So it seems meaning can exist independent of a consciousness interpreting it. I definitely agree with that. I'm tempted to argue that "meaning" and "aboutness" are two different things, but that contradicts the argument I was making earlier that consciousness is a loop of meanin...

I've been thinking about this lately, because I heard of semiotics and biosemiotics. What is information?, by Marcello Barbieri, is excellent. I think DNA is about something it is not. DNA is two complimentary strands of nucleotides running along sugar phosphate backbones, and joined by hydrogen bo...

Just as DNA is impotent in a text book as a list of nucleotides--it must have a physical medium to "go"--so too do the laws of physics need a physical medium to "go." Equations in a physics book won't do anything, either. But gravity isn't coded in matter like DNA is; its "c...

I ultimately believe like you that DNA is doing something different than, say, gravity, and that's because it's producing emergent meaning. The whole reason biology exists is because you can't reduce an organism's behavior to molecules, even if we can reduce its assembly to molecules. The phenotype ...

It's a deep, fascinating puzzle. There are several different ways of looking at it. I think causality is perhaps the most useful. DNA causes something to happen. While it's also an effect of natural selection and mutation, our interest here is in its causal role. Tree rings don't cause anything. The...

He's developing a Theory of Everything by combining: 1. Multiverse interpretation of quantum mechanics. 2. Popperian epistemology. 3. Computation. 4. Evolution. So this brings together these issues: knowledge, intelligence, life, and matter.His overall aim is to show that the "Four Strands"...

The next chapter about Galileo went in a direction I had not expected, but WOW is it a mind-blowing new perspective on the stakes involved in the Inquisition and the heliocentric model of the solar system. I had never considered it in the context of the debate between solipsism and realism ( which h...

I didn't realize it at the time, but this guy (Luis) is the reason this thread exists. The reason the Navy started a reporting program for their pilots to come forward was because of legislation that this guy (and his team) pushed Congress to write. And every year, they keep inserting more into the ...

Why can't we examine this code? Isn't that what theoretical physicists do on a daily basis?

I just finished the book. I'm stunned. Not only is this real--WE ARE NOT ALONE--but Congress knows, too, and they have been crafting legislation for the last few years to force the Dept of Defense to share what it knows. This is moving forward. All the Congressional hearings and reports on the issue...

Conscious states, themselves, still require embodiment (i.e. materializing). That's an odd response from someone who thinks we have an immortal soul. I assumed you already accepted immaterial consciousness and thought. Do we not have conscious states in Heaven without a body? Does god also require ...

If your understanding of "Knowledge 'causing' Reality" is basically Platonic/Aristotelian — i.e. Information in the sense of the World/Prime Matter being "in-Formed" or infused/suffused with Form — then I don't think we disagree. Assuming such non-disagreement, the only caveat I...

Humans do have causal power. But without knowledge, this is limited to what their body can do to the objects immediately surrounding them. And that is reducible to materialism. I'm a weird atheist: I don't think materialism is correct. I think there is more to reality, though I wouldn't call it spir...

You're right, it's different. The information in DNA is doing much more. It doesn't just create an organism, but through that organism it interacts with both the environment and other DNA. And that interaction--phenotype to genotype and vice versa--represents an emergent level of order that has its ...

Book Review: Former Pentagon insider says U.S. unwilling to release all its UFO info Everyone should get this book and read it immediately. It's the biggest story in the history of mankind. Disclosure is happening. This is how it's being done. The people who know are waiting for the rest of you to ...

I'm surprised you didn't give me any pushback on my claim to have solved the transcendental problem. It's a pretty arrogant claim! I've solved it all myself, so I'm not going to give anyone else a problem for doing so. 😀 But it's not just life and consciousness that is produced by this, but also ev...

+JMJ+ […] … Through scientific understanding, we pierce the "veil of appearance" to get to the real, objective, physical world. But how do we know we're achieving such a transcendent goal if our only method of confirmation is through perceptions (e.g. the results of experiments)? We know ...

I suspect active information is a key to life and consciousness, and we won't create either without the active part of it. Oh I absolutely agree, and so would Deutsche (I think). But it's not just life and consciousness that is produced by this, but also every state of the universe , moment by mome...

Cool! We're thinking along similar lines. Active info is exactly the distinction Deutsche is making (I don't know if he makes it in this book; this book is his first). While the info has to be encoded molecularly in order to build an organism, the info is nevertheless transferable through different ...

What size bird and what size container do you use to sous vide? Do you chill in the ice bath in the sous vide bag, so the bird goes on the smoker relatively dry? BTW, since I don’t frequent the Council, this is the first I’ve seen you in a long time. Welcome back! Thank you! It was a 12 lb bird. No...