Abstract Both empirical and theoretical objective science can only access relations, revealing nothing about the intrinsic nature of the entities “in relation”. We typically refer to these entities as “matter”, assuming their nature is irrelevant and that relational structures alone explain all phenomena, including consciousness. This would imply that consciousness arises not from matter itself but solely from its structural configurations. Consequently, if two worlds possess isomorphic structures and obey identical dynamical laws, isomorphic systems within these worlds should be equally sentient or insentient. I demonstrate that if this premise held true, the memories within an observer’s brain would bear no correlation to the external world. Yet since we do acquire knowledge of the external world, structure alone must be insufficient: there exists something beyond relations, the intrinsic essence of the “stuff in relation”. This essence imbues the observer’s structure with sentience, metaphorically “breathing fire” into it. In turn, the observer confers physical meaning upon the world’s structures. Remarkably, this conclusion emerges directly from physics and mathematics. Without acknowledging this intrinsic element, we would be incapable not only of subjective experience but also of acquiring any objective knowledge about the physical world.
Abstract Both empirical and theoretical objective science can only access relations, revealing nothing about the intrinsic nature of the entities “in relation”. We typically refer to these entities as “matter”, assuming their nature is irrelevant and that relational structures alone explain all phenomena, including consciousness. This would imply that consciousness arises not from matter itself but solely from its structural configurations. Consequently, if two worlds possess isomorphic structures and obey identical dynamical laws, isomorphic systems within these worlds should be equally sentient or insentient. I demonstrate that if this premise held true, the memories within an observer’s brain would bear no correlation to the external world. Yet since we do acquire knowledge of the external world, structure alone must be insufficient: there exists something beyond relations, the intrinsic essence of the “stuff in relation”. This essence imbues the observer’s structure with sentience, metaphorically “breathing fire” into it. In turn, the observer confers physical meaning upon the world’s structures. Remarkably, this conclusion emerges directly from physics and mathematics. Without acknowledging this intrinsic element, we would be incapable not only of subjective experience but also of acquiring any objective knowledge about the physical world.
While the materialist paradigm is credited for the incredible success of science in describing the world, to some scientists and philosophers there seems to be something about subjective experience that is left out, in an apparently irreconcilable way. I show that indeed a scientific description of reality faces a serious limitation, which explains this position. On the other hand, to remain in the realm of science, I explore the problem of sentient experience in an indirect way, through its possible physical correlates. This can only be done in a negative way, which consists in the falsification of various hypotheses and the derivation of no-go results. The general approach I use here is based on simple mathematical proofs about dynamical systems, which I then particularize to several types of physical theories and interpretations of quantum mechanics. Despite choosing this scientifically-prudent approach, it turns out that various possibilities to consider sentience as fundamental make empirical predictions, ranging from some that can only be verified on a subjective basis to some about the physical correlates of sentience, which are independently falsifiable by objective means.
Abstract I point out an underdetermination of physics, in particular of Quantum Mechanics: that of the relation between the operators and their physical meaning. The set of operators for which we attribute physical meaning is, from relational, structural, and dynamical points of view, indistinguishable from any set of operators obtained from the former by a unitary transformation that commutes with the Hamiltonian. The same is true for the structures inhabiting the world, in particular there are structures isomorphic to the structure of an observer, but they would attribute the meaning of position and other physical meanings to different operators. In particular, space itself is underdetermined from the structure of the theory. Different structures that are isomorphic to an observer would call “position” different observables, and consequently would call “space” different structures. I show that they are highly non-unique. A solution would be that all possible assignments of physical meaning to the operators allowed by the symmetries of the formalism are equally valid. But this leads to a problem: there would be no correlation between the content of the mind of an observer about the external world, and the actual properties of the external world. This has unexpected consequences: it refutes structural realism, and it shows that, in addition to the structure, the substance underlying the structures matters for consciousness to exist.
Classical physics assumes that the things exist independently of an act of observation; however, quantum theory suggests that the apparent form of quantum system emerges as a consequence of an act of observation. However, quantum theory is silent on the state of the systems prior to the act of observation. It assumes that the wavefunction collapses as a consequence of an act of observation but does not explain the mechanism of the collapse of wavefunction. Therefore, it is at least incomplete, if not incorrect. In this paper, we have shown that our understanding of the nature of physical reality is based on the false premise that we observe the physical entities, but the mechanism of perception is such that we can only perceive the information generated by the physical entities, not the physical entities. As per the current understanding of the process of perception, the brain projects the information it receives from the sense organs in the physical forms. Therefore, the entity that generates the information must preexist before it can be projected in the physical form. We do not perceive the actual Moon. The apparent form of the Moon is only a projection created by our brain. The apparent form is only a manifestation of something that generates information, but that cannot be observed directly. In the light of this observation, it becomes necessary to examine if we can establish causal relationships between events assuming that the place and time and events are observer independent. Apart from using the criterion prescribed by the EPR paper, we have also used these two methods to determine if we can have an observer independent description of reality. We have shown that an entity must have observer independent values of the physical quantities, but the act of measurement only reveals the observer dependent values of the physical quantities even in the macro world. We have confirmed our observations experimentally as well as through the observation of the natural phenomena.
An adequate physical theory requires something more than just mathematical equations and rules. It needs a philosophical conceptual framework as well. Something special that allows theoretical statements to be connected with human experiences. In classical mechanics the interpretive framework that ties the mathematics to experience does not affect our ontological notion. The basic idea of the classically conceived connection between the physically and psychologically describes aspects of nature is carry-over from the planetary dynamics that was the origin of classical mechanics: the locations of objects are regarded as being directly knowable, without any effects on those objects. In quantum mechanics the process of acquiring information, or knowledge pertaining to the location of that object affects the state that is being probed. This fact changes a status of observer. Now observer is an active part of the acquiring information scheme. New idea of observer requires new model. Observer consists of several parts: object+ apparatus+ environment+ consciousness of researcher. One of the most important function of consciousness is selection of conceptual interpretive framework for mathematical structure that ties theory and experiment. The results of experiments make sense only in appointed interpretative paradigm.
This paper advances a deductive formulation of a consciousness-based ontology in which consciousness is posited as the sole ontological foundation of reality. Starting from a minimal set of axioms that introduce no external substances, the work develops a formal framework in which knowledge is represented as regular closed sets of actualized distinctions within a topological space of unified consciousness. Within this framework, the observer emerges as a stable localization of knowledge structures, and physical phenomena are derived as forms of the observer’s local knowledge rather than as independent ontological entities. Space and time are reinterpreted as epistemic structures describing relations and ordered transformations of stable knowledge configurations. Matter is defined as a highly stable, densely structured configuration of knowledge; mass as a measure of resistance of such structures to restructuring; energy and momentum as knowledge of the intensity and directionality of restructuring processes. Gravitation is shown to be a local manifestation of the global harmony of consciousness, aimed at preserving compactness, Hausdorffness, and connectedness of knowledge structures, and is demonstrated to be equivalent to the geometry of space. Singularities and black holes are interpreted as limits of the observer’s local knowledge rather than as physical infinities or objects. The proposed framework eliminates the dualism of consciousness and matter, unifies geometry, dynamics, and observation within a single formalized context, and provides an epistemic reinterpretation of classical physical relations. Physics, in this view, is understood as a structured mode of self-knowledge of consciousness through local observers. The results suggest new conceptual foundations for the philosophy of physics, epistemology, quantum theory, and the ontology of artificial intelligence.
Humans are limited in what they know by the technical limitation of their cortical language network. A reality is a situation model. The universe is a collection of self-driven mathematical entities. If we are happy to accept randomness, it’s obviously possible that all other so-called “worlds” in the many-worlds interpretation don’t exist objectively. The so-called “physical interaction” (aka objective interaction) among any number of elementary particles is consistent with the so-called “physical law”. From the viewpoint of an imagined external observer (who is located somewhere outside of all worlds), in all worlds, every self-driven elementary particle is changing its state to match its fated state, together form a single fated self-driven state machine; the so-called “subjective reality” (aka the so-called “subjective conscious experience”) is actually the use of a mathematical model (MM) by a Turing machine (TM). The so-called “subjective reality” shouldn’t be able to alter/impact the fated world line of any elementary particle within this world. Except one objective MM which is a fitted MM of the objective reality, every other causality is not an objective MM but a Granger causality, and is an under-fitted MM of the objective reality.