CJ Stevens - Metaphysiology
Is #neurotransmission to #consciousness as water is to a stream? Without the water, no stream. Yet to identify a particular spot along a stream, we do so not in terms of particular physical water molecules but rather in terms of "extra-stream" landmarks. Similarly, it is in terms of relatively fixed, not flowing, elements that we "navigate" consciousness. Such entities may be, eg, synaptically weighted habits; not particles of the stream's water, but features giving rise to riffles, pools, runs.
Jun 14, 2023 at 9:03amWeb
Show threadYohan John 🤖🧠Jun 16, 2023

@WorldImagining

Yup! We identify invariants using variation and vice versa. 🤓

https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2014/07/science-is-symmetry.html

Science: the Quest for Symmetry - 3 Quarks Daily

by Yohan J. John Attitudes toward science in the public sphere occupy an interesting spectrum. At one extreme there are the cheerleaders — those who seem to think that science is the disembodied spirit of progress itself, and will usher us into a brave new world of technological transcendence, in which we will merge with…

3 Quarks Daily
Show threadBenjamin Ultan CowleyJun 21, 2023
@DrYohanJohn @WorldImagining
Lovely analogy. Yet if it were to hold, how many dimensions would we need to describe the invariants of consciousness? Or put another way, whose invariant is it anyway?
Show threadCJ Stevens - MetaphysiologyJun 21, 2023
@zenben @DrYohanJohn I'm afraid I don't quite follow what you mean. Maybe Yohan does though!
Show threadYohan John 🤖🧠Jun 21, 2023

@WorldImagining @zenben

Not completely sure. I think all invariants are invariants to/for consciousness, so all dimensions we measure or infer are ultimately dimensions of consciousness. There is also a sort of invariance paradox related to the mind that I allude to at the end of that essay.

Show threadCJ Stevens - MetaphysiologyJun 21, 2023
@DrYohanJohn @zenben So, at bottom, invariance as a combination of observation and value judgement..?
Show threadYohan John 🤖🧠Jun 21, 2023

@WorldImagining @zenben

Where does the value judgment come in? In the choice of what to observe in the first place?

Show threadCJ Stevens - MetaphysiologyJun 21, 2023
@DrYohanJohn @zenben Sorry, that was clumsy. I meant evaluation; invariance can't be detected in an observation without a capacity for comparative evaluation of conditions/states.
Show threadYohan John 🤖🧠Jun 21, 2023

@WorldImagining @zenben

Right. And arguably this capacity is already implied in the concepts of observation and detection. Comparison relies on the "dialectic" of similarity and difference, which is the another way of saying that comparison is about invariants and variation (or equivalently, symmetries and transformations).

Show threadCJ Stevens - MetaphysiologyJun 21, 2023
@DrYohanJohn @zenben And proactive comparison, or prediction, is riding, if we can imagine it that way, the crest of the river of consciousness as it advances; some predictions easy, habitual, runs; some predictions fragmented, conflicting, riffles; and sometimes we can just put prediction on standby and chill in the pools.
Show threadYohan John 🤖🧠Jun 21, 2023

@WorldImagining @zenben

Yup! I make some related points here. (Very likely I have already shared this with you.)

https://yohanjohn.com/axispraxis/from-cell-membranes-to-computational-aesthetics-on-the-importance-of-boundaries-in-life-and-art-3/

From Cell Membranes to Computational Aesthetics: On the Importance of Boundaries in Life and Art

This essay was originally posted on April 21, 2014 at 3 Quarks Daily. No one knows exactly how life began, but a pivotal chapter in the story was the formation of the first single-celled organism —…

Yohan J. John, PhD