laughingcat
Rising Star
This is a lecture (very nicely filmed) I gave in Boulder earlier this summer on DMT. Certainly the longest and most detailed lecture I've given so far. Hopefully some might find interesting
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soul-explorer said:Thanks,
very entertaining and thought-provoking![]()
SnozzleBerry said:Great talk![]()
SnozzleBerry said:1) A major point of the initial subject matter (everything preceding the experimental discussion) seems to be, in many ways, a(re)articulation of the Sagan's take on the Flatland thought experiment. Given this approach (and my own neurobiological/physiological ignorance), it's unclear to me, from the context presented in the talk, how much of the "simplified" concepts actually support the assertions being made based on the evidence at hand vs how much is conjecture. They certainly line up well, but that's why I find my own ignorance and the (potential?) blurring of this line to be a bit to grapple with.
SnozzleBerry said:2) There is a bit of reductionism going on, which I think is fine in the name of grappling with complex topics, but at times it seems that there's too much certainty undergirding the assertions (especially when assertions are being made about "the fundamental nature of reality"), and in ways that, while apparently convenient to you advancing your theories (all well and good) kind of obfuscate how little we know (I think).
SnozzleBerry said:For example, your dichotomy of "the believers" vs the "non-believers" and the positions that either "dmt allows you to access an alternate universe...takes you, transports you to an alternate parallel alien reality" or "dmt is merely eliciting highly complex hallucinations." Sure, those are two takes, but hardly the only ones, even if they encompass or run into many others in various ways.
SnozzleBerry said:3) I feel that there are some semantic games being played as well, particularly with regards to definitions of "real" and "information systems" and the "legitimacy of experience." I'm honestly not sure how meaningful the statement that "all subjective experience is valid"
SnozzleBerry said:In the case of LSD or any other drug as "an information system" (I think that was the term) can you elaborate? Is this conceptualization and usage predicated on pre-existing bodies of work (especially related to biology/physiology/neurology)? I like how you employed the concept and found it very "slick" but despite my desire to nod my head in agreement, I once again find myself questioning the underlying foundations here.
SnozzleBerry said:The way that this is linked up with the assertion that "no matter how complex the world might appear...it's fundamentally all information processing," is, again, something I find myself highly sympathetic to, but I think that's a massive assertion/assumption and one that, ideally, should rest on a similarly massive body of evidence (does it?).
SnozzleBerry said:A theory that makes repeated explicit/implicit assertions that it rests on understanding "the fundamental structure of reality" is both incredibly hard to swallow (given how little we appear know about reality) and appears to require mountains of evidence that aren't present (or that I missed references to, given my ignorance on the subject matter). I'd stress here, again, that I'm very much on board with your thoughts and find myself very seduced by them, but as Strassman and I went round and round on last time we engaged, just because a model is appealing/can get traction doesn't mean it's an accurate model.
SnozzleBerry said:Maybe I'm misunderstanding...but it also seems to me that if we substitute "information processing" with "consciousness" (is there a reason we couldn't make this substitution?) and state that "consciousness is the fundamental underpinning of reality,"
SnozzleBerry said:It seems to me that the substitution of consciousness for "information" holds additional similarities if we compare your classification of drugs as "patterns of information that change the information generated by your brain" with Grof's quote about "psychedelics being nonspecific amplifiers of consciousness."
SnozzleBerry said:Again this feels good, but I still feel like I'm missing evidence, beyond the self-evident, for such a matter-of-fact presentation. Does that make sense?
laughingcat said:SnozzleBerry said:2) There is a bit of reductionism going on, which I think is fine in the name of grappling with complex topics, but at times it seems that there's too much certainty undergirding the assertions (especially when assertions are being made about "the fundamental nature of reality"), and in ways that, while apparently convenient to you advancing your theories (all well and good) kind of obfuscate how little we know (I think).
I'd dispute that it's reductionist - complex systems, by definition, refuse to be reduced to their components, and I'm very much an emergentist. I spend much of the first hour talking about emergent complexity, which is very much anti-reductionist I would say. But you're right that I perhaps assert too much as matter of fact - it's my way of trying to be cogent and make sense of a complex topic to the audience, without qualifying everything with "it could be like this" or "this is possible but it's not yet known yet".
laughingcat said:SnozzleBerry said:Maybe I'm misunderstanding...but it also seems to me that if we substitute "information processing" with "consciousness" (is there a reason we couldn't make this substitution?) and state that "consciousness is the fundamental underpinning of reality,"
I think you lose all the explanatory power by making this substitution. Information processing according to a rule set has enormous explanatory power (emergence of complexity, structure of the world, how the brain works, how psychedelics work) - what do you expect to gain by just replacing "information processing" with "consciousness"? However, you perhaps inadvertently stumble on the important issue of the informational substrate (i.e. what exists in the different states to generate information?). Personally I am sympathetic to the idea that consciuosness itself may have that role, but that's a whole other topic of discussion.
SnozzleBerry said:It seems to me that the substitution of consciousness for "information" holds additional similarities if we compare your classification of drugs as "patterns of information that change the information generated by your brain" with Grof's quote about "psychedelics being nonspecific amplifiers of consciousness."
Again, until consciousness is formally defined, it will always be unclear what amplification of consciousness even means... information, on the other hand, does have a precise quantitative meaning....
Having in mind that we are using metaphors, this paper proposes to extend
the concept of information to describe the world: from elementary particles to
galaxies, with everything in between, particularly life and cognition. There is no
suggestion on the nature of reality as information [58]. This work only explores
the advantages of describing the world as information. In other words, there are
no ontological claims, only epistemological.
Like this, an electron can be seen as an agent, which perceives other electrons
as information. The same description can be used for molecules, cells, and
animals. We can distinguish:
First order information is that which is perceived directly by an agent. For
example, the information received by a molecule about another molecule
Second order information is that which is perceived by an agent about information
perceived by another agent. For example, the information perceived
by a human observer about a molecule receiving information about
another molecule
that a rock “knows” about gravity because it perceives its information, which has an effect on it, but it cannot react to this information.
The relationship between the laws of information and communication is clear, but beyond the scope of this paper.
In spite of information potentiality, not all meanings will be suitable for
all information. In other words, pure subjectivism cannot dictate meanings of
information. By the law of information propagation, some meanings will be
more suitable than others and will propagate. The suitability of meanings will
be determined by their use and context [59]. However, there is always a certain
freedom to subjectively transform information.
This paper introduced general ideas that require further development, extension
and grounding in particular disciplines. Still, a first step is always necessary, and
hopefully feedback from the community will guide the following steps of this line
of research.
Different metaphors for describing the world can be seen as different languages:
they can refer to the same objects without changing them. And each
can be more suitable for a particular context. For example, English has several
advantages for fast learning, German for philosophy, Spanish for narrative, and
Russian for poetry. In other words, there is no “best” language outside a particular
context. In a similar way, I am not suggesting that describing the world
as information is more suitable than physics to describe physical phenomena,
or better than chemistry to describe chemical phenomena. It would be redundant
to describe particles as information if we are studying only particles. The
suggested approach is meant only for the cases when the physical approach is
not sufficient, i.e. across scales, constituting an alternative worth exploring to
describe evolution.
It seems easier to describe matter and energy in terms of information than
vice versa. Moreover, information could be used as a common language across
scientific disciplines [56].
SnozzleBerry said:A more accurate word for what I meant to express would have been oversimplified, rather than reductionist. I understand the "necessity" of simplification in the interest of giving a digestible presentation, I just struggle with the combination of apparent simplification and conjecture. I find it slightly disorienting when trying to listen critically and pick out the knowns from the unknowns. I do understand not wanting/needing to qualify every single statement, but I feel like maybe there can be a middle ground somewhere in between?
SnozzleBerry said:Did I miss the formal definition of information? Was that the discussion of bits? Even with a formal definition, it still seems like the application of the "information" concept to emergent complexity/life (although there doesn't seem to be a good consensus definition for life) or any other system is a bit metaphorical, or at least nebulous, much in the way consciousness seems to be, although again, this could just be my own lack of understanding or just a result of poor semantic hygiene on my part.
SnozzleBerry said:The paper you provided, "The world as evolving information" explicitly states that it is working with metaphors to present epistemological (rather than ontological) claims (I must admit I felt kind of relieved to discover the sensations of "metaphor" I'd been having throughout my earlier ideation were at least somewhat justified!):
SnozzleBerry said:It seems to me that your position is still relying on this metaphor, yet (at times) appears to shift from the epistemological into the ontological, no? I think that these were some of the most "jarring" moments of the presentation for me.
SnozzleBerry said:So, it seems to me, that here, the information metaphor is attributing awareness (perception requires awareness, no? Does this not also imply some form of consciousness?) to a molecule. Is that an incorrect interpretation? What does it mean for a molecule to "receive information"? Even if we skip the baggage of consciousness
SnozzleBerry said:Is that really knowledge? That feels akin to saying that a submarine swims or some such thing...sure...if you want to call that swimming. But as long as we're operating within the realm of metaphor, that fuzziness is an intrinsic component...it's there to facilitate the propagation of the concept, rather than to provide an explanation of the mechanisms.
Is there a good "hub" for finding out more about this work and the broader field?
This seems to me to contradict Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Information is incomplete and/or flawed, due to quantum uncertainty, especially at the scale of the electron.The electron is fully defined by a finite amount of information (since information is implicit in the number of states of a system). In fact, everything can be fully defined by a finite amount of information.