenience are your starting points, "like magic" is often how strong emergence is defined. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I don't know enough about these concepts to make a sensible comment. Apart from wondering why people want to start from those starting-points, given that they create problems, rather than resolving them. I guess I'm just a dinosaur.

How does the 'history' change the actual 'formula' which results in consciousness? — AmadeusD

Perhaps the history doesn't change the formula; the formula changes the history.

Perhaps there are just different kinds of matter (a-matter) and (b-matter). b-matter happens to be able to arrange into conscious brains, a-matter cannot. Nothing is necessarily non-physical in this explanation of consciousness. And I don't see why different kinds of matter is controversial or anti-scientific; after all, if you accept physics you would already believe there to be variations in matter such as protons and neutrons and electrons.

So on this way of looking at things there is nothing for emergence to do, except provide cognitively limited being like ourselves with conceptual frameworks that are manageable. — wonderer1

Wouldn't that be a big step forward?

But then one has to hastily specify that the arrangement/atructure is not an additional element of the house. It is in a different category. — Ludwig V

There's the difference between a house and a home, perhaps, to rub the point in.

Emergence, if it is to help us here, has to be akin to "seeing as", as Wittgenstein set out. So once again I find myself thinking of the duck-rabbit. Here it is enjoying the sun.

The duck emerges from the rabbit?

Perhaps there are just different kinds of matter (a-matter) and (b-matter). b-matter happens to be able to arrange into conscious brains, a-matter cannot. Nothing is necessarily non-physical in this explanation of consciousness. And I don't see why different kinds of matter is controversial or anti-scientific; after all, if you accept physics you would already believe there to be variations in matter such as protons and neutrons and electrons. — NotAristotle

I like this, and agree there's no real obstacle. But i still want to know what differentiates a-matter from b-matter.

Would this also assume we could not mimic b-matter? If the case is that the difference is in the type of matter, why not just construct the artificial brain from b-matter? What property precludes that?

The moon is of course never not observed.

But it is as absurd to claim it is not there when not observed as it is to say that it is there.

The issue here reduces to a simple problem of truth. You put the dish back in the cupboard and close the door. Is the dish in the cupboard? Is "The dish is in the cupboard" true?

I'll say yes, because that permits simply acts such as asking you to fetch the dish from the cupboard. If it ceases to exist when not observed, then how can I ask you to fetch it?

Idealism adds the unneeded ontological complexity of things winking into and out of existence, and the logical complexity of a trivalent logic.

But it is as absurd to claim it is not there when not observed as it is to say that it is there. — Banno

Does this mean you abstain from deducing existence of anything? If this is way off, just explain yourself - It will not help to just tell me I don't understand. I'm trying to.

Idealism adds the unneeded ontological complexity of things winking into and out of existence, and the logical complexity of a trivalent logic. — Banno

I agree.

Good questions. Were it the case that the use of b-matter turned it into a-matter, that would seem to preclude it from use in an artificial brain, but that seems to suggest something like an observer effect, maybe. And I'm not sure how to articulate a difference, other than to say that b-matter is made of b-protons and b-neutrons, not sure if that answers though.

b-protons and b-neutrons, not sure if that answers though. — NotAristotle

It would, to a large degree - but invokes a sort of 'matter/anti-matter' dichotomy that seems to be more trouble than its worth :snicker:

Yes, very clear - weak emergence is too weak, strong emergence is too strong.

There's a third type of emergence, more psychological than physical. The cat emerges from the single line:



... and we find ourselves able to talk about the tail ands the ears rather then just the line's length and width; whole worlds come into being just by seeing something differently

Wouldn't that be a big step forward? — Ludwig V

I'm not clear on what you are asking.

...deducing existence of anything? — AmadeusD

What does this mean? One might deduce the existence of the moon from the tides...

True, it is a dichotomy I guess, but I think it is worth the trouble because of its explanatory power; namely in explaining why brains are conscious and why rocks are not conscious.

What does this mean? One might deduce the existence of the moon from the tides... — Banno

Well, your claim is that it is equally to absurd to posit that the Moon does not exist, as that it does. Im asking whether this precludes you from noting anything exists.

Though, I am now seeing it's likely I missed that this is meant to illustrate the position when one is not observing the Moon rather than some metaphysical line.

Emergence, if it is to help us here, has to be akin to "seeing as", as Wittgenstein set out. So once again I find myself thinking of the duck-rabbit. Here it is enjoying the sun.

The duck emerges from the rabbit? — Banno

At any give time, either the duck emerges as a perception, or the rabbit emerges as a perception.

It is a function of how your brain is processing the data from your eyes from moment to moment.

Thanks.

But, it is virtually impossible to start with the big picture and deduce the mathematical procedure. Viz. the image above. So the imagery emerges from the mathematics. — jgill

Am I right, and I seem to recall your saying something like this earlier, that you choose the images that appeal to you aesthetically, from an infinite (indenumerable?) list of mathematical possibilities? So in a way of speaking, the images emerge form some, but not all, of the equations?

I think discussing the claim that the next moment supervenes upon this moment could branch in a lot of directions. It doesn't make sense at face value, I agree. But I think you can make some sense of it. In terms of A properties supervening on B properties, there's probably a wiggle room for calling objects zeroth order properties. — fdrake

There's a wiggle room there too I think. The type of ordering between moments is like "less than or equal to", so a reflexive, transitive and asymmetric relation. So presumably any collection of property classes with a supervenience relation (which is comprehensible), if that supervenience relation is reflexive, transitive and asymmetric, is an example of a supervenience relation which is precisely the type of order between moments.

An example of that would be { biological (supervenes on) chemical (supervenes on) physical }. That's reflexive - no biological changes without biological changes. Asymmetric - every element has a unique predecessor. And transitive - the biological also supervenes upon the physical.

To be sure, it's possible there are supervenience relations which don't behave like orders, but that is one which does behave like an order.

So if you wanted to make the claim that {moment 1 (supervenes on) moment 2 (supervenes on) moment 3}, it's the same order relation as {biological (supervenes on) chemical (supervenes on) physical}. So it can't be disqualified on that basis alone.

Another rejoinder would be that "moments aren't properties", but you can modify the sequence to explicitly make them properties:

{properties at moment 1 (supervenes on) properties at moment 2 (supervenes on) properties at moment 3}

Which seems to parry that.

And as for supervenience changes necessarily being causal? The supervenience relation is reflexive. You get no changes in type A properties without changes in A type properties, but a given change of an A type property is identical with that change, not a cause of that change.

There might be an angle of criticism regarding the sense of possibility. What are the "possible worlds" for moments which the modal necessity of supervenience would be tested upon? Something I'm still pondering. — fdrake

I have had many thoughts on this, and it seems to come down to how we want to parse a logic of time.

I want to say that the ordered set of events does not rely upon supervenience in ordering those events. Further, in order for a supervenience relationship to hold then there are usually two kinds at work -- the mental supervenes upon the physical, the chemical supervenes upon the physical. What we'd have to do for moments is ensure that the supervenience relationship is between two kinds which still hold.

I thought about the difference between the A-series and the B-series of time and how, perhaps, the A-series could be claimed to supervene upon the B-series, and also that this would be a kind of support for physicalism. But how that maps -- I'm not sure.

But I think what I'd say is that the events in the moment defined from 1200 to 1201 do not map in a supervenient relationship to the events in the moment defined from 1201 to 1202. Supposing the same indexical reference then the events could be ordered as before and after, but if moment 1 is the A-properties across all of existence and moment 2 is the B-properties then it seems fairly obvious that if something changes at moment 1 that does not necessitate a change in moment 2, and also it's worth noting that because of the indexical being the same these are the same "kind" of time.

But that's about as far as I've been able to take it in a day. So I think where I'm still at is that the ordering relationship between moments in the same set of moments will not have supervenient relationships to one another, but something like "is before" on the same index.

(EDIT: Though it's worth noting that the sets which are within a moment could have supervenient relationships to one another or also to future versions of the same set. It's only the moments themselves, as an object with properties, that I think do not supervene)

There's a third type of emergence, more psychological than physical. The cat emerges from the single line: — Banno

This assumes psychological is other than physical.

In any case, neural network pattern recognition is highly fault tolerant, and that is why we are able to 'recognize a cat' when looking at that line.

So in a way of speaking, the images emerge form some, but not all, of the equations? — Banno

There is always an image arising in the manner I have described. Even an empty frame. I never know what will materialize from a mathematical procedure ( I don't do fractals or other well-known imagery). The math procedure I use is not one others use to the best of my knowledge. Mine is intimately connected to cause and effect chains. Not simple iteration of a complex function.

Look at my icon carefully. I could not have planned it and then created the necessary math, in my wildest dreams.

It is a function of how your brain is processing the data from your eyes from moment to moment. — wonderer1

There is a way that such reductionism is stupid...

Stupid long retained its association with stupor, and its sense of "having the mind or faculties blunted or dulled, struck with stupor, dumbfounded" — Online etymology

Of course it is your brain is processing the data from your eyes. But it's still a cat, and it's still just a line. Thinking that the cat is no more than a bit of data processing misses its place in the artist's creation, the web page's design, the post I just presented and the argument about emergence.

Indeed, thinking of it as nothing more than your brain processing the data from your eyes is exactly the error that this thread is about.

Wasn't there a gallery of your images on the site somewhere? I'd like to link it.

By a moment of time do you mean a duration of time?
To me a moment could be an instant or a duration. An instant can physically exist but a duration is more of a mental construct.

Also from a physicalist perspective the past and future don't physically exist. I use past and future as known non-physicals. I think it's an argument that supports physicalism because brain state existing in the physical present can support the ideas of past and future .

I'm still working on understanding your argument. Not saying you are wrong.

A duration of time physically would be a sequence of physical instants. Not off limits or anything.

Look at my icon carefully. I could not have planned it and then created the necessary math, in my wildest dreams. — jgill

What are the axes of your drawing?

I'm used to thinking of (1,0j) as on the right hand side. I assume that is rotated 90° from my accustomed orientation. Is that correct?

By a moment of time do you mean a duration of time? — Mark Nyquist

I was hoping "moment" wouldn't come under question :D -- purposefully ambiguous, at this point, though inspired by Hegel. Moments have a structure -- they are populated with both members and relationships between the members and between the relationships. But how we go about defining these things in concrete instances, I think, will become controversial as we work out their implications so I don't want to make a definition just yet.

I don't think moments have to be uniform, even within the same set of moments -- so some of them could be instantaneous, and some of them could be for 1 minute, or we could also rigidly apply a 1-minute-per-moment definition From the Beginning, and numerate all moments by the minute for as far back as we are able and call that moment 0. As long as we understand one another in a particular instance that's good enough.

Also moments don't have to be numerated. "Alex walked to the mailbox. Alex waved to the neighbors" -- the logic of stories makes it to where the first sentence precedes the second sentence. It's understood that time passes, and it passes in a manner which is not numerated but sensible. I would include examples of narrative time like that, if we're to work out a logic of time.

Also from a physicalist perspective the past and future don't physically exist. I use past and future as known non-physicals. I think it's an argument that supports physicalism because brain state existing in the physical present can support the ideas of past and future . — Mark Nyquist

I can see the perspective for the future, but I'm inclined to think that the past physically exists from a physicalist perspective -- noting a difference between existence and presence.

whole worlds come into being just by seeing something differently — Banno

Hence the mind-created world.

the past physically exists from a physicalist perspective -- noting a difference between existence and presence. — Moliere

:ok: