Sentience, the ontology of experience by Cristinel Stoica

Dear Stoica. Great work in your essay on consciousness... I think we are surely headed to the core of it all though gradually.i Learnt something on sentience,Thanks.i too have something on consciousness in my simple essay here-https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3525.Hope you kindly take your time to review. meanwhile, Wish you all the best in the essay contest.

Dear Cristi,

You wrote a fine philosophical essay that was very readable and enjoyable.

In your abstract you ask the question: "Can consciousness be completely reduced to physical processes or computation?"

I would argue that yes it can be reduced to physical processes, but that not all such processes are amenable to computation based on the fact that ideal Turing machines do not and can never exist.

I would categorize myself as adhering to a variety of kinds of monism. My existence monism posits that only energy exists, it forming the Universe. My substance monism (?) posits that only two kinds of particles exist each with a set of properties and states, and these particles cannot be separated in the current stage of evolution of the Universe. My priority monism posits that all existing things of nature perceived by humans are emergent, but point back to a source that is distinct from them but causally connected.

Given that I believe in mathematical structures as approximations of the object reality of the Universe, I suppose that would mean I am also an adherent of skuld monism (Sentient monism). But I do not believe in determinism! You state: "The coarse graining of a deterministic system can be nondeterministic" and I would argue that emergent skuld beings such as ourselves are a form of coarse-graining.

I originally used the term sentient in my essay, which according to the Oxford dictionary means "able to see or feel things through the senses". To my thinking that means bacteria, amoeba and other similar lifeforms are sentient, and although this word is commonly used as I intended in science fiction, I felt that this word does not provide the meaning I needed. So, I coined the term "skuld entity" to mean an entity that has self-awareness, metacognition, awareness of others and awareness of the future. Skuld originates from the Old Norse literature name for the Norn of fate that represents the future.

In Old Norse literature the three Norns (demi-goddesses) of fate are female Jotuns (giants), named Urd for past, Verdandi for the present and Skuld for the future. Norns are always present when a child is born, and they decide its fate. Look up Norns and Jotuns on the internet for some fascinating insight to another culture's myths and legends.

Using Verdandi as the name of the Norn of the present, mentioned above, I coined the term "Relative Verdandism". This refers to my claim that one set of defined energy exists relative to another set of defined energy with dynamical force laws that describe the relative motion of both the energy forms in the Now (present). Ultimately Verdandism is able to do away with the concepts of space, time and spacetime, which are merely creations of skuld organisms, leaving only the object reality of my Ginnungagap Theory, which describes the Universe solely in terms of its constituent matter and force particles, and their respective properties and relations.

In your expanded essay "The negative way to sentience", you state: "Therefore, the histories of dynamical systems are as eternalist as the block world of the theory of relativity." I disagree with this analysis, in the sense that unless the histories are stored in a permanent system (which is, of course, not possible) then they are not eternalist at all.

We cover many of the same ideas but from differing perspectives, generally in agreement. Sometimes it is semantics, and the brevity of answers that gets in the way of understanding.

I shall continue to read your longer version with interest.

I hope you have a chance to read my essay where I contemplate the 3 Un's with respect to my own interests.

Kind regards

Lockie Cresswell

Dear Cristi,

You make a profound observation, "science deals with relations only, not with the nature of things", and yet you let that slip out of hand. Consciousness is indeed explainable only in terms of 'relations of things', not by the underlying nature of things. Relations are observable reality. Constancy of relations are the brute definite properties.

> "Theories are guess about the laws of the structure, the relations between the states of a system at different times."

You did not emphasize here that state descriptions are also relative, and system descriptions are constructed of constancy of state descriptions. For instance, an identity can be created out of constancy of rest mass energy of 0.511 MeV, charge of negative 1 electronic charge unit, and spin of half, and is labeled as an electron. Therefore, states and systems also have only relative descriptions.

> "The book [of Nature] is written in mathematical language -- Galileo Galilei".

A profoundly approximate statement, misses the reality. The trouble with math is that we begin to expect strong determinism expressible by math, where as we must allow limited indeterminism in our mathematical description to be able to construct the descriptions in relative terms alone. Besides, it is the indeterminism that makes the universe come into existence, or in reality. An entirely deterministic universe may not come into existence and may not vanish into non-existence. Moreover, it allows the relative descriptions to be constructed, without going into the underlying nature of things.

> "Since the collection of all true statements about everything in the world should be logically consistent, it follows that there is a mathematical structure which describes anything that can be said, which is relations only."

If one is saying all orderly patterns will have mathematical description, then it is understandable. But why logically consistent, why not observationally consistent, because logic requires mathematical consistency, ruling out any role for limited indeterminism? How can one make things indeterminate, yet have processes that cause definite consequence? See my essay.

> "Each neuron works by collecting some input signals and returning an output signal. These signals and the way they are processed can be sequenced, discretized, as precisely as needed. So, ultimately, nobody is able to distinguish more than a discrete (in fact a finite) number of states of the brain, and there's no need for this to describe its processes. This makes the brain's states and processes practically equivalent to those of a Turing Machine."

Differences from Turing Machines: (1) Asynchronous parallelism, (2) Discrete states of neurons capture continuous dynamics, (3) Inherent randomness, and (4) neural structure and connectivity change with time in interaction with inexhaustible (infinite) environmental conditions. Without a process of continuous dynamics in Turing machine, combination of states remain finite. A random number generator also has to be a Turing Machine, which would be repetitive for a finite system, however large -- genuine randomness goes away due to discretization. Random number generator then becomes part of the environment.

> "So even if we take into account the environment with its unpredictable inputs, it can be simulated by a Turing machine."

It can only be statistically simulated. A statistical simulation of a system does not capture the specific information of causal correlation of actual state of a system at a given moment in real time. Lower resolution argument gives up the specific information represented by the state, which amounts to definite abstraction, but no one seems to care. Evolving non-deterministic relations is not bounded by timeless tapestry.

> "If relations can't fully explain consciousness, then what's the missing ingredient?"

Relations with limited indeterminism can explain consciousness, but one has not presented yet what is consciousness. Without such a knowledge, consciousness naturally remains inexplicable mystery. Once you are interested in taking the discussion forward, I will define consciousness and request you to critique.

> "Can the task of solving Problem 1 be expressed as finding out the correct relation between P and S?"

YES. P is an observable state of a system and S is the information of its causal correlation. All states depend on specific relation among precursor states of physical systems, one has to simply formulate how such information builds with organized interaction. Not only the signals (states) interacting at logic gates amount to processing information, but all interactions result in certain processing, which can be quantified by a formal expression, which also shows how differs from absolute determinism. That is, processing in or by the physical system is out of bounds to Godel's theorems. Godel's theorems lose their shine due to their inapplicability to real systems. See doi:10.3390/info9070168

> "If P and S interact, the evolution law of W should contain an interaction term".

P and S do not interact, they are non-separable, as the states of P causally represents S by virtue of constancy of natural causation. S does not affect P, S is the natural outcome of P and inseparable -- there is no existence to P without S.

I hope, you enjoyed a different perspective, even though we agree on purely relational description of universe. But I cannot match your eloquence in presenting substantive ideas with such clarity and ease.

Rajiv

Hi Cristi,

Once again, you wrote a remarkable Essay. Congrats. Your statement of Principle 1 that "Science only deals with relations, not with the nature of things." is quite strong, but I find enlightening your discussion on it. Concerning your Principle 2 that "The collection of all true propositions about our physical world admits a mathematical model." I think that sometimes it works also for wrong propositions! In general, I think that physics goes ahead through a series of subsequent approximations, which will give us more and more accurate predictions over a wider and wider range of phenomena. This is more difficult concerning the approach to consciousness. In any case, I find very interesting your Essay and deserving a very high score. By the way, I send you my congrats also for your PRA paper on the wave function on the three-dimensional space. Another excellent work.

I wish you very good luck in the Contest.

Cheers, Ch.

Dear Cristi, If science doesn't strive to reach the heart of reality or to comprehend things in themselves and it's simply a bunch of relations then what does?...Is it art, religion, philosophy?

You say, I quote "If you ever wondered why is math so effective in science, here's the answer: because like science, math is about relations, and relations are math.

A mathematical structure is (1) a collection of sets (the nature of its elements is irrelevant), and (2) a collection of relations between those sets. Mathematically, relations are subsets of Carte- sian products of the sets." quote closed.

In this statement you seem to reduce relations even further to sets, subsets or the set of subsets so relations in maths is no longer a primitive concept, and since I mentioned concepts I wonder why you left those out too from science since in my opinion without concepts you can't have relations at all wouldn't you say (i.e. what would GR be without the fundamental concept of manifold as defined by Riemann or the concept of force introduced by Newton or group by Lagrange, Galois or Lie etc?)

Logically speaking relations are between things, facts, acts, concepts, sets, classes etc.assumes the a prior existence of these objects as something more fundamental than the relations among them as such.

From a holistic (even Daoist)point of view however I can see your point if we are to agree that everything that exists is somehow inter-connected and therefore those connections, those structural relations become essential in undertaking the structure of reality and yes in that sense perhaps one can take this ultra reductionist view.

Dear Cristi,

Your beautifully written and understandable essay made a lasting imression on me. I still need to dwell a little more on the last section, and the proposition P=S. [I readily aagree there is a hard problem of consciousness].

Some of my own earlier thoughts on this subject came to my mind while I was reading your essay. I make a distinction [and I think you do too] between mind (thoughts, emotions, ...] and the underlying substrate of self-awareness/consciousness. Perhaps consciousness is a full body experience, confined not just to the brain-mind system?

Also, I had imagined consciousness to be a timeless state...self-awareness without any thoughts-every moment identical with the next; devoid of mind, there is no flow of time, and hence no experience of time, or perhaps a reversible time experience, very different from how mind perceives time. Are we in disagreement on this aspect: can consciousness be treated as a dynamical system?

Earlier, I also had this idea that at the most fundamental level, there is no distinction between the physical world and the mathematics which describes it. The two become one and the same. And that consciousness is the state when physical aspect of self equals mathematical description of self. I don't know how to prove this, but were it to be true, it would be different from how we treat emergent physical systems [reductionism]. Is your proposal P=S in any way related to this idea, or something entirely different?

You have written a thought-rovoking and very enjoyable essay, and I hope it will do very well in the contest.

Tejinder

Dear Cristi,

What a pity, you declined to take the discussion forward. It appears, you have such strong logical rationality against my arguments that it is not worthy of further discussion at all. Your rationality must be mathematical for it to give such certainty of mind.

I can see that others too have noted the strength and clarity of arguments and simplicity of presentation, that most could follow with ease. This is what I call eloquence.

Have fun addressing the diverse comments from the readers.

Rajiv

Cristi, concepts are not simple representations or worse mere labels: they are much more than that and potentially they are and they've always been the key into deeper meanings of reality. It was the revision of the classical concepts of time and space that led Einstein to SR and GR and which ultimately even made the classic relation between them disappear into 4-dim Minkowski space-time and the 4-dim pseudo-Riemannuan manifold respectively. That simple concept revision hugely changed the paradigm in classical physics by pointing out the equivalence between mass and energy or the nature of gravity from being a force with Newton to being the curvature of space-time with Einstein, just to give one example of how gravity came to be understood deeper just by changing the conceptual framework, theory that was indeed confirmed through measurement and observation subsequently or as you say through relating data with the theory but only because we had a theory built on rigorous mathematical concepts, postulates, empirical evidence, philosophical and logical principles, relations and connections etc, in the first place so a whole mix of entities not just relations and mere syntactical labels.

I don't dispute the fact that the way we understand nature of gravity now may not be the ultimate reality in itself due to quantum gravity problems but who is to say that one day someone will not come along and teach us that mind/ consciousness also plays a role in it and maybe we may even be able to bend objects at a distance just like in Matrix or levitate objects like in Stars War...

More example of the same nature you can find in my essay Logic, Formalism and Reality if you'll be curious to read it as well as a more historically realistic view as to the role the mind/ consciousness through mathematics and logic plays in physics.

Cristi; it has by now become clear to me that you're not a Platonist like me so you don't believe in logical objective reality of concepts such as number, set, structure, system, even relation as such understood as mapping or function. For instance, Godel, a notorious Platonist used to say that numbers and sets are as real and primitive as objects but only few can perceive them as such and one can only judge the truthfulness of one's philosophy by how fruitful it is in ones endeavours and in his case it's been quite fruitful I'd say. You keep asserting that in physics ( I don't think you include all sciences in the same category especially the humanistic ones where measuring things is more problematic than in physics, eg in psychology where one can hardly say that one can reliable measure feelings, moods, sentience or the like) concepts play no major role and it's all down to relations ( and more recently you cared to include sets too although as I pointed out to you some type of relations can be reduced to the set of subsets or the power set as Cantor duly proved) and that the concept of manifold it's just a structure, a mere representation of our minds but you seem to forget that structure as such is only a modern concept in maths and physics no more than 100 years old. In the end, numbers, sets, relations , structures are all concepts with various degrees of naiveté or subtlety or complexity so if you reduce them all to the concept of relation ( which you only defined in the context of measurement in physics but in QM the measurement has its share of problems too)you still have to explain the concept of concept and then you'd really get stuck in a vicious cycle circle type of argument wouldn't you?...

It's true that Kant asserted that we cannot ever truly know the things in themselves but only deal with their phenomena through mental representations but let's not forget that he also used another 11 categories of thought over and above that of relation as inherence, causality, and correlation so even at Kant's the relation is more than a mere concept; it was actually an a priori category of understanding made up of three dialectically inter-related concepts, along the categories of quantity, quality and modality and their inner conceptual movements, plus the two forms of intuition, space of time whose meaning since Kant has seen so many dramatic changes, especially with Einstein whose theory asserts that space-time is affected by mass-energy and vice-versa so what was once just mere concepts or representation in our mind suddenly became as real as physical matter...I think that this example refutes yet again your thesis that concepts have no logical or objective reality and that only relations derived from observation and measurement.

Hi Cristinel, nice essay. Some thoughts spring to mind about brain and neuron function. 1.threshold of neurotransmitter input at junction needing to be met before firing of a neuron can happen. In many cases input will

not result in output. 2.Learning by new neural junctions forming. 3. Brain plasticity; 'Pruning' of unused neuronal connections related to forgetting the unimportant.'strengthening' of well used ones. 4. Brain derived neurotophic factor increased by exposure to novel situations, exercise and some dietary components/ supplements. Overall showing the brain not fixed in architecture like a machine but undergoing growth and /or decline. meaning there are far more potential states of the brain than its architecture at one time would suggest. Kind regards Georgina

Cristi I hope we're both reading the same essay: yours

Here's what you say I may have misunderstood (just a few samples but the list is much longer):

"Principle 1 Science deals with relations only, and not with the nature of things."

Which science are you referring to or you say in general, referring rather to a certain scientific method, mainly the one used in physics?

"Language is as well about relations only."

Which kind of language are you referring to? If you mean the natural language than there is more to language than syntax, there is semiotics and semantics, there is linguistic, poetry, metalanguage, etc and many more aspects of language that are not reducible to relations. To give just one definition belonging to Heidegger who states that 'language is the house of Being' Do you agree to that? I think that Eminescu would...Just a hunch not a theory.

"If you ever wondered why is math so effective in science, here's the answer: because like science, math is about relations, and relations are math"

I think we commented already too much on this statement and how you can actually reduce even relations to sets so it's self- contradictory because you first state maths is relations, then it's sets and relations and then you hide the relations into Cartesian subsets so you're left only with sets as the only primitive concept to define a mathematical structure.

'Principle 2 The collection of all true propositions about our physical world admits a mathematical model.'

Well here with this state you have several issues:

1. What do you mean by a collection? Is it in the sense of set as defined by Cantor or in the sense as defined by Dedekind or neither? Is in in the sense of class as defined by Von Neuman and in what sense 'a collection of all true proposition' true in what sense? Does such a collection even exist or you simply postulate as if it existed as a working hypothesis? and do you mean by a mathemical model? Is in in the sense of a metalanguage in set axiomatic sense or in Tarski sense where the truth is not definable in a given language and needs a metalanguage?

'And since many apparently independent phenomena were described in terms of these elementary constituents, we expect that this will continue to work. In particular, it is often believed that consciousness is reducible to a complex arrangement of particles. '

I must admit this statement is mind blowing, especially the bit that consciousness is reducible to a complex arrangement of elementary particles!!...why should we expect so? Has anyone proved that consciousness/ human mind, although as I say in my essay - the most amazing thing in the Universe - is a strictly physical phenomenon or it's still assumed a more complex psychic one therefore more to with the mental phenomena rather than the brain? Then again, you introduced along with consciousness the concepts of elementary particles referring at fermions and bosons which makes me wonder again whatever happened to Principle 1 'physics is only about relations and not things in themselves' Doesn't the SM of physics indicate that we've somehow reached, up to an isomorphism as you say, the very things in themselves when we talk about the fundamental constituents of matter and when you even want to reduce consciousness or maybe life as such to them? I think in a sense it does but as you say... nevermind!