Jim Cross wrote: ↑Sat Jul 16, 2022 1:24 pm
I think the problem you guys are having is that, when you think of models, you are thinking of something conceptual and abstract.
But I am talking about the brain generating a concrete, non-abstract model, of reality that is what we call consciousness.
Let's start with the basics.
This image is a
symbol for the World process that you agree is the stuff of reality. We don't know what that reality is in itself but let's symbolize it as the mysterious field of reality. There's no spatial sense in the above image. It's just a token.
Now in the course of evolution this world process has diversified and reached a point where it became quite complex:
Let's imagine that the staircase pattern corresponds to the processes coinciding with the brain (again, no spatiality implied - this can well contain the extra dimensions you speak of). This is basically what you call 'the model'. We should be clear that the world process is
only one. Thus the pattern is not something distinct from the surrounding world process, it is only a specific shape (and dynamics) that the world process has taken in that region. The theory is that this complexified world process is experienced as consciousness. Consciousness doesn't emerge as some mystic vapor from that process, consciousness is simply how the process 'feels like'.
The brain process forms as a model of the general world process (at least the part that manifests through the sense organs and their technical extensions). This is symbolized through the fact that the staircase pattern slightly resembles the larger picture. But why the staircase shape? Because quite certainly the building blocks of our intellectual cognition (which are patterns of the world process within the brain) are not exactly perfectly similar to the general process. We can say that they approximate the general process in the way we can approximate a circle through rectangles. We experience our brain patterns of the world process as concepts (rectangles) and we put them together in hope to approximate something which may not be rectangular at all, thus there will always be something left out.
All this is nothing new. It is really at the core of Schopenhauer's philosophy, where the world process is the dark world will and part of that world process complexifies to such an extent that it experiences itself as ideal model of the true reality - thus the famous "The World is my idea". In your terminology it is "The World is my model" (we can omit the "my" to avoid the problem of the "I").
All this leads to the dualism we know very well. The world process in the brain continually feeds back upon itself and this recursion of perceptions and memory leads to the model of the ego. Yet this ego feels conscious only within its rectangular patterns. The scientist feels conscious only within the sense perceptions (extended by the instruments) and his rectangular concepts of fields, energy, neurons, etc. The religious person feels conscious within perceptions, feelings and rectangular concepts of God, Angels, Heaven, etc. But you'll argue that it is still simply the shape of the world process within the brain. Both are locked within their models yet they arrange their rectangular patterns differently in hope to approximate a more faithful picture of the world process in itself. In this case I personally would too sympathize with the scientists because he shows more rigor in trying to perfect the model, while the religious person is content with ancient dogma.
I take it that you would agree that the world process within the brain is in no way more special than that elsewhere. It's only its shape and dynamics that are different (by world process I don't imply the physicalist picture of energy-matter waves. There could be other aspects. We call 'world process' whatever the true nature of the mystery of reality is). It's a common belief that it is the complexifying of these dynamics and their recursive feedback which makes them to be experienced as consciousness. This however produces also something akin to event horizon (thus the dualism) between what we can be conscious of (the rectangular patterns) and the world process in general. Just as with Schop, whoever holds this position feels that if we let go of the rectangular patterns we simply lose consciousness (thus the blind world process/will). But is this necessarily so? Could it be that we simply have never tried to look for other kinds of model patterns, which might be better suited to reflect the fuller world process? And I'm not speaking simply of more rectangles but with more polished edges.
To understand this we must hold in mind at all times that there's nothing especially magical in the world process in the region of the brain compared to the world process elsewhere (again - this statement shouldn't be mistaken for a claim that all there is are only energy-matter waves). If we are not vigilant about this we'll sooner or later end up believing in ghosts. This is the irony of today's materialism. With all the talks about scientific rigor, at the end all is turned around and we see the grossest superstition when the question of consciousness is approached. At the moment one says "consciousness emerges when ..." one already summons ghosts. Except that the scientists doesn't call it ghost but 'illusion'. Illusion or ghost - it's still there nonetheless. So we need to keep firmly in mind that there's
one world process which is experienced as varying levels of consciousness. If we say that the world process can know itself only as a (rectangular) model, we're basically declaring that the world process can not be conscious of itself in any other (more intimate) way.
But let's look at something else:
(the shape within the small oval is fractally self-similar to the shape in the bigger oval)
Here, through inner effort we can develop model patterns which are
self-similar to the deeper world process. It's not simply a rectangular approximation of the way the world process acts through the senses - instead it is trying to move
as one with the world process. After all, our consciousness
is the experienced movement of world process (in patterns called the model). In the intellectual model the world process
splits against itself. It lives in the shapes of a rectangular model of itself but this remains above the event horizon. It's like the world process within the brain says to itself "What I experience as consciousness is the dynamics of the world process. When I experience thoughts they are really how the world process unfolds. Yet I'm not conscious of the depth of this process (the domain of calculation, in your terminology). When I point my sight towards these depths I see only the darkness of unconsciousness. I see death. What emerges on the surface are rectangles (concepts) which approximately model the depths from which they emerge. Yet I'm doomed to live entirely within these rectangles. There's no consciousness in the depths of the world process. Consciousness can be found only in the arrangements of rectangles. So in a sense I am the world process, yet I can be conscious only when this world process assumes the rectangular model forms which try to approximate my actual reality."
The image above suggests that this threshold below which we lose consciousness is not absolute. It's a matter of making our conscious thinking process
self-similar to the world process as a whole. Then we build something akin to
fractal amplifier. We begin to gain consciousness of deeper currents of the world process which are amplified to self-similar concepts at the model level. Thus the model is no longer an approximation of the sensory patterns but condenses as imaginative concepts self-similar to the general world process.
We should grasp this rightly. The general scientific thought goes like this: "Yes, my consciousness is the shape and dynamics of the world process but this consciousness can exist only above certain level of complexity. Thus the true depths of the world process are inaccessible to any conscious experience. The only thing left is to shape my region of the world process into rectangular model of the supposed greater world process
as far as I know it through its manifestation in the senses."
On the other hand, what is suggested above goes like this: "Yes, my consciousness is the shape and dynamics of the world process. But consciousness is really a matter of music-like
integration of the patterns of the world process. Thus there's nothing fundamentally different in the shapes of the world process in the depths compared to the shapes which I'm conscious of as the rectangular patterns of the intellect. My goal now is not so much to create rectangular models but to transform the world process such that it becomes self-similar on different levels. This means that I need to find the right shapes of my thinking (the surface of the world process), such that they can resonate with the shapes of the deeper world process. In this way consciousness deepens and lights up."
So basically we have a change of our scientific direction. Instead of approximating sense perceptions through rectangular models, we realize that the rectangles themselves are tips of the iceberg of the living world process. As such, we can modify the world process itself such that the concepts (surface patterns of the world process) are like
overtones to the deeper world process. Thus our consciousness elucidates also the depths and we find that we can be consciously active there, just like we can be active at the surface.
So the first question is: is all this understood? To understand it we need nothing but unprejudiced thinking.
Second, if we understand it, we should be clear with ourselves how, where and why we place the event horizon of consciousness. Why do we feel comfortable with the world process within ourselves precipitating rectangular approximations of itself, while denying a possibility that the deeper world process can be brought to the light of consciousness? What makes the rectangular patterns so special that they are worthy of self-consciousness, while the general world process is doomed to remain dark? Why the world process within ourselves insists that it remains split against itself and only theorize about its nature through rectangular patterns? Is it simply because it doesn't know how to unite and gain fuller consciousness of itself? Or because it simply doesn't want to gain consciousness of its own depths, and it would much rather only speculate about these depths through arrangements of rectangles?