I listened to the talk this morning - and I have watched a some others by him, though in honesty I’ve started more than I’ve finished.
I spent too much time on some other posts, so it’s a good excuse for me to start this, nice’n slow and 'n easy, like the song. ?
May I ask you, why (or how) do you think Tegmark would fit into the story line I’m trying to explicate?
May I ask you, why (or how) do you think Tegmark would fit into the story line I’m trying to explicate?It seemed to me as fitting in with your analysis of current science. You cite Tononi as one of the cutting edge scientists working on the question of "integrated information theory" and what allows our brain to experience consciousness of the data being processed.
(4.06) Physical Origins of Mind: Dr. Siegel, Allen Institute Brain Science, Tononi, Koch.As you will have noticed , Tegmark also mentions Tononi's work as supporting his own proposition of "inherently intelligent patterns".i.e. the patterns in which the data is being processed allows the brain to experience consciousness of the data being processed.
And Tegmark’s concept of the conscious patterns acquiring an independence from the physical substrate, seems to me as one of the possible consequences of your argument.
From my perspective this would fit nicely within the framework you have outlined… 
Tru dat. They’ve done some amazing work NeuralCorrelates of Consciousness (NCC), but it doesn’t seems to help with getting closer to the foundations of consciousness, it’s more about the mechanical of neural networks.
Here's an update: www. nature. com/articles/nrn.2016.22Published: 20 April 2016
Neural correlates of consciousness: progress and problems
Christof Koch, Marcello Massimini, Melanie Boly & Giulio TononiKey Points
The neuronal correlates of consciousness (NCC) are the minimum neuronal mechanisms jointly sufficient for any one specific conscious experience. It is important to distinguish full NCC (the neural substrate supporting experience in general, irrespective of its specific content), content-specific NCC (the neural substrate supporting a particular content of experience — for example, faces, whether seen, dreamt or imagined) and background conditions (factors that enable consciousness, but do not contribute directly to the content of experience — for example, arousal systems that ensure adequate excitability of the NCC).The no-report paradigm allows the NCC to be distinguished from events or processes — such as selective attention, memory and response preparation — that are associated with, precede or follow conscious experience. In such paradigms, trials with explicit reports are included along with trials without explicit reports, during which indirect physiological measures are used to infer what the participant is perceiving.
The best candidates for full and content-specific NCC are located in the posterior cerebral cortex, in a temporo-parietal-occipital hot zone. The content-specific NCC may be any particular subset of neurons within this hot zone that supports specific phenomenological distinctions, such as faces.The two most widely used electrophysiological signatures of consciousness — gamma range oscillations and the P3b event-related potential — can be dissociated from conscious experiences and are more closely correlated with selective attention and novelty, respectively.
New electroencephalography- or functional MRI-based variables that measure the extent to which neuronal activity is both differentiated and integrated across the cortical sheet allow the NCC to be identified more precisely. Moreover, a combined transcranial magnetic stimulation–electroencephalography procedure can predict the presence or absence of consciousness in healthy people who are awake, deeply sleeping or under different types of anaesthesia, and in patients with disorders of consciousness, at the single-person level.Extending the NCC derived from studies in people who can speak about the presence and quality of consciousness to patients with severe brain injuries, fetuses and newborn infants, non-mammalian species and intelligent machines is more challenging. For these purposes, it is essential to combine experimental studies to identify the NCC with a theoretical approach that characterizes in a principled manner what consciousness is and what is required of its physical substrate.
But the initial excitement about unlocking secrets of consciousness have fading, because it’s increasingly appreciated that consciousness is actually more fundamental and deeper in the brainstem, and also diffused throughout the body, and even that we need to take into account the outside world creating the input on the consciousness. Plus of course, a deep appreciation for the evolutionary perspective that Mark Solms and Antonio Damasio have done a wonderful job of explicating.
As for Tegmark, another physicist/philosopher that ignores evolution and misses its significance to understanding consciousness.
For me, he’s an example of being too in love with his own genius and getting lost within his own mindscape.
For what it’s worth, I commented on some specifics over at that video.
[quote=“citizenschallengev3, post:43, topic:7592”]
As for Tegmark, another physicist/philosopher that ignores evolution and misses its significance to understanding consciousness.
I think it’s brilliant.
A mathematical universe precedes evolution and is actually the guiding principle on which the entire unfolding and evolution of the universe rests.
The beauty of a mathematically guided universe is that it is predictive because it follows certain mathematically based rules, constants, and that makes it accessible to us, because we are able to consciously perceive mathematical values and functions.
Human maths are the cofigication and symbolization of natural values an functions, andappear to be adequate in explaining how the universe works.
IMO, this the cause for the emergence of “Intelligent Design” and a “Watchmaker” God. The answer to ALL of these metaphysical assumptions lies in the mathematical potentials inherent in the geometric and atomic values and that must follow certain regular interactions in spacetime.
Mathematics provide the “guiding equations” that underly all universal physics.
And it is not a reach to propose that certain consciousness is just another mathematically evolving pattern of increasing complex and capable communicative patterns.
This began with he mathematical self-organization of the elements, the evolving communicative ability of bacterial “quorum sensing”, to the subconsciously applied mathematics of many insects and plants in the performance of “problem solving” and natural selection of functional survival abilities and behaviors.
When you speak of mind/body divide that still can be represented as a wholeness, it all rests on the mathematics of the physical processes.
We’ve been over this many times.
You’re impressed with the idea of math as God, or that something people always look for, the ultimate answer to everything.
I think math is thoughts in our minds.
As for the universe, for this something that we experience to have happened, required an exquisite internal consistency to allow the self organization to unfold. Of course it is discoverable through the application of logic, etc. - as math.
But you’re like sounding like you’re saying math runs the thing… ? It’s too weird for me. (as is what I hear/read from Tegmark.)
You’re clinging to this notion of the universe being mathematical, which I see as a symptom of the lack of what I keep talking about with that Appreciating the Physical Reality ~ Human Mind divide. Somewhere on a gut level that attitude . . . (never mind, I should have been to sleep hours ago, but got caught up in another midnight marathon, I shouldn’t get caught up in a pointless writing jag. Night, night.)
And I see that as a failure of imagination, and it’s reflected in counterproductive actions and attitudes of people everywhere, all the time.
Perhaps you underestimate the pervasiveness of mathematical processes that allowed the universe to evolve as it has.
You must let go of the notion that mathematics is a human invention, rather than a description of human observation of natural mathematical regularities.
The argument that the Universe does not use mathematics is false.
The Universe does not need human mathematics is true.
But humans need human symbolic mathematics to understand the natural mathematically guided processes that yield consistent results.
“Numbers” are human inventions.
“Values” are inherent relational properties of stuff.
Forget the numbers and think of algebraic equations using physical values.
a + 2b = c is the algebraic description of the chemical formula H2O
(O+HH) = water! It is a mathematical equation of “adding” relational values.
Input → Function (mathematical process) → Output
Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division are human terms for actual natural processes (functions).
Take away “addition” (the additive process) of oxygen and hydrogen in nature and what do you get? Not-water!
Without mathematical processes that brought order, there would still be only chaos, as in the early universe, before the mathematical processes had a chance to self-organize relational “values”
The moon circling the earth is a mathematical pattern, caused by the force of gravity influencing the “straight path of a moving object”.
There is not a single description of natural processes that is not mathematical in essence. And a good thing it is. Without maths we would not be able to describe nature at all.
Without mathematically guided processes, there would be no order of any kind.
Order is a result of mathematical functions. Why is this so hard to accept?
We are not talking about an unknowable God. We are talking knowable “orderly” processes.
“Mathematics” is the human descriptive term for natural “Regulatory Order”
Not the first time I’ve said it, but since you want to keep bringing it up, it’s not a “notion”, it’s a debatable topic. There are strong arguments for invention and for discovery. Kantian logic of how we arrived at things like math is quite good, but, not much point in bringing up dead philosophers with CC, or anyone other than Tegmark with you. So, I’m off to fix the world in other ways
Braver Angels 2024 Convention - Braver Angels
I am not scheduled to speak, but if I get on camera for a discussion, I’ll let you know.
I trust you will have a very productive meeting.
I also believe that CC and I will have many productive discussions
= Exquisite internal consistency
The Universe is all about playing dice, and it just does it, it doesn’t need to think about it.
Seems to me math is a mental exercise, with a rich history.
Nature and Earth’s process simply unfold.
I would suggest you’re all about understanding the Universe,
while I believe the greater challenge is for us humans, is to understand our own relationship the environment around us, and thinking processes within us.
Okay.
Without folds within folds of harmonic cumulative processes, there would only be chaos.
There you go. The key being “the human descriptive term for.”
Besides this one is a philosophical argument, not a scientific one.
In a time when so many despair, we’ll go to Kenosha to create hope.
Politics doesn’t have to be this destructive. We can find ways to disagree better. Build new friendships. Deepen our civic skills. Renew our commitments.
We’ll talk in Kenosha, but we’ll do more than talk. We’ll launch a campaign to recruit thousands of new civic leaders. We’ll decide how to take our message to both national political conventions. And “We, the People” will debate and determine our future work together.
Hope isn’t something we’re given. It’s something we create. As Red, Blue, and Independent, we will go to Kenosha because we need each other and our country needs all of us
I love inspirational speeches, it’s the aftermath that so often seems to disappoint.
I don’t knock Braver Angles and wish them the best - still that leaves us stuck with those things no one wants to talk about. How will fixing our problems be possible without humans getting a better, dare I say more realistic, appreciation for who they themselves are - and for where their thinking processes come from? Without that, seems we simply keep repeating the same over-confident mistakes.
Exactly what we do. Try a free online experience
Like the reference letter read: Always worked to the best of his abilities.
[quote=“citizenschallengev4, post:49, topic:7592, full:true”]
= Exquisite internal consistency
Absolutely, it is a valid argument and warrants consistency, After all that’s what we are discussing. The ability to predict what is going to happen from extant conditions.
If I were to add 1 apple to 2 apples, I will have 3 apples, regardless if I know the mathematical equation, I know the difference between “more” and “less”.
And that is doing mathematics at a very rudimentary level.
And it appears that all dynamical conditions as exist in universal spacetime, depend on differential equations; “more” does not equal “less”.
The Universe is all about playing dice, and it just does it, it doesn’t need to think about it.
Enstein saw it differently.
Seems to me math is a mental exercise, with a rich history.
Nature and Earth’s process simply unfold.
Yes, but the process of unfolding itself is a mathematical function.
I would suggest you’re all about understanding the Universe,
while I believe the greater challenge is for us humans, is to understand our own relationship the environment around us, and thinking processes within us.
I agree, but that does not affect the mathematics of processes in a dynamic environment.
Okay.
Without folds within folds of harmonic cumulative processes, there would only be chaos.
Absolutely, mathematics are not necessarily linear.
3D chess is a mathematical game.
There you go. The key being “the human descriptive term for.”
Of course, but in mathematical terms that “symbolic description” is universally acceptable and understood and practically functional, in both human symbolic
(representative) language and natural mathematical functions.
In biology it’s called “problem solving”.
Some plants have been shown to remember and learn from past experiences. For instance, the Mimosa pudica plant, known for its rapid leaf-folding response to touch, can learn to ignore harmless stimuli over time. Plants exhibit behaviors that can be considered complex, such as opening and closing flowers and orienting leaves and stems toward light, reported Earth.com.
Instead of electrical signaling, there is chemical signaling throughout the superorganism. Studies by other researchers have shown that every plant cell has broad light spectrum perception and sensory molecules to detect very specific volatile compounds coming from neighboring plants, according to Kessler’s study published in Plant Signaling and Behavior.
Some plants have been shown to remember and learn from past experiences.
Note that if it were not mathematically consistent, there would be no regular order that can be “learnt”.
Besides this one is a philosophical argument, not a scientific one.
It is both. If reality exists at all it should be consistent in the symbolic language of both disciplines of science and philosopy.
In a time when so many despair, we’ll go to Kenosha to create hope.
Politics doesn’t have to be this destructive. We can find ways to disagree better. Build new friendships. Deepen our civic skills. Renew our commitments.
Yes, note the terms we use to describe those beneficial social functions are dependend on, “positive action” and “negative action”.
Mathematical processes are everywhere.