How could science be different?

Jose Luis Perez Velazquez

Greetings. Ona clarification, consciousness, at least some aspects of it, can indeed be measured. There are scales like the Glasgow coma scale and others used in the clinic; and there are other more abstract, so to speak, measures of consciousness still too early to be applied in the clinic. We have to consider that consciousness is our term to describe a constellation of phenomena, from sensing and acting to emotions and self-awareness. Many of these aspects can in fact be very well measured, and the reasons as to why some of these phenomena occur are more or less well understood. I could advise you to read my book on the subject matter but I am afraid I am not allowed to disclose my identity.
As you mention in your essay, it is true that people are obsessed with measuring and quantifying, and some reasons for this I ventured in my essay. I prefer A. T. Winfree's perspective, as he said in his book 'The Geometry of Biological Time': "My deeper motivation is a feeling that numerical exactitude is alien to the diversity of organic evolution, and pretense of exactitude often obscures the qualitative essentials that I find more meaningful"

Lorraine Ford

Jose Luis Perez Velazquez
To clarify, I DID in fact note in my essay that “unlike conscious experience, awareness and knowledge, the physical world, including any physical correlates of consciousness, is potentially measurable.”

Conscious experience, awareness and knowledge is never measured: only any physical correlates of consciousness are measurable. Measurable aspects of the world are (e.g.) categories like mass, relative position, voltage, charge etc. What you get from measurement are numerals (symbols) that apply to a measurement category (also represented by symbols).

So, if you tried to measure the physical correlates of very bad pain, you might say that the pain is 9.5 on a scale of 10, or something like that. But “pain= 9.5/10” tells you almost nothing about the living conscious experience of pain: you can’t reverse engineer or re-construct the pain experience out of “pain= 9.5/10”.

“numerical exactitude is alien to the diversity of organic evolution”

I don’t agree with A. T. Winfree's perspective, that you quote. As physics has shown, numerical exactitude and law of nature relationships are the firm foundation upon which the world is built. I think that “organic evolution” has shown that there are additional aspects of the world that are needed to explain the behaviour of living thing. This is because the survival of living things, even tiny primitive worms, relies on the logical analysis and collation of information coming from their environment.

But the logical analysis and collation of information (which applies to categories of information, and the numbers that apply to these categories) is an aspect of the world that can’t be derived from laws of nature (which are merely fixed mathematical relationships between these categories of information). So, this implies that an aspect of the world that can perform logical analysis and collation of information is as fundamental and necessary an aspect of the world as are the laws of nature.

Lorraine Ford

Jose Luis Perez Velazquez
P.S.
Physics’ law of nature equations represent invisible relationships that exist between the measurable bits of the world (the measurable bits are categories like relative mass or position), where the mathematical operators and the equals signs in the equations represent the aspects of the world that can’t be measured.

Similarly, consciousness can probably only exist as logical connections between the measurable bits of the world, where the logical connective symbols (IF, AND, OR, THEN, IS TRUE) also represent aspects of the world that can’t be measured.

Lorraine Ford

Jose Luis Perez Velazquez
P.P.S.

"I prefer A. T. Winfree's perspective, as he said in his book 'The Geometry of Biological Time': "My deeper motivation is a feeling that numerical exactitude is alien to the diversity of organic evolution, and pretense of exactitude often obscures the qualitative essentials that I find more meaningful"

Here is my analysis of the situation: Looking at the work that physicists do, it is clear that the only types of information that they deal with are categories, relationships between these categories, and numbers that apply to these categories. The categories are measurable, and the result of measurement is a number, but the crucial relationships (represented via the use of mathematical operators including equals signs) are invisible, and can’t be measured. All information in the world seems to have this format whereby only these types of mathematical categories are measurable. And as opposed to an equation written on a piece of paper, these categories, relationships and numbers have real power in the world.

Importantly, the above 3 types of information that characterise the physical world can’t merely exist, because the mere existence of information implies nothing, unless there also exists a knowledge component to the world whereby this type of information is known to the world, or at least known by local parts of the world like particles or atoms or molecules.

But it is clear that life is using the above 3 types of information to build “higher-level” information via the use of logical connectives (represented as (e.g.) IF, AND, OR, THEN, IS TRUE) to collate and analyse the lower-level information, in order to build an accurate picture of its surrounding world, which is so important for survival in the world. But just like the abovementioned mathematical operators and equals signs represent aspects of the world that are powerful but not measurable, the logical connectives also represent aspects of the word that are powerful but not measurable. And the higher-level “logical categories” that can be built, using logical connectives, out of the lower-level mathematical categories, need to be precise and exact in order to build a reasonably accurate picture of the surrounding world. But these “logical categories” are not necessarily measurable in the same way that lower-level mathematical categories of information are measurable. Despite the physical architecture of the brain, including any special molecules and cells, these higher-level “logical categories” of information are seemingly not measurable because measuring instruments can’t account for the logical connectives.

So contrary to what you imply, I think that “numerical exactitude” is always there, and precise mathematical and/or logical categories and relationships exist, but seemingly only the type of mathematical categories that are found in the mathematical law of nature relationships are measurable.

Lorraine Ford

Jose Luis Perez Velazquez
P.P.P.S.
Another way of looking at it is:
If living things, including human beings, are to form a reasonably accurate conscious picture of their surroundings, given the information coming via the senses, then the logical analysis has to be pretty spot on. Otherwise, the living things would not have a reasonable chance of survival.

But what is the “raw material” upon which the presumably-existing logical connectives (represented as e.g. IF, AND, OR, THEN, IS TRUE) can operate? The only “raw material” upon which this logic can operate are the types of information that actually exist in the real world, i.e., existing categories, existing lawful relationships, and existing numbers, and possibly also the above-hypothesised “logical categories”.

It is not enough for researchers to construct true-false behavioural truth tables, because the “raw material”, upon which the truth table logical connectives operate, necessarily has to be the types of information that actually exist in the world, from the point of view of the cells and other elements that together make up the living thing. The only way for living things to build the reasonably accurate picture of the surrounding world that they need to survive in the world, is to use: 1) genuinely existing and available information; and 2) genuine logical analysis of the categories and numbers that comprise this genuinely existing information. A reasonably accurate conscious picture of the surrounding world cannot be built any other way.

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
But what is information?
Underlying all surface appearances, if you want to talk about the fundamental nature of the world, you need to use the tried and true language of physics. The underlying fundamental nature of the world can only be represented in terms of categories (like relative position, mass, momentum, energy), lawful relationships that exist between these categories, and the numbers that apply to these categories. Leaving aside the question of what matter itself is, the relevant types of information that apply to matter are expressed in the language of physics. E.g., the mass of an electron might be symbolically represented as: “m = 0.511 MeV”.

While this symbolic form might represent information from the point of view of physicists, how would one symbolically represent the type of on-the-spot information that is available from the point of view of a particle? The only possible way that symbols could be used to represent this on-the-spot point of view information is in the following type of form: “(m = 0.511 MeV) IS TRUE”, using the logical connective “IS TRUE”.

My point is that zeroes and ones DO NOT and CANNOT EVER represent real-world information: there is absolutely no real-world information content represented by a zero symbol or a one symbol, or any combination of zero and one symbols. The above type of form, which uses categories, numbers, equals signs and the logical connective “IS TRUE”, is the only valid way to represent real-world information.

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
I might sarcastically add, in relation to the issue of “information”:
What a shame that poor old Shannon didn’t know the difference between real-world information, and the symbols that people use to represent information. Shannon’s misuse of the word “information” is yet another case of a blind, human-centred, anthropocentric view of the world.

Alaya Kouki

Lorraine Ford
"consciousness
is the aspect of the world involved with the mathematical and logical connections, links,
and relationships between things"
What about the following deduction from the logical statement:
In 1911 Planck had deduced the following result:
"The integral of action of a resonator is exactly equal to his constant h and so the energy of the resonator is quatified"
In 2023 I had deduced the following result:
"The integral of action times K/L where K is the stiffness of the resonator and L its mass should have the dimension of a power. So the energy of the resonator have the form of Planck formulae OR it can have another form as a new universal constant having the dimension of a power times the inertial time of the resonator "
How much I can go from my deduction? Perhaps resolving the problem of disparency of vacuum energy between QM and GR, perhaps giving an entropy to vacuum, perhaps showing the limits of René Descartes of his assumption "I think so I am", perhaps extracting energy from vacuum...etc.

Lorraine Ford

Alaya Kouki
I was suggesting that unmeasurable consciousness might be more about the unmeasurable links and relationships between the measurable aspects of the world. As opposed to the categories that are measurable or calculatable (like mass, energy, momentum, or position), consciousness is more about the unmeasurable mathematical operators, equals signs, and logical connectives. In particular, from the point of view of living things including human beings, consciousness is more about the unmeasurable logical IFs, ANDs, ORs, THENs and IS TRUEs, and similarly unmeasurable logical structures that can be built using these logical connectives.

Lorraine Ford

What is the difference between the logical connectives as used by philosophers, and the logical connectives as used by computer programmers in computer programs? As a former computer programmer and analyst myself, this is something I deeply understand, but I think that I didn’t explain this issue very clearly in my essay. And I think that many people without my deep hands-on experience in the industry would not be aware that there is a difference.

With physics’ equations that represent the laws of nature, only the categories that apply to matter (like mass or relative position) are potentially measurable. The very important linking bits that connect and hold the world together, represented by the mathematical operators and the equals signs, are aspects of the world that are assumed to exist, but these symbols represent aspects of the world that are not measurable.

Similarly, if these same categories that apply to matter, with their associated current on-the-spot numbers, were symbolically represented as a logical proposition in a logical statement, e.g.

“IF (P IS TRUE) AND (Q IS TRUE) THEN (R IS TRUE)”,

only the truth of the logical proposition aspect, e.g.

“(m = 0.511 MeV) IS TRUE”

would be potentially verifiable. The logical connectives themselves (like IF, THEN, AND, and IS TRUE) would represent aspects of the world that are not themselves measurable or verifiable.

And, seemingly, there is in fact a logical aspect to the world, just like there is a mathematical-lawful aspect to the world. But, at least one of the logical connective symbols used by philosophers has a different meaning to the same logical connective symbol used by computer programmers in computer programs. The THEN logical connective used by philosophers has a completely different meaning to the THEN connective used by computer programmers in computer programs.

In philosophy, the “THEN” means “logically implies”, but when a computer programmer writes a “THEN” as part of a statement in a computer program, the “THEN” part of the statement is NOT logically implied by the “IF” part of the statement: the “THEN” part of the statement is essentially a product of the creatively free imagination of the computer programmer. However, once written and uploaded to a computer setup, and the computer program is running, the THEN statement becomes a mathematically necessary instruction for the computer to follow, due to the laws of nature.

In computer programming, like in other aspects of real life in the real world, the “THEN” is not logically or mathematically implied by the "IF". In other words, in the real world, free will exists (at least for computer programmers!! 😊 ).

cristi marcovici

here you want to explain / accentuate the confusion of the fact that , what happens in the programming of the computer is telling, inducing, creating, real true statements about the underlying voltage circuitry that are more or less , remotely related with other physical true statement/experienced phenomena .

this confusion leads to potentially cognitive behaviors language consequences
in philosophy / science the intent is to fix things, discern , clarify, simplify and in programing the intent is to give options

so how this confusion might works, ? if you type something and there are no compilation errors then this gives the impression that the statement is more true than actually is .
or apply after learning (compare and use ) ,the way of how a computer work , distorting to other situations that are not in the same scenario .

i use this statement if - (then) a lot, how do you Lorraine Ford evaluate my written presence ?

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
As opposed to the computer programmer’s “THEN” which, as explained above, is about a logical-creative aspect of the world, philosophy’s “THEN” is actually about the mathematical-lawful aspect of the world. So, while the philosopher and the physicist can see only law, the computer programmer and the artist can see creativity, because the “THEN’” is not implied by the “IF”.

But, is there in fact a genuine creative aspect of the world, where the “THEN’” is not implied by the “IF”, or are the “IF”s and “THEN”s just the superficial appearance of an underlying purely mathematical-lawful world? Seemingly quantum events are showing that at the foundations of the world, the “THEN’” is in fact not implied by the “IF”.

However, hordes of people can’t believe that genuine creativity could exist, and they are furiously trying to find a mathematical-lawful basis for the abhorrent-to-them idea that a genuine logical-creative-knowledge aspect of the world (IF, THEN, AND, OR, IS TRUE) could exist, underlying both the physics of the world, and the appearance of living things. But in my essay I’m contending that a logical-creative aspect of the world is necessary for the world-system to work:

When analysed from a systems point of view, it is easy to see that physics does not have an adequate explanation for why the system (i.e. the world) is moving, i.e. why the numbers are moving and changing. Physics can only ever say: IF some numbers change, THEN other numbers will change (where the ratios between the categories are prescribed by laws of nature). The essential systems issue is that, despite any delta symbols, equations can only ever show relationships between categories, equations can’t ever explain number change in a system. Looking at the world as a system, an adequate explanation of the number change issue requires a completely different aspect of the world: a logical-creative aspect of the world that regularly jumps the numbers to keep the system moving.

Lorraine Ford

cristi marcovici
I will only respond to properly constructed sentences, and a properly constructed argument. I will not waste my time trying to divine what on earth you are talking about.

cristi marcovici

Lorraine Ford AmaranthLion
I will only respond to properly constructed sentences, and a properly constructed argument. I will not waste my time trying to divine what on earth you are talking about.

i could say the same about your words, i have no idea what your voice is like, if read i have a default voice that potentially sound like my own voice

i'm interested how ( much) this deviate ,or in what ways, compared to spoken language of a person 1400 years ago, before the printing was invented

, you might be even a literate deaf person that use sign language in the ordinary life , that's even more intriguing
are you a deaf ? since birth, or later in life

are you a man or a woman ?

Lorraine Ford

cristi marcovici
As you would know, a disordered jumble of mathematical symbols cannot communicate mathematical ideas to other people. Similarly, a disordered jumble of symbols does not make a computer program that will work; and even the incoming data has to be ordered, or at least in a form that the computer program is set up to processes. Similarly, a disordered jumble of word symbols cannot communicate specific ideas or thoughts to other people, if in fact the communicator has any specific ideas or thoughts that he/she wants to communicate to another person.

Given that every person or living thing has an entirely different world inside their heads to any other person or living thing, it is up to the communicator to strive to bridge the gap, by using a common ordered language, and also by trying to avoid non sequiturs. The essence of communication, the ideal, is that another person might have an understanding of the communicator’s ideas or thoughts. Communication is hard work, and requires the communicator to consider whether or not what he/she says would make any sense at all to the person being communicated to.

Lorraine Ford

Lorraine Ford
Re Symbols:
How could science be different? Physicists need to notice the difference between the symbols that people use to represent information, and the real-world information itself.

The human use of symbols requires people to do a high-level analysis of low-level oncoming light and sound data – it’s the sort of thing that human beings specialise in. Speech symbols are not just sound waves, but ordered sound waves; written symbols are not just ink on paper, but ordered ink on paper. While the laws of nature apply to sound waves, ink, paper, and light waves coming from the ink on the paper, the laws of nature do not apply to the arrangements of ink on paper (i.e. man-made written symbols), and the laws of nature do not apply to the arrangements of sound waves (i.e. man-made spoken symbols). Logical analysis is required to decipher man-made symbols, which are special arrangements of matter.

Similarly in computers, people have arranged it so that special arrangements and arrays of voltages, within the context of the whole computer setup, can be used as symbols. People have arranged it so that the individual voltages themselves, which have a whole range of actual numeric values, can be used to symbolise just two values, zero and one, i.e. the man-made binary digit concept. And people have arranged it so that the higher voltages in the range can be used to symbolise the binary digit zero OR the lower voltages in the range can be used to symbolise the binary digit zero.

But the real world (the universe) is not founded on symbols, because the use of symbols requires high-level analysis: the sort of thing that human beings specialise in, and the sort of thing that people can get computers to do. The types of information that the underlying real world uses are: categories, that are inherently related to other such categories, and numbers that apply to these categories. Information in the real world is founded on inherent mathematical interrelationship, i.e. no high-level logical analysis is required.

Lorraine Ford

As I said in my essay, physics can’t explain why the world is moving and changing: the most that physics can say is that IF some numbers (for some categories like energy, position or momentum) change, THEN other numbers (for other categories) will change.

As an analyst, this is my further, more detailed, analysis of this issue:
The physics’ assumption is that some unknown thing provided the initial number change for some of the abovementioned categories at the start of the universe, and the numbers have been changing ever since, on the strength of that single, initial number change for some of the categories, and also on the strength of the laws of nature which mediate the “THEN”, i.e. the consequent number changes for the other categories.

But that assumption, that a single initial set of number changes is all that is required to drive all subsequent number change, is clearly a fallacy because, when the world is looked at as a system of mathematical relationships, every “THEN”/ consequent number change, arising from that initial number change, is instantaneous i.e. completely outside of time. This is because:

1) Time is just one of the categories (just like mass and relative position) that make up the mathematical relationships. A system of mathematical relationships does not exist inside one of its own categories. I.e. the mathematical relationships exist as part of the system, but they do not exist in time, which is just a category.

2) All the “THEN”/ consequent number changes are nothing but lawful mathematical relationships, i.e. they are instantaneous, they “occur” completely outside of time. The number change is instantaneous because the number change is nothing but a mathematical relationship.

So, the initial “IF” number changes, and all the “THEN”/ consequent number changes, comprise one single step. And then the system stops moving. The system stops moving unless there are more “IF” number changes input to the system. I.e. seen as a system, the world requires the continual input of new numbers if it is to keep moving.

P.S.
“Random” quantum events are, objectively, the input of new numbers to the system. So, rather than such quantum events being a problem for the system, as a result of the above analysis, I would conclude that such quantum events are necessary in order for the system to function, i.e. in order for the system to move.

AwarmRay

Curated lists of wild ideas in the sciences which anyone can submit to. The ideas are condensed, associated, and duplicated submissions paraphrased and combined. The purpose is to accumulate ideas that are new or unexplored in a format that attempts to prevent novel ideas from becoming lost in the crowd of repetitive thoughts. Then provide recognition for persons who successfully disprove ideas in the lists. Recognition for proofs can be acquired elsewhere.

There are lists of ideas that people can currently post to, but they are not curated to reduce duplication. Another function of the curator would be to properly index the entries by subject areas. "If you cannot find it, you don't have it, and you cannot use it." Properly formatted, recorded, indexed, and retrievable ideas can be searched quickly by new thinkers. Reducing duplication of efforts and helping researchers to connect with others interested in exploring in similar directions are further benefits.

How much would this cost to establish and maintain? How could it be financed over the long term? How often would you be likely to check your ideas against a list like this?

cristi marcovici

The human use of symbols requires people to do a high-level analysis of low-level oncoming light and sound data – it’s the sort of thing that human beings specialise in. Speech symbols are not just sound waves, but ordered sound waves; written symbols are not just ink on paper, but ordered ink on paper. While the laws of nature apply to sound waves, ink, paper, and light waves coming from the ink on the paper, the laws of nature do not apply to the arrangements of ink on paper (i.e. man-made written symbols), and the laws of nature do not apply to the arrangements of sound waves (i.e. man-made spoken symbols). Logical analysis is required to decipher man-made symbols, which are special arrangements of matter.

in some (math) books the page number ,is part of the meaning ,content.
or i just try to find more meaning than there actually is there

maybe there could be other patterns that for example people could make use and be (over) exposed. an other example that comes to mind is numbering the floors in elevator, in some places they choose letters no numerals like , 0123456789

an other issue is the the ability to jump skip that is not really a characteristic of speech conversations, that can be used differently not only just the so called the reading diagonally; a visual sign language for deaf packs differently not just speed (intonation etc,) also location or relative hands positions , that can be chunked, simultaneously ,abstraction is not the right word because has other roles , but it is a different mode to think that in the end could also potentially help new way to abstract

Lorraine Ford

cristi marcovici
But, what are numbers? Your “page numbers” are not numbers: they are symbols, i.e. special arrangements of matter (in this case, ink) that human beings recognise only after their brains have processed the light waves coming from the page. These are symbols, “numbers” that only exist from the point of view of human minds: the laws of nature don’t know about these “numbers”.

The numbers that the laws of nature know about, the real-world numbers of physics, are a different thing. Real-world numbers are things that exist, but people only know about real-world numbers when people measure a real-word category like mass or relative position: real-world numbers can’t be measured, only categories can be measured. Real-world numbers can’t be measured, but they can be represented with number symbols. Also, the numbers that only exist in people’s minds can be represented with number symbols.

Computer programming and analysis is, firstly, all about being able to notice the difference between the real world “out there” of people and things, and the symbols that a computer programmer would use to represent and analyse the world. If you are going to program a human-computer interface, you would usually need to be the type of person who inherently appreciates the difference between man-made symbols on the one hand, and the real world on the other hand: most people don't really understand that there is a difference.

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