I've got no idea how to formalise these ideas. But I think the complete story would be much more complicated and would have to take into account set theory. Ultimately, I think that the recursive unfolding of the ASA resembles something like the iterative construction of the set-theoretical universe (hierarchy V). In its core, as prereflective self-awareness, the ASA is represented by the empty set, and its subsequent reflection levels (i.e. its awareness of that self-awareness, its awareness of that awareness, etc.) correspond to the subsequent levels of V. It would be nice if I could show that ASA in being aware of its own awareness performs something like the power set operation on itself, since it basically is the power set operation that builds up V (together with taking the union of the preceding levels at limit ordinals)...
The mathematician Paul Corazza has developed similar ideas (in much greater mathematical detail), combining set theory and Vedanta in a way that I like very much, although I find it difficult to judge his work. He seems to be a fringe figure (not that there is anything intrinsically wrong with being on the fringe). Here is a link to a relevant paper of his: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kameswara_Rao_Chellapilla2/post/Can_philosophy_help_to_innovate_and_develop_scientific_theory/attachment/5b5310a5b53d2f89289b197c/AS%3A650784001761290%401532170405671/download/Mathematics+of+Pure+Consciousness.pdf As for mechanism / computationalism, I accept it for individual consciousness but not for Absolute Consciousness, i.e. the ASA qua prereflective self-awareness. The ASA is self-caused, it is ontologically primitive, explained by nothing but itself (you have to begin somewhere...). Now, there must be "something it is like" to be this ASA, it must have a quale associated with it, and the most plausible guess here is that this quale consists of ultimate bliss, a pure self-enjoying joy. Here I think the Vedanta is right on the spot when it defines the Absolute (i.e. Brahman) as "sat-cit-ananda", i.e. being-awareness-bliss. That, in my view, is the Ur-quale, the quale that subsequently is refracted into all the other qualia assiociated with the conscious experience of the universe, kind of like white light is refracted into different colours... So why and how does this refraction take place? Here I appeal to the idea of a mathematical unfolding of the ASA, as laid out in my blog post. Through its recursivity ASA generates the natural and then the real numbers, subsequently mirroring itself in those patterns whose associated algorithms simulate intelligent organisms... It is this mirroring in diverse numerical patterns that splits up the original bliss into different qualia... As all these patterns fall short of perfectly mirroring the Absolute (for the reasons I outlined in my post), none of these patterns reflect the Absolute's bliss fully back to the Absolute. They reflect that bliss back in variegated and imperfect ways and these (so I hypothesize) are the qualia we (and other organisms) experience.... So our qualia are the 'shards' or imperfect reflectings of the ultimate, self-enjoying bliss which is the Absolute... I agree, of course, with the Hard Problem of Consciousness: consciousness cannot be explained from the physical / mathematical. Hence the self-caused nature of the absolute consciousness (the ASA). But with the individual consciousnesses of individual organisms in the universe its a somewhat different story. First of all we arise as mathematical structures in the ASA, as it looks for those patterns in its mathematical unfolding in which it can mirror itself. When it finds such a pattern (such as the mathematical pattern of our brains) it recognizes itself in that pattern, causing its bliss to be reflected back to it in an imperfect, differentiated way, and this is what our conscious experience is. So our consciousness is the reflection of the Absolute's bliss as reflected by our underling mathematical pattern which is generated by the mathematical unfolding of the Absolute's self-awareness. One could say that the moment the ASA recognizes itself in some mathematical pattern is the moment this pattern is 'infused' with life and consciousness, a kind of Divine " Einfühlung / empathy"... So, to sum up, I don't see the mathematical structure of the physical as causing or producing the qualia of consciousness but just as reflecting back the bliss of the Absolute in diverse ways... One of the implications of this view is that the Absolute is the ultimate, underlying subject of all our experiences, again much in line with the Vedanta. It is the Absolute that experiences itself in numerous different ways in us... One last remark: it is easy to explain feelings such as pain and pleasure on this account. The more a mathematical pattern reflects the essence of the Absolute, the more that pattern reflects its bliss, thus the more pleasurable it is. But if a pattern deteriorates and starts to reflect that bliss in a less perfect way, than that is felt as pain. So when we experience supreme joy (say, an orgasm or esthetic joy) that is just our mathematical patterns reflecting the essence of the Absolute in an optimal way... It is nice to think that the universe is evolving in the sense of becoming an ever better mathematical representation of the Absolute, so that in the end the universe would become saturated with pleasure... Of course, I have no way of knowing whether all of this is true. I see it as a possible and perhaps plausible metaphysics, though of course it needs furter elaboration. P. Op dinsdag 21 augustus 2018 11:14:02 UTC+2 schreef Peter Sas: > > Might be of interest: > > > https://critique-of-pure-interest.blogspot.com/2018/08/some-thoughts-on-mathematical-unfolding.html > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
