[Fis] "Percepts" and self-reference and meaning (OFF-LINE)

[Louis Kauffman]

Dear Karl,
I agree with Alex. We see that, as Penrose pointed out, that a consideration of Goedel’s results shows that non-conscious entities equipped to act by some explicit set of rules are either inconsistent or incomplete if they are rich enough to have arithmetic.
Hey! Listen! I did not do any fancy argument beyond Goedel here.
A formal system or Turing machine is by definition a non-conscious entity equipped to act by some explicit set of rules.
Goedel proved that such formal systems, if rich enough to handle arithmetic, are either inconsistent or incomplete.

As for you, maybe you are inconsistent. But if you are consistent then you can’t be just a Turing machine because you can be conscious of proving the 
Goedel Theorem. Whatever consciousness, the ability to reason and comprehend, is, it is not a production of Turing machines. It is not a production of non-conscious entities equipped to act by some explicit set of rules.

But its ok you know. 
Try it out for yourself. 
Maybe you are just a bundle of rules. 
Maybe the words you say when you refer to yourself, are just indicational symbols like my indicative shift.
A —> B
Shifts to 
#A —> AB
So if
M —> #
Then
#M —> #M.
Saying I is just a pointer.
Getting to see the Pythagorean theorem as true is just a collection of pointers that obtain an “agreement symbol” from the computational system.
You see. 
You are nothing but a bundle of rules acting on each other.
And how do “know” that?
How do you know?
How?
Where is your knowledge built?
>From something?
Really?
There is nothing to hold that knowledge.
There is nothing.
Not one thing.
Consciousness is not an epiphenomenon of non-conscious things.

But I did not intend to get on a soapbox.
The point is to keep looking at every single item that occurs in your “consciousness” and particularly to look at how things work and how they are built.
And you have to see that we just do not know anything.
Just look.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tumblr.com/the-wolf-and-moon/773473627065729024/m104-sombrero-galaxy?redirect_to=*2Fthe-wolf-and-moon*2F773473627065729024*2Fm104-sombrero-galaxy&source=blog_view_login_wall__;JSUl!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RN-AkUcUBytK8rPPqgsYoZvJiEHMkCr9HRl5oyz31-CCq-egXdSKyLiYEU6-MMv7w3OE1AF4XY3MipGZ$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tumblr.com/the-wolf-and-moon/773473627065729024/m104-sombrero-galaxy?redirect_to=*the-wolf-and-moon*773473627065729024*m104-sombrero-galaxy&source=blog_view_login_wall__;Ly8v!!D9dNQwwGXtA!RN-AkUcUBytK8rPPqgsYoZvJiEHMkCr9HRl5oyz31-CCq-egXdSKyLiYEU6-MMv7w3OE1AF4XWz8t9dL$ >

Best,
Lou


> On Jan 27, 2025, at 11:25 PM, Alex Hankey <alexhankey at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Karl, 
> I am simply astonished that an intellectual of your quality 
> is capable of such a statement. You do not flatter yourself 
> by being flippant about a subject, on which you are 
> obviously as blithely ignorant as, say, Daniel Dennett. 
> I suggest that you consider: 
> 1. The depth of knowledge in the ancient Indian Sciences 
> and their astonishing accuracy in many subject areas. 
> 2. The centrality of 'consciousness-qua-consciousness' to 
> their whole system, and the brilliant, penetrating statements 
> that they made concerning it in their various 
> 'Systems of Philosophy'.
> Respectfully, 
> Alex Hankey
> 
> On Tue, 28 Jan 2025 at 09:27, Karl Javorszky <karl.javorszky at gmail.com <mailto:karl.javorszky at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Well, it depends on one's fascination by food, birds, cats, paintings, poetry or dancing, or any other personal preference, what is "important" in one's eyes.
> Your opinion is 
>  the far more interesting question is, "What self-referencing procedure produces consciousness??" 
> 
> In your opinion, consciousness is a subject that raises your engagement. For others, it is sex, speaking dirty, desecration of holy items or simply being irreverent against authority or something else, that is far more interesting than consciousness. 
> What makes you eroticized about consciousness? (was it an additional thrill that Mme Pelicot was unconscious while being raped?) 
> 
> What is the difference between an unconscious and an alert person? Specifically in terms of physics or data processing, is it of interest whether the janitor in the building where the database is working, is drunk, high or sober like a judge of peace? 
> 
> Please elaborate on your feelings for unconscious, as opposed to conscious things, machines, natural phenomena or cybernetic dependencies. 
> 
> Karl 
> 
> Alex Hankey <alexhankey at gmail.com <mailto:alexhankey at gmail.com>> schrieb am Di., 28. Jän. 2025, 02:48:
> But Karl, the far more interesting question is, "What self-referencing procedure produces consciousness??" 
> It is not achievable by any procedure that involves classical physics, and your procedures (and von Neumann's, as far as I can tell) only require classical physics for their implementation. 
> Best wishes to all, 
> Alex 
> 
> 
> On Mon, 27 Jan, 2025, 15:11 Karl Javorszky, <karl.javorszky at gmail.com <mailto:karl.javorszky at gmail.com>> wrote:
> Dear Lou,
> 
> You assert:
> 
> "If you wish to have an actual self-referential entity such as yourself, there is at present no schema the can be filled in to produce it."
> 
> The task of creating a self-referential entity can be solved by using the collection of all forms of the sentence 
> a + b = c, with a, b <= 16, a <= b. This is called the etalon collection and is 136 elements strong. 
> 
> If the collection is in order alfabeta, a change into order gammadelta is a self-referencing procedure. 
> 
> One needs only to reorder 12 books from author - title into title - author orders (these are the alfabeta resp gammadelta orders). 
> 
> The existence or not of an observer, and whether the observer is alive or clairvoyant, is irrelevant. 
> 
> The self-referencing quality of assemblies of which the members are related to each other is a logical consequence of the elements being related to each other. This is why the phenomenon can't be present on assemblies of more than 136 integer, or equivalent to that, 137.03.... as a non-integer value of consistency of the assembly. 
> 
> The self-referencing quality of members of groups is available for us in the form of a numeric table, in which the value of belonging to a group or not, is a numeric constant. The sentence a + b = c implicates many rules about self-referencing in closed groups. The cross-section of time can be agreed to be less than infinite in extent, leaving diplomatically the question unanswered, whether anything in Nature can be of an infinite extent. The "now" is within the Eddington habitat and is a closed collection. The system of self-referencing rules is what we call Nature. 
> 
> Karl 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Alex Hankey M.A. (Cantab.) PhD (M.I.T.) DSc. (Hon Causa) Professor Emeritus of Biology,
> MIT World Peace University, 
> 124 Paud Road, Pune, MA 411038 
> Mobile (Intn'l): +44 7710 534195 
> Mobile (India) +91 900 800 8789 
> WhatsApp: as for Mobile, India
> _________________________

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listas.unizar.es/pipermail/fis/attachments/20250128/a509488b/attachment-0001.html>