How Self-Reference Builds the World - my paper

[Cosmin Visan]

I invite you to discover my paper "How Self-Reference Builds the World" which is the theory of everything that people searched for millennia. It can be found on my philpeople profile:

https://philpeople.org/profiles/cosmin-visan

[Terren Suydam]

I used Claude Sonnet to summarize your paper. Tell me if any of this misses the mark, but the paper appears to posit self-reference as fundamental, upon which all other aspects of reality are derived.

If so (this is me now), my first thought is that self-reference cannot be fundamental, because it already presupposes two distinct components: a "self" and the capacity to "reference". Worse, defining "self" (something to be derived) in terms of "self-reference" (fundamental) is circular. 

Terren

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 9:09 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I invite you to discover my paper "How Self-Reference Builds the World" which is the theory of everything that people searched for millennia. It can be found on my philpeople profile:

https://philpeople.org/profiles/cosmin-visan

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[Cosmin Visan]

The proper understanding happens by reading the paper, not by using hallucinatory objects to give you a devoid of meaning shortcut.

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024, 9:09 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I invite you to discover my paper "How Self-Reference Builds the World" which is the theory of everything that people searched for millennia. It can be found on my philpeople profile:

https://philpeople.org/profiles/cosmin-visan

Hi Cosmin,

Very nice, and very original work.

A few comments and questions, written as they occurred to me:

The idea of self reference being larger and smaller than itself made me think of how the universe can be thought of as much larger than us, but all our thoughts and ideas about the universe are contained within our skulls. I am not sure if this is an example of the kind of paradox of self reference that you describe but I thought I would ask.

Your bootstrapping of nothing into something via self reference made me think of the following example. Start with the sentence:

"Every rule has an exception"

This is a self referential sentence, which can be either true or false. If it is false, then there are rules without exceptions (i.e. laws). If it is true, then "every rule has an exception" would also be a rule, and if it has an exception, then again we reach the conclusion that there are some rules without exceptions (i.e. laws), so this self refuting sentence implies a universal truth, the existence of laws.

Another comment:

Fractals are objects defined through their self reference, is any special attention owed to them? What about numbers such as e? Or steps in a recursive computational relation (steps of the evolving game of life universe might be conceived of as a recursive function, for example).

What would you consider the simplest possible program that had consciousness to be? That is, what is the shortest bit of code that would manifest consciousness of something (even a single bit)?

I agree to that the difficulty of explaining or communicating qualia stems from what me might call self-reference islands. Each of us is trapped within an isolated context, from which we have qualia of various kinds but no common framework established between other minds that enable communication beyond this island. Think of the analogous situation of people in two different universes or AIs in two different computer simulations, trying to define what they mean by a metered or a kilogram. These terms are meaningless and incommunicable outside the particular universe, since they are terms wholly defined by relationships that exist only within a particular universe or simulation. There not only can be no agreement on what is meant by those terms, but they aren't even definable (outside the contextual island that exists only within that universe). For we consciousness beings, we each have such a universe of qualia in our own heads, and these are similarly undefinable beyond the context of our inner view.

As for the ontology that results, your work reminded me of these works that contain related ideas (of self-reference, observer-centric, nothing-based means of bootstrapping reality):

Bruno Marchal's "The computationalist reformulation of the mind-body problem"

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236138701_The_computationalist_reformulation_of_the_mind-body_problem

Mark F. Sharlow's "Can Machines Have First-Person Properties?"

https://archive.is/rDP33

Markus Muller's

"Law without law: from observer states to physics via algorithmic information theory"

https://arxiv.org/abs/1712.01826

David Pearce's "The Zero Ontology"

https://www.hedweb.com/witherall/zero.htm

Stephen Wolfram's "The Concept of the Ruliad"

https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2021/11/the-concept-of-the-ruliad/

And Russell Standish's "Theory of Nothing"

https://www.hpcoders.com.au/nothing.html

I have written an article which reaches similar conclusions:

https://alwaysasking.com/why-does-anything-exist/

Note that while I focus more on the mathematics than self-reference, I do see self-reference (in consciousness) as being a key step in the process of realizing an apparent reality, providing a first person localized perspective out of objective mathematical truths and number relations.

Here are some quotes and references you may appreciate from others who have seen a key role of self-reference in the definition of consciousness:

Douglas Hofstadter's notion of "Strange Loop"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_loop

“In the end, we are self-perceiving, self-inventing, locked-in mirages that are little miracles of self-reference.”

— Douglas Hofstadter, I Am a Strange Loop, p. 363

WHO SHOVES WHOM AROUND INSIDE THE CAREENIUM? OF WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THE WORD "I"? - DOUGLAS R. HOFSTADTER - 1982

-

https://jsomers.net/careenium.pdf

-

“The real point is, there's only ONE MECHANISM underlying "I-ness":

namely, the circling-back of a complex representation of the system

together with its representations of all the rest of the world. Which

“I” you are is determined by the WAY you carry out that cycling,

and the way you represent the world.”

“In a sense, Gödel’s Theorem is a mathematical analogue of the fact that I cannot understand what it is like not to like chocolate, or to be a bat, except by an infinite sequence of ever-more-accurate simulation processes that converge toward, but never reach, emulation. I am trapped inside myself and therefore can’t see how other systems are. Gödel’s Theorem follows from a consequence of the general fact: I am trapped inside myself and therefore can’t see how other systems see me. Thus the objectivity-subjectivity dilemmas that Nagel has sharply posed are somehow related to epistemological problems in both mathematical logic, and as we saw earlier, the foundations of physics.” (Hofstader in Mind’s I)

-- Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett in "The Mind’s I" (1981)

 

“There was a man who said though,

it seems that I know that I know,

what I would like to see,

is the eye that knows me,

when I know that I know that I know.”

-

“This is the human problem, we know that we know.”

-- Alan Watts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_Q2xNqKvnE

“Even for the universal machine doing nothing more than self-introspection, her consciousness (related to []p & p) is not definable, for reason related to the fact that knowledge and truth are not definable by any machine, when the range of that knowledge and truth is vast enough to encompass the machine itself.”

-- Bruno Marchal 

“You need self-reference ability for the notion of belief, together with a notion of reality or truth, which the machine cannot define.

To get immediate knowledgeability you need to add consistency ([]p & <>t), to get ([]p & <>t & p) which prevents transitivity, and gives to the machine a feeling of immediacy.”

-- Bruno Marchal 

“It is not because some “information processing” could support consciousness that we can conclude that all information processing can support consciousness. You need at least one reflexive loop. You need two reflexive loop for having self-consciousness (Löbianity)."

-- Bruno Marchal 

“The appearance of a universe, or even universes, must be explained by the geometry of possible computations of possible machines, seen by these machines".”

-- The Amoeba’s Secret - Bruno Marchal 2014

https://www.hpcoders.com.au/docs/amoebassecret.pdf page 140

“To exist, it must have cause–effect power; to exist from its own intrinsic perspective, independent of extrinsic factors, it must have cause–effect power upon itself: its present mechanisms and state must ‘make a difference’ to the probability of some past and future state of the system (its cause–effect space)”

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rstb.2014.0167 (Tononi Koch, IIT paper)

“More broadly one could say that, through the human being, the universe has created a mirror to observe itself.” - David Bohm, The Undivided Universe, Routledge, 2002, pp. 389

“A many minds theory, like a many worlds theory, supposes that, associated with a sentient being at any given time, there is a multiplicity of distinct conscious points of view. But a many minds theory holds that it is these conscious points of view or ‘minds,’ rather than ‘worlds’, that are to be conceived as literally dividing or differentiating over time.”

– Michael Lockwood in “‘Many Minds’. Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics” (1995)

“It is sometimes suggested within physics that information is fundamental to the physics of the universe, and even that physical properties and laws may be derivative from informational properties and laws. This “it from bit” view is put forward by “Wheeler (1989, 1990) and Fredkin (1990), and is also investigated by papers in Zurek (1990) and MAtzke (1992, 1994). If this is so, we may be able to give information a more serious role in our ontology. [...]

This approach stems from the observation that in physical theories, fundamental physical states are effectively individuated as information states. When we look at a feature such as mass or charge, we find simply a brute space of differences that make a difference. Physics tells us nothing about what mass is, or what charge is: it simply tells us the range of different values that these features can take on, and it tells us their effects on other features. As far as physical theories are concerned, specific states of mass or charge might as well be pure information states: all that matters is their location within an information space.”

-- David Chalmers in "The Conscious Mind" (1996)

"A cat.

A cat is seen.

Something seen, must be a seer.

I see a cat.

I exist.

What is I?"

-- Jason 

"Perhaps consciousness arises when the brain’s simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a model of itself. Obviously the limbs and body of a survival machine must constitute an important part of its simulated world; presumably for the same kind of reason, the simulation itself could be regarded as part of the world to be simulated. Another word for this might indeed be “self-awareness,”

-- Douglas Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett in "The Mind’s I" (1981)

These quotes get to the heart of the difficulty of self reference, and the difference between being vs. describing:

“As we discussed in the first chapters of this book, the study of consciousness as a scientific subject casts a sharp light on a special problem faced by the scientific observer. As long as his description leaves out his phenomenal experience and he can assume that such experience is present in another observer, they both can give a description of the physical world from a “God’s-eye” view. When the observer turns his attention to the description of consciousness, however, he must face some challenging issues. These issues include the fact that consciousness is embodied uniquely and privately in each individual; that no description, scientific or otherwise, is equivalent to the experience of individual embodiment; that there is no judge deciding categories in nature except for natural selection; and that the external description of information by the observers as a code in the brain leads to paradox. These issues pose a challenging set of problems: how to provide an adequate description of higher brain functions; how information arises in nature; and, finally, how we know–the central concern of epistemology.”

-- Gerald Maurice Edelman and Giulio Tononi in "A Universe of Consciousness" (2000)

“Our analysis has predicated on the notion that while we can construct a sensible scientific theory of consciousness that explains how matter becomes imagination, that theory cannot replace experience: Being is not describing. A scientific description can have predictive and explanatory power, but it cannot directly convey the phenomenal experience that depends on having an individual brain and body. In our theory of brain complexity, we have removed the paradoxes that arise by assuming only the God’s-eye view of the external observer and, by adhering to selectionism, we have removed the homunculus. Nevertheless, because of the nature of embodiment, we still remain, to some extent, prisoners of description, only somewhat better off than the occupants of Plato’s cave.”

-- Gerald Maurice Edelman and Giulio Tononi in "A Universe of Consciousness" (2000)

When do you expect part 2 will be out?

Jason 

[Cosmin Visan]

When will that day come when people actually first read the papers and then comment ? Oh, God!

[Terren Suydam]

I read enough to confirm that you postulate self-reference as fundamental - the entity upon which everything else can be built. I'm wondering how that can be fundamental if it requires two components (self, and the ability to reference).

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/ea01c75c-3cdd-4d9e-9ced-eb184ae03777n%40googlegroups.com.

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 12:54 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

When will that day come when people actually first read the papers and then comment ? Oh, God!

I read your paper. I am sorry if you did not find my comments or references helpful.

Jason

 

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[Cosmin Visan]

@Jason. You say:

""Every rule has an exception"

This is a self referential sentence"

But from my paper:

"In “This sentence is false”, a 3rd person “sentence” is imagined to exist, and to that imagined
“sentence”, the property of “is false” is added, and a weird combination of 3rd person entity “This
sentence is false” masquerading as 1st person entity is created, and from this the apparent
paradox, which ultimately is nothing but an incoherent worlds-play, appears. Self-reference on
the other hand, is a 1st person entity all-throughout. It is not a 3rd person entity like “sentence”
that we can point outside of ourselves and to which we can add properties. Self-reference is itself
and is for itself. Its “looking-back-at-itself” happens from the inside. Because of this, the paradox
doesn’t take place as it happens for “This sentence is false” and any other words-play that can be
made at the 3rd person, including Russell’s paradox."

So how can you claim you read it, when I say clearly in the paper that such "self-referential sentences" are just incoherent words-play ?

[Cosmin Visan]

@Terren. There is no "self" and "ability to reference". There is just self-reference. You can call it hampty-dampty if you want.

[Jason Resch]

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 2:01 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

@Jason. You say:

""Every rule has an exception"

This is a self referential sentence"

But from my paper:

"In “This sentence is false”, a 3rd person “sentence” is imagined to exist, and to that imagined
“sentence”, the property of “is false” is added, and a weird combination of 3rd person entity “This
sentence is false” masquerading as 1st person entity is created, and from this the apparent
paradox, which ultimately is nothing but an incoherent worlds-play, appears. Self-reference on
the other hand, is a 1st person entity all-throughout. It is not a 3rd person entity like “sentence”
that we can point outside of ourselves and to which we can add properties. Self-reference is itself
and is for itself. Its “looking-back-at-itself” happens from the inside. Because of this, the paradox
doesn’t take place as it happens for “This sentence is false” and any other words-play that can be
made at the 3rd person, including Russell’s paradox."

So how can you claim you read it, when I say clearly in the paper that such "self-referential sentences" are just incoherent words-play ?

"The sentence is a lie" may be incoherent word play. But if there are any self-existing absolute truths, they must consist in truths whose denial leads to inconsistency. I think the sentence you gave as an example of incoherent word play is just an example of inconsistency. It is different from the example I provided, which I intended to show leads to an absolute truth: the existence of rules that have no exceptions. If such absolute truths exists then the idea of an absolute nothing (devoid of even truths and relations) cannot be.

Jason

 

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[Cosmin Visan]

@Jason. Let's make it as clear as possible: Sentence doesn't exist. "Sentence" is just an idea in consciousness. More examples:

Physical doesn't exist. "Physical" is just an idea in consciousness.

Brain doesn't exist. "Brain" is just an idea in consciousness.

Santa Claus doesn't exist. "Santa Claus" is just an idea in consciousness.

etc.

So we can be sure we avoid in the future any talks about non-existent entities.

[Terren Suydam]

From your paper, you define self-reference as: "Let self-reference be the entity with the property of looking-back-at-itself."

Your definition invokes the concepts entity, property, looking-back, and itself. That's a lot of complexity for something that is fundamental.  It's easy for me to imagine entities with different properties (i.e. that don't look-back-on-itself), but only because I'm starting from a linguistic perspective that already defines entities and properties, and looking-back-at-itself. You don't have that luxury. If you want to derive everything from a monism, you cannot define that monism in terms of concepts imported from a different metaphysics or conceptual framework. Entities and properties of looking-back-at-itself must be defined relative to your fundamental monism.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/d91bb4ab-d34c-4508-9fa8-7278599ff78en%40googlegroups.com.

[Cosmin Visan]

@Terren. That's why is crucial to fully read the papers. By reading the papers, you will come across paragraphs like this:

"Correctly, self-reference cannot be spoken of.
But even saying “self-reference cannot be spoken of” is an utterance about it, so not even such a
sentence can be uttered. Even naming it is faulty. Not even saying “self-reference” is correct. Is a
very peculiar states of affairs. On the one hand, we cannot speak about it, on the other hand, this
“entity” (wrong again, because not being spokeable-about, we cannot call it “entity” either) is
responsible for bringing consciousness into existence. Some might wonder, if we cannot speak
about it, why are we sure that it is the one that brings consciousness into existence. The reason
we can do this is because we observe the phenomenology of qualia (like inclusion and
transcendence of levels) and conclude that this is possible only if some entity that we call “self-reference”
must “exist”."

I understand that we live in an age where attention span has been reduced to 5 seconds. Nothing wrong with that. But if that is your attention span, then you should employ it for tik-tok videos. Other subjects require a different attention span.

[Samiya Illias]

@CosminVisan 

I’ve just read part one of your paper 

I can now see more clearly how a scripture-less, secular, scientific, and philosophical, view of the world has repeatedly led to a polytheistic world view of several ‘I am’.  

Poet-philosopher Muhammad Iqbal has written extensively on ‘Khudi’. You should be able to find several translations of his work, and treatises about it, online. 

I believe in the scriptures, as the revealed truth, and so my understanding of reality is based upon, and inspired by them, especially The Arabic Quran. You might find my studies of some interest: https://signsandscience.blogspot.com/ 

Samiya Illias 

On 26-Jun-2024, at 12:25 AM, 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:



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[Terren Suydam]

That paragraph is not in the paper you posted (here)

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 3:25 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Some might wonder, if we cannot speak
about it, why are we sure that it is the one that brings consciousness into existence. The reason
we can do this is because we observe the phenomenology of qualia (like inclusion and
transcendence of levels) and conclude that this is possible only if some entity that we call “self-reference”
must “exist”."

I don't know what you mean by "inclusion" or "transcendance of levels", so it's not clear why self-reference must exist for qualia.

 

I understand that we live in an age where attention span has been reduced to 5 seconds. Nothing wrong with that. But if that is your attention span, then you should employ it for tik-tok videos. Other subjects require a different attention span.

That's just unnecessary. At least I'm engaging with your paper. And, for what it's worth, I'm busy. Having something like Claude that can summarize 17 pages of speculative philosophy is the only way I was going to do that.

Terren

 

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[John Clark]

On Tue, Jun 25, 2024 at 2:01 PM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> Self-reference on the other hand, is a 1st person entity all-throughout. It is not a 3rd person entity like “sentence”

"Every rule has an exception" does not contain the word "sentence ", and although it is not JUST talking about itself it is nevertheless clearly talking about itself because it is a rule. And I don't see anything incoherent in that.   

And if language is incapable of talking about self reference without becoming "incoherent wordplay" as you claim, then how were you able to write an entire paper about self reference without it becoming "incoherent wordplay"?  

John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

e4r

 

[Cosmin Visan]

@Terren. You clearly don't know to use the computer. For example, mouse has a wheel. If you use that wheel, page moves. When page moves, new things appear in the page. Like for example part 2 of the paper. Also, in case your mouse doesn't have a wheel, there is also a scrollbar on the right side of the window. If you click on that scrollbar and keep the click pressed, you can then move the scrollbar up and down. By moving the scrollbar up and down, new things appear in the page. Like for example part 2 of the paper.

Also, the fact that you call it "speculative", only shows that you are full of hatred and are unwilling to engage. Then your presence is pointless on this topic. Why are you here ? To freely hate on people ? Pathetic.

[Cosmin Visan]

@John. As I say in the paper:

" "Correctly, self-reference cannot be spoken of.
But even saying “self-reference cannot be spoken of” is an utterance about it, so not even such a
sentence can be uttered. Even naming it is faulty. Not even saying “self-reference” is correct. Is a
very peculiar states of affairs. On the one hand, we cannot speak about it, on the other hand, this
“entity” (wrong again, because not being spokeable-about, we cannot call it “entity” either) is

responsible for bringing consciousness into existence. Some might wonder, if we cannot speak

about it, why are we sure that it is the one that brings consciousness into existence. The reason
we can do this is because we observe the phenomenology of qualia (like inclusion and
transcendence of levels) and conclude that this is possible only if some entity that we call “self-reference”
must “exist”." "

[John Clark]

On Thu, Jun 27, 2024 at 5:18 AM 'Cosmin Visan' via Everything List <everyth...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

> Correctly, self-reference cannot be spoken of. But even saying “self-reference cannot be spoken of” is an utterance about it, so not even such a sentence can be uttered.

Very clearly the above statement is false because "I" am capable of uttering the word "I" and "I" I am even capable of uttering an entire self-referential sentence such as "I am hungry" that "my" fellow human beings do not seem to find to be incoherent wordplay. Yes, self reference is capable of producing logical paradoxes, but it can also produce statements that are paradox free and extremely useful.  I don't believe human language would even be possible if self reference was removed from it. Getting rid of self reference entirely is throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

 

> Some might wonder, if we cannot speak about it, why are we sure that it is the one that brings consciousness into existence. The reason we can do this is because we observe the phenomenology of qualia

We? I know from direct experience (which outranks everything, even the scientific method) that I am conscious and capable of observing the phenomenon of qualia and I have no need of an axiom to do so, but I cannot do the same thing with regard to you or to any third party. However I simply could not function if I really believed that solipsism was true and I was the only conscious being in the universe, therefore I have no choice but to take it as an axiom that I can correctly deduce the existence of consciousness in something other than myself by observing intelligent behavior. In other words, it is a brute fact that consciousness is the way data feels when it is being processed intelligently.

 

> (like inclusion and transcendence of levels) and conclude that this is possible only if some entity that we call “self-reference” must “exist”." "

It's easy to show with ironclad logic that if consciousness exists then that consciousness is capable of using self reference, but it's impossible to prove if self reference exists then consciousness exists unless additional axioms are used.  

  John K Clark    See what's on my new list at  Extropolis

cwz

[Cosmin Visan]

@John. If you would have actually read the paper, you would have seen that solipsism is not true.

In order to make things simpler, I will only reply to people that actually read the paper and are truly interested in discussing the ideas. Otherwise is just waste of time. And if you have time to waste your life, well I don't have time to waste my life.

[Terren Suydam]

I offer this with all sincerity: I mean no disrespect, and I have nothing against you personally. I do see why my comment about your paper being "speculative" comes across as disrespectful, so please accept my apologies. It's true that I haven't given your paper the attention required to make a judgment like that.

If you're willing to continue with me, then please understand that I'm someone who has to be pretty selective about how I allocate my time and energy. Engaging with me means engaging with someone who is not going to read your paper in its entirety until I know it's worth my time. Thus far my comments/questions have been about testing to see if it is worth my time. If that comes across as disrespectful, then let's just move on. Otherwise, please give me the grace to come from misunderstandings that need correction, and please correct my misunderstandings without resorting to insults. And I will avoid jumping to conclusions. If we can do that, maybe we can both benefit from a discussion. No hard feelings either way.

Terren

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