I am finally back in action. For some reason I was locked out.

In college I read Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach and I remember I had a sort of reaction "So maybe there is a God." I can't say I lean much that way these days. However, Gödel was somewhat mystical and thought his theorem demonstrated a Platonic nature of mathematics and its relationship with the physical world.

Cheers, LC

Sounds great; I agree with your view, it seems that it is quite in parallel to the one I express in my essay. I hope you find some spare time to read it, any criticism will be more than welcomed.

Good luck in the contest!

6 days later

Since you have read my essay then you already know that we are in agreement, at least for the most part. Therefore, I will skip any minor criticisms as well as any agreements and disagreements so that I can directly address your Conclusions.

You wrote, "But human intelligence can transcend its antivalent logics by inferring that there must be some irreducible reasons for those abstractions to work and these reasons must be rooted in a real metaphysical realm. Consequently, compared to this metaphysical realm, our whole physical universe must in many respects also be considered as a kind of abstraction, being possible due to the existence of this metaphysical realm."

This statement is too close to a Platonic conception of reality for me to completely agree. However, the obvious reality of this "metaphysical realm" is the important point.

In the religions of the East some of their extreme sects will assert that the "physical world" is nothing but a dream. In the West this can only be looked upon as solipsistic lunacy because Westerners are taught, from the time they are little, that the only thing that we are absolutely certain about is the "physical world." In modern philosophical parlance this is called Scientism.

The irony is that the West is, today, simply going to the opposite extreme. This becomes obvious when scientists assert that "consciousness" is nothing but a fantasy, an epiphenomenon of the material brain, or something similar. (Note that I am obviously relating "consciousness" to your "metaphysical realm" even though they might not be (legitimately) related. Hence, this relation may be considered to be illustrative only.)

People of the future will most certainly look back on the the people of the 20th century and say, "Those idiots almost convinced themselves that they weren't real!" (Note that I am contrasting reality and existence similar to how you contrasted what is theoretical and practical.)

It appears that our papers may be complementary opposites. Whereas I tried to adhere strictly to what has been (formally) proven and to say as little as possible about the (meaningful) philosophical ideas underlying the proofs, you choose to focus on philosophical analysis.

Your essay makes me think of the book, What Computers Still Can't Do by Hubert Dreyfus. The book has a phenomenological perspective similar to where you seem to be coming from. Your ontological truth is similar to the phenomenological idea of being. The book is about the (potential) "intelligence" of computers and thus on what can be known by a "mechanical, algorithmic process" as you called it.

5 days later

Dear Stefan,

I agree with the opinion of your essay. I really enjoyed reading this. This seems to be ironical sense of the data-driven science. What do you think about this scientific style to open the new theory?

While I am studying quantum random number generation, in the context of the hacking of the random numbers, as discussed in my essay, how to show the limitation of the deduction?

Best wishes,

Yutaka

5 days later

Dear Stefan,

Please forgive me if my comments show the ignorance of what you have discussed. I tried repeatedly to give some ground to what I read, but I do not believe that I succeeded. Also, by the time, I got to the end, I felt, several deductions were on the lines that I thought correct, yet, I decide to log the discussion below.

1. You write, "Because for knowing the existence of certain things one had at first to know whether or not the existence of these things should necessarily be considered a possibility, a necessity or even an impossibility."

How does it fair against the existence of consciousness? Must we necessarily know the possibility or necessity of existence of consciousness, before we can have consciousness?

2. You state, "Despite our problems to decide between the above mentioned modalities, we nonetheless obviously can know a truth that mathematical systems or machines presumably never can know. We know that machines and thus, their algorithms, lack the needed ontological awareness of the terms 'possible', 'necessary' and 'impossible..."

With such comfort 'we' use the term 'we' in statements like 'we know', without asking a question what exactly are terms such as 'I' and 'we' refer to? Many questions, and discussions become ill-posed because of a lack of understanding of entities referred to by 'I' and 'we'. Keeping in the same tradition of usage of such terms, let me assert first the following before offering any clarity, "If 'we' know things, then in the same sense, computers can be made to know the same things." Simply stating, if there is an objectivity to the creation of entities such as 'I' and 'we', then the same objective function can also create a device to express 'I' and 'we'.

Consider for a moment, what if neuronal system in modular hierarchy represents meaningful information that expresses relations among objects, where one of the represented objects refers to certain characteristics of self either as an individual, 'I', or as a group, 'we'. Every object is referable by the constancy of its relation with other objects, and constancy of structural relation among component objects. The same is true for the object that refers to characteristic composition that we refer to as 'I', which entails characteristics of an embodiment of physical body, an observer, an actor, a controller, and so on. A reference to the self is an attribution in a represented semantics (meaning) of information. For instance, when we refer to pain in our hand, the represented semantic value includes reference to the hand as a component of unified system, the specifics of pain, the specifics of location, etc.

Now, the point is that, for this to be represented, hand need not exist, as is established from phantom limb experiments. That is, pain is an attribution to the represented extension of the body, as the attribution of consciousness to the represented unified self. The semantics of being an observer, of bearer of knowledge (the knower) not only of the objects, but also of their inter relations and their causal dependence are all representable by physical states as neural states represent these semantics. The attribution of all this characteristics to an unified system as unitary referable system composes the self; it is that self that gets referred to in expressions like, 'I know', 'we know', etc. Just because, physics has not touched upon the reality of semantic values (meanings) of information, we face such a void in our understanding. But first step in establishing the same has already been done in 'Fundamentals of Natural Representation', https://doi.org/10.3390/info9070168.

Now, let us revisit the same statement -- we nonetheless obviously can know a truth that mathematical systems or machines presumably never can know. A caveat must be added -- machines need not be mathematically consistent, as is a requirement in Godel's theorems. We now know why processing in the brain, and for that reason in any physical system, is not mathematically consistent, the same can be implemented even in the computers. After all, human brain is a biological (physical) device that processes information. Godel's theorems do not apply to processing in physical systems, therefore, they do not apply anywhere except in pure mathematics. Pure mathematics does not bound the limits of existence.

3. You seem to take a position in terms of possibles and impossibles. One must keep in mind that with the aid of a language, created by a non deterministic device (brain), arbitrary semantics can be constructed, which may not have anything to do with realizability of the expressed semantics to have causal powers. Since a statement can be constructed in terms of possibles with no reference to causal basis, does not mean that such an expression can be given any objective basis or legitimacy to infer the limits of existentiality, particularly in the domain of limited indeterminism. If existentialism does not have a deterministic basis, then an arbitrary class of logical possibles cannot be used to deduce conclusions about the existentiality of objects. For instance, a statement about objects can be constructed that are self contradictory, such as 'I do not exist'. But it must not allow a conclusion to be drawn that a universe allowing such relations among objects to be expressed cannot exist because such a relation among objects can never have an existential reality; i.e, a universe is forbidden if it leads to impossible contexts. But, there is an objective difference between impossible contexts and expression of impossible contexts. One may express the list of impossibles, but one may not causally have one. Hence, a logical conclusion based on having such a list is not operational.

Rajiv

    Dear Rajiv,

    thanks for reading and considering my essay! I will try to answer what you brought up:

    "How does it fair against the existence of consciousness? Must we necessarily know the possibility or necessity of existence of consciousness, before we can have consciousness? "

    You eventually misunderstood what I wrote about. I wrote about things we yet don't know if they exist or or do not exist. Consciousness does not fall under that category - since we know that it does exist, independent of knowing whether consciousness is "necessary" or merely possible. I wrote for example about the idea of a multiverse, for which we yet do not know if it only exists as an idea of scientists or if it physically exists "out there". Same for a "platonic" realm of mathematics.

    "You state, "Despite our problems to decide between the above mentioned modalities, we nonetheless obviously can know a truth that mathematical systems or machines presumably never can know. We know that machines and thus, their algorithms, lack the needed ontological awareness of the terms 'possible', 'necessary' and 'impossible..." "

    O.k., maybe you made a false inference out of that - if I interpret your lines of reasoning correctly. So to clarify: machines may become conscious, but in that case my assumption is that the "algorithmic" activity for that to happen will be such complex that no scientist can trace this activity - in other words, no one them will be able to point to those parts of that algorithmic activity that initialize a state of conscious awareness within these machines - consciousness will then be a non-formalizable feature of such a machine. If you like, you then can term a brain to be such a machine.

    "You seem to take a position in terms of possibles and impossibles "

    Well, not quite. Because I think that nobody really can neatly separate the possible from the impossible - how should one every be able to do that and on what logical basis? So I do not argue for the possibility that we could somewhat obtain complete lists of the impossibles or the possibles. But as you may suspect, one impossibility that I think can be inferred is exactly that such lists aren't obtainable - because how can some little brains like us gain the needed information for such lists without being at the same footing as let's say God?

    Hope that clarifies your questions.

    Best wishes,

    Stefan

    Dear Stefan,

    Thanks for responding.

    From your agreement, "machines may become conscious", one may infer that you accept the objectivity of physical function that gives rise to consciousness. And if a process is objective, then it is repeatable, it is same for all, and it applies the same way in all applicable contexts, then its description must be constructible. The process of emergence is algorithmically expressible. But then, you also add, "but in that case my assumption is that the "algorithmic" activity for that to happen will be such complex that ... no one will be able to point to those parts of the algorithmic activity that initialize a state of conscious awareness within these machines". By this addition, you seem to be taking away the same objectivity that you granted a moment ago. Somehow, you tend to maintain that consciousness is fundamentally inexplicable, and that an entity is either conscious or non-conscious as given as in a corporal sense. My effort in the following paragraphs was to show that 'association of consciousness to an entity' is a representation of semantics (meaning) that attributes consciousness to a body as a person.

    Consider for a moment, the neuronal system in modular hierarchy represents meaningful information that expresses relations among objects, where one of the represented objects refers to the self in the same way as another represented object refers to 'a book', and yet another object refers to the 'act or reading'. The three combined together in conjunction refers to, "I am reading a book". Every object is referable by the constancy of its relation with other objects, and constancy of structural relation among component objects. Try constructing a description by any other relations, and you will know that these are the only two ways to construct a description of any object. Hence, the mechanism of representation of semantic value (meaning) is knowable for all objects including the self.

    For instance, when we refer to pain in our hand, the represented semantic value includes a reference to the hand as a component of the represented unified system, the specifics of pain, the specifics of location, etc. Now, the point is that, for this to be represented, hand need not exist, as is established from phantom limb experiments and dream events. That is, the sense of pain is a semantic attribution to the represented extension of the body, as the attribution of consciousness to the represented unified self. The attribution of all this characteristics to an unified system as unitary referable system composes the self with the semantics of knower, actor, and controller; it is that represented self that gets referred to in an expression like, 'I know', 'we know', etc. As I referred to a publication, where the physics or mechanics of representing and processing of semantic values (meanings) of information has been worked out.

    If it makes good sense to you, then reconsider the statement, "We know X", and determine how it is constructed. So, if we know the mechanism of how to build structured and abstract semantics via organized phyiscal interaction, then we can lay down the algorithm, and we also know what processing constructs the self with the associated properties of consciousness.

    Rajiv

    Dear Rajiv,

    yes, I maintain that consciousness is fundamentally inexplicable, although I well see that many contents of intelligent consciousness are logically ordered. Logical rules, cause and effect etc. for example. I also see that the brain is somewhat related to the contents of consciousness (phantom limbs and other brain experiments!). But I also see that what I wrote in my essay in 2017 about near-death experiences is another piece of evidence that there is some part of consciousness that is independent of a physical instantiation.

    When I wrote that "algorithmic" activity may be too complex in conscious machines to trace them, I used the wrong wordings to express what I really meant, namely that no algorithmic activity alone - in my opinion - can cause dead matter to become conscious. I well understand that representation and meaning are central to conscious operations in the world. But "meaningful information" is an effect of consciousness, so I think, not a cause for consciousness to happen. In a world without consciousness at all, in my opinion there is no such thing as "meaningful information", although many physical processes are governed - more or less - by some cause-and-effect patterns that can be captured mathematically. But without consciousness, even mathematics is meaningless, we only think otherwise because we are conscious and can trace some of these cause-and-effect patterns.

    You wrote that

    "The process of emergence is algorithmically expressible "

    I am not sure about that. The term emergence in this context surely implies that less complex things can be organized (by mathematics) such that more complex phenomena may arise. This surely is true for certain phenomena, but I wouldn't generalize it into a concept of universality. I sincerely doubt that "emergence" is a kind of pure coding and data processing task, where that task at some point becomes conscious about the "contents" that it is processing.

    "Every object is referable by the constancy of its relation with other objects, and constancy of structural relation among component objects. "

    I think that is true if one does exclude indeterminacy (for example at the quantum level). But once again I cannot see what the term "referable" refers to if there is no consciousness there to start with in the first place. Moreover, the question to what extend the term "object" does point to the ontological existence of what it refers to or merely to the limits of what can be represented in general (namely only "objects" whose behaviours are definitely determined by "something") seems to me to be not definitely answered yet.

    I really do not think that human beings can answer all the questions we are concerned with at fqxi in an objective manner. For that to accomplish one had to have the list of all impossibilities and all possibilities. I cannot see how human brains may obtain such lists. Moreover, if there exist phenomena in the universe (multiverse or whatever) that aren't completely representable, we may never know that they aren't completely representable - and consequently will represent them erroneously and falsely (incompletely!) by thinking that our representation of them is all there is to them. That would be a serious problem to overcome, since if we don't know that we fundamentally can't know certain things ("knowing" in terms of representing them algorithmically), then we would have a huge blind spot in our epistemological and ontological understanding of existence. As I wrote in my current essay, it is logically not meaningful wanting to reduce every thing (object etc.) to another thing (object etc.). Viewing this as the other direction of "emergence", there is a limit of reducibility for everything - you can't endlessly ask "why". So all boils down to stop at a certain point and accept some fundamental axioms about the nature of all. But this acceptance is then a matter of faith in these axioms and not a correct "representation" of how things are objectively.

    Hope this post could clarify the questions that remained concerning what I wrote earlier.

    Best wishes,

    Stefan

    Dear Stefan Weckbach!

    In our opinion, 10 points is not enough to evaluate your work. We set 10.

    Truly yours,

    Pavel Poluian and Dmitry Lichargin,

    Siberian Federal University.

      Dear Stefan,

      Thank you again for responding.

      > But I also see that what I wrote in my essay in 2017 about near-death experiences is another piece of evidence that there is some part of consciousness that is independent of a physical instantiation.

      So, you do remember me.

      > no algorithmic activity can cause dead matter to become conscious.

      I suppose a computer can be thought of as a dead matter. But, isn't all matter in biology too dead matter? Of course, you will differ by virtue of possession of consciousness, not life.

      > In a world without consciousness at all, in my opinion there is no such thing as "meaningful information".

      Physicists have never bothered to deal with the semantics (meaning) of information, and that has created a huge void in our understanding. An observable state S of a physical system P causally correlates with information of precursor states of interacting systems that cause S of P. And this causal correlation serves as primitive of semantics, which can be used to construct all expressible semantics. May I refer you again to 'Fundamentals of Natural Representation', https://doi.org/10.3390/info9070168 , which may clarify certain points. Though, this work has not gained traction yet.

      > "Every object is referable by the constancy of its relation with other objects, and constancy of structural relation among component objects. "

      The word 'referable' here may be substituted with 'describable'.

      > As I wrote in my current essay, it is logically not meaningful wanting to reduce every thing (object etc.) to another thing (object etc).

      I consider the term emergence in opposition to reduction. So I agree semantic descriptions of all objects (relations, processes) cannot always be reduced, but the mechanism of emergence can be understood.

      Now that you have identified several fundamental differences in your responses that constitute the basis of our arguments, a resolution without evidences to support fundamentals cannot settle the differences left.

      Best wishes to you too.

      Rajiv

      Dear Pavel Poluian and Dmitry Lichargin,

      i am happy that my essay had an impact for you and feel deeply honored by your lines and voting - so i want to thank you for both.

      Best wishes to you both from Germany,

      Stefan Weckbach

      Dear Rajiv,

      thank you also for your correspondence!

      Best wishes,

      Stefan

      6 months later
      24 days later

      Here is the paper at viXra Explaining Results of Stern Gerlach Apparatus Experiments with Gyroscopic Motion, Georgina Woodward

      Dear Georgina,

      thanks for your notifictation. I will certainly study the paper in the next few days and if you don't mind then give you some feedback.

      Kind regards

      Stefan

      Write a Reply...