OK. That's somewhat helpful. But what we need are numbers, right?
So let's go with H_k(•) being a/the primary binding point. How do we measure
it? What is it in the person's physiology that we measure? It seems like the
validation has to occur in the distance measure:
d(x,y) = min_Q∈G max_k || H_k(y) - QH_k(x)Q^-1 ||
So we need real world bindings to those symbols. x,y ∈ people, whatever that
means. H_k is the change in the state of the person after *returning* to a
prior context. Let's just allow the state (U) to be whatever for now, glucose
levels, EEG, survey measured Virtue matrix, whatever. We simply assume it's a
high dimensional, dense space. Q is just a basis change for that space. Yeah,
therein lies the assumption that we can define such a space. But under all the
assumptions, it seems like the simplest operator.
All those bindings seem imaginable, to me. The problem I have is the loop. To what do we bind these
"closed loops"? I don't think we can bind them to things like loop k = 1 = {home, shower,
school}, because H_1 may be 0 one day (on "autopilot") but H_1 >> 1 on another day (you
were beaten and had your lunch money stolen).
We might be able say k = 1 = {healthy social support group, hypercompetitive
work colleagues, casually competitive Tennis group}. These supernodes may make
sense. One person's U() may not be impacted by the higher order effects of
competition: U_0→1 = 0. Another may not need social support: U_2→0 = 0.
But if we compare those two people H_1(x) = QH_1(y)Q^-1, where Q swaps one node
for the other. But we would hardly consider those two people to have equivalent
worldviews. Or, going back to the bullying example, if X is bullied on Tuesday
and Y is bullied on Wednesday is H_1(x) = QH_1(y)Q^-1 on Thursday? Or maybe it
takes some time? Maybe H_1(x) = QH_1(y)Q^-1 a week or so later after the
initial shock wears off? Or maybe if you shift Y's worldview by one autopilot
day, *then* it's equivalent to X's?
I guess my point is that for us to know whether the structure of the formalism matches, in any way at all,
the structure of the system being modeled, we need a whole "modeling relation". Encode the natural
system into the formalism. Decode the formalism into the natural system. A "data first" approach
defines the [en|de]coding, then searches for inferential structures on either side. I'm OK with your
formalism first approach as long as you commit to the followup of searching for [en|de]codings. Don't bail
halfway through and call it "done". 8^D
On 10/5/26 2:28 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote:
Good question. Yes, without experimental confirmation it is just fancy
mathematics. The model used for the proofs is an abstract model. It describes
how mindsets/worldviews of adaptive agents diverge and converge.
In a simple toy model it works like this:
A context/nodecan be: the places the agent moves through like home, school,
work, street.
An edge means stepping from one context to another: home-street, home-work, ....
Moving along the edges changes the internal valuation matrix of the agent.
Every time an agent moves along an edge, their internal valuation frame gets
rotated or updated by an edge matrix. The experience of making that specific
transition reshapes how they evaluate things.
If we reach the same context again we get a loop. A holonomy H measures how a
valuation changes after a loop of contexts. It is the total, combined shift in
the agent's worldview after completing that full loop.
A "breaking bad" model of two agents would include two agents who start with
slightly similar worldviews. One interacts with a group that thinks breaking the rules is
bad, and the other joins a group that believes breaking the rules is necessary to survive
because the world is cruel or rules have been imposed by bad people.
A more complex model would be cultural dissemination. As you know Robert
Axelrod created an agent-based model of cultural dissemination based on local
convergence global polarization. It would be interesting to combine his model
with the new gauge theory model.
Other areas of experimental verification would be
+ Group psychology and organizational psychology (group formation and
fragmentation, group influence in individual)
+ Political science (emergence of new movements, radicalization pathways, the
threshold of schisms, etc)
+ Sociology (what holds societies together, and what is the role of
socialization and institutions in maintaining social cohesion, to what extent
is the individual shaped by society)
-J.
-------- Original message --------
From: glen <[email protected]>
Date: 10/5/26 8:00 PM (GMT+01:00)
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] A field theory of understanding
I haven't finished reading Jochen's theorems yet. But it seems obvious to me
that he's not claiming experiences are private so much as they are unique. It
seems more about irreversibility or unreachability than closedness.
And I'm no expert on Wittgenstein, but my own perspective has been that his
dictum was more about coherent form as opposed to ontology. I.e. if your
language/formalism is inadequate for its target, then it's useless for talking
about that target. It's similar to Rosen's argument that predicativity is
inadequate for describing complex systems. Maybe some of us just toss up our
hands and give up when our language seems inadequate. But others of us develop
new language. And still others push the current language as far as it can
possibly be pushed until we're convinced of its [in]adequacy.
But back to the first theorem. This seems much closer to a theory (by which I mean a body
of assertions falsifiable through measurement). But what still seems missing are the
bindings. We don't need bindings for *every* symbol in the math. Some symbols can be
internal. (What that _means_ is debatable.) The "numerical" sections for both
give a good indication of what we have to bind. Theorem 1 uses {x,y,z,roll,pitch,yaw,t}.
Theorem 2 doesn't seem to have a clear binding point. Maybe I just missed it. So we can
stick to T1.
I find the binding mysterious. I have no idea what the points in the space might be. It seems to
rely on the word "concept", as in "returning to the same baseline situation or
concept". But that seems like assuming the consequent to assume something like a concept, then
prove something about independent loops returning to it. So that can't be the binding point. Maybe
H_x is the binding point, some kind of Δconcept. That's easier to bind because we *can* measure the
changes in the brain/CNS before an after an experience (e.g. showing you a picture while you're in
the MRI machine).
So my question is: Which of these symbols are bound to measurements we can (or
may one day) be able to make? Without that binding, all this math is merely
decorative, great for hypnotizing your math-envious friends but useless for
science.
On 10/4/26 7:40 AM, Eric Charles wrote:
> As some of you know, I recently finished a draft of The Book (the one I have
been writing for around 15 years now, with a foundation in Nick's writing, but
extended beyond that). I have circulated drafts to some readers... so if any of
you are interested....
>
> This appears in the epilogue and speaks directly to the question here:
>
> Wittgenstein laid down a gauntlet to 21^st century philosophers, “Wovon man
nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen,” which is often translated to,
“About what one can not speak, one must remain silent.” This has been broadly
taken to indicate that we should shut the heck up about a wide range of topics
regarding the mind, under the assumption that /all/ such talk is a prime example
of that-about-which-we-cannot-speak. /If/ mind-body dualism is true, either in its
classical form or its modern neural form, then your “feeling of anger” or
“experience of blue” is something that exists only in your mental space, that only
you could access, and my “feeling of anger” or “experience of blue” is something
that exists only in my mental space, that only I could access. And /if/ that is
how minds work, then we can try to talk about such things all we want, but
ultimately it is /impossible/ for us to talk about them sensibly. Wittgenstein’s
various thought experiments
> demonstrated this repeatedly. Understood in this fashion — understood in
combination with a /separate/ commitment to dualism — many people have understood
Wittgenstein to be one more philosopher offering proof that a science of
psychology is impossible.
>
> However, given [William] James’s influence on Wittgenstein, we do not see
his dictum as pointing to a fatal flaw. Instead, we understand his dictum as
pointing out a dilemma faced by the field of psychology: Those interested in
psychology must /decide/ whether the phenomena they are discussing are,
inherently, an example of that-of-which-we-/cannot/-speak, or if the phenomena
they are discussing might very well be the types of thing we /can/ speak about
sensibly.
>
> We assume, if you got this far, that you are the type of person deeply
interested in psychological happenings. If, after all the scrutinizing you can
muster, you believe you are interested in something that cannot be talked about
sensibly, then you should find a way to deal with the inevitable sadness and
disappointment of that situation, and then you should try to find other things to
be interested in. We, however, prefer the other option. We believe psychological
phenomena are the types of things that /can/ be talked about sensibly, and we have
endeavored to show that such a position can work, in practice. We believe there is
nothing within our attempt to understand psychological terms that is fundamentally
different than Lavoisier’s attempt to understand the elements. Like Lavoisier, we
may be right or wrong about particular details, but only in the types of ways that
can be readily corrected over time… because the things we are talking about can be
investigated readily,
> with no magic or vital essence, or other mystical factors having been
included.
>
> We believe that psychological phenomena are the types of things that
/can/evolve, that /can/develop, and that /can/be studied. They are aspects of
behavioral design. And that design deserves to be recognized and accounted for, to
be both described accurately and explained well.
>
>
>
> Best,
> Eric
>
>
> <mailto:[email protected]>
>
>
> On Sun, Oct 4, 2026 at 4:40 AM <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>
> If this is a polite way to say shut up then please ignore the rest. What
Wittgenstein wants to say by "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain
silent" is apparently that things like anxiety, pain, nothingness, religion, the
meaning of life, subjective experience or feelings lie outside the logical world and cannot
be meaningfully described in words. That is one way to see it. I see it differently. The
problem is if we remain silent we will never understand it. I prefer Karl Popper's
optimistic view to the depressive pessimism of Wittgenstein. Popper argued that substantial,
real-world problems exist in philosophy, not just linguistic puzzles as Wittgenstein claims.
>
> For me the things we cannot describe meaningful (yet) are the interesting ones. We just need to find
the right languages, theories, perspectives or metaphors. One useful metaphor for pain is as you said "an
emergency organization of behavior in which the agent deploys physical and social defenses of various
sorts". If we describe pain as a mechanism to protect a person it is personal by definition. And yet we all
can understand what it is like to feel pain in general. If we watch the movie "Marley & Me" for
instance we can understand what it is like to lose a loved dog because most of us have experienced such a loss
of a cat or dog or hamster or horse ourselves ( by the way we have a new horse now named Mack which looks like
this https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VDyNyTsMccg <https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VDyNyTsMccg> ).
>
> This is in my opinion the solution to the hard problem: the film maker turns a
1st-person view in a 3rd-person view, the cinema conveys the 3rd-person view to the persons
in the audience, and they are able to understand roughly what-it-is-like-to-be the lead
actor because they see and hear what it goes through and they know what it feels like to
experience pain, loss, and suffering. According to Wittgenstein cinemas should not be
allowed to exist ("one must remain silent"). But people like them because they
want to know what-it-is-like-to-be someone else. Cinemas help to solve the hard problem.
>
> -J.
>
> On 2026-10-04 03:35, Nicholas Thompson wrote:
> > You can say that. But you end by reasserting the privacy of pain. And
> > …
> >
> > Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen
> >
> > You just cannot have it both ways.
> >
> > N
> >
> > Sent from my Dumb Phone
> >
> > On Oct 3, 2026, at 2:26 PM, [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Claude was not happy about the theorem proofs that Gemini created.
> > And Jon also mentioned that they are not waterproof. So I asked Claude
> > and Gemini if they could write a new proof. They could. I asked them
> > if we could use gauge theory to explain subjective experience - gauge
> > invariance to describe objectivity, and symmetry breaking for
> > subjectivity. Both Claude and Gemini said yes, and Claude was able to
> > formulate a proof that both could agree on (combining two AIs which
> > have different personalities often gives better results than just
> > using one). Gemini is curious and creative, Claude is accurate and
> > precise. The result was a proof for a theorem of a new "field theory
> > of understanding". I understand only half of the mathematics, but the
> > physicist who use gauge theory for quantum field theories also
> > understand only half of it.
> >
> > I have uploaded the new proofs here. The theorems are named the same,
> > only the proofs are different. If they are more convincing than the
> > old ones, then the idea is to replace the proofs in the appendix with
> > this version. In my opinion the solution to the hard problem looks
> > similar to this - in combination with the other things written in the
> > rest of the book.
> > https://jochenfromm.github.io/PhilosophyBook/QualiaTheorems.pdf
<https://jochenfromm.github.io/PhilosophyBook/QualiaTheorems.pdf>
> >
> > Paradoxically the qualia part that is most mysterious for some
> > researchers is not a problem for others at all. Nick for example wrote
> > he does not believe in qualia and sees emotions as regulations. In a
> > post he argued "To me, pain is an emergency organization of my
> > behavior in which I deploy physical and social defenses of various
> > sorts.... To me, the question, “What is it like to be X?”, has
> > been fully answered when you have said where X-like people can be
> > found and what they will be doing there... for me, feeling is a kind
> > of doing, an exploring of the world". I would agree to most of it but
> > for me what an animal is doing alone gives us only a hint what it
> > feels. If a horse for example is injured and feels pain, it does not
> > scream or cry, and you see no tears. Only if you know the animal well
> > you realize that the behavior is slightly different, for example by
> > the things it is not doing. I am certain animals feel pain just as
> > intense as we do, but it is hard to recognize from th
> > eir behavior alone. If it would be better visible, would we still eat
> > pigs and cows in large amounts (this reminds me of "Why We Love Dogs,
> > Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows" from Melanie Joy)?
> >
> > -J.
> >
--
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