Dualism without hard distinction?

Nbtruthman's been an enjoyable debate partner regarding the viability of Dualism, and I have to say I've been rethinking this.

I remember a work of fiction suggesting that there is a realm of Spirit/Mind (the realm of Idealism) and the realm of the solid material stuff (the realm of Materialism). Between them is Magic.

So obviously this would only make us ask "What is magic?" but what if instead of "Magic" we say "Information"? Henri Bergson suggested that at their "edges" Matter & Mind had enough commonality to interact. Does QM describe that meeting place?

[Admittedly Information also needs to be explained lest it become a term synonymous with ad hoc explanation...]

Nbtruthman's been an enjoyable debate partner regarding the viability of Dualism, and I have to say I've been rethinking this.

I remember a work of fiction suggesting that there is a realm of Spirit/Mind (the realm of Idealism) and the realm of the solid material stuff (the realm of Materialism). Between them is Magic.

So obviously this would only make us ask "What is magic?" but what if instead of "Magic" we say "Information"? Henri Bergson suggested that at their "edges" Matter & Mind had enough commonality to interact. Does QM describe that meeting place?

[Admittedly Information also needs to be explained lest it become a term synonymous with ad hoc explanation...]

Dualism is based on two generalized abstractions (although some are so devoted as to think physics is something more than just patterned inferences drawn from observation.)  I say go direct.

If the two systems, instead of being abstractions, are about documentation and measurement (actual observations), which are  presented formally - well then instead of squishy stuff, we can then have solid foundations.  Pragmatism all the way about mind and matter. 

One system frames reality with a set of units of measure and equations.  These are used to map forces and materials.  Another system frames reality with a sets of units addressing communication, logical structures and planned futures.  These structured patterns are used to map symbolic meaning critical for command and control.

In this arrangement, biology is one of a number of bridge theories that document the interaction of mind and body of living things.  The physical sciences measuring the bodies and brains.  And information science measuring mental output needed in ordering life.

In this way, the reciprocal natures of mental work and physical work can be measured correctly.  Maybe a more coherent analysis of how it all works will be enabled.   But disambiguation is needed, in any of accounting.

There is no intent, as a product of electrochemistry.  There are changes in real-world probabilities as a product of mind.  There are no magic substances as a product of intelligence.  There are physical artifacts from biological information processing.

In this way - the measuring of behavior in ethics or in a cultural sense is free to be dealt with in a third - or more - systems of evaluating reality.  Maybe it's dualism + 1 or more   (-;

I think the best quick definition of "information" is G. Bateson

 In fact, what we mean by information—the elementary unit of information—is a difference which makes a difference, and it is able to make a difference because the neural pathways along which it travels and is continually transformed are themselves provided with energy. I have said that what gets from territory to map is transforms of difference and that these (somehow selected) differences are elementary ideas.

I suggest to you, now, that the word "idea," in its most elementary sense, is synonymous with "difference."

https://www.informationphilosopher.com/s...s/bateson/

Dualism is based on two generalized abstractions (although some are so devoted as to think physics is something more than just patterned inferences drawn from observation.)  I say go direct.

If the two systems, instead of being abstractions, are about documentation and measurement (actual observations), which are  presented formally - well then instead of squishy stuff, we can then have solid foundations.  Pragmatism all the way about mind and matter. 

One system frames reality with a set of units of measure and equations.  These are used to map forces and materials.  Another system frames reality with a sets of units addressing communication, logical structures and planned futures.  These structured patterns are used to map symbolic meaning critical for command and control.

In this arrangement, biology is one of a number of bridge theories that document the interaction of mind and body of living things.  The physical sciences measuring the bodies and brains.  And information science measuring mental output needed in ordering life.

In this way (by way of the measurements of biology and the physical sciences), the reciprocal natures of mental work and physical work can be measured correctly.  Maybe a more coherent analysis of how it all works will be enabled.   But disambiguation is needed, in any of accounting.

There is no intent, as a product of electrochemistry.  There are changes in real-world probabilities as a product of mind.  There are no magic substances as a product of intelligence.  There are physical artifacts from biological information processing.

In this way - the measuring of behavior in ethics or in a cultural sense is free to be dealt with in a third - or more - systems of evaluating reality.  Maybe it's dualism + 1 or more   (-;

I think the best quick definition of "information" is G. Bateson https://www.informationphilosopher.com/s...s/bateson/

Measurement is a physical process conducted by consciousness instantiated in matter. It seems to me you are mainly discussing the physical products of conscious intelligence, the result of mental work, information in various physical forms. But never really addressing the basic issue which is being discussed, the question of what is the actual ultimate nature, what is the ultimate substance, of these mysterious things consciousness and the mental. Yes, conscious intelligence doesn't produce magic substances, but what is the substance of consciousness itself? The Hard Problem clearly shows that whatever it is it isn't physical, certainly not "biological information processing".

Bateson's notion that "..the word "idea," in its most elementary sense, is synonymous with "difference."", seems seriously mistaken, since it runs into the Hard Problem in that "idea" is a thought in mind whereas "different" or "difference" is merely an abstraction, a property. An existential category error.

Ernst Rodin was chewing on this question before he died (fairly recently). Rodin was something of a giant in neurology and I was surprised at his willingness and generosity in responding to me.  I had many conversations with him (via email) and even though he wouldn't commit to saying anything definite about the possibility of survival (he always professed uncertainty to me anyway) he said twice .."Is it in the electro magnetic spectrum?" Of course he wasn't asking me, he was thinking out loud, but it's obvious what he meant. 

Really interestingly (slightly off topic apologies) after his death, his daughter told me that he saw the spirit of his wife sitting on the end of his bed during the night, calling to him. She'd apparently fallen badly in the bathroom (they had separate rooms) after a severe stroke. He got up and found her. His daughter told me that he secretly believed there was a spirit in the machine but because of his scientific credentials and career, he couldn't state such a belief. 

I assume and personally accept that 'spirits sitting on the bed' must =dualism. I don't see how you could conceive of that any other way but I don't think the self/soul/mind/consciousness/spirit is on any measurable scale that we will ever have.

Ernst Rodin was chewing on this question before he died (fairly recently). Rodin was something of a giant in neurology and I was surprised at his willingness and generosity in responding to me.  I had many conversations with him (via email) and even though he wouldn't commit to saying anything definite about the possibility of survival (he always professed uncertainty to me anyway) he said twice .."Is it in the electro magnetic spectrum?" Of course he wasn't asking me, he was thinking out loud, but it's obvious what he meant. 

Really interestingly (slightly off topic apologies) after his death, his daughter told me that he saw the spirit of his wife sitting on the end of his bed during the night, calling to him. She'd apparently fallen badly in the bathroom (they had separate rooms) after a severe stroke. He got up and found her. His daughter told me that he secretly believed there was a spirit in the machine but because of his scientific credentials and career, he couldn't state such a belief. 

I assume and personally accept that 'spirits sitting on the bed' must =dualism. I don't see how you could conceive of that any other way but I don't think the self/soul/mind/consciousness/spirit is on any measurable scale that we will ever have.

Great story.  Outstanding example of Psi.

Science doesn't measure everything directly - its methodology remembers I. Kant declaring that knowing the "thing in itself" is problematic.  Apparent physical properties and their mapping to outcomes are what are open to observation in classical practice.  Spirit is not a property or an outcome.  

Natural mind does have properties that lead to patterned outcomes and good science practices.  This is especially true in a framework of informational realism, where a mind is what processes biological and all information signals.  Mental processes (including subconscious ones) work in the same transformational manner as bodily organs process physical events.  Linguistics is a science addressing communication.  Psychology is a science addressing behavioral outcomes.  Genetics studies the natural coding that functions as the information channel for ontogeny.


Please note, that I exclude physical processes plus informational processes from being all inclusive as they fall far short of describing reality. (hence why I think my position avoids the dualism label, while keeping both categories separate.)  

Whether Humanistic, Religious or Spiritual worldview a third level (or more) leaves a level of communication inflow and morally generative activity that addresses what cold nature does not.  Objectively, human life is about emotional behavior, a need for moral guidance, personal character and inner purposes -- is without doubt -- in all cultures and in all historical times.

Measurement is a physical process conducted by consciousness instantiated in matter. It seems to me you are mainly discussing the physical products of conscious intelligence, the result of mental work, information in various physical forms. But never really addressing the basic issue which is being discussed, the question of what is the actual ultimate nature, what is the ultimate substance, of these mysterious things consciousness and the mental. Yes, conscious intelligence doesn't produce magic substances, but what is the substance of consciousness itself? The Hard Problem clearly shows that whatever it is it isn't physical, certainly not "biological information processing".

Bateson's notion that "..the word "idea," in its most elementary sense, is synonymous with "difference."", seems seriously mistaken, since it runs into the Hard Problem in that "idea" is a thought in mind whereas "different" or "difference" is merely an abstraction, a property. An existential category error.

I may think that the hard problem is best viewed thru the framework of it originator.  I am comfortable in the positions taken.  Here is commentary about the two (Bateson and Chalmers). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4243501/

 Philosopher David Chalmers is one of the few process theorists to recognize that his theory is an example of what he calls “naturalistic dualism” (Chalmers, 1996). The word “naturalistic” may have been included in this description in an attempt to make the “dualism” part more acceptable to cognitive scientists, most of whom prefer to see themselves as staunchly scientific physicalists.

Go to: Chalmers' process theory
Chalmers (1996) takes information theory (Shannon, 1948) as his starting point, but immediately generalizes Shannon's two-state “bit” of information to the concept of a multi-state “information space,” defined as an abstract space consisting of a number of information states and a structure of “difference relations” between them. Chalmers then discusses ways in which information states can be realized physically, mentioning thermostats, books, telephone lines, and Bateson's catchy slogan about information's being “a difference that makes a difference,” before proposing as a fundamental principle that “information (in the actual world) has two aspects, a physical and a phenomenal aspect” (Chalmers, 1996, p. 286). On this theory then, information actually is—has the property of being—conscious.

The context in which Bateson's quote is profound, was its timing.  The unit of measure of communication transmission and data storage had just "hit the scene".  A binary digit - THE Bit - (and Bytes) was defined as the answer to a "yes / no" question.  (Circuit open vs circuit closed)   Hence, his difference is just that -- a definitive and specified structural relation. 

Are you surprised that the "hard problem" was generated from an information science viewpoint?

True confession; I am with DC all the way till the last sentence.  For me - information, both semantic and formal (bits) - is the stuff processed by mind.

I may think that the hard problem is best viewed thru the framework of it originator.  I am comfortable in the positions taken.  Here is commentary about the two (Bateson and Chalmers). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4243501/

OK, an argument by reassertion. I guess we can't go anywhere from there.

The context in which Bateson's quote is profound, was its timing.  The unit of measure of communication transmission and data storage had just "hit the scene".  A binary digit - THE Bit - (and Bytes) was defined as the answer to a "yes / no" question.  (Circuit open vs circuit closed)  Hence, his difference is just that -- a definitive and specified structural relation.

Are you surprised that the "hard problem" was generated from an information science viewpoint?

A "definitive and specified structural relation" is data or information, something that is of a fundamentally different existential nature than mind and qualia. Unless you can explain how the properties or aspects of consciousness such as qualia can literally be information pure and simple.    

True confession; I am with DC all the way till the last sentence ("On this theory then, information actually is—has the property of being—conscious.").  For me - information, both semantic and formal (bits) - is the stuff processed by mind.

Still leaves unanswered what is the ultimate nature of this mind, since mind isn't itself "stuff" of any kind.

(1) Measurement is a physical process conducted by consciousness instantiated in matter. 

(2)Bateson's notion that "..the word "idea," in its most elementary sense, is synonymous with "difference."", seems seriously mistaken, since it runs into the Hard Problem in that "idea" is a thought in mind whereas "different" or "difference" is merely an abstraction, a property. An existential category error.

(1) Yes - measurement of a physical event is a physical process.  However, a measurement requires a standardized objective framework (an abstraction) and a defined procedure (algorithm).  These information structures + a manifest phenomenon = a datum in the real world.  

That datum is usable mutual information where a actualized event has a real-world information object that represents it.  The outcome is a measurement causing information gain.  Computable information objects ARE what modern science is based on.

Two separate tracks that can be used to scientifically track the activity.  A physical track and an informational track.

So, measurements generate data which is new information object, useful in planning for command and control.  A measurement can be documented as to the physical transforms occurring during its time of action.  It then exists (after the fact) as an information object useful in changing the future or understanding the past.

(2) You have introduced "the hard problem" formulated by D. Chalmers and said I was not addressing it.  I had introduced Bateson as a simple and insightful definition of how information is measured by science.  It  turns out that the hard problems has a conceptual basis in the ideas of Bateson, Shannon and Wiener. 

I am hoping that where we agree - "the hard problem needs an answer" is a good place to confirm - and then better present where we don't.  I have the benefit of reading about information science for the last twenty years.  That said, I have only the background of a fan - not a pro or even an amateur.  Explore this with me.

https://medium.com/towards-artificial-in...f6853febda

 Mutual information, also known as information gain, has been successfully used in the context of deep learning(which we will see soon) and deep reinforcement learning(e.g., VIME, EMI) to measure/enhance the coupling between two representations. In this article, we discuss in detail a neural estimator named MINE(Mutual Information Neural Estimation), published by Mohamed Ishmael Belghazi et al. in ICML 2018, that allows us to directly estimate the mutual information.

This article is comprised of three parts: We first introduce the concept of mutual information, building some intuition for a better understanding of what we are dealing with. Then we present the MINE algorithm and discuss some of its applications in deep learning. In the end, we provide all proofs you need to make sense of what we are talking about here.   

One of the big issues that has made me wonder about this question is no matter how we try to parse reality it is incredibly difficult to figure out how to get Subjects with 1st Person PoVs.

Obviously Physicalism is false, but even when we talk about Consciousness Fields, Universal Consciousness as God, Universal Consciousness as non-cognitive Awareness, Particles with some bits of Consciousness, and so on no one has a good explanation. We really are selecting between bad to terrible explanations, and arguably having Dualisms of different sorts:

1. The Dualism of Consciousness in Particles to the Consciousness correlated with a human brain.

2. The Dualism of the Many (us and other subjective PoVs) vs the One (The single Subject, the One/God, from which we come from)

2. The Dualism of Awareness (minus any contents of awareness) vs us Subjects with Awareness of our individual Identities along with a bunch of other stuff.

And we can continue on from there. It makes me wonder why do Subjects have to come from anywhere...

 The Hard Problem clearly shows that whatever it is it isn't physical, certainly not "biological information processing".

We agree -- that whatever mind (soul, character, center or superego) is - it is not included in the category of physical.  D. Chalmers has put forth a career worth of good, solid work, formally arguing for this idea.  I am capable of no such thorough  exposition.  However, my simple assertion presents that the units of measure of physical phenomena (SI units) as not being able to address intention and emotion.  Let alone ethical clarity.

The second part of my model says that information science is in a complementary relationship with materials science.  And further, that the logic-based processes dealing with meaningful relations are analogous to physics.

In this way, reality evolves physical objects - and in a separate domain - it generates informational objects.  These are describable, but that requires separate sets of units of measure and rules of operation found in the information sciences.  Measurements made by logic, semantics, communication science and cybernetics are different.  Measuring uncertainty is not a physical process.

In this view, the large body of thought of the hard problem is made limited but pragmatic - by saying that both domains of measurement and process mapping are needed to describe the reality we experience.  They are no equations with units that describe physical events that output an answer of "i like ice cream".

Both systems of description - the materiality of ice cream and its effects on the bodily production of neurotransmitters can be mapped to desire from informational needs and wants.

I am very curious about your rejection of bioinformatics, as speaking to life's causes.  I am way too close - and must be fully lost in the forest - because I am hugging individual trees.  

What part of the "hard problem" is not describable by information science (other than ethics).

a complementary relationship or situation.
"a culture based on the complementarity of men and women"

• PHYSICS
  the concept that two contrasted theories, such as the wave and particle theories of light, may be able to explain a set of phenomena, although each separately only accounts for some aspects.
  
• LAW
  the principle that jurisdictions will not overlap in legislation, administration, or prosecution of crime.