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
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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