In message <199904190754a5054@?>, psypher <overload@fastmail.ca> writes
>> You're saying significance is significant? Isn't that circular? Or
>> is that what "[recursively speaking]" is supposed to cover? I don't
>> see how this connects with the concepts of subjective and objective
>> information.
>
>...the concept of significance is an abstraction pertaining to the
>weight of factors in the process of making decisions. The abstraction
>[significance] can be applied to itself as a concept.
I understand the concept of significance. I also understand you see significance as significant. What I still don't know are (a) how you react to the accusation of circularity, and (b) how this relates to the concepts of subjective and objective information.
>> How can there be a "particular consciousness" in an undivided
>> universe?
>
>...the universe can never be perceived directly as whole because all
>observation occurs from within the system. A player in an orchestra
>is both playing a particular pattern of music and contributing to a
>work as a whole. While playing the part, the player can have no
>awareness of the composition as a whole.
In real terms, that's not true: a competent player can listen to the whole while continuing to play his/her part. At least, if the piece has been sufficiently well rehearsed.
However, what I find more interesting is, if you insist that in the case of the universe, none of us can perceive it as a whole: what difference does it make to insist that that is all that's real? Why bother?
>> How does a pattern "become self-aware"?
>
>...by being sufficiently complex to be unable to integrate all
>factors which have bearing on its evolution.
Could you possibly expand on that?
-- Robin Faichney Visit The Conscious Machine at http://www.conscious-machine.com