If so, why is this brain-centered higher-order memory function immaterial? — ucarr

Meaning is a Meta-Narrative that is created in the brain out of incoming information, from external environment and inner milieu. In lower animals, Memory may simply record raw data. But in humans, Meaning places the world data in relationship to the Self-concept. As I understand it, meta- refers to anything that is over & above meaningless matter : the Map is not the Terrain. The rational Mind gives us a new perspective above & beyond that of the physical eyes.

Mind is a holistic Function of brain, not identical with the neural network. And a Function is an input-output relationship, not an object. Also, the abstract mental Output is more-than the concrete material Input. The Whole system (mind) is more than the sum of its parts (neurons + data). The parts may be physical and material, but the holistic processing system produces Ideas & Concepts, with no material properties, hence immaterial. :smile:

So Berkeley's idealism is implausible, but it's less implausible than Cartesian dualism? — Wayfarer

They're implausible in different ways.

..monist idealism is the only form of monism which has the appearance of being coherent. — Metaphysician Undercover

The idea that a mind somehow constructs the world, even before there were any minds, is not so coherent.

..we assume "matter" as something independent form minds, to support our belief in a real world which is independent from us, — Metaphysician Undercover

Then you omit all the direct realists for whom the relation between mind and matter is direct. When the two coalesce, it's meaningless to talk of one being independent of the other.

Have you ever checked your hormone and neurotransmitter levels in order to be satisfied of a resemblance? — Luke

No, I just feel them. What I feel is my physiological state, in which hormones and neurotransmitters etc are constitutive for having it.

I would think that the resemblance is more likely the result of some sort of comparison between the imagined cat and the seen cat. — Luke

Right, you feel what imagining the cat is like, and then you feel what seeing the cat is like, and may then also recognize properties that the two feelings share.

But feelings are invisible, you can't compare a visible cat nor graphic image with the feeling of imagining what they look like. You can, however, compare things of the same type, such as two visible cats, two visible images, or two invisible mental states by how they feel when you have them.

What it feels like for you to see the cat is, therefore, comparable to other feelings, such as those evoked by thoughts, memories, and attempts to mentally visualize the cat without seeing anything.

How do the physical causes of your mental states affect your judgement of a resemblance between them? — Luke

Well, for example, alcohol can affect my mental state so that I feel tipsy, a blurry kind of feeling, which in turn resembles the blurry feeling of seeing blurry or expressive pictures, or hearing blurry sounds, etc. There is something genuinely blurry about feeling tipsy, or in what it's like to see blurry pictures etc.. :)

Couldn't two very different mental states have the same hormone and neurotransmitter levels? — Luke

Yes, it's not all about the hormones and neurotransmitters. Our brains become individually personalized as each brain keeps on creating and modifying its neural networks relative to our lives and the things we encounter.

...in humans, Meaning places the world data in relationship to the Self-concept. — Gnomon

So, for sentients, meaning is always personal?

Can facts persist without meaning, i.e., can facts exist without observation?

Let's suppose they can't. Does that suggest to us that an environment without sentience is always in superposition? So, before the door to Schrödinger's box opens, the cat inside is always: extant/non-extant; dead/alive? The tree falling in the forest does/doesn't make a sound?

Is paradox a synonym for enformaction?

Premise -These questions make an approach to distilling what consciousness does objectively: it resolves paradoxes.

Mind is a holistic Function of brain, not identical with the neural network. — Gnomon

Raw data → brain → simulation → mind → meaning ???

Does consciousness, in its act of resolving superposition, configure undecidable parts into non-reductive wholes?

So, consciousness parses boundaries?

So, consciousness parses undecidable boundaries into non-reductive wholes?

Is consciousness hard to analyze – literally split into parts – because it’s about unification of parts into seamless wholes?

Is consciousness paradoxically about holism -- that's its function: configuring parts into seamless wholes -- and yet (strategically) incomplete?

Is consciousness uncontainable because it's strategically incomplete?

Premise - Consciousness is uncontainable because, given existence, there's always another question.

As I understand it, meta- refers to anything that is over & above meaningless matter : the Map is not the Terrain. — Gnomon

Is matter meaningless, or bursting with paradoxical meaning in superposition?

So, the map, being larger than the terrain, emerges from it, but reduces not down to it?

Is it the converse? Since mind is no match for matter, it must hide the shame of its abstractionism in the form of simple and elegant theories and their terse equations?

Since no analytic narrative can get beyond its approach to a material thing, the deadness of its monotonous voice must fall to the ground in reverence of the seething dirt from which it emerges?

Sidebar: I hope you'll throw open the gates and release your reactions; this is a Roar-Shock test.

21st century physics has equated Information with causal Energy — Gnomon
So, you embrace the understanding information is physico-material? — ucarr

Yes. I call Energy the power to enform, to give form to the formless*1. The roots of "information" literally mean : the act of giving form". The result is to create meanings (forms) in a mind. The link below expands on on that strange notion.

The Big Bang theory postulates that the early universe was a pre-material plasma of quarks & gluons, which are hypothetical undetectable particles of sub-sub-atomic-matter. Yet the Cosmologists necessarily, but implicitly, assume that causal Energy and natural Laws (relationship principles) existed eternally before the beginning of our space-time. Another unstated assumption is that the Potential for mental phenomena (awareness) was inherent in whatever went "bang!".

That combination of Cause & Laws is what I call EnFormAction (EFA) : the natural holistic tendency to create complex systems from simpler components. One form of EFA in the known world is Gravity. Presumably that attractive force couldn't exist without Matter and Space, so it would have to emerge along with the stuff that fills space, which is curved to fit around those little bundles of inter-attraction. This both-physical-&-material (space/time, energy/matter, brain/mind) "understanding" is also implicit in what I call the BothAnd Principle*2.

*1. What is Information?
The Power to Enform
https://bothandblog6.enformationism.info/page16.html

*2. 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.
# The Enformationism worldview entails the principles of Complementarity, Reciprocity & Holism, which are necessary to offset the negative effects of Fragmentation, Isolation & Reductionism. Analysis into parts is necessary for knowledge of the mechanics of the world, but synthesis of those parts into a whole system is required for the wisdom to integrate the self into the larger system. In a philosophical sense, all opposites in this world (e.g. space/time, good/evil) are ultimately reconciled in Enfernity (eternity & infinity).
# 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.
# This principle is also similar to the concept of Superposition in sub-atomic physics. In this ambiguous state a particle has no fixed identity until “observed” by an outside system. For example, in a Quantum Computer, a Qubit has a value of all possible fractions between 1 & 0. Therefore, you could say that it is both 1 and 0.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Information Philosopher : "Information is neither matter nor energy, although it needs matter to be embodied and energy to be communicated. Why should it become the preferred basis for all philosophy?"
http://www.informationphilosopher.com/introduction/information/

You might ask, 'Why would we need to be conscious of an imagining?" Why can't a p-zombie do the same thing but without the actual experience of imagining a purple cow? The answer is that I don't think the p-zombie is a valid argument. — Harry Hindu

I have a lot of questions about p-zombies too, but we don't need them in this instance. Any number of computer-generated entities can do all the things you mention: respond to their environment, learn, make predictions, use feedback loops, offload routines to different parts of memory. So I disagree that "Consciousness is necessary for learning and making predictions." This is why the purple cow is such an annoying example -- it doesn't do anything. It simply sits there, so to speak, being a mental image, again so to speak. If a computer-generated entity could do this, I would have to allow that it might be conscious, but I don't believe it can. Except by rather strained analogy, there's no equivalent of a digital state that also has a subjective appearance to the software that we cannot experience.

Having said this, some computer-savvy poster is going to show me I'm wrong! OK, I'm ready. . .

So, in the case of an information field flanked by energy fields, we have a grouping of three energy fields, a two-plus-one with info being one type of energy and the flanks being another type of energy? — ucarr

No. All Energy Fields are also Information Fields. Its all information all the time. EnFormAction is singular and monistic. According to my thesis, it's the source of all physical fields. :smile:

WHAT IS ENERGY?
It’s not a particular thing, but a transferable (hence not intrinsic or inherent) property, ability, quality, that is quantifiable only in its effects.
“In physics, energy is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy

So, for sentients, meaning is always personal? — ucarr

Yes. What else could it be?

Is paradox a synonym for enformaction? — ucarr

No. Does "the power to enform" seem paradoxical to you?

Premise -These questions make an approach to distilling what consciousness does objectively: it resolves paradoxes. — ucarr

That may be the evolutionary adaptive function that led to conscious awareness of Self & Other, which are often at odds.

Note --- My answers are derived from my personal thesis of Enformationism. I'll have to pass on your other questions, since they are outside my limited knowledge of science and philosophy. :smile:

Is paradox a synonym for enformaction? — ucarr

No. Does "the power to enform" seem paradoxical to you? — Gnomon

Yes.

That combination of Cause & Laws is what I call EnFormAction (EFA) : the natural holistic tendency to create complex systems from simpler components — Gnomon

I thought maybe your holistic combination of substance, form and dynamics creates an environment wherein parts are simultaneously discrete and gestalt.

Premise -These questions make an approach to distilling what consciousness does objectively: it resolves paradoxes. — ucarr

That may be the evolutionary adaptive function that led to conscious awareness of Self & Other, which are often at odds. — Gnomon

The whole landscape of evolution is a branching web of boundaries both combining and separating.

The sentient and its environment have a part/whole relationship. Consciousness, using its measuring tool, science, navigates and negotiates boundaries until satisfactory measurement is achieved; we call this "arriving at an understanding."

So, consciousness, resolving the environment down from superposition to the discrete boundaries of natural order, enacts a stabilizing and ordering function. We see these stabilizing and ordering effects across a spectrum from ant colonies to modern cities.

Speaking metaphorically, consciousness looks at the raw stuff of nature and, proceeding forward from there, generates an exploded diagram of the constituent parts, assembling and disassembling them in spiraling cycles of gradual change.

No, I just feel them. What I feel is my physiological state, in which hormones and neurotransmitters etc are constitutive for having it. — jkop

My point is that you don't judge a resemblance by comparing your physical states (e.g. your levels of hormones and neurotransmitters) when you imagine a cat to your physical states when you see a cat. Instead, you judge a resemblance by comparing the cat that you imagine to the cat that you see.

But feelings are invisible, you can't compare a visible cat nor graphic image with the feeling of imagining what they look like. You can, however, compare things of the same type, such as two visible cats, two visible images, or two invisible mental states by how they feel when you have them. — jkop

Do you still hold to this assertion you made earlier?:

A "mental image" couldn't even resemble visible objects such as cats or images — jkop

If you can compare two "invisible" mental states (e.g. two imagined things) to each other and two visible things to each other, why could you not compare a visible thing to an imagined thing? If you cannot compare them, I don't understand how the "interactive process between one's imagination and the feedback one gets from seeing colours and shapes" in your architecture work could be possible.

Well, for example, alcohol can affect my mental state so that I feel tipsy, a blurry kind of feeling, which in turn resembles the blurry feeling of seeing blurry or expressive pictures, or hearing blurry sounds, etc. There is something genuinely blurry about feeling tipsy, or in what it's like to see blurry pictures etc. — jkop

Again, my point was that you don't judge a resemblance by comparing your physical states (that produce your mental states), so this doesn't really address the question I asked. I wasn't asking about abnormal vs. normal physical states. I was questioning why you are talking about physical states at all with regard to judging a resemblance between an imagined cat and a seen cat.

I have a lot of questions about p-zombies too, but we don't need them in this instance. Any number of computer-generated entities can do all the things you mention: respond to their environment, learn, make predictions, use feedback loops, offload routines to different parts of memory. So I disagree that "Consciousness is necessary for learning and making predictions." This is why the purple cow is such an annoying example -- it doesn't do anything. It simply sits there, so to speak, being a mental image, again so to speak. If a computer-generated entity could do this, I would have to allow that it might be conscious, but I don't believe it can. Except by rather strained analogy, there's no equivalent of a digital state that also has a subjective appearance to the software that we cannot experience.

Having said this, some computer-savvy poster is going to show me I'm wrong! OK, I'm ready. . . — J

But that's the thing. What makes a mass of neurons conscious, but a mass of silicon circuits not conscious?

The purple cow would be like a bug in the code. As I said before, not all ideas/imaginings are going to be applicable to the world. It only becomes a problem if you or the computer misinterprets the purple cow as something more than a bug in the system, but some external stimuli.

The computer has memory. You have memory. Your consciousness is like the working memory in a computer. The computer can store different types of data in its memory just like you store different types (colors, sounds, sensations, etc.) in your memory. This memory space is what we call consciousness. The difference between you and the computer is that the computer has not been programmed to establish a feedback loop in its memory - to refer to its memory as an object of information to process. I other words, it is not self-aware in the sense that you and I are.

Now we go deeper into the brain_mind interface. The experience of seeing red, like the experience of seeing animated graphic images on a computer screen, is an interpretation of code for the experience. The Graphical User Interface of images viewed on a computer screen is an interpretation of Java, C++, etc. When you look at the code directly, you won't see any graphic images. Likewise, when you study neuron synaptic firing rates, electric current and voltage levels in active parts of the brain, etc., you won't see any graphic images replicating the natural world. There's no analog simulation of the natural world within the databases of computers, and there's no analog simulation of the natural world within the brain. — ucarr

Well, now you're establishing some kind of Cartesian theater where there is a GUI that is being viewed, but viewed by what? Also, the computer screen is a physical object that emits light so this still does not seem to be a valid example. The code produces output to the screen so it displaying colors and shapes on the screen would be more like a behavior produced from the processing of information going on within the computer, in the same way that you respond in the world based on the sensory processing (perception) in the brain.

What I'm trying to say is that the world may be more like the GUI than the code, more like the mind than the neurons, and the code and neurons are interpretations of other GUIs and the minds respectively. Silicon circuits and neurons are how OTHER minds are interpreted from our own. I am not trying to argue for idealism or panpsychism as that would be another type of projection. What I am trying to say is that primary "substance" of the world is process, relationships or information.

Bishop Berkeley understood, correctly, that such a split makes no sense, so he decided to focus on the mind. Matter is not eliminated, but it's not fundamental. Mind is. — jkop

As such, idealism is a anthropomorphic projection.

In direct realism, the mind is directly linked to the world.My conscious awareness of the world is the actual world, not a mental replica. There's no gap between my conscious awareness and the world. — jkop

Sounds more like solipsism to me.

But another way to think of quantum reality is as a field of Potential that can become Actual — Gnomon

I think what you wrote is very interesting and pretty much lines up with what I've been thinking.

I think the idea of potential is just that - an idea and not some inherent property of reality. Ideas like randomness, probability, possibility and potential are all ideas that stem from our ignorance.

Reading this,

there is no reason to say that quantum entities are ever really waves. Rather, the probabilities of where we will observe them in an experiment can be conveniently determined by the calculus of the Schrödinger equation, proposed in 1926 in response to de Broglie, which is formally analogous to a kind of wave equation. But a wave of what? Not of a physical thing – a density or field – but of a probability. The distribution of these probabilities, when observed over many repeated experiments (or a single experiment with many identical particles), echoes the amplitude distribution of classical waves, showing for example the interference effects of the famous double-slit experiment. — Philip Ball

seems that we are confusing some property of an electron as a wave when the wave is a property of the probability of finding a electron particle. But does the Schrodinger equation represent something fundamental about reality, or something fundamental about our ignorance?

But that's the thing. What makes a mass of neurons conscious, but a mass of silicon circuits not conscious? — Harry Hindu

We don't yet know. My hunch is that it's going to be a version of the same thing that makes a biological creature alive, and a computer not. And yes, this could all be off base -- the sort of thing people will marvel it a few centuries hence -- "How could those people have gotten it so wrong?" But for the moment, I haven't heard of anything that suggests a computer could have inner states. Do you know of anything along these lines? (Grant me, for the moment, the idea that an inner state would be a sign of consciousness.)

Well, now you're establishing some kind of Cartesian theater where there is a GUI that is being viewed, but viewed by what? — Harry Hindu

Are you implying the GUI is being viewed by an immaterial mind? Would this be, in context of your thinking, cognition-to-cognition, along the lines of mental telepathy?

...the computer screen is a physical object that emits light so this still does not seem to be a valid example. — Harry Hindu

If you're implying GUI content is not consciousness, I say it's intelligible, and intelligibility is one half of the consciousness duet of intelligibility meets agent intellect. Also, I say that GUI, being an analog signifier, simulates the natural world and thus it is something beyond stimuli that's more at consciousness than not; it's the surrogate of the programmer's consciousness.

What I'm trying to say is that the world may be more like the GUI than the code — Harry Hindu

So, simulation of the world by GUI is movement towards consciousness and thus it resembles the mind more than it resembles its code?

What I am trying to say is that primary "substance" of the world is process, relationships or information. — Harry Hindu

Consciousness is more fundamental than matter?

Perhaps an inversion is more correct: matter emerges from mind?

No. Does "the power to enform" seem paradoxical to you? — Gnomon
Yes. — ucarr

Please explain. :smile:

I thought maybe your holistic combination of substance, form and dynamics creates an environment wherein parts are simultaneously discrete and gestalt. — ucarr

Yes. Parts are also Holons. :smile:

A holon is something that is simultaneously a whole in and of itself, as well as a part of a larger whole. In this way, a holon can be considered a subsystem within a larger hierarchical system. ___Wiki

The whole landscape of evolution is a branching web of boundaries both combining and separating. — ucarr

Yes. Evolution combines old parts into new complex-integrated-systems (gestalts : holons) by drawing different boundaries and combining old elements into novel Sets. The "power to enform" is the ability to draw boundaries forming different sets of components with new properties and functions. That's also what we call "design" or "programming". :smile:

I think the idea of potential is just that - an idea and not some inherent property of reality. Ideas like randomness, probability, possibility and potential are all ideas that stem from our ignorance. — Harry Hindu

Yes. Potential is not-yet Real. Science and philosophy are tools for dispelling our ignorance. :smile:

Potential :
Unrealized or unmanifest creative power. For example the Voltage of an electric battery is its potential for future current flow measured in Amps. Potential is inert until actualized by some trigger.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

Potential Innovation :
# The notion of an immaterial goal-seeking principle that motivates the behavior of both animate and inanimate entities has been entertained by thinkers through the ages. Aristotle coined the term Entelechy to represent a fundamental internal ambition to be more than it is. It explains a variety of transformations in Physics and Metaphysics, where mechanistic accounts are unknown.
# Modern Science also lapses into metaphysics with terms that imply goal-directed action. The “power” of an electric battery to cause machines to work is called “Potential”, because the actual work remains in the future. Likewise quantum fields harbor Virtual Particles that are not yet real, pending the intentional poke of a mind.
# Other technical but spooky terms for immaterial potential are Soul, Elan Vital, Will, etc. They produce seemingly ententional behavior without any overt evidence of physical energy exchange. In place of energy, we can only detect exchanges of Information.
# The dynamics of transformation and innovation are due to what I call EnFormAction : the teleological force of cosmic “Will”, imagined metaphorically as stored-up creative power as in an electric battery. That potential is released only when a circuit is completed by making a real connection between two poles.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html

Entelechy : the realization of potential.
Oxford Languages

My point is that... ..you judge a resemblance by comparing the cat that you imagine to the cat that you see. — Luke

A resemblance-relation requires at least two objects which can resemble each other. Granted that all objects resemble each other in the abstract sense of being objects, but how can anything invisible resemble something visible?

My point is that they can't, unless you somehow make both visible. For example, you draw a picture of the cat that you imagine. The visible features of the cat-picture are comparable with the visible features of the cat.

However, there's a feeling in what it's like to see the cat, which is comparable with a feeling of what it's like to see the cat-picture. There's also a feeling in what it's like to imagine a cat. You can compare your feelings (via memories), and judge resemblances between them.

I was questioning why you are talking about physical states at all with regard to judging a resemblance between an imagined cat and a seen cat. — Luke

You're right, I don't need to talk about physical states with regard to judging resemblances between different experiences. However, the thread is about the hard problem of consciousness, recall, in which dualism is implied between mental and physical states. Hence talk of physical states.

Sounds more like solipsism to me. — Harry Hindu

On the contrary! When you experience the world as it is, then your experience is the world. Doesn't mean that the world is a figment of your experience.

Potential is not-yet Real. — Gnomon

...the Voltage of an electric battery is its potential for future current flow measured in Amps. — Gnomon

This polarization of negatively charged particles into a concentration apart from positive charge, thus creating a potential for current flow, examples a physical state of a system. Difference of potential is rooted in the extant charge of the concentrated particles. It is real.

The difference of potential of a system for performance of a function -- a charged battery that powers the illumination of a light bulb -- is a part of physico-material reality.

There is a basic difference between having an idea about current flow and having a charged battery ready to deliver current flow.

But that's the thing. What makes a mass of neurons conscious, but a mass of silicon circuits not conscious? — Harry Hindu

We don't yet know — J

A mass of neurons has processing of memory functions attached; I'm not sure, but I think AI operates in similar fashion.

Difference of potential is rooted in the extant charge of the concentrated particles. It is real. . . .
There is a basic difference between having an idea about current flow and having a charged battery ready to deliver current flow. — ucarr

Yes. The battery poles are certainly Real. but until they are connected into a circuit, the electric current is only Potential.
Difference is a mental concept : Ideal not-yet Real.
Potential is not a real thing, but an ideal concept that points to a future state.
Difference and Potential are found only in Conscious Minds, not in the material world. :smile:

The battery poles are certainly Real. but until they are connected into a circuit, the electric current is only Potential. — Gnomon

There's no difference of opinion here. Yes, in this situation, the electric current is potential before the circuit closes.

Our difference centers on whether or not a potential current embodied within a charged battery is physical whereas a potential current embodied within the mind's memory is abstract. In both cases the potential is tied to something physical: a) the charged battery and its difference of potential; b) the mind's memory and the difference of potential it represents abstractly.

I say: a) involves two physical things; b) involves one physical thing and one abstraction.

Difference is a mental concept : Ideal not-yet Real. — Gnomon

If you live in Germany and your brother lives in France, you don't say the difference of your relative positions is a mental concept. In a parallel, the difference of the charge on the negative plate from the charge on the positive electrode is not a mental concept.

Potential is not a real thing, but an ideal concept that points to a future state. — Gnomon

The difference in the state of a real system from one phase to another is not an ideal concept.
Speaking of water, do you say its difference of state from liquid to solid is an ideal concept?

Difference and Potential are found only in Conscious Minds, not in the material world — Gnomon

Picture a desert rock sitting in a pool of water at noon. After nightfall, the same rock is encased in the frozen pool. You know that during the desert winter, the temperature at noon in the low seventies falls forty degrees at night to the low thirties. Are potential and difference only in your mind?

We don't yet know. My hunch is that it's going to be a version of the same thing that makes a biological creature alive, and a computer not. And yes, this could all be off base -- the sort of thing people will marvel it a few centuries hence -- "How could those people have gotten it so wrong?" But for the moment, I haven't heard of anything that suggests a computer could have inner states. Do you know of anything along these lines? (Grant me, for the moment, the idea that an inner state would be a sign of consciousness.) — J

I don't understand your point. If we don't know how a mass of neurons can be conscious then how can we even extrapolate whether a computer, robot, or a planet with life is conscious or not?

You have no reason to assume that a computer can't be conscious if you can't even explain what consciousness is and why a mass of neurons has it.

If we say that consciousness is a type of working memory that contains sensory information, then we design a robot computer that has a working memory that processes information coming in from it's camera eyes and tactile sensors on it's hands and feet as well as microphones to hear, would we then say that the robot is conscious? The "inner" state would be it's working memory and it's contents and the central executive that is processing the information within it, just like it is for you.

Well, now you're establishing some kind of Cartesian theater where there is a GUI that is being viewed, but viewed by what?
— Harry Hindu

Are you implying the GUI is being viewed by an immaterial mind? Would this be, in context of your thinking, cognition-to-cognition, along the lines of mental telepathy? — ucarr

I wasn't implying anything. I was taking what you said - your description - and asking a question about it. You are the one that equated a GUI to our visual experience, but a GUI requires something to "look at it", or be aware of it's contents for some purpose.

So, simulation of the world by GUI is movement towards consciousness and thus it resembles the mind more than it resembles its code? — ucarr

Okay but you can only access the code via a GUI. I can only access your neurons via my GUI. Your neurons and the code appear in my GUI as visual representations of what is "out there". The neurons and the code do not exist as represented by the GUI. As you said, the GUI is a representation, and not the neurons and code as it actually is. So maybe terms like, "neurons" and "code" are representations of how they appear in the GUI and not how they are in the world, and how they are in the world is simply information or process and we are confusing the map (GUI) with the territory.

A mass of neurons has processing of memory functions attached; I'm not sure, but I think AI operates in similar fashion. — ucarr

If AI can answer questions about itself does that make it self-aware? If not, what does it mean to be self-aware if not to be aware of oneself in some capacity?

Yes. Potential is not-yet Real. Science and philosophy are tools for dispelling our ignorance. :smile:

Potential :
Unrealized or unmanifest creative power. For example the Voltage of an electric battery is its potential for future current flow measured in Amps. Potential is inert until actualized by some trigger.
https://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page16.html — Gnomon

How does saying that potential is not-yet-real differ from saying it doesn't exist? In your example, it seems that you are simply saying that potential is simply the current state of an electric battery before being connected to a system to supply it with energy. Some batteries are never connected to a system so it would be incorrect to say that they have the potential to do anything. It is our ignorance of what the future holds for the battery that makes us think of "potentials" and "possibilities" when, in a deterministic universe, there is no such thing except within our minds.

On the contrary! When you experience the world as it is, then your experience is the world. Doesn't mean that the world is a figment of your experience. — jkop

Solipsism implies that the world and the experience are one and the same, which is what you are doing. Only in distinguishing between the world and your experience do you become a realist and at the same time an indirect realist as the experience is not the same thing as the world.

how can anything invisible resemble something visible? — jkop

It's hard to know what sort of answer is wanted here. I could reply, "Easily. When I read a biography, my mental imaginings of the subject of the biography resemble the subject quite a bit, if the book is well-written." This is ordinary-language talk, and no ordinary speaker would have any difficulty understanding me. But evidently you want to stipulate a meaning for "resemblance" that makes physical visibility more important as a criterion. I guess you can do that, but I think we need 1) an explanation for how the ordinary-language use became so common, and 2) a good argument for why this notion of "resemblance" is useful or clarificatory, in this context. What are you trying to ameliorate, with this usage?

You're quite right; as I said, we don't yet know any of the important facts that would allow us to decide this. I haven't assumed anything. I've said that I think it's unlikely that non-biological entities will turn out to be conscious.

If we say that consciousness is a type of working memory that contains sensory information . . . — Harry Hindu

Well, yes, then various things follow, but I don't think that's a good thing to say. My own consciousness doesn't at all resemble this description phenomenologically, and once again we're a long way off from being able to say that, despite this, it "really is" working memory plus sensory information. Just for starters, for whom is the information informative?

I've said that I think it's unlikely that non-biological entities will turn out to be conscious. — J

Yes, but why would you think it unlikely that will be the case when you don't have enough information to say what is likely or not? I'm trying to get at your reasoning here.

Well, yes, then various things follow, but I don't think that's a good thing to say. My own consciousness doesn't at all resemble this description phenomenologically, and once again we're a long way off from being able to say that, despite this, it "really is" working memory plus sensory information. Just for starters, for whom is the information informative? — J

For you, who else? If my description does not resemble what it is like for you, then please explain what it is like for you. Does your visual, auditory, tactile, etc. sensations inform you of some state of affairs in the world? Does it allow you to know things about the world? If so, what is knowledge if not possessing information about something, or being informed of something?