Fusing agents and qualia: a formal solution to the combination problem

[zainalara]

Interesting insight at 32-35 min on how higher-order conscious agents are formed by "fusion" of lower-order agents where the new qualia of the higher-order ones are being created from the qualia of the lower-order agents but are not reducible to them. This is a possible solution to the subject combination problem, and it also presents a coherent description of the hierarchical structure of consciousness. So basically, consciousness is a hierarchical structure of interacting conscious agents, where higher-order agents are a result of fusion of the lower-order ones. This fusion process creates conscious agents of ever-increasing hierarchical order with ever-increasing complexity of qualia and conscious processes (conscious experiences, meanings, volitions-actions). But another by-product of this fusion is a natural creation of amplituhedrons, which interactions lead to the emergence of the "physical world" as we experience it. However, there is no "physical world" per se made of matter, but all there is, according to Hoffman's paradigm, is a hierarchical structure of conscious agents creating, exchanging and experiencing qualia of conscious experiences, where the combined actions of amplituhedrons (that are low-order conscious agents themselves) cause the qualia of experiences of the "physical world" in living organisms (that are also only conscious agents of some higher-order hierarchy). Another remarkable thing is that, the first time in the history of natural science, this model is not an abstraction (like previous models of physical reality representing the third-person perspective), since it refers directly to the qualia of the first-person experiences of the conscious agents.

[Federica]

Interesting insight at 32-35 min on how higher-order conscious agents are formed by "fusion" of lower-order agents where the new qualia of the higher-order ones are being created from the qualia of the lower-order agents but are not reducible to them. This is a possible solution to the subject combination problem, and it also presents a coherent description of the hierarchical structure of consciousness. So basically, consciousness is a hierarchical structure of interacting conscious agents, where higher-order agents are a result of fusion of the lower-order ones. This fusion process creates conscious agents of ever-increasing hierarchical order with ever-increasing complexity of qualia and conscious processes (conscious experiences, meanings, volitions-actions). But another by-product of this fusion is a natural creation of amplituhedrons, which interactions lead to the emergence of the "physical world" as we experience it. However, there is no "physical world" per se made of matter, but all there is, according to Hoffman's paradigm, is a hierarchical structure of conscious agents creating, exchanging and experiencing qualia of conscious experiences, where the combined actions of amplituhedrons (that are low-order conscious agents themselves) cause the qualia of experiences of the "physical world" in living organisms (that are also only conscious agents of some higher-order hierarchy). Another remarkable thing is that, the first time in the history of natural science, this model is not an abstraction (like previous models of physical reality representing the third-person perspective), since it refers directly to the qualia of the first-person experiences of the conscious agents.

Hi zainalara, welcome! Are you referring to a video? Please share the link.

[AshvinP]

Another remarkable thing is that, the first time in the history of natural science, this model is not an abstraction (like previous models of physical reality representing the third-person perspective), since it refers directly to the qualia of the first-person experiences of the conscious agents.

Hi Zainalara,

This is a problematic assertion, mainly because it confuses the reference to first-person experience of qualia in Hoffman's CA model with that experience itself. It is easy to feel that this is a first in natural science, but it is mostly a natural extension of what has been going on for the last few hundred years (for example, Leibniz's monadic philosophy). We could actually look to Michael Levin as someone who is coming closer to a paradigmatic shift in the way science is conducted when he speaks of transitioning from third-person science to first-person science. For example, in this clip:



Levin perceives that we can no longer gain insights into the dynamics of conscious agents (and thus the natural world, including our own bodies) by modeling their qualitative experience as passive and seemingly neutral observers. Instead, we must, in some sense, grow into the first-person perspectives of collective intelligence and intuitively experience how that intelligence intersects with our ordinary conscious perspective of the physical world and its lawful dynamics. Levin imagines that this must be carried out through some kind of technological process of interfacing our consciousness with the bodily intelligence via bioelectric patterns of the bodily space. Yet, in this way, we are doing nothing to actually transform and grow our perspective into a deeper scale of conscious activity. Rather, we are simply expanding the field of perceptions that our ordinary consciousness can observe and interpret. It is not much different from ingesting psychedelics or putting on a virtual reality headset, in that sense. In those cases, we may feel like our perspective has fundamentally transformed and we are doing 'first-person science', but we are still subtly projecting our own perspective, assumptions, prejudices, etc., onto the perceptual landscape.

Initiatic science, on the other hand, has always pointed toward how the collective intelligence that configures physical space can be experienced through inner development, by making our inner perspective more and more similar in its 'movements' to that of the interfering archetypal perspectives, whose inner life is what projects into our own as moral ideals, imaginations, insights, and thoughts. After all, it is always through these mental processes that we are able to perceive and inquire into the physical space. That inner attunement to collective intelligence is understood as a process of soul purification and cognitive refinement through meditative exercises, in which the soul concentrates on the meaning of its present state and gradually begins to elucidate all the contextual (hierarchical) influences that shape and constrain this state (for example, our interests, goals, desires, character traits, temperament, etc.). Our inner perspective thus grows into a deeper scale of existence where we find the collective dynamics of conscious agents that project into our ordinary experience as psychic, biological, and physical processes.

Until symbols like the 'amplituhedron' begin to feel like they point to inner processes that we have consciously experienced and lived through, they will remain in the domain of abstract beliefs and hypotheses.