Posted by Paul:
I don't understand the math.
Do you agree that in normal maths there is nothing to represent everything? +Infinity certainly doesn't do the job. If you agree, then all you have to understand about the math is that it is possible to postulate a system of mathematics where the Zero is thought of as everything rather than nothing. The wider consequences of doing so are not immediately relevant right now, my system doesn't depend on them - although this may not be true of the cosmology based on this math (which I only just grasp anyway).
It's just normal maths with the one thing bolted on, so it shouldn't be that difficult to understand. It's the general concept you need, not the fine details. The general concept is easy. It is the other stuff that's hard.
I don't understand this:
b) What “mind” is.
The mathematical objects of physics are designed to correspond directly to entities in the physical world. So I am making it clear here that I am NOT talking about the same sort of mathemetisation that Husserl is refering to. Additionally, I am explicitly specifying that with the help of the newly defined Zero (which, by becoming "everything" instead of nothing can provide a sort of "beingness"
within the system which does not occur in normal mathematics) this 0-mathematical object, including the relationships between the Zero and the complex 0-math object, is capable of representing the entire mind-matter system within itself, in a completely neutral self-referential system. Nothingness is the abscence of Being. Everythingness is the totality of Being. So we have replaced a Zero as not-being with a Zero as Being.
Now - the first sentence:
Whilst the parts of the 0-math neutral entity (0MNE) do not directly correspond to physical reality, they do indirectly correspond.
The 0-math entity is not a mathematisation of physical objects. So there is nothing in there that is immediately identifiable as directly corresponding to specific physical objects. But since physical objects are somehow "embedded" in this 0-mathematical object, there are parts of it which must in some way correspond to physical objects - but in a way that transcends the mind/matter distinction. This is compatible with David Bohm's implicate/explicate interpretation of QM, BTW.
Next sentence:
In other words, there are parts of the 0MNE which correspond to physical brains and there are parts of the 0MNE which correspond to other parts of physical reality.
This should be straightforward enough. Having established there is a relationship between parts of the 0MNE and what we call "Physical reality" it is obvious that some parts of the 0MNE correspond to the bits of physical reality we call brains and some correspond to bits that we call keyboards, etc....
Next sentence:
There are also internal causal relationships between those different parts i.e. the exact state of the part which corresponds to physical brains is partially determined by the state of other parts of the 0MNE via normal empirical causation.
Since the whole of the physical world is embedded in the 0MNE, it can be said that the state of some parts of it is causally affecting the states of other parts of it, exactly corresponding to the way that objects in the physical world cause other things in the physical world. In other words, when we see one physical thing causing another physical thing, there is a corresponding chain of causation occuring in the 0MNE. This, therefore, includes the whole of materialists conception of the process of perception, from photon leaving object to resulting brain state. What this description so far doesn't include is any consciousness or subjectivity. So far, the brain could belong to a p-zombie. There is no "mind".
Last sentence:
What we call “mind” is the result of the relationship between Zero and the part of the 0MNE which corresponds to a brain.
The Zero has come to represent a "being" (everything), as opposed to "non-being" (nothing). As you probably realised by now, the thing which is missing from the materialist picture is not mind-stuff, but beingness itself. You do not need to add any complexity to the P-zombie to make it conscious. All you have to do is "switch the light on". To continue the analogy, the Zero is the missing switch. We now have an additional relationship to play with. Just as the different parts of the 0MNE are inter-related in complex ways, there is also another relationship - the one between the 0MNE and the Zero/Beingness. So the relationship you have added hasn't added any "things". There is no mind-stuff. Yet there is now space in the model for a description of mind which accounts for the perceived difference between mind and matter
in an intelligible way. Minds are
tightly bound to brains, but they aren't "brain processes". They are the relationship between brain processes and the newly defined Zero.
If anything is unclear, please take it one sentence at a time. Explaining it to you in this way is a very important exercise for me in trying to improve the system myself and learning what things are particularly difficult for other people to understand.
Geoff
