Dear Marc Seguin,
I must confess that your essay is one of the most provocative ones in this contest, there are a few others as well, one in particular by Weckbach. Your statements are in double quotes below.
I see infinity lingering in several expressions, such as: "the MUH implies an infinite multiverse that contains every possible physical reality and generates every possible conscious experience.", "Infinite Set of All Abstract Computation (ISAAC)" etc. Infinity as a concept helps in many awkward situations while constructing such theories as you attempt. But infinite number of any reality, or object, even infinite computations (running in parallel), that is expected to be realized or realizable, places the argument in serious jeopardy. And I am not talking only about lack of our mental abilities to conceive them. As we know, even values like sum of all integers, or even sum of infinite sequences of 1, and -1, can result in indeterminate territory, depending on how we arrange them. Constructing a mathematical argument leading to indeterminate contexts, and leaving at that does not pose a problem. But as I said, if that is expected to be realized in any manner, I do not know how one can get around such conceptual vacuity in reality. Moreover, the moment we allow indeterminism of any kind at any level, mathematics loses its absolute position to be the most fundamental cause of everything.
One may arrive at this conclusion in several other ways. In brief, an universe based entirely on absolute determinism of mathematics cannot come into existence, since a deterministic universe allows back tracing, and at no point of time an universe could emerge from null reality. On the other hand, if it always existed, then the definition of eternity demands that there could be nothing that has not happened in the past. Such an universe could only be cyclic or non-deterministic. The moment we accept indeterminacy in the consequence, mathematics gets displaced from being the ultimate cause of all reality.
A computation necessarily means processing of information. Information and even processing (computation) requires a physical basis. Information has not existence if not associated with physical states, such as bits, or neural states, or for that matter any state. Similarly, no processing can occur without interactions that result in change of states. A computation without such an association can only be imagined as a reference to the logical steps in mathematics. But then, there is no time element to control the steps, the steps can be thought of as having executed all at once. I am unable to fathom the statement, "Even though the ISAAC is atemporal, in the physical universes that exist within it, conscious observers perceive the flow of time: the concepts of causation and causality can be applied." On the other hand, if such a physical basis is provided for computation to take place, then the physical basis already exists, we do not have to create one. It must have a degree of determinacy to execute information.
Of course, one may allow mathematics to step down a bit from its high pedestal of absolute determinism / specificity / predictability, by allowing a limited indeterminism, then two points immediately emerge. First, mathematics does not remain the sole determinator, an element of some other reality must also be included at the root of all creation as you too have attempted to include. Second, we will have no forceful need for maxiverse, as an Universe is logically complete within its limits of indeterminism.
As I have attempted to work out the emergence of all elements related to perception and purposes from the fundamental reality of information that is a natural outcome of natural causation, the consciousness does not remain the most fundamental element of creation. But since natural causation, even with limited determinism, still remains a required element of the physical reality, we may only have to work out a possibility of emergence of causality. The process suggested by you, co-emergence of a cycle of A enforcing / supporting B, B supporting C, C supporting A, does resonate with me, but without consciousness being one of the elements. I suggest, evolving determinism from non-determinism should be used to the maximum, which has no problems with origin, time, and several other constraints. All one has to achieve is that unless sustainable level of determinism originates, it does not sustain by definition.
The title of Fig.4 is, "The co-emergence of co-emergentism". This is nice, even co-emergentism is not a fundamental requirement, it also emerges from something. But then, its emergence requires co-emergence. Fantastic ! In Indian mythology, at one point, one of the incarnations of ultimate lord Vishnu, Krishna, was confronted with an argument, that one could understand that all of the universe was created by You, but how did 'You' happen? And He says, "I am, that happened on its own". But it can also be interpreted as, "I am creation of my own self". Finished, no further argument is required. The likable point is that the thinker, philosopher, writer, Ved Vyas, who articulated this argument, must have been tormented by the question of origin of everything, and having found no escape, created this fantastic argument to achieve closure. So, co-emergentism creates itself, and then everything is taken care of. In this contest, people do not seem to appreciate humor, therefore, I am making it upfront clear that relating the story from Bhagvad Gita was in plain humor, no other motive.
"Emergence is usually understood in terms of properties of a system that exist at a higher level of description and have no equivalent at a lower level:". I have discussed in my essay the specific logical construction of the emergence from the elemental properties (semantics), where the emerged property is not a part of any of the elements.
"The hard problem of foundations is solved, but we now run into another one: the hard problem of lawfulness." Let me presuppose the meaning of the term 'lawfulness' -- is it requirement of a system or an object to fall under certain physical laws?
"Consciousness, with its power of agency and volition, emerges out of a physical level of description where interactions take place according to 'mindless' laws, while the rigid laws that obey the physical interactions are, in some real sense, an emerging consequence of the existence of a community of conscious observers that share between themselves a coherent story about a lawful and stable world."
I cannot imagine easily a more fine / thin line of an articulation that brings in the conscious element to share, exchange, participate, and effect changes in the physical world, while leaving the power of agency with volition to emerge from the 'rigid mindless laws'. Either, it brings out that remarkable missing distinction which resolves the intertwined complexity into straight forward clarity of understanding, or it indicates a path that must be avoided in the trust that Nature may not be so intertwined and mixed up ! Given two factors, 1) lack of any reliable proposal for the existence so far, and 2) the author's choice of co-emergence, such a proposal can be accepted.
"The tension between an objective, third-person description of the world, and a subjective, first-person description, is of course at the heart of the difficulties physicists have been having, for almost a century now." Could I suggest that if we take the 'information', in place of consciousness, naturally associated with each description of states of physical entities, then we can make clear distinction between the first person and third person world view? Unfortunately, it is not fully discussed in my essay submitted here.
In Table.1, the author's attempt seems to be to show the ease and readiness with which Co-emergentism nearly resolves most hard problems, but except the first hard problem, the God First has turned out to offer most simple resolutions! So, after all, that may be the reason for its such attractiveness among general masses. May be, the 'desire of justice to the self' should have been also added into the list of problems to convincingly exhibit, how miserably the God First solution fails, and how equipotent the rest of the solutions are.
Rajiv
