The ‘4th Law’:
A is A because of not-A
alternatively…
Arrow is Arrow because of not-Arrow
or even…
Whiteness is white because of blackness
Black and white represent opposites, contrasted difference — mutual differentiation.
White creates black; black creates white.
Their existence is their identity; their identities are their mutually-created existences.
The metaphysics of identity
I'm putting forward that the above ‘Black Arrows Or White Arrows’ GIF as an analogy
(‘arrows’ not withstanding) for the creation of ‘entity simples’ in fundamental physics
as well as, at a far more complex level, a valid analogy for the creation of ‘subjective’ consciousness.
Consciousness is all about objective differences (in-)forming it into ‘being’.
These objective differences are in the body and wider environment.
They are the differences that cross a threshold for neuronal firing
and in a continual perception–to–muscle-action feedback loop,
all through the medium of electricity.
Objectivism is a thorough recasting of philosophy in the Aristotelean mould, a philosophy that goes hand-in-hand with the scientific method
— a tightening-up of scientific realism. It has a clarity of structure and overall integration of its branches. Its three evaluative branches (ethics, politics and aesthetics) tend to court controversy with respect to current orthodoxies, but its two foundational branches, metaphysics and epistemology, harmonise reality with logic
to a comprehensively convincing degree — in my humble opinion.
It is a clear-cut system, closed to ambiguity. It upholds the three integrated classical ‘laws of thought’; identity, non-contradiction and the excluded middle
(A is A; not {A and not-A}; A or not A) and Objectivism applies these laws to the existence of physical ‘entities’ in its metaphysics
as well as to objective ‘concepts’ in its epistemology.
Here and elsewhere I have been suggesting a new insight, a ‘4th law’ that potentially melds metaphysics and epistemology, physics and logic,
in an even stronger formulation: A is A because of not-A.
From information theory there is substantial reason to suppose that this is a fundamental mechanism for all information processing
(how the mind identifies its world), but I'm going further to advance it as the core mechanism at the heart of physical existence itself.
Furthermore it helps tie-up the loose-ends of universal holism, boundlessness and difference into a comprehensively continuous ‘analogue physics’
(the identities of which rather neatly identified by binary, ‘digital’ mechanisms: essentially predictions about on/off neuronal firing patterns).
I would prefer to park this ‘new insight’ at the door of unambiguous Objectivism for evaluation
rather than the more fuzzy and gapping portal of general Naturalist philosophy
where all kinds of hypotheses tend to find a relatively uncritical welcome.
Moreover, I don’t think that the ‘4th law’ contradicts Objectivism, rather it furnishes it with a prospective insight about what ‘entities’ might turn out to be
at a fundamental level.
I refute the notion that it makes the idea of ‘entity’ or any actual entity any more ambiguous — indeed actual (threshold) difference is, if anything,
aggrandised by this additional ‘law’.
Furthermore, if correct, it represents a profound integration of all existence, that every ‘thing’ intrinsically requires the rest of the universe in order ‘to be’:
One in the Many.
(‘arrows’ not withstanding) for the creation of ‘entity simples’ in fundamental physics
as well as, at a far more complex level, a valid analogy for the creation of ‘subjective’ consciousness.
Consciousness is all about objective differences (in-)forming it into ‘being’.
These objective differences are in the body and wider environment.
They are the differences that cross a threshold for neuronal firing
and in a continual perception–to–muscle-action feedback loop,
all through the medium of electricity.
Existence:
is / isn't
the dichotomy of fundamental physics
|
Consciousness:
subjective / objective
the dichotomy of identifying identities
|
The ‘4th Law’ (applied to existence): difference is different because of not-different
It’s the circulating position of the white dots that create the wave pattern objects, but when they and their containing black circles shrink it is the regularly-spaced black dots which momentarily become the objects upon the white background. All this complexity from a simple difference that makes a difference. But the wave pattern is just an added (physics friendly) bonus to what I really want to get across: there is merely black (difference) on a white ‘page’ — the black form creates the white background (form) as much as the white creates the black. Now, imagine a universe created entirely out of such a single difference: one difference equals two ‘entities’. An entity (with its opposite) intrinsically creates a spatial dimension; differences occurring in the same space intrinsically creates a temporal dimension. All an existing universe needs is a single, yet reiterated ‘difference’.
But a difference in what exactly?
I don’t have the answer but I suspect the differentiation between the spatial dimension and the temporal dimension has something decisive to do with it — yet without reifying mere dimensions. Keep in mind how time ‘emerges’ from differences in space; space and time are intrinsic and interrelated dimensions. | 
The ‘4th Law’ (applied to consciousness): self is self because of not-self
According to Objectivist metaphysics, consciousness
is one of the three core axioms, irreducible primaries,
along with existence and the fact that both existence and consciousness ‘have’ identity. I think it is striking that the Objectivist conception of consciousness is that of an information process which identifies the identities in existence. This identification is all about detecting differences (and thus also similarities), but consciousness itself is a ‘location’ of difference, the ‘place’ that is intrinsically shaped by what it is trying to identify — existence itself (varieties therein which make entities exist). It can be thought of as an ongoing ‘hole’ shaped by its boundaries: (in)formed by what it is not. But how does this identification — consciousness — work? The ‘subjective/objective’ dichotomy is a mutually (in)forming dichotomy, opposites that generate each other. However, it must be stressed that ‘existence is primary’ — objects inform the subject, then the subject’s action may influence the objects. If the subject’s predictions about this perception-to-action loop is confirmed, then ‘the self’ itself is confirmed — the actually of being conscious. |
Exemplifications of theoretical physics coinciding with the ‘4th Law’ John A. Macken's 2015 book entitled The Universe is Only Spacetime, reifications apart, might shed some light upon how the simplest mutually-generating ingredients of space and time themselves could indeed rustle up the complexity we see around us — us included. (freely downloadable: http://onlyspacetime.com) Ontic structural realism (OSR) is a fairly fashionable development within the philosophy of physics which posits that the identities of physical entities depend entirely upon the structures to which they are a part. Here's a link to Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized, James Ladyman & Don Ross's 2007 book. As I mentioned in last month’s blog, they seem to somewhat prioritise relations over relata, whereas I view relata and relations as two integral, mutually generating halves of the same coin. Link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and James Ladyman’s entry on Structural Realism in which ORS is outlined and compared with other versions of structural realism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/structural-realism There are also a number of contemporary metaphysicians who are involved in the debates around ontological dependence of fundamental ‘simples’. Rather than a list of names (which would invariably give an imprudent impression, leaving out key players) I will list an incomplete assortment of further SEP entries: • Counterfactual Theories of Causation — by Perter Menzies (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-counterfactual) • The Metaphysics of Causation — by Jonathan Schaffer (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-metaphysics) • Intrinsic vs. Extrinsic Properties — by Dan Marshall & Brian Weatherson (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intrinsic-extrinsic) • Emergent Properties — by Timothy O'Connor & Hong Yu Wong (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties-emergent) • Supervenience — by Brian McLaughlin & Karen Bennett (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supervenience) • Ontological Dependence — by Tuomas E. Tahko & E. Jonathan Lowe (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dependence-ontological) • Metaphysical Grounding — by Ricki Bliss & Kelly Trogdon (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grounding) • Relative Identity — by Harry Deutsch (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-relative) • Logic and Ontology — by Thomas Hofweber (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-ontology) • Material Constitution — by Ryan Wasserman (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/material-constitution/#RelIde) • Process Philosophy — by Johanna Seibt (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy) • Holism and Nonseparability in Physics — by Richard Healey (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/physics-holism) • Monism — by Jonathan Schaffer (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/monism) • Continuity and Infinitesimals — by John L. Bell (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/continuity) • Boundary — by Achille Varzi (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/boundary) • Absolute and Relational Theories of Space and Motion — by Nick Huggett & Carl Hoefer (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spacetime-theories) • Mereology — by Achille Varzi (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mereology) • Location and Mereology — by Cody S. Gilmore (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/location-mereology) • Relations — by Fraser MacBride (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relations) These SEP entries should provide enough further references for a broad grasp of issues in the contemporary field. |
Exemplifications of theoretical neuroscience coinciding with the ‘4th Law’
The ‘4th Law’, yet under different nomenclature, is already an established feature of information theory (Shannon mutual information): what is not transmitted is just as informative as what is. Thus, as consciousness is an information process,
any conscious experience that we have is wholly ‘flavoured’ by the richness
of all those past episodes that we are not currently experiencing.
Karl Friston is a theoretical neuroscientist who has developed a set
of mathematical theories around the Free Energy Principle (FEP).
It is a theory that accounts for consciousness and action based upon Bayesian information processing and thus already takes on board formulations for mutual information.
For a selective yet extensive list of his papers, articles and lectures, categorised by him, updated sporadically: http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl
These have been very influential ideas, inspiring philosophers like Andy Clark
and Jacob Hohwy as well as neuroscientists like Anil Seth and Giulio Tononi.
Giulio Tononi has been especially explicit about the holistic mechanism of neurological firing patterns; that non-firing is just as informative as firing.
Tononi's homepage: http://integratedinformationtheory.org for his
Integrated Information Theory (IIT) and key related papers.
Terrence Deacon’s 2011 Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter
is also emphatic on how absence helps form the mind due to the constraints the void sets up.
Wikipedia entry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomplete_Nature
Here again is an incomplete assortment of SEP entries relating in some way
to the ‘4th Law’ in psychology and neuroscience:
• Meaning Holism — by Henry Jackman
• Compositionality — by Zoltán Gendler Szabó
• Connectionism — by James Garson
• Multiple Realizability — by John Bickle
• Semantic Conceptions of Information — by Luciano Floridi (https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-semantic)
• Qualia — by Michael Tye
• Inverted Qualia — by Alex Byrne
• Willard van Orman Quine — by Peter Hylton
Note that my notion of the ‘4th Law’ (in info-mental terms: ‘this is this because of not-that’) is in operation before way before concept-formation occurs (Quine’s semantic holism or Rand’s epistemology), even prior to consistent ‘qualia’ perception-formation. It goes into the very root mechanics of predictive neurological firing patterns and resultant information processing.
The Meaning of Dark
(Constructing Darkness)
In which is shown that darkness is built of many nested mechanisms
that specify what it is not
Who paints night’s darkness dark?
How does its pure black juice ooze out of mechanisms of matter?
Why is darkness dark, but light is light, colors don’t smell like the scent of citrus,
differing from sounds? And why does pain not taste like wine?
This was the challenge N. had posed, but Galileo now had a clue. By freezing one region of the brain after the other, he had seen darkness disappear. Every time the great cerebral complex had lost another set of mechanisms, region by region, every time pure darkness—the simplest of experiences—had lost its meaning, shade by shade. So those other mechanisms were needed to make darkness what it was, to give it context and thus
to give it consciousness. When all mechanisms were frozen, all except for the neurons distinguishing dark from light, just one bit of consciousness was left,
and that single bit of consciousness was left bereft of quality.
Excerpt from chapter 19 of Giulio Tononi’s 2012 book
|
Peroration:
New insight for Objectivism?
Peroration:
New insight for Objectivism?
Objectivism is a thorough recasting of philosophy in the Aristotelean mould, a philosophy that goes hand-in-hand with the scientific method
— a tightening-up of scientific realism. It has a clarity of structure and overall integration of its branches. Its three evaluative branches (ethics, politics and aesthetics) tend to court controversy with respect to current orthodoxies, but its two foundational branches, metaphysics and epistemology, harmonise reality with logic
to a comprehensively convincing degree — in my humble opinion.
It is a clear-cut system, closed to ambiguity. It upholds the three integrated classical ‘laws of thought’; identity, non-contradiction and the excluded middle
(A is A; not {A and not-A}; A or not A) and Objectivism applies these laws to the existence of physical ‘entities’ in its metaphysics
as well as to objective ‘concepts’ in its epistemology.
Here and elsewhere I have been suggesting a new insight, a ‘4th law’ that potentially melds metaphysics and epistemology, physics and logic,
in an even stronger formulation: A is A because of not-A.
From information theory there is substantial reason to suppose that this is a fundamental mechanism for all information processing
(how the mind identifies its world), but I'm going further to advance it as the core mechanism at the heart of physical existence itself.
Furthermore it helps tie-up the loose-ends of universal holism, boundlessness and difference into a comprehensively continuous ‘analogue physics’
(the identities of which rather neatly identified by binary, ‘digital’ mechanisms: essentially predictions about on/off neuronal firing patterns).
I would prefer to park this ‘new insight’ at the door of unambiguous Objectivism for evaluation
rather than the more fuzzy and gapping portal of general Naturalist philosophy
where all kinds of hypotheses tend to find a relatively uncritical welcome.
Moreover, I don’t think that the ‘4th law’ contradicts Objectivism, rather it furnishes it with a prospective insight about what ‘entities’ might turn out to be
at a fundamental level.
I refute the notion that it makes the idea of ‘entity’ or any actual entity any more ambiguous — indeed actual (threshold) difference is, if anything,
aggrandised by this additional ‘law’.
Furthermore, if correct, it represents a profound integration of all existence, that every ‘thing’ intrinsically requires the rest of the universe in order ‘to be’:
One in the Many.
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