From mindless mathematics to thinking meat? by Matt Visser

matt, hi,

okay. deep breath. i'm glad to see that you have taken the question raised by this essay seriously, and endeavour to question its validity - or at least, conclude that, with no definition of consciousness mind existing, it is impossible to really answer the question. i note, sadly, that i have not yet found another essay other than my own which *actually* answers the question.

with some trepidation i would like to refer you to dr alex hankey's work on the foundations of consciousness. dr alex hankey has indeed provided a formal mathematical framework in which consciousness may be explored objectively. the foundation is in an entirely new form of self-referral quantum mechanics ("QM with a twist") which he utilises to describe "Critical Instability Points" within biological and other systems.

i say trepidation because it is most unfortunate in that simply mentioning the existence of his work - and that of others who also explore this topic - it undermines the premise of your essay. i can only deeply apologise for that, and would be interested to hear your thoughts given that it *is* in fact possible to formally and mathematically describe consciousness.

Matt, when you write "the mathematics and physics communities... do not (yet) have any suitable and appropriate well-agreed-upon mathematical/physical framework to address" the issues questioned in the essay contest, you are quite right. Thought and feeling are not reducible to physics, and not attributable to mathematics. Some physicists deal with this barrier to their expertise by denying that thought and feeling even exist. But of course it takes feeling to want to concoct such a belief and thought to give it formulation.

indeed - reducto ad absurdum, logically it is clearly not the case that thoughts and feelings cannot exist, thus we may infer that any physicist which attempts to deny that fact is... well... put simply and plainly: in a pathological psychological state. there's really not much point in beating about the bush and trying to say otherwise.

james i am most reluctant to say it but i do have to protest your assertion that thought and feeling may not be described formally in mathematical notation, or that they may not be "reduced" to physics. clearly we live in a physical world therefore there *has* to be some basis and link to cognition. otherwise, why do these people keep meeting every year to discuss that and other related subjects? http://www.foundationsofmind.org/

the 2017jan27 conference in san fransisco had 17 confirmed speakers. one of the papers presented summarises the results of meetings of over *forty* physicists and biologists who discuss the application of quantum mechanics to consciousness...

why, then - or how - is it possible to conclude that the question raised by this essay is not valid or legitimate, and on what basis can the peer-reviewed work of so many notable scientists be denied? sorry to have to be the one to ask these questions.

Dear Matt,

> "I will argue, simply because we do not yet have any really good mathematical or physical theory of consciousness, that the theme of this essay contest is premature, and unlikely to lead to any resolution that would be widely accepted in the mathematics or physics communities"

That's right, at this stage we can only speculate. This is useful too: although not Popperian science, but a part that leads to hypotheses. Most of them untestable at this moment, and those that can be tested don't clarify a bit what is consciousness.

> "event horizons fail Popper falsifiability, while apparent/trapping horizons are perfectly acceptable science in Popper's sense"

You are right about event and apparent horizons, and I admire Hawking for being willing to give up ideas he previously endorsed with enthusiasm. I guess that many physicists who were bothered with the apparent information loss in black holes considered the horizon as local, apparent, and gave little weight to the teleological definition, although this one is the right one. Or perhaps they didn't ignore it, but the timelessness of the block world view made the involved teleology appear OK.

Regarding the wavefunction collapse, I agree again with the insufficiency of decoherence and various interpretations of QM is well supported. But I think teleology is not present only in Wigner-like interpretations. I think any attempt to a realistic interpretation, if it has to account for nonlocality and especially contextuality, has to be teleological. Elements of reality, whatever they are, have to be nonlocal both in space and time. Of course, I wouldn't speculate that this sort of teleology explains the tiniest bit of consciousness. I just think it is unavoidable, unless we give up reality, and replace with something like qubism (although I think this still only hides it by refusing to discuss about the physical processes between measurements). But I think that relativity comes to rescue, since the block world view makes this teleology or apparent retrocausality more digestible. Only if we want the world to start with any possible initial configuration and evolve in time in such a way that we don't see Schrodinger cats and the measurements have definite outcomes, we have to include the collapse or reject reality.

Your essay is enjoyable to read and contains good arguments, which converge well to the conclusion.

Best regards,

Cristi Stoica

The Tablet of the Metalaw

Dear Matt,

"... simply because we do not yet have any really good mathematical or physical theory of consciousness, that the theme of this essay contest is premature, and unlikely to lead to any resolution that would be widely accepted in the mathematics or physics communities."

Challenge accepted ! But are you one of the rare ones who not only throw this challenge but also support the development of such a description in physics? After all, consciousness has emerged in physical systems, therefore, there must be a description of the physical world that allows it. In my encounters, I find a large section of physicists, who nip the arguments / development in the bud. Even in my inability to state it any differently from most of us who exaggerate our own claims -- I must invite you to comment on my essay, even though Brendan-San ensured that a fuller description could not appear among these essays. Of course, in this essay, I could not take the issue all the way up to actual emergence of Consciousness, but I hope, you will observe a definitive path.

Rajiv K Singh

Oh! I did not realize that you had raised the point already only a few minutes ago. I stated the same, but there may be certain unexplored paths in physics which attempts to show how information is naturally associated with states of matter, implying that information has a reality of its own.

Rajiv

Hi GW,

Yes, I do agree with your spirit of observation that complexity could allow emergence of certain characteristics, but the mechanism and phenomenon of emergence must have a description and existence of its own. I mean, it must be seen even at the elemental level, it may not require vast numbers of agents, connections, or structural detail to exhibit the phenomenon. Furthermore, brain cells are attributed with the evidence of representing simple or complex information. Again, information must have a reality of its own even at the most fundamental level. I hope, I have enticed you to critique mine.

Rajiv

Luke, no problem. We can disagree, right?

I have no problem with appreciating that consciousness is descended from "the physical." I'd actually say it is most expressive of something latent in "the physical."

I didn't say your paper was "invalid" or "illegitimate." I just disagree. Maybe I shouldn't be commenting until someone (you) have the opportunity to counter-critique. It feels like I'm sniping.

In any case, I suggest it's not a good idea to rest one's beliefs on counting the heads that agree.

Dear Matt Visser,

Please excuse me for I have no intention of disparaging in any way any part of your essay.

I merely wish to point out that "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) Physicist & Nobel Laureate.

Only nature could produce a reality so simple, a single cell amoeba could deal with it.

The real Universe must consist only of one unified visible infinite physical surface occurring in one infinite dimension, that am always illuminated by infinite non-surface light.

A more detailed explanation of natural reality can be found in my essay, SCORE ONE FOR SIMPLICITY. I do hope that you will read my essay and perhaps comment on its merit.

Joe Fisher, Realist

Nice essay Prof Visser,

Your analysis of the theme of the contest is nice... for example in the conclusion you said about your essay.... 'The theme of the essay contest implicitly appeals to consciousness (be it human or otherwise) to even define aims" or intentions", and the fact that we simply do not have a coherent physical understanding of the ontology of consciousness....'

As you have already mentioned about the event horizons of Blackholes, I hope you may have look at my essay where there are no Blackholes, no singularities, no Bigbang, yet drives the Galaxies towards some goals!

For your information Dynamic Universe model is totally based on experimental results. Here in Dynamic Universe Model Space is Space and time is time in cosmology level or in any level. In the classical general relativity, space and time are convertible in to each other.

Many papers and books on Dynamic Universe Model were published by the author on unsolved problems of present day Physics, for example 'Absolute Rest frame of reference is not necessary' (1994) , 'Multiple bending of light ray can create many images for one Galaxy: in our dynamic universe', About "SITA" simulations, 'Missing mass in Galaxy is NOT required', "New mathematics tensors without Differential and Integral equations", "Information, Reality and Relics of Cosmic Microwave Background", "Dynamic Universe Model explains the Discrepancies of Very-Long-Baseline Interferometry Observations.", in 2015 'Explaining Formation of Astronomical Jets Using Dynamic Universe Model, 'Explaining Pioneer anomaly', 'Explaining Near luminal velocities in Astronomical jets', 'Observation of super luminal neutrinos', 'Process of quenching in Galaxies due to formation of hole at the center of Galaxy, as its central densemass dries up', "Dynamic Universe Model Predicts the Trajectory of New Horizons Satellite Going to Pluto" etc., are some more papers from the Dynamic Universe model. Four Books also were published. Book1 shows Dynamic Universe Model is singularity free and body to collision free, Book 2, and Book 3 are explanation of equations of Dynamic Universe model. Book 4 deals about prediction and finding of Blue shifted Galaxies in the universe.

With axioms like... No Isotropy; No Homogeneity; No Space-time continuum; Non-uniform density of matter(Universe is lumpy); No singularities; No collisions between bodies; No Blackholes; No warm holes; No Bigbang; No repulsion between distant Galaxies; Non-empty Universe; No imaginary or negative time axis; No imaginary X, Y, Z axes; No differential and Integral Equations mathematically; No General Relativity and Model does not reduce to General Relativity on any condition; No Creation of matter like Bigbang or steady-state models; No many mini Bigbangs; No Missing Mass; No Dark matter; No Dark energy; No Bigbang generated CMB detected; No Multi-verses etc.

Many predictions of Dynamic Universe Model came true, like Blue shifted Galaxies and no dark matter. Dynamic Universe Model gave many results otherwise difficult to explain

Have a look at my essay on Dynamic Universe Model and its blog also where all my books and papers are available for free downloading...

http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.in/

Best wishes to your essay.

For your blessings please................

=snp. gupta

Dear Matt,

Very well said, I completely agree with you (although in my essay for this contest I allowed myself more freedom than I would normally do :) because I think it is a good opportunity to exchange ideas).

Best wishes,

Cristi

Dear Mat Visser

I invite you and every physicist to read my work "TIME ORIGIN,DEFINITION AND EMPIRICAL MEANING FOR PHYSICISTS, Héctor Daniel Gianni ,I'm not a physicist.

How people interested in "Time" could feel about related things to the subject.

1) Intellectuals interested in Time issues usually have a nice and creative wander for the unknown.

2) They usually enjoy this wander of their searches around it.

3) For millenniums this wander has been shared by a lot of creative people around the world.

4) What if suddenly, something considered quasi impossible to be found or discovered such as "Time" definition and experimental meaning confronts them?

5) Their reaction would be like, something unbelievable,... a kind of disappointment, probably interpreted as a loss of wander.....

6) ....worst than that, if we say that what was found or discovered wasn't a viable theory, but a proved fact.

7) Then it would become offensive to be part of the millenary problem solution, instead of being a reason for happiness and satisfaction.

8) The reader approach to the news would be paradoxically adverse.

9) Instead, I think it should be a nice welcome to discovery, to be received with opened arms and considered to be read with full attention.

11)Time "existence" is exclusive as a "measuring system", its physical existence can't be proved by science, as the "time system" is. Experimentally "time" is "movement", we can prove that, showing that with clocks we measure "constant and uniform" movement and not "the so called Time".

12)The original "time manuscript" has 23 pages, my manuscript in this contest has only 9 pages.

I share this brief with people interested in "time" and with physicists who have been in sore need of this issue for the last 50 or 60 years.

Héctor

Dear Matt Visser,

By reading your essay one just can imagine consciousness as a bundle of fields over a manifold so-called space time.

This is just imagination and fantasy because what seems clear is this :

That bundle of fields , if there existed something like this thing , would be extraordinary weak here on Earth : human beings are unable to know this sort of question because the "field of consciousness "??? , here and now is very weak. In the past , it was even weaker than now and in the future it is going to vanish. Then, there may be the possibility of traveling points ( i think they were called anunnakis and that sort of stuff , most of them just fantasy and layers of lies over lies in order to make some money by making religions ) from patches of the manifold where the field is stronger than here . Obviously these points would be only able to come here from patches with stronger values of the field and the exception would be a case like that of that film about the alien and Sigourney Weber . ... Hence, consciousness owns to the field of fantasy and imagination, it has always been this way and it will remain the same.

Congratulations for your essay , best wishes.

Matt,

Glad to see someone has taken the contrary approach to the organizer's theme. Agree that to claim a math model for sentience one must have an understanding of wavefunction collapse in the foundation of the model.

Curious re whether event horizons are or are not teleological. By the "...explanation of phenomena by the purpose they serve rather than by postulated causes" definition, you seem to ask what purpose the event horizon serves and conclude none, as it is unobservable.

What this seems to ignore is quantum gravity. What defines a quantum system is phase coherence. With wavefunction collapse amplitude info is gained but phase info is lost. Phase is the local gauge variable, not observable in a single measurement. However it may be that this does not rule out the possibility obtaining information from the event horizon via multiple measurements. See for example the work of Vaidman and Aharonov on weak measurement, and in particular some interesting recent experimental results:

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v6/133

Agree with your assertion that "there are no black holes - in the sense of regimes where light cannot escape to infinity", with the possible exception of the singularity (presuming one might take it to be a regime). The piece missing from discussions such as this is the concept of impedance matching. The point singularity has infinite inductive impedance and zero capacitive impedance. One cannot impedance match to it, so energy cannot flow to or from the singularity. However one can calculate the impedance mismatch between say an electron and the event horizon at the Planck radius. The mismatch is huge, the resulting 'photon' wavelength many times the radius of the observable universe. You can see a plot of the impedance structure of the vacuum at Planck scale in figure 10 of this paper:

http://vixra.org/abs/1701.056

Agree with your conclusion that "...we do not (yet) have any suitable and appropriate well-agreed-upon mathematical/physical framework to address these issues." However I think we might have made some small step in that direction in the essay submitted by my co-author, Michaele Suisse.

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2913

Best regards,

Pete

A good essay! It may be a little awkward to point out the problems with how this question was phrased so directly, but I don't think you can do a serious analysis without acknowledging the assumptions, vague terms, and generally poorly-defined nature of the prompt. I really wish other essays had spent more time on this, instead of diving in to their pet theories.

That said, I do think you could have moved on from acknowledging the problems with the question to defining your own terms and exploring these issues a little more. It may be true that we don't have enough knowledge of the physical brain to understand consciousness and aims; it's still useful to wonder if we could *ever* understand these in purely physical terms (at times it seemed a bit like you were assuming we could, which is not necessarily well-founded) and exploring these questions can still be interesting. If this topic is *so* premature nothing useful can be said about it, you wouldn't have written an essay at all, so you might as well go more in-depth on why it's premature and what steps we should take next instead!

Dear Prof. Visser,

I read your essay with great interest. I agree that the essay topic as stated deals with mind and consciousness, and that there are no consistent physical models that deal with these issues.

I think the missing link is the biological concept of evolutionary adaption. In evolution, random fluctuations provide the raw material, but they are filtered by the environment to select out structures that survive. Even consciousness may be an adaptive structure.

I address the issue of adaptation in my own essay, "No Ghost in the Machine". I argue that recognition of self, other agents, and a causal narrative are built into specific evolved brain structures, based on neural networks, which create a sense of consciousness as part of a dynamic model of the environment. The reason that this is such a difficult problem is that we are being misled by the subjective perceptions of our own minds. I further suggest that similar structures may be emulated in developing true artificial intelligence.

Alan Kadin