Well, that's not a direct but transitive relation. You can see what I'm like by way of seeing what the mannequin is like. But the object of your experience in that case is not me but the mannequin (or photograph, or mirror image, drawing etc).

But I don't know that this mannequin is not you. When seeing it, I believe it's you.

It doesn't matter, though. The question at the end of the road is, do you think what it's like for me to experience seeing you is the same as what it's like for you to be you?

But I don't know that this mannequin is not you. When seeing it, I believe it's you. — Patterner

Right, you can easily stipulate conditions under which it is impossible to know whether the object that you see is genuine or counterfeit. But questions on certainty concern your belief about your experience, not your experience per se. The belief is closely related yet different from the experience.

For example, you can't see something without having the conscious awareness of it, but you can believe that something is the case regardless of whether it is the case. Thus, the belief can be right or wrong, but the experience is just what it is, a presentation of something in your conscious awareness.

do you think what it's like for me to experience seeing you is the same as what it's like for you to be you? — Patterner

What it's like for you to see me hit my thumb with a hammer is pretty much what it's like for me to be me in that situation. The experience that you have is me hitting my thumb with a hammer.

So your experience of hitting your thumb with a hammer is the same as my experience of seeing you hit your thumb with a hammer?

I would say the brain is more like the actual computer with a CPU, working memory and long-term memory, not just a CPU. Each part is necessary and cannot function without the other parts.
— Harry Hindu

I understand you to be referring to R.A.M./R.O.M. with: "working memory and long-term memory." — ucarr

No. RAM is the working memory. ROM is Read Only Memory. Long term memory is more like your hard drive and can be "written" to as we store new experiences in long term memory that we can then access in the future. ROM would be more like our instincts. They cannot be changed, but they can be overridden by RAM, an example would be how we attempt to control our instinctual behavior in social situations.

I think consciousness, performing in its virtual imaging mode, as based on memory, greatly complicates and perplexes the discreteness and certainty of the location of the referent in relation to the viewer. The portability of memory in time and in space complicates our understanding of the original link between referent and viewer regarding their respective locations.

Furthermore, I think this loosening of the link between the two is one of the main causes of the HPoC. I can access my own subjective memory directly. I can only attempt to access another person's subjective memory indirectly, as via listening to a narrative recounted from memory by another person. — ucarr

I think that speaking in terms of some "I accessing memory directly" is what loosens the link you speak of. This creates the illusion that the "I" is separate from what it accesses "directly". If the "I" is accessing anything, it is the world via its senses. Working memory is just a working model of the immediate environment relative to the body.

I think it's possible to understand that even in the case of one's own subjective memory of being oneself, a separation exists between oneself as thing-in-itself (a kind of pure objectivity of a thing, extant, I believe, more as concept than experience) and a mental representation within subjectivity.

I guess I'm saying we are not exactly our thoughts. Evidence for this might be the fact that sometimes the motives for our behaviors are unconscious.

As to the question of the general form of working memory, firstly, I think memory has a circular structure. Going forward from there, I speculate subjectivity is a higher-order of mnemonic feedback looping. Going forward from there, our ability to know what it's like to be someone else depends upon our virtual viewing (in our imagination) of the GUI of the contents (code) of the other person's working memory. — ucarr

Sure, our mind is only part of what we are. We are our body. I can only control my limbs, not the limbs of others. I feel pain when my body is injured, not when someone else is injured. I don't like speaking in terms of "subjectivity" and "objectivity". Are we not trying to speak objectively about what minds are for everyone, not just you or me? Can we talk about the ontology of minds without epistemology getting in the way? Or do we have solve the problem of the ontology of knowledge before we can start talking about the ontology of the world?

If the "I" is accessing anything, it is the world via its senses. Working memory is just a working model of the immediate environment relative to the body. — Harry Hindu

...red exists within the context of the visual field of our eyes... — ucarr

But we can imagine and dream of red things. — Harry Hindu

In your earlier quote immediately above, you argue that our working memory is not solely based on the immediate connection between self and world. In addition to this, you say our working memory can also be based upon imagination and dreams.

...do we have solve the problem of the ontology of knowledge before we can start talking about the ontology of the world? — Harry Hindu

If "the ontology of knowledge" can be construed as "the physics of consciousness," the central question of this conversation, then it seems that understanding the ontology of the world -- at least regarding physicalist physics -- has come first, and now consciousness lies under the microscope.

So your experience of hitting your thumb with a hammer is the same as my experience of seeing you hit your thumb with a hammer? — Patterner

Sure, but notice that you ask whether our experiences (plural) are the same experience (singular).

The former (plural) is a use of the word 'experience' in its constitutive sense (i.e. having the experience). The latter (singular) is the use of the same word in its intentionalistic sense (i.e. what the experience is about). What our experiences are about is the same.

In your earlier quote immediately above, you argue that our working memory is not solely based on the immediate connection between self and world. In addition to this, you say our working memory can also be based upon imagination and dreams. — ucarr

What I am saying is imagination and dreams are a manifestation of the work being done in working memory. There is also the work of interpreting sensory data and one's memories, which includes imaginings and dreams, is used as a basis for interpreting sensory data.

Dreams are like a runaway loop in computer programming where one does not have the world imposing itself on their senses to break out of the loop. You break out of the loop when you are woken up. The mind is still working in trying to interpret the dream as real. In the dream you process the information as if it were about the world and even respond to the "stimuli". You might even talk in your sleep, or sleep walk.

If "the ontology of knowledge" can be construed as "the physics of consciousness," the central question of this conversation, then it seems that understanding the ontology of the world -- at least regarding physicalist physics -- has come first, and now consciousness lies under the microscope. — ucarr

You're forgetting that your understanding of the world is only via your GUI. Your understanding takes the form of the contents of your GUI. So it seems that you need to understand the nature of the GUI before you can even talk about the nature of the world. To say that you understand the world yet can't explain the nature of your mind when you can only know about the world via your mind is illogical. Science is based on observation and if one asserts that their observations are illusions, or cannot be explained, then that just pulls the rug out from all the scientific explanations we have about the world, including how the brain works.

I've been following this conversation with interest but I don't yet understand whether the computer-based terminology is meant to be a useful analogy or a literal description of the brain/mind/consciousness situation. Would any of you be able to help me out here?

In your earlier quote immediately above, you argue that our working memory is not solely based on the immediate connection between self and world. In addition to this, you say our working memory can also be based upon imagination and dreams. — ucarr

What I am saying is imagination and dreams are a manifestation of the work being done in working memory. There is also the work of interpreting sensory data and one's memories, which includes imaginings and dreams, is used as a basis for interpreting sensory data. — Harry Hindu

I don't see any escape from the contradiction. In your original intention with your quote, you argued that the experience of seeing red can be interior to the mind. Through virtual seeing via the mind-supported imagination, we can lie in our bed at night and "experience" seeing red based on the neuronal memory circuits stored in our brain. Therein resides no literal red. In your later quote, you say, emphatically:

If the "I" is accessing anything, it is the world via its senses. Working memory is just a working model of the immediate environment relative to the body. — Harry Hindu

This quote says (independent of your intended meaning) working memory is an internal representation of the world. You're describing a bifurcation of sensory experience and virtual seeing. Virtual seeing is constructed from code-bearing memory for "red."

As I understand you now, you're saying: cognitively speaking, the color red is visual information stored in memory as code, and stored code is working memory.

...within the neuronal circuits of the brain wherein we interpret the specific wavelength for red, there's nothing therein that's red because the relativistic effect that supports our experience of red exists within the context of the visual field of our eyes, not within the neuronal circuits of the visual cortex of our brain. — ucarr

But we can imagine and dream of red things. So it seems to me that the color red is the form visual information takes and stored as such — Harry Hindu

When you introduce the word "information," you rocket away from the external world into the interior of the mind. No, the color red itself is not the form of visual information stored in the mind. Instead, there is electro-chemical, neuron-mediated code within the brain.

The HPoC, as I understand it, derives from the question how (or if) the brain's code for our perceptions signifies the subjective experience of perceptions by an experiencing self.

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

What form the data takes in memory is the ultimate question here. — Harry Hindu

You seem to be saying neuron circuits and electro-chemical code are an interpretation of a more fundamental level of reality populated by process, relationships or information.

As I understand this, the hard boundaries of a physical world of material things is the interpretation of an underlying reality of processes, relationships and information.

I've been following this conversation with interest but I don't yet understand whether the computer-based terminology is meant to be a useful analogy or a literal description of the brain/mind/consciousness situation. Would any of you be able to help me out here? — J

The HPoC, as I understand it, derives from the question how (or if) the brain's code for our perceptions includes the subjective experience of perceptions by an experiencing self. — ucarr

As you can see from my above quote, I think the (IT) based terminology is a useful analogy for describing brain_mind activity. In my attack upon the HPoC, I look upon the question of how and why subjectivity stands associated with the brain as an advanced level project in reiteration.

One of my central concepts is the assumption reiteration is how organic memory operates within in a brain.

Thanks, "useful analogy" seems about right to me too.

I don't see any escape from the contradiction. In your original intention with your quote, you argued that the experience of seeing red can be interior to the mind. Through virtual seeing via the mind-supported imagination, we can lie in our bed at night and "experience" seeing red based on the neuronal memory circuits stored in our brain. Therein resides no literal red. In your later quote, you say, emphatically: — ucarr

This quote says (independent of your intended meaning) working memory is an internal representation of the world. You're describing a bifurcation of sensory experience and virtual seeing. Virtual seeing is constructed from code-bearing memory for "red."

As I understand you now, you're saying: cognitively speaking, the color red is visual information stored in memory as code, and stored code is working memory. — ucarr

First, I have deliberately tried to steer away from using terms like, "internal" and "external", as this just adds to the confusion by incorporating dualism. So whatever you interpreted from what I said, I never implied that the mind is internal and the world external. Instead of saying that working memory is an "internal" representation of the world, we say it is a working representation of the world. We could say the same thing about dreams. They are a working representation of the world, just an incorrect interpretation, no different than a waking hallucination is an incorrect working representation of the world. It is incorrect because we are incorrectly interpreting the red we experience as being a product of our senses' interaction with the world when they are actually another working model. We can have multiple working models going on at once. For instance, I could be seeing the world, but also modeling a future world (a prediction) at the same time. In fact, this is how we learn - by observing the world as it is now and then modeling a potential future and the path to take from how things are observed now to how you want things to be. Dreams are just a model of the second type without the world, which is why we end up confusing it with the real world.

Maybe we should talk in terms of experiences only and then assign seeing and imagining to types of experiences, so it is redundant to say things like "experience seeing". We don't experience seeing when asleep. We dream, which is a type of experience, and a different experience than seeing.

When you introduce the word "information," you rocket away from the external world into the interior of the mind. No, the color red itself is not the form of visual information stored in the mind. Instead, there is electro-chemical, neuron-mediated code within the brain.

The HPoC, as I understand it, derives from the question how (or if) the brain's code for our perceptions signifies the subjective experience of perceptions by an experiencing self. — ucarr

Again, I do not think that using terms like, "internal" and "external" is helpful here. The information in a computer is part of the "external" world, so I don't understand what you mean by rocketing "away from the external world into the interior of the mind".

You keep forgetting the first step and that is that any time you talk of electro-chemical, neuron-mediated code, you are only talking about how it all appears in your GUI. Neurologists describe the brain as "grey matter". Is the electro-chemical, neuron-mediated code within the brain grey?

A computer can process data from input (via its "senses" (keyboard, mouse, scanner, microphone, camera, etc), and in processing the data it can produce new information. This information can then be stored or used immediately for some output (action by displaying something on the screen, printing, producing sound from the speakers, etc.) The information in the computer is not the information that it received through it's input. It can even recall the processed information stored to process further without any access to the world, meaning that the information it is working with stored information instead of information received via some input. This isn't much different from how we can have a working model of the world and other kinds of working models going on in the form of predictions, imaginings and dreams.

Instead of saying that working memory is an "internal" representation of the world, we say it is a working representation of the world. We could say the same thing about dreams. They are a working representation of the world, — Harry Hindu

Where does this working representation of the world occur? Is it discoverable by science? Which scientific discipline would we expect to discover and describe it? What would count as falsifying this theory?

I've been following this conversation with interest but I don't yet understand whether the computer-based terminology is meant to be a useful analogy or a literal description of the brain/mind/consciousness situation. Would any of you be able to help me out here? — J

Maybe a bit of both. When you, or computer scientists, talk about how a computer works we can't help but use the mentalistic terms to describe the behavior of the computer. We can't help but use terms like "know", "thinks", "understand", "trying", "learns", "communicate", etc. to describe what the computer is doing. Some might say that this is all loose talk and the machines aren't really understanding or trying anything, but computer scientists use these terms and aren't they authorities in this field? A better explanation is that computation has finally demystified mentalistic terms. Beliefs are information in memory, desires are goals, thinking is computation, perceptions are information triggered by sensors, trying is executing functions triggered by a goal. Instead of being hunks of metal, our brains are hunks of organic tissue, but still function like a computer in processing information for some goal.

Where does this working representation of the world occur? Is it discoverable by science? Which scientific discipline would we expect to discover and describe it? What would count as falsifying this theory? — J

I think this working model is somewhere in the brain, or maybe what the entire brain does rather than just part of it. A first step would be to isolate (if it's not something that the brain as a whole does), how or where sensory information from all senses come together (as the mind is amalgam of the information from all five senses at once) from which the model is constructed. I would think a combination of neurology and quantum physics would be applicable here, maybe some new field being a merging of the two. As for falsification, I think we would need to first determine how we can falsify the various interpretations in quantum mechanics to begin to think about how what I am proposing could be falsified.

So whatever you interpreted from what I said, I never implied that the mind is internal and the world external. — Harry Hindu

Are you telling me it's generally true the mind and the world have no internal/external relationship? On the other hand, are you instead telling me the mind and the world have no internal/external relationship within the limited context of our two-person dialogue without generalizing further?

Instead of saying that working memory is an "internal" representation of the world, we say it is a working representation of the world. — Harry Hindu

Does working memory have a temporal_spatial location, or is that irrelevant?

We could say the same thing about dreams. They are a working representation of the world, just an incorrect interpretation, no different than a waking hallucination is an incorrect working representation of the world. — Harry Hindu

If a dream is a working representation of the world, and likewise a waking hallucination is a working representation of the world, why are they in some sense incorrect? In the context of your post overall, I'm getting the impression that dreams, hallucinations and socially verified perceptions are distinct types of working representations. How is it that some of them can be incorrect?

They are a working representation of the world, just an incorrect interpretation, no different than a waking hallucination is an incorrect working representation of the world. It is incorrect because we are incorrectly interpreting the red we experience as being a product of our senses' interaction with the world when they are actually another working model. — Harry Hindu

Are you saying the red we experience is just our interaction with more information labeled as “working model”? If this is so, does it follow that there is no translation from observed physico_material objects (existing independently within an objective world) into information in a form compatible with our brain?

We don't experience seeing when asleep. — Harry Hindu

Are you saying there's no parallel between seeing a red stop sign while driving a car and seeing a red stop sign while dreaming?

The information in a computer is part of the "external" world, so I don't understand what you mean by rocketing "away from the external world into the interior of the mind". — Harry Hindu

As you say in your response here:

Maybe we should talk in terms of experiences only and then assign seeing and imagining to types of experiences... — Harry Hindu

So, you're saying we're always interacting with one or more types of information systems, and, speaking generally, this is what the world is like?

You keep forgetting the first step and that is that any time you talk of... code, you are only talking about how it all appears in your GUI. — Harry Hindu

When I talk of code, I'm accessing the GUI-constructed resultant of my neuronal activity?

The information in the computer is not the information that it received through it's input. It can even recall the processed information stored to process further without any access to the world, meaning that the information it is working with stored information instead of information received via some input. — Harry Hindu

In my attempt to understand what you've written immediately above, here's my paraphrase:

The information in the computer is not the information it received through its input. What's in the computer can recall its stored information for further processing without accessing the world. This means the information within the computer works with its own memory instead of working with information received from an input.

This isn't much different from how we can have a working model of the world and other kinds of working models going on in the form of predictions, imaginings and dreams. — Harry Hindu

So, working representations cover a range of types including: the world, predictions of future worlds, imaginings and dreams?

Some might say that this is all loose talk and the machines aren't really understanding or trying anything, but computer scientists use these terms and they authorities in this field? A better explanation is that computation has finally demystified mentalistic terms. — Harry Hindu

This is ingenious, but I see two problems. First, computer scientists are not authorities at all in the fields of linguistics or philosophy -- indeed, in my experience, they often have no interest in these fields. Their use of mentalistic terms about machines is as likely to be loose talk as anyone else's. Second, computation has if anything intensified the mystifying aspects of mentalistic terms. Hard enough to understand how to talk sensibly about human beliefs, desires, thoughts, and perceptions! but now we're also supposed to attribute physical or information-based versions of these states to a computer? Now that's mystifying.

I think this working model is somewhere in the brain, — Harry Hindu

With all respect, surely this is what "internal" is meant to refer to. Why deny that it's different from "external," i.e., not somewhere in the brain?

A first step would be to isolate (if it's not something that the brain as a whole does), how or where sensory information from all senses come together (as the mind is amalgam of the information from all five senses at once) from which the model is constructed. — Harry Hindu

This is reasonable, but if we succeed in doing this, what is the second step? What do you imagine could come next, scientifically? This is a serious question -- in fact, the question of the HPoC. We have to picture some way of explaining the mental with relation to the physical; finding the place in the brain that hosts or constructs the "model" merely sets the stage for this explanation by restating the problem.

A first step would be to isolate (if it's not something that the brain as a whole does), how or where sensory information from all senses come together (as the mind is amalgam of the information from all five senses at once) from which the model is constructed.
— Harry Hindu — J

No such faculty. This is the problem of the subjective unity of experience which currently escapes scientific definition.

the problem of the subjective unity of experience which currently escapes scientific definition. — Wayfarer

Yes, another way of stating the problem I was raising. No matter how much information we end up with about the brain, we still need to know how and why it gives rise to consciousness, one vital aspect of which is "the subjective unity of experience." I think we will solve the HPoC eventually, but so far we aren't even close. Meanwhile, too many philosophers are overoptimistic that brain-knowledge will somehow "just be the same thing" as knowledge about the mind.

This is ingenious, but I see two problems. First, computer scientists are not authorities at all in the fields of linguistics or philosophy -- indeed, in my experience, they often have no interest in these fields. Their use of mentalistic terms about machines is as likely to be loose talk as anyone else's. Second, computation has if anything intensified the mystifying aspects of mentalistic terms. Hard enough to understand how to talk sensibly about human beliefs, desires, thoughts, and perceptions! but now we're also supposed to attribute physical or information-based versions of these states to a computer? Now that's mystifying. — J

Are you saying that philosophers should be telling the computer scientist how the computer works? Who do you call when your computer does not work - a linguist, philosopher or a computer tech?
Does this apply to all fields, where linguists and philosophers should be telling evolutionary psychologists, neurologists, quantum physicists, etc. how they should talk about their own fields?

From my experience philosophers are the ones that engage in lose talk. They use these terms without having defined them. What does it mean to know, believe, understand or to try? What does one mean by subjective and objective, direct and indirect, etc.? From my experience many philosophical problems are the result of a misuse of language.

With all respect, surely this is what "internal" is meant to refer to. Why deny that it's different from "external," i.e., not somewhere in the brain? — J

Then why can't you open the brain and point out where the mind is? I also said that it is possible that the mind is what the entire brain does, not just some internal part of it. What do you mean by "internal" and "external" in this respect? Do you mean the same thing as your birthday present being internal to the box with the wrapping paper and bow? If so, then why can't we open the brain to see the mind like we can open the box and see your present? It seems to me that using terms like "internal", "external", "subjective" and "objective" is evidence of your dualistic thinking making it more difficult to solve the problem.

This is reasonable, but if we succeed in doing this, what is the second step? What do you imagine could come next, scientifically? This is a serious question -- in fact, the question of the HPoC. We have to picture some way of explaining the mental with relation to the physical; finding the place in the brain that hosts or constructs the "model" merely sets the stage for this explanation by restating the problem. — J

This is why I said that we need to reconcile the contradictory aspects of quantum mechanics and classical physics. In doing so we would solve the observer and measurement problems and those solutions would pave the way to solving the HPoC.

I believe that part of the problem is continuing to look at this problem from a dualistic standpoint. It is dualism that creates the distinction between mind and world as being internal/external, non-physical/physical, etc. The very first step would be to abandon this mindset and the terms that stem from it. We also need to clearly define the words we are using.

What does it mean to be "subjective"? Does it not have to do with a view from somewhere as opposed to a view from nowhere / everywhere? In this sense does subjective really just mean how the information in your mind is presented, the form it takes? How else would you present information about the world relative to your position in space-time? If I were to write a story from my perspective the story would contain information about the world relative to my position within it. If the computer contained information about the world relative to it's position in space-time would the information in the computer be subjective? If the computer contained information about the world that did not include it's position in space-time would that be objective information in the computer? Is the contents of your mind subjective when I can read the contents of your mind on my computer screen? Are your feelings subjective if you can report them and if others that know you can talk about how you feel accurately? If they said you were sad and you did feel sad, what exactly is missing?

Are you telling me it's generally true the mind and the world have no internal/external relationship? On the other hand, are you instead telling me the mind and the world have no internal/external relationship within the limited context of our two-person dialogue without generalizing further? — ucarr

What do you mean by your use of the words, "internal/external"? Are you using them in the same sense that the dog is internal to the dog house? If so, then why can we look in the dog house and see the dog but not look in the brain and see the mind? What if the mind is what the whole brain does, and not what some internal part of the brain does? How did the contents of my mind get on your computer screen for you to read? How did the contents of your mind get on my computer screen for me to read? Are the contents of your mind inside my computer?

Does working memory have a temporal_spatial location, or is that irrelevant? — ucarr

If it does, I'm not sure when-where it would be. The contents of working memory is about a specific temporal_spatial location, namely you and your immediate environment. It is a relationship between you and your environment. Does that mean the the relationship exists somewhere between you and the environment, or in some other dimension beyond the four we are aware of? Are the four dimensions just mental representations of the relations between objects, causes and their effects? I am humble enough to say that I just don't know the answer to these questions. All I do know is that dualistic thinking, and the terms that go along with them (internal/external, physical/non-physical), causes more problems than it solves.

If a dream is a working representation of the world, and likewise a waking hallucination is a working representation of the world, why are they in some sense incorrect? In the context of your post overall, I'm getting the impression that dreams, hallucinations and socially verified perceptions are distinct types of working representations. How is it that some of them can be incorrect? — ucarr

Because when we compare them to our actual observations of the world, we find that they are not the case. But what about predictions? Predictions are a working model of a future state of the world. They can be correct or incorrect in how one works to achieve them. Just as we can make our predictions come true, we can make our dreams come true.

Are you saying the red we experience is just our interaction with more information labeled as “working model”? If this is so, does it follow that there is no translation from observed physico_material objects (existing independently within an objective world) into information in a form compatible with our brain? — ucarr

I think about information as the relationship between cause and effect. Effects carry information about their causes. We are informed about the state of the world by the effect it has on our mind. We might misinterpret some percepts, but over time we can work those out by making more observations and making logical sense of these multiple observations as in the way we solve the mirage problem. We no longer interpret what we see as a pool of water thanks to multiple observations made over time and applying logic, yet we still see it as such. We now know that a mirage is really caused by the behavior of light and we can now predict when we will see one. So there is still some translation being done as we can only experience the effect and get at the causes by translating the effect (which means making multiple observations over time and using logic).

Are you saying there's no parallel between seeing a red stop sign while driving a car and seeing a red stop sign while dreaming? — ucarr

It comes down to the causal relationship and how we might interpret the effects to get at the causes. While dreaming, we interpret the experience of a red stop sign as seeing a red stop sign. When we wake up (and thereby make another observation), we interpret the experience as a dream, not as an actual experience of seeing. We can now predict that when we go to sleep we will experience the illusion of seeing a red stop sign.

So, you're saying we're always interacting with one or more types of information systems, and, speaking generally, this is what the world is like? — ucarr

Not what the world is like, but what the mind is like, and the mind is part of the world. This is why I don't like seeing someone confuse the mind with the world, as if the mind and the world are the same thing. They are not. The mind is part of the world and part of the causal chain that everything else is part of. Apples, chairs, trees, mountains, planets and stars are all information in that they are all effects of prior causes and causes of subsequent effects. Minds are not special in this regard.

When I talk of code, I'm accessing the GUI-constructed resultant of my neuronal activity? — ucarr

You're talking about how the information is structured and presented as your GUI. You can only talk neuronal activity as it is presented and structured as your GUI. You are confusing the GUI with what it represents when you use terms like "physical". The world is not physical. It is presented as physical by the way your GUI represents it. For you to think of anything, you have to create objects of thought and your objects of thought have boundaries that don't exactly line up with the "boundaries" in the world. This is why we have trouble with defining the boundaries of what it is to be a human or a planet, and find ourselves adjusting our definitions of objects

In my attempt to understand what you've written immediately above, here's my paraphrase:

The information in the computer is not the information it received through its input. What's in the computer can recall its stored information for further processing without accessing the world. This means the information within the computer works with its own memory instead of working with information received from an input. — ucarr

What I was attempting to do is to show how what a computer does is not much different from what we do. We, and the computer, can acquire new information by observation and by logic. We take in new information via our inputs and we can manipulate the information to come up with new information by applying deductive and indictive reasoning. If we allowed the computer to take in some input and then use that information as input to a deductive or inductive process, we end up with new information. The question then becomes, does the new information apply to the world (you might ask, "is the information correct or incorrect?")? If the new information is useful in the world, and it allows you to make predictions of new experiences then it is correct, if not, then it is incorrect.

Dreams are simply taking the information we have stored and that we acquired via our inputs, and creating a model of the world, not much different than making a prediction when awake. It's just that in the moment of the dream, we misinterpret what we are experiencing and confuse the prediction or imagining with the world, precisely because our access to the world is extremely limited and we are unable to ground ourselves to understand the difference. It is only when we are awake that we can make the distinction because we now have access to the world and it does not follow from what we experienced when we were dreaming. When we wake up, we wake up to the same world. When dreaming we find ourselves in a different "world" each time.

So, working representations cover a range of types including: the world, predictions of future worlds, imaginings and dreams? — ucarr

Yes. You could even say that an effect is a representation of its causes. A chair is representative of all the processes that went into making it. A crime scene is representative of the crime that was committed and the one that committed it. This is what I mean when I say that everything is a relationship, process or information. If you like, we can say that everything is a relational information process.

.

What do you mean by your use of the words, "internal/external"? Are you using them in the same sense that the dog is internal to the dog house? — Harry Hindu

Let me make a beginning to my response by asking if dog_doghouse and mind_brain are two duos forming a true parallel. Dog_doghouse is a relationship between two things not connected. No one claims the dog was caused by the doghouse. Mind_brain is a relationship between two things connected. Because some say the mind is caused by the brain, and some say the mind is independent of the brain, there is an issue in debate about which claim is true.

If so, then why can we look in the dog house and see the dog but not look in the brain and see the mind? — Harry Hindu

Tentatively following through on what I say above, the answer is that the two duos are not parallel.

Additional thought – Whether or not the mind is inside of the brain might also be a sticking point in your contextualization of internal/external. If, as some claim, the mind is immaterial, then it is not inside of the brain, nor is it inside of any other material thing.

The lack of dimensional extension of immaterial things is one of the difficulties with connecting them to material things. Following from this, obviously, the claim an immaterial mind is connected to a material brain posits a very hard theory to prove. On the other hand, we know it’s true that “no brain, no mind.” On the surface of things, the theory claiming mind is either: a) identical to brain, or b) emergent from brain presents as much easier to argue.

If immaterial things exist dimensionless, then there’s the strong suggestion inside/outside, being dimensional properties, have no meaning for them. If this is the case, then we have to try to answer the difficult question: Where are they? Can an existing thing exist nowhere?

What if the mind is what the whole brain does, and not what some internal part of the brain does? — Harry Hindu

From neuroscience we know that certain parts of the brain do things made use of by the mind. For example, the visual cortex, which is the part of the cerebral cortex that receives and processes sensory nerve impulses from the eyes, produces memorizable visual images essential to the mind's imaginative activity.

How did the contents of my mind get on your computer screen for you to read? How did the contents of your mind get on my computer screen for me to read? Are the contents of your mind inside my computer? — Harry Hindu

We know our communication depends upon representation that, in turn, gets manipulated by our computers.

Are the four dimensions just mental representations of the relations between objects, causes and their effects? — Harry Hindu

You say:

The contents of working memory is about a specific temporal_spatial location, namely you and your immediate environment. It is a relationship between you and your environment. — Harry Hindu

Your use of the preposition "between" evidences the fact we cannot make sense in thinking or writing about navigating and experiencing our material world without separations across spacetime and, conversely, connections across spacetime. Self and environment and living seem to entail necessary binaries.

I'm getting the impression that dreams, hallucinations and socially verified perceptions are distinct types of working representations. How is it that some of them can be incorrect? — ucarr

Because when we compare them to our actual observations of the world, we find that they are not the case. — Harry Hindu

Haven't you been arguing that "our actual observations of the world," like dreams and hallucinations, are just another type of information system, i.e., just another working representation no more a literal transcription from an objective reality than are dreams and hallucinations?

Haven't you, as evidenced via my paraphrasing of your language above, been implying Kant is correct in asserting there is a noumenal world of things-in-themselves, presumably objective, that's inaccessible to our necessarily representative translations thereof via the senses_the brain_the mind?

Haven't you been using this argument to support the argument denying an inside/outside duality?

Haven't you been implying that a network of information systems is our insuperable environment?

Haven't you, through the above stages of argumentation, been arguing generally that the "map is not the territory," an argument rooted within Kant's noumena?

I think about information as the relationship between cause and effect. Effects carry information about their causes. We are informed about the state of the world by the effect it has on our mind. We might misinterpret some percepts, but over time we can work those out by making more observations and making logical sense of these multiple observations as in the way we solve the mirage problem. — Harry Hindu

Does what you say imply there exists within the world objective states of a system rooting representations thereof within facts? If so, can we designate these objective states of a system as radiant facts transmitted to our understanding via representations? If so, does this radiant transmission of objectivity evidence information as an energetic, mass-to-mass alteration of form across spacetime?

I'm asking if causality is a physico_material phenomenon. This question is important because it spotlights whether spacetime is an active agent of consciousness as a physical phenomenon. Going forward with the presumption it is, we can conjecture that consciousness, the boundary administrator, parses reality via a set of formatting functions that includes causal changes that assemble the timeline. So, time, like space and consciousness, is a physico_material phenomenon.

Consciousness, as the boundary administrator formatting and thereby constructing the timeline of events making up the history of the cosmos, makes a close approach to mind as the fundamental thing in existence.

When we wake up (and thereby make another observation), we interpret the experience as a dream, not as an actual experience of seeing. — Harry Hindu

R.E.M. sleep is the stage of sleep where most dreams happen. This fact makes me resistant to the claim dreaming of a red stop sign is unambiguously distinct from wakefully seeing a stop sign.

So, you're saying we're always interacting with one or more types of information systems, and, speaking generally, this is what the world is like? — ucarr

The mind is part of the world and part of the causal chain that everything else is part of. Apples, chairs, trees, mountains, planets and stars are all information in that they are all effects of prior causes and causes of subsequent effects. Minds are not special in this regard. — Harry Hindu

I think your underlined claims support rather than refute the correctness of the conclusion of my quoted question. That you think the mind is just another information system additionally reenforces the correctness of my conclusion.

What does it mean to be "subjective"? Does it not have to do with a view from somewhere as opposed to a view from nowhere / everywhere? — Harry Hindu

I would say no. I believe "subjective" means "a view that someone, some viewing entity has from somewhere," so "to be subjective" means "to be an entity that has such a view." Leaving out the "someone" allows you speak about "a view," as if the view is kind of hanging around. But this is impossible -- a view requires a viewer. Hence subjectivity is crucially about the person who has the view. Or not to beg the question -- if it could be shown that a computer was an entity that could have a view, then it would be a candidate for subjectivity.

To anticipate a possible objection: All kinds of things can be viewed from a computer's point of view, but that's not what we're talking about. The viewer in such cases is me or you, seeing things from the computer's PoV. I'm arguing that the computer per se has no views at all -- it isn't the sort of thing that can have such an experience.

You're talking about how the information is structured and presented as your GUI. — Harry Hindu

Here we have to be careful to avoid, or account for, infinite regress, or should it be described as infinite recursion? Picture (whether dreaming or awake) the infinite recursion of the images within two facing mirrors. I'm now sensing you're traveling down this road. In the absence of an objective physico_material object with at least semi-discrete boundaries, the experiencing sentient becomes lost within a realm of endless cognitive echoes. Within this realm, the question: Where am I? becomes the harbinger of an ordeal.

As sentients in bodies, we need the hard boundaries of physico_material objects to anchor us to a definitive position within the otherwise infinitely fluid spacetime.

No cognition without attendant physics.

You are confusing the GUI with what it represents when you use terms like "physical". The world is not physical. It is presented as physical by the way your GUI represents it. — Harry Hindu

You claim "physicality" is a presentation from a representation of the world via GUI. In that case, the presentation is also a representation. So, if: "Talking about how the information is structured and presented as your GUI." is not connected to an independent physical reality of electronic circuits inside the computer, but instead is a representation of a physical world contructed by a GUI, then we have two representations facing each other creating the "images-within-facing-mirrors-infinite recursion effect."

This looks to me like the realm of infinite echoes.

For you to think of anything, you have to create objects of thought and your objects of thought have boundaries that don't exactly line up with the "boundaries" in the world. — Harry Hindu

Since it says there's a discrepancy between thought boundaries and world boundaries, sentence implies that "boundaries" of the world are independent from "boundaries" of thought. This appears to contradict the claim: "The world is not physical."

If we allowed the computer to take in some input and then use that information as input to a deductive or inductive process, we end up with new information. The question then becomes, does the new information apply to the world (you might ask, "is the information correct or incorrect?")? — Harry Hindu

If the deductive information is a logically correct derivative of the input information about the world, then barring emergence and supervenience, we know from the transitive property that it is also pertinent to the world, since its source is pertinent to the world.

It's just that in the moment of the dream, we misinterpret what we are experiencing and confuse the prediction or imagining with the world... — Harry Hindu

To the extent the dreaming experience is recognizable as waking experience, and thus can be conflated with it, the dreaming experience is not different from the waking experience.

You could even say that an effect is a representation of its causes. A chair is representative of all the processes that went into making it. — Harry Hindu

To the extent that an effect is not a simulation of its cause, it's not a representation of its cause. For an example: a chair is not a simulation of the process that made it. We can propound this argument by claiming the oakwood chair that derives from an oak tree is not the oak tree, nor is it a simulation of it.

Causal relationships are about transformation, not simulation.

Are you saying that philosophers should be telling the computer scientist how the computer works? — Harry Hindu

No, but I am saying that we have every right to criticize computer scientists' language when they begin to talk about other things besides computers and science -- such as "knowledge," "thinking," "understanding," et al. The analogy would be no different for a biologist: I wouldn't dream of telling them how DNA works, but if they began using expressions like "the organism knows" or "the cells are trying to . . . " and that sort of thing, I would certainly protest. This also comes up constantly in talk about evolution.

(And I'm not saying that we philosophers aren't guilty of this kind of loose talk too. We certainly are, but we ought to be better on our guard than most, since questions of language loom so large in our concept of what we do.)

What do you mean by "internal" and "external" in this respect? — Harry Hindu

We seem to be getting a little muddled between two different questions. One is, "Is there a place for dualistic thinking in metaphysics?" The other is, "What do we mean when we use 'internal' to describe a feeling or a thought, or the mind itself?" To the first, I'm saying, "You yourself don't seem able to do without dualistic concepts when you talk about this, so perhaps this sort of dualism is important in talking about metaphysics." A statement like "I think this working model is somewhere in the brain" can have no meaning unless it's opposed to "I think this working model is not somewhere in the brain." So the dualism of "in/not in" (internal/external) seems important to what you want to say.

The second question is more complex, because there's likely not a single usage of "internal" when it comes to mentalistic terms -- it may be meant literally, metaphorically, or somewhere quite vague. Your riposte shows this nicely: In one sense, it seems absolutely true to me that mental paraphernalia are internal to the brain, by virtue of direct supervenience. But in another sense, we certainly can't take a scalpel to the brain and locate "the mind," or any single mental event. In that sense, "internal" isn't the right word. I think a good response here would be to say, "Fine, let's not get hung up on language choices which may not satisfy everyone. I'm happy to consider using your terminology -- what would it be? How would you prefer to distinguish the 'location' of a mind so that we can talk meaningfully about its supervenience on my brain and not on, say, the tree in my front yard?"

What does it mean to be "subjective"? Does it not have to do with a view from somewhere as opposed to a view from nowhere / everywhere?
— Harry Hindu

I would say no. I believe "subjective" means "a view that someone, some viewing entity has from somewhere," so "to be subjective" means "to be an entity that has such a view." Leaving out the "someone" allows you speak about "a view," as if the view is kind of hanging around. But this is impossible -- a view requires a viewer. Hence subjectivity is crucially about the person who has the view. Or not to beg the question -- if it could be shown that a computer was an entity that could have a view, then it would be a candidate for subjectivity. — J

How did you come to the conclusion that I did not imply that a view from somewhere isn't a view from somewhere, as in where someone is standing? If it is a view from somewhere, how could you imply that I meant that it is just hanging around, and not hanging around somewhere? Your version is the same as my version, just redundant.

To anticipate a possible objection: All kinds of things can be viewed from a computer's point of view, but that's not what we're talking about. The viewer in such cases is me or you, seeing things from the computer's PoV. I'm arguing that the computer per se has no views at all -- it isn't the sort of thing that can have such an experience. — J

Add cameras for eyes, microphones for ears and tactile sensors to be aware of objects in direct contact, to the computer. The manner in which the information is structured in your mind, or the computer's working memory, would be representative of the world relative to an entity's location within it. It makes no sense to program a human or computer to navigate its environment with information about the world that is not related to its own position within it.

No, but I am saying that we have every right to criticize computer scientists' language when they begin to talk about other things besides computers and science -- such as "knowledge," "thinking," "understanding," et al. The analogy would be no different for a biologist: I wouldn't dream of telling them how DNA works, but if they began using expressions like "the organism knows" or "the cells are trying to . . . " and that sort of thing, I would certainly protest. This also comes up constantly in talk about evolution.

(And I'm not saying that we philosophers aren't guilty of this kind of loose talk too. We certainly are, but we ought to be better on our guard than most, since questions of language loom so large in our concept of what we do.) — J

Exactly. This is why I asked what you mean by the words, "understanding", "trying" and "knowing". You can only say that the computer scientist and biologist is wrong in their usage when you have clearly defined the words themselves. That has yet to be done here.

We seem to be getting a little muddled between two different questions. One is, "Is there a place for dualistic thinking in metaphysics?" The other is, "What do we mean when we use 'internal' to describe a feeling or a thought, or the mind itself?" To the first, I'm saying, "You yourself don't seem able to do without dualistic concepts when you talk about this, so perhaps this sort of dualism is important in talking about metaphysics." A statement like "I think this working model is somewhere in the brain" can have no meaning unless it's opposed to "I think this working model is not somewhere in the brain." So the dualism of "in/not in" (internal/external) seems important to what you want to say.

The second question is more complex, because there's likely not a single usage of "internal" when it comes to mentalistic terms -- it may be meant literally, metaphorically, or somewhere quite vague. Your riposte shows this nicely: In one sense, it seems absolutely true to me that mental paraphernalia are internal to the brain, by virtue of direct supervenience. But in another sense, we certainly can't take a scalpel to the brain and locate "the mind," or any single mental event. In that sense, "internal" isn't the right word. I think a good response here would be to say, "Fine, let's not get hung up on language choices which may not satisfy everyone. I'm happy to consider using your terminology -- what would it be? How would you prefer to distinguish the 'location' of a mind so that we can talk meaningfully about its supervenience on my brain and not on, say, the tree in my front yard?" — J

Go back and read what I have said. I have clearly steered away from using dualistic terms like "internal/external", "material/immaterial", "direct/indirect", "subjective/objective" precisely because they get things muddled. I have rarely, if ever, used those terms to describe my point of view. They may have been used by me in simply asking what you mean by your use of them, not mine. I asked you what you meant when you used the words, "internal/external". So what do you mean by saying that the mind is internal to the brain if not in the same way we use those terms for other things like birthday presents in boxes with bows?

What I am asserting is that your experience of a brain is a representation of what is there, not an object that we see as it is and that contains something that we cannot see. As such there is no internal/external relationship, only a cause and effect relationship.

Let me make a beginning to my response by asking if dog_doghouse and mind_brain are two duos forming a true parallel. Dog_doghouse is a relationship between two things not connected. No one claims the dog was caused by the doghouse. Mind_brain is a relationship between two things connected. Because some say the mind is caused by the brain, and some say the mind is independent of the brain, there is an issue in debate about which claim is true. — ucarr

YOU are the one using the terms "internal/external". I'm asking you what YOU mean by those terms. If you are saying that the mind is caused by the brain, then that is not an internal/external relationship. It is a causal relationship. So what do YOU mean by saying that the mind is internal to the brain if you do not mean the same thing as the relationship between the dog and doghouse?

Additional thought – Whether or not the mind is inside of the brain might also be a sticking point in your contextualization of internal/external. If, as some claim, the mind is immaterial, then it is not inside of the brain, nor is it inside of any other material thing.

The lack of dimensional extension of immaterial things is one of the difficulties with connecting them to material things. Following from this, obviously, the claim an immaterial mind is connected to a material brain makes posits a very hard theory to prove. On the other hand, we know it’s true that “no brain, no mind.” On the surface of things, the theory claiming mind is either: a) identical to brain, or b) emergent from brain presents as much easier to argue.

If immaterial things exist dimensionless, then there’s the strong suggestion inside/outside, being dimensional properties, have no meaning for them. If this is the case, then we have to try to answer the difficult question: Where are they? Can an existing thing exist nowhere? — ucarr

Then you are agreeing with me that using terms like "internal" and "external" are not helpful here and actually make understanding the distinction more difficult. Now let me say the same thing about "immaterial" and "material". You keep making the same mistake by incorporating dualism into the conversation. What does it mean for something to be immaterial or material? How does one get at the material nature of the world via a dimensionless, immaterial GUI?

What does it mean to say that there is a lack of dimensional extension of immaterial things? If there is a lack of dimensional extension to the mind, then you seem to be saying that the mind is the world (ie solipsism). Realism is the idea that there is a dimensional extension to the mind as things happen in the world that are outside of the mind, in that they are not present in the mind but present in the world. Where does your long term memories exist when they are not present in your mind? You cannot access all of your long-term memories at once but you can recall them from somewhere. From where are they recalled if there is no dimension to the mind?

One could argue that the dimensional aspect of material things is a product of your GUI, in the way the information is structured in your GIU, not of the world.

From neuroscience we know that certain parts of the brain do things made use of by the mind. For example, the visual cortex, which is the part of the cerebral cortex that receives and processes sensory nerve impulses from the eyes, produces memorizable visual images essential to the mind's imaginative activity. — ucarr

This is only vision but I have four other senses that come together with vision in my mind. Where do they all come together in the information structure we call the mind, or the GUI? If you can't point to a specific structure in the brain where all the sensory information comes together, then maybe it is what the entire brain does, not what part of it does, that is the mind.

We know our communication depends upon representation that, in turn, gets manipulated by our computers. — ucarr

Exactly. The scribbles on my screen represent your ideas in your mind via causation. I can get at the thoughts in your head by correctly interpreting the causal relationship between the scribbles I see on the screen and the thoughts in your mind.

Your use of the preposition "between" evidences the fact we cannot make sense in thinking or writing about navigating and experiencing our material world without separations across spacetime and, conversely, connections across spacetime. Self and environment and living seem to entail necessary binaries. — ucarr

I'm not sure I am understanding what you are saying here. I would need you to rephrase. If you are saying what I think you are, then I would just say that self and environment are themselves relationships and processes. Try pointing to the boundaries of each and see if you can succeed. Everything is a relationship. Bodies are relationships between organs, organs are relationships between cells, cells are relationships between molecules, molecules are relationships between atoms, atoms are relationships between protons, neutrons and electrons and protons are relationships between quarks, and then we have quantum mechanics in which some interpretations imply that observations are a relationship between observer and world. Where is the material stuff you keep talking about if all we can ever point to are relationships?

Haven't you been arguing that "our actual observations of the world," like dreams and hallucinations, are just another type of information system, i.e., just another working representation no more a literal transcription from an objective reality than are dreams and hallucinations?

Haven't you, as evidenced via my paraphrasing of your language above, been implying Kant is correct in asserting there is a noumenal world of things-in-themselves, presumably objective, that's inaccessible to our necessarily representative translations thereof via the senses_the brain_the mind?

Haven't you been using this argument to support the argument denying an inside/outside duality?

Haven't you been implying that a network of information systems is our insuperable environment?

Haven't you, through the above stages of argumentation, been arguing generally that the "map is not the territory," an argument rooted within Kant's noumena? — ucarr

No, because you have to bring in what I said about information being a relationship between causes and their effects, and the way you get at the causes is by making more than one observation and using logic. Kant is the one with the problem of explaining how we don't get confused when experiencing a mirage. If what Kant said is the case then how do we ever come to understand that a mirage is not a pool of water, but an effect of the behavior of light and how it interacts with our eye-brain system? How do you come to realize your dream is not representative of the world if not by waking up into the world that you have always woken up to and where each dream is a different world, where we often forget what happened the night before in a dream, or even forget what happened in the world before you went to sleep?