Consciousness as organised energy is the basis of a new theory offered by Robert Pepperell; the full paper is here, with a magazine article treatment here.
Pepperell suggests that we can see energy as difference, or more particularly actualised difference – that is to say, differences in the real world, not differences between abstract entities. We can imagine easily enough that the potential energy of a ball at the top of a slope is a matter of the difference between the top and bottom of the slope, and Pepperell contends that the same is equally true of the kinetic energy of the ball actually rolling down. I’m not sure that all actualised differences are energy, but that’s probably just a matter of tightening some definitions; we see what Pepperell is getting at. He says that the term ‘actualised difference’ is intended to capture the active, antagonistic nature of energy.
He rejects the idea that the brain is essentially about information processing, suggesting instead that it processes energy. He rightly points to the differing ways in which the word ‘information’ is used, but if I understand correctly his chief objection is that information is abstract, whereas the processing of the brain deals in actuality; in the actualised difference of energy, in fact.
This is crucial because Pepperell wants us to agree that ‘there is something it is like’ to undergo actualised difference. He claims we can infer this by examining nature; I’m not sure everyone will readily agree, but the idea is that we can see that what it is like to be a rope under tension differs from what it is like to be the same rope when slack. It’s important to be clear that he’s not saying the rope is conscious; having a ‘what it is like’ is for him a more primitive level of experience, perhaps not totally unlike some of the elementary states of awareness that appear in panpsychist theories (but that’s my comparison, not his).
To get the intuition that Pepperell is calling on here, I think we need to pay attention to his exclusion of abstract entities. Information-based theories take us straight to the abstract level, whereas I think Pepperell sees ‘something it is like’ as being a natural concomitant of actuality, or at any rate of actualised difference. To him this seems to be evident from simple examination, but again I think many will simply reject the idea as contrary to their own intuitions.
If we’re ready to grant that much, we can then move on to the second part of the theory, which takes consciousness to be a reflexive form of what-it-is-likeness. Pepperell cites the example of the feedback patterns which can be generated by pointing a video camera at its own output on a screen. I don’t think we are to take this analogy too literally, but it shows how a self-referential system can generate output that goes far beyond registration if the input. The proposal also plays into a relatively common intuition that consciousness, or at least some forms of it, are self-referring or second order, as in the family of HOT and HOP theories.
Taken all in all, we are of course a long way from a knock-down argument here; in fact it seems to me that Pepperell does not spend enough time adumbrating the parts of his theory that most need clarification and defence. I’m left not altogether seeing why we should think it is like anything to be a rope in any state, nor convinced that reflexive awareness of our awareness has any particular part to play in the generation of subjective consciousness (it obviously has something to do with self-awareness). But the idea that ‘something it is like’ is an inherent part of actuality does have some intuitive appeal for me, and the idea of using that as a base for the construction of more complex forms of consciousness is a tantalising start, at least.
“…Non-equilibrium thermodynamics has been applied for explaining how biological organisms can develop from disorder. Ilya Prigogine developed methods for the thermodynamic treatment of such systems. He called these systems dissipative systems, because they are formed and maintained by the dissipative processes that exchange energy between the system and its environment, and because they disappear if that exchange ceases. It may be said that they live in symbiosis with their environment…”
Wiki-Biological thermodynamics for more, and thanks
I am a firm believer that part of our thinking about the world requires direct muscle perception of the world. I think Einstein tempered his speculations and hence his theories on how he experienced the world. We know that this is true of Newton. I think the strangeness of Quantum mechanics is due partly to the secondary nature of the perception of the behavior of light. Quanta are not perceived, but postulated and confirmed by measurement.
ein
“He rejects the idea that the brain is essentially about information processing, suggesting instead that it processes energy.”
It sounds like Pepperell might benefit from studying actual information processing systems. Any system that processes information is also, at a different level of explanation, processing energy. And yes, despite mathematical descriptions, the definition of information is hazy, but if you talk to a physicist, so is the definition of energy.
Chapter 4 of Bunge’s Matter and Mind (2010):
“All the fundamental physical theories, from classical mechanics and classical thermodynamics to Einstein’s theory of gravitation and quantum electrodynamics, can be cast in the Hamiltonian formalism…
“So, we stipulate the following Definition Energy = Changeability.
“Postulate 1 All and only material (concrete) objects are changeable
Theorem For all x: If x is a material object, then x has energy, and vice versa.
Corollary 1 The abstract (ideal, imaginary, non-concrete) objects lack energy.
Corollary 2 Energy is a property, not a thing, state, or process.
Postulate 2 Energy is the universal physical property: the only trait common to all material things.
Postulate 3 The total energy of an isolated material object does not change in the course of time.
Postulate 4 All and only material objects exist objectively (really).
Corollary 3 No ideal (or imaginary) objects exist objectively (really).
Corollary 4 No mathematical structures exist out there.
Phenomenalism is only part of the tantalizingness of life…
Another part, continuing an investigation of consciousness should be…
..to allow observation, one’s own observation, it’s independence…
That observation interacts independently of knowledge of the universe/cosmos…
…may help our understanding, to be here now…
Sounds very similar to Douglas Hofstadter’s ideas, most comprehensively described in his 2007 “I Am a Strange Loop” – I wonder if this is acknowledged?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop
I’d be curious what Pepperell has to say regarding the “charge” that his philosophy is Panpsychic.
Because it seems he is bringing in the very consciousness he wanted to explain?
Dear Mr.Peter Hankins,
I have read several of your articles on Conscious Entities.Generally I think that Conscious Entities is great.The reason I thought it is appropriate for me to communicate with you now is the article, A Different Difference Engine. As for me I have been a sort of ‘private investigator’ of human conscious existentiality and human motivation, ever since I dropped out of engineering college long ago, trapped in conscious-existential turmoil. I am 63 now. In 1989 I published my first book, The Secret of Mahatma Gandhi – the Harmonic Counterpoint. In December 2017 I published ebook version of my second book, Human Psyche and Harmonic Counterpoint (Amazon KDP)which contains my theory of consciousness (and some ideas about human motivation).
The Idea is together with the physical dimensions of reality there is Inner Dimension.ID is the domain of Innergy, a most peculiar form of energy. Innergy is Informed Intelligent Intentional energy! Consciousness is Innergy in reflex, ‘self’ referent, turned unto It self.On the other hand, Innergy may proceed ‘noumenally’,ie without reflex and phenomenal reference.It may do so in the live human brain, in the living cell, in reality itself.In the brain of the living human being, highly specialized matter-energy structures are in interface-interaction-integration in the relation to the Inner Dimension.Innergy may touch and play with these structures, give and take, and reflex, and we have the consciousness of the human being.The absolute peculiarity of Innergy is that it is unity which can be many in Itself.
The Whole ‘Realm’ of Innergy in Reflex is the Mater-Quale-Matrix.Each human being is so to speak ‘plugged in’to a ‘given’ or particular ‘facet’ in the Mater-Quale-Matrix, via Innergy that touches his brain and reflexes.This ‘subset’gives the human being his individuated subjective aspect and his unique sense of self….. Innergy and Energy are prime aspects of the Essential Reality: let us call It the OneAllOne. Its immeasurable and somewhat measurable aspects perhaps…
My book is available for free, as per the amazon kdp book-promotion facility, from 17th Nov. till 21st Nov. Please, I request you to go through it. (The Prelude is sort of ‘lyrical’, at least in the beginning. The fantastic part starts in Chapter I.) Thank You. mani