Hi Christi

I enjoyed your essay, but in terms of consciousness, there is demonstrably an AI analogue to this problem, which is in the interconnectivity of synapses in the human brain, i.e. in terms of the universe, the issue can be related to the density of neuronic pathways.

Finding a counter part to this issue of interconnectivity to bits, and logic processors as to the human brain may be the way to extend this sort of modality to cosmological structures. I.e. we may be looking at the wrong places for determining the minimum structure needed for self awareness

It is, in a sense directly related to the problem of what makes an entity self aware.

In animals, i.e. Cats and Dogs, it shows up if an animal can recognize its own image in a mirror reflection. To a degree some dogs can do this, whereas cats flunk the test and try to go behind a mirror to identify if there is another cat present. Whereas the great Apes definitely DO have a working ability to recognize themselves in a mirror.

So what is the threshold in terms of interconnectivity of some sort of cosmologically based "thinking " structure ?

I do not know and I doubt anyone has addressed that issue in terms of biophysics. But if they did find a way to quantify interconnectity of structure with self awareness, they then would be able to map the measurable biological markers of signal interconnetivi5ty of structure with a minimum threshold allowing consciousness.

That issue of a minimum level of interconnectivity of "thinking" or neuronic structure may be later, in some sense after we know more about what causes cognition and self awareness be mapped directly upon what we know about cosmological structures

This is my speculation. It is meant to be in tandem with your investigations

Andrew

Dear Cristi,

thank you for great essay, very well argued and clearly written. Although I was not particularly familiar with systematic developments on the hard problem of consciousness, I think you provided an excellent analysis and good food for thought.

I particularly appreciated your clean-dut discussion on how science is only about relations. And in particular your phrase: "We can compare nature with a book written in a language that we don't understand. Science is a way to decode the book. It proceeds by identifying various words in various contexts, and the result is a dictionary, along with some grammar rules. Each word in the dictionary is de fined in terms of other words, but there are no primary words whose meaning we understand."

Best of luck for the contest!

Flavio

    Dear Cristi,

    Thanks for your appreciation also, your essay is wonderful !!.

    You are correct about negativism in science. This happens and continues to happen in Physics. I got my personal experiences in my life for the last 40 years or so. Whatever the Ethical Values I kept, whatever the foundational principles were used, whatever the physical cosmological philosophies were used, whatever the predictions that came true, for Dynamic Universe Model an N-Body problem solution, whatever I got is kicks on the back, never any back patting. I am sorry about this bla bla bla.... Now I got everything positively. I did this work on Gods guidance, I will leave everything on him, I did this work for the development of science and betterment of humanity. My problem is over....

    I am requesting to see a paper on a universe model proposed by Dynamic Universe Model

    https://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/2018/08/new-paper-model-of-universe-as.html

    Hope you will have a visit at my essay and leave a suitable comment....

    Best Regards

    =snp

    Hi Andrew,

    Thank you for the interesting comments, which are complementary to the focus of my essay, in tandem, as you said.

    > in terms of consciousness, there is demonstrably an AI analogue to this problem, which is in the interconnectivity of synapses in the human brain, i.e. in terms of the universe, the issue can be related to the density of neuronic pathways.

    Certainly, there must be a structural side of the problem, the physical correlates of sentience. You propose a measure of this, the density of neural paths. Another one is the Phi proposed in Integrated Information Theory.

    > It is, in a sense directly related to the problem of what makes an entity self aware.

    Yes, self-awareness requires structure, to be able to include a self-representation. When I say "sentience" I mean the ontology of the structure, "what is like to be", whether self-aware or not.

    I think the so called "easy problems", those related to structure, functionality, behavior, are not easy at all, not understood yet, but understandable in principle, and they are important.

    Thanks again for considering my essay and for the comments! I'm looking forward to read yours.

    Best regards,

    Cristi

    Dear Flavio,

    I am happy to see you here again with an essay. Thank you for reading my essay and for the comments. Since you liked that passage, let me provide one from John von Neumann: you don't understand things. You just get used to them. It's a though I had independently, but I found out that he said it long before, referring to math. I think it applies much more widely. Perhaps most clearly it applies to the foundations of quantum mechanics :)

    Thanks again, I am looking forward to read it! Good luck with the contest to you too!

    Cheers,

    Cristi

    Dear Cristi,

    I am just repeating this post please....

    Thanks for your appreciation also, your essay is wonderful !!.

    You are correct about negativism in science. This happens and continues to happen in Physics. I got my personal experiences in my life for the last 40 years or so. Whatever the Ethical Values I kept, whatever the foundational principles were used, whatever the physical cosmological philosophies were used, whatever the predictions that came true, for Dynamic Universe Model an N-Body problem solution, whatever I got is kicks on the back, never any back patting. I am sorry about this bla bla bla.... Now I got everything positively. I did this work on Gods guidance, I will leave everything on him, I did this work for the development of science and betterment of humanity. My problem is over....

    I am requesting to see a paper on a universe model proposed by Dynamic Universe Model

    https://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/2018/08/n

    ew-paper-model-of-universe-as.html

    Hope you will have a visit at my essay and leave a suitable comment....

    Best Regards

    =snp

      Dear Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta,

      Thank you for the comment. Because we moved the discussion here, let me also bring the paragraph where I mention science as a negative way.

      What I mean by negative way or neti neti in the context of my longer essay is mainly science as a negative way. Science allows hypotheses then rejects them. Most powerful results come as no-go theorems, which is also the theme of this contest. The body of science grows, which gives the impression that it's a "positive growth", an accumulation of knowledge. But positivism is no longer the way of science. In some sense the body of knowledge is growing, but the attachment to the accumulated knowledge is not in the spirit of science itself, which works by negation. All of the models and theories are to be seen as provisional hypotheses, always in search for contrary evidence. It's the way of skepticism, in the proper meaning of the word, which is the same as in negative mysticism, but applied to science.

      What I mean by science as a negative way is in the sense of via negativa, applied to the study of reality rather than theology. I didn't call science a negative way because it rejects people's novel proposals of theories in favor of the "mainstream" ones. I called it so because it keeps testing itself, or at least it is supposed to do so. And because it is never definitive, even though many think it's definitive, and many did so through the entire history of science. So, to make it clear, I didn't complain that it is negative in the sense you mention, although this may be true as well. If I would make a complaint against the scientific community, is that it is not negative enough, but in the sense I meant for the word "negative", not in the sense of rejecting new ideas.

      Most of those interested to contribute to science, both gifted amateurs and professionals, have difficulties to get enough attention. Few are those blessed with the attention. Not getting attention is not a proof that the theory is wrong, getting high positive attention and esteem is not a proof that it is right, although it's a proof that at least it's interesting enough to enough scientists. A sure way to be ignored is to not master properly the field, in the most technical details. But mastering it and even solving some good problem is not a guarantee of success. And nice words said by even some authorities don't guarantee success either. They have to cite the work, to join it and develop it in their own papers. Very few are lucky like this. Most published papers are read only by reviewers, and even so, sometimes only superficially. A lot of brain power is used to produce new research, very little of it receive the light of other conscious beings. Who knows what gems are hidden and lost forever in someone's drawer, or even published in a journal but never understood by others.

      Cheers,

      Cristi

      Dear Prof Cristi,

      I just cant under valuate your knowledge by calling you just Cristi!

      I am just replying your post above please.... Just because the reply posts are not visible directly. Thank you for replying me here.

      You are correct, the negative way of science has both the meanings, mainstream which is powerful will reject the new ideas, as well as science has the inherent way of testing the new theories in the negative way to see that if the theory withstands or not, as you discussed in your essay.

      Well supported theories may not be correct some times, as well as correct theories may not have the luck. You have well analyzed the present situation in a nut shell. Some people just dont have LUCK, like me!!

      I appreciate your essay and your way of writing in a best manner!!

      I want to see your well learned comments on my essay soon...

      Best

      snp

      Dear Eckard Blumschein,

      Maybe. My experience doesn't go back to those time. So for the original meaning I trust etymologists, and they say

      "observation as the source of knowledge; actual observation; an event which has affected one," from Old French esperience "experiment, proof, experience" (13c.), from Latin experientia "a trial, proof, experiment; knowledge gained by repeated trials," from experientem (nominative experiens) "experienced, enterprising, active, industrious," present participle of experiri "to try, test," from ex- "out of" (see ex-) peritus "experienced, tested," from PIE *per-yo-, suffixed form of root *per- (3) "to try, risk." Meaning "state of having done something and gotten handy at it" is from late 15c.

      Words evolve. Take for example the word "calculate" from the title of your essay. Its etymology goes back to "calculus" = "pebble stones", but now it's used in a much wider sense than counting pebbles.

      But I'll leave such debates to linguists. The way I use the word "experience" is closer to the way it's used here, and I don't tie it particularly to memories or expected future processes.

      Cheers,

      Cristi

      Dear Cristinel Stoica,

      I very much appreciate your "maybe". You wrote elsewhere:

      " As humans, very early in life we become aware that events that already happened cannot be changed, and that future events, although unpredictable, can be influenced by our present actions. This intuition is so deeply hardwired in our world view, that it seems unnatural to even question the idea that past and future do not exist, but only present does."

      What a mistake! Sorry, I am almost never using such emphasis.

      However, my concern is not linguistics, and I wrote "calculate" not as to consider the TND flawed as does Peter Jackson. As an engineer, I can only analyze a part of a growing "block" of more or less memorized data from past processes. The fuzzy notion present has no logical place between past and future.

      Cheers,

      Eckard

      Dear Eckard Blumschein,

      > As an engineer, I can only analyze a part of a growing "block" of more or less memorized data from past processes. The fuzzy notion present has no logical place between past and future.

      This makes sense. To connect it with my essay, the memories and the growth you mention happen at the coarse grained level.

      Cheers,

      Cristi

      Dear Cristi,

      I really enjoyed your essay. Thank you for submitting it. I really like your closing remark that the ontology of S could very well equal the ontology of P. It's surprisingly intuitive, though only after hearing your argument for it.

      I had a couple questions. You say sentience is the ontology of system S. Are you claiming that science can not make any progress explaining an ontology? Can the hard problem ever be explained through science in your view, possibly indirectly? You say P is a mathematical structure in search of an ontology, do you think it will ever get there?

      I try to avoid this type of soliciting, but if I may be so bold to ask, I would love your feedback on my essay. I am still a student, and you have experience thinking about the structure of reality as being mathematical in nature, which is a large part of my essay. If you have time of course.

      All the best,

      Ernesto

        Dear Ernesto,

        Thank you for reading my essay and for the feedback.

        > Are you claiming that science can not make any progress explaining an ontology?

        Yes, but I think I do more than claim, I also explain why it's the case: because science can only deal with relations, and the nature of things is not the object of science. It's just not provable in the way we consider things proven in science. Now, people use the word "ontology" in different ways. So statements like "the wavefunction is ontic" as in the PBR theorem make sense, but there the word "ontic" should be understood as an impossibility to have QM without the wavefunction or something equivalent to it, for example to replace it with just a statistical device.

        > Can the hard problem ever be explained through science in your view, possibly indirectly?

        Not if science limits itself to objective evidence. Now, this is a necessary limitation, which is the cause for the progress in science. But I can imagine that a "subjective science", as opposed to the "objective science" we do, can make progress, but I doubt that if we limit to objective evidence we can explain it. As for how this could be done subjective, I explained in the longer essay cited in the first footnote in the first page of my essay, in §7.2 and §7.3 how I imagine this to work.

        > You say P is a mathematical structure in search of an ontology, do you think it will ever get there?

        A possibility is that P=S, so the ontology of P is the same as that of S, and that of S is just what I call sentience. But I can't prove it or disprove it objectively.

        Thank you very much for the comment, and for mentioning your essay to me.

        Cheers,

        Cristi

        Cristi,

        Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I will take a look at your longer essay soon. That sounds very interesting.

        Best regards,

        Ernesto

        Dear Prof Cristi,

        Thank you for your well analyzing comments on my essay. This I posted on mys essay yesterday...........

        Basically i wrote point 6 , with a view that the results of the solution to the equations used should be tangible ones, If there is a meaningless result, or if the result is not understood by any person or even to the person who developed those set of equations, then what is the USE?

        Then how some body will do the experimental verification? Without any experimental verification how the theory will help to the progress of humanity or science? Is it sheer madness? Is it not a wastage well educated manpower? Is it only for earning a a degree? So NO Experimental verification required, is that so? Just going on developing on something, with a thinking that may be correct, but going nowhare.........

        I suddenly remembered OLD 'Two of Us'... Boney M. song

        Two of us riding nowhere

        Spending someones

        Hard earned pay

        You and me Sunday driving

        Not arriving on our way back home

        We're on our way home

        We're on our way home

        We're going home ....................

        Are we really going home?

        This is happening in science in general, not only quantum physics, but in Cosmology also. Complex equation resulting to results with infinities,and searching for infinities.....

        I also started thinking of working on quantum physics with straight forward equations already. Hope you will help me on some concepts....

        Thank you for giving me piece of mind!

        Best Regards

        =snp

        Dear Cristinel,

        Your essay is one of the most interesting. You have touched a lot of problems: limits of reductionism, materialism in science, consciousness etc. You are right that modern science is far from pure materialism but I think this eternal struggle between materialism and idealism, holism and reductionism, nevertheless, pushes it forward. Without reductionism and materialism we would not have modern physics. Ostwald considered matter as energy but denied atomism. He was right to some extent matter is energy. But if physics had taken this way then we wouldn't have quantum physics and all its results. It happens sometimes that one of the opposite standpoints in science takes over but the correct solution remains somewhere in the middle.

        I wish you good luck

        Boris

          Dear Boris,

          Thank you very much for reading and commenting.

          Of course I fully agree with what you said about how these debates advanced science. Here's a reason to continue them, but these days such discussions are just cut by statements like "you can't prove it in the lab, you should not talk about it", "shut up and calculate" etc. :) Now, my essay doesn't try to show how limited science is, just to understand if there is a boundary and where it is. And I do this for the main purpose of formulating the hard problem of consciousness. Which is one of the things that, when one mentions, one gets a dismissive reaction like the ones I mentioned above. I want the debates back :)

          Good luck to you too,

          Cristi

          Cristinel. I enjoyed your essay and I agree with your final conclusion. I think I also have a bottom up answer to the "hypothesis that consciousness is not fully reducible to physical processes or computation." As I try to explain in my essay there is one Successful Self Creation process that progressively creates/becomes all intelligence, the complete physical world and the SSC processing that interweaves all three into every progressive self creating unit. The "foundational" ontology of this process occurs in two phases (as you say in your essay they complete each other). The first phase is the C*s to SSCU transformation of chaos to order that I describe in the appendix to my essay. This phase produces the cardinality of the mathematics of the second phase, it produces/becomes the basic algorithm of SSC computations, it produces/becomes the variables/relationships of time, space, mass, speed and direction that produce/become the forms and functions of the physical/intelligent SSCU. The SSCU is a self replicator/self organizer that scales up digitally to become the physical world, its mathematics and its computations. The same SSCU acts as the basic "node" of self creating intelligence that is in every SSC unit. In the second phase the SSCU self replicates and the copies self organize to progressively create/become larger/more complex self creating intermediates which progress to become the intelligence/SSC/physical combinations that exist today. The two self creation foundational phases "operate together - they complete each other. As to the question of irreducibility. The consciousness, sentience, feelings reduce to the C*s activities in the C*s to SSCU transformation. Their combined activities are "hidden" in the digitalized scale up of the SSCU to become the physical world and its corresponding mathematics and computations. So consciousness, sentience, feelings do not reduce to the physical components of the SSC units. However, they do reduce to the intelligence activities in the SSCU. These act as "node(s)" that in the scale up self replicate and self organize to become the intelligence-networks of universal successful self creation. These act as self learning networks that learn how to create and recreate the repeating processes that we observe and measure in the physical world. I would appreciate your comments. John

            Cristinel. I forgot to add In the previous post: the SSC processing produces a quantitative progressive formation of the geometric points, lines, surface areas, volumes spheres, vortexes, etc. of the forms and functioning of the universe. In that process it redefines the currently accepted definition of a point in universal processing. Instead of a singularity (infinitely dense/ infinitely small point as a beginning of the universe or as the "internal Content" of black holes, the points in SSC have a finite precise density and size. also the hyperinflation and expanding sphere of the Big Bang is replaced by a finite measurable universal expansion to a finite size. Getting rid of the infinitesimals, infinities and 0 simplifies the math tremendously. mohn