Sentience, the ontology of experience by Cristinel Stoica

Dear Cristnel,

I read your paper and find it to be very interesting. It appears that you have the understanding that each thing has an internal structure or nature that gives rise to the types of interactions that it can have with other things and what the possible outcomes from those interactions can be. This internal structure is composed of two parts, which are the basic material(s) or substance(s) that the thing is composed of and the way that the material(s) or substance(s) are put or joined together in the thing to make it, so that it behaves in the way that it does in external interactions with other things.

From observation, it is easy to see that the structure of the whole creation is composed of many structural levels joined together to form a complex hierarchical overall structure. As an example, at the highest hierarchical structural level of large scale things that we can see and manipulate readily, they are often composed of many smaller structures that we can see to be different from each other, such as a rock with a vein of iron rust in it, etc. all joined together into the single rock. You can define its structure at this level to be all of the different materials that you can observe in the rock. The rock as a whole or the materials that are contained within it can interact with other things at this level to produce various outcome results. With more detailed observation it can be seen that some of the materials in the rock can be broken down chemically into more simple material structures, such as iron rust can be broken down into iron and oxygen, etc., but the iron and oxygen cannot be broken down further chemically. The iron rust is, therefore, composed of two basic materials, which are combined or structured together in such a way as to produce the external interactional results that iron rust generates in interactions with other things. After performing many observational experiments, you can determine all of the basic materials that can't be further broken down chemically into simpler materials and can then make a table of them. At this hierarchical level, you could, if given enough time, determine all of the possible structures that can be made from them and learn all of their possible interactions with each other, etc. You can then call these composite structures (like iron rust) molecules and the smallest part of the most basic materials can be called atoms. Those who were in the science community at that time could easily consider atoms to be small balls of matter. The facts that there were over ninety different atoms and if you then try to break each of these most basic materials down to their smallest part, you find that the mass effect of the smallest part of the material is different for each of them, (they were of more or less of incrementally increasing mass) which implies that they may be made up of some still smaller structure(s) , but that could be easily ignored at that time.

If you then crash heavy atoms together you find that they can be broken down into two lighter atoms, thus proving that all of the basic atoms are constructed of some more basic substance(s) that are the same in all of them. At this hierarchical level, you can call these more basic materials sub-atomic particles and you can begin to find ways that you can isolate them and see how they interact with each other, etc. As these sub-atomic matter particles were discovered it became apparent that generally all atoms and, thus all matter was basically composed of three sub-atomic particles, the proton, the neutron, and the electron. At this level you can see that these three particles are much fewer than the over ninety atoms at the previous hierarchical level of structure. Scientists still liked to look at these sub-atomic matter particles as very small balls of matter.

Over time it became apparent that the protons and neutrons were composite particles composed of three more basic particles called quarks while the electron was a basic particle. This meant that all matter is basically composed of four basic particles at this hierarchical structural level. Even though these basic particles exhibit wave behaviors and various outcomes from interactions, etc. that indicate that they have internal structures containing internal motions within them that then affect their external interaction outcomes with each other, these indications have been mostly ignored by the current scientific community, so they can still look at them as little balls of matter.

If you crash these sub-atomic particles together at very high speeds, you can observe that the interactional outcomes can destroy the particles and, in the process, several new matter particles can be produced that contain more rest mass than the amount contained in the two original sub-atomic particles. Energy photons can also be produced. The greater the linear speed of the particles before the interaction, the greater is the number and total mass of the matter particles and energy photons that are produced by the interaction. Since the only thing that differs is the amount of linear motion of the particles, it becomes apparent that some of the particles that are produced in an interaction are produced by the linear motion of the particles before the interaction. Since energy photons are also produced in these interactions, it is apparent that they are also produced by the linear motions that were contained in the matter particles before the interaction. From this we can observationally determine that at this hierarchical level matter particles and energy photons are composed of the material or substance of basic linear motion. Of course, if they are both composed of the same material or substance, that substance must be put together or structured differently in each of them so as to produce the different interactional output results of both entities. I have gone down one more hierarchical level than man in this world is generally familiar with, but I have done so in order to bring out some points that would not usually be easily understood otherwise.

First you should see that at each hierarchical level there is a type of structural material that seems to be the acceptable understanding of what a basic structural material is to those who are at that level without any knowledge that material structure can be broken down farther than it is at that level. From this you can see that the concept of the basic structural material of things should include an understanding of what it means at all hierarchical levels. It also becomes apparent that what is considered a basic structural material at one hierarchical structural level can be much different than that of another level. One general pattern that becomes clear is that as you progress down into smaller levels, the total number of basic materials at each level tends to decrease. Notice that at the level of the structural material of matter particles and energy photons there is only one basic structural material, which is linear motion. At this level fields are also composed of simple linear motion field particles. It is, therefore, currently possible from analyzing current observational information to determine the most basic structural substance from which all things are made. The problem is that most people look at things from the current maximum hierarchical level about which information has been currently obtained and understood by them and try to build the next level using the concepts that are currently understood at that level when we live in a world that contains a whole range of levels in which differences exist between the levels. If you can change from just looking at the current level to looking at the whole range of known levels, your mind can be opened to see that the next level may be much different than you would otherwise be able to understand and accept. You can then look at the current experimental observational data in a whole new light, which will allow you to see obvious things that others pass up because they don't know how to fit them into their current theories. As an example, you can see that science is about understanding both the ways that things interact with each other and also understanding the nature of the things that interact with each other. The understanding of the nature of a thing at one hierarchical structural level comes when the next lower level becomes understood. At one hierarchical level atoms are things that can interact with each other, but you don't know the nature of the atom, but at the next lower structural level you know that the nature of the atom is that it contains sub-atomic particles that are located and move around in the atom in certain ways, etc. Things are much more dynamic than we like to think that they are because we like to think of things to be very simple when in reality, they make up a very complicated multilayer structure of motions. Right now, man wants to believe that matter particles are the most basic level of matter structure and don't have any internal working or moving parts, but all of the observational data says otherwise. The good thing is that matter particles, energy photons, and field particles are all explained at the next structural level to be composed of only one basic substance.

Consciousness is another area where people limit themselves to what they currently understand. The first big assumption is that it is completely contained in the matter structure of the brain. When you understand that our minds are constructed of two parts, which are our spirits and our souls and understand that our spirits generate our intents of what we will do and send those intents to our souls, which translate the intents into the thoughts that our bodies can understand and then our bodies do the work to carry out the intents of our spirits you then have a good basis to build an understanding of what consciousness is and how it works. In the Christian Scriptures it says that "God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." We can easily see that our bodies are composed of the dust of the ground (matter), but the breath of life is mentioned as a separate thing outside of matter. Our spirits are also outside of matter. When our spirits generate intents the part of our souls that are the breath of life can receive and understand those intents and can translate them into the thoughts that our bodies can understand through the part of our souls that are composed of the dust of the ground (our brains) and send them to our body parts through our nervous system. Our bodies then act upon those thoughts to carry out the intents of our spirits. Because of this structure, any attempt to explain all of consciousness as brain functions will ultimately fail.

The second assumption is that consciousness is limited to what our mind can directly observe and/or control. There are many processes that continually go on in our bodies that require interactions with our spirits and souls. We are aware of some of these things, such as the need to take a breath periodically. Our spirits and souls must be conscious of and work together to control these processes most of which we are not aware of at our higher hierarchical structural level of consciousness. When the spirit leaves the body, the intents needed to continue these processes no longer occur and the body dies. This is why God says "The body without the spirit is dead." At our hierarchical level of consciousness our minds work mainly at the level of our bodys' sense inputs to observe both our internal structure and operation, etc. and also the structure and operation of the world around us. Our minds have the ability to store records of our current sense inputs so that we can later recall them and compare them to the current sense inputs to see what has changed in the world around us since they were recorded. This is what gives us our sense of the past even though the past does not actually exist. After recalling many previous records and comparing them, we can see patterns of change that allow us to predict that some things will continue to change in specific ways. This gives us a sense of the future even though that does not really exist either. We live in a motion continuum. The conditions of all of the motions in the universe that existed, but no longer exist because motions have moved to new locations in space are the past, but the past does not currently exist, because the motions have now moved from those positions into their current positions. The conditions of all motions that will exist, but do not currently exist because the motions have not yet moved to those positions in space are the future, but the future does not currently exist because the motions have not yet moved into those positions. Only the present actually exists, which is the current positions of all of the motions in the universe. The only way that a complete past and future could exist, so that someone could go into any point in the past or future is if a whole complete copy of the universe exists for each movement of any motion in the universe from one point in space to any other point in space. This would mean at least an almost infinite number of complete copies of the universe would have to exist. This would certainly not be according to the Occam's razor principle. There are also a multitude of other problems with the concept of a time dimension, but I will not go into those now because this comment is getting big, so I will end it now.

Sincerely,

Paul

Dear Cristi,

You, as before, presented a very interesting, deep essay with important ideas. You "dig" to the most remote semantic depths. But there are some points where I have differences in our views - this primarily concerns the assessment of history and the results of scientific research, starting with the "second Archimedean revolution", as well as the problems of philosophical ontology, observation and "grasping" (understanding) of limiting ontological meanings in Nature and thinking.

You write:

"In fact, the reason why science was so successful is precisely its ability to ignore the nature of things, and focus on their relations. I'll explain why is so in both experimental and theoretical science."

I believe that it was the cognitive attitudes that were laid down at the beginning of the scientific revolution of the New Time ("Physics, fear of Mathaphysics" and "Hypotheses聽non fingo") impeded the development of science. Unfortunately, the mainstream in science has always dominated. This is now. It is enough to look at Lee Smolin's conclusions in "Trouble with Physics" and as well as in An Open Letter . If there was conscious support by society and states for alternative directions of scientific thought and research, then science would not come to a modern crisis of understanding in the philosophical basis of fundamental science. Therefore, Carlo Rovelli turned to the scientific community: Physics Needs Philosophy / Philosophy Needs Physics

Then you write:

"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 defined in terms of other words, but there are no primary words whose meaning we understand. All the definitions in the dictionary are eventually circular. " ... and bring the famous words of Galileo Galilei: "The book [of Nature] is written in mathematical language."

But Galileo Galilei specified which language Nature speaks: "The book [of Nature] is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth. "

I believe that in order not to "go in cycles", we must first "grasp" (understand) first - the meaning of the "triangle" of Nature ... And then - the "circle" ... The language of Nature is the language of geometric representations, the language of absolute forms, which represent the absolute (unconditional) states of matter. Let us recall how Menelaus caught Proteus ("Proteus of Nature" - the metaphor of "matter") in the net at the prompt of the daughter of Proteus - Eidothei, "goddess of form". I believe that "equations" and "numbers" only encrypt the ontological primary structure of Nature (and its "language") as an integral generating process. Overcoming the crisis of understanding in the philosophical basis of knowledge, and as a result of solving the "hard problem of consciousness" is possible only on the way to solving the super hard problem 鈩-1 for cognition - the centenary problem of justification (substantiation, basification) mathematics ("foundations of mathematics"), which means knowledge in general. I believe that the mathematician Alexander Zenkin (1937-2006) is right: "truth should be drawn ..." (SCIENTIFIC COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN MATHEMATICS)

Yours faithfully,

Vladimir

Dear Cristinel,

After I sent my previous comment to you, I noticed that I didn't get the second letter i entered in your name. Sorry about that.

It appears that we are using different definitions or different parts of the definition for the word nature. When I talk about the nature of something in the immediate primary sense, I am talking about what it is. If it is a thing like a matter particle, for example, I mean what substance(s) it is made of and how is that substance(s) organized, structured, or built up in it to make it to be the way that it is. If it is not static, but contains one or more active functional internal processes going on within it, what are they and how do they work. If it interacts internally with other thing(s) in such a way that it and the other thing(s) act as a unit together in some way, what is that and how does it work. Also, how and in what way(s) does it interact with other external things. There are other parts to the meaning of the word nature that can apply under certain circumstances like the thing's origin or source of its existence, but I don't usually go into that unless I think that the person that I am talking to will likely have the ability to understand and also the desire to understand because it took me over twenty two years of scientific study to come to the conclusion that the creation could not have come about naturally by itself, but had to have been created by a being that exists outside of it, existed before it, and is extremely intelligent to have allowed him to have been able to create it. He would also need to be powerful enough to create it, of course, and possess the resources needed to make it, etc. I came to this conclusion after analyzing such concepts as evolution, the various creation from nothing arguments, the arguments for how the first living creature came into existence, and the possibility that evolution could have created all of the various living creatures that exist now and those that have existed in the past, but have gone extinct, in fourteen billion years, etc. I found that the math just does not add up to allow for natural random creation to occur. Once I came to the conclusion that God had to exist, I looked at various religious documents and found that only the Jewish Old Testament and the Christian New Testament contained the information about the creation that I had found during all of those years of research. I had searched through man's scientific works and did not find that anyone else had found and come to understand such things. For the most part, man still has not understood these things although I have freely given out some of them over the last ten years. Of course, it may be that there are those who work in the secret (black) scientific community who have received the things that I have given out and understood them, because man in that community has come to understand how to make plasma field engines and cloaking devices for high speed air and space vehicles, etc. that indicate that such concepts may be at least somewhat understood by them. Of course, it is possible to make structured field engines without the plasma effect, but as far as I know they have not yet gotten that far. My point is that I did not find this information in any of man's works, or in any of the other religious texts, but it is clearly in the sources mentioned above which were written more than two thousand years ago. As I have continued to search these scriptures, I have found that they also contain much information about many other things. I mentioned a few of them in my previous comment. One of the problems of current science structure is that the concept that the creation was made by a being rather than by some natural cause is automatically considered to be unscientific. This is usually based on the lack of our ability to directly observe God. At the same time man has had no problem believing in the existence of molecules, atoms, and matter particles, etc. long before they became even indirectly observable from the way that things interacted with each other. If we look at the creation from the standpoint of the ways things are made and how they interact with each other it becomes apparent that what we call intelligence had to have been involved in its creation. First it is constructed in a multilevel hierarchical form starting with simple structures and combining them together into sub-assemblies, which are then combined into still more complex assemblies, etc. until the total device performs all of the desired functions. This is exactly the way that man who is considered to be intelligent builds complex structures. Secondly, the design is such that each hierarchical level creates a complete environment of actions and capabilities to operate at that level internally within each object and externally in interactions with other entities. As an example, at the top large scale object level of structure even if you don't know anything about the smaller hierarchical levels of its molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic matter particles, you can use stone to build buildings and other large scale structures because of its compression strength and other properties that it has at the large scale. This was designed to allow man to use large scale objects before he was able to understand anything about the smaller hierarchical levels of structure. This has allowed man to develop at a controlled rate of progress by providing the keys to the next level at the desired time. The discovery of the next level gives man new abilities of use of the materials to allow for controlled advancement. Man uses similar hierarchical structuring in the complex things that he makes. As an example, a computer programmer who understands the C programming language can write useful programs without any understanding that when a C language instruction is executed it likely causes the execution of a large number of machine language instructions in the next lower hierarchical level of structure or that the machine language instructions execute hexadecimal coded words at the next level and those words actually are executed in the binary form by the computer circuitry in the next level or that the binary likely takes the form of an electronic or magnetic circuit that can be in one of two states at the hardware level, etc. The higher C language level will likely produce a larger program than would be necessary and do things less efficiently than if it was written in machine language, so there is an advantage of also knowing how to program at that lower hierarchical level, but it is not necessary to produce a program that will accomplish the task. It is the same with the creation's hierarchical levels. New doors of knowledge of the next lower levels can be given out at the desired time for man to understand them, thus opening up more new abilities for man when appropriate, but from the beginning man was able to live and function adequately just using information provided at the top level of structure. To get the complete understanding of the nature of something you have to understand its complete structure at all hierarchical levels, but when you are operating within only one or a portion of those levels, it is adequate to define the objects being to be the substance(s) and structure(s) and the structure's internal operations, and external interactions included within the level(s) being used at the time. From this and other things it should be apparent that creation was designed to start man out with a very limited understanding of the world around him, but to increase his understanding over time as necessary or as desired by the creator.

If all things are made of just one thing and that thing is simple linear motion, then you have reached the end of that chain of structure because all you have in existence is simple linear motions and the dimensional system that they move in. From there the only other thing to understand is the structure of the dimensional system that allows the linear motions to move in it in such a way as to construct field particles, energy photons, and matter particles. Once that is accomplished a complete understanding of what we call the universe can be understood. The only thing lacking is that you still could not indirectly observe matter particles, energy photons and field particles. There is a next level of structure, however. Once it is understood that a matter particle is formed by transferring some of an energy photon's motion into its fifth dimensional motion and that this motion then returns down into the lower three dimensions in a sequential manner, such that it causes the photon to take a curved path that encloses back upon itself to form a repetitive cyclical three dimensional enclosed path and that path and the photon traveling in it is what we call a matter particle and that If you then add linear motion to it to accelerate that matter particle toward the speed of light, some of the added motion is transferred into its fourth and fifth dimensional motions, you can then see that the motion added to its fifth dimensional motion causes an increase in the curvature of the matter particle's enclosed path. This causes it to become smaller. The closer you get to the speed of light the larger is the portion of the added motion that is transferred into the particle's fifth dimensional motion and the rate of reduction in its size greatly increases. The next step is to understand how interactions between matter particles work. There is what is called an interaction cross-section. Interactions generally do not occur between field particles because their structural points of their motions are very small making it very unlikely that they will intersect each other and come together to interact. Energy photons on the other hand not only possess a field particle in each of them that travels at the speed of light, they each also possess a fourth dimensional motion that travels at ninety degrees from its direction of travel. This gives a much larger cross-sectional area in which an interaction can occur and thus increases the likelihood that two photons can interact with each other. If one photon possesses a very high fourth dimensional motion amplitude (it generates a very high frequency) and another one has a very low motion amplitude in its fourth dimensional motion (it generates a very low frequency) and they move toward each other, the likelihood that the low frequency photon will be in a place in its cross-section where it will interact with the other photon is greatly reduced. Matter particles work in a similar way except instead of a cross-sectional area there is more of a cross-sectional volume. You can look at a matter particle's path as a small three-dimensional sphere. When the paths of two matter particles begin to intersect an interaction can take place, but the photons within them must be located on their paths, such that they will intersect at a time that their fourth dimensional motions are also in the proper positions within each of them to allow the interaction to take place during the time that their paths still intersect each other. Again, if one particle is very small because it possesses a large fifth dimensional motion amplitude because it is traveling close to the speed of light and the other particle is much slower in that respect, which means that it is much larger, the likelihood of an interaction is greatly reduced. If you visualize the small particle intersecting with the motion path of the much larger particle you will see that the small particle will pass completely through the motion path on one side and then travel through most of the larger particle in the internal volume of the larger particle where it can't interact with the larger particle's photon because it is located on the enclosed path of the larger particle and not internally within it. It will then travel through the other side of the larger particle's enclosed path. This greatly decreases the chance of an interaction between the two particles. The net effect is that our energy photons and matter particles can only interact with each other when they are both within a specific frequency range with respect to each other. This means that we live in a universe that only includes energy photons and matter particles that possess frequencies within this range. There are other universes that exist in lower and higher frequency ranges and it is possible to travel to that nice little world in a very small galaxy near, near away in your desk drawer. Of course, if you accelerate close to the speed of light, you can observe the matter particles of our frequency range to understand their composition and operation, etc. If you learn how to slow down your fifth dimensional motion, you could also be as large as one of our galaxies or travel to a very large world in an extremely large galaxy where our galaxy might be in someone else's desk drawer. As to whether there is a bottomless pit of frequency ranges or just a few, etc. is another story. At that point you could completely understand how our frequency range functions and its internal substances and structuring at all hierarchical levels. If all of the other frequency ranges are constructed the same way you could extrapolate that knowledge to all of them and completely understand them all. There is more to the story, of course, but that is enough of that for now.

My point is that all observational evidence supports the concept that we are continually living in the present. We don't jump back into the past and become a child again once we are grown up. Neither do we go into the future and observe things from that perspective and then jump back to the current present. We can experience the past only in the form of recordings that were made either in our minds or by other devices when that past was the current present. We can only experience a possible future in the form of extrapolations from observed patterns that we observed from past records and from present observations. We cannot actually observe the real future because it has not yet occurred. There is no observable evidence for a continual existence of the past or the future. The relational stuff that highlights the present is the observations of normal continuations of motions in their paths and the expected results from interactions that show a continuation of motion transfers in the normal expected patterns as have been observed to happen over and over in their linear motion flow patterns, etc. Clocks are only useful to us because of this continual orderly motion flow. If the clock were to suddenly start to run backwards because we started to go backward in time to the past or if it suddenly jumped forward 6 hours because we moved into the future, the clock would be useless to us to help us record the continual passage of time. They don't do that, but just continue to move forward at the rate that the motions contained in them provides. I have found that the scriptures themselves, at least in the King James version that is not copyrighted, are very consistent and accurate. The works of men, however, are not. Even those who are said to be followers of Christ, often mix men's science or other works into their works and since man's works are usually at least partially in error they can't be counted on to be completely valid. An example would be when leaders of the Roman church adopted the then current scientific concepts that considered the earth to be the center of the universe and that the sun and planets, etc., went around the earth. When it was later noticed that the planets sometimes went back and forth they just added the concept of epicycles to try to explain them away, so that they would not be seen to have made an error. Ironically, today I see just the opposite in that atheists now in the same way often make up many obviously false theories to try to continue to support concepts like natural creation of the universe or of living creatures, etc. even though current scientific observational evidence no longer supports such concepts as practical. To get a complete understanding of anything it is necessary to both understand what is in that thing (the positive way) as well as what is not in it (the negative way). Both approaches used simultaneously work best. Yes it is not just limited to science.

I am not sure what you mean about the relata and ontology that is not about the structure or relations of things. Please give me what you would consider to be the relata and ontology of matter particles that does not include the structure or relations of them. If you can, give it to me in non-mathematical terms.

Sincerely,

Paul

Dear Cristi,

Per your advice, I've read Petkov's essay and it seems mostly to just repeat the following:

"Therefore the failure of all experiments to detect absolute motion (encapsulated in the principle of relativity - physical phenomena look the same in all inertial reference frames12) has indeed a profound physical meaning - all those experiments failed to detect absolute motion (i.e., uniform motion in the absolute space) because there exists not a single (and therefore absolute) space, but many spaces (and many times) in the world; physical phenomena look the same for all observers in relative motion, because each observer performs experiments in his own space and uses his own time (e.g., the speed of light is the same for all observers in relative motion since each observer measures it in his own space by using his own time).

Now Minkowski's argument, deduced from the experimental evidence, that the world is four-dimensional, becomes evident: the world must be four-dimensional in order that observers in relative motion have different spaces (and times). Minkowski did not stress that the experimental results (that gave rise to the principle of relativity) would be impossible (i.e., the failure to detect absolute motion by experiments would no longer be observed and absolute motion would become de-tectable), if the world were three-dimensional (which would mean that there would exist a single and therefore absolute three-dimensional space and a single and therefore absolute time) most probably because he regarded it as self-evident. And, indeed, if the physical world were three-dimensional, there would exist a single (and therefore absolute) space, i.e. a single class of simultaneous events (a single time), which would mean that simultaneity and time would be absolute in contradiction with both the the-ory of relativity and, most importantly, with the experiments which failed to detect absolute motion."

in other words, because Michelson-Morley did not detect universal ether, he believes Minkowski.

But in 1925 Michelson-Gale did detect local ether, in the form of gravity through which light propagates. I only became aware of the MG experiment a year ago. It also agrees with MM experiments, in that they were conducted in a lab essentially stationary in the earth's gravity, to within the resolution of their instruments. This is therefore compatible with the 'zero ether wind' of MM. There is far too much support to include in a comment, but I have, for example, written much detail in ref 11 of my current paper.

Obviously I know that academia frowns on questioning Einstein, but the facts are beginning to favor (3+1)D ontology over 4D, no matter how loudly people scream.

As Rovelli says, it's actually very complicated, mostly because of the incorrect 4D assumptions.

Anyway, thank you for reading my essay.

I have re-written it and uploaded a version that discusses your case 2 substrate. I actually think that you would find it very interesting.

Warmest regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Cristi,

I was very interested in your comment about having heard recently others mention gravity as a possible field for panpsychism. I have rewritten my essay to include information that became available the day after you wrote the above comment. I sincerely hope you will reread at least the last 4 pages of my essay. I think you'll find it worthwhile.

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Cristi,

I think we're not worlds apart in our views. My own thinking, as elaborated in the Minds and Machines-article, is very similar---physics is about what we can say about the relational structure of the world, which leaves out its intrinsic character. Many, from William James via Russell to modern theorists like Kastrup or Galen Strawson (I think, if you don't know it, you might find lots of interest in his essay 'What does 'physical' mean?'), have taken this to suggest that the stuff left out in this way then just is experience/experiential, or 'sentience' as you put it. Strawson's view is especially illuminating: he argues that there's really no grounds to think that the experiential, in this sense, is 'extra-physical'; rather, it's just what carries the relations that physics discovers, and hence, even though 'structure-transcending', is just as much physical in character---something not miles away from your 'S = P', it seems to me.

Me, I'm not quite there, yet. It's always seemed to me that panpsychist views solve the problem of consciousness rather like Alexander solved the Gordian Knot---essentially, perforce stipulating mental properties as elements of the world. Hence, I strive to try and find a way to make intrinsic properties be apparent to consciousness, and only in that appearance becoming experiential---a process which, I agree, will not ever allow for any formal description, and hence, unspeakable.

But I do believe that this is a viable---even promising---avenue to pursue, even if it's not quite my own. There are various attempts at trying to steer a middle way between Cartesian dualism and all-out eliminative materialism, neither of which I find very appealing, and I think the recent resurgence in the exploration of these options is a hopeful sign that we're maybe making some actual progress.

Cheers

Jochen

Dear Cristi,

Thanks for taking the time to explain. Like you, I prefer to work at the foundations, rather than attempt to build a new penthouse on top. I agree with almost every word you say, and thank you for saying it.

Take care, my friend, and stay well.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Cristi,

Thanks a lot for writing this very interesting essay -- I enjoyed it very much. I have some questions and comments. First the questions:

1) You say that all definitions in a dictionary are circular, and that physics is all about syntax. But there's a sense in which the liar paradox ('I am a liar') can be seen as the emergence of semantics from syntax, since by manipulating purely syntactical rules, the system ends up saying something about itself, namely that it has limitations. (This point is made by Hofstadter in "Gödel, Escher, Bach"; I also mention it in my essay). I think that this emergence of semantics is something rather weak compared to the point you are making (since it only talks about limitations and does not explore all possible meanings), but I was wondering what your thoughts on this point are.

2) You talk about "the collection of all true statements about the physical the world". But I worry about whether this is well-defined. If you define a set in the standard way (namely: for any property, there exists the set of elements that have that property), you can construct Rusell's paradox, which leads to inconsistencies. You mention this after Principle 2, as if it were a limitation of what we can know, but I think it is also a limitation of what can be properly defined mathematically.

3) You say that language is only about relations. I wonder what is your stand on the problem of universals in philosophy. (That is, how do we recognize an apple if all apples are particulars of the concept of an apple. The concept is the universal, which we never experience.) I am trying to understand whether your standpoint is equivalent to saying that there are no universals.

Now the comments:

1) I liked your idea that meaning is subjective and private (and I also mention this in my essay), but I don't find it scary, I guess I find it kind of beautiful... I see it as the power of words -- as what a poem can do to you.

2) You mention that the coarse graining of a deterministic system can be nondeterministic. In an essay for this year's contest, Flavio del Santo makes a similar point, in particular with regard to classical mechanics.

Thanks again for your very interesting input.

Sincerely,

Gemma

Dear Cristi,

Exciting to see your essay. I actually looked forward to it.

You write:

"What appears macroscopically to be a state, can be in many different ways at the microscopic level, since the macro state is a lower resolution version of the micro state. This allowed Boltzmann to understand entropy as the amount of information that is ignored when using a lower level resolution instead of the full resolution description."

And

"The hard problem is sometimes formulated as the task to explain the fact that "there is something like to be you" (Nagel, 1974; Chalmers, 2003)."

Now, my question (or insight) is this, given that at the one-on-one scale of physical information we are each our own unique definition of mind (the physical analogue Gödel's self-referencing state) wouldn't it be only practical to also model every mind as own maximal (or minimal) entropy?

In which sense a mind is own Gödelian undecidable (entropy) or, put conversely, own Landauer limit.

Combining the two scales will mean that every mind is own de facto Heisenberg Cut or natural unit (and hence natural limit) of physical information. This simply is what we should mean by the quantum gravity scale.

In short, I am proposing thus that every mind should be modelled as own unique definition of the "nothing" -- own quantum vacuum.

In electromagnetism this will be equivalent to modelling every mind as in any observable dispersion or spectral line of cosmic light own unit/constant refractive index or "free space".

In the Gaussian unit of electromagnetism this may be equivalent to saying that every mind is own authentic "Planck charge" (hitherto the fine-structure constant or Coulomb force constant).

In modern cosmology this may be equivalent to saying that every mind is own unique holographic event horizon or vacuum of QCD.

In summary, my question to you is: shouldn't we be looking seriously at the possibility that every mind is own unique quantum gravity scale, and indeed vice versa?

This will be in the sense presently that a mind is at once own natural unit and own natural limit of physical information. And what to call the unit mind? The "nothing" -- the quantum vacuum or holographic event horizon.

In your relational perspective the given mind might be by definition then the Markov property. So it is as good as the norm/normal from which we are describing any system of waves.

Likewise, all mathematics start by assuming a number basis (an imaginary unit) namely a set of all sets. Whether expressly stated or not, it is source of the consistencies for it is the bases of all apparent scale.

Chidi Idika

(forum topic: 3531)

I hope you'll find the time to see how I have struggled with such huge burden of proof (Forum topic: 3531).

Dear Christi,

I liked many ideas expressed in your essay, in particular that we are somehow caught in our private worlds. While this is necessary for us to be free, you don't show why this situation does not degenerate to solipsism. The reason may be that you think 'logically', i.e. affirmatively.

Further, isn't sentience a high level (reflective) idea over the immediate experiences of an observer? Can a reflection be foundational?

Heinz

Dear Cristi,

Your essay is well argued and interesting. However while I completely agree with your Principle 1, I do only agree with principles 2 and 3 with some qualifications, that might not correspond the picture your wording suggests.

Let me try to qualify. The problem lies in the "physical world". Physical world suggests the the existence of one unique reality to which some dynamical mathematical model P is isomorphic. It is easy to mistake this physical world with the "nature of things" which principle 1 denies is accessible. This is what I call in my essay simplistic realism.

In my essay I probe another possibility as a consequence of principle 1: The objectively knowable relations are the invariants of some symmetry group, where the objects themselves are defined only as relational entites (as irreducible representation of the symmetry group) relative to some reference frame. Also the dynamical laws are constrained by the symmetry and maybe uniquely defined. The symmetry also defines, what a closed (sub) system is.

But - and this is the bold thesis of my essay I want to probe - the realization of the symmetry depends on the environment, which might change with time and allow the realizations of different symmetries, hence laws and objects, hence mathematical model P, which describe the physical world.

Having the possibility, of having different models P and its physical realizations at different times, changes everything. Some of it is discussed in my essay.

I hope this made you curious about my essay. Happy to discuss some features of it with you.

Luca