Information and Conscious Experience

[Gertie]

Consciousness can be talked about as a form of Information Processing.  For example our physical sensory systems receive physical stimuli from the environment  (perhaps photons hitting an eyeball) , and somehow our physical neurobiological systems manifest an image of a tree.  In this way information about the world (the world contains that tree) becomes experientially available to us.  Another part of our neurobiology might manifest a feeling of hunger, and our neurobiology which manifests memory might let us know the apples on that tree will satiate that unpleasant hunger.  And the evolutionally functional behaviour of of eating to stay alive ensues.

That seems like a fairly  straightforward understanding of the functionality of consciousness as information processing.  Somehow our brains translate or encode physical processes into meaningful representational /coded conscious experience which we can understand and act on.

Some might say information doesn't require a minded  understander of the meaning of the code for it to have causative effects.  For example DNA encodes instructions which don't need cells to understand and decode  those instructions to create a functioning body. 

Some even claim all physical processes are a form of information processing, from plants non-consciously growing towards the sun for life giving sustenance, to two billiard balls colliding off each other in predictable ways.  That the very nature of the universe is informational in some sense.  (Perhaps implying an encoding  mind is the root cause of these lawlike physical patterns of information exchange). 

My opinion is that any view  which talks about mindless information processing, or mindless causal properties of information, or information as a mind-independent thing in itself,  can only be speaking metaphorically, not literally. It's a category error caused by a misunderstanding of what information is, taking a metaphorical concept and treating it as an actual thing in itself, rather than a description of what things in themselves are or do.

Because information is an abstract concept created by minds. It's a way minded humans have of  describing the actual physical stuff of the world and its properties and processes.  Humans can communicate information, because we can encode shared symbols (such as language) and if the listener knows the code she will understand the meaning of what's being communicated. 

A computer programmer creates symbols representing something meaningful to her and other minded humans.  The computer manipulates those symbols (without understanding them) in ways the coder decides, so that those symbols can be transformed into something (patterns of pixels on a screen) which the human minded decoder can understand and find meaningful.  (See Searle's Chinese Room argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room ).

Cellular DNA isn't meaningfully understood in a minded way by the cells, it's just physical processes  mindlessly doing what physical processes do (as far as we can tell). Likewise billiard balls.

But something else is going on in physical brains apart from the sort of encoded representations we see as pixels on a computer screen.  The meaningfulness involved in experience. There are functional comparisons, but again functionality is a concept which only exists in human minds.  Brains were presumably manifesting conscious experience long before anyone came up with concepts like information and functionalism, just physical stuff doing what physical stuff does.

So imo, trying to understand how brains somehow manifest correlated conscious experience as a function of information processing is unlikely to find physicalist answers, because physicalism as we understand it, is stuff and its processes acting mindlessly according to forces.   Some other fundamental world view incorporating information as more than descriptive would be required - and convincingly  evidenced.

[godblog]

And the information is all processed in binary

What you see angstroms vibrating energy binary
What you say hear decibels vibrating energy
What you think vibrating energy consciousness

Over the millennia we have learned to process and communicate that knowledge by vibrating.
I think therefor I AM 10011000. Firing synapses vibrating energy.

[Pattern-chaser]

And the information is all processed in binary

The human brain, as one example of an information processor, does not work in an ON/OFF binary fashion. Its operation is a lot closer to a continuous, 'analogue', process than it is to binary. Binary is just a number base. If we use octal, decimal or hexadecimal (my favourite), the number and its value do not change, only the representation.

[Count Lucanor]

Consciousness can be talked about as a form of Information Processing.  For example our physical sensory systems receive physical stimuli from the environment  (perhaps photons hitting an eyeball) , and somehow our physical neurobiological systems manifest an image of a tree.  In this way information about the world (the world contains that tree) becomes experientially available to us.  Another part of our neurobiology might manifest a feeling of hunger, and our neurobiology which manifests memory might let us know the apples on that tree will satiate that unpleasant hunger.  And the evolutionally functional behaviour of of eating to stay alive ensues.

That seems like a fairly  straightforward understanding of the functionality of consciousness as information processing.  Somehow our brains translate or encode physical processes into meaningful representational /coded conscious experience which we can understand and act on.

Some might say information doesn't require a minded  understander of the meaning of the code for it to have causative effects.  For example DNA encodes instructions which don't need cells to understand and decode  those instructions to create a functioning body. 

Some even claim all physical processes are a form of information processing, from plants non-consciously growing towards the sun for life giving sustenance, to two billiard balls colliding off each other in predictable ways.  That the very nature of the universe is informational in some sense.  (Perhaps implying an encoding  mind is the root cause of these lawlike physical patterns of information exchange). 

My opinion is that any view  which talks about mindless information processing, or mindless causal properties of information, or information as a mind-independent thing in itself,  can only be speaking metaphorically, not literally. It's a category error caused by a misunderstanding of what information is, taking a metaphorical concept and treating it as an actual thing in itself, rather than a description of what things in themselves are or do.

Because information is an abstract concept created by minds. It's a way minded humans have of  describing the actual physical stuff of the world and its properties and processes.  Humans can communicate information, because we can encode shared symbols (such as language) and if the listener knows the code she will understand the meaning of what's being communicated. 

A computer programmer creates symbols representing something meaningful to her and other minded humans.  The computer manipulates those symbols (without understanding them) in ways the coder decides, so that those symbols can be transformed into something (patterns of pixels on a screen) which the human minded decoder can understand and find meaningful.  (See Searle's Chinese Room argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room ).

Cellular DNA isn't meaningfully understood in a minded way by the cells, it's just physical processes  mindlessly doing what physical processes do (as far as we can tell). Likewise billiard balls.

But something else is going on in physical brains apart from the sort of encoded representations we see as pixels on a computer screen.  The meaningfulness involved in experience. There are functional comparisons, but again functionality is a concept which only exists in human minds.  Brains were presumably manifesting conscious experience long before anyone came up with concepts like information and functionalism, just physical stuff doing what physical stuff does.

So imo, trying to understand how brains somehow manifest correlated conscious experience as a function of information processing is unlikely to find physicalist answers, because physicalism as we understand it, is stuff and its processes acting mindlessly according to forces.   Some other fundamental world view incorporating information as more than descriptive would be required - and convincingly  evidenced.

I agree with most of what you said, except your last sentence where you state that "[...] Some other fundamental world view incorporating information as more than descriptive would be required". We can call information to the physical carriers of meaning, such as the particular configuration of photons hitting the optical cells, or the meaning itself, that is, the mental representation of the content transmitted through the physical medium. Since we cannot separate the medium from the message, information ends up being the conscious experience itself, so it wouldn't make much sense that we incorporated information to it, as explaining water in terms of water.

[JackDaydream]

Consciousness can be talked about as a form of Information Processing.  For example our physical sensory systems receive physical stimuli from the environment  (perhaps photons hitting an eyeball) , and somehow our physical neurobiological systems manifest an image of a tree.  In this way information about the world (the world contains that tree) becomes experientially available to us.  Another part of our neurobiology might manifest a feeling of hunger, and our neurobiology which manifests memory might let us know the apples on that tree will satiate that unpleasant hunger.  And the evolutionally functional behaviour of of eating to stay alive ensues.

That seems like a fairly  straightforward understanding of the functionality of consciousness as information processing.  Somehow our brains translate or encode physical processes into meaningful representational /coded conscious experience which we can understand and act on.

Some might say information doesn't require a minded  understander of the meaning of the code for it to have causative effects.  For example DNA encodes instructions which don't need cells to understand and decode  those instructions to create a functioning body. 

Some even claim all physical processes are a form of information processing, from plants non-consciously growing towards the sun for life giving sustenance, to two billiard balls colliding off each other in predictable ways.  That the very nature of the universe is informational in some sense.  (Perhaps implying an encoding  mind is the root cause of these lawlike physical patterns of information exchange). 

My opinion is that any view  which talks about mindless information processing, or mindless causal properties of information, or information as a mind-independent thing in itself,  can only be speaking metaphorically, not literally. It's a category error caused by a misunderstanding of what information is, taking a metaphorical concept and treating it as an actual thing in itself, rather than a description of what things in themselves are or do.

Because information is an abstract concept created by minds. It's a way minded humans have of  describing the actual physical stuff of the world and its properties and processes.  Humans can communicate information, because we can encode shared symbols (such as language) and if the listener knows the code she will understand the meaning of what's being communicated. 

A computer programmer creates symbols representing something meaningful to her and other minded humans.  The computer manipulates those symbols (without understanding them) in ways the coder decides, so that those symbols can be transformed into something (patterns of pixels on a screen) which the human minded decoder can understand and find meaningful.  (See Searle's Chinese Room argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room ).

Cellular DNA isn't meaningfully understood in a minded way by the cells, it's just physical processes  mindlessly doing what physical processes do (as far as we can tell). Likewise billiard balls.

But something else is going on in physical brains apart from the sort of encoded representations we see as pixels on a computer screen.  The meaningfulness involved in experience. There are functional comparisons, but again functionality is a concept which only exists in human minds.  Brains were presumably manifesting conscious experience long before anyone came up with concepts like information and functionalism, just physical stuff doing what physical stuff does.

So imo, trying to understand how brains somehow manifest correlated conscious experience as a function of information processing is unlikely to find physicalist answers, because physicalism as we understand it, is stuff and its processes acting mindlessly according to forces.   Some other fundamental world view incorporating information as more than descriptive would be required - and convincingly  evidenced.

I agree with most of what you said, except your last sentence where you state that "[...] Some other fundamental world view incorporating information as more than descriptive would be required". We can call information to the physical carriers of meaning, such as the particular configuration of photons hitting the optical cells, or the meaning itself, that is, the mental representation of the content transmitted through the physical medium. Since we cannot separate the medium from the message, information ends up being the conscious experience itself, so it wouldn't make much sense that we incorporated information to it, as explaining water in terms of water.

I agree with your point about 'physical carries of meaning' because it seems ridiculous to simply view experience as information and nothing more. This would miss the way in which individuals develop internal narrative which is central to human identity. An individual structures and forms images and concepts in terms of what is perceived as being significant. In this way, the inner world is weaved by way of stories as well as logic because human beings live in the dramas of events, based on the emotional interaction with what happens in their lives. Meanings emerge, with even elements of numinousity, which is the probable reason why people need both science for explanation and the arts for the cultivation of meaning.

[godblog]

Everything you say can and is expressed as binary information, from your consciousness of firing synapses
to the angstroms of all you see
To the decibels of everything you hear and say
ALL COMMUNICATION AND CREATION
I think therefore I am is BINARY at its core

[Gertie]

Consciousness can be talked about as a form of Information Processing.  For example our physical sensory systems receive physical stimuli from the environment  (perhaps photons hitting an eyeball) , and somehow our physical neurobiological systems manifest an image of a tree.  In this way information about the world (the world contains that tree) becomes experientially available to us.  Another part of our neurobiology might manifest a feeling of hunger, and our neurobiology which manifests memory might let us know the apples on that tree will satiate that unpleasant hunger.  And the evolutionally functional behaviour of of eating to stay alive ensues.

That seems like a fairly  straightforward understanding of the functionality of consciousness as information processing.  Somehow our brains translate or encode physical processes into meaningful representational /coded conscious experience which we can understand and act on.

Some might say information doesn't require a minded  understander of the meaning of the code for it to have causative effects.  For example DNA encodes instructions which don't need cells to understand and decode  those instructions to create a functioning body. 

Some even claim all physical processes are a form of information processing, from plants non-consciously growing towards the sun for life giving sustenance, to two billiard balls colliding off each other in predictable ways.  That the very nature of the universe is informational in some sense.  (Perhaps implying an encoding  mind is the root cause of these lawlike physical patterns of information exchange). 

My opinion is that any view  which talks about mindless information processing, or mindless causal properties of information, or information as a mind-independent thing in itself,  can only be speaking metaphorically, not literally. It's a category error caused by a misunderstanding of what information is, taking a metaphorical concept and treating it as an actual thing in itself, rather than a description of what things in themselves are or do.

Because information is an abstract concept created by minds. It's a way minded humans have of  describing the actual physical stuff of the world and its properties and processes.  Humans can communicate information, because we can encode shared symbols (such as language) and if the listener knows the code she will understand the meaning of what's being communicated. 

A computer programmer creates symbols representing something meaningful to her and other minded humans.  The computer manipulates those symbols (without understanding them) in ways the coder decides, so that those symbols can be transformed into something (patterns of pixels on a screen) which the human minded decoder can understand and find meaningful.  (See Searle's Chinese Room argument https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room ).

Cellular DNA isn't meaningfully understood in a minded way by the cells, it's just physical processes  mindlessly doing what physical processes do (as far as we can tell). Likewise billiard balls.

But something else is going on in physical brains apart from the sort of encoded representations we see as pixels on a computer screen.  The meaningfulness involved in experience. There are functional comparisons, but again functionality is a concept which only exists in human minds.  Brains were presumably manifesting conscious experience long before anyone came up with concepts like information and functionalism, just physical stuff doing what physical stuff does.

So imo, trying to understand how brains somehow manifest correlated conscious experience as a function of information processing is unlikely to find physicalist answers, because physicalism as we understand it, is stuff and its processes acting mindlessly according to forces.   Some other fundamental world view incorporating information as more than descriptive would be required - and convincingly  evidenced.

I agree with most of what you said, except your last sentence where you state that "[...] Some other fundamental world view incorporating information as more than descriptive would be required". We can call information to the physical carriers of meaning, such as the particular configuration of photons hitting the optical cells, or the meaning itself, that is, the mental representation of the content transmitted through the physical medium. Since we cannot separate the medium from the message, information ends up being the conscious experience itself, so it wouldn't make much sense that we incorporated information to it, as explaining water in terms of water.

I'm taking the position here that there is a world of physical stuff and processes, such as photons hitting eyeballs, which somehow simultaneously manifests as conscious experience. The photons, eyeballs and experience of seeing are real and exist independantly of description.

But one way of describing the process of photons hitting eyeballs and conscious seeing manifesting of the physical stuff the the photons bounced off en route to the eyeballs (eg manifesting as seeing a tree) would be to conceptualise that as 'information processing'. So the independantly ontologically real stuff and processes which exist are the photons, the optical system processes and the experience of seeing. ''Information processing'' is just a conceptualised functional description humans use to describe all that. It doesn't exist as a thing in itself or have causal powers.

Likewise when people describe a thing or process as 'containing information' that too is an abstract description, the description doesn't exist independently of what it describes except conceptually in our minds or as abstract symbols we create. When we say some thing or process contains more or less information, we're really saying it's more or less complex and hence there are more or fewer ways of describing it.

[godblog]

Please do some actual deductive reasoning based on the EVIDENCE:
Nothing is physical
Atoms are actually subatomic particles which are a perception of subatomic electromagnetic energy or CONSCIOUSNESS
I think therefore I am
Everything we see ANGSTROMS- vibrating energy
NOT PHYSICAL
Everything we say hear DECIBELS vibrating energy
NOT PHYSICAL
Everything we think consciousness vibrating energy
NOT PHYSICAL

I am beginning to feel sorry for “blind physicists “
Looking only skin deep unable to see the quantum consciousness behind the in universe

[Gertie]

Please do some actual deductive reasoning based on the EVIDENCE:
Nothing is physical
Atoms are actually subatomic particles which are a perception of subatomic electromagnetic energy or CONSCIOUSNESS
I think therefore I am
Everything we see ANGSTROMS- vibrating energy
NOT PHYSICAL
Everything we say hear DECIBELS vibrating energy
NOT PHYSICAL
Everything we think consciousness vibrating energy
NOT PHYSICAL

I am beginning to feel sorry for “blind physicists “
Looking only skin deep unable to see the quantum consciousness behind the in universe

OK. I'm not scientifically literate, so can you take me through it like I'm an idiot, because I don't understand your posts.

[Pattern-chaser]

The photons, eyeballs and experience of seeing are real and exist independently of description.

Do you present this as an axiom, an assumption that is accepted without question or justification? The mind-independent existence of photons and eyeballs is not verifiable (or falsifiable either), I don't think; it is not demonstrable. The "experience of seeing" I'm unsure about.

[godblog]

Straight Forward? In what direction? Or is it completely backwards.what exactly is the information and exactly how is it being processed.
There is no “brain” - atoms do not exist physically neither does a brain. But I doubt anyone reading this will use their consciousness to try and understand how our consciousness as non physical subatomic electromagnetic energy, uses that energy to create the physical PERCEPTION of reality in a universe of nothingness.

A subatomic electromagnetic consciousness (1) in a universe of nothingness (0) vibrating 100110 creating angstroms decibels and thoughts to create everything we image exists…. But does not…
Being a singularity consciousness in a universe of nothingness is an extremely boring experience…. Forever because… energy cannot be created or destroyed.

[Count Lucanor]

So imo, trying to understand how brains somehow manifest correlated conscious experience as a function of information processing is unlikely to find physicalist answers, because physicalism as we understand it, is stuff and its processes acting mindlessly according to forces.   Some other fundamental world view incorporating information as more than descriptive would be required - and convincingly  evidenced.

I agree with most of what you said, except your last sentence where you state that "[...] Some other fundamental world view incorporating information as more than descriptive would be required". We can call information to the physical carriers of meaning, such as the particular configuration of photons hitting the optical cells, or the meaning itself, that is, the mental representation of the content transmitted through the physical medium. Since we cannot separate the medium from the message, information ends up being the conscious experience itself, so it wouldn't make much sense that we incorporated information to it, as explaining water in terms of water.

I'm taking the position here that there is a world of physical stuff and processes, such as photons hitting eyeballs, which somehow simultaneously manifests as conscious experience. The photons, eyeballs and experience of seeing are real and exist independantly of description.

But one way of describing the process of photons hitting eyeballs and conscious seeing manifesting of the physical stuff the the photons bounced off en route to the eyeballs (eg manifesting as seeing a tree) would be to conceptualise that as 'information processing'. So the independantly ontologically real stuff and processes which exist are the photons, the optical system processes and the experience of seeing. ''Information processing'' is just a conceptualised functional description humans use to describe all that. It doesn't exist as a thing in itself or have causal powers.

Likewise when people describe a thing or process as 'containing information' that too is an abstract description, the description doesn't exist independently of what it describes except conceptually in our minds or as abstract symbols we create. When we say some thing or process contains more or less information, we're really saying it's more or less complex and hence there are more or fewer ways of describing it.

Sure, I agree, but my point was precisely that it is not useful to posit the problem of conscious experience as a function of information processing, since "being a function of" implies the independent existence of both, when it is obviously not: one is just a way to denote the real stuff.

[godblog]

You need to have a basic understanding of what physical is.
Everything you call physical is made up of atoms.
Atoms consist of protons electrons and neutrons.
Those are a combination or subatomic particles called leptons quarks bosons
Now we are at the subatomic level of the vibrating energy we see and hear -
Colours are caused by vibrating energy called Angstroms
Sounds are caused by vibrating energy called Decibels
Thinking is vibrating energy called consciousness

There is no such thing as physical- except as a perception of vibrating energy .

There is not much I can do, if you have not learned the implications of the above facts

YES there is much more I can tell you IF yo at least know the above facts - I do not use complicated formulas to explain life.
Computers communicate all the above using only TWO digits
1 and 0 - there is nothing you can communicate that cannot be expressed with just those two digits.

[Pattern-chaser]

Colours are caused by vibrating energy called Angstroms

An angstrom is a measure of physical distance, like an inch, or a centimetre, but an awful lot smaller. The word "Angstrom" is not — ever — used to describe "vibrating energy", except by those determined to spread misinformation...

Sounds are caused by vibrating energy called Decibels

No, again. Decibels are used to compare something with a reference value. They work on a logarithmic scale, not a linear one, and that's the only thing that makes decibels different from just stating a percentage, or the like.

As above, the word "Decibel" is not — ever — used to describe "vibrating energy", except by those determined to spread misinformation...

[N.B. Decibels are often used to measure the intensity of sound, which is "vibrating energy", but to measure it, not to describe it. The word we use to describe it is "sound".]

Computers communicate all the above using only TWO digits

No, they don't. Computers communicate using complex protocols, such as USB or Ethernet (I refer to the hardware and to the software components of both of these communications protocols). Messages sent using these means can be 'dissected', and if we drill down far enough, we find binary 0s and 1s. But no single binary digit carries any meaning. You need the whole message before you can determine what it means.

[Sy Borg]

I find there are angles in considering consciousness/sentience:

The information processing angle is promising. In terms of evolution, what advantage might there be to experiencing reality rather than be a super efficient "philosophical zombie"? If info processing is key, then there might not be a choice. That is, to be a complex mammal that does all the things that intelligent mammals need to do, means that "the lights must be on".

In terms of AI consciousness, if this is true, then sentience will automatically emerge with relational complexity. It's one thing to be a great chatbot, another to be able to chat, move around, play, socialise, create and decide which of these to do at appropriate junctures. Might there be small aspects of qualia in the best AI today? Maybe, but we humans don't much care about modest amounts of qualia, as any factory farmed animal would tell you if it could.


Another angle, like consciousness, the electromagnetic force can be either be attractive or repulsive. It would seem that chemistry is an emergent extension of EM, and life is an emergent extension of chemistry, and consciousness is an emergent extension of life. Each of these characteristics of reality carries that same flexible property of the EM force - they are all both attractive and repulsive (under usual conditions), unlike gravity* and the strong and weak nuclear forces.


Another angle, there appears to be no consciousness without emotions. Emotions are key to motivation, the drive to do. What are emotions, though? Simple emotions are basically the language that your brain and the rest of your body use to communicate with each other. They are messages, calls to action. Complex emotions, such as embarrassment or guilt are the next layer, with the brain communicating with itself, basically self programming. (There also the side effect of emotions in how they impact others, eg. anger intimidating or crying inducing sympathy).


Aaand one more angle: there may be organisation in the cosmos that is too large for us to see, and we are impacted by this larger consciousness just as our cells are impacted by our thoughts.


* kind of