How Self-Reference Builds the World

[Cosmin Visan]

Another point to add that might be revealing for how this works. I didn't write about in any of my papers. So say you are at a traffic light and you see the red and green lights. What is it that you think you see ? You think you see a red and green traffic light, right ? But that's not what you see. What you see is the first consciousness that ever saw an apple in the tree 1 billion years ago. Is similar to Sheldrake's morphic resonance. You are basically "vibrating at the same frequency" with that consciousness from the remote past. You are that consciousness. When you see the red and green traffic lights you are one with that consciousness from 1 billion years ago that first saw the apple in the tree.

That's why seeing a new color is a very intricate thing, is based on an entire historical inheritance of qualities. This also explains why chemists have difficulties creating life in the lab by mixing chemicals. They look at a cell, see what chemicals there are, and they think if you just put all those chemicals in a soup they have to make the cell. But the composition is not all that matters. History matters as well. And since world moved on, it might be impossible now to create life again. Because not only the context of the chemicals that you mix matter, but the entire context of self-reference. And since that universal context changed, is pointless to mix chemicals. Sure, by mixing chemicals you might recreate smaller contexts, but you cannot recreate the universal context, so those chemicals will not move towards life.

[Cleric K]

So the main problem that you raise is how to see a new color. My theory accounts for this, and I even mentioned it in the paper: if you want to know how it is to ride a roller-coaster you need to ride a roller-coaster. But maybe this is trivial and you want specifically to know how to see a new color. And the most general answer is: you need to put yourself in the necessary context. Of course, you want something concrete, you want me to tell you exactly what that context is so you can put yourself into and see the new color. The problem is that it might even be inaccesible from present consciusness form. Is like wanting to know how it is like to be a bat. And the answer is: be a bat! You need to reconfigure your entire consciousness through evolutionary processes. Mind you, it might not be possible to achieve that by simply modifying your "brain". You have to go through the real deal, through the real evolutionary forces to get there.

So yes, as you can see, my theory accounts for this. For a revealing way of how you might try to do this in practice, see my paper "Telepathy: A Real-World Experiment" which is precisely about this problem of how to force qualia in your consciousness. Also, for a general treatment of how qualia appeared through evolution see "The Archeology of Qualia" and "Is Qualia Meaning or Understanding?".

But that's precisely the issue we're talking about - there's no conceivable bridge between the abstract recursive thought-form configuration and the actual experience of qualia. This is the fundamental hard problem - we can only abstractly invent certain correspondences between intellectual thought-forms and real qualia.

For example, I can use my model again. I say: the first-person forms of existence are fractal-like standing waves of the infinitely fine proto-conscious essence. The different modes and frequencies of vibration correspond to different qualia.



For example, I can say that modes with such and such nodes correspond to color, others to sound, still others to feeling of pleasure and so on. These primordial fractal modes reverberate and nest into each other in the most complicated ways, which finally results in our manifold experience. There, I explained how qualia arises. Now if someone asks me to show how my theory can produce new exotic qualia I would say "Well, you just have to go in for the real thing and change the modes of vibration of your conscious essence."

From that perspective, would you say that my model explains qualia?

[Cosmin Visan]

No, that model doesn't explain qualia. Qualia are meaning, and as such, they appear relative to contexts. For example, the way red and green appeared is as such: initially animals were seeing the world in shades-of-gray. But the problem was that it was difficult to find food. They could have had an apple right in front of their eyes and they wouldn't have seen it. Thus, the need for food created a context which then brought into existence meanings to satisfy that context. The gray apple in front of the animal turned red because red has the meaning of "important" and the leaves turned green because green contrasts maximally with red and thus enhances the finding of food. Similar for yellow and blue for the Sun and the sky. Yellow looks yellow because it means source of light and thus the Sun was colored yellow, and the sky was colored blue in order to maximally contrast with the Sun. Any alien on its home planet sees its Sun yellow and its sky blue, even though we might see their star and sky under different colors.

[lorenzop]

.... The gray apple in front of the animal turned red because red has the meaning of "important" and the leaves turned green because green contrasts maximally with red and thus enhances the finding of food. Similar for yellow and blue for the Sun and the sky. Yellow looks yellow because it means source of light and thus the Sun was colored yellow, and the sky was colored blue in order to maximally contrast with the Sun. Any alien on its home planet sees its Sun yellow and its sky blue, even though we might see their star and sky under different colors.

Curious, did you read this theory(s) somewhere or are you making this up? It doesn't pass any basic smell test.

[Cosmin Visan]

Curious, did you read this theory(s) somewhere or are you making this up? It doesn't pass any basic smell test.

Why ?

[Cleric K]

No, that model doesn't explain qualia. Qualia are meaning, and as such, they appear relative to contexts. For example, the way red and green appeared is as such: initially animals were seeing the world in shades-of-gray. But the problem was that it was difficult to find food. They could have had an apple right in front of their eyes and they wouldn't have seen it. Thus, the need for food created a context which then brought into existence meanings to satisfy that context. The gray apple in front of the animal turned red because red has the meaning of "important" and the leaves turned green because green contrasts maximally with red and thus enhances the finding of food. Similar for yellow and blue for the Sun and the sky. Yellow looks yellow because it means source of light and thus the Sun was colored yellow, and the sky was colored blue in order to maximally contrast with the Sun. Any alien on its home planet sees its Sun yellow and its sky blue, even though we might see their star and sky under different colors.

But notice that what you say is quite decoupled from your theory of "I am" recursion. I can write the exact same words as you wrote above and claim them as support for my model. My model is also contextual - that's why I described it as fractal. The vibrations form nested modes, as octaves within octaves. The simpler black-white vibrations can be convoluted into more complicated modes which are experienced in more differentiated manner, corresponding to new kinds of meaning/qualia. In a sense, in my model the ground state is like white light potential which can be further differentiated into colors through self-interference. This produces more fine-grained conscious experience which can navigate its state-space based on these more differentiated qualia/meanings, instead of the more general light-dark experience.

Claiming that only your model 'explains' qualia is like claiming that mathematical intuition can only be explicated through set theory and nothing else (that is, set theory is the true form of mathematical intuition and everything else is a derivative). But we know very well that it can be explicated equally well through any other axiomatic basis - Lambda calculus, Turing machines, Category theory and so on. For example, would it be correct to say that only through sets we can explain what a number is? What about Church numerals? Through them we can do everything that can be done in any other number theory.

We have to be very vigilant here because we have the tendency to turn things around. The moment we believe that in set theory we have 'explained' what a number is, we immediately sin against the deeper nature of formless intuition. So it is in our case. Claiming that only your model 'explains' qualia, is possible only in a form of totalitarianism where other intellectual bases need to be censored.

[Cosmin Visan]

But notice that what you say is quite decoupled from your theory of "I am" recursion. I can write the exact same words as you wrote above and claim them as support for my model. My model is also contextual - that's why I described it as fractal. The vibrations form nested modes, as octaves within octaves. The simpler black-white vibrations can be convoluted into more complicated modes which are experienced in more differentiated manner, corresponding to new kinds of meaning/qualia. In a sense, in my model the ground state is like white light potential which can be further differentiated into colors through self-interference. This produces more fine-grained conscious experience which can navigate its state-space based on these more differentiated qualia/meanings, instead of the more general light-dark experience.

Is not recursion. Is self-reference. They are totally different. And I also took care to make this distinction in the paper. Your model doesn't explain why those vibrations need to feel like something. But in the case of self-reference this is done by logical necessity. I will give a quote from the paper:

"The Self. Why is it the case that the object “I am” feels in any way whatsoever? This has to do
with the very definition of what a form is. When self-reference finds itself inside itself, that
finding is a form, and in order to be a form it must look like something, it must have some
quality by which to be identified. So, by necessity, it must feel like something. The second part
is, why would it feel like the sensation of being alive? This has to do with how the “I am” object
is obtained. Actually, we can call it object “X” for the beginning. Self-reference looks-back-at-itself
and finds object “X”. But that object “X” cannot be random.

It must express the very process by which it is obtained. Since it is obtained as a self-identification
of self-reference with itself, the character of object “X” must contain some
information about the very fact of self-identification. And this automatically confers it the
character of “itselfness”, thus the quality by which self-reference will view it will be the quality
of “being itself”. And upon a little reflection on the part of the reader, it will soon be realized that
this quality must by necessity feel like the sensation of being alive, or as the quality of 1st person
perspective, or as the quality of the subjective ontology. Therefore, object “X” can be renamed as
object “I am”, and thus confer it the intuitive feel that each one of us has that we are alive."

[Cleric K]

Is not recursion. Is self-reference. They are totally different. And I also took care to make this distinction in the paper. Your model doesn't explain why those vibrations need to feel like something. But in the case of self-reference this is done by logical necessity. I will give a quote from the paper:

"The Self. Why is it the case that the object “I am” feels in any way whatsoever? This has to do
with the very definition of what a form is. When self-reference finds itself inside itself, that
finding is a form, and in order to be a form it must look like something, it must have some
quality by which to be identified. So, by necessity, it must feel like something. The second part
is, why would it feel like the sensation of being alive? This has to do with how the “I am” object
is obtained. Actually, we can call it object “X” for the beginning. Self-reference looks-back-at-itself
and finds object “X”. But that object “X” cannot be random.

It must express the very process by which it is obtained. Since it is obtained as a self-identification
of self-reference with itself, the character of object “X” must contain some
information about the very fact of self-identification. And this automatically confers it the
character of “itselfness”, thus the quality by which self-reference will view it will be the quality
of “being itself”. And upon a little reflection on the part of the reader, it will soon be realized that
this quality must by necessity feel like the sensation of being alive, or as the quality of 1st person
perspective, or as the quality of the subjective ontology. Therefore, object “X” can be renamed as
object “I am”, and thus confer it the intuitive feel that each one of us has that we are alive."

In my model the vibrations are 'vibrations of conscious experience'. The word 'vibrations' is only a generic label for purely qualitative first-person conscious experiences, sound, pain, etc. I don't need to explain how vibrations come to feel like something, since my ground of reality is already that which feels like something. I only need to show how by transforming the modes and dynamics of our first-person experience, different qualia/meanings can be experienced (filtered from the infinite potential as it were). Your objection implies a kind of dualism - the vibrations on one hand, which feel like something on the other. I hope it's now clear that there's no such dualism in my model. Qualia/meanings are the essence of reality. I don't need to explain how they arise as second order phenomena from something more fundamental which is non-qualia/non-meanings.

Thus my description is not that different from yours above. It is all about a recipe for how to will our transformations in order to reach this or that qualitative experience. Your quote above doesn't explain how qualia are created out of something that is non-qualia. It only describes how certain qualia (starting with the "I am" experience) can be brought to light through the appropriate conditions (the "I am" trying to make an image of itself). This explains the creation of qualia in the same way we explain the creation of a plant by planting a seed and seeing it grow. It can't explain what a plant is in its essence but can explain how it can 'arise' granted that the needed conditions are met. My model does the same. Through specific inner activity, corresponding qualia are revealed or concealed, they grow or wither.

Do you still think that my model doesn't address qualia? Perhaps you think that your model actually explains how the essence of qualia comes into being from something more fundamental which is non-qualia?

[Cosmin Visan]

The only conclusion that I can draw is that you still don't understand self-reference. Otherwise you will see how by necessity it leads to qualia. Your model on the other hand just postulates qualia as given. You cannot do that. You need to explain why they are a given.

[lorenzop]

Curious, did you read this theory(s) somewhere or are you making this up? It doesn't pass any basic smell test.

Why ?

We haven't encountered any alien life forms, much less one with a visual apparatus. We certainly have not interviewed any alien life form, tried to map their colors with ours, etc. The claim that aliens must necessarily see their sun as yellow and sky as blue is baseless, doesn't even rise to the level of wild-eyed speculation.

Your suggestion that the apple was gray and then turned red is also baseless . . . unless this is a question of semantics . . . and you are actually referring to the evolution of color vision, not that the apple actually turned red.