Hi Larry Carlson

Red colors and high pitched sounds and pinpricks- these supposedly elemental feels all have

-much more content than pain; they have impact, plus cognitive perceptual category as well as the specific

-no inherent negativity or positivity

Pain is not just something we notice; it is dysphoric. This is fundamentally different form red, and it is indivisible.

I agree, it is its own form of energy.

I disagree that it is never to be empirically resolvable. We know that we haven;t got physics completely figures out and we know consciousness is natural. We are able to detect many things in the lab today only recently.

What is needed now is good quality philosophy and fancy theoretical scientific speculation. Thought.

Calm intuition is a rich source of truth; just needs to be sifted through.

I would go back to your viewing it as an energy; a don't agree that it is just a big assemblage of other things; the nature of it is too different form other things. But I do agree it is a thing of Nature.

You are on to something important though. I believe that at the bottom there is no observer (and there is pain). Observer emerges higher up.

I believe that consciousness can be reduced to a single simple thing; I don't see a blurry line. Or a blurry line with life either- we just define what qualities define the term and then it is clear.

It is true that people use the word "consciousness" to differently and to encompass a lot. For this reason divide it into 4 specific levels. But it just means we have to define a few words in a discussion.

It is definitely not just information processing because we feel.

And I don't think it is a catch-all of a large number of things. It's specific.

Regards

Hi Larry Carlson

Does it really matter to know exactly what my friend actually feels like, or whether I can prove he feels anything at all to the satisfaction of a philosopher? If we jsut want to know what is going on re consciousness, I don't think so.

Ah, but there is a difference between seeing red, and how it makes you feel. Two different brain areas will be involved. And the pain one, me thinks, is more closely connected to the primitives of the universe, because you can;t make pain out of anything else. You can't make a subject negative out of neutrals.

I think we haven't *discovered* yet where in the evo chain pain is felt rather than just a withdrawal reflex, but we know that people feel pain and bacteria probably don't, so the point comes somewhere. Either there is a little pain felt or there is not.

You are right I think that a unified consciousness would not appear all in one snap. I think little separated flecks of it would show up first evolutionarily. But still, there are flecks in some animals and zero in more primitive ones. That is a clean break, not completely continuous.

The Levels are to indicate broadly how much has come into place in a given animal. The "breath of life" that has been sought forever is the force of fundamental consciousness.

The reason to presume a common denominator called consciousness, is that otherwise you have to assume that pain, for instance, is just some fancy combination of something else. I see no reason to believe that. What do you reduce pain to then, even possibly? Pain I believe is elemental in the universe (and pleasure), a force of its own.

It doesn't really help anything to assume the universe is a mish-mash goulash, an ordered interpretation of which is just an arbitrary view of somebody with nothing to it. We have found tremendous order and encoded it in our Standard Model.

Information is pattern *of* energy. The energy may be nonfeeling or feeling.

I believe that the lab tech is conscious and his amoeba is not, which is a big deal to us because everything that matters to us are our feelings.

Thanks for the long answer.

Hi Larry Carlson

I think there are definitely different cells in the brain that the feel pleasure from seeing a nice shade of red from the ones the perceive redness. It's not a fundamentally systemic phenomenon- it is separate brain units at work.

Full-blown consciousness (I call Level 3) has the many things you mention, contributed by different brain units in communication. My emphasis in this Question is on subjective feeling and where it comes from.

The reason the pyramid works is because the chunks are so large. Most of the things you quoted are all in Level 3. Inside Level 3 are the trees.

I have a different view that looks like this: the key to understanding how consciousness works is to 1) realize that pain and pleasure are foundational elements of the universe, that 2) are elaborated into red qualia and blue qualia and so on, that 3) allow building a unitary mind with all those cool features you quoted, and 4) language and formal abstraction. This high-level architecture importantly reveals, rather than misleads by oversimplification.

Everything is energy, but what kind of energy is key. The "quibbling" yields the revelation. Saying it's all energy anyhow not only doesn't reveal, but misses a big opportunity to do so. Information procession- the cognitive mind- is not especially mysterious to us. Feeling is fundamentally different, and how it is that we feel things instead of compute without feeling is s big deal. And the answer i think is that feeling is indeed energy, but not another slice of the same spectrum, it is in a whole different spectrum, a different force. SO that is not a detail, it is one of the most important realizations.

Matter = energy

Electricity = energy

Pain = energy

All are different

Thanks for the long answer. Regards.

Hi @ Larry

Pain and pleasure words are intentionally used as exactly that- feelings and not just repulsion.

Not a misuse of terms, a deliberate use of terms.

Yes the existence of the new force is a novel speculation.

To be sure, "consciousness" includes a great deal, which is why I cut it into Levels, allowing me to say what I'm talking about at the moment.

But, no, I can't just talk of a process of attraction, because the whole point is the feeling of pleasure, all the way down to particles.

it is not a quest to posit it as a field, it is a consequence of a line of reasoning that it must be so- I'd suggest reading my paper on the Hard Problem, full text is posted.

You are right IMO that it's not all that important which critter first became endowed with consciousness and I don't think about it much.

Because consciousness- experience- is different. Shall we not trouble ourselves with the difference between the strong force and gravity? That would slow down understanding.

Regards.

@Larry, It is a little less strange because it is not an electron or a photon at the heart but a senton; the photon of the feeling force. That pain is just like yours, because it is yours (1 millionth of for each).

Where I can connect to your point, is that I believe that pain and pleasure are the source and the only source of subjective experience. And these are a force from the dawn of the Universe, and will is pain and pleasure. I don't think these are organized enough in the Universe at large to constitute will for it but the Universe is infused as very fabric with pain and pleasure, with corresponding particle interactions as natural as the ones we're more familiar with. And evolution has seized upon this as with the other forces.

Cheers

@Larry That was very sharp- Yes, when you dig down to just experiencing something with neutral *impact* I believe that is a net null pattern of positive and negative feeling, although that is a detail and there is room for impact to be a basic universal feeling.

Agree not human-centric.

The similarity of the "joy field" to Eastern views has been noticed by people. In this case it is not rooted in 100% intuition. It is speculative, but scientifically speculative. Philosophy gets us across bridges where data is dear.

I have skimmed through your dialogue with interest and cannot compete with the references to Schopenhauer, Buddhism, Skinner, Nietzsche, Freud, Maslow etc, although what I have read of Schopenhauer and Maslow years ago, made some useful impression on me. Buddhism and other mystic religions which teach techniques to empty the mind have also been a strong influence when considering the consequences of randomness which have now been recognised as an essential part of research into quantum experiments of instant connection through space, not mediated by light speed, and more recently across time as well. But I have studied a little more about electrons, their motion and probability, and how electromagnetic action via radiation can be allied with quantum entanglement.

My interest is in the ascertainment of a possible mechanism for memory which I have assumed forms about 75% of the basic mechanism behind thought. Once we have a principle for neurons/dendrites firing in the brain produce images probably holographically, my proposals described as duplication theory, show how these might then be transferred from an earlier time when first experienced, to a later time as a similar structure and the ensuing changing motions of the original structure. Effectively this is a resonance effect, which with some further qualifications would provide a mechanism behind memory in outline. Disgracefully there is no mechanism yet agreed for this, or any other explanation for memory of which I am aware in any acceptable detail and until this has been achieved, the problem of thought and consciousness will probably not be properly resolved.

However with the advance of research into superposition and quantum effects on which huge amounts of research are currently being undertaken on the construction of quantum computers, it seems likely that advance will be made here over the next decade or so. Even some of the more perceptive philosophers now seem to be tending in this direction with their recent interest on panpsychism, and not before time. Well that is my view, although I am not an academic by profession but have been working on and off with biochemist Rupert Sheldrake since he published his first and most crucial book in 1981, the conclusions of which were surprisingly similar to mine although derived from a very different approach: I use principles of physics to explain his morphic resonance/ hypothesis of formative causation, which he does not. Indeed he is the first to admit he cannot explain a mechanism for the latter but just that from observation, there must be such an effect. I decided early on to describe my proposals as the far more prosaic description of Duplication Theory. I will not attempt to describe the latter in any detail in this note but should you be bothered, then about 8 papers of mine have been posted on research gate in the last couple of years under Nicholas Greaves.

Having worked in commerce all my life to educate a family properly (expensive in the UK) I now have had the time to complete a book in explanation which should be out in a few months or so. My papers are not peer reviewed which I consider allows me some necessary freedoms to speculate, although of course this does not assist credibility. I therefore mention that my proposals are fairly well backed up by the physicist David Bohm and neuroscientist Karl Pribram (both now dead) by their holonomic brain theory as a model for quantum consciousness. I have allied their work to something called the Absorber theory (1945 and very ingenious) produced by Feynman and Wheeler, two of the greatest physicists of the mid 20th century, which gave me some pleasure. In doing so I managed to sketch in outline of a possible explanation of the operation of intuition, leading possibly even to consciousness, although this was completely unintended, not wishing to be seen as treading where angles might venture, or indeed foolish Icarus. I have some other support from various sources. I have not attempted to promulgate my conjectures that much yet, but maybe, who knows, the book might change things a little.

Anyway, you might not be wasting your time, who can tell, to glance through some of my stuff should you feel so inclined. Besides I am delighted and intrigued to be able to read your thoughts in dialogue on the problem of the mind’s operation, which has been a subject of obsession in my spare time since 1978, when I first took a couple of years off from the office in the wonderful reading room, as it then was, of the BM to write a novel: alas never completed, but instead the above came about.

Nick Greaves

@Larry You have said one of those wonderful things that is technically not right but emergent from urges and proto-ideas that are very right (this is advanced intuition). I don't see all basic experiences as appearing along a *scale* of pain/pleasure. But I do think, and have written, that the local *pattern" of fundamental pain/pleasure "psybits" (which is the entire stuff besides further patterns that our consciousness is made of), *do* represent all the different basic feelings that we have- the base differing symbols, the feeling of red and of blue, everything. All the mysteries of consciousness fall away once this concept is understood. It takes you from particles to qualia, and then rest is cake.

Larry Carlson

"

Appropriateness of terminology: The notion that every cell or molecule or even electron feels degrees of pain or pleasure seems unlikely."

As written, agree.

"If the average human brain has a hundred billion cells and a hundred trillion synapses firing a variety of signals per second, then the resulting exponential combination is truly astronomical. As for electrons, it is estimated that there are 4.2 x 10^26 electrons in the human brain. By way of contrast, it is estimated that there are 'only' 7.5 x 1018 grains of sand on earth. My point is that it is unlikely that we can compare whatever a single electron might "feel" with that of a human or mammal." Electrons don't feel, unless the happen to carry "joy" charge as well as electric. "Elsewhere I entertained this notion, pointing out that scientists have found that a bolt of lighting has similar electrical qualities/specs as does the electrical activity in the brain. But I rejected the notion that such a bolt felt pain or pleasure or sensations on the basis that one must have a certain degree of systematic, functional unification and integration of electrical impulses (e.g., in a brain) before we should even use words such as "pain" and "pleasure" and "sensation" or "awareness," with respect to virtually everything in the universe except a few more complex ("higher") life forms. "

No. It is true the You don't feel a lone physical bit a pain. But millions of them at once, is what is your pain. How do we know? Because you can't a valenced item out of an unvalenced one (even if we just declare somehow we can, for the real reason that we can't think of anything else, or are seduced by the carnard that more "complexity" all by itself does magical things). "One thing that led me to this conclusion was to imagine that a detonated nuclear bomb would involve an incredible amount of pleasure or pain, not to mention that of the universe during the inflationary period. So it is not just a matter of how many electrons or whatever is needed for higher levels of 'awareness', the atomic particles must be also be organized synergistically to a significant degree in order for "emergent" phenomena (e.g., awarness of pain) to come into existence. Arguably, only in higher life forms have scientists, to date, found such higher levels of organization."

Ah- once again, wrong statement, but stemming from brilliant intuition. The *mind* is a complex and emergent thing, and what philosphers have missed is that their so-called "raw feels" are enormous constructions seen from the physics level. They jumped to a huge errant conclusion (by assumption) that the lowest "atoms" of mind they have introspectively conceived must be the same as the fundamentals of the world. this has twisted the path to realization.

Fundamental, disorganized bits of freestanding pain and pleasure *did* happen in the early expanding universe, but unexperienced by any mind. Again, the failure to distinguish between the universe's fundamental unit of experience and our minds', and the failure to understand freestanding, interacting observerless experience at the physics level, has caused much trouble, as has the failure to realize all the clues given to us by the contrast of pain/pleasure vs neutral yet impactful experiences. *Three* flashes are needed to ease us over the hump to understanding. And that's before all the intelligence (computational) capabilities.

"I don't feel particularly guilty swatting a mosquito on my arm for fear it felt pain in the process, or worried that I am killing germs when I cook dinner. In short, I am just reiterating that there are so many levels and types of information exchange and energy transformations that exist in the universe that, despite homologous morphological structures, it seems pointless to apply terms for awareness, or information processing, or consciousness (e.g., pain/pleasure) or even proto-consciousness to things such as bacterium, viruses, slime mold, molecules, atoms, and electrons, much less quarks, bosons, and leptons. "The word "pleasure" in particular seems problematical. What is the point of applying the single term "consciousness" to such a wide range of phenomenon, as if the "pain" or "pleasure" that an electron feels when a chemical reaction takes places. or a meteor as it falls to earth, is sufficiently like the "pain" or "pleasure" that mammals might feel, unless one is trying to posit consciousness as some new unified field or substance? "

The point is that freestanding pain and pleasure bits exist all the way down. Philosphers, who often speak of the quale as at "the bottom" of "consciousness," may refer to my Level 1 C. ie Fundamental C. (as with fundamental particles and forces) as "pre-consciousness." To me this is actually less helpfully suggestive, but has some self-consistency and clarity.

One way I can put it is to realize that the slimmest bits of consciousness are not happening only in minds. For evolution to make our minds, it had to have the minimum necessary available to it.

"In any case, unless one wants to squeeze all sorts of disparate feelings, sensations, qualia, reactions, attractions, responses, etc. into the same case or under the same categorical umbrella of the ambiguous and abstract term, "consciousness" I see no justification for claiming that they all are aspects of the some universal substance, field, or feeling."

Herein and elsewhere I've argued the case. In fact, don't see a single other step more important to understanding our consciousness.

"We can speculate that such is the case,"

And speculate we should.

"but so far the evidence suggests that levels of awareness, like forms of energy, are multitudinous and diverse."

"Levels" was a good choice of word. It is hierarchichal. "Though it is possible that this is the case, it seems like a rash reductionism at this point."

On the surface perhaps. What the sum of my arguments show is it is a conclusion based on reasoning rather than reductionist prejudice.

"Ultimately, unless some highest form of energy-based awareness is somehow so rarefied as to defy decay (aka, something like a soul),"

Something like the electron or photon :)

"I fail to see what difference it makes to try to isolate consciousness as some single entity of any sort. "

It not only makes any difference, it makes all the difference. It shows how the consciousness we know couId be and could evolve. And I've seen no other convincing alternative, even in principle. The closest attempts call for very large and mysterious steps of magic featuring very little or wildly arbitrary description. "I too entertain the notion of some sort of universal jouissance pervading the universe, but I don't lose sight of this as being pure speculation, and would suggest that science does not tend to support such musings. "

I suspect you more than entertain; I suspect you suspect. Intuition should be both critiqued and nourished where the fog is thick.

Dear Larry Carlson

"Karl: Electrons don't feel, unless they happen to carry "joy" charge as well as electric.

Larry: Not following here.. are you suggesting they do or not feel pleasure/pain? If not, why did you say elsewhere, as I recall, that electrons feel pain or pleasure to even to a extremely minute degree (e.g., as you estimated: one millionth of our own sense of pleasure/pain?)."

What I found on electrons is:

Larry: Well it is possible, I guess, that an electron or bacterium feels a degree of "pain," though it is (safe to say?) so qualitatively and quantitatively different from that of humans that I hesitate to use the same term...

…

3 days ago

Karl Sipfle

added a reply

@Larry, It is a little less strange because it is not an electron or a photon at the heart but a senton; the photon of the feeling force. That pain is just like yours, because it is yours (1 millionth of for each).

"Karl: Fundamental, disorganized bits of freestanding pain and pleasure [i.e., psybits?] *did* happen in the early expanding universe, but unexperienced by any mind...The point is that freestanding pain and pleasure bits exist all the way down….the slimmest bits of consciousness are not happening only in minds.

Larry: So when did these psybits or sentons come into existence? I gather that you agree that there was a time in the universe’s history when we didn’t even have the elements, albeit, I gather, for only a very brief time."

(took a long time to get elements)

"Indeed, it took a bit of time for even the four basic forces (Electromagnetism, Strong nuclear force, Weak nuclear force, and Gravity) to develop out of the original unified force. More importantly, since they had no function at that point, e.g., in facilitating a living organism's attempts to survive and reproduce, why would they even exist before life came into existence?...."

1. They existed, then life consequently emerged.

2. They exist as they are in this universe becuase they support life that can ask these questions.

"Are you suggesting, for example, that the universe some how knew that living things would eventually come into existence that needed such things as 'psybits' or 'sentons', and just happened to have them in stock, ready for the time when some elementary forms of life needed them?"

No, quarks and electrons are exactly the same in this way.

By the way, Searle does reject the notion that everything is either materialistic (e.g., the claim that all is matter) or else idealist (everything is “consciousness” or “mind” or “pleasure/pain,”) or any sort of dualism in this regard.Instead, Searle uses the term " biological naturalism," and emphasizes evolutionary developments and emergent biochemical properties related to combinations of energy."

This is the common error that emergentsystems and/or complexity can create something enitirely unlike what came before.

"I, on the other hand, tend to agree with Searle that pain/pleasure developed gradually and incrementally via evolution (out of necessity)."

Developed out of what? ("Pain" experience to a human mind will be million of pain psybits.)

"This leads to certain observations:

Just as life requires a bounded body for survival, consciousness requires such a body for the creation of a personal (first-person) point of view"

That is MUCH higher consciousness than the pysbits I am speaking of.

" From [various] neural features arise consciousness in a way comparable to how the complex property of life naturally arises from the interactions of its chemical and cellular components."

Actually, yes. A life form is a complicated molecular machine made out of smaller molecular machines. No change in fundamental nature. Pain at mind level is made from pain pysbits evoked by the physical actions of (pyramidal) neurons.

"All feelings are both uniquely personal via their connection to life,"

No.

"and they have a unique neurobiology through the special features."

Ultimately from their physics features.

"There is no need to invoke some sort of supernatural intervention,"

Right.

"or refer to new or unknown forces, either physical or nonphysical, to account for its creation. [It seems to me that you are invoking some additional force, e.g., psybits]."

Yes, one new force. Otherwise, what does your pain "arise" from?

"https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/unlocking-the-mystery-of-consciousness/

I think that most people would agree that a variety of sensations and degrees of awareness (of being distinct from one's surroundings) exist in Nature. I, for example, agree with Nagel that different species experiencing the world in different ways. Searle sometimes focuses on some sort of continuity with regards to awareness, while still noting that there are variances between the types of awareness of different species. In any case, for Searle, sensations, pleasures, pains, awareness, etc. emerge (gradually and incrementally over time) from previous ingredients:

“Consciousness is a higher-level or emergent property of the brain in the utterly harmless sense of “higher-level” or “emergent” in which solidity is a higher-level emergent property of H2 O molecules when they are in a lattice structure (ice), and liquidity is similarly a higherlevel emergent property of H2 O molecules when they are, roughly speaking, rolling around on each other (water).“(Searle [1992] 2002.

In this evolutionary view, awareness (e.g., of pain, pleasure and sensations) evolves as a distinct state or condition that waw not present befofe."

But in all this, the higher is organization of the lower, with the same basic nature present. This is as I am speaking. If you have consiousness that has gradulally risen and you go backward, how do you get your first consciousness out of no consiousness?

"Says Vladimír Havlík of ‘The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague’ in this regard,

“We could maintain consistency with Searle’s assumption regarding the identical mechanism of emergence of novel entities in nature, including consciousness, even in the light of the new concepts of emergence, such as the concept of “fusion” which claims that constitutional entities change radically when taking part in the creation of a system. What leads to the emergence of novel system features or properties is a fusion of elements together with their mutual causal interconnections and their interactions with the environment."

http://www.klemens.sav.sk/fiusav/doc/organon/prilohy/2012/2/40-48.pdf"

Again, the magical theory that adding complexity to lead pellets turns them into gold.

"The key distinction thus seems to be whether it is more likely that pleasure/pain is some sort of entity that permeates the universe or appears in pain/pleasure 'psybit' flecks (even outside of living things), or else is one or more emergent forms of energy working in an synergistic manner, particularly in living organisms."

The second is less likely because it is not possible. Fancy philosophy that boils down to a magical act that makes a something out of no such. Not only is there no (rational) reason to believe this, it appears false on its face. Again I say, emerges out of what? How? Of what is it made?

Nicholas Greaves , Interesting post. As to the philosophers, these are the same people who failed to solve consciousness for century upon century. I say take to heart the the motto of the Royal Society, "Nullius in verba."

Karl

I had no idea that was the motto of the Royal Socierty but I am much encouraged. For the last year ot two I have been meaning to write a paper on how understanding is based on images, presumably holographic projected from the brain created by interfernce patterns of EM waves, and which are then explained to others via the much less efficient and reduced medium of spoken or written word, albeit diagrams and illustrations fare well enough, rather better indeed. But I have not managed to get around to it yet.

I fear I have a prejudice having long regarded most philosphical discussions as talking shops which are unlikely to produce much progress in understanding the mechansim of the mind until said phiosophers acquire a better understanding of physics and especially the recent advances made in research on quantum entnglement. Having said that, material wirtten by Leibnoz, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer of which I read a little decades ago, is amazoingly perceptive and well ahead of their times in the way that most modern philosophers seem not capable. Even Newton in his dabbling with alchemy could be regarded and amzingly prescient in antricipating that radioactive elements could be transmogrified into lead, or whatver the a.ctual process is, and which ability I regard as being based on advanced intuition. Ditto Alfred Wallace in the interests of his later years as regards Darwin's work.

I will have a look at your papers Karl when I have a moment, to see whether I can master some content with any points of interest in common, with mine, although Larry remains a man of mystery on the RG website for paper work, other than I have coincidentally a son Felix who studied public health at Harvard as part of his rather long education, and which I see happens at Amherst. I shall respond to his note in a moment.

Finally in order that you do not have to scrabble about on RG should you feel inlcined to glance through one of my papers, I have attached one from early 2018 with which I was pleased, on singualrity states, the analysis of which forms a central part of my duplication theory, without going into too much detail

Regards

Nick

Larry,

Thanks for your note. I agree with your comments on philosophers of yore, and that quantum physics is so new that the leaders in the field seem unable to agree on anything much yet, in the same way as the cosmologists are making fools of themselves disputing on the shape of the universe, the nature of dark matter and dark energy etc. Indeed the relatively recent removal of the cosmological constant by the work of Saul Perlmutter and his team on the accelerating rate of expansion of the universe empahsises this point in spades: at least for me it does.

Now all we need is for the major constant of light speed to be shown variable, and it might be back to square one. Indeed, that is more or less happening via entanglement. I have a very recent simple paper on this attached, on the nature of time (attached as recommended, although to be set in perspective it is better understood when read in connection with an earlier paper from 2010, not attached, on Mach’s principle, gravitation and matter distribution, which is hardly my subject and therefore probably off the wall, what with one alternative version of three involving the possibility of repulsive gravitation. But I have to say I was delighted by my own ingenuity, since as far as I know, nobody has yet exlained successfully why and how inertia exists, despite a few attempts).

If you want a single paper to summarise my stuff in outline then that is also attached as ‘Transfer of information across space & time to explain memory via quantum entanglement’ (March 2018). I agree that the new age boys, Chopra et al, seem to have adopted the uncertainties and unknowns of the quantum world to their own devices and advantage although I recall being no end impressed when I first read Capra’s Tao of Physics in the late 1970s, along with some others of that ilk. However I reckon that there are a number of misleading belief structures currently in force which stand in the way of the rapid progress that might otherwise be made, the constant of light speed being one of them. There is also the fudge of renormalisation which the Absorber Theory surmounts, complex as it is to visualise. There aseem to be many others nd iaIndeed the General theory has to be missing a few vital elements in order to explain gravitation and inertia proper, not to mention assimilate quantum mechanics.

A friend of mine, Art Chester, who was a laser physicist in charge of research at HRL Laboratories in Malibu (formerly Hughes aerospace) once wrote a paper in which he showed that similar thought patterns resonated through time in peoples' brains, causing an effect which he described as the inertia of beliefs, and which is why such delays in progress so often have to wait ftoo long for the new paradigm breakthrough. I could not understand any of the reams of his maths but his paper was based on a theme of resonance through time of similar structures, which is how I came across his work. Not that he persevered with the later much further (published in an obscure journal on pscyhoenergetics 1981) but instead got on with advising the US government on Star Wars, or so I always assumed.

I have scanned through the paper you mentioned, and as I always have to do, first attempting to absorb the abstract followed by the conclusion, ignoring the figure work in between, which is my usual modus operandi, not being at all mathematically inclined. It looks to have something in common with some of my conjectures, but I shall have to try again to see if I can discern the difference between and definition of a null memory cell and a general quantum hybrid memory cell.

Regards

Nick

Dear @Larry,

Karl: No, quarks and electrons are exactly the same in this way.

Larry: But the formation of quarks and electrons do no suggest that the universe was anticipating life forms as deliberately and "conscientiously" as "psybits" and "sentons" do, and obviously we have evidence for the presence/ existence of protons and electrons, but not of such things as psybits.

K: It's the other direction. Sentons and psybits (or whatever one wants to call them) are expected by looking backgrounds, much like finding the Big Bang. It simply means we haven't found all the fields yet. We've found 5 fields now one by one, 6 if include dark energy.

Does not anticipate life forms; exists necessarily (or something similar) in a universe with intelligent sentient life or similar things (Anthropic Principle).

===============

Karl: This is the common error that emergent systems and/or complexity can create something entirely unlike what came before.

Larry: But chemistry is often referred to as the study of emergent properties, and it is a commonplace and pervasive concept in science:

'An old saying tells us that "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". A fancier way of saying this is with the term emergent properties, a term used in science, systems theory, philosophy, urban studies and even art. "Emergent properties" refer to those properties that are entirely unexpected and include emergent phenomena in materials and emergent behavior in living creatures. They arise from the collaborative functioning of a system, but do not belong to any one part of that system. In other words, emergent properties are properties of a group of items, whether insects, atoms or buildings, that you would not find in any of the individual items. Examples of emergent properties include cities, the brain, ant colonies and complex chemical systems."'

https://sciencing.com/emergent-properties-8232868.html

K: A key point I have somehow failed to convey is that a system of things still has a likeness to the things. It is "new" only in its fanciness or deftness. Systems of systems of parts, and emergence, are together a well-understood and critical part of modern engineeering. Emergence does NOT make something of an entirely new nature, it makes more elaborate and capable things of the SAME basic nature. A great big molecule still has a quarkiness but does not intrinsically hold "beauty" or "irony" or anything else totally unlike its parts. COngress is made of people and amount of emergent complexity can make the same thing from an arrangement of radishes. The distinuished planetary population has lost a century on this error in thinking.

Indeed, the paper I linked to in my last post discusses this at length... making a distinction between those properties that were directly predictable from the qualities of constituent entities and those that weren't, which illustrates that some properties are more emergent than others. This is a common way to describe synergistic effects, e.g., "the emergence of liquidity of water

K: that's all fine so far

as well as the emergence of consciousness in the neuronal structure of the brain is similarly emergent.

K: No. That's a baseless (popular) declaration.

Consciousness as we know it does arise on the neural mass that is the brain, but not from any established knowledge of it. Neurons have physics effects, and provide an arrangement in space.

A common example is that hydrogen is flammable, but oxygen is not, though it acts as a sort of catalyst for the burning of hydrogen; and the combination of hydrogen and oxygen produces a a molecule that on its own is not a runny, slippery, liquid, but in great numbers becomes a fluid that can extinguish a fire.

K: Just thin consequences and assemblages of matter.

One driver drives one car. A lot of drivers in a city suddenly produces "congestion," but not a symphony. Can't because there's not enough there there. Inadequate ingredients.

The line of thinking falls into a second simple logical trap wherebey because composite action pattern are diificult or impossible to predict and you get new "things" form combinations of smaller things, that you can get most anything by combining most any smaller things. And the difference between maybe it could be and plausibly near the truth.

A new field is the simplest and most consistent expansion of known natural math- the least (or less) contrived.

Moreover chemists and physicists, obviously, study the various electromagnetic, quantum, and other changes that take place when there are alterations in the configuration of molecules, atoms, and electrons, e.g., van der Waal's interaction.

This is commonly held and uncontroversial way of looking at the shift in properties that one finds throughout the field of chemistry and biochemistry; so I fail to see how you can object to the term "emergent" per se, whether or not we agree that 'sensations' of whatever sort emerge from biochemical reactions in the nervous system in particular and its its intimate interaction with other biological systems within the context of the social and physical environment.

K: Let's say you have a speculation that A emerges from B. Why do you think so and how does it? Or could, plausibly. In my writings argument is made. The first flash on my part might be very intuitive raw speculation. The reason it is still entertained, is confronting Why do you think so and how does it.

Some things (and not others) emergence can make. But even if we were not prescient beforehand, we can typically see how the wheels turn and "get" what is going on. And even wen we don't, there is caustive structure to the constructed macro object that explains how we got the new things. We run simulations like this all the time. We have a largely complete theory of evolution resting on these principles, even though the emergence of parrots would not have been predicted in advance.

K: Indeed, though one can use the colloquialism of suggesting that an electron feels pain, as I acknowledged, to do so is something of a travesty on the English language.

Electrons, cannot, technically, by virtue of our established knowledge feel pain. An electron which happens to carry the new charge also, when, say in motion, will be the location of a fundamental bit of pain because that is where the new charge is deposited. The pain is the new interaction, the new force, co-located with the electron.

I gather that you find that the generic term "consciousness" should be differentiated into its 4 "levels" owing to qualitative differences.

K: Roughly yes.

So too, I think that this is a semantic issue.

K: a terms issue (which I define). Bu words matter because they can often lead us astray. Philosophers have traditionally assumed their consciousness was elemental in the universe, whereas their "consciousness" (Level 4) IS emergent from elaborations of fundamental "consciousness" (Level 1).

The cognitive or disparate sensory levels of an atom, bacterium, slime mold, flea, bat, electron, quark, etc. are most likely so qualitatively and quantitatively different from each other that it is misleading, I have suggested, to use any single umbrella term, such as "pain" or "consciousness" to describe them all, thereby eliding over significant and crucial distinctions.

K: Pain is pain. This is a big deal. The particle level action is (tiny) pain. Isolated. Out of contact and unknown to us.

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Karl: If you have consciousness that has gradually risen and you go backward, how do you get your first consciousness out of no consciousness?

Larry: This is tantamount to the discredited 'irreducible complexity' claim of intelligent design enthusiasts. Indeed, does it not presumes that consciousness is some sort of substance (e.g., be it of 4 levels) in the first place that is needed in order for a living thing to respond to its environment? Like the development of the eye, it ignores the vast array of proto-formations that lead up to human vision.

K: Nope. Exact same fault. Try to make to me an atom or molecule devoid of matter. You may use all the complexity and emergence you like. You can't, because atoms are amde of matter. There is no way around that. Pain is negative and can only be made from something already negative, or from cleaving a first cleavable things into a plus and a minus as the universe winked into its present life.

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Karl: Again, the magical theory that adding complexity to lead pellets turns them into gold.

Larry: This comment is rather dismissive of the "fanciful" alchemical project that seems like and indulgence in "magic" as you say, which was of course a foolish dream in former times. But EVEN IF that were true today, the foolishness of less knowledgeable 'chemists' centuries ago is not a fair argument against the existence of "emergent" properties as presented in modern chemistry.

K: Not arguing against real chemistry. But trying to conjure consciousness from pure modern chemistry is almost exact the same pattern of error. It is again not realizing that other things are going on, and in facft must be, and no amount of mixing within the established knowledge will bring it about either. Because pain is not just a different arrangemrnt of matter, it is of totally different nature and character (until you get down to laws of fields and particles; then it is different but with similar mathematical patterns to the rest of physics).

" It is indeed possible [in modern times]—all you need is a particle accelerator, a vast supply of energy and an extremely low expectation of how much gold you will end up with. but, even if true today, "More than 30 years ago nuclear scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in California succeeded in producing very small amounts of gold from bismuth, a metallic element adjacent to lead on the periodic table.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-lead-can-be-turned-into-gold/

K: Of course, but that is off my point or makes my point, depending on how you look at it. Now we know a lot about what a nucleus is made of- new aspects of the atom to us. Until we did, nothing in this lead/gold thing made sense, that is, was understood.

Perhaps your disdain of the notion of 'emergent properties' is based on your own definition of it, and as such, you are attacking a "straw man." As Searle and others point out, there is nothing mystical or supernatural at all about the notion of emergent properties. Thus, I see no other reason why you would describe it as irrational, magical, and fanciful. Indeed, as I noted, the concept is a standard scientific concept, not a left-field arcane and mystical superstition or philosophy.

K: Yes, emergence is established and can make things. It can not make all things out of any things; it's just another thing that happens in the universe, as you aggregate into systems of systems.

It is true, for example, that that great rationalist, Isaac Newton was influenced by alchemists, and dabbled himself in concocting some ancient recipe for distilling mercury in order to create an ingredient for a 'Philosopher’s stone' which, in turn, could supposedly be used to change base metals like lead into precious ones like gold. Of course he was in practice, stumbling down a blind alley, but this general notion of emergent properties helped pave the way for modern science:

'Alchemists were the first to realize that compounds could be broken down into their constituent parts and then recombined. Newton then applied that to white light, which he deconstructed into constituent colors and then recombined... “That’s something Newton got from alchemy.” So it may be fair to say that if it hadn’t been for Newton the alchemist, we might not have had some of the most famous discoveries from Newton the scientist.'

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/04/160404-isaac-newton-alchemy-mercury-recipe-chemistry-science/

K: Ideas in general are good and lead to power. 10 must die valiantly to protect each right one. And the patterns and meta-ideas and intuitions behind them can be especially powerful.

As per the conclusion in my last post, the choice given here is, on the one hand, to regard "sensations" as being emergent, which is what scientific naturalism overtly or tacitly presumes in general,

K: Emergent *from enough to start with.*

and, on the other hand, the existence of "sentons" and "psybit" which are not generally recognized as in science.

K: This would be the science tht has not explained consiousness.

Though scientists may not be able to match up the electrochemical activity in the nervous systems of various species in an effort to gain insight into their various and sundry ways of perceiving the world, that does not mean that it is the wrong approach.

K: That is far off the path, for understanding of either higher or base consciousness. It can help in preliminary ways to delimit crude scopes to drill into.

In any case, I don't think scientists are ready to fall back on alternative explanations such as divine sparks or psybit flecks, flaming out, 'like shining from shook foil' as Hopkins so poetically mused.

K: As random intuitions, they should not accept. Argument is needed, building images in the mind where it can seen how something could actually happen, without huge blank chasms to cross.

As it is, I've been able to get down to about 15 pp. an answer to the not-so-easy question of "Yeah, but in what sort of way could that actually work?"

If would seem that you think that scientist are wrong when it comes to the facticity of emergent properties.

K: Not at all. In fact it is the centerpiece of my vocation.

If so, perhaps we might just agree to disagree.

K: Whew, that was close ;)

Regards.

Nicholas Greaves ,

"long regarded most philosphical discussions as talking shops which are unlikely to produce much progress in understanding the mechansim of the mind until said phiosophers acquire a better understanding of physics"

Agree.

"...Leibnoz... amazoingly perceptive and well ahead"

Agree.

"advanced intuition"

Agree.

Regards, welcome.