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What’s wild to me is that Donald Hoffman is also proposing a similar foundation for his metaphysical theory of consciousness, ie that it is a fundamental proper

What’s wild to me is that Donald Hoffman is also proposing a similar foundation for his metaphysical theory of consciousness, ie that it is a fundamental property and that it exists outside of spacetime and leads via a markov chain of conscious agents (in a Network as described above) Ie everything that exists may be the result of some kind of Uber Network existing outside of space and time It’s a wild theory but the fact that these networks keep popping up and recurring at level upon level when agency and intelligence is needed is crazy https://youtu.be/yqOVu263OSk?si=SH_LvAZSMwhWqp5Q https://youtu.be/yqOVu263OSk?si=SH_LvAZSMwhWqp5Q

mistermann 2y ago
I don't think one even needs "supernatural" explanations. 1. Consider the base hardware of each agent: http://neuropathologyblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/shannon-curran-ms-shannon-curran.html?m=1 http://neuropathologyblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/shannon-curra... 2. Consider that (according to science anyways) there is no central broadcaster of reality (it is at least plausible) 3. Consider each agent (often/usually) "knows" all of reality, or at least any point you query them about (for sure: all agents claim to know the unknowable, regularly; I have yet to encounter one who can stop a "powerful" invocation of #3 (or even try: the option seems literally unavailable), though minor ones can be overridden fairly trivially (I can think of two contrasting paths of interesting consideration based on this detail, one of them being extremely optimistic, and trivially plausible)) Simplified: what is known to be, is (locally). 4. Consider the possibility (or assume as a premise of a thought experiment) that reality and the universe are not exactly the very same thing ("it exists outside of spacetime"), though it may appear that they are (see #3) Is it not fairly straightforward what is going on? A big part of the problem is that #3 is ~inevitably[1] invoked if such things are analyzed, screwing up the analysis, thus rendering the theory necessarily "false" (it "is" false...though, it will typically not be asserted as such explicitly, and direct questions will be ignored/dodged). [1] which is...weird (the inevitable part...like, it is as if consciousness is ~hardwired to disallow certain inspection (highly predictable evasive actions are invoked in response), something which can easily be tested/demonstrated).
- cscurmudgeon 2y ago
  Why is #3 obvious? How can agents know all of reality? May be a subset?
  - mistermann 2y ago
    knowledge = knowledge (true belief) "knowledge" = belief (possibly true but not necessarily, but sincerely perceived as "true") (I'm considering this from an abstract / autistic / "That's pedantic! [so stop doing it]" perspective, so I include quotation marks to note the technical distinction...in phenomenological analysis, perhaps they'd be left out, to better illustrate the local experience of reality, the true "is-ness" as it is. In normative discussions ("anything that good hackers would find interesting"), these things are generally rather taboo.) There's lots of nuance I'm leaving out, but that's the general idea. A popular though terminating description for the phenomenon is "that's just people expressing their opinion, everyone does it, that's what everything boils down to" (which can make it not only not obvious, but damn near invisible)...but consider the semantic differences of that with and without the inclusion of the word "just". (Also: watch out for #3, it's recursively self-referential, and has substantial cloaking / shape-shifting abilities. It is almost always and everywhere.) An alternate perspective: consider what an uneducated person "sees" in "reality" (aka: what "is", and "is not") as they go about their day, compared to highly educated (as opposed to knowledgeable) people from very distinct disciplines.
- AIorNot 2y ago
  Can you explain #3 and 4# more clearly? in #2 you are claiming there is no objective reality or no 'broadcaster' of reality We must assume some things as being objective such as a rational universe in order to make any claims at all. -if you are saying in #3 that humans as conscious agents make subjective claims about reality but that those claims are in fact 'the reality' for that agent or person, that is a subjective claim. (I'm not saying that that subjective reality isn't true for that person) Also, Hoffman doesn't make a 'supernatural' claim per se, his claim is simply that reality as 'we all see it' is NOT the whole story, and that it is in fact only the projection of a vast, infinitely complex network of conscious agents that creates what we perceive as the material universe and time. He starts with the idea that consciousness as a property is fundamental, existing outside of space and time and that if you apply reasoning and mathematics that networks of agents acting as UANs in a sense project that material universe into being, with that assumption, ie that it extrapolates to our entire universe. I'm not sure I'm (or anyone for that matter) is really qualified to answer that claim..it's so big that it does verge on mysticism. that's why I said its such a wild idea, but I found the article above another interesting piece of evidence for Hoffman, because it talks about a general theory underlying such networks: whose "repeated and recursive evolution of Universal Activation Networks (UANs). These networks consist of nodes (Universal Activators) that integrate weighted inputs from other units or environmental interactions and activate at a threshold, resulting in an action or an intentional broadcast" ie this is very similar to Hoffmans system of Conscious Agents -which is an extreme theory of such networks that I described above https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/eccentric-theories-of-consciousness-are-tolerated-but-why/ https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/eccentric-theories-of-cons...
optimalsolver 2y ago
>it exists outside of spacetime So I guess this theory won't be subject to empirical testing any time soon?
- jungturk 2y ago
  Perhaps "outside" means "resident on the boundary of", a la holograms and Maldecena's AdS/CFT work, and so still within reach of experiment?
  - codethief 2y ago
    How is AdS/CFT (as it pertains to describing spacetime & the Standard Model) within reach of experiment? We're not even in an AdS universe.
    - hughesjj 2y ago
      I was going to write something up but honestly the top two answers in this physics stack exchange do it more competently and comprehensively than I'm able https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/122540/why-are-anti-de-sitter-spaces-so-interesting-when-we-believe-the-universe-is-exp https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/122540/why-are-a... My takeaway/summary is 'AdS/CFT let's you temporarily change your space/model to make the math easier and then map it back into the original model. Although we don't currently have such a model specified for our particular observed universe, it still allows us to study functionality equivalent behavior and make some determinations over what is/isn't/could be possible'
      - codethief 2y ago
        From the link you posted: > Ok, so if I understand correctly, AdS spaces aren't meant to directly model the universe, but rather are used as a tool to make certain calculations in CFT easier? GP's comment was modelling the universe as AdS/CFT, though, which is why my question addressed precisely that part: > How is AdS/CFT (as it pertains to describing spacetime & the Standard Model)
pyinstallwoes 2y ago
So the gnostics were right? Demiurge spatial-temporal firewall of reality nodes
- quetzthecoatl 2y ago
  weren't the sophia/gnosis, emnations and eons were from greek philosophy? also any philosophy/hottakes that stress on duality (what's seen here and what's out there that is causing what's seen here - such as manichean, advaita etc).
kovezd 2y ago
Category theory is the mathematical formulation/foundation of this "Uber Network". Graphs are the most basic unit of meaning.
- rdlecler1 2y ago
  No, graphs are too inclusive.
  - superidiot1932 2y ago
    Can you expand on that?
    - rdlecler1 2y ago
      More generally there’s graph neural networks, for instance, but not you’re including many dynamic networks that are not open-ended or evolvable. The idea is to identify common dynamics and add constraints on the types of networks that are included to find general principles within that class. Kisen the constraints, you make the class too broad and can’t identify common principles.
- raidicy 2y ago
  I am a hobby student of category theory. Is there any breadcrumbs to your comment?
rdlecler1 2y ago
I don’t know if this exists outside of spacetime, but I have a suspicion that UACs didn’t begin with gene regulatory networks, but are more fundamental part of a computational universe hypothesis.
winter_blue 2y ago
This is a pretty cool theory that resonates well with me. What are some good places I can read more about this (and related theories)?
- rdlecler1 2y ago
  This sits in a larger field of complexity theory and complex adaptive systems. There was also some interesting work on “Artificial Life” although that research program seems to have fallen out of favor. My introduction in 1995 was the book Chaos and then Stuart Kauffman’s At Home in the Universe. Wolframs New Kind of Science was also interesting.
CuriouslyC 2y ago
This is just Berkeley's idealism with a bunch of pseudoscientific hand waiving. Consciousness isn't outside of space and time, it creates it.
humansareok1 2y ago
We've already invalidated hidden variable theories in Physics so I find it hard to believe consciousness has some separate class of hidden effects still undiscovered and allowable in our universe.
- naasking 2y ago
  > We've already invalidated hidden variable theories in Physics No we haven't.
  - humansareok1 2y ago
    The only theories not ruled out by Bell are non local. You have to accept such a mountain of nonsense for any non local theory to be valid that I don't think anyone takes them seriously.
    - naasking 2y ago
      Aside from non-local theories which have been known since the 1950s and are regularly used in quantum chemistry, superdeterministic theories have seen virtually no development. Claims that they either of these approaches entail a mountain of nonsense are based on no evidence.
      - humansareok1 2y ago
        I think you are misunderstanding. These are typically mathematical tricks used for computation and don't lead to actual non-local interpretations of QM. I don't think any major work is done without standard QFT. I doubt you can find any serious Theoretical Physicist who believes retrocausality or FTL information transmission is compatible with the Universe we observe. Anyway we've diverged off the actual crux which is that Quantum Conscious Woowoo theories require types of hidden variable theories which are not coherent with this Universe.
        naasking 2y ago

mistermann 2y ago

I don't think one even needs "supernatural" explanations. 1. Consider the base hardware of each agent: http://neuropathologyblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/shannon-curran-ms-shannon-curran.html?m=1 http://neuropathologyblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/shannon-curra... 2. Consider that (according to science anyways) there is no central broadcaster of reality (it is at least plausible) 3. Consider each agent (often/usually) "knows" all of reality, or at least any point you query them about (for sure: all agents claim to know the unknowable, regularly; I have yet to encounter one who can stop a "powerful" invocation of #3 (or even try: the option seems literally unavailable), though minor ones can be overridden fairly trivially (I can think of two contrasting paths of interesting consideration based on this detail, one of them being extremely optimistic, and trivially plausible)) Simplified: what is known to be, is (locally). 4. Consider the possibility (or assume as a premise of a thought experiment) that reality and the universe are not exactly the very same thing ("it exists outside of spacetime"), though it may appear that they are (see #3) Is it not fairly straightforward what is going on? A big part of the problem is that #3 is ~inevitably[1] invoked if such things are analyzed, screwing up the analysis, thus rendering the theory necessarily "false" (it "is" false...though, it will typically not be asserted as such explicitly, and direct questions will be ignored/dodged). [1] which is...weird (the inevitable part...like, it is as if consciousness is ~hardwired to disallow certain inspection (highly predictable evasive actions are invoked in response), something which can easily be tested/demonstrated).

cscurmudgeon 2y ago
Why is #3 obvious? How can agents know all of reality? May be a subset?
- mistermann 2y ago
  knowledge = knowledge (true belief) "knowledge" = belief (possibly true but not necessarily, but sincerely perceived as "true") (I'm considering this from an abstract / autistic / "That's pedantic! [so stop doing it]" perspective, so I include quotation marks to note the technical distinction...in phenomenological analysis, perhaps they'd be left out, to better illustrate the local experience of reality, the true "is-ness" as it is. In normative discussions ("anything that good hackers would find interesting"), these things are generally rather taboo.) There's lots of nuance I'm leaving out, but that's the general idea. A popular though terminating description for the phenomenon is "that's just people expressing their opinion, everyone does it, that's what everything boils down to" (which can make it not only not obvious, but damn near invisible)...but consider the semantic differences of that with and without the inclusion of the word "just". (Also: watch out for #3, it's recursively self-referential, and has substantial cloaking / shape-shifting abilities. It is almost always and everywhere.) An alternate perspective: consider what an uneducated person "sees" in "reality" (aka: what "is", and "is not") as they go about their day, compared to highly educated (as opposed to knowledgeable) people from very distinct disciplines.
AIorNot 2y ago
Can you explain #3 and 4# more clearly? in #2 you are claiming there is no objective reality or no 'broadcaster' of reality We must assume some things as being objective such as a rational universe in order to make any claims at all. -if you are saying in #3 that humans as conscious agents make subjective claims about reality but that those claims are in fact 'the reality' for that agent or person, that is a subjective claim. (I'm not saying that that subjective reality isn't true for that person) Also, Hoffman doesn't make a 'supernatural' claim per se, his claim is simply that reality as 'we all see it' is NOT the whole story, and that it is in fact only the projection of a vast, infinitely complex network of conscious agents that creates what we perceive as the material universe and time. He starts with the idea that consciousness as a property is fundamental, existing outside of space and time and that if you apply reasoning and mathematics that networks of agents acting as UANs in a sense project that material universe into being, with that assumption, ie that it extrapolates to our entire universe. I'm not sure I'm (or anyone for that matter) is really qualified to answer that claim..it's so big that it does verge on mysticism. that's why I said its such a wild idea, but I found the article above another interesting piece of evidence for Hoffman, because it talks about a general theory underlying such networks: whose "repeated and recursive evolution of Universal Activation Networks (UANs). These networks consist of nodes (Universal Activators) that integrate weighted inputs from other units or environmental interactions and activate at a threshold, resulting in an action or an intentional broadcast" ie this is very similar to Hoffmans system of Conscious Agents -which is an extreme theory of such networks that I described above https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/eccentric-theories-of-consciousness-are-tolerated-but-why/ https://evolutionnews.org/2023/10/eccentric-theories-of-cons...

optimalsolver 2y ago

>it exists outside of spacetime So I guess this theory won't be subject to empirical testing any time soon?

jungturk 2y ago
Perhaps "outside" means "resident on the boundary of", a la holograms and Maldecena's AdS/CFT work, and so still within reach of experiment?
- codethief 2y ago
  How is AdS/CFT (as it pertains to describing spacetime & the Standard Model) within reach of experiment? We're not even in an AdS universe.
  - hughesjj 2y ago
    I was going to write something up but honestly the top two answers in this physics stack exchange do it more competently and comprehensively than I'm able https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/122540/why-are-anti-de-sitter-spaces-so-interesting-when-we-believe-the-universe-is-exp https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/122540/why-are-a... My takeaway/summary is 'AdS/CFT let's you temporarily change your space/model to make the math easier and then map it back into the original model. Although we don't currently have such a model specified for our particular observed universe, it still allows us to study functionality equivalent behavior and make some determinations over what is/isn't/could be possible'
    - codethief 2y ago
      From the link you posted: > Ok, so if I understand correctly, AdS spaces aren't meant to directly model the universe, but rather are used as a tool to make certain calculations in CFT easier? GP's comment was modelling the universe as AdS/CFT, though, which is why my question addressed precisely that part: > How is AdS/CFT (as it pertains to describing spacetime & the Standard Model)

pyinstallwoes 2y ago

So the gnostics were right? Demiurge spatial-temporal firewall of reality nodes

quetzthecoatl 2y ago
weren't the sophia/gnosis, emnations and eons were from greek philosophy? also any philosophy/hottakes that stress on duality (what's seen here and what's out there that is causing what's seen here - such as manichean, advaita etc).

kovezd 2y ago

Category theory is the mathematical formulation/foundation of this "Uber Network". Graphs are the most basic unit of meaning.

rdlecler1 2y ago
No, graphs are too inclusive.
- superidiot1932 2y ago
  Can you expand on that?
  - rdlecler1 2y ago
    More generally there’s graph neural networks, for instance, but not you’re including many dynamic networks that are not open-ended or evolvable. The idea is to identify common dynamics and add constraints on the types of networks that are included to find general principles within that class. Kisen the constraints, you make the class too broad and can’t identify common principles.
raidicy 2y ago
I am a hobby student of category theory. Is there any breadcrumbs to your comment?

rdlecler1 2y ago

I don’t know if this exists outside of spacetime, but I have a suspicion that UACs didn’t begin with gene regulatory networks, but are more fundamental part of a computational universe hypothesis.

winter_blue 2y ago

This is a pretty cool theory that resonates well with me. What are some good places I can read more about this (and related theories)?

rdlecler1 2y ago
This sits in a larger field of complexity theory and complex adaptive systems. There was also some interesting work on “Artificial Life” although that research program seems to have fallen out of favor. My introduction in 1995 was the book Chaos and then Stuart Kauffman’s At Home in the Universe. Wolframs New Kind of Science was also interesting.

CuriouslyC 2y ago

This is just Berkeley's idealism with a bunch of pseudoscientific hand waiving. Consciousness isn't outside of space and time, it creates it.

humansareok1 2y ago

We've already invalidated hidden variable theories in Physics so I find it hard to believe consciousness has some separate class of hidden effects still undiscovered and allowable in our universe.

naasking 2y ago
> We've already invalidated hidden variable theories in Physics No we haven't.
- humansareok1 2y ago
  The only theories not ruled out by Bell are non local. You have to accept such a mountain of nonsense for any non local theory to be valid that I don't think anyone takes them seriously.
  - naasking 2y ago
    Aside from non-local theories which have been known since the 1950s and are regularly used in quantum chemistry, superdeterministic theories have seen virtually no development. Claims that they either of these approaches entail a mountain of nonsense are based on no evidence.
    - humansareok1 2y ago
      I think you are misunderstanding. These are typically mathematical tricks used for computation and don't lead to actual non-local interpretations of QM. I don't think any major work is done without standard QFT. I doubt you can find any serious Theoretical Physicist who believes retrocausality or FTL information transmission is compatible with the Universe we observe. Anyway we've diverged off the actual crux which is that Quantum Conscious Woowoo theories require types of hidden variable theories which are not coherent with this Universe.
      - naasking 2y ago