David Nyman: > > Colin Hales wrote: > >> There is no dualism here. The simplest solution is a monism of a posited >> structural primitive, say, S(.). The universe is a structure of organised >> S(.). One type and one type only. The structure itself is simply and necessarily a hierarchically organised massive collection of S(.). In this >> hierarchy the behaviour that generates appearances and that which does not >> are indistinguishable. The whole question changes to one of visibility. > > Absolutely. > >> Make sense? I'll keep saying this until it sinks in. Somebody other than >> me >> has to see this! > > Yes, it makes a lot of sense, and reminds me of long hours over the decades struggling to visualise how various 'observer perspectives' would map in detail to my 1st-person experience (a career in software engineering also presents many opportunities for meditative waiting!) 'Saving the appearances' was my point of departure, because it seemed to be mostly ignored in standard theoretical treatments, apparently in pursuit of some mirage of methodological 'rigour' - myopia, it seemed to me. Also, all those 'quantum collapse' notions involving 'the observer' seemed to be blind to the fact that this seemingly > influential chap was simply a non-isolatable element of the network of interacting information under 'observation'. > > My question about observing from the perspective of the 'gestalt' (maybe this isn't the best word) was posed in this spirit. That is, each one of my list of 'observables' makes sense to me from this perspective, but not from that of a classical 'nameable' 1st person. QM/MW is just one way to conceptualise the structural/ behavioural aspects of this, but my starting point is: given these experiences, 'from what experiential perspective would the situation look, feel, sound, taste, smell, like this?' And the answer always seems to be 'from the point of view of the universe, delimited by these information horizons.' This for me is the fundamental 1st-person perspective. > > David >
How about this: When you have a hierarchical structure of a single posited primitive there is a fundamental property that is inherent in the structure as a whole. This is as follows: Perspectival Ubiquity >From the perspective of any one instance of S(.) within the structure, no matter how huge and complex it is, there is a 'perspective' view of any other point in the structure. That 'view' is the view that is 'as-if' you walked all the way down to the bottom of the hierarchy to a common ancestor (parent) S(.) element and then walked all the way up the structure to the S(.) that you are viewing from wherever you were. This is a direct causal chain. Connected/organised S(.) literally are causality/causal chains. This property is inherent or intrinsic or innate to any structure of S(.), regardless of the details of S(.). I posit that this 'visibility', or at least the potential for it, is fundamental to the generation of qualia. ======================= Additivity If one S(.) has some sort of proto-experience, then cohorts of S(.) acting coherently will combine their proto-experiences in the manner of the collective behaviour of the cohort. Having arrived at this point we have said nothing about the nature of "what it is like" i.e. that the visibility thus conferred has any particular quality to it..light, sound, taste and so on. You can imagine this is being cohorts of S(.) behaving in different ways for different subjective qualities. ========================= Here we have at least the basics of the production of a quale. There are a raft of other issues before you can locate these things in brain material. But at least the hierarchical structures have these innate possibilities. ========================= Now consider this: A) The structure expresses an atom (a subset of collaborating S(.) behaves atom-ly). The structure is not 'about' an atom. It 'is' an atom. Contrast this with: B) The structure expresses a quale. The structure behaves quale-ly. From the perspective of being the structure that does this behaviour quale-ness is experienced. In the direction of the quale is perceived a 'perspective view' of character 'qualeness'. (tough language, this!) This is 'matter' but has intentionality. It is intrinsically 'about' something elsewhere. ========================= We easily recognise A as being matter. Q1. What would we recognise as B? A1. It is not matter in the sense we know it. I'd call it 'virtual matter'. From the point of view of being the structure behaving quale-ly, it is acting 'as-if' some other part of the structure interacted with it. More than that the interaction is transient. The structure has to repeatedly behave as if interacting with the selected other part of the structure. This suggests repetitious behaviour of matter will be associated with the arrival of virtual matter. ========================== So you can see that with simple about the nature of hierarchical structures we have made some headway as to how qualia may be possible. Have a think about it, anyway... colin --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
