Hey Craig! I watched the video... very cool!
Questions: 1) Who is the user of the interface? What is "us"? 2) What is the interface representing? Hoffman uses the analogy of the file and the trash bin icons on the desktop. In a computer, I know that the file ultimately represents binary values that are encoded on a physical portion of my hard disk. The values themselves are voltage potentials that are sustained in a persistent way thanks to the laws of quantum physics (aside: jeez, who would have thought such a "random" theory could provide such stability at the macroscopic level?) and are interpreted by a human user. What is the analogue of the voltage potentials in the interface theory? Cheers, Dan On Tuesday, January 14, 2014 1:31:56 PM UTC-5, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > Donald Hoffman Video on Interface Theory of > Consciousness<http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dqDP34a-epI> > > A very good presentation with lot of overlap on my views. He proposes > similar ideas about a sensory-motive primitive and the nature of the world > as experience rather than “objective”. What is not factored in is the > relation between local and remote experiences and how that relation > actually defines the appearance of that relation. Instead of seeing agents > as isolated mechanisms, I think they should be seen as more like breaches > in the fabric of insensitivity. > > It is a little misleading to say (near the end) that a spoon is no more > public than a headache. In my view what makes a spoon different from a > headache is precisely that the metal is more public than the private > experience of a headache. If we make the mistake of assuming an Absolutely > public perspective*, then yes, the spoon is not in it, because the spoon is > different things depending on how small, large, fast, or slow you are. For > the same reason, however, nothing can be said to be in such a perspective. > There is no experience of the world which does not originate through the > relativity of experience itself. Of course the spoon is more public than a > headache, in our experience. To think otherwise as a literal truth would be > psychotic or solipsistic. In the Absolute sense, sure, the spoon is a > sensory phenomena and nothing else, it is not purely public (nothing is), > but locally, is certainly is ‘more’ public. > > Something that he mentioned in the presentation had to do with linear > algebra and using a matrix of columns which add up to be one. To really > jump off into a new level of understanding consciousness, I would think of > the totality of experience as something like a matrix of columns which add > up, not to 1, but to “=1″. Adding up to 1 is a good enough starting point, > as it allows us to think of agents as holes which feel separate on one side > and united on the other. Thinking of it as “=1″ instead makes it into a > portable unity that does something. Each hole recapitulates the totality as > well as its own relation to that recapitulation: ‘just like’ unity. From > there, the door is open to universal metaphor and local contrasts of degree > and kind. > > *mathematics invites to do this, because it inverts the naming function of > language. Instead of describing a phenomenon in our experience through a > common sense of language, math enumerates relationships between theories > about experience. The difference is that language can either project itself > publicly or integrate public-facing experiences privately, but math is a > language which can only face itself. Through math, reflections of > experience are fragmented and re-assembled into an ideal rationality – the > ideal rationality which reflects the very ideal of rationality that it > embodies. > -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
