If it exists, it has atoms

[Willum]

So I am just putting this out there as a thought-provoker:

If something exists, it is composed of atoms or is an energy or force: Electromagnetic, Gravitational, Strong Nuclear Force, Weak Nuclear Force and Neutron Degeneracy.

Is there anything that is an exception to this conjecture?

[AgnosticBoy]

[Replying to post 16 by AgnosticBoy]

But if the computer is aware of its own state, and even the details of its own construction, is that not the definition of "self-aware"? Indeed, it might well be "aware" more completely of itself than you are. The trick, I think, would be to enable it to recognize that you are "self-aware".
Humans want to be special, but perhaps that desire leads them to misperceive reality.

Okay, if we accept that computers are aware, how does that translate into having a subjective experience?

[FarWanderer]

So I am just putting this out there as a thought-provoker:

If something exists, it is composed of atoms or is an energy or force: Electromagnetic, Gravitational, Strong Nuclear Force, Weak Nuclear Force and Neutron Degeneracy.

Is there anything that is an exception to this conjecture?

Pain.

Pain, as all sensation, is neurotransmitters at synapses. Pain can be induced or repressed by physical means. The "metaphysical" or "spiritual" fades and vanishes along with the "god of the gaps" as science learns and understands more and more.

Being as you seem to be disagreeing, which do you believe
a) Pain does not exist.
b) Pain is made of atoms.

[William]

[Replying to post 18 by TSGracchus]

Humans want to be special, but perhaps that desire leads them to misperceive reality.

Perhaps that is what people do when they interpret science in relation to consciousness and argue from the position you are arguing from?

[William]

So I am just putting this out there as a thought-provoker:

If something exists, it is composed of atoms or is an energy or force: Electromagnetic, Gravitational, Strong Nuclear Force, Weak Nuclear Force and Neutron Degeneracy.

Is there anything that is an exception to this conjecture?

Information


Have a good day!
Still small

[Replying to post 20 by Still small]

Light is information.

I think your reasoning about information not being made up of atoms is incorrect. Information is what is experienced. Consciousness is what experiences the information using the tools available to it, and experience varies depending upon the form and how the consciousness within the form interprets the information - the data of experience.

The form is the external environment that individuate consciousness is confined within and limited by.

In relation to consciousness and this universe, all things external are 'made up of atoms' except, of course, other internal consciousnesses.

Consciousness is not information. That is why it is so difficult to nail it down.

Pain.

Pain is also information.

[TSGracchus]

[Replying to post 20 by Still small]

In information theory, information is the opposite of uncertainty. But information is a pattern of in matter or energy, pixels on a screen, ink on paper, neurotransmitters in the brain activating a pattern of synapses we call memory. There is no information without its physical manifestation. Pattern requires and is not separate from its physical manifestation, just as a ripple is not separate from a river. Thus information is pattern, and the interpretation of information is a matter of pattern matching.

[TSGracchus]

[Replying to post 21 by AgnosticBoy]

AgnosticBoy: "Okay, if we accept that computers are aware, how does that translate into having a subjective experience?

Experience is objective phenomenon. "Awareness" depends on feedback that includes the experience of "self" as part of the phenomenon. it is not an all or nothing. There are degrees and levels.

[TSGracchus]

[Replying to post 24 by William]

William: "Consciousness is not information. That is why it is so difficult to nail it down."

Consciousness is a pattern of feedbacks in neurons. The pattern is information.
Interpretation is the correspondence of the pattern with previous patterns.
The reason you can't nail it down is that it is not a nail. You are trying to use the wrong tool.

[Neatras]

I love how people are so quick to look at a collection of bits, declare it information, and somehow elevate it beyond physical components.

Let's dive into a computer, shall we? I look at a single logic gate in a circuit. What "information" does it possess? What component does it have that is somehow non-physical? If I apply voltage to it, it'll have a specific, mechanistic reaction. Individual objects are clearly entirely physical. Just because they're strung along together in arbitrary sets doesn't erase the fact that each individual physical component is purely physical.

"Information" is the layman creationist's ploy to try and erase nuanced physical interactions with a bold claim that intelligence is somehow required for sequential physical interactions to exist. It puts the cart before the horse.

When I look at the set in whole, I can derive a personalized meaning because the sequence provides useful resources/data. And yeah, that is information. So. What? All it means is that it conveys a sequence that I will then utilize, it doesn't mean that there is an "essence" of what the message was: That was a mere arrangement of matter that arbitrary beings manipulate and use to their various ends.

I seriously don't get what it is about "information" that gets everybody in such a state of sheer irrationality.

[Still small]

[Replying to post 20 by Still small]

In information theory, information is the opposite of uncertainty. But information is a pattern of in matter or energy, pixels on a screen, ink on paper, neurotransmitters in the brain activating a pattern of synapses we call memory. There is no information without its physical manifestation. Pattern requires and is not separate from its physical manifestation, just as a ripple is not separate from a river. Thus information is pattern, and the interpretation of information is a matter of pattern matching.

Okay, so looking at the information about the state of the day, "It is a sunny day, today�, (by the way, it’s a sunny day today, also) I wish to impart this information to you and try to think of a novel way to transmit this knowledge to you. I decide to arrange several rocks on the beach at which I live in the pattern that forms the letters making a message containing the information “It is a sunny day, today� in English. I take a photo of the message in an old-style camera (as I’m an ‘old-style’ type of guy) and get the film developed into a slide. I send the slide to you by mail and upon receiving the slide you put it in an ‘old-style’ projector and project it up onto a wall and you read my message, beautifully arranged in rocks upon the beach. You now have the knowledge that where I am, it is a sunny day, today.
Now, what is the information? Is it the visual image that I see looking out my window? Is it the pulses of neurons buzzing around in my brain? Is it the atoms making up the minerals in the rocks? Is the information the atoms making the pattern imprinted upon the film in the camera or the ink on the slide? Is the information the photons projecting the message through the slide? Is it the atoms making up the glass of the projector lense? Is the information the actual photons ‘zapping through the air’ carrying the message to the wall? Or is the information the atoms making up the coating on the wall which is reflecting the photons? Or is the information, "It is a sunny day, today�, the neurons buzzing around within your brain caused by the photons reaching your eye and being converted by the rods and cones of the retina? What is the information which gives you the knowledge that where I am, it is a sunny day, today?
Oh, I’ve made a horrible assumption, that being that you speak English, so I repeat the whole process, sending the message “c'est une journée ensoleillée, aujourd'hui� and “今天是晴天� and “Είναι μια ηλιόλουστη ημέ�α, σήμε�α�and so on and so on . . . (being the information “it is a sunny day today� in French, Chinese, Greek and so on and so on . . .).
Now what is the information, as the pattern transmitting the information via the various mediums is different each time? What is the actual information?

Have a good day!
Bonne journée!
�你有美好的一天�
�α έχεις μια όμο�φη μέ�α!

Still small

[William]

[Replying to post 27 by TSGracchus]

Consciousness is a pattern of feedbacks in neurons.

That is one theory, yes. Hard - if not impossible - for scientists to replicate.

The pattern is information.

Yes. Information is recognized by consciousness as being a pattern.

Interpretation is the correspondence of the pattern with previous patterns.

Replication of patterns allowing for consciousness to interpret.

The reason you can't nail it down is that it is not a nail.

Nails are normally used to nail things down. There are things other than nails which can be nailed down.

You are trying to use the wrong tool.

Not at all. The term 'difficult to nail down' represents a pattern of sounds which have been made into symbols called written language and can be interpreted however you want it to but what it actually means in context is that 'Consciousness is still a largely unexplained mysterious phenomena' and so when I used the expression "Consciousness is not information. That is why it is so difficult to nail it down." I was saying that it hasn't been significantly explained yet.

Consciousness is not physical, and can imagine the non physical as well, and given the right tools, can also create things that never existed except as non physical images. Thus the non-physical consciousness can create physical things based upon non-physical imagery.

I argue that the Earth is a self aware creative entity consciousness due to patterns which exist and allow for that impression upon the consciousness that I am and the interpretation that I indulge with as being the most likely is based upon what is observable coupled with that which is not directly observable -ie consciousness.