Just to clarify, my 'extended' version of physicalism isn't intended to replace the standard version, which accepts the existence of elementary particles, the Big Bang etc (QM is a more complicated and partly unsettled issue). It just focusses on certain forms of brain activity corresponding to thoughts.
If meaning is given by common use, then 'thought' - not a technical term - is confined to awake humans (and perhaps their dreams, and conceivably also a few other creatures) . . . for now. Meanings can change over time. Alastair On Saturday, February 21, 2026 at 10:46:21 PM UTC Brent Meeker wrote: > A lot of biological information isn't even instantiated in neuronal > activity, it's in one's "gut" metaphorically speaking. > > I seems to me that a common mistake in idealism is to take consciousness > as the whole of thought. Yet we know that (c.f. Poincare') most thought is > unconscious information processing. > > Brent > > > On 2/21/2026 2:16 AM, Alastair wrote: > > Most of this is fascinating, insightful and deep - from what I can > understand of Parts I to IV. (I am wondering: did you have more than > cosmetic help from AI?) > > I would also be interested to know your definition of 'information' (as > bitstrings or equivalent? or as their chosen interpretation? or something > else?). Semantic imprecision can be a barrier to adequate understanding and > agreement in these (and many other) kinds of situation, so good definitions > are important. > > My own preferred version of physicalism has thought events as mass neural > events and so can include ideas, concepts etc, including thoughts in and > about a language, any of which could in theory be correct or incorrect (the > physical laws underpinning those events operate correctly regardless). It > would not appear to fall foul of any of the criticisms in part I of the > article if these are framed outside the context of information as being > ontologically primary; ie from this point of view physicalism is > self-consistent, in this version of it at least, and so contradicts the > assertion that ontologically primary information is the only > self-consistent position available. > > We may well have already detected electrical signals corresponding to > thoughts and could even one day decode them, if we can for example > individualise them to key neurons or assemblies and then bulk-analyse them > across macro-time; but I don't understand sufficiently to say whether or > not this this would refute the idea that information is ontologically > primary - this brings us back to the definition of information used, and > perhaps also to that of 'computational structures'. > > Alastair > > > On Sunday, February 15, 2026 at 8:52:30 AM UTC Quentin Anciaux wrote: > >> Hello everyone, >> >> I’m sharing the continuation of The Sapiens Attractor. >> >> If you’re interested in the deeper structure behind the idea, you can >> read it here: >> >> >> https://allcolor.medium.com/the-sapiens-attractor-maximal-informational-realism-and-the-god-loop-26393e34fa46 >> >> Hope you’ll enjoy it. >> Best, >> Quentin >> >> All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. (Roy >> Batty/Rutger Hauer) >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/4bffdfb3-cd5f-4211-9b82-d001637573c3n%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/4bffdfb3-cd5f-4211-9b82-d001637573c3n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/5fbe7e73-2312-4bfe-9ac8-921818e0aaa6n%40googlegroups.com.
