6 ms·

While this sounds profound, I'm unable to figure out what it actually means. Can you explain more?

kaycebasques 7y ago
Your comment reminded me of Reggie Watts’ TED talk where he impersonates an intellectual TED talk by stringing together random big words in a British accent. https://youtu.be/BdHK_r9RXTc?t=55 https://youtu.be/BdHK_r9RXTc?t=55
- inopinatus 7y ago
  You got me. I actually do have a British accent. but I don't have his hair
- kgwgk 7y ago
  Micro is macro. Small is big. Up is down. I'm a clown! Digital. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KuTSAeFhdZU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KuTSAeFhdZU
inopinatus 7y ago
We are all value objects. Imagine that eat a banana. The contents of your stomach change. You have assumed a new identity. If you grasp/accept this, you are perceiving yourself as having mutated after eating the banana, because you are in temporal lockstep with your stomach. Most of what we consider to be "fact" and "how the world works" is a matter of perception. But I don't mean that in some hippy dippy way. I mean it in the Cartesian sense, roughly speaking, but at the mechanical level not the cognitive level, partly because I don't want to get trapped in the Cartesian circle but mostly because my idea of perception is any matter whose input function is the state of all other matter, conscious or otherwise, and thereby that the arrow of time arises from an evaluative process. If I had a spare lifetime I'd probably want to pursue this at postgraduate level at some reputable philosophy department, if there is one. But essentially the thesis is that state is coterminous with identity, and mutation of state therefore creates a new entity, and my interest is in the fundamental processes behind that. Hence the suggestion: we are all value objects, all matter is information, all information is functional, and perception is therefore the lazy evaluation of the universe. Note: this is especially important when you are the banana.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  And we are all the banana.
- danbruc 7y ago
  I would raise the following objections. First, you place a lot of emphasize on perception. What if we kill - or lets say remove - all humans and animals and aliens from the universe so that we are only left with rocks and gas clouds and other stuff we would not usually link to perceiving the universe? Do you really think removing the last entity perceiving the universe would fundamentally change what is going on with all the rocks and gas clouds? What about the moment the first entity perceiving the universe came into existence? Or do you mean perceiving in a more general sense, like in quantum mechanics, where we talk about interactions and - possibly unfortunately, again due to the association with conscious agents - measurements? Second, you do not seem to be talking about the universe in its entirety, you seem to be talking about a universe evolving in time with time being outside of that universe. This is the very point the article argues - and I think rightly so - against, ultimately there can be nothing outside of the universe, not even time, hence the universe in its entirety must be a - for the lack of a better word - static object not evolving over some time external to it.
  - inopinatus 7y ago
    > Or do you mean perceiving in a more general sense Yes. I'm using it to mean evaluation as the fundamental causal process. I don't believe consciousness is orthogonal to the universe, ergo it must emerge from the processes within it. Sorry, the term perception is a bit loaded in this regard. But here's the thing: I also don't want to exempt a complex emergent arrangement of functions from evaluating its neighbours. Which is to say, I don't want to be excluded from looking at things. > Do you really think removing the last entity perceiving the universe would fundamentally change what is going on It's a good question. To me this scenario only occurs when nothing exists. > the universe in its entirety must be a static object Do you mean the conclusion that the universe is a rigid block of spacetime? I used to accept that as an undergrad, eventually rejecting it for the most common reason of all: the denial of free will, justifying this to myself on the grounds it conflicts with the halting problem. Unfortunately the problem then arises, "what fucking axioms do you believe then?". Here's the thing I like: if the universe is functional, then its laws may evolve as it evaluates, including the laws by which it evaluates. That provides an irreversible causal arrow, which is incompatible with a block universe. Not actually sure I could glean that from this article though. In the Greg Egan edition of this theory, the speed of light then emerges as a property of evaluative propagation through a functional universe, and new forms of consciousness are encountered living within the Lisp machine of the cosmos.

Your comment reminded me of Reggie Watts’ TED talk where he impersonates an intellectual TED talk by stringing together random big words in a British accent. https://youtu.be/BdHK_r9RXTc?t=55 https://youtu.be/BdHK_r9RXTc?t=55

inopinatus 7y ago
You got me. I actually do have a British accent. but I don't have his hair
kgwgk 7y ago
Micro is macro. Small is big. Up is down. I'm a clown! Digital. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KuTSAeFhdZU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KuTSAeFhdZU

inopinatus 7y ago

We are all value objects. Imagine that eat a banana. The contents of your stomach change. You have assumed a new identity. If you grasp/accept this, you are perceiving yourself as having mutated after eating the banana, because you are in temporal lockstep with your stomach. Most of what we consider to be "fact" and "how the world works" is a matter of perception. But I don't mean that in some hippy dippy way. I mean it in the Cartesian sense, roughly speaking, but at the mechanical level not the cognitive level, partly because I don't want to get trapped in the Cartesian circle but mostly because my idea of perception is any matter whose input function is the state of all other matter, conscious or otherwise, and thereby that the arrow of time arises from an evaluative process. If I had a spare lifetime I'd probably want to pursue this at postgraduate level at some reputable philosophy department, if there is one. But essentially the thesis is that state is coterminous with identity, and mutation of state therefore creates a new entity, and my interest is in the fundamental processes behind that. Hence the suggestion: we are all value objects, all matter is information, all information is functional, and perception is therefore the lazy evaluation of the universe. Note: this is especially important when you are the banana.

ncmncm 7y ago
And we are all the banana.
danbruc 7y ago
I would raise the following objections. First, you place a lot of emphasize on perception. What if we kill - or lets say remove - all humans and animals and aliens from the universe so that we are only left with rocks and gas clouds and other stuff we would not usually link to perceiving the universe? Do you really think removing the last entity perceiving the universe would fundamentally change what is going on with all the rocks and gas clouds? What about the moment the first entity perceiving the universe came into existence? Or do you mean perceiving in a more general sense, like in quantum mechanics, where we talk about interactions and - possibly unfortunately, again due to the association with conscious agents - measurements? Second, you do not seem to be talking about the universe in its entirety, you seem to be talking about a universe evolving in time with time being outside of that universe. This is the very point the article argues - and I think rightly so - against, ultimately there can be nothing outside of the universe, not even time, hence the universe in its entirety must be a - for the lack of a better word - static object not evolving over some time external to it.
- inopinatus 7y ago
  > Or do you mean perceiving in a more general sense Yes. I'm using it to mean evaluation as the fundamental causal process. I don't believe consciousness is orthogonal to the universe, ergo it must emerge from the processes within it. Sorry, the term perception is a bit loaded in this regard. But here's the thing: I also don't want to exempt a complex emergent arrangement of functions from evaluating its neighbours. Which is to say, I don't want to be excluded from looking at things. > Do you really think removing the last entity perceiving the universe would fundamentally change what is going on It's a good question. To me this scenario only occurs when nothing exists. > the universe in its entirety must be a static object Do you mean the conclusion that the universe is a rigid block of spacetime? I used to accept that as an undergrad, eventually rejecting it for the most common reason of all: the denial of free will, justifying this to myself on the grounds it conflicts with the halting problem. Unfortunately the problem then arises, "what fucking axioms do you believe then?". Here's the thing I like: if the universe is functional, then its laws may evolve as it evaluates, including the laws by which it evaluates. That provides an irreversible causal arrow, which is incompatible with a block universe. Not actually sure I could glean that from this article though. In the Greg Egan edition of this theory, the speed of light then emerges as a property of evaluative propagation through a functional universe, and new forms of consciousness are encountered living within the Lisp machine of the cosmos.