A Landscape of Consciousness

Lorraine Ford
There are huge numbers of fundamental-level law-of-nature relationships, categories, and associated numbers that could potentially exist.

Yet at a fundamental level, the world (or small parts of the world) is able to in effect recognise distinctions, and is able to perceive that specific relationships, specific categories and specific numbers are on-the-spot, time-place, point-of-view TRUE. This is the necessary knowledge/ consciousness aspect of the world.

At a fundamental level, the world (or small parts of the world) discerns its own relationships, categories and numbers.

So, the higher-level knowledge/ consciousness aspect of the world didn’t just appear out of nowhere; the higher-level knowledge/ consciousness aspect of the world clearly has a basis in the lower-level knowledge/ consciousness aspect of the world.

As opposed to Robert Kuhn’s catalogue of 200 or so explanations or theories of consciousness, I’m contending that knowledge/ consciousness is a necessary and functional aspect of the world.

Lorraine Ford the experience of knowledge

can we experience knowledge and how then?

Lorraine Ford
I should add:

9. Knowledge/ consciousness doesn’t jump the numbers, or “collapse” the purportedly-existing wave function. I.e. knowledge/ consciousness is very different to agency/ free will. Agency/ free will can only be correctly (and simply) mathematically represented as a person deliberately assigning a number to a category.

Ulla Mattfolk
The world’s underlying low-level law-of-nature relationships, categories and numbers are aspects of the world that seem to genuinely exist.

But knowledge/ consciousness is entirely different to these law-of-nature relationships, categories and numbers.

Low-level knowledge/ consciousness is the necessary, low-level, time-place, point-of-view, collatory aspect of the world that would be represented as something like:
(category1=number1 AND category2=number2 AND category3=number3) IS TRUE.

This necessary knowledge/ consciousness aspect of the world is entirely different and separate to the law-of-nature relationships, categories and numbers aspect of the world.

Physicists can’t seem to conceptualise how knowledge/ consciousness/ observers could fit into the real-world system because they seem convinced that categories, numbers that apply to the categories, and relationships between the categories, are already fully sufficient to describe the complete workings of the real-world system.

However, I’m contending that categories, numbers that apply to the categories, and relationships between the categories, are NOT sufficient to describe the complete workings of the real-world system.

The MATHEMATICAL FACTS are that categories, numbers that apply to the categories, and relationships between the categories are NOT sufficient to describe ANY sort of system.

The MATHEMATICAL FACTS are that, in order to more fully describe a system, one also needs logical aspects; these logical aspects can be symbolically represented in statements containing the following types of symbols: IF, AND, OR, IS TRUE, and THEN.

I’m contending that knowledge/ consciousness/ observers are a necessary, logical aspect of the real-world system.

I’m contending that low-level knowledge/ consciousness is the necessary, low-level, time-place, point-of-view, collatory aspect of the world that might be represented as something like:
(category1=number1 AND category2=number2 AND category3=number3) IS TRUE.

This knowledge/ consciousness/ observer aspect of the world is entirely different to, and separate to, the law-of-nature relationships, categories and numbers aspect of the world.

And being an entirely different aspect of the world, it is not surprising that the knowledge/ consciousness/ observer aspect of the world manifests itself differently, e.g. as “qualia”.

Consciousness is a very dynamic charachter, always changing like the quantum work or process. It has two facets, ignorance and knowledge, a bit like we see it is Shannon eq. where 1/2 means the maximal knowledge and ignorance. The mechanism of consciousness should be quantum, but the phenomena or outcome 'knowledge' is classical as ontologic state, like we can have 0/1 states. With many-body states it becomes more complex, and the knowledge-part can diminish as the sqrt part get higher.

The quantum 'jump' analogy therefore is actual. See plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-consciousness/ About the Schrödinger cat analogy; does the cat know if it is dead or alive? It should? But we as observers outside does not know because the cat is in a closed system,so we need to open it up. Most quantum states are closed states theoretically.

Lorraine Ford This knowledge/ consciousness/ observer aspect of the world is entirely different to, and separate to, the law-of-nature relationships, categories and numbers aspect of the world.

I want to integrate consciousness as a 'feeling',' belief' or some 'possibilities' as an reading of a surface as instance in the 1/2 state (entangled superposition?). If we use open states we don't bother about the energy conservation

Lorraine Ford And being an entirely different aspect of the world, it is not surprising that the knowledge/ consciousness/ observer aspect of the world manifests itself differently, e.g. as “qualia”.

Qualia is the hard problem (that you rejected), but what aspect would it be then? It gives the experience of 'being' you like a transformational feedback to yourself, like a weighting. It could maybe give a Gödelian hierarchial state like an ultrametric state ex.? Mathematical facts are then not sufficient. It is more like 50 shades of grey. But the work part can be evaluated using XOR or other logic maybe? Consciousness as such is not computable, not axiomatic or 'functional' as you stated it. Hence it is also different from knowledge.

Do you have your thinking written somewhere?

About your 'low-level' contra 'high level' consciousness - maybe levels of abstactions can be used like Manolis Kellis used them?

Lorraine Ford To symbolically represent this necessary knowledge/ consciousness/ observers aspect of the real-world system, completely different types of symbols are required, i.e. man-made logical connective symbols.

How can you re-describe the laws of physics to get a room for man-made signals or language then? Must you add axioms? Have you got progress along this line of reasoning?

Is consciousness at all logic? Maybe logic is just a part of the whole? Maybe a doubling like chaos is necessary too?

Ulla Mattfolk
What is truly irrational is that people believed, and continue to believe, that:

1. Law-of-nature relationships (represented by equations), or anything represented by equations, and
2. The associated numbers (represented by number symbols),

could constitute a viable moving real-world system. They can’t. It’s a big lie, a big myth: equations and numbers alone can’t represent a system. Yet people still continue to believe the big lie, the big myth.

In fact, you can’t have a system without separate logical aspects; these logical aspects can be represented by using statements containing logical connective symbols like IF, AND, OR, IS TRUE, and THEN.

In particular, the AND, OR, and IS TRUE symbols are used to represent the necessary aspect of the system that registers the current, time-place, point-of-view state of the system.

I’m saying that real-world consciousness IS this separate, necessary, logical aspect of the real-world system that registers the current, time-place, point-of-view state of the system.

But the fact that consciousness manifests itself as qualia is neither here nor there: consciousness is NOT about qualia, i.e. consciousness is NOT about superficial appearances; consciousness plays a necessary role in the world.

Lorraine Ford you can’t have a system without separate logical aspects; these logical aspects can be represented by using statements containing logical connective symbols like IF, AND, OR, IS TRUE, and THEN.

In particular, the AND, OR, and IS TRUE symbols are used to represent the necessary aspect of the system that registers the current, time-place, point-of-view state of the system.

If this is TRUE (note this we can never know within this system we have) AI is already conscious?

Ulla Mattfolk
Ulla,
As you are probably already aware, there is a BIG difference between the real world and man-made symbols of the world:

• Man-made symbols are man-made arbitrary shapes and arrangements of matter that have no inherent, inbuilt meaning, but
• The real world has inherent, inbuilt mathematical meaning (relationships, categories and numbers, and logical aspects).

As you are probably already aware, the man-made symbols on screens, and in books and in computers, can only ever SYMBOLICALLY REPRESENT people’s knowledge/ consciousness, so there is no actual knowledge/ consciousness possessed by books or computers.

Not only consciousness, but other aspects of the world can’t be measured:

• Laws of nature can’t be measured (they are inferred to exist);
• Numbers also can’t be measured (they are the result of measurement).

Ulla Mattfolk
I’m contending that, despite all the fancy mathematics (including Lie algebras), consciousness is not like the mathematics, consciousness is like the mathematician.

Mathematicians are the logical part of the mathematics-mathematician system. Consciousness (and agency) is the logical part of the real-world system.

Consciousness is an ever-changing time-place overview, an executive-level, collated, point-of-view, knowledge of the entity and its surroundings.

Particles, atoms, molecules, and living things can have this collation of knowledge. But books, piles of sand and computers/ AIs don’t, and can’t, have this collation of knowledge.

When it comes to analysing consciousness, the very big mistake that people make is in assuming that at the foundations of the world there exists a non-conscious mathematical system, while at the same time tacitly assuming that the mathematical system somehow knows its own relationships, categories and numbers.

But clearly, at the foundations of the world, low-level consciousness/ knowledge of the very particular relationships, the very particular categories and the very particular numbers is as necessary an aspect of the world as are the relationships, categories and numbers themselves.

Consciousness/ knowledge has been a separate, necessary aspect of the world from its very foundations; and clearly, higher-level consciousness/ knowledge is built on the foundations of this lower-level consciousness/ knowledge.

Consciousness/ knowledge never emerged out of some purported self-organisation, or some purported spontaneous pattern-formation in a non-conscious system: consciousness/ knowledge is a separate, necessary, foundational aspect of the real-world system, requiring the use of a separate symbol system in addition to the usual mathematical symbols. These necessary, additional symbols are logical connective symbols like AND, OR and IS TRUE.

Consciousness/ knowledge is a logically necessary, foundational aspect of the world.

Ulla Mattfolk
Ulla,
I should add that, in computers/ AIs, the only knowledge/ consciousness required for the computer/ AI system to work is the above-described, necessary, low-level knowledge/ consciousness of law-of-nature relationships, categories and numbers possessed by the particles, atoms and/or molecules in the computer/ AI itself.

No higher-level knowledge/ consciousness is required, i.e. some purportedly-existing higher-level knowledge/ consciousness on the part of the computer/ AI itself, in order for the computer/ AI system to work as required.

This is because people, who have the actual, required, higher-level knowledge/ consciousness, have created and organised a computer/ AI system that does not require the computer/ AI system itself to have anything other than the above-described, necessary, low-level knowledge/ consciousness of law-of-nature relationships, categories and numbers possessed by the particles, atoms and/or molecules in the computer/ AI.

It is high time that those people who are claiming the existence of higher-level knowledge/ consciousness on the part of the computer/ AI itself, asked themselves whether higher-level knowledge/ consciousness on the part of the computer/ AI itself was actually NECESSARY in order for the computer/ AI system to work as required. And the answer is that It isn't NECESSARY.

Philosopher and retired neuroscientist Raymond Tallis’ article in Philosophy Now (1) is a good illustration of where people have gone wrong in their analysis of the nature of consciousness:

When we reflect on what is made possible by consciousness, we tend to overlook what is achieved in the absence of consciousness. Unconscious mechanism was sufficient to deliver the long and tortuous passage from lifeless chemicals to conscious organisms.

And Robert Kuhn’s review (2) quotes from the same Philosophy Now article:

Raymond Tallis questions the entire enterprise of assuming “the [evolutionary] advantage of being a conscious organism rather than a self-replicating bag of chemicals innocent of its own existence."

But where people go wrong in their analysis of the nature of consciousness is in this assumption of the “lifeless chemicals”.

When it comes to analysing the nature of consciousness, the big mistake that people make is in assuming that at the foundations of the world there exists a non-conscious mathematical system and non-conscious “chemicals”, while at the same time tacitly assuming that the system somehow knows/ identifies/ distinguishes its own relationships, its own categories, and its own numbers.

People are seemingly oblivious to the fact that they tacitly assume that a knowledge/ consciousness aspect exists at the very foundations of the world.

1. "The How & Why of Consciousness", by Raymond Tallis. Philosophy Now, December 2023 / January 2024, Issue 159, https://philosophynow.org/issues/159/The_How_and_Why_of_Consciousness .
2. "A Landscape of Consciousness: Toward a Taxonomy of Explanations and Implications" by Robert Kuhn. Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, Volume 190, August 2024, pages 28-169.