Donald Hoffman - Fusing agents and qualia: a formal solution to the combination problem
Posted: Wed Dec 06, 2023 12:40 am
Fusions of Consciousness
I think we are witnessing a breakthrough in the science of nature and consciousness. Hoffman was able to demonstrate how the amplituhedron, the recently discovered math structure that explains the fundamental physics of elementary particle interactions beyond space-time, can be derived from interactions of conscious agents. I was skeptical about Hoffman's agenda to derive the laws of physics from his consciousness realism paradigm, but now it looks like he is actually getting there.
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.