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The axioms of set theory imply a primitive ontology in which existence is predicated on containing other things or being oneself contained. Moreover, such a description is exhaustive: when describing anything as a set, we have a complete ontology for the thing.

Second, the basic relation of all things in reality is according to their membership, to this or that set. This implies that there is nothing which exists that is not either a set or an element within a set, or both.

There is exactly one set with no members, called the empty set or ∅.

∅ ⊂ A for every A (including ∅) but it is not true that ∅ ∈ A for every A.

In English, the empty set (having zero elements) is a subset of all sets, but it isn't true that ∅ is an element of all sets. We'll see why below.

So, if we take A = {1, 2, 3} and we begin to remove elements, we can show that ∅ is a subset of A. (Sn are subsets of A).

Sx ⊆ A = {1, 2, 3}

Sy ⊂ A = {1, 2} (one element removed)

Sz ⊂ A = {1} (two elements removed)

∅ ⊂ A = {...} (all elements removed)

Note, that this does NOT mean A = {∅}. ∅ is not an element of A, but since ∅ has no elements, it is thought to 'participate' as a subset of all sets. We might say that the membership of ∅ (that is, no members) is implied by all sets. All sets are collections whose cardinality could be be zero, therefore ∅ is a subset of all of them. ___

But what is nothing? The empty set is the one having no elements. How does this relate to the number 0? Zero is not nothing. Zero denotes cardinality. Zero would be the cardinality of the empty set, as in the number of elements it has. The empty set has some correspondence to zero in Boolean logic for computer science, but I'm not terribly interested to get into a discussion about zero: just let it rest that mathematically, zero is not nothing.

What I'm interested in is the metaphysics implied by the empty set. Most mathematicians probably have the equivalent to the empty set of reasons for finding this discussion useful (dork joke).

Someone could say that the entire inquiry is trivial: Nothing can be said about nothing. It's tautological. To speak with regard to it is just to say something, akin to {...}. By denoting the empty set this way, haven't I already missed my target? I've said something about that which has no somethings.

This is what I find metaphysically interesting (of course, I'm making all kinds of assumptions as to the limits of human reasoning and intellect). To anyone besides a metaphysician, any further discussion beyond our ability to represent the situation symbolically will seem childish.

___

It seems that there is no proper way to speak of nothing simpliciter.

In fact, whatever thought is, seems to preclude us from access to nothing by its very existence. Basic intentionality (with its aboutness) necessarily creates information, and nothingness cannot communicate information.

What ∅ signifies to me is that in probing what nothing is, the mind can only go so far as a state of affairs in which there is nothing. When we say there is nothing in the fridge, the logical extension in the statement at least picks out the refrigerator having the state of affairs in which there is no food item inside - here, even 'nothing' has an extension: food. You could say that 'nothing in the fridge' is describing the empty food set. So we don't truly mean nothing...instead we mean 0 in the presence of something: the place of food. If the fridge were a set of all its elements, F, the situation of 'nothing in the fridge' is F = {...}. This is NOT nothing.

A great deal of metaphysical debate concerning the origin of the universe involves reference to nothing, as in the possibility of the nothingness that preceded the existence of the universe. But what is it that we refer to when we speak about this possibility?

Such statements always strike me as describing any primordial pre-existence as ∅. We think of nothing and cannot do so without the brackets {...}, as in, there at least existed the state of affairs in which something could exist. We imagine vast blackness, and still, it is necessarily a thing which could contain elements. So questions about origins of the universe pivot on whether you think true nothingness is a coherent term.

  1. If nothing* is possible, then a posteriori we find ourselves in a current state of reality which must have experienced creatio ex nihilo. If there was truly nothing, this change is describable as at least the change from no state of affairs to a state of affairs, ∅, where the possibility for the inclusion of elements existed. We think creatio ex nihilo is logically impossible, so this is ruled out. If there is something today, there was never nothing.

  2. If nothing* is not possible, and something has always existed, then we must still explain ∅ according to what we know about contingent existence. To do this we'll return below to the idea of looking at sequential subsets.

Contingent existence is that which does not contain its own reason for existing, that is, it must be explained according to causes from without. An apple is contingent. You are contingent.

If the universe, U, is the finite set {1, 2, 3.....n}, it is possible by principles of causation to scientifically reduce the universe by sequential subsets as we did above, where the first subset has (n-1) elements of U. For the sake of example:

U = {f(E)1.....f(E)n} | f(E)i = { x ∈ E: u({x}) --> u({y}) for all y ∈ E }

So, the universe consists of elements which are functional states where any state can be explained by some basic function, u, which transforms some subset x to y. Granted, that's rough. But physics is pursuing an elegant theory of everything which by way of a finite set of equations hopes to do exactly this for every element of the universe - one theory which could causally reduce all of the information about the entire state of the universe.

Still, the initial state of the universe had no physical elements, and so without x and y, we're left with:

Scientific pre-universe: U = {∅, f(E)}, implying that we must at least consider the empty set an event space.

Can the universe be logically reduced to the empty set, i.e. to a state of affairs where the potential to exist is all that exists? Again this depends upon the true possibility of nothing. If nothingness could never have been the case (which we think it cannot because creatio ex nihilo is ruled out), then the reduction to the empty set is only possible where some agent brought about the first elements in the empty set.

Instead of this, particle physics might have you thinking that reality is an infinite regress of subsets of primitive particles. Others would like to appeal to the emergence of matter from natural laws, but since the LAWS of nature themselves are not actually elements, but are relations among elements, the only possible appeal would be to existence as a collection of something.

Put another way, the laws of nature could not exist prior to the set of elements whose members can relate. The universe could not have come to exist by the actions of laws relating the behaviors of matter.

Effectively, scientific reduction itself is the description of relations applying over subsets of U, to reduce them to smaller and smaller subsets, where (n-1) is thought to have greater explanatory power than (n). If the universe is a set of states, we can reduce these states to previous states, so on and so forth. We find, however, this always arrives at some subset which can neither be reduced or explained. Yet, whatever these least reducible things might be, they are contingent by definition.

According to physics, their explanation must be in laws of nature. By this mistake, the only analytical a posteriori necessity for the origin of this universe was the set { ∅, f(E) }, where we have the state of affairs for things to potentially exist, and the lawful relations which would govern events if there were any elements to be relating. But herein lies the contradiction. No relation is an element of a set, nor can a relation exist in ∅.

To get around this, physics requires an appeal to a different sort of infinite regress of elements: the Multiverse (MV).

MV = {Ux, {Uy, Uz.... ∞}}

...which says that our universe, Ux, is one element of a multiverse of infinite elements. This is how the regress to the untenable situation of U = ∅ is avoided, by introducing not an infinite regress of actual universes in causal succession, but a plenum of weighted probabilities, something more like:

MV = {P(Ux), {P(Uy), P(Uz).... ∞}}.

We just happen to find ourselves in the convenient scenario where the probability of our universe existing with just the necessary relations was = 1. Lucky us. Apparently, such an appeal to the infinitude of existence (as many possible universes), we escape both creatio ex nihilo and also the primordial state of the universe being simply ∅.

To this we ask: isn't it logically possible that the probabilities for all universes in MV are 0? Of course not, there is always a necessary element or we'd arrive at ∅. So ∅ remains a possibility for MU, contra there being a necessary universe in MV. If there is a NECESSARY universe in MV, then we have arrived at another problem, which has to do with defining the term necessary.

Someone could say, "Sure, maybe there is a necessary universe in MV and so all but (∞ - 1) universes is contingent."

Such a necessary universe could not have contingent elements. But if universes are defined as being exhaustively described by the contingent elements they contain, then the Multiverse itself could not contain any necessary elements.

What is necessary must exist separately from MV, i.e. the necessary being cannot be an element within MV. This precludes the objection where someone simply redefines what a universe is: "If there is a necessary being that exists, then MV would just come to include that thing." But if inclusion in MV means being a universal set which is itself exhausted by membership of only finite and contingent elements, nothing necessary can be included in the set MV.

As a solution to these problems, I ask: what is not an element in ANY set, but is NECESSARILY a subset proper of EVERY set?

It is ∅.

It is just the state of affairs in which the potential to exist is. One cannot avoid the intuition that the same equivalence of the foundation of the universe, ∅, has parallels with the human mind.

After all, the mind can produce no thought which refers to nothing. ∅ is the most primitive concept we can form. This would make sense if ∅ underlies a universe which is fundamentally self-simulating. Indeed, if we take mental causation seriously, then we must face the fact that we arrive at a problem similar to the Cosmological Problem itself when we consider some thoughts. Therefore, the causal explanation for certain thoughts might be thought to refer back to an analogous form of necessary being, namely ∅, or a basic plenum of creative potential, combined with the event of actualization granting Form.

We might very well think that mind cannot be explained exhaustively by the brain (though its mental powers can be locally explained, i.e. if my brain dies, my mind appears to cease to exist). But if instead we think that brains are not producing, but rather accessing the ∅, then we have a concept that looks a great deal like the Logos, an active principle which produces order from chaos.

___

The axioms of set theory imply a primitive ontology in which existence is predicated on containing other things or being oneself contained. Moreover, such a *description is exhaustive*: when describing anything as a set, we have a complete ontology for the thing. Second, the basic *relation* of all things in reality is according to their membership, to this or that set. This implies that there is nothing which exists that is not either a set or an element within a set, or both. There is exactly one set with no members, called the **empty set** or ∅. >∅ ⊂ A for every A (including ∅) but it is not true that ∅ ∈ A for every A. In English, the empty set (having zero elements) is a subset of *all* sets, but it isn't true that ∅ is an *element* of all sets. We'll see why below. So, if we take A = {1, 2, 3} and we begin to remove elements, we can show that ∅ is a subset of A. (Sn are subsets of A). >Sx ⊆ A = {1, 2, 3} >Sy ⊂ A = {1, 2} (one element removed) >Sz ⊂ A = {1} (two elements removed) >∅ ⊂ A = {...} (all elements removed) Note, that this does NOT mean A = {∅}. ∅ is not an element of A, but since ∅ has no elements, it is thought to 'participate' as a subset of all sets. We might say that the membership of ∅ (that is, no members) is *implied* by all sets. All sets are collections whose cardinality *could be* be zero, therefore ∅ is a subset of all of them. ___ But what is nothing? The empty set is the one having no elements. How does this relate to the number 0? Zero is not nothing. Zero denotes *cardinality*. Zero would be the cardinality of the empty set, as in the number of elements it has. The empty set has some correspondence to zero in Boolean logic for computer science, but I'm not terribly interested to get into a discussion about zero: just let it rest that mathematically, zero is not nothing. What I'm interested in is the metaphysics implied by the empty set. Most mathematicians probably have the equivalent to the empty set of reasons for finding this discussion useful (dork joke). Someone could say that the entire inquiry is trivial: Nothing can be said about nothing. It's tautological. To speak with regard to it is just to say *something*, akin to {...}. By denoting the empty set this way, haven't I already missed my target? I've said something about that which has no somethings. This is what I find metaphysically interesting (of course, I'm making all kinds of assumptions as to the limits of human reasoning and intellect). To anyone besides a metaphysician, any further discussion beyond our ability to represent the situation symbolically will seem childish. ___ It seems that there is no proper way to speak of nothing simpliciter. In fact, *whatever thought is*, seems to preclude us from access to nothing by its very existence. Basic intentionality (with its *aboutness*) necessarily creates information, and nothingness cannot communicate information. What ∅ signifies to me is that in probing what nothing is, the mind can only go so far as a **state of affairs** in which there is nothing. When we say there is nothing in the fridge, the logical extension in the statement at least picks out the refrigerator having the state of affairs in which there is no food item inside - here, even 'nothing' has an extension: food. You could say that 'nothing in the fridge' is describing the empty food set. So we don't truly mean *nothing*...instead we mean 0 in the *presence* of something: *the place of food*. If the fridge were a set of all its elements, F, the situation of 'nothing in the fridge' is F = {...}. This is NOT nothing. A great deal of metaphysical debate concerning the origin of the universe involves reference to nothing, as in the possibility of the nothingness that preceded the existence of the universe. But what is it that we refer to when we speak about this possibility? Such statements always strike me as describing any primordial pre-existence as ∅. We think of nothing and cannot do so without the brackets {...}, as in, there at least existed the *state of affairs* in which something could exist. We imagine vast blackness, and still, it is necessarily a thing which *could contain* elements. So questions about origins of the universe pivot on whether you think true nothingness is a coherent term. 1. If nothing* is possible, then *a posteriori* we find ourselves in a current state of reality which must have experienced creatio ex nihilo. If there was truly nothing, this change is describable as at least the change from no state of affairs *to* a *state of affairs*, ∅, where the possibility for the inclusion of elements existed. We think *creatio ex nihilo* is logically impossible, so this is ruled out. If there is something today, there was *never* nothing. 2. If nothing* is not possible, and something has always existed, then we must still explain ∅ according to what we know about *contingent existence*. To do this we'll return below to the idea of looking at sequential subsets. >Contingent existence is that which does not contain its own reason for existing, that is, it must be explained according to causes from without. An apple is contingent. You are contingent. If the universe, U, is the *finite* set {1, 2, 3.....n}, it is possible by principles of causation to scientifically reduce the universe by sequential subsets as we did above, where the first subset has (n-1) elements of U. For the sake of example: > U = {f(E)1.....f(E)n} | f(E)i = { x ∈ E: u({x}) --> u({y}) for all y ∈ E } So, the universe consists of elements which are functional states where any state can be explained by some basic function, u, which transforms some subset x to y. Granted, that's rough. But physics is pursuing an elegant theory of everything which by way of a finite set of equations hopes to do exactly this for every element of the universe - one theory which could causally reduce all of the information about the entire state of the universe. Still, the initial state of the universe had no physical elements, and so without x and y, we're left with: > Scientific pre-universe: U = {∅, f(E)}, implying that we must at least consider the empty set an event space. Can the universe be logically reduced to the empty set, i.e. to a state of affairs where the potential to exist is all that exists? Again this depends upon the true possibility of nothing. If *nothingness could never have been the case* (which we think it cannot because creatio ex nihilo is ruled out), then the reduction to the empty set is **only possible where some agent brought about the first elements in the empty set**. Instead of this, particle physics might have you thinking that reality is an infinite regress of subsets of primitive particles. Others would like to appeal to the emergence of matter from natural laws, but since the *LAWS of nature* themselves are not actually elements, but are *relations* among elements, the only possible appeal would be to existence as a *collection* of something. Put another way, the laws of nature could not exist prior to the set of elements whose members can relate. The universe could not have come to exist by the actions of laws relating the behaviors of matter. Effectively, scientific reduction itself is the description of relations applying over subsets of U, to reduce them to smaller and smaller subsets, where (n-1) is thought to have greater explanatory power than (n). If the universe is a set of states, we can reduce these states to previous states, so on and so forth. We find, however, this always arrives at some subset which can neither be reduced or explained. Yet, whatever these least reducible things might be, they are contingent by definition. According to physics, their explanation *must* be in laws of nature. By this mistake, the only analytical *a posteriori* necessity for the origin of this universe was the set { ∅, f(E) }, where we have the state of affairs for things to potentially exist, and the lawful relations which would govern events *if there were any elements to be relating*. But herein lies the contradiction. No relation is an element of a set, nor can a relation exist in ∅. To get around this, physics requires an appeal to a different sort of infinite regress of elements: the **Multiverse** (MV). > MV = {Ux, {Uy, Uz.... ∞}} ...which says that our universe, Ux, is one element of a *multiverse* of infinite elements. This is how the regress to the untenable situation of U = ∅ is avoided, by introducing not an infinite regress of *actual* universes in causal succession, but a plenum of weighted probabilities, something more like: > MV = {P(Ux), {P(Uy), P(Uz).... ∞}}. We just happen to find ourselves in the convenient scenario where the probability of our universe existing with just the necessary relations was = 1. Lucky us. Apparently, such an appeal to the infinitude of existence (as many possible universes), we escape both *creatio ex nihilo* and also the primordial state of the universe being simply ∅. To this we ask: isn't it logically possible that the probabilities for all universes in MV are 0? Of course not, there is always a necessary element or we'd arrive at ∅. So ∅ remains a possibility for MU, contra there being a necessary universe in MV. *If there is a NECESSARY universe* in MV, then we have arrived at another problem, which has to do with defining the term necessary. Someone could say, "Sure, maybe there is a necessary universe in MV and so all but (∞ - 1) universes is contingent." Such a necessary universe could not have contingent elements. But if universes are defined as being exhaustively described by the contingent elements they contain, then the Multiverse itself could not contain any necessary elements. What is necessary must exist separately from MV, i.e. the necessary being cannot be an element within MV. This precludes the objection where someone simply redefines what a universe is: "If there is a necessary being that exists, then MV would just come to include that thing." But if inclusion in MV means being a universal set which is itself exhausted by membership of only finite and contingent elements, nothing necessary can be included in the set MV. As a solution to these problems, I ask: **what is not an element in ANY set, but is NECESSARILY a *subset* proper of EVERY set?** It is **∅**. It is just the state of affairs in which the potential to exist *is*. One cannot avoid the intuition that the same equivalence of the foundation of the universe, ∅, has parallels with the human mind. After all, the mind can produce no thought which refers to nothing. ∅ is the most primitive concept we can form. This would make sense if ∅ underlies a universe which is fundamentally self-simulating. Indeed, if we take mental causation seriously, then we must face the fact that we arrive at a problem similar to the Cosmological Problem itself when we consider *some* thoughts. Therefore, the causal explanation for certain thoughts might be thought to refer back to an analogous form of necessary being, namely ∅, or a basic plenum of creative potential, combined with the event of actualization granting Form. We might very well think that mind cannot be explained exhaustively by the brain (though its mental powers can be *locally* explained, i.e. if my brain dies, my mind appears to cease to exist). But if instead we think that brains are not producing, but rather *accessing* the ∅, then we have a concept that looks a great deal like the Logos, an active principle which produces order from chaos. ___

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[–] • 0 pt (edited )

I don't ask as if to pretend I have the answer.

Ha, something I do too often unintentionally. Begging the question is a bad habit.

I think there is a case to be made that perceptions are prior to thought, or at least parallel to them. First theres the studies here https://medium.com/@kennelliott/39-studies-about-human-perception-in-30-minutes-4728f9e31a73

What appears to be true at least from a cursory look, is that perception is not, ordinarily, an attentive process. We don't have to be aware of it for it to effect how we perceive objects or thoughts.

How do we know percepts exist at all? Well really, we only know through testing. I suppose in a broader sense you'd be correct to suggest nothing exists apart from its relation to something else. Temperature for example is only measurable in relation either to a thermometer or relative to other temparatures, and so on.

What we have found is not a perception, but a neurological response to a stimulus.

Yes, but it has meaning only in relation to something else. Representation carries semantic information.

So when you ask, "what actually exists in that neural state?", I would say, I don't know but its probably something along the lines of 'a neuron with a state such that its representation encodes some transmissible information."

Theres a duality here between representation and information, which I think isn't emphasized enough because we get caught up in mechanism over message. Every key is a model of the lock that it opens. And in a world where there should be nothing, where there shouldn't be 'gross' information at all, let alone anything, it may just be sentiment, but I find it remarkable that not only is there something, but information may be transmitted between mediums that act as representations at all.

You hit on something on interesting: "which maps the digital information to a form which is interpretable by another piece of hardware/software"

The keyword being 'interpretable'. Whats a gramophone? A transcoder. Takes information in one representation and converts it to another representation. The act of transcoding is not the act of representation itself, but rerepresentation (if thats even a word). So it would appear interpretation and transcoding is as essential to representation as the medium which holds the representation. Which is to say, a thing can never be represented except in relation to another (which you already stated), but more broadly it is the act of 'packing or 'unpacking it' in conjunction with the representation, that provides the utility of the inherent representation. Without it the representation is a blackbox, it might as well be the empty set-- which is why I wrote "encodes some transmissible information." as a prerequisite.

Which is to say, everyone talks about information, no one talks about entropy.

This was fun and I really enjoyed reading your post, I hope you get more responses and do more like this.

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

I think there is a case to be made that perceptions are prior to thought, or at least parallel to them.

I think I may have gotten myself into a bit of trouble in my last post. I reread it at one point, and I think at points I was conflating sense data and perceptions. To be honest, I don't have the time or desire to revisit that earlier comment and possibly revise the whole thing, and that's without knowing where my failure to make the distinction actually impacts the outcome. I just want to get clear on how I view the situation, without committing to a formal philosophy of perception.

Sense data just is what it is, but must be selected and organized through the mechanisms of perception.

It might be more helpful, instead of taking sense data and perceptions as natural kinds of brain information, to view them as stages in the architecture of thought. An analogy could be useful. A house begins with a set of plans. Then you set a foundation. You begin to frame on the foundation, building up walls and levels sequentially, beginning first with the stick skeleton of the home's interior and exterior, and then refining with more and more specific functional elements (doors, windows, exterior siding, electrical).

In terms of the brain/mind, let's call the thought a finished home with a family inside. Let's also say that something is liminal if it meets the level where thought can attend to it, in principle. A thought, then, must be something on which I could potentially reflect (although being reflected upon is not necessary to being a thought), while a perception can become a thought if it is reflected upon, although most acts of perceptions qua perception are not noticed. We could imagine something perceiving the color red without having thoughts about it. So perhaps what I really mean to do is just stipulate that a thought has a semantics and it is, by definition, something which involves a kind of reflection, implied by the semantics itself.

I might even go as far as to say that thought just is formal and conceptual semantics applied as an envelope to more primitive organizations of even more primitive structures. This is how something could perceive the color red and merely behave but not think.

Returning to the house analogy, sense data might be something like the raw materials. These are already pre-cut lumber by the time they reach the brain, thanks to the upstream work of the lumber mill (our sensory neurons). Perception would be the interactions between the plans and the raw materials that begin to assemble the home's basic structure. Finally, it's the living within the home by a family that is thought.

All of those materials that went into the home could be used for a different home, that is, they have an intrinsic value. Each piece or section of the home is something representative of the final cause of any home, the way that place is to be used. The point is this is something generative, with levels of assembly, and perceptions don't have to ever reach the level of being a home - perceptions can disappear or be deconstructed. Thought can 'move in' to these structures as a kind of formal and conceptual semantics that gives them a sense. A house is not a home until it is sensed that it is.

How do we know percepts exist at all?

I think we can infer it logically. Pretend I place you in a room with a lamp. Your body and the lamp are 10 ft. apart. I ask you, "Do you see the lamp?" In effect, what it is to see the lamp is a complex process involving sense data, perception, and thought (because you've now been asked to reflect). Let's say that besides you, I've brought in some controls to test in other rooms.

  1. I can infer the existence of sense data by placing an opaque screen between one person and their lamp. If the person cannot see the lamp, then this external wall has prevented something involved in the chain of mental representation. It doesn't seem to have prevented sensing all things, or thought itself, so it is logically preventing some primitive kind of information from obtaining. We'd call that sense data.

  2. I can infer the existence of percepts if I obliterate someone's visual cortex. It should be possible to study whether cells in the retina and optic nerve are active in the presence of the lamp light, but if I ask this person whether they see the lamp, and they say 'No', I'd wager that something is now missing between the sense data and the thought. Such a person who cannot see is still able to understand what a lamp is, or what light is, and the basic sense of what I'm asking about a priori. They just can't see it. By analogy, the raw materials for the house are all sitting on pallets in the yard, but there are no plans to assemble them.

  3. Here is where things get interesting. As I see it, there is no logical way to infer thought except through the direct report from the subject.

Two problems become interesting to me.

(a) Someone could say that I've made an error in (3). A machine could be subjected to each of these tests and could be made to demonstrate the same results, even down to being able to report that it is seeing. So the question as it concerns thought becomes whether it must be attended by qualia. Moreover, if reporting is the best we can do, how do we rule out that the machine is (or is not) having a conscious experience?

(b) Can thought actually be separated ontologically from sense data and percepts? I believe this one is particularly important. To see what I mean, imagine that we could grow fully functional human brains, identical in structure and all empirical signs of activity as any healthy human brain. Suppose we did this for a brain in a vat. This assumes a brain without any sensory inputs (ignore that it may be impossible to eliminate all sensory input).

Could such a brain have thoughts?

We could get into all kinds of philosophical debate about this. I've already gone on for too long, so I'd leave on this idea: that whatever human mind is, a part of its very nature cannot be separated from its embodiment in an environment. The brain itself happens inside of a body, which is in communication with itself and the environment. Brains do not just grow absent their relations to the world.

@PS is someone who could talk about this notion much more aptly than I am able. There is this notion that things which are intelligible in nature only have this property of being intelligible because they inhere as the result of a Substantial Form. This is true of the lamp, and it is why thoughts about the lamp have the character they do, which is to say why they have their logical sense and qualia. However, what is true of the lamp is also true of the human person: we inhere as the result of a Substantial Form, and this is what we refer to when we say we have a soul. The soul is the Form of the human person. Another way to think about it would be to consider it as the 'missing piece', which being absent even having our 1. sense data, 2. perceptual organization, and 3. otherwise fully functioning brain, would prevent authentic conscious thought from happening.

In the brain-in-a-vat example, we might think there exists a way to 'record' the mental activities of that brain in a way that would produce a linguistic representation if they were occurring in such a way as to have any meaning. Would we expect such a brain to have an 'inner life' where it depicted certain kinds of images and imaginary events according to categories of space, time, causality, etc? Incidentally, some people might jump to the conclusion that primitive archetypes like Jung's would still be here, but I argue that isn't the case. Implicit in Jung's theories is a Lamarckian ontology: we pass through all of the phases of our race in the womb. To grow a brain in a vat is to grow something separately from the very generative pleroma of the 'conscious field' of the mother (if you will).

There is a real sense in which we 'fall into' or 'jump into' life like we are jumping into a stream. You don't start or stop this thing. You get on the ride while it is already in motion.

The potential that exists in the human Form (soul) is actualized in a very specific way, one life begetting another within the cosmically important womb. The point here is the notion of a thinking brain which has been grown isolated from both a body and an environment is unlikely to have conscious thought. What, after all, truly makes the brain-in-a-vat with all of its wired connections to this or that readout machine altogether different from the machine we mentioned earlier?

To me, it's that we are on a stream, a flowing river, that man cannot recreate. It's been flowing. It was already flowing when we became conscious enough to realize we were being pulled along by the current. Life begets life. You don't start a new stream in the one which you are already riding: it's all one stream. Even so-called conscious machines are just going to be elaborations of man, not a new stream, but extensions of the existing one - they carry within them something derived from us, a Logos.

I'm ranting. I get like this sometimes.

And in a world where there should be nothing, where there shouldn't be 'gross' information at all, let alone anything, it may just be sentiment, but I find it remarkable that not only is there something, but information may be transmitted between mediums that act as representations at all.

You would have probably been very interested in a theory introduced to me by @PS called CSI (Complex Specified Information). That resulted in some really enlightening conversations, but it pertains to precisely what you are intuiting above. I completely agree with you, btw.

Which is to say, everyone talks about information, no one talks about entropy.

In one way of thinking, called Shannon-Weaver information, the information content of a string is its entropy. I do think you'd find the topic of CSI pretty engaging given your interest in this idea. Here is a paper by Dembski that explains the underlying logic.

https://appearedtoblogly.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/dembski-william-22the-logical-underpinnings-of-intelligent-design22.pdf

For what it's worth, I spent weeks trying to refute CSI as I debated PS on the issue. Not only was I unable to do it, I wound up becoming convinced that it's true. If I get time I can try to dig up a conversation we had at Poal back in January sometime. What became apparent to me was that information is tied to symmetry.

This was fun and I really enjoyed reading your post, I hope you get more responses and do more like this.

Yours as well; we have our moments, don't we. We aren't as active as we were months ago, but this sort of thing is always enjoyable.

@KingOfWhiteAmerica

[–] • 0 pt (edited )

but must be selected and organized through the mechanisms of perception.

Hence 'interpretation' as you wrote.

A thought, then, must be something on which I could potentially reflect

Which is to say it is 'available for inspection' yes? Wouldn't that make consciousness and thought separate.

Actually thats an important distinction. You are not your thoughts. Mind is distinct from the contents of the mind.

I agree that someone could perceive the color red and not have any willful thoughts about it, if only because that is the everyday experience (assuming we're not all zombies, ha!) I think where some get into trouble is the perception from their own experience that thought is effortless and thus automatic, because they have been doing it their whole life. And this isn't a direct argument, but I think a case could be made that thoughts are distinct from their subject. So yes, if I'm reading you correct, it would at least appear that thought is an interpretable process, which takes the object as input and produces some other as output.

Reflection would be 'availability' to secondary interpretation, 'attention' would be the process and criteria that selects the particular object of inquiry or contents to be reflected on, thought would be the process that interprets or performs the actual reflection, and perception would be the underlying process and heuristics that sort, organize, categorize, and filter information before making it available or possibly, a substrate interpretation system sans reflection, a sort of preprocessing.

We might then reduce something like freewill to 'free wont', the selection of behavior by the suppression of bad options (thats another thorny issue), because if you look at humans (the only animal we think may have free will, if at all), and human behavior, it amounts to a local optimizer largely for avoiding pain or other bad outcomes, hence 'free wont'.

In fact I'd go so far as to posit that "free will" is some perception and interpretable thought process acting on the process of interpretation itself, made available for reflection.

Definitely adds at least a high level working explanation for effects like hypnosis.

A house is not a home until it is sensed that it is.

So partly structure and meaning are attributed rather than inherent, is what you are saying?

It would explain a lot actually: We could again look at the PMC generating potential plans for picking up a candle or a glass of water. And each of these motor plans would potentially have 'attributions', imputing both the objects relation to say it's handle, and the surface it sits on, and what it means "used for drinking", "creates light", etc, refering back to the notion that how we define and measure is in relation to other things.

In this way we could look at the entire process, from sense data to precept, to thought, as a process that reduces entropy. Meaning and relation are therefore ascribed, as a sort of reasoning, as a process inherent to the entirety of a mind, from the neuron to the full cortical column, in order to find some utility or other in relation to the world. A person touches a candle flame mistakenly, they get burned. A hundred million years of evolution have created the primitive neural signal of 'pain->negative' feedback, and that is then ascribed to the object too. And by this fumbling, both physical, and metaphysical as in the PMC and the countless discarded motor plans (I really like the premotor cortex, forgive its overuse) we arrive at a crude approximation, in the human body, and human mind, the first prototype of empiricism and rationality. What Thomas Aquinas said rings true "Reason in man is like God in the world."

The source of it is prerational, but clearly explainable to some degree.

I think there is distinctions and analogies to be drawn between the irrational<->rational, religious<->empirical, and information<->processes.

For example, a process may be described by information, but the information describing the process is not itself the process. And just as whether a program will halt or not is undecidable, determining, from within a process, whether that process is running, or is purely descriptive, is probably also undecidable. To illustrate, lets suppose we have an infinite tape, holding a simulation of a universe, where a full mind resides. Were it possible to determine whether a process or program is running at time T (real world), or simply stored as information on a tape, then hypothetically the program, with no access to outside information, could determine, even when it is not running, whether or not it had 'lost time'. This is obviously absurd on its face, if we discount any connection to the 'outside world' as it were. Therefore, we can conclude there is at least some definitive distinction between information and process.

We could go so far as to say, though this might be a stretch, that information supervenes process. Otherwise there would be programs or processes that could not be described at all, no matter the representation, information, or means. It would be to say there are processes that can't be described at all, whos output has a non-trivial effect, but no explanatory power beyond the output, total blackboxes, inscrutable in design. Thats a little bit of a rabbit hole to be sure. Could we conceive of such a blackbox that is algorithmic, or describable by information or process but where the internal state could be derived from the output? No of course not, because it is a blackbox. Failing that test, being able to derive process or state, it would not be a blackbox. Of course we could say "this thing is more or less of a blackbox" by some measure, and the measure would be derived from the blackbox output itself, along a spectrum where total correlation of output allows us to derive the full state and process of a blackbox, all the way to output is fully disconnected from internal state or processes. But of course, how then would the process produce the output?

And so we can see if there is an output, an effect, there must be a process that produces it, and is describable by some information mapping to said output. And therefore meaning is ascribed, ad-hoc, in a manner that attempts to reproduce the process and internal state of said process, depending on how effectively it models the thing in question, based on what? The output of the original process of course.

What I think I'm getting at is that even the first cause of something, the irreducible must at least be describable.

Contra-indicative of this thinking, could we describe a process or output, without modelling it? Without modelling its internal state or the steps that produced it and its output?

Were it so, we would again be dealing with a blackbox, in which its processes and internal state are completely uncorrelated to its output. But because that cannot be, as I've already perhaps shown, there can never exist an information theoretic perfect blackbox in real life. And as an aside, just for example, had hawking thought this through, he would have never suggested that information is destroyed or locked up forever in blackholes.

This also suggests to me that the universe itself is not a blackbox. A universe with no end, where time marches on forever, is indistinguishable from a process described by some information on a tape, where from our perspective inside of it, we have no means to tell when the tape or program is stopped, or running. Externally, assuming there is such a thing, the world could be stopped for billions of years in-between every second, and we'd have no way of knowing, but this very fact could be observed from the outside.

What I'm suggesting is there are not just blackboxes that are opaque from the outside looking in, but also blackboxes opaque from the inside looking out. And how would this appear if this is true of our universe?

It would appear as a universe with no beginning, and probably no end, no definitive first cause. Because just as there would be no way to measure wall clock time in an 'external' world or universe that contains your universe, there would therefore be no definitive means to determine when it stopped for good, were it not the case, then we could use the 'signal' as it were, from a measurable beginning, to determine, what the wall clock time is outside the universe, how much time had past--which is of course different from determining when it will stop, or if it already has at least once or more, but thats another tangle to get into for another time.

Of course theres the potential for a 'blackbox that contains itself' but I have no clue what that would look like. Probably a hyperconnected surface where position along a linear space is equivalent to position on a higher dimension or along a different axis, as is the case with say, a mobius strip. And that may be the case e.x. in space, with some scientists positing, the 'boundaries' of our universe are literally like a soapbubble, where if you could travel far enough, you'd reach another universe, supposing you could pass the boundary, but obviously thats beyond even high speculation at this time.

I think what I mean to say is "we agree on a lot" and I just wanted to expound on it all. Thank you for this @Chiro.

I wound up becoming convinced that it's true. If I get time I can try to dig up a conversation we had at Poal back in January sometime.

Yes please do! And thank you for the paper, I'm reading it now.

To me, it's that we are on a stream, a flowing river, that man cannot recreate. It's been flowing. It was already flowing when we became conscious enough to realize we were being pulled along by the current. Life begets life. You don't start a new stream in the one which you are already riding: it's all one stream. Even so-called conscious machines are just going to be elaborations of man, not a new stream, but extensions of the existing one - they carry within them something derived from us, a Logos.

God begat Logos, or perhaps is Logos. Logos begat the universe. The universe begat man. Man begat machine. Fitting and very Gnostic and Herbetesque.

I wonder, supposing God exists, if he looks at man as a mistake, as we may one day look at thinking machines?

Arrows from freud and jungian persuasion.

There is a lot of academic interest in suppressing Jung in favor of Freud. Almost wrote 'fraud', lol. I still wonder what so terrifies 'them' about Jung?

[–] • 1 pt (edited )

What Thomas Aquinas said rings true "Reason in man is like God in the world."

This guy quotes Aquinas. I like him.

God begat Logos, or perhaps is Logos.

Both: "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God." (John 1:1)

"For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting." (John 3:16)

Logos (the Son) is both begotten by God, and is God.

Logos begat the universe.

Yup: "All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made." (John 1:3)

I wonder, supposing God exists, if he looks at man as a mistake

Nope: "And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good." (Genesis 1:31)

Any mistake is on man, not God. But that's fine, because our mistake cannot exceed God's ability to correct it. Christ is the ultimate and perfect correction, the very same Logos by which the universe was made.

There is a lot of academic interest in suppressing Jung in favor of Freud. Almost wrote 'fraud', lol. I still wonder what so terrifies 'them' about Jung?

They both have their flaws, but Jung has fewer flaws. Even though he attempted a naturalization of Christianity, he still neglected to be hostile to it, which is anathema in academia. Freud was hostile, which is why he is more promoted, even though his degree of pseudoscience was more pronounced.

@Chiro