That's why I referred to /information processing/ as a broader term
subsuming conscious thought. I assume you are familiar with Poincare's
account of how a the solution to a mathematical problem suddenly came to
him as he was about to step onto a bus, even though he hadn't thought
about it (consciously) for weeks.
Brent
On 2/23/2026 12:08 AM, Alastair wrote:
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)
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