How Self-Reference Builds the World

[AshvinP]

I hesitate to recommend a book I have not read, but you might look into the book "Laws of Form" by George Spencer-Brown - he uses math\logic to construct reality and does so with fundamentals more 'primitive' than your model. If interested, you might begin with a set of videos:

Thanks, I will have a look. But there can be nothing more fundamental than self-reference. Actually, I highly suspect that he will only talk about forms without any insight that you need formless in order to have form, in which case his theory would be incorrect from the very start.

Cosmin,

What I am failing to understand here is how you recognize the unformalizability of self-reference yet also call it the 'most fundamental'. Of course, this is the same thing Cleric has been trying to point to and perhaps he is writing another post soon.

I think it comes back to one of his initial questions about whether you can imagine an approach to experiencing the rhythms of self-reference, in full lucidity and at ever-deeper levels, that does not rely on formal models? In this experiential process, we not only understand that we always have an interplay between formless and form, but we come to realize how the experience of formless from a lower perspective is the experience of form from a higher perspective or, conversely, how the form is formless.

I am sure your model accounts for this possibility, but the question is whether the possibility can be verified as first-person experiential reality?

[Cosmin Visan]

Well... we are self-reference. Every moment of our life is experiencing self-reference.

[AshvinP]

Well... we are self-reference. Every moment of our life is experiencing self-reference.

You are now undermining your own insight embodied in the unicorn example:

Let’s say that you want to capture somehow the fact that you are seeing a unicorn. This seems simple. You just take a paper, and you write: “I see a unicorn.”. This is what a formalization of consciousness is supposed to look like and it seems that you just did it. But on a careful second look, you notice that by writing down that sentence, you just took yourself outside of the very quale that you wanted to capture.

Now, instead of being in the state that you wanted to capture, you find yourself in another state, namely: “I write on the paper that I see a unicorn."
...
So, what we see here is actually an “I” that by trying to capture its current state, it finds itself in another state.

Now please apply this to the state in which you wrote, "every moment of our life is experiencing self-referencing". By trying to capture the state of experiencing self-reference, the "I" doing the capturing ended up in another state that was not yet captured.

I am asking about approaching the conscious experience of that not-yet-captured state of self-reference. We all agree that can't be done through formalization. Is there another way?

[Cosmin Visan]

The thing is that self-reference is not a thing. So strictly speaking, it cannot be spoken of. You cannot even name it. You cannot even call it "self-reference", because calling it in any way gives the false impression that it is a thing. As I also wrote in the paper, the word "self-reference" is at most a pointer to some aspect of reality that is beyond formalization.

[AshvinP]

The thing is that self-reference is not a thing. So strictly speaking, it cannot be spoken of. You cannot even name it. You cannot even call it "self-reference", because calling it in any way gives the false impression that it is a thing. As I also wrote in the paper, the word "self-reference" is at most a pointer to some aspect of reality that is beyond formalization.

Clearly, the self-referencing "I" is not a thing among other things. We're not naming it. We're not trying to formalize it.

Let's put it this way. We want to capture the fact we are seeing a unicorn, so we say "I am seeing a unicorn". There is a gap - (1) the "I" that is thinking "I am seeing a unicorn" is not captured in the formalization, "I am seeing a unicorn". This applies to any further attempts to formalize the current state - as soon as we attempt to formalize it, then it is no longer the current state. The gap grows wider.

Since there is only self-reference at all scales, presumably the gap is the widest for our perspective at the scale of the Cosmos. We can't even speak, from our current perspective, of trying to formalize (2) the experience of self-reference with the Formless perspective that knows itself in the reflection of the Cosmos.

(all the words used above are simply symbolic pointers for the aspects beyond formalization)

The question now is simple - do you see any difference between the two examples of gaps above? Is there any qualitative difference between (1) and (2) that we can speak of and perhaps leverage to an experiential advantage?

[Cleric K]

This is precisely the example that I gave in some of the papers, first time in "The Self-Referential Aspect of Consciousness". And I quote from that paper:

That’s all fine but my goal with the example was to approach more intimately the experience of thinking. This didn’t happen and you didn’t address the questions, so I’ll try again.

I really struggle to find a way to ask these questions because you keep finding ways to circumvent their essence Let’s try in another way. In your theory the basic spiritual activity of the “I am” is self-reference and self-dereference. I don’t remember if you mention the latter in the paper but I assume the “I am” can do both. But even if it can’t, it’s OK - my point will hold the same. Through these spiritual actions the “I am” creates the Cosmos. You say that these primordial states are too remote and instinctive, thus we can’t know them consciously. Yet we’re the same that “I am” now in a human state. The spiritual activity remains the same, only the degree and form of convolution is different. We still must be doing the same self-convolution and deconvolution, since this is the only thing the “I am” can do.

Now please imagine something simple, for example a moving triangle. Take a moment to really experience this activity. We should put all philosophizing aside and concentrate on this simple imaginative game. We can experiment with different speeds, sharp turns, rotations of the triangle and so on. It’s not important what exactly we are doing with the triangle but to feel how our intuitive intents are reflected in our imagination.

Now remember your theory. On the most basic level our “I” is doing convolution/deconvolution of itself. Yet when we’re fully engaged with the triangle game it doesn’t feel like this, we’re not self-(de)referring anything. It simply feels like moving a triangle. Now I’m sure that you have some explanation about why there’s such a discrepancy. For example, I imagine you’ll say that at its core we’re still self-(de)referencing but we’re reflecting very convoluted self-images which feel like frames of existence in which we’re moving a triangle. OK, fair enough. But notice that the philosophizing that we’ve just did was in essence not too different from what we were doing while moving the triangle. Instead of moving a triangle we imagine some intellectual objects, which should represent convolutions and deconvolutions of the “I am” object. This is obvious from the fact that we can’t do both. We either move the triangle or think about the theory. Yet from our theoretical thoughts we can’t derive our true experience of moving the triangle. We simply can’t engage in self-referring philosophical activity such that it feels like we’re consciously moving a triangle. These two things simply feel in a completely different way and we can only do one or the other.

But even more interestingly – everything that we explained about moving the triangle now applies to the philosophical thoughts about self-reference. These now should also be understood as complicated frames of existence that are produced through the fundamental spiritual actions of convolution/deconvolution. It is tempting to imagine that when we think about the theory we’re dealing with the true actions of self-reference. And in a way it really feels like this because this is what we’re doing. We introspect, we remember things and qualia pop up. Then we say “There it is! Self-reference! I referred to myself (thought about myself) and I experienced certain mental images/qualia. Then I can self-refer to how I experienced the images and get a new convolution. I can imagine how a lone Cosmic ego does this many times and the World comes into being as a giant mental picture.” But at the same time, if we don’t get too drunk on these ideas, we should remember that what we thus conceive utilizes essentially the same kind of activity as our triangle moving.

If we now carefully try to encompass all of this, we should arrive at a striking realization: at no point we ever get near the supposed true self-reference of the “I am”. We only have the imagined ‘true’ self-reference. In the end all that we have is our given ability to think about ourselves and then imagine how such convoluted self-reflections create the Cosmos. It is very easy to see that this is the case. We can for a moment imagine the most blasphemous thing – that materialism is correct. How would this change the way we experience our theory? In absolutely no way! Any world process that is experienced as a thinking ego can spin this theory. This is the simple truth. The ground of reality might be materialistic, informational, panpsychic, idealistic – anything. As long as this ground reality somehow allows for a thinking ego that can reflect on its existence, the latter can immediately erect an echo chamber and imagine that the world is created of its own reverberations.

Now you may object that your intuition of the formless overrules any other possible world conception. But why should this be the case? A materialistic brain would also have a sense of the formless as soon as it tries to experience where its thoughts come from. It will rationalize it as some subconscious physical processing. Another brain may say “I don’t buy this. I also don’t have any clue what’s happening beneath the surface of formed consciousness but I refuse to imagine that there are physical processes responsible. I would rather imagine that my sense of self emerges directly from the formless darkness and brings the world with it.

What’s your opinion on this? If we simply spin our theory above the surface of formed consciousness and we can’t even conceive of a way of verifying it, how can we ever have certainty that it is true and not that we’re a simply a brain in a material universe that has built for itself an echo chamber?

[lorenzop]

... A classic example where self-reference is mentioned is as follow: You first look at a unicorn. Then, you reflect on you looking at the unicorn. This is a trivial and easy to understand example. Fortunately, in order to show the unformalizability of self-reference we don’t need any more complicated examples. Let’s see thus why self-reference cannot be formalized. Let’s say that you want to capture somehow the fact that you are seeing a unicorn. This seems simple. You just take a paper, and you write: “I see a unicorn.”. This is what a formalization of consciousness is supposed to look like and it seems that you just did it. But on a careful second look, you notice that by writing down that sentence, you just took yourself outside of the very quale that you wanted to capture.

As I understand self-referral \ self-reference: could be experienced as increasing self-sufficiency, or extreme intimacy in perception.
For example:
I see a unicorn.
Seeing a unicorn (no subject and object).
Seeing unicorn as same as Self.
Seeing all Being in unicorn as self.
no self no unicorn (unicorn as thin covering or painted on Being)

Self-reference is not taking a step back or increasing scope of qualia, it is an honest not requiring anything outside (of Self)

[Cosmin Visan]

Clearly, the self-referencing "I" is not a thing among other things. We're not naming it. We're not trying to formalize it.

Let's put it this way. We want to capture the fact we are seeing a unicorn, so we say "I am seeing a unicorn". There is a gap - (1) the "I" that is thinking "I am seeing a unicorn" is not captured in the formalization, "I am seeing a unicorn". This applies to any further attempts to formalize the current state - as soon as we attempt to formalize it, then it is no longer the current state. The gap grows wider.

Since there is only self-reference at all scales, presumably the gap is the widest for our perspective at the scale of the Cosmos. We can't even speak, from our current perspective, of trying to formalize (2) the experience of self-reference with the Formless perspective that knows itself in the reflection of the Cosmos.

(all the words used above are simply symbolic pointers for the aspects beyond formalization)

The question now is simple - do you see any difference between the two examples of gaps above? Is there any qualitative difference between (1) and (2) that we can speak of and perhaps leverage to an experiential advantage?

I don't think there is necessarily any experience at the level of the cosmos. Maybe there are only humans, animals and elementary particles consciousnesses. And the laws of physics are statistical effects of interacting consciousnesses at the level of particles. So what we see as cosmos is just a representation in our human consciousness of the interactions between the consciousnesses of the elementary particles.

[Cosmin Visan]

That’s all fine but my goal with the example was to approach more intimately the experience of thinking. This didn’t happen and you didn’t address the questions, so I’ll try again.

I really struggle to find a way to ask these questions because you keep finding ways to circumvent their essence

Even it might appear that I'm doing this, I'm not doing it on purpose. I'm actually not sure where you try to get.

Let’s try in another way. In your theory the basic spiritual activity of the “I am” is self-reference and self-dereference. I don’t remember if you mention the latter in the paper but I assume the “I am” can do both.

I didn't mention it in this paper, but I talked about it in "The Emergent Structure of Consciousness", where I called it "demergence". And I quote it, because it is interesting to note one of the practical ways in which it can be done:

"Demergence
Before going to Physics, there is yet one more phenomenon that emergence presents to us. We postponed it until this moment because we needed to have as much of the hierarchy revealed as possible in order to highlight this phenomenon the best. Also, we still left unsolved the problem of the ontology of the last levels, because of their apparent impossibility to be directly experienced. The next phenomenon will propose a way to actually directly experience the deep levels of the hierarchy. Let’s see what this phenomenon is about.

It is a common experience to all of us that if we repeat a word multiple times, its meaning starts to disappear and we are left with only hearing meaningless collection of letters. In literature, this is called semantic satiation and it is usually presented only in this context of losing the meaning of a word by repeating it multiple times. But it is a general phenomenon that takes place for many other qualia, probably for all of them. One other example is if you stare insistently at your face in the mirror. After a while you get a weird sensation that that is not you, so you lose the meaning that that face is your face.

In the context of emergence presented in this paper, what this phenomenon appears to do is to dissolve the current emergent level and go down one level: the level of the words disappears and we find ourselves on the level of the letters, the level of “my face” disappears and we find
ourselves on the level of “a face”. So, it appears to be the opposite of emergence. Therefore, I will generalize it from its particular application to linguistics, and rename it “demergence”, to best emphasize its nature as a phenomenon that is doing the opposite of emergence. At a first sight, it might appear as a fun game to make to repeat words until they lose their meanings, but when taken seriously we find ourselves in the possession of a valuable, probably the most valuable tool that we can have at our disposal to probe the emergent structure of consciousness and see exactly what its levels are and so, see if the obscure levels of consciousness are indeed ontological or merely epistemic. Of course, a proper usage of demergence might require years of practice, so unfortunately, I cannot state here that I used demergence and I indeed proved to myself that the deep levels of consciousness are indeed ontological. But I did tried demergence on few simple cases and I got surprised by the results obtained, and I will encourage the readers to try it for themselves and even go more deeper than I did. I will present here 2 cases in which I applied it and emphasize the surprising results that I got.

For the first case, I pushed further the case of linguistics and I took letter “A” and repeated it multiple times. Letter “A” being a sound, I was curious to see what is below sounds. From a rational point of view, I was expecting to somehow experience directly the level of loudness or of pitches. But another interesting unexpected level revealed itself. It turns out that demerging the level of sounds, the level of inflections was revealed. Now reflecting back on the experience, I indeed can realize that a sound is not a steady quale, but that indeed it contains inflections. So, demergence really worked.
For the second case, I took a more challenging quale. Since sounds have a temporal component, the way in which demergence applies to them is to repeat them in a temporal way. But what if you take a static quale? Since you cannot actually repeat a static quale, how exactly do you apply demergence to it? To test how this can be done, I took a visual field filled with white and I just stared at it. Since white is not something produced willingly by us, we cannot repeat it the way we repeat a sound. So, the only option that I had was to just stare at it. And once again, demercenge worked. The level on which I fell was the level of pure 2D space, which even though not stated explicitly when I presented at the beginning of the paper the structure of the visual domain, it is indeed a level below the level of black-and-white, black and white could not be perceived at all if they are not displayed on a 2D visual field.

These results from own experience, show something very promising. First, demergence seems to be applicable everywhere. And second, there is indeed possible to experience qualia that seem impossible to experience. We indirectly have some intuitions for what 2D space feels like. But as we discussed along this paper, in order for a level to be shown to really be ontological and not epistemic, it needs to be experienced on its own. My experience of demerging the white visual field brought to my consciousness the experience of pure 2D space. It seems impossible to experience pure 2D space without some color qualia in it, but my demergence offered me this experience. I cannot put in words how exactly it feels like, but there is indeed something-it-is-like to experience pure 2D space. Having now had this experience of something that seemed impossible to be experienced on its own, it suggests that also the deeper levels of consciousness: time, memory, diversity, vividness, Self, can be experienced on their own. Of course, such experiences probably require years of meditations, but there are indeed reports from people practicing meditation of their experiences of pure Self for example."

Now please imagine something simple, for example a moving triangle. Take a moment to really experience this activity. We should put all philosophizing aside and concentrate on this simple imaginative game. We can experiment with different speeds, sharp turns, rotations of the triangle and so on. It’s not important what exactly we are doing with the triangle but to feel how our intuitive intents are reflected in our imagination.

Now remember your theory. On the most basic level our “I” is doing convolution/deconvolution of itself. Yet when we’re fully engaged with the triangle game it doesn’t feel like this, we’re not self-(de)referring anything. It simply feels like moving a triangle. Now I’m sure that you have some explanation about why there’s such a discrepancy. For example, I imagine you’ll say that at its core we’re still self-(de)referencing but we’re reflecting very convoluted self-images which feel like frames of existence in which we’re moving a triangle. OK, fair enough.

Yes, that's exactly what I would say.

But notice that the philosophizing that we’ve just did was in essence not too different from what we were doing while moving the triangle. Instead of moving a triangle we imagine some intellectual objects, which should represent convolutions and deconvolutions of the “I am” object. This is obvious from the fact that we can’t do both. We either move the triangle or think about the theory. Yet from our theoretical thoughts we can’t derive our true experience of moving the triangle. We simply can’t engage in self-referring philosophical activity such that it feels like we’re consciously moving a triangle. These two things simply feel in a completely different way and we can only do one or the other.

I'm not sure what you mean. In what way they feel different ? Can you elaborate this paragraph ? I also don't understand what you mean that we cannot do both.

We can for a moment imagine the most blasphemous thing – that materialism is correct. How would this change the way we experience our theory? In absolutely no way! Any world process that is experienced as a thinking ego can spin this theory. This is the simple truth. The ground of reality might be materialistic, informational, panpsychic, idealistic – anything. As long as this ground reality somehow allows for a thinking ego that can reflect on its existence, the latter can immediately erect an echo chamber and imagine that the world is created of its own reverberations.
Now you may object that your intuition of the formless overrules any other possible world conception.

Exactly. How would another ground of reality create the ego ? Remember that forms are created as formless self-references itself. I don't see how any other mechanism can produce forms.

But why should this be the case? A materialistic brain would also have a sense of the formless as soon as it tries to experience where its thoughts come from. It will rationalize it as some subconscious physical processing. Another brain may say “I don’t buy this. I also don’t have any clue what’s happening beneath the surface of formed consciousness but I refuse to imagine that there are physical processes responsible. I would rather imagine that my sense of self emerges directly from the formless darkness and brings the world with it.

But my intuition of the formless doesn't come from trying to understand where thoughts come from. My intuition of the formless comes from the nature of self-reference. You cannot do the inclusion and transcendence of qualia if self-reference is not of such a character as to have a formless aspect. In the case of the origin of thoughts you can also argue that they come from the next room, there is there a wizard that sends thoughts into my mind. This could be a valid case. So the origin of thoughts is not a good source of intuition for the formless. But the nature of self-reference automatically brings formless into the picture. You cannot avoid it.

What’s your opinion on this? If we simply spin our theory above the surface of formed consciousness and we can’t even conceive of a way of verifying it, how can we ever have certainty that it is true and not that we’re a simply a brain in a material universe that has built for itself an echo chamber?

The theory is verified by the phenomenology of qualia. For example, in the paper "Meaning and Context: A Brief Introduction" I start from qualia, build a phenomenological intuition in the reader, and only then go to self-reference. I tried writing more papers in order to highlight the same ideas from different perspectives to thus facilitate the understanding of the ideas.

I don't know if I answered your questions. First of all because I am not sure what you're trying to get at. In case your post is mainly about how the thought process works, how we are able to make progress and gain true understanding and not be deluded, then this is a deep problem altogether, that maybe at this moment I don't have a definitive answer. My main thoughts so far have been about trying to explain qualia, maybe because this might be the easiest problem, you just have to explain the passive aspect of consciousness. How then free will is able to manipulate qualia, be it in thinking or in imagining or in moving the body, this might require something extra than what I already presented about self-reference. I will have to think about this for many years to come.

[Cosmin Visan]

But note one point: regardless of how thinking manipulates ideas or imagination images, all these are ultimately forms, and forms are by necessity self-reference. So even if some extra theory of free will might be required, that theory must be in direct relation to self-reference. Say you are imagining a green triangle. Even though that green triangle appears already formed, its structure is nevertheless a self-referential convolution (to use your word). Even though we use directly a green triangle, self-reference assemblies it in the background, putting together Self, vividness, black-and-white, shades-of-gray, color, time, etc., giving it already formed to free will. One interesting direction to pursue is to understand why exactly thinking needs forms. Even though we might have the understanding in an instant, we still need to unpack it. Why is that ?