@PhiloNeuroScie @DrYohanJohn @vineettiruvadi
Well of course, I don't claim to understand how exactly the process happens, but I don't see any other options. Otherwise you end up with answers that use the term 'emerge' which also has to do a lot of heavy lifting.
But also in principle the idea of converting information to another ontological category is very commonplace - e.g. you can send information in the form of bits to a 3D printer and it will make a sculpture for you.
But how do we decide that these are ontological rather than epistemological categories?
@DrYohanJohn @PhiloNeuroScie @vineettiruvadi
I think it's both. Our knowledge of our own consciousness is epistemically not empirical, in the sense that it does not come via our sensory organs but rather via introspection. Moreover it doesn't seem to belong to the ontological category of materials, in the sense that you can poke and prod a brain all you want but all you'll see are action potentials - not the actual qualia themselves. But it could be some other sort of invisible 'matter', I'm open to that possibility. Consciousness certainly doesn't *seem* to belong to the category of materials, just like, I dunno, vector spaces also don't belong to the category of matter.
Toviah Moldwin
Yohan John 🤖ðŸ§