A Landscape of Consciousness

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.

Lorraine Ford There is no actual knowledge/ consciousness possessed by computers/ AIs.

Absolutely EVERYTHING about computers/ AIs can be accounted for by the basic low-level properties of the materials that make up the computers/ AIs, and the high-level knowledge/ consciousness of the people who created and organised the computer/ AI systems.

If we think all have a small mind, also computers have such, as a technological 'bonk' system, but as nobody think your mind is made up from its different atoms of H, C, O, N, P etc. why would a computer mind made up of Si ? My question was only how a different Si network (squared, no water) relative to a C-network (hexagonal, allow water) can make a difference for the consciousness?

Human mind is filled with abstractions, ideas and beliefs (algoritms), and computer mind is filled with algorithms (beliefs), energy circuits etc.,

Lorraine Ford despite all the fancy mathematics (including Lie algebras), consciousness is not like the mathematics, consciousness is like the mathematician.

and you also say that

Lorraine Ford there is a BIG difference between the real world and man-made symbols of the world:

Meaning the same, mind is not the matter, it is totally different, but it can still occupy the matters or body. If you remove the mathematician, is there still math out there? This sounds like an Einsteinian similar question.

Steve Dufourny I thought to write about minds of different entities, but it was too difficult. It is such a complex question. Say already a one-celled organism and a bacterium, or even a virus that is totally parasitic, how does their minds work? And why do we think artificial protocells are not conscious? We cannot even make them quite 'living'?

We maybe have the wrong starting assumptions here? We have no accepted definitions even, so we can discuss seriously about completely different things, one mean A when the other means B... or C, D... there are too many theories about this Landscape.

One difficulty is also the different timescales we use. A One-celled organism can have lived unchanged for thousands of years, like it is taken out of evolution, other organisms contains millions of changes, like us, But we think we are the 'crown' here, so why is consciousness not evolving for some and evolving for others, assumingly?
If we compare the timescales of us to the timescales of a computer we have found a quicker one. Like we when we look at a mountain does not see its evolution, how can we see the evolution of 'thoughts' in a computer? The barriers are here too big? But many of these 'mysteries' fades away if we take consciousness as fundamental. We are simply at a certain stage of a ladder?

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."

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.

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Where people go wrong in their analysis of the nature of consciousness is in the unwarranted pre-assumption of the “lifeless [i.e. unconscious] chemicals”.

However, when asked, these very same conscious people can’t ever succinctly tell you what they think consciousness actually is.

Or they can’t tell you what they think consciousness is without writing a long, rambling, confused and disorganised semi-novella on the subject, which ends up saying nothing at all useful about consciousness.

So, what is consciousness?

Physicist Brian Greene is now saying that, logically, primitive particles must have a degree of consciousness. But Greene too fails to describe what this supposedly-existing consciousness actually is.

So, what is consciousness?

This is what consciousness actually is, and if you don’t like it, then you need to put your thinking cap on, and provide a BETTER definition:

• It is necessary for the world, or more correctly, small parts of the world, to know its own particular and distinct structure (i.e. categories, relationships between the categories, and numbers that apply to the categories), out of all the theoretically possible structures that could theoretically potentially exist.
• Because the mere existence of structure (categories, relationships between the categories, and numbers that apply to the categories) does NOT logically imply knowledge of the structure.
• Knowledge of the structure is the essential function of consciousness. I.e., knowledge of self-structure, knowledge of the surrounding structure, and further higher-level analysis of this low-level knowledge, is the essential function of consciousness.
• Thoughts and feelings and emotions are merely the way that that knowledge manifests itself.
• I.e. consciousness is necessarily an entirely separate aspect of the world, separate to the structure.

Science has mistakenly assumed that, in order to do its mathematical processing, the real-world system, or small parts of the real-world system, must somehow automatically know what its own on-the spot mathematical categories, relationships and numbers are.

But it is illogical to assume that this knowledge just automatically exists, and in fact a separate on-the-spot knowledge/ consciousness aspect of the world is required. In other words, consciousness is a basic, first-principles, aspect of the world.

This knowledge/ consciousness aspect (of the mathematical categories, relationships and numbers) is the foundation for all higher-level knowledge and consciousness, where higher-level consciousness is an executive-level analysis and collation of the myriad separate items of the foundational-level knowledge.

The mistaken assumption about the real-world mathematical system clearly originates from a corresponding mistaken assumption about man-made mathematics.

The mistaken assumption is that man-made mathematics can exist without the consciousness and agency of human mathematicians. But man-made mathematics CAN’T exist without the consciousness and agency of the human mathematicians driving it.

Similarly, the real-world mathematical system CAN’T exist without the small parts of the real-world system having a knowledge/ consciousness aspect, and a free will/ agency aspect, driving the system.

Human beings long believed that they were literally the centre of the universe, and that the universe literally revolved around them. Human beings created a God in their own image, a God who was only interested in human beings, a God who would even revive favoured human beings from death.

To this day, human beings continue to have a strong, primitive belief that they are special and different, and the only living things in the universe to have bona fide consciousness.

The flip side of that belief in special human consciousness is that the rest of the world is not conscious, or not properly conscious, and that therefore:

• Consciousness is something that emerged out of no consciousness.
• Consciousness is not necessary for the universe to function.

It almost seems that a human-centred view of the world must inevitably lead to the conclusion that consciousness can have no real function in the scheme of things.

………………….

But I am saying that consciousness IS necessary in order for the real-world system to function.

In a mathematical world (representable in terms of mathematical categories, relationships and numbers), consciousness and creativity are the necessary logical aspects of the world that enable the real-world mathematical system to function.

Consciousness has to start somewhere, and it starts at the foundations of the world.

The fact that foundational mathematical categories, relationships and numbers exist, does NOT imply knowledge of their existence: consciousness is that necessary, separate, knowledge aspect of the world. It is necessary that the underlying mathematical system knows which particular, on-the-spot categories, relationships and numbers it is dealing with, out of all the theoretically possible categories, relationships and numbers that could theoretically potentially exist.

Consciousness is the first-principles knowledge aspect of the world, an aspect which is different to the first-principles mathematical aspects of the world. The first-principles knowledge aspect of the world manifests itself as thoughts, feelings, and emotions.

But presumably only higher-level consciousnesses have feelings and emotions, because feelings and emotions seem to summarise quite a lot of underlying goings-on. Higher-level knowledge and consciousness IS “higher-level” because it is necessarily an executive-level analysis and collation of myriads of separate items of foundational-level knowledge, e.g. coming from the senses. The myriads of separate items of foundational-level knowledge DON’T “self-organise”: definite acts of analysis and collation have had to occur, in order to acquire higher-level knowledge/ consciousness.

The surrounding world that interacts with the senses of high-level organisms is just as low-level as the surrounding world that interacts with low-level matter. These interactions are in terms of low-level categories, relationships between the categories, and numbers that apply to the categories.

For an individual high-level organism, myriads of individual items of low-level knowledge coming from the senses have to be, in effect or actually, analysed and collated into a bigger, higher-level conscious/ knowledge picture of the surrounding world.

For low-level matter, there are only a few items of low-level knowledge coming from interactions with the surrounding world, and there is not much, if any, analysis or collation required in order to form a low-level conscious/ knowledge picture of the surrounding world.

Instead of looking for the differences between “us” and “them”, i.e. differences between high-level organisms and low-level matter, we should be looking for the similarities.

We should be looking for the similarities between higher-level knowledge/ consciousness and lower-level knowledge/ consciousness.

Re Consciousness and Quantum Mechanics:

Annaka Harris Explores Consciousness and the Cosmos, Closer To Truth video, premiered 19/03/2025.

Robert Lawrence Kuhn interviews Annaka Harris (New York Times bestselling author of "Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind", and writer and producer of the new audio documentary series "Lights On: How Understanding Consciousness Helps Us Understand the Universe"):

(11:49) … I make this argument, based on the neuroscience, and based on my many years of working with neuroscientists, that everything we have learned about the brain actually are arguments against consciousness emerging at the level of the brain …

(16:22) … so there's been a big shift in the last five or so years …

(17:39) … Physics is the science of the fundamental. And if we're wrong in assuming that all of the physics and the math and everything that we understand so far about spacetime and quantum mechanics and all the rest, if it's true that what that is describing at bottom is felt experience, is consciousness, rather than describing non-conscious processes, that is a paradigm shift that I think will ultimately affect the science we do moving forward. …

(18:47) … assuming that consciousness is fundamental actually helps us make sense of some paradoxes that arise out of quantum mechanics …

(24:13) There are many scientific experiments, that could be done, that would make us much more confident that it's many times more likely that consciousness is fundamental than emergent …

Lorraine Ford
(continued)

However, the only real issue is: WHAT IS this consciousness?

Surely, consciousness can’t be a non-functional, merely ornamental, aspect of the world; surely, consciousness can’t be just feelings and emotions which seem to be completely non-functional?

Surely, consciousness can only exist because it is a necessary and functional aspect of the world?

I’m claiming that these feelings and emotions are merely the form in which knowledge/ information, about oneself and one’s surrounding situation, manifests itself.

I’m claiming that the fundamentally necessary aspect of consciousness is knowledge/ information. I'm saying that knowledge/ information is necessary because the mere existence, in our moving mathematical world, of what we would represent as mathematical categories, mathematical relationships, and numbers, does not logically imply knowledge of their existence, does not imply knowledge of the existence of these mathematical aspects of the world. I.e. conscious is logically necessary if you want to have a viable, moving mathematical world.

Lorraine Ford
(continued)

Some people seem to think that consciousness underlies everything. But they never seem to be able to analyse or define what they mean by the word “consciousness” and so they always end up vaguely assuming that creativity is the same as consciousness.

But I would contend that both creativity and consciousness are separate, but logically necessary, aspects of a viable moving real-world system (these aspects of the world can only be represented using algorithmic symbols). And so is on-the-spot individual particularisation a necessary aspect of a viable moving real-world system.

The creative aspects of the world are seemingly as follows:

1. An overall aspect of the world, OR a cooperation of the individual aspects of the world, that created the mathematical structure (categories, relationships, and numbers); and
2. On-the-spot individual aspects of the world that move the structure by continually creating new numbers for the categories (i.e. “jumping” the numbers, whereby other numbers also change due to the mathematical relationships between the categories).

(Unfortunately, science just assumes the existence of structure, and the existence of movement, as first principles aspects of the world, and stubbornly refuses to contemplate what might underlie that structure and that movement.)

What I’m saying is that creativity is different to knowledge/ consciousness of what is created. E.g., if one on-the-spot individual aspect of the world created/ jumped a new number for a category, it can’t be assumed that another on-the-spot individual aspect of the world would know about, be conscious of, the changed situation. Knowledge/ consciousness is a necessary, first principles, aspect of the world.

In the following video, Annaka Harris eloquently paints a picture of consciousness, and I think that she is looking at consciousness in a reasonable and logical way:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP2swgDVl5M . (The Hard Problem of Consciousness | Annaka Harris, Big Think video, 21 Mar 2025.)

The only comment I would make is that what she logically implies, but does not in fact explicitly state, is that feelings and emotions are merely the form in which knowledge/ information, about oneself and one’s surrounding situation, manifests itself.

The idea that consciousness is about the “feelingness” of feelings and emotions has sent people off on a wild goose chase.

In fact, thoughts, feelings and emotions are merely the FORM that consciousness takes.

Bona fide consciousness is knowledge/ information about self and the surrounding world, even where that “self” is a lowly particle which is conscious of the aspects of the world that human beings would symbolically represent as categories (like relative position), relationships between these categories, and numbers that apply to the categories. (This consciousness of particles is the necessary basis for the higher-level consciousness of living things.)

Science needs to think a lot harder about the “mechanics” of how a real-world particle-ised mathematical system might work. But there is absolutely zero evidence of any serious thought being given to the issue of the mechanics of how viable systems work: instead, it is assumed that mathematical equations somehow naturally form a viable system.

I don’t hold out much hope for serious thought being given to the issue of how viable systems work, because for a start, mathematicians, displaying a lack of self-knowledge, can’t even admit to the fact that man-made mathematics is a system that can’t exist without human consciousness and agency.

By extension, I am saying that the “mechanics” of a viable real-world mathematical system relies on necessary aspects that can only be described as “consciousness” and “agency”.

Lorraine Ford
(continued)

The assumption, of mathematicians, and physicists and others, that mathematical equations somehow naturally form a viable moving system, is clearly a load of rubbish.

They talk it up, they philosophise, but all the equations in the world CAN’T represent a viable moving system, no matter how intricate and special these equations and philosophical ideas are.

Viable moving systems have algorithmic elements that can’t be represented by equations alone; the algorithmic elements need to be represented by special algorithmic symbols; these symbols are a COMPLETELY different type of thing to equations.

Nevertheless, these people, stuck in antiquated ways of thinking and philosophising, continue to stick to the belief that their special equations can do the trick of representing a viable moving system.

But, while physicists and mathematicians are lost in their unrealistic dreams of representing a viable real-world moving system with equations alone, AI researchers are coming up with the necessary goods, and working on “world models”: models of how the real world works.

And the fact is that, in order to represent the “mechanics” of a viable real-world mathematical system, these computer programmers and AI researchers need to use special algorithmic symbols to represent necessary aspects of a viable moving world, aspects that that can only be described as “consciousness-like” and “agency-like”.