Skip to main content

Understanding Consciousness in terms of the information integration of a system.

Image
By

Question: can you expound further on the use/definition of consciousness or will in the sense that they apply to order systems? If I were to Google the term consciousness, something like being aware of one’s surroundings comes up. How does one measure or determine this presence in any ordered system?

The question is in relation to post:

https://transpersonalphilosophy.blogspot.com/2024/01/what-is-volitional-or-volitive-soul.html

This is the very ancient topic of panpsychism (Anima Mundi), which has recently become a scientific theory thanks to information theory. It is defended by Giulio Tononi, who was working with Gerald Edelman (do you remember Edelman?) on various theories about Consciousness. It is an extensive topic but basically the idea is the following: any system capable of integrating information manifests a degree of consciousness, no matter how small that degree may be. It is new only from the narrow traditional point of view of contemporary science, since hunter-gatherer societies have considered that the world is a conscious Being at both an organic and inorganic level. When we have stopped defining Consciousness in terms of alert life and have used the linguistic term of information, we have easily understood that consciousness is not restricted to an animal nutritional integration but that any integration is consciousness.

I attach a link to a documentary that may be useful as an introduction to the matter. As of minute 23, there is talk of Tononi's IIT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYjnZCy_ZK4&list=PLcX5IdGYTx51I5EGmTgOocAHEAxX5Ir31&index=49&t=1375s

All forms of consciousness that are at a lower level than the organic systems are Volitional Soul, and all forms of basic organic consciousness also express the Volitional Soul in orders and integrations different from those of the inorganic Volitional Soul. According to the doctrine of the Tripartite Soul, there are three types of Soul in the Human Being and in the Universe: Volitive Soul, Emotional Soul and Intellectual Soul.

We are immersed in a continuum of Universal Consciousness.

In response to the last question: It is not a matter of measuring the presence of integration, there is a superstition in relation to the question of scientific measurement that seems difficult to remove. There is a very good essay, I think from the early 70's by the physicist and philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn that was titled: "The Problem of Measurement." A system integrates information if it is capable of increasing its degree of neganthropy (order). In principle, any system in the universe could do it, so there is no need to measure it. Intensionality (gradation of the measurement of a property; do not mistake with intentionality) can be infinitesimal. An infinitesimal gradation of integration would be undetectable.



Labels

Labels:

Comments

Em said…
Wonderful, thank you for that new explanation of consciousness Oscar. I will watch that video as well. :)
January 15, 2024 at 7:26 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Limen et Continuum

By
  Existence is Encounter. Meeting at the limen. In the limen, the masks disappear, that is, the basic intuitions of identities, such as the identity that I feel and think in relation to the tree that I see in front of me. The identity of the tree is a projection of mine: the unity of my process of perceiving the tree generates a mask in me, the ghost of a limited unity separated from everything else. The simplest form of intuitive understanding of masks and limen is given to us by numbers. Numbers intuitively express the liminal tension that is Existence. A little etymological note. Rythmos in Greek means flow. Arythmos (number) is what does not flow, what remains solidified. Numbers express the liminoid, and flow, rhythm, expresses the liminal. A rhythm becomes liminoid when we can trace patterns in it, that is, when we can construct masks of identities. Mathematics has spoken of flow using the Latin word “continuum”, the continuous. All modern science, since Leibni...
Post a Comment
Read more

Masks and Ego

By
  The ego is the force of psychic centroversion, that which establishes points or frames of reference. Without the coordinate point (0,0), we cannot orient ourselves or act. The ego is the force that builds an unlimited number of references, of centers around which different formations of the Soul will appear. In Sanskrit, it is called Ahankara. Aham means “I”, kara is “the process of doing or carrying out”. As a compound word, Ahankara means “the process of making or uttering the ‘I’ ( aham ).” The ego is an action, a force that establishes or says the “I”, that lays a fundamental reference stone with respect to another action. For example, the human organism spontaneously performs the physiological action of seeing, the organ of sight is set in motion automatically, and automatically, a force also appears that assigns another action to the function of vision: the action that says “I ”. The synthesis is “I see.” It also happens in animals, for the acti...
Post a Comment
Read more

Matriarcal or Uroboric Incest

By
Let us discuss some basic aspect of ego formation: its appearence out of the uroboric round. The uroboric round is the realm of the primordial waters (you can listen to my Podcast on the Primordial Waters). I really recomend you the book: The Origin s and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann. (Princeton University Press). Neumann was a friend of Jung and member of the Eranos Group. We could understand the appearance of the ego from the unconscious through the myth of the emergence of an island from the primordial waters. Its appearance, however, is not permanent and definitive, especially at the beginning. The tides of the unconscious rise and the island is once again covered by the waters. Only a progressive systematization of consciousness leads to its permanence. To keep consciousness awake, a force of determination is necessary, which requires a display of psychic and physiological energy. For the appearance of consciousness it is necessary to exert an energy that moves...
Post a Comment
Read more