tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1608365326748641028.post7958937024068279462..comments2020-08-27T06:55:51.101-07:00Comments on James L. Carroll: Consciousness, Information, and the Interpretation Problemjlcarroll@gmail.comhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08870174344823829934noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1608365326748641028.post-62215571149093196342015-02-08T13:51:14.760-07:002015-02-08T13:51:14.760-07:00Hello James
In the interests of full disclosur...Hello James<br /><br /> In the interests of full disclosure, I declare myself a Materialist.<br /> I have a bone to pick with you.<br /><br /> You, and others hold that consciousness can in theory be created on a synthetic substrate. Imo it may be the case that the only substrate upon which consciousness can be created may be the one that evolution has developed in Homo Sapiens and other mammels. What I mean is that the degree of miniaturization and intricate complexity that is required to pack very dense information processing into a very small space, may not be possible on any technological incarnation. It is possible that the best route to a condensed information processing system lies in biology and not in pure physics. I would contend that an exclusive commitment to PD is premature, and the grounds for eliminating monist materialism are not there.<br /> Now, I must concede that the above is a lawyerly and argumentative response, so let me offer how I would offer to put my shoulder to the wheel. I would conceive information in a different way as per Jeff Hawkins as memory only. I suggest that information is paired with energy in order to compute. ( Information and energy are of course paired in computers - but energy is neutral to the course of computation. ) If the neutrality role is switched from energy to information, then variations in energy is instead what arbitrates in logical distinctions. The way that variations in energy would come about is that the energy required to process information varies. For instance on a digital computer it takes a certain amount of energy and resources to process the following piece of informatiion - 1000000000000. It takes more energy and resources to process 10011010111011. The historical assignation of variable to bits, and neutrality to voltage or energy is one option that has served well, but the reverse may also be possible where energy is the variable and information is neutral.<br /> This switch opens an avenue for exploration where we don't have to commit to the notion that information is a fundamental property, and subsequently deal with the pressure to incorporate that notion into Consciousness Studies and negotiate the speculative reductionism that will follow.<br /> To close I would offer that since we know so little about Consciousness that the matter of monism and dualism and a role for a incompletely understood notion of information fall into the vast domain of uncertainty that surrounds the question of consciousness.<br /><br />Regards, Mark Munroconsciousnessthroughidentityhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11969169740120544085noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1608365326748641028.post-51449000685800985392012-08-09T14:03:30.693-07:002012-08-09T14:03:30.693-07:00This interaction happened in a private email conve...This interaction happened in a private email conversation with Brent about this. It is relevant enough that I want to share it here (with permission of course):<br /><br />Brent Wrote: <br /><br />In other words, I have a rigorous definition of what 'redness' is. I see nothing but self referential abstracted information, defining qualia, in your theory. For you, it's just something that, when properly joined in consciousness, it can be interpreted as properly reporting that it is the same as my redness. Again, no fundamental definition of what redness is, at all, there. Just a bunch of self referential abstracted data, which all must be properly interpreted to know what it means, and you are not providing any way to know how to do that - other than yet more abstracted and circular data definitions.<br /><br />I responded:<br /><br />Exactly. I know that is what you think. NOW what I am challenging you with, is... why does a belief that matter carries phenomenal properties get you out of this quandary, while a belief that information carries phenomenal properties doesn't work? Why is one possible and conceivable to you, while the other isn't?jlcarroll@gmail.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08870174344823829934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1608365326748641028.post-32339431118552870972012-08-08T15:03:00.735-07:002012-08-08T15:03:00.735-07:00Incidentally, notice how (in the Maxwell's Dem...Incidentally, notice how (in the Maxwell's Demon thought experiment) the information must be "interpreted" correctly in order to transform the information into energy. You have to know what the information means in order to open the trap door appropriately based upon that information. But notice also how the information is interpreted entirely by how it is used to produce behavior.jlcarroll@gmail.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08870174344823829934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1608365326748641028.post-59360475948036818882012-08-08T14:59:12.432-07:002012-08-08T14:59:12.432-07:00"Also you assert that MPD is that 'all in..."Also you assert that MPD is that 'all information must be "interpreted"'. Again, you getting this completely backwards. You are mistakenly focusing on "interpretation", where is this is not at all important. The only important thing is what are you 'interpreting' as? Are you interpreting it as abstracted information about some structure and dynamics, or are you interpreting as some fundamental phenomenal quality, like redness? The redness, or the fundamental properties, are what is important, and what does the carrying, not the other way around."<br /><br />If I understand you accurately here, then I don't think that what you just said is incompatible with what I was saying above. So I must conclude that I didn't communicate accurately. In any event, you have expressed to me that you problem with RF and FPD is that there is nothing to "interpret" the data appropriately as "red" or "green". And what *I* am saying here is that if some material allows this interpretation to happen (as MPD suggests), then some information could equally allow it to happen, because information IS matter just as energy IS matter. <br /><br />"As to me, this is completely mistaken and sloppy thinking. First off, what, exactly, do you mean by 'information'? Because, to me, 'information' is the way we abstractly interpret some fundamental representation, in other words, all information is merely abstracted interpretations of something physically real - whether behavioral properties or phenomenal qualities."<br /><br />And science has told us that this is false, which was my point. Information itself is either THE fundamental stuff out of which the universe was made, or else it is one aspect of something even more fundamental (whatever that is). You don't get to choose what is true by what you consider to be "sloppy thinking", instead, the universe tells us what is true, and we accept what it tells us, no matter how un-intuitive. A non-intuitive conclusion, drawn from data, isn't "sloppy thinking" because it doesn't match your intuition. The sloppy thinking is actually just the opposite, namely, to trust your intuition over what the data actually tells us. <br /><br />For example, it wasn't intuitive that matter and energy are different aspects of the same thing. It seemed like matter was stuff, and energy was the ability to move stuff around. But this isn't true, as evidenced by the atomic bomb as just one example. NOW, we know that we can transform information into energy. It's equally un-intuitive, but it seems to be also the simple truth.jlcarroll@gmail.comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08870174344823829934noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1608365326748641028.post-53817979449849239912012-08-06T21:27:14.638-07:002012-08-06T21:27:14.638-07:00Hi James,
What you say here is evidence to me you...Hi James,<br /><br />What you say here is evidence to me you're still completely missing the gist of Material Property Dualism.<br /><br />"MPD posits that only matter can carry the "property" of consciousness, a "dual" property, beyond its causal properties, which form the structure and dynamics of physics."<br /><br />No, there is no 'carrying' going on - it's the other way around, fundamental properties and qualities are what 'carries' or represents abstracted information in ways that it can be interpreted as such, not the other way around.<br /><br />Also you assert that MPD is that 'all information must be "interpreted"'. Again, you getting this completely backwards. You are mistakenly focusing on "interpretation", where is this is not at all important. The only important thing is what are you 'interpreting' as? Are you interpreting it as abstracted information about some structure and dynamics, or are you interpreting as some fundamental phenomenal quality, like redness? The redness, or the fundamental properties, are what is important, and what does the carrying, not the other way around.<br /><br />Also, it looks like we need to start a survey topic about whether you can get it from bit, or whether these Maxwell thought experiments, and so on, constitute anything like matter being converted to information, and visa versa. As to me, this is completely mistaken and sloppy thinking. First off, what, exactly, do you mean by 'information'? Because, to me, 'information' is the way we abstractly interpret some fundamental representation, in other words, all information is merely abstracted interpretations of something physically real - whether behavioral properties or phenomenal qualities. In other words, to me, by definition, there are no ones and zeros in a computer, or no 'information' in there, such is just ways we think about or interpret the particular set of matter we've organized into a machine, so that we can think of it in a consistent, abstracted from that reality, way. All there is physical process causing the next downstream representation to be in a way that we can also, think of it as a one, no matter what physical media happens to be representing it.<br /><br />In my opinion, "information" in any way I know of rigorously defining it, has nothing to do with any such "information heat pump". It's all just physical stuff organized in a way that pumps stuff - not violating any laws of entropy or anything else not already predicted by classical physics.<br /><br />As usual, I sure look forward to find out how many people agree with either side of this issue, and if there are any other better explained reasons as to why. I hope you'll all help get such 'canonized'.<br /><br />Brent AllsopBrent.Allsophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12433683365877496993noreply@blogger.com