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I have been imersing myself in this subject and the gist of what I got is that consciousness collapses under the reductionist process currently employed in the

I have been imersing myself in this subject and the gist of what I got is that consciousness collapses under the reductionist process currently employed in the scientific method. Moreover, the very framework in which the current scientific work is done might well be just an emergent data structure used by what we understand as consciousness to navigate whatever the objective reality is in a way that is simpler and more effective than having to access quantum states and particle trajectories through senses. That being said, I think that there is something intrinsically insufficient in language itself to describe this wholistic relationship between consciousness, qualia and the perceived world. My take is that for anything to be communicated through symbols it has to undergo a reduction process which is essential to the flow of information to occur, otherwise you would have to communicate the entire universe at once, which is just impossible. You have to reduce reality to a set of symbols for the symbols itself to make sense. That is the whole premise of language, that a word has meaning only when immersed in other words (cow represents a cow insofar it doesn't represent anything else besides a cow). If this is true, and Gödel incompleteness Theorem is essential, then this whole talk might take us closer to representing the experience of consciousness but there might never be a unifying theory, because for that to exist, that has to be a language that represents everything without reducing it to none of its parts, a theory without postulates.

swader999 3y ago
You have a good grasp on this. Have you looked at Tom Campbell? He has a separate angle than Hoffman but very similar conclusions. The batshit crazy thing about Tom is that he shows you ways that you can individually experiment and prove through your own experiences the things he's positing. His My Big Toe trilogy goes into all this, but I shudder to recommend it. Tedious slog. If you really want to prove it to yourself, it's not too hard. This book by Kenneth Daz, "The Last Astral Projection Book You'll Ever Need", is the best way I've found, he's read endlessly and summarized it into a hundred pages. So far I've rolled out of my body twice now. Floated through my front door and got down my road a fair ways. Fully conscious, able to make choices, full memory after returning to my body. No psychedelics involved. You can't of course talk to anyone about this. My wife knows but she's been naturally OBE'ing since she's a kid. (Edit, I can't believe I'm not being down voted to oblivion here. Love HN).
- fishtacos 3y ago
  If I could, I would. Most of what you wrote is anathema to evidential scientific conversation. If you've got no evidence for it besides the subjective, then it's not provable. I've no idea who Tom is, so I followed up on what you wrote and believe I have enough of a glimpse to see he's a crackpot theorist. Being a physicist doesn't abscond one of the burden of proof. Apparently he's been cooking up a new double slit experiment for the past decade+. Yeah... OK... let's not even get started on falsifiability.
  - gchamonlive 3y ago
    I think maybe the only thing separating the guesswork involved in producing things like the amplituhedron is the fact that they are able to reproduce results in space-time that we can understand and verify. However, if this is true that we perceive space and time through the evolution of senses that are bounded by fitness functions unrelated to the real world, then the only verification method could deceive us. Maybe other expressions that don't match our observations might not be entirely invalid, they might just represent different emergent worlds not unlike the one we perceive through our senses. Maybe they could map to these transcendental or mystical experiences, I don't know, only guessing here. In any case, it serves us well to have untainted clarity in our objectives. If we intend to create abstractions that correlate to the real world and help us create tools that somehow explain or help manipulate the perceived reality (which I believe is the only reasonable goal), then falsifiability and proof in this sense is essential, and I have to agree with you.
    - fishtacos 3y ago
      Separating this question from the rest of the conversation: Do you think it's plausible we live in a simulated existence? If so, how? If not, why not? (very broad questions, am aware; simply wanted to get an input on your perspective).
      - gchamonlive 3y ago
        It's plausible, even probable, given the arguments layed out in Nick Bolstrom essay "Are you living in a computer simulation?". I used to think the question that should preclude this one is if the universe is even able to host a simulation of itself, but given that we know it is probable we live in a perceived reality that not only is separated from what we think as objective reality, that this perceived reality is, for the sake of survival, a much simplified version of the objective reality, then it isn't impossible that a base objective reality might harbor countless simulations not unlike the one we possibly live in. This is however an interesting experiment in a way to guide moral decisions when we encounter technological leaps, like if we ever develop the capability of producing an ASI. I don't think, however, that these considerations are falsifiable, because we can't just "break out" of our possible simulation to see what is what. What might that even mean? Would we be able to tell if we broke out of our simulation? It breeds all sorts of speculations that at the end of the day adds very little to the overall discussion. What I personally think is that there is something to be perceived and explored ousite of the realm of human concern, in the silence of the absence of the endless chatter of the cognitive consciousness, that is hard to experience and hard to describe, even though it is accessible to everyone, maybe in the form of a question, like "what is really keeping you from experiencing the dharma body of the Buddha?". I know this is all really esoteric and mystic, but I am really trying very hard to maintain a certain level of philosophical scrutiny here, if only whoever reads this might give me the benefit of the doubt. All in all this is my take on the subject and I hope I don't disappoint you too deeply.
nico 3y ago
Great take. Alan Watts described the issue pretty eloquently: > It's beyond all categorization whatsoever, and so the Upanishads say, “all we can say of it positively is the negative.” Neti neti; 'it is not this, not that. The above was specifically referring to “god”, however it’s pretty much the same concept. Anything we can symbolize is effectively not the ineffable thing that we want to represent with the symbols
AllegedAlec 3y ago
Jesus christ this is such pure pseudoscientific wankery.
- eureka-belief 3y ago
  Thanks for the helpful post. I especially liked the part where you called it “pseudoscience” without engaging points they listed. Helped me to really be convinced.
- Valgrim 3y ago
  I've got the same vibe, starting at "consciousness collapses under the reductionist process currently employed in the scientific method." Uuuhh yeah, like most abstract things, consciousness is an emergent property of simpler processes, so naturally if you look at it the other way and decompose the world to understand it, at some point it will collapse. The next part about the scientific framework being a data structure used by our consciousness blabla quantum particles...seems like just a complicated way to say: we are conscious, even if we don't know everything. Then, language being necessarily insufficient? Boy you like using lots of complicated words so much, you must be an expert at communicating things. Basically what I get here is: words represent concepts. (Wanking represents wanking insofar it doesn't represent anything else besides a wank. Except when I use the word 'wanking' as a metaphor for mental ejaculation). Then we start again making dubious links between particle physics and humanities (and of course declaring that one is impossible because of the other, for some reason.) This is the signature move of pseudo-science: using scientific words to appear as an authority to an audience, but then dismissing the pursuit of truth for reasons unrelated to the actual challenges of scientific research.
  - gchamonlive 3y ago
    You will definitely be better served with A Case Against Reality, much more than a single hn comment
- gchamonlive 3y ago
  I'm sorry it came out this way to you. I guess when we risk talking about things we don't understand we risk making a fool out of ourselves, but in any case how else can we evolve? What I tried to convey what I understood from the ideas Donald Hoffman expressed in a couple of podcasts I listened to (currently in the process of reading his book). All this debate is more in the realm of philosophy in my opinion, which of course doesn't exempt anyone the burden of proof and consistency, but I don't think the scientific method itself is useful here, since we are talking about fundamentals that precede the scientific method itself (for instance, the question "can apply the scientific method to everything we perceive, including our subjective experience?"). It might pass as mysticism or pseudoscience, hell even Hoffman sounds like that a lot, but I don't think I am qualified to question his insights and dismiss them as academic wankery.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

swader999 3y ago

You have a good grasp on this. Have you looked at Tom Campbell? He has a separate angle than Hoffman but very similar conclusions. The batshit crazy thing about Tom is that he shows you ways that you can individually experiment and prove through your own experiences the things he's positing. His My Big Toe trilogy goes into all this, but I shudder to recommend it. Tedious slog. If you really want to prove it to yourself, it's not too hard. This book by Kenneth Daz, "The Last Astral Projection Book You'll Ever Need", is the best way I've found, he's read endlessly and summarized it into a hundred pages. So far I've rolled out of my body twice now. Floated through my front door and got down my road a fair ways. Fully conscious, able to make choices, full memory after returning to my body. No psychedelics involved. You can't of course talk to anyone about this. My wife knows but she's been naturally OBE'ing since she's a kid. (Edit, I can't believe I'm not being down voted to oblivion here. Love HN).

fishtacos 3y ago
If I could, I would. Most of what you wrote is anathema to evidential scientific conversation. If you've got no evidence for it besides the subjective, then it's not provable. I've no idea who Tom is, so I followed up on what you wrote and believe I have enough of a glimpse to see he's a crackpot theorist. Being a physicist doesn't abscond one of the burden of proof. Apparently he's been cooking up a new double slit experiment for the past decade+. Yeah... OK... let's not even get started on falsifiability.
- gchamonlive 3y ago
  I think maybe the only thing separating the guesswork involved in producing things like the amplituhedron is the fact that they are able to reproduce results in space-time that we can understand and verify. However, if this is true that we perceive space and time through the evolution of senses that are bounded by fitness functions unrelated to the real world, then the only verification method could deceive us. Maybe other expressions that don't match our observations might not be entirely invalid, they might just represent different emergent worlds not unlike the one we perceive through our senses. Maybe they could map to these transcendental or mystical experiences, I don't know, only guessing here. In any case, it serves us well to have untainted clarity in our objectives. If we intend to create abstractions that correlate to the real world and help us create tools that somehow explain or help manipulate the perceived reality (which I believe is the only reasonable goal), then falsifiability and proof in this sense is essential, and I have to agree with you.
  - fishtacos 3y ago
    Separating this question from the rest of the conversation: Do you think it's plausible we live in a simulated existence? If so, how? If not, why not? (very broad questions, am aware; simply wanted to get an input on your perspective).
    - gchamonlive 3y ago
      It's plausible, even probable, given the arguments layed out in Nick Bolstrom essay "Are you living in a computer simulation?". I used to think the question that should preclude this one is if the universe is even able to host a simulation of itself, but given that we know it is probable we live in a perceived reality that not only is separated from what we think as objective reality, that this perceived reality is, for the sake of survival, a much simplified version of the objective reality, then it isn't impossible that a base objective reality might harbor countless simulations not unlike the one we possibly live in. This is however an interesting experiment in a way to guide moral decisions when we encounter technological leaps, like if we ever develop the capability of producing an ASI. I don't think, however, that these considerations are falsifiable, because we can't just "break out" of our possible simulation to see what is what. What might that even mean? Would we be able to tell if we broke out of our simulation? It breeds all sorts of speculations that at the end of the day adds very little to the overall discussion. What I personally think is that there is something to be perceived and explored ousite of the realm of human concern, in the silence of the absence of the endless chatter of the cognitive consciousness, that is hard to experience and hard to describe, even though it is accessible to everyone, maybe in the form of a question, like "what is really keeping you from experiencing the dharma body of the Buddha?". I know this is all really esoteric and mystic, but I am really trying very hard to maintain a certain level of philosophical scrutiny here, if only whoever reads this might give me the benefit of the doubt. All in all this is my take on the subject and I hope I don't disappoint you too deeply.

nico 3y ago

Great take. Alan Watts described the issue pretty eloquently: > It's beyond all categorization whatsoever, and so the Upanishads say, “all we can say of it positively is the negative.” Neti neti; 'it is not this, not that. The above was specifically referring to “god”, however it’s pretty much the same concept. Anything we can symbolize is effectively not the ineffable thing that we want to represent with the symbols

AllegedAlec 3y ago

Jesus christ this is such pure pseudoscientific wankery.

eureka-belief 3y ago
Thanks for the helpful post. I especially liked the part where you called it “pseudoscience” without engaging points they listed. Helped me to really be convinced.
Valgrim 3y ago
I've got the same vibe, starting at "consciousness collapses under the reductionist process currently employed in the scientific method." Uuuhh yeah, like most abstract things, consciousness is an emergent property of simpler processes, so naturally if you look at it the other way and decompose the world to understand it, at some point it will collapse. The next part about the scientific framework being a data structure used by our consciousness blabla quantum particles...seems like just a complicated way to say: we are conscious, even if we don't know everything. Then, language being necessarily insufficient? Boy you like using lots of complicated words so much, you must be an expert at communicating things. Basically what I get here is: words represent concepts. (Wanking represents wanking insofar it doesn't represent anything else besides a wank. Except when I use the word 'wanking' as a metaphor for mental ejaculation). Then we start again making dubious links between particle physics and humanities (and of course declaring that one is impossible because of the other, for some reason.) This is the signature move of pseudo-science: using scientific words to appear as an authority to an audience, but then dismissing the pursuit of truth for reasons unrelated to the actual challenges of scientific research.
- gchamonlive 3y ago
  You will definitely be better served with A Case Against Reality, much more than a single hn comment
gchamonlive 3y ago
I'm sorry it came out this way to you. I guess when we risk talking about things we don't understand we risk making a fool out of ourselves, but in any case how else can we evolve? What I tried to convey what I understood from the ideas Donald Hoffman expressed in a couple of podcasts I listened to (currently in the process of reading his book). All this debate is more in the realm of philosophy in my opinion, which of course doesn't exempt anyone the burden of proof and consistency, but I don't think the scientific method itself is useful here, since we are talking about fundamentals that precede the scientific method itself (for instance, the question "can apply the scientific method to everything we perceive, including our subjective experience?"). It might pass as mysticism or pseudoscience, hell even Hoffman sounds like that a lot, but I don't think I am qualified to question his insights and dismiss them as academic wankery.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]