INTRODUCTION Extended 11/05/2021 This work is about Learning, Certainty and Causality in Consciousness. Specifically it is about learning with certainty about causality, both in and out of consciousness. Historically it has been admitted that the physical sciences do not provide certainty of truth, only mathematical and physical models holding some probability of workable dependability in their predictions. "Truth", beyond pure observation, is not the agenda of theory, nor of the physical universe sciences. Workability however is. Aside from your conscious experiences of it, the whole world is a theory actually. As long as it gets you the apple in your belly, that's generally good enough. So the goal of science is dependable predictability and thus workability. Nothing more. The true WHY anything happens is not available to science, only a model of HOW it might be happening which produces the same results as observable actuality. The HOW of any process is a complete description of any necessary or sufficient precursors to the end result, and the time ordered pathway between them. Like a series of falling dominoes, the fall of the last domino falling is modeled upon all the prior dominoes falling too until the reach the last one. What other 'certainties' we might profess have generally been relegated to faith. But faith is the opposite of certainty, and so between theory and faith, certainty has been left out in the cold. Put simply, in a mechanical space time universe, causation is not sufficient to witness causation. That's called Jane's Law because Jane E. Staller was the first to say it that way. Science however has depended upon Jane's law as one of its most fundamental axioms of the scientific method. Certainty of cause is not possible via certainty of effect. This is because the physical universe constrains us in learning about cause to learning by being an effect. Learning by being an effect is defined as receiving an effect and learning from that effect about the possible nature of the cause. One observes the effect perhaps, but never the cause, the cause remains forever a theory about the past and distant cause from us. Since effects do not prove cause with perfect certainty, a being that learns about cause only by being an effect of that cause, can never learn about that cause with perfect certainty. That is, learning by being an effect is not sufficient to prove the existence of cause, nor does learning by being an effect allow us to more than model or theorize about the true nature of that possible cause if it does exist. There is however a certainty of interest that resides between the absolute uncertainties of the physical sciences and the disingenuous false 'certainties' of the world of faith. These are the various perfect certainties of consciousness. Among them are the certainties we have that we exist, are conscious, hurt and give a damn. Also included are the certainties we have of what we are conscious of, namely our conscious experiences. For example the perceived color forms of the conscious landscape around us, red, green, blue, sounds, tastes, smells, feelings and emotion. And the certainty we have of our own personal agency, or causation in the world. I AM, I WANT, I KNOW and I DO are the big 4. Although the term color-form specially mentions color, we define color-form to mean any possible perfectly certain conscious experience of any kind whatsoever. In other words, anything you can be conscious of is a color-form, and all color-forms are someone's consciousness of them. Thus all conscious awareness and perception are awareness and perception of color-forms, including self awareness and awareness of agency, intent, will and volition. So let's do a simple thought experiment. Desire to move your hand, then move it. Was there cause between your desire and the hand moving? What were the various hops of causation along the pathway from first inception to do this, and its final execution? We are not talking about what you have been taught in school about your brain, we are talking about YOU, YOUR DESIRE AND INTENT and YOUR VOLITION in moving your hand. Did your hand just happen to move coincidentally at the same as you desired it to move? Did someone or something else move your hand for you once it saw your intent to move it yourself. Can you be SURE that YOU MOVED YOUR HAND AND THAT THIS EVENT WAS CAUSALLY RELATED TO YOUR DESIRE TO MOVE IT? A machine can not perceive cause at all. The search for causation in the outward physical universe is actually an anthropomorphization of directly perceived causation in ourselves. We can see our consciousness and what it is causing by direct perception, and thus with perfect certainty. Thus we see that there is causation within our consciousness, and so we conclude that there must be causation out there in the physical universe. Even if we argue against our certainty of personal agency, our certainty that we perceive conscious differences around us, such as red and green for example, our thus our conclusion that therefore something certainly exists, is irrefutable. A machine can not do this. A machine can not even be certain of its own existence, something which we will cover in detail later. Two nothings could not be different and still be nothings. Thus perception of difference implies existence of something. Certainty of difference implies certainty of existence. A machine can not do this. It is this learnable and reverifiable certainty of our own existence and agency that makes consciousness special and leads us to some startling conclusions about its non mechanical, non space time, non dimensional, nature. A machine is defined as any system of parts interacting via cause and effect across a space time distance. Mechanical refers to the flow of cause through a machine. Thus anything which is multi dimensional in nature would be mechanical, and limited by the laws of mechanics, and anything which was non dimensional in nature would not be a machine. We define manifold to mean any multi dimensional object with 1 or more dimensions. We define scalar to mean any non dimensional object with 0 dimensions. This journey started with the question could a machine learn with perfect certainty of its own existence or of anything for that matter? As will be developed, the answer is no, and yet as a conscious unit we are quite certain we exist, that we care and give a damn, and that we are agent and perceive DIRECTLY our own perceptions of color-form, not through some complicated via of a mechanical universe, and so we are forced to conclude that we, as a conscious unit, are not a machine, although we may be interfaced with one, namely the body/brain system. But both the body and the brain remain only a theory and model for the observations we make in consciousness. Wouldn't it be a hoot if the theory and model of the brain as the causal source of consciousness was wrong? Homer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Homer Wilson Smith The Paths of Lovers Art Matrix - Lightlink (607) 277-0959 KC2ITF Cross Internet Access, Ithaca NY homer@lightlink.com In the Line of Duty http://www.lightlink.com