Yes, very interesting.  A few questions, though.  I understand stuff like
this:



‘”This refers to the “unavoidable conceptual separation of the knower and
the known” or the difference between “the symbolic record of an event and
the event itself””



But then you include what seems contradictory to me:



“observer/observed entanglement”?



Doesn’t “entanglement” imply non separation?  Why even bring up quantum
entanglement, at all in any of this?



I understand:



“the symbolic record of an event and the event itself”



But this is very different:



“[the] relationship between Matter and Information”



It seems to be a very popular idea that information could be more primal
than matter.  But to me this seems to be a very mistaken and naive bleating
of the heard.  You can’t have information of any kind, unless there is
something, physical, that instantiates that information, right?



This same bleating seems to be repeating in the consciousness consensus
project <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__staging.canonizer.com_topic_88-2DAgreement_1&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=_KM1PIi-7YySQYFrt6hW1EqaiE6KFA3p6b3TvTXzqRg&s=TGzbmfq4kh0vsyuJ-Pgi5Ws50_QHNAHs_mbf5LLRfxQ&e=>.  There are
far more participants in the “qualia emerge from function”  or that
function / information is more fundamental than matter or qualia.  Even IF
matter or qualia emerged from some kind of function or information, would
this, itself, be a fundamental property of physical matter?  And how can
qualia, information, or anything like that, exist, without there being some
kind of matter that is that?



What is the ToK view on this?  Would supporters of the ToK be in anything
other than the “no” camp on this “It from Bit
<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__staging.canonizer.com_topic_138-2DIt-2Dfrom-2DBit-2D_1&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=_KM1PIi-7YySQYFrt6hW1EqaiE6KFA3p6b3TvTXzqRg&s=VEZe0ot2aXrOFFFEZN1kG_deZbEeu_mN8VYIb7ddGuM&e=>” topic?  Would
supporters of the ToK be in anything other than the “no” camp on this “Softare
= Qualia <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__canonizer.com_topic_83-2DSoftware-2D-2D-2DQualia-2D_1&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=_KM1PIi-7YySQYFrt6hW1EqaiE6KFA3p6b3TvTXzqRg&s=oVihTPlqTH2yztOyxx18HxUMZTlcuauGPRQm09Z3gdA&e=>” topic?



I just don’t understand why so many people seem so compelled to try so hard
to fit information, or substrate independent function at a more primal /
fundamental level than physical matter, when what we objectively observe
seems so obviously in opposition to that.  I see no difference between
these views and the people that are so compelled to believe the earth is
flat, or the earth is the center of the solar system…



To think that there can be information or knowledge, without there being
something physical that instantiates that information is terribly damaging
heresy.  For example, this leads to absurd claims like Dennett makes: “We
don’t have qualia, it only seems like we do.”.  If it wasn’t for this kind
of heresy, people wouldn’t be so lost, trying to think consciousness is so
crazy and “hard”….  And nonphysical / unapproachable via science.  How
would the ToK stand on climes like: “We don’t have qualia, it just seems
like we do?”



On Sun, May 12, 2019 at 4:43 AM nysa71 <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
> Gregg,
>
> Very interesting. When you describe biosemiotics, I can't help but think
> that it sounds similar to what Jung was trying to describe with his
> archetypes and collective unconscious. Is that a fair comparison?
>
> ~ Jason Bessey
> On Saturday, May 11, 2019, 10:11:24 AM EDT, Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <
> [log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> Hi TOK List,
>
>
>
>   I spent yesterday afternoon reading an interesting book, Michael
> Gazzaniga’s The Consciousness Instinct.
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.amazon.com_Consciousness-2DInstinct-2DUnraveling-2DMystery-2DBrain_dp_0374715505&d=DwMFAg&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=VeMLVdkhPMA3ecuVj1YB6QSUzzRPkTtZG9fr18ngoMU&s=ybVdrFWkxt5QwuWZa666QEENmPed6ftS5cSUDkeqfSA&e=>
> For those who don’t know, Michael Gazzaniga is a famous cognitive
> neuroscientist. He worked with Roger Sperry on split brain patients and is
> famous for his “interpreter function” of the left hemisphere. I discuss an
> early book of his here
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.psychologytoday.com_us_blog_theory-2Dknowledge_201701_the-2Danimal-2Dhuman-2Ddividing-2Dline&d=DwMFAg&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=VeMLVdkhPMA3ecuVj1YB6QSUzzRPkTtZG9fr18ngoMU&s=3GwuAQ-ZCxCwg_7mLVo-vmKAyoBHbGxzxRaCRjRRKEs&e=>
> .
>
>
>
>   I was finding his newest book interesting, but a bit tedious as the
> first half is essentially a review of ideas about consciousness, such that
> I did not learn much. But it took a fascinating turn in chapter 7, which
> was on the physics concept of complementarity (wave particle duality and
> observer/observed entanglement) and accelerated in an interesting way in
> the next chapter on “Nonliving to Living and Neurons to Mind”. He reviews
> the work of Howard Pattee
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__informatics.indiana.edu_rocha_publications_pattee_index.html&d=DwMFAg&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=VeMLVdkhPMA3ecuVj1YB6QSUzzRPkTtZG9fr18ngoMU&s=ZeapA-SAyFE7N0qJKCqVsp8JSghYlaBPSf7oRCp7GC0&e=>,
> who is a retired theoretical physicist turned biologist who pioneered work
> on biosemiotics and what he called the “epistemic cut.” This refers to the
> “unavoidable conceptual separation of the knower and the known” or the
> difference between “the symbolic record of an event and the event itself”.
> Attached is the page from Gazzaniga’s book that describes it. Here is
> another description of the epistemic cut, also called “the schnitt
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.edge.org_response-2Ddetail_27049&d=DwMFAg&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=VeMLVdkhPMA3ecuVj1YB6QSUzzRPkTtZG9fr18ngoMU&s=880Ubxt_p_NJ3XjG3KcDCy4PF-f2pP_IMU8Rz2rwxAw&e=>”.
> I had never heard of the term before, but I am very happy to learn of it.
>
>
>
>   Here is the basics of what Gazzaniga ends up offering, which I think we
> can make clear with the ToK: Via complementarity and diving into a basic
> understanding of quantum mechanics following the work of Pattee, Gazzaniga
> highlights that there is an object/subject duality everywhere. At the level
> of the quantum, there is the problem of entanglement and superposition. At
> the level of Life, it refers to how cells operate based on semiotics (i.e.,
> are information processing and communication systems). For some good quotes
> on how Pattee views the world, see here:
> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.informationphilosopher.com_solutions_scientists_pattee_&d=DwIFaQ&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=_KM1PIi-7YySQYFrt6hW1EqaiE6KFA3p6b3TvTXzqRg&s=VPBE2EN_B268wfI7Qy0pUob_D4hYeQlHYf_Kzm_6EWU&e=
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.informationphilosopher.com_solutions_scientists_pattee_&d=DwMFAg&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=VeMLVdkhPMA3ecuVj1YB6QSUzzRPkTtZG9fr18ngoMU&s=KVY2PHJ_wFrAo2cycZeoOw6xju_1mSzYgX1CdsUQQSI&e=>.
> Here is a choice one:
>
>
>
> *It is my central idea that the essence of the matter-symbol problem and
> the measurement or recording problem must appear at the origin of living
> matter.* Symbols and records have existed since life existed. If this
> view is correct, then it is a more hopeful strategy to begin by asking what
> we mean by the *first* primitive record rather than question what we mean
> by our most sophisticated and abstract records. In effect, this strategy
> forces us to make an objective criterion for a recording process.
>
>
>
> Why am I excited about this? A couple of reasons. First, given the
> connections between Gazzaniga’s Interpreter and JUST, especially the JH, he
> is headed toward a conception of human self-consciousness that lines up
> directly with the ToK version. But what he is doing is going deep, through
> neuro-mental objective/subjective sentience, into the layer of the cell,
> and into quantum mechanics (much like John Torday does). By following
> Gazzaniga’s line of thought (following Pattee), I can see clearly that what
> he is advocating for connects deeply to two of the things the ToK System
> does, that other systems of knowledge do not.
>
>
>
>   First, unlike all other systems, the ToK INCLUDES the human knower-known
> epistemic cut. That is, it includes what I call the “H” Factor, which is
> the Human Knower. The most direct way it achieves this is because of the
> Justification Hypothesis and systems theory. (Please note here that a
> theory of knowledge, epistemology, and a theory of justification are almost
> identical. Via JUST placed on the ToK, I can place the evolution of social
> into formal into scientific epistemology in context of the universe—see
> slide two).
>
>
>
>   Second, the ToK also includes a very specifiable relationship between
> information/communication/semiotics and the natural, Newtonian, lawfully
> determined world. That is, it frames and describes the relationship between
> energy, matter, information, and scientific knowledge in a way that no
> other system does.
>
>
>
>   See the attached ToK diagram (slide 1), which places the word
> “semiotics” at the joint points, because that is another way of conceiving
> the joint point. That is, Life is Bio-semiotics, Mind is neuro-semiotics,
> Culture is Language-Semiotics. And then there is the semiotics of
> scientific knowledge. Enlightenment 1.0 was based in an inert, general,
> view-from-nowhere knower that could simply observe the fully, lawfully
> determined behavior that was completely reversable across time. However,
> this is NOT how the actual world works. The actual world of scientific
> knowledge embedded in the universe requires clarity about the nature and
> place of the epistemic cut. The ToK shows us how to do that. It shows us
> where the Science Human Knower is in the universe of behavior (the “H”
> factor), and it shows were the observer/observed relations are, from the
> quantum to the living to the mental to the cultural and to the
> meta-Cultural knower.  Indeed, the bottom lists “quantum semiotics” as a
> way to note that physicists had to develop a completely different language
> system to talk about the science of quantum mechanics (what Alexander calls
> quantum organics).
>
>
>
>   My pitch is that with the ToK (Unified Metaphysical Empirical Language)
> System we finally have a truly holistic picture of the knower/known
> relationship across the various levels and dimensions of complexity. Thus,
> we can bridge the epistemic cut and achieve greater clarity on the deepest
> conceptual problems that have plagued scientists and philosophers since
> formal epistemologies emerged on the scene in the Axial Age
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_Axial-5FAge&d=DwMFAg&c=eLbWYnpnzycBCgmb7vCI4uqNEB9RSjOdn_5nBEmmeq0&r=HPo1IXYDhKClogP-UOpybo6Cfxxz-jIYBgjO2gOz4-A&m=VeMLVdkhPMA3ecuVj1YB6QSUzzRPkTtZG9fr18ngoMU&s=6lR1oqoCwOZTn9y_4mD7XXBpjHOpVKiw2azNscXCSis&e=>.
>
>
>
> Best,
> Gregg
>
>
>
>
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