>And if I was compelled to criticize The World Behind the World, I would simply wish that it was longer and more comprehensive
Here here, the whole thing went down easy. Particularly would have liked to hear more about free will, given that is one of the biggest "updates" readers may have after reading the book. Years ago I read the SEP entry on free will and left thinking it was probably fake. Maybe my own misreading, but I think many who have given a couple hours of thought to it don't realize there is quite strong support for free will.
For sure, there's the semantic dimension which creates useless debate. I've always been a believer in human "agency" or that the choices we make matter to our individual experiences and outcomes. But I also recognize there are constraints on this will, wherein arise the quibbles with "free."
To be cliched, the right answer seems intuitive. Hoel's casual emergence theory is great in that it provides a materialist's explanation for agency. A possible weakness I see is that it still leaves us wondering "who" exactly is the author of one's intrinsic perspective. More precisely, what are the mechanisms that allow the brain to rationalize, reflect, decide, etc.
I'm reading two other books as galleys that touch on this subject now and offer some insights (they haven't coalesced for me yet). Max Bennett's A Brief History of Intelligence and Kevin Mitchell's Free Agents. I'm enjoying both a lot.
I am mostly interested in the structure of consciousness to understand the timeline of its evolution. You've read my Snake Cult piece? Maybe add it to the list, it's at least short!
Emergentism is almost always the result of realising that an explanation is missing an independent direction for arranging events. A line emerges from an ink dot if it is replicated along an independent direction for arranging events. A magnetic field emerges from a current in a wire when the 4D arrangement of the charges is included. Consciousness involves at least four independent directions for arranging events because we are embedded in a universe that is at least 4D. Kant's phenomenal experience is four dimensional.
Hoel's definition of causal emergence is much more specific than the general concept of emergence and builds on integrated information theory. The examples you use (except consciousness) here wouldn't be related as the lower-level component in these examples explain the phenomena at the level that emerges after (here, Euclidean geometry and magnetism).
My review probably doesn't spend enough time explain Hoel's theory. Here's his work:
I just reread the Royal Society paper. IID defines the problem to be solved in terms of the problem that is solved by IID. That said it is a useful approach to neural processing.
The problem to be solved is blindingly obvious just look and think. The spatialisation and temporalisation of Experience is 90% of the problem. How do we describe this in terms that can be linked to the physical sciences? IID does not explain the simultaneity (spatialisation) of Experience nor the way that we have whole words and bars of tunes in current Experience (time extension). Hence it is mute on the problem of consciousness.
I think Hoel's approach is both helpful and unhelpful. Helpful because it has applications in neural processing and unhelpful because it misses the special case of emergence that is evident in Experience.
That said, IID may possibly be useful for analysing how the things that just pop into mind, like models of people moving or intuitive understanding occur.
>And if I was compelled to criticize The World Behind the World, I would simply wish that it was longer and more comprehensive
Here here, the whole thing went down easy. Particularly would have liked to hear more about free will, given that is one of the biggest "updates" readers may have after reading the book. Years ago I read the SEP entry on free will and left thinking it was probably fake. Maybe my own misreading, but I think many who have given a couple hours of thought to it don't realize there is quite strong support for free will.
For sure, there's the semantic dimension which creates useless debate. I've always been a believer in human "agency" or that the choices we make matter to our individual experiences and outcomes. But I also recognize there are constraints on this will, wherein arise the quibbles with "free."
To be cliched, the right answer seems intuitive. Hoel's casual emergence theory is great in that it provides a materialist's explanation for agency. A possible weakness I see is that it still leaves us wondering "who" exactly is the author of one's intrinsic perspective. More precisely, what are the mechanisms that allow the brain to rationalize, reflect, decide, etc.
I'm reading two other books as galleys that touch on this subject now and offer some insights (they haven't coalesced for me yet). Max Bennett's A Brief History of Intelligence and Kevin Mitchell's Free Agents. I'm enjoying both a lot.
Looking forward to a review of those books.
I am mostly interested in the structure of consciousness to understand the timeline of its evolution. You've read my Snake Cult piece? Maybe add it to the list, it's at least short!
https://www.vectorsofmind.com/p/the-snake-cult-of-consciousness
I will give it a read!
Emergentism is almost always the result of realising that an explanation is missing an independent direction for arranging events. A line emerges from an ink dot if it is replicated along an independent direction for arranging events. A magnetic field emerges from a current in a wire when the 4D arrangement of the charges is included. Consciousness involves at least four independent directions for arranging events because we are embedded in a universe that is at least 4D. Kant's phenomenal experience is four dimensional.
See https://mindover.substack.com/p/our-reality
Hoel's definition of causal emergence is much more specific than the general concept of emergence and builds on integrated information theory. The examples you use (except consciousness) here wouldn't be related as the lower-level component in these examples explain the phenomena at the level that emerges after (here, Euclidean geometry and magnetism).
My review probably doesn't spend enough time explain Hoel's theory. Here's his work:
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2021.0150
https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/a-primer-on-causal-emergence
I just reread the Royal Society paper. IID defines the problem to be solved in terms of the problem that is solved by IID. That said it is a useful approach to neural processing.
The problem to be solved is blindingly obvious just look and think. The spatialisation and temporalisation of Experience is 90% of the problem. How do we describe this in terms that can be linked to the physical sciences? IID does not explain the simultaneity (spatialisation) of Experience nor the way that we have whole words and bars of tunes in current Experience (time extension). Hence it is mute on the problem of consciousness.
I think Hoel's approach is both helpful and unhelpful. Helpful because it has applications in neural processing and unhelpful because it misses the special case of emergence that is evident in Experience.
That said, IID may possibly be useful for analysing how the things that just pop into mind, like models of people moving or intuitive understanding occur.