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Ulla Mattfolk
I’m contending that low-level consciousness does not introduce new relationships, or categories (like mass or position) and their associated numbers, to the world; and low-level consciousness is not itself a mathematical function/ equation or a category or a number

Low-level consciousness merely says that a collation of measurable categories, and their associated numbers, is currently, now, on-the-spot true, from this point of view. This is representable as (e.g.):
(category1=number1 AND category2=number2 AND category3=number3) IS TRUE.

The above is not a mathematical function. It is a logical statement about what exists, what is currently true, from a point of view.

Clearly, much higher-level consciousness requires physical connections, as well as the above- described logical connections, but not necessarily what we would normally think of as a brain (e.g. as seen in an octopus).

The function, i.e. the utility, of consciousness is to be the IS TRUE, analytical, logical aspect of the world, an aspect of the world that can’t be represented by law-of-nature equations which merely represent relationships between categories.

      Lorraine Ford Define what you mean with low-level consciousness. I think you mean it is emergent from complexity, but how is this statement different from the axiomatic need? What is not axiomatic here? Maybe you arrive at the 3 body problem?

          Ulla Mattfolk
          How come absolutely everybody fails to question the assumption, of mathematics and physics, that a mathematical world would automatically know itself?

          Absolutely everybody, including the people mentioned in Robert Kuhn’s A landscape of consciousness: Toward a taxonomy of explanations and implications, fails to question the assumption, of mathematics and physics, that a mathematical world would automatically know itself.

          But the equations and other symbols representing relationships, categories (like relative position or mass) and numbers give no hint of a more consequential and entirely different thing, i.e. a knowledge aspect of the world. There is no hint of a more consequential and entirely different thing, i.e. a knowledge aspect of the world.

          The problem is that the existence of fundamental-level relationships, categories and numbers DOESN’T imply knowledge of their existence.

          The world needs low-level, fundamental-level consciousness because, without it, a mathematical world DOESN’T know itself; without low-level consciousness, a mathematical world DOESN’T know its own relationships, categories, and numbers.

          How come nobody questions the idea that a mathematical world would automatically know itself?

              Lorraine Ford
              How come absolutely everybody fails to question the assumption, of mathematics and physics, that a mathematical world would automatically know itself, i.e. a mathematical world would automatically know its own relationships, categories and numbers?

              The problem (of consciousness/ knowledge) is the very thing that is assumed!!!

                Lorraine Ford question the assumption, of mathematics and physics, that a mathematical world would automatically know itself.

                This only say we cannot use only math and physics here, consciousness is NOT axiomatic. In physics we have decoherence and phases also. Consciousness is first person, not 3rd person remember. This is actually why robots are not conscious, because it comes from within. Humans have a long time to learn also, robots have some months.

                Lorraine Ford The world needs low-level, fundamental-level consciousness because, without it, a mathematical world DOESN’T know itself; without low-level consciousness, a mathematical world DOESN’T know its own relationships, categories, and numbers.

                And how do you add this 'low-level consciousness'? It is really the big question, because you cannot in the recent model. We must maybe remodel our hypotheses? And this 'low-level' consciousness is also in quantum equations I think. What a bad word this 'low-level' is, no def.?

                    Also about the 'epiphenomena', what really is 'psi' here? In old chinese acupuncture they talked of 'chi' that could be many 'things' (a complex 'life-force'). We can maybe measure its effects, but what are its inputs into the equation? It looks like entanglement, but only of some 'observers' not of other 'observers'. What equation starts from entanglement? I know of only one, decoherence, and it is badly known too. Can 'consciousness' be shared? What makes it feel like 'unity'? Is it unity? Unity is maybe coherence in biology? Then we can say something about it as a function of time?

                    It is so many of these questions we need to look at yet. We can maybe use some creation operator, but then we must have some clues how it works?

                    A similar question is what happens inside a BH? or how does the Plancks constant work in quantum only, not in classical physics? It is a mystery of mysteries too. Phases are top-down events, impacts from a bigger system, like a metaquestion.

                    I found a simple ex.of that.
                    Fitness 𝑓 is then assumed to be the outcome of a highly complex physical process, which can be written formally as an operator 𝐹 acting upon the relevant part 𝑤 of the world

                    𝑓=𝐹⁡𝑤.

                    Here, 𝑓 is a scalar function of time; 𝐹 and 𝑤 each depend on time as well, but their detailed form is left unspecified here—the fitness process is assumed to be nonlinear and nonstationary, and of high and time-varying dimensionalities. The effective world 𝑤 encompasses not only external circumstances, but also the internal state and structure of the organism itself. The latter is called here the (biological) form of the organism. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6658579/

                    This is on another 'high-level' of time though.

                      Ulla Mattfolk
                      Knowledge/ consciousness is a necessary aspect of the world:
                      In order to function, and at its very foundations, the real-life mathematical world DOES need to know its own relationships, categories and numbers.

                      However, the symbols that represent relationships, categories and numbers do not symbolise this necessary knowledge/ consciousness aspect of the world, and these symbols CAN'T be used to symbolise this necessary knowledge/ consciousness aspect of the world.

                      So, looking at the symbols, people could claim that the fundamental-level world has no knowledge/ consciousness aspect, while at the same time, and contradictorily, these people were assuming that the fundamental-level world WOULD somehow know its own relationships, categories and numbers.

                      Clearly, the knowledge/ consciousness aspect of the world is a necessary aspect of the world, necessary from the low-level foundations of the world right up to the high-level living things of the world.

                      Knowledge/ consciousness is necessary, but feelings and emotions are just how knowledge/ consciousness presents itself:
                      The knowledge/ conscious aspect of the world usually has no discernible experience of colours, feelings or emotions associated with it.

                      And in any case, the experience of knowledge/ consciousness, including the experience of colours, feelings and emotions, is just the way that knowledge/ consciousness (of oneself and one surrounding situation) presents itself.

                      It doesn’t matter how this knowledge/ consciousness of oneself and one surrounding situation presents itself, because the presentation is just a characteristic of knowledge/ consciousness, which is a fundamentally necessary aspect of the world.

                          Lorraine Ford
                          Seemingly, most people can’t define what they mean by the word “consciousness”. And yet nothing can be said about consciousness unless and until one says exactly what one means by the word “consciousness”.

                          So I should add that, having said what I think consciousness IS (i.e. consciousness is the necessary, point-of-view, on-the-spot, knowledge aspect of the world), I can now say what consciousness ISN’T:

                          Consciousness ISN’T the thing that collapses the purportedly existing wave function, and consciousness DOESN’T arise from the collapse of the purportedly existing wave function.

                          What is described as “the collapse of the wave function” is a number movement that is not explainable as being due to laws of nature.

                          Something caused the number movement, but it wasn’t consciousness.

                              Lorraine Ford
                              Consciousness is the necessary knowledge aspect of the world; consciousness doesn’t move the numbers.

                              Clearly, consciousness is the necessary knowledge basis for agency, as well as the law of nature relationships; and it is AGENCY that causes the number movement that is not explainable as being due to law of nature relationships. It is AGENCY because this number movement is a more complicated thing, which can only be mathematically represented as someone deliberately assigning a number to a category.

                              This number movement doesn’t need to be labelled “collapse of the wavefunction”, because it is just contextual number movement that is not explainable as being due to laws of nature, so there is no need for people to “make a song and dance about it”.

                              People “make a song and dance about it” because the number movement doesn’t fit into people’s philosophical ideas of the way they think the world ought to be.

                              And it is the same with consciousness: people “make a song and dance about it” because the logical necessity of the world knowing itself (including its own low-level relationships, categories and numbers) doesn’t fit into people’s philosophical ideas of the way they think the world ought to be.

                              Consciousness being a necessary, functional aspect of the world doesn’t fit into people’s philosophical ideas of the way they think the world ought to be.

                                  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 knowledge and consciousness are very different aspects I think.

                                    usually has no discernible experience of colours, feelings or emotions associated with it. - this is the hard problem,and we cannot ignore it? Emotions are the things doing decisions for us 'before we even know it'. How are experience linked is still an open problem, as well as cognition is so too. What really is a knowledge then? This is why we need the fundamentals.

                                      Lorraine Ford Consciousness ISN’T the thing that collapses the purportedly existing wave function, and consciousness DOESN’T arise from the collapse of the purportedly existing wave function.

                                      How can you be so sure? Consciousness after all is a reduced state or a reducing state. I think we can all agree on that? So if we compare to interference it is like destroying the interference of a wavefunction. Part of the information is assimilated, part is rejected or vanished. We maybe oscillate on the half of it all, a bit like Shannon tells us? This is the DYNAMICS of consciousness too? We go forward and back (into memory) all the time.

                                      I find this worth to explore. The epistemic part MUST BE a part of it all, but really what is a psi-function? It is not at all clear.

                                          Ulla Mattfolk
                                          Ulla,
                                          Please describe what YOU mean by the word “knowledge” and the word “consciousness”. Clearly, one can’t make assertions about knowledge/ consciousness, and one can’t propose mathematical models of knowledge/ consciousness, if one can’t say what one means by the words “knowledge” and “consciousness”.

                                          This is what I’m saying about knowledge/ consciousness:

                                          1. Knowledge/ consciousness is a foundational and necessary aspect of the world, a foundational and necessary aspect of a viable system.
                                          2. Knowledge/ consciousness is individual, time-place, and point of view.
                                          3. Knowledge/ consciousness is “possessed” by matter (particles, atoms, molecules and living things).
                                          4. There is no such thing as abstract free-floating knowledge/ consciousness, detached from matter.
                                          5. Knowledge/ consciousness is OF the physical world, knowledge/ consciousness is not identical to the physical world. So, high-level knowledge/ consciousness is (mostly) of the self and one’s surrounding situation; low-level knowledge/ consciousness is of law of nature relationships, categories and numbers.
                                          6. The man-made symbols on screens, and in books and in computers, merely REPRESENT this knowledge/ consciousness, so there is no knowledge/ consciousness “possessed” by books or computers.
                                          7. How knowledge/ consciousness “feels” is irrelevant because this is just a characteristic of a necessary, foundational aspect of the world.
                                          8. Our high-level knowledge/ consciousness doesn’t mysteriously arise out of nothing, it is built on a firm foundation. I.e., all our high-level knowledge/ consciousness, of our surrounding situation and the world, is built on the firm foundation of low-level knowledge/ consciousness of the low-level particle interactions in our senses, (e.g.) our eyes and ears.

                                              Lorraine Ford
                                              I should add:

                                              1. 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?

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

                                                          Because I’m contending that:

                                                          • Categories (that people symbolically represent with man-made symbols),
                                                          • Numbers (that people symbolically represent with man-made symbols) that apply to the categories, and
                                                          • Relationships (that people symbolically represent as law-of-nature equations, with man-made symbols) between the categories,

                                                          are NOT sufficient to describe the complete workings of the real-world system; a system, any system, also has logical aspects.

                                                          I’m contending that both low- and high-level knowledge/ consciousness/ observers ARE one of the necessary, logical, structural aspects of the real-world system.

                                                          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.