[MD] On Time?

[Scott Roberts]

Case,

[Case]
There is a big difference between a representation on paper in two
dimensions and a dynamic 4D representation contained in three dimensions
inside the most complicated bit of matter in the known universe. Such a
dynamic object would have a variety of properties that might not be
expected. I am saying that self awareness is one these properties, just as
color and shading are properties of a 2D photograph. Or another analog might
be 2D mirrors reflecting themselves.

Scott:
Well, no, color and shading are not properties of a 2D photograph. They are 
properties of *looking at* a 2D photograph. I don't see how this changes if 
there is 4D representation encoded in three dimensions. Being in motion 
doesn't change anything -- in fact I've assumed it in talking about computer 
processing.

-----------------------------------------------

Scott said:
And as I said, there is no reason that the representations could not be
created, but there is a reason that they cannot be perceived. A computer, of
course, does not just store these representations. It also processes them,
creating other representations. But in a computer (I'm assuming one built
out of Boolean logic gates), that processing is done one bit at a time
(serial or parallel, doesn't matter, since in parallel processing, each
processed bit is separate in space from all others), so there is no
possibility of awareness of anything larger than a bit (and, or course, not
even that, since each 'bit' requires several transistors to process).

[Case]
My answer above stands. Since any computer operation is going to involve the
interactions of lots of bits, individually and collectively, all that is
required is that they act in harmony. Besides if you do not regard this as a
possibility and you think organic systems are subject to the same
spacio-temporal limitations; why is one more likely than that other.

Scott:
You still need the perception of harmony. Anyway, I don't think organic 
systems are subject to the same spatiotemporal limitations. That's what 
makes computers different from bodies. The former have anything 
non-spatiotemporal designed out of them. What I am saying is that IF only 
spatiotemporal operations are being considered THEN there is no awareness. 
So if in the brain you are appealing to non-spatiotemporal operations, then 
my objection doesn't hold. However, in a computer it clearly does hold, 
since in a computer any non-spatiotemporal operation is impossible. But if 
you are appealing to non-spatiotemporal operations in the brain as an 
explanation of consciousness, then you are undermining the belief that 
consciousness emerged *in time*.

-----------------------------------------
[Case]
If you do not agree that Consciousness = Chance, how do they differ? (Big
"C"s are intentional)

Scott said:
What sort of red herring is this? Chance, as far as I know, just means not
knowing outcomes. Some outcomes we know, and some we don't. What does that
have to do with anything we are discussing? Unless you are referring to
quantum probability waves, about which see below.

[Case]
This is not a red herring. This is the whole ball game. Outside of the "Now
instant", we can not know any outcome with certainty. Outside of that
instant everything is a probability. When you say some outcomes are known,
you are saying they have a high probability. When you say we don't know
them, you are saying the probability is undetermined. I maintain this is a
more accurate definition of SQ and DQ than commonly floats about here.

Scott:
I see this as a whole different discussion, which assumes your metaphysical 
view of consciousness. For example, I do not assume that the concept of "Now 
instant" makes any sense -- depending as it does on a certain view of time 
that I do not hold. That's why I call it a red herring with respect to the 
rest of this thread.

----------------------------
[Case]
Since I think biological systems do emerge from the physical environment
individually and collectively: So, Yes.

Scott said:
Yes, what? Are you assuming that the operations that produce consciousness
are spatiotemporal, or not? I will assume yes, since you think a computer
can be conscious, and its operations are spatiotemporal. And therefore, my
objection stands: How is that we see colored shapes and not a succession of
millions of synapses doing their thing?

[Case]
Yes, I think these are emergent properties.
I have speculated enough about the mechanisms but they are really irrelevant
because there is no reason to assume that more is needed than what we have.
I would further suggest that what we would call mystical experiences are in
fact our dynamic representation's ability to model even higher dimensions
and that mystical experience is no less representational than mundane
experience.

Scott:
Well, the argument is over "what we have", isn't it? I say that what we know 
we have is consciousness. Quantum physics tells us that what underlies what 
we think of as being "out there" is not spatio-temporal. So it doesn't make 
sense to me to try to explain consciousness in terms that are restricted to 
spatiotemporality, such as computational models.

----------------------------------------

Scott said:
But we already know that the quantum world cannot fit into 4 dimensions. So
why even consider the possibility that a computer can be conscious -- a
computer that works with Boolean gates, at least. It is designed so quantum
effects can be ruled out.

[Case]
You said it yourself: the quantum world cannot fit in 4 dimensions. If this
is true then there are more than 4 dimensions here now. They exist whether
we have awareness of them or not. I suspect that we are fully aware of them,
we just don't have, at present, a vocabulary, mathematical or otherwise, to
fit them into. Or perhaps we do we just don't recognize it as such (I find
this more likely).  This being the case the computer is no more restricted
in this respect than we are. This "trapped in the instant" business is the
real red herring.

Scott:
Two things: First, that the quantum world cannot fit into 4 dimensions does 
NOT imply that there are more than 4 dimensions. The unperceived quantum 
world may not be "dimensional" at all, in the sense that space and time are. 
The mathematics to describe it will no doubt require many systems of 
variability, which is all that a mathematical dimension means. What I am 
getting at is that a perceived dimension is not the same sort of thing as a 
mathematical dimension used to model something.

The second thing is that a digital computer (like any Newtonian machine) IS 
restricted. It is designed so that each event in it is separated in space 
and/or time from every other event. If they weren't (say by quantum jumping) 
then the machine won't work as designed.

------------------------------------

Case said:
Consciousness is not required to sustain an amoeba. But as always it would
be helpful to know what you think consciousness does. Some metaphors, some
personal example, some account from a sage, anything at all would help.

Scott:
I'm not sure what you are asking, in that asking what consciousness does
seems to be like asking what life does. Consciousness *is* thinking,
feeling, and perceiving. But maybe the following answers your question, at
least for perception. (For more details, see Samuel Avery's "The Dimensional
Structure of Consciousness: A Physical Basis for Immaterialism"). Roughly,
it says that each sense produces one or more dimensions from the quantum
world of probability waves or whatever. Touch produces the mass dimension
(and time, if there is memory of touches), while sight produces the 4
spacetime dimensions (the other senses produce one or two spatial dimensions
plus time). We call something physically real if it can be sensed with more
than one sense, for example, a seen object that can potentially or actually
be touched and/or heard, etc. So what perception *does* is turn the
non-spatiotemporal quantum world into the spatiotemporal world.

[Case]
Now it is you who is talking about the representations and their creation
rather than awareness.

Scott:
"rather than"? I am saying that our creation and reading of representations 
*is* awareness. DQ leaving SQ in its wake, to put it in MOQ terms.

Case continued:
 I will no doubt be accused of reading too much into
what you say again but you seem to be saying that consciousness exists
outside of our representations. That awareness of the content of our
representations is something that exists in and of itself. You say that this
consciousness was here from the beginning of the universe and is responsible
for the direction of evolution of itself and all of nature.

Scott:
Not outside of our representations. Representations can be stored outside of 
our awareness (e.g., in books or in computers), but one cannot in general 
disentangle awareness from representation. On the last point, yes, though 
again, one cannot disentangle nature from consciousness.

Case said:
I am saying this is wishful thinking.

Scott:
What's particularly wishful about it? I'm still the same mix of pleasure and 
pain, happiness and unhappiness in holding this view as I was before. It 
does make it conceivable (though not definite) that one continues beyond 
death, but is that a good thing? After all, the materialist can wishfully 
think that all responsibility for his or her actions ends with death.

Case said:
But what I am trying to find out is: what is this consciousness of which you
speak?

Scott:
The way I view it is that consciousness (and value and intellect) are 
aspects of the Tao. Or as Coleridge put it, there are "two forces of one 
power", and there are various names for, or aspects of, the power and the 
forces. Consciousness is one name of the power, and the two forces could be 
called 'continuity' and 'change', or 'dynamic' and 'static', but in any 
case, the two forces are not independent from each other, or from the power 
(one could say, perhaps, that the power just is the interaction of the 
forces). This inseparability is what I refer to as contradictory identity 
So with that, on to your questions -- to which my answers should be seen as 
speculative (with further thought I might want to modify them).

C: It is eternal?

S; Eternity just means timelessness, and I would say that our consciousness 
is the contradictory identity of eternity and time (and space). It is the 
eternal pole that allows us to experience time passing, which makes Now a 
duration. Speaking loosely, one could say that our consciousness has one 
foot in eternity and one in time.

C: Did it exist before the Big Bang?

S: The Big Bang is not a fact. It is what you get by assuming that physical 
laws don't change, and by assuming that space and time are a universal 
background, and then extrapolating back from current conditions. So the 
question is meaningless, since I don't make these assumptions.

C: Does it guide and direct cosmic and or biological evolution?

S: Its evolution is cosmic and biological evolution, not separately guiding 
it (thus I reject Intelligent Design as it is usually considered).

C: Does it exist in the absence of matter and energy?

S: This depends somewhat on what is meant by matter and energy. That is, 
what we know as matter and energy (say, as stable inorganic patterns of 
value) may be some type of something more general that we don't know about, 
for example, what it is like in the quantum world, and it could be that what 
they are non-spatiotemporally is always "around". So the answer is, I don't 
know.

C: Does is obey any set of rules such that if we have knowledge about it's
present state, we can make assumptions about its future state?

S: Consciousness (or perhaps in this case, 'intellect' is a better aspect to 
consider) makes rules, operates within rules it has made, and breaks rules. 
So your question is being asked at the wrong level of discourse. When 
operating within some set of rules, one can make predictions.

C: Is it only around when there is a brain to regulate it?

S: No. This does not imply that "I" continue to exist without a functioning 
brain, however. Maybe I do and maybe I don't.

C: Is there a relationship between the consciousness being regulated by my
brain and the consciousness being regulated by yours?

S: Yes. We are both, as physical human beings, operating within the same set 
of physical and biological rules.

C: Is there a consciousness outside of both of us that our individual
consciousnesses relate to in some way?

S: Yes. Everything we perceive is a communication from other consciousness.

C: If so is the particular subject to the general or visa versa?

S: Both. I see the particular/general relation as a contradictory identity. 
But you seem to be asking if there is a "higher" consciousness than ours. 
Here the concepts of hierarchy and whole/part break down. I am and yet am 
not the Tao.

C: Is it possible for a biological entity to exist in the absence of
consciousness?

S: No. That does not mean that one should treat the consciousness of, say, 
an amoeba as contained within the amoeba. I would say that instinct (which I 
see as biological intellect) is a part of the amoeba's consciousness, but 
should be thought of as belonging to the species rather than the individual 
amoebas. And that is the difference between amoebas and people, that people 
are not subject to instinct (or much less so) -- that intellect has moved 
"into" the person.

C: Are there discrete levels of consciousness?

S: I doubt it. Levels of rules, yes, though how 'discrete' they are is open 
to question. Nor is it clear which levels are ontologically prior to others.

C: If consciousness exists in its own special realm why does it need to 
bother
with ours?

S: Consciousness creates all realms, so I don't know what you mean by a 
special one.

Scott:
Now a question for you. From your viewpoint, why is there awareness? Why 
couldn't whatever it is that happens be happening without awareness?

- Scott