Physical reality and mind with Chris Fields | Reason with Science | Quantum theory | Consciousness

3 thoughts on “Physical reality and mind with Chris Fields | Reason with Science | Quantum theory | Consciousness”

1. How much will we even be able to know on the science of consciouness in 15 years?

2. what do you mean by memory and information here
   
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   oh
   
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   um the the term information becomes so
   
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   basic to science that I think it it uh
   
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   it it almost becomes a fundamental term like energy right we don't really know what we mean
   
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   by the term energy that's a phenomenon that we give a name to
   
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   um but I I like bateson's idea of differences
   
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   that make a difference because that relativevises information
   
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   to some system one that always has the question makes a difference to who
   
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   or makes a difference to what and this way of thinking about information

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   or makes a difference to what and this way of thinking about information
   
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   is very consistent with uh John Archibald Wheeler's idea that
   
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   information is the answer to a question and the fundamental questions
   
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   have answers that are either yes or no and so we have information in bits
   
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   but that also of course presupposes that there's a division in the in the
   
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   universe between the system that asked the question in the system that provides the answer
   
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   so oh
   
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   in my fundamental view of information is
   
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   that whenever one has weekly interacting systems
   
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   one can draw a boundary between them and Define an interaction between them
   
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   and that interaction will have eigenvalues
   
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   and the information that the systems exchange can always be thought of as
   
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   encodings of those eigenvalues so
   
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   information and energetic exchange really are exactly
   
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   the same thing and here the information is clearly classical because it's being exchanged
   
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   between two distinct systems

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   boundary of a DNA molecule and the information exchange between
   
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   a DNA molecule and a polymerase which which we I mean even in ordinary
   
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   language we talk about this as reading so so we use these these words that
   
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   indicate information exchange even to talk about interactions between proteins
   
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   and I think that's perfectly valid I mean we can represent
   
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   any biochemical interaction in terms of information exchange we can
   
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   uh calculate a number of bits that are involved if the interaction occurs in

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   Consciousness is just uh this having of experiences
   
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   and it's often it's often sort of characterized as an ability to have
   
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   experiences and I think that's probably uh
   
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   a wrong way to think about it
   
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   that uh it's it's
   
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   that it's not a special ability that it's it's uh
   
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   again as Eric Dietrich has said I think in print experience is something you get
   
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   for free if you exist you have experiences or you
   
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   experience the world again what does it mean to exist it means to be distinct from some
   
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   environment so if one's distinct from some environment there is an interaction by definition
   
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   and so in a sense there there is information Exchange
   
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   and so we can talk about the experience using that word in a very kind of
   
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   loose intuitive way and then the question becomes
   
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   how similar is that experience to ours that we can imagine what it is
   
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   and for you know mammals we can have a pretty good shot at it
   
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   uh I think most people can probably imagine what their dogs or cats or are
   
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   experiencing for plants it's more difficult

   what it would mean to have a theory of Consciousness what are we at least
   
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   from your perspective what do you think how it would look like and what uh it
   
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   can explain Etc well um
   
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   okay I I would say there's a there's a going possibility
   
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   uh and again I'll I'll quote my friend Eric Dietrich that Consciousness is free right uh
   
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   if that's correct then we've got a theory of Consciousness
   
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   right we have a we have a perfectly good theory of information exchange between systems it's called physics
   
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   and if Consciousness is if you get Consciousness for free whenever there's information Exchange
   
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   then we're done and
   
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   uh being somewhat facetious and somewhat serious right the real question is not
   
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   to my mind is not is it conscious the real question is what is it
   
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   conscious of and what abilities does it need
   
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   to be conscious of that kind of thing
   
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   which is a very different question of of what abilities does it need to be conscious period
   
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   you know I I don't think it needs any abilities at all there just needs to be different from
   
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   its environment but to be conscious of a particular kind
   
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   of thing uh is a question that we can ask and it's an important scientific
   
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   question and it's a really interesting question so for example
   
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   uh what abilities does a system have to
   
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   have to be conscious of three-dimensional space you know we're conscious of
   
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   three-dimensional space it's pretty clear that from their behavior that other mammals are
   
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   conscious of the three-dimensional space oh probably all vertebrates are conscious
   
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   of three-dimensional space but what about say sponges

3. fantastic content thank you!! I can't help myself speculate about higher-order selves that include our individuated minds within some mycelia-like network of which we're perhaps dimly aware (alluded to in Jung, Plato, and so on). So in the same manner that individual cells probably have no idea about my phemonenal consciousness, we have no idea about the super-mind we're a part of. Good sci-fi if nothing else. But who knows? Maybe mycelia, trees, or whole forests possess some kind of phenomenal consciousness, with histories, identities, personalities and politics? Why not seems more to the point these days.

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