3 Substances in 3 Environments

The term "substance" implies physical objects with mass and shape.  In modern philosophy of science, well developed ideas quantify structural variables and replace ideas of substance.  Materials are measured in time and space and are identified as to being physical objects at some scope of size.  They are all transformed by variable states of energy, both kinetic and potential.  Activity is predictable for the fluctuations of this energy and for its impact on the material structures.  The substances of our lives are parsed by the technological test equipment in Materials Science laboratories.

So, (1) material substances in the physical environment embedded in specific spaces and times.
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There is a 4 thousand year (or more) tradition that there are subjective entities (objects), such ideas, maths, logics, symbols, narratives and cultural norms.  These things are not physical.  However, they can be simulated as algorithm and programs.  Their "essence" as an object is captured. 

Desires and their memes are objective in their usefulness and ability to alter outcomes in an informational environment.  Computer simulations of social functions can be defined as specifically as are the chemistries of alloyed steel.  Further, just like energy, ordered functions organized by prior planning, can direct process operations.  One only need look at the selling of AI, to grasp how influential information objects are!!!!  Communication activates the social environment, sweeping through social media like a physical hurricane . 

So, (2) informational substances structured for action in a probabilistic environment are objective. They are objective in changing probabilities with changes to the interpretation of information.  A separate environment where mind can restructure probable past and future events.  The basis of informational space is a coherent state with past/present/future connected.  Minds can act on the wave-like nature of information objects and their place in probability spaces.  Actual changes to real-world circumstances happen during decision-making.

   This restructuring and redirecting of information objects can contribute to personal, social and historical outcomes.   Science methodology has much to contribute to these fields of study.    

So, (3) moral, humanistic and spiritual substances.  I have no comment, other to acknowledge them and that their knowledge bases exist in another separate environment.  And acknowledge that outcomes from this environment, likewise have impact in reality.

so -- not monist, not dualist -   pluralist, I think

So, (3) moral, humanistic and spiritual substances.  I have no comment, other to acknowledge them and that their knowledge bases exist in another separate environment.  And acknowledge that outcomes from this environment, likewise have impact in reality.

so -- not monist, not dualist -   pluralist, I think

I had never been able to fully appreciate the weirdness and very dynamic nature of spiritual substances before the current part of my shamanic journey... they too have form, though the range is quite vast indeed, making me consider that are different... sigh, species of spiritual substance, for lack of better words. It's not hard to feel like the equivalent of some... primitive caveman becoming witness to some sophisticated culture.

I have now encountered... a loong spirit, who has never been physically incarnate, only having astral form, and whose form feels very light and dynamic; a tiger spirit, whose form feels heavy and strongly defined due to having been physically incarnate prior; angelic spirits whose existence seems to be difficult for the loong spirit to comprehend the nature of and still difficult for the tiger spirit to define, despite it having been working with me and them for the past 7 years; some vast gentle entity whose existence was blinding and striking, with the thinnest veneer of a bird shape, though I could barely comprehend it beyond the blinding light it emanated ~ it seemed that this was the gentlest it could make itself without more... mental distance?

[Laird]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for this. It's helpful in that it confirms something about your view that has until now always seemed only implicit, and kind of vague and unclear, which none of us has ever seemed quite able to pin down, and that is this:

That you do not recognise mind and mentality - nor even phenomenal experience - in their own right (they do not even appear in your list of the three primary substances); rather, you seem to view them as some sort of epiphenomenon or consequence of information, or more likely even as reducible to or even identical to information in the same way that the physicalist sees them as reducible to or identical to matter.

Moreover, like the physicalist, you seem to see that to which mind, mentality, and experience are reduced or with which they are identified - information (objects and their flow) in your case - as deterministic: as captured in their "essence" by "algorithm and programs". It seems to follow then that you see mind and mentality, including phenomenal experience, themselves as deterministic: algorithmic and programmatic. You thus seem implicitly committed to a denial of free will.

This, too, has until now always seemed implicit yet tantalisingly close to being explicit on your view, but now you've finally and helpfully made it very clear.

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for this. It's helpful in that it confirms something about your view that has until now always seemed only implicit, and kind of vague and unclear, which none of us has ever seemed quite able to pin down, and that is this:

That you do not recognise mind and mentality - nor even phenomenal experience - in their own right (they do not even appear in your list of the three primary substances); rather, you seem to view them as some sort of epiphenomenon or consequence of information, or more likely even as reducible to or even identical to information in the same way that the physicalist sees them as reducible to or identical to matter.

Moreover, like the physicalist, you seem to see that to which mind, mentality, and experience are reduced or with which they are identified - information (objects and their flow) in your case - as deterministic: as captured in their "essence" by "algorithm and programs". It seems to follow then that you see mind and mentality, including phenomenal experience, themselves as deterministic: algorithmic and programmatic. You thus seem implicitly committed to a denial of free will.

This, too, has until now always seemed implicit yet tantalisingly close to being explicit on your view, but now you've finally and helpfully made it very clear.

I have to admit that I didn’t get any of this from his post? 

[Laird]

I have to admit that I didn’t get any of this from his post? 

Well, where in his post do you see any reference to mind, mentality, or experience as substance?

The only references I see to minds are in the context of acting on information objects.

Admittedly, I might have jumped the gun on determinism, given the references to probabalism.

Well, where in his post do you see any reference to mind, mentality, or experience as substance?

The only references I see to minds are in the context of acting on information objects.

Admittedly, I might have jumped the gun on determinism, given the references to probabalism.

I don't think he ever says Persons are reducible to "smaller" or "basic" informational objects, just that aspects of Persons are captured by information as a metric.

I'm also reading this post in light of past posts by Stephen W where he defends volition and the possibility of Survival.

[Laird]

I don't think he ever says Persons are reducible to "smaller" or "basic" informational objects, just that aspects of Persons are captured by information as a metric.

I'm also reading this post in light of past posts by Stephen W where he defends volition and the possibility of Survival.

Unfortunately, I didn't schedule enough time to consider and prepare for my first post, and as a critique it was over-egged as you point out.

Here as a critique though is what I do think withstands further consideration:

Persons, minds, and mentality don't figure in Stephen's ontology in any primary sense. None of those terms even gets a mention except for minds in the context of "acting" on "information objects" so as to "restructure probable past and future events". Mind is otherwise left unmentioned and unspecified. This seems typical of Stephen's writing, and it is one of the underlying dissatisfactions I have with his paradigm that led to my over-egged critique.

Along similar lines, neither experience in general nor phenomenal experience in particular get a mention at all in his substance ontology, neither as contingent phenomena of minds nor in their own right. Again, this is an ongoing dissatisfaction for me with his paradigm, which his post again confirms.

Is all of this supposed to be broadly captured in "(3) moral, humanistic and spiritual substances"? Maybe, but if so, that's very unclear, and "humanistic and spiritual" seems like a poor term with which to capture mind, mentality, experience, and personhood, especially given that the term "mind" is used explicitly in an incidental sense earlier. Why not here too in a primary sense?

Given their absence as primary substances in Stephen's ontology, it seems easy to conclude that minds, mentality, experience, and personhood must be derivative of or reducible to the truly primary substances, but you're right that that conclusion is too simplistic and over-egged, especially given Stephen's endorsement of free will and survival.

Still, it's a good question to ask, isn't it? What exactly are minds and their experiences on Stephen's ontology other than reducible to "information objects" which themselves he asserts as in their "essence" to be simulable by "algorithm and programs"? Algorithms and programs are, as we know, deterministic, so that makes "information objects" in their essence deterministic. So, OK, yes, Stephen endorses free will, and recognises the existence of minds, but there doesn't seem to be very much to a mind on his view that isn't deterministic, so its freedom of will does seem difficult to explain and limited in its scope, doesn't it?

I think before anything else we might need to decide what "Information" is.

I actually do need to apologize to @stephenw on that score because awhile ago I said I'd make a thread on the subject and until today I had forgotten my intention.

Perhaps a good starting point is this remark from Faggin in Irreducible:

Shannon’s information is equivalent to having a machine counting the symbols that appear, and after collecting their statistics, it tells us how much “objective” information is contained in each symbol. This is a perfectly adequate measure of information for a machine that cannot understand the subjective meaning of symbols, but for us it is totally inadequate since the notion of information is only useful in connection with the transmittal of meaning. Without meaning, information is useless. A machine can only recognize a symbol and act on it based on a predetermined response decided by its designer.

Shannon’s information is what counts for unconscious machines, but it is not what interests us. It is essential to clarify this point, because the ambiguity of the words used to describe robots and artificial intelligence (AI) systems tends to eliminate the abyss that separates human beings from so-called intelligent machines. The information that matters most to us is not the symbolic but the semantic information, and here consciousness is indispensable. The objective recognition of a symbol by a computer which is passed off as understanding by AI practitioners is only a mechanical function that we also perform automatically and unconsciously.

Faggin goes on to distinguish Shannon Information from "Live Information". I am trying to think of how to summarize this, but I think the quotes above may be a good starting point?

edit: Someone else made a decent summary of what I've gotten out of Faggin's book, posted it in another thread.

[Laird]

I think before anything else we might need to decide what "Information" is.

Yes. You raise a really important distinction in this context between the syntactical (the target of Shannon's theory) and the semantic.

Clearly, humans deal mostly in the latter, and computers perhaps exclusively in the former, which, if true, would be a problem for Stephen's claim that information in the form of "ideas", "narratives", and "cultural norms" can be "simulated as algorithm and programs". He does, though, cite artificial intelligence in defence of this claim, and, admittedly, I have also suggested that large language models are modelling semantic information. I'm not sure though that we know enough about these systems to know just how far this holds - if, indeed, it does.

Yes. You raise a really important distinction in this context between the syntactical (the target of Shannon's theory) and the semantic.

Clearly, humans deal mostly in the latter, and computers perhaps exclusively in the former, which, if true, would be a problem for Stephen's claim that information in the form of "ideas", "narratives", and "cultural norms" can be "simulated as algorithm and programs". He does, though, cite artificial intelligence in defence of this claim, and, admittedly, I have also suggested that large language models are modelling semantic information. I'm not sure though that we know enough about these systems to know just how far this holds - if, indeed, it does.

I'd say the keyword is "simulated".

I don't believe LLMs understand anything semantically.