Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Just words. Meaningless. The universe is described and defined by mathematics, that is the language of Cosmology.
A Trinity Framework: Linking Structure, Evolution, and Conscious Experience
- Thread starter Lumen
- Start date
That response doesn’t address the argument.
I’m not replacing mathematics, I’m asking how to interpret the relationship between structure, pattern formation, and experience.
Dismissing it as “just words” isn’t a critique it’s just opting out of the discussion.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
You haven't made one. Either there is something wrong with the CMBR picture (this is not just a measurement) or the measurements of the standard candles.
Why does that matter? Does that give us anything new?
You mentioned JWST, will that find out about the universe or philosophising with words?
I have made an argument, just not the kind you’re expecting.
I’m not trying to produce measurements or replace cosmology. I’m asking how to interpret the relationship between structure, pattern formation, and observation within the same system.
That matters because physics gives us models and measurements, but it doesn’t resolve how those relate to the fact that we are systems within that structure, generating and interpreting those models.
Dismissing that as “just words” assumes that only quantitative descriptions are meaningful, which is a philosophical position, not a demonstrated fact.
If you think the reasoning is wrong, point to where it fails. Simply saying it doesn’t produce measurements doesn’t address the argument.
Firstly a disclaimer!
I’m not proposing a new physics or trying to replace existing models. This is a conceptual framework, not a competing physical theory. I’m suggesting that structure, evolution, and conscious experience may be different aspects of the same underlying reality rather than separate domains.
I’ve discussed parts of this already in another thread but it ended up spread across replies, so I’m setting it out more clearly here from the start:
https://www.sciforums.com/threads/a...ience-different-aspects-of-one-system.167396/
By structure I mean the overall configuration of reality. By evolution I mean how stable patterns emerge and persist within that structure. And by conscious experience I mean what occurs only in certain highly organised systems that can internally register, update, and relate to their own state.
By “relate to their own state” I mean systems that maintain an ongoing internal condition and integrate changes across themselves rather than simply reacting to inputs. A useful way to think about this is that such systems form relatively unified wholes where internal interactions are more strongly integrated than interactions with the outside, which gives a natural boundary to the system without relying on arbitrary physical edges.
This may involve information processing, but I’m not reducing it purely to computation or to a specific function like attention or self-representation.
The point is that when a system has this kind of integrated, self-relating organisation, experience is what that is like from the inside. On this view, time, change, and observation aren’t independent features but arise from how these organised systems exist within and interact with the overall structure.
This doesn’t mean everything is conscious and it doesn’t dismiss biology or physics. It places them within a single framework without reducing one entirely to the other: physics describes the structure, evolution explains how stable patterns form, and consciousness is the internal aspect of specific kinds of organisation within those patterns.
The aim isn’t to compete with measurement-based science or produce new numerical predictions but to offer a way of understanding how these different descriptions relate to each other. In principle this wouldn’t depend on whether a system is biological or artificial, what matters is whether the system actually has that kind of integrated, self-relating organisation. Complexity alone wouldn’t be sufficient.
In short, I'm proposing that stable patterns exist within a complete structure, evolution possibly explains why those patterns persist, and consciousness appears only where those patterns are organised in a way that can internally register and relate to their own state.
And that's it, just some thoughts .
I’m not proposing a new physics or trying to replace existing models. This is a conceptual framework, not a competing physical theory. I’m suggesting that structure, evolution, and conscious experience may be different aspects of the same underlying reality rather than separate domains.
I’ve discussed parts of this already in another thread but it ended up spread across replies, so I’m setting it out more clearly here from the start:
https://www.sciforums.com/threads/a...ience-different-aspects-of-one-system.167396/
By structure I mean the overall configuration of reality. By evolution I mean how stable patterns emerge and persist within that structure. And by conscious experience I mean what occurs only in certain highly organised systems that can internally register, update, and relate to their own state.
By “relate to their own state” I mean systems that maintain an ongoing internal condition and integrate changes across themselves rather than simply reacting to inputs. A useful way to think about this is that such systems form relatively unified wholes where internal interactions are more strongly integrated than interactions with the outside, which gives a natural boundary to the system without relying on arbitrary physical edges.
This may involve information processing, but I’m not reducing it purely to computation or to a specific function like attention or self-representation.
The point is that when a system has this kind of integrated, self-relating organisation, experience is what that is like from the inside. On this view, time, change, and observation aren’t independent features but arise from how these organised systems exist within and interact with the overall structure.
This doesn’t mean everything is conscious and it doesn’t dismiss biology or physics. It places them within a single framework without reducing one entirely to the other: physics describes the structure, evolution explains how stable patterns form, and consciousness is the internal aspect of specific kinds of organisation within those patterns.
The aim isn’t to compete with measurement-based science or produce new numerical predictions but to offer a way of understanding how these different descriptions relate to each other. In principle this wouldn’t depend on whether a system is biological or artificial, what matters is whether the system actually has that kind of integrated, self-relating organisation. Complexity alone wouldn’t be sufficient.
In short, I'm proposing that stable patterns exist within a complete structure, evolution possibly explains why those patterns persist, and consciousness appears only where those patterns are organised in a way that can internally register and relate to their own state.
And that's it, just some thoughts .
To bring together various explanations and make things ( I hope) clearer I have summarised things here ( new thread so new contributors don't have the task of reading everything here).
www.sciforums.com
A Trinity Framework: Linking Structure, Evolution, and Conscious Experience
Firstly a disclaimer! I’m not proposing a new physics or trying to replace existing models. This is a conceptual framework, not a competing physical theory. I’m suggesting that structure, evolution, and conscious experience may be different aspects of the same underlying reality rather than...
www.sciforums.com
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
The scientific argument is the only one that matters if you are discussing the TOE or the Hubble tension.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
To discuss these things you first need to understand exactly what those things are in terms of actual Cosmology.
So far you have not said anything relating to Cosmology that has any scientific meaning.
When the Hubble tension has been resolved then philosophers can take over if they want, as they did with Quantum mechanics.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Nope, I read the papers and cite the ones I find interesting. The points of interest are the methods, the space and ground based telescopes involved, the theories, the data.
I do not have a favourite or a position, I certainly have a guess but that is based on the published literature.
Cosmology isn’t limited to established equations.
Foundational questions about what those equations represent are part of the field, and always have been. Ideas like the block universe or interpretations of quantum mechanics are discussed conceptually long before they’re formalised mathematically.
So restricting the discussion to only what’s already expressed in equations is an artificial limitation, not a rule.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
But this is overthinking the issue, isn’t it? Time and again people have independently come to similar ideas at almost the same time in history, simply because of the state of human knowledge at that point, as is the conventional explanation. (The attribution of key advances to a single isolated individual, like Darwin or Einstein, seems to be largely a Romantic myth.)
I can’t see that trying to make a model of different paths through an undefined “structure” does anything but obscure the simpler explanation. People are on the whole not arriving from different directions. On the contrary, they have access to the same body of prior knowledge, the incomplete jigsaw - and trying to fit in the next piece.
I am tempted to invoke Ockham’s Razor.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
Surely it’s the other way round? With QM the equations came first, were found to predict observations very well, sometimes surprisingly so, and then came the various interpretations.
(As far as I am aware the interpretations have never been formalised mathematically, because they are not science but philosophy, so they are not amenable to being expressed in mathematics.)
Thank you all for your contributions and critique! To save new contributors having to read the entire thread I have consolidated and fine tuned things for what I hope is improved clarity into a single post.
www.sciforums.com
A Trinity Framework: Linking Structure, Evolution, and Conscious Experience
Firstly a disclaimer! I’m not proposing a new physics or trying to replace existing models. This is a conceptual framework, not a competing physical theory. I’m suggesting that structure, evolution, and conscious experience may be different aspects of the same underlying reality rather than...
www.sciforums.com
Just to add a missing piece of context to this, what I’m calling “structure” here is what I described in my ball of wool thread (diagram included):
https://www.sciforums.com/threads/167364/
That’s important because I’m not talking about spacetime or a block universe underneath all this.
In the ball of wool there’s no coordinates, no global ordering, no pre-existing paths. It’s just a complete tangled configuration where nothing is actually flowing at the whole level.
So when I talk about “paths” or “traversal” in this thread, I don’t mean something already laid out like a worldline.
A path only exists if a system can actually sustain one. It’s not there waiting to be followed. The system itself is what makes it possible.
That’s the key difference from block theory.
Block theory still has spacetime doing the work underneath. Even if nothing flows, the structure is still defined in terms of time and ordering.
This isn’t that.
It’s one structure, but different kinds of systems stabilise different ways through it, and that’s where evolution and experience come in.
Structure = the whole configuration
Evolution = what stabilises within it
Experience = what it feels like from inside one of those stable sequences
So time isn’t a base feature here. It’s what that sustained sequence feels like internally.
And that’s also why I don’t automatically see something like the Hubble tension as needing one fixed answer. Different observers may be stabilising genuinely different effective routes through the same structure, not just measuring the same thing from slightly different angles.
So this isn’t a version of block theory. It’s prior to that.
( crude Ai visual - excuse errors it was the best version I could generate before I lost the will to live)
Meanwhile ...
A few people asked what the “maths” behind this might look like. I don’t work in that space, so I asked AI to translate the idea into a more formal description.
It’s not something I’m claiming as a finished model, just a way of showing that the framework can be expressed more rigorously if needed.
For me the core idea is still the simple one in the original post — structure, pattern, and experience as different aspects of the same system.
Maths?
S = complete tangled possibility space (fixed, atemporal)
I_int(C) ≫ I_ext(C)
Stability(C) = I_int(C) − λ·I_ext(C) − μ·|∂C|
Sustain(P) = ∏ Stability(Cᵢ | sᵢ → sᵢ₊₁) > threshold
Φ(O) = max [ I_int(O) − I_ext(O) ]
H₀^eff(O₁) ≠ H₀^eff(O₂)
That’s as far as I’m going with the maths side. My interest is in the conceptual picture, if the maths is flawed or incomplete then that’s something people here are far better placed than me to assess.
https://www.sciforums.com/threads/167364/
That’s important because I’m not talking about spacetime or a block universe underneath all this.
In the ball of wool there’s no coordinates, no global ordering, no pre-existing paths. It’s just a complete tangled configuration where nothing is actually flowing at the whole level.
So when I talk about “paths” or “traversal” in this thread, I don’t mean something already laid out like a worldline.
A path only exists if a system can actually sustain one. It’s not there waiting to be followed. The system itself is what makes it possible.
That’s the key difference from block theory.
Block theory still has spacetime doing the work underneath. Even if nothing flows, the structure is still defined in terms of time and ordering.
This isn’t that.
It’s one structure, but different kinds of systems stabilise different ways through it, and that’s where evolution and experience come in.
Structure = the whole configuration
Evolution = what stabilises within it
Experience = what it feels like from inside one of those stable sequences
So time isn’t a base feature here. It’s what that sustained sequence feels like internally.
And that’s also why I don’t automatically see something like the Hubble tension as needing one fixed answer. Different observers may be stabilising genuinely different effective routes through the same structure, not just measuring the same thing from slightly different angles.
So this isn’t a version of block theory. It’s prior to that.
( crude Ai visual - excuse errors it was the best version I could generate before I lost the will to live)
Meanwhile ...
A few people asked what the “maths” behind this might look like. I don’t work in that space, so I asked AI to translate the idea into a more formal description.
It’s not something I’m claiming as a finished model, just a way of showing that the framework can be expressed more rigorously if needed.
For me the core idea is still the simple one in the original post — structure, pattern, and experience as different aspects of the same system.
Maths?
S = complete tangled possibility space (fixed, atemporal)
I_int(C) ≫ I_ext(C)
Stability(C) = I_int(C) − λ·I_ext(C) − μ·|∂C|
Sustain(P) = ∏ Stability(Cᵢ | sᵢ → sᵢ₊₁) > threshold
Φ(O) = max [ I_int(O) − I_ext(O) ]
H₀^eff(O₁) ≠ H₀^eff(O₂)
That’s as far as I’m going with the maths side. My interest is in the conceptual picture, if the maths is flawed or incomplete then that’s something people here are far better placed than me to assess.
Last edited:
I've been thinking ... and another visual came to me which may offer further clarity. And I've expanded my thought process a tad.
So, this time picture rain droplets moving down a window pane. The pane itself, with all its tiny textures, slopes and imperfections, is like a simplified slice of the full structure, ( in this case the ball of wool I mentioned previously). Everything that could happen is already latent in it, but there is no global flow across the whole thing.
In that sense, the pane is a bit like block theory. A block universe treats past, present and future as existing together in a fixed structure. That works well at a local level, like one pane or one slice.
But the full ball of wool is richer than that. It is not just one flat block. It is the larger atemporal tangle of possible configurations and connections, without one global ordering.
Each droplet is like a self sustaining system moving through that structure. It does not follow a pre laid track. The surface only offers possibilities. The droplet itself maintains a coherent path because its internal cohesion is stronger than its interaction with the surroundings. From the inside, that sustained path feels like a sequence. That is what we experience as time?
Different droplets can take different routes through the same surface. Some meander, some move more directly, some merge into larger droplets with greater stability. The underlying structure does not change, but what counts as a path depends on what can actually sustain one.
So for me, block theory fits part of the picture, but only locally. The pane captures a fixed slice. The wool is the bigger relational whole. And the droplet is the system sustaining a path within it.
That still brings me back to the same trinity of structure, evolution and experience.
And now I think I'm done with this particular pondering session. Be grateful for any thoughts however and thank you for entertaining a ponderer.
So, this time picture rain droplets moving down a window pane. The pane itself, with all its tiny textures, slopes and imperfections, is like a simplified slice of the full structure, ( in this case the ball of wool I mentioned previously). Everything that could happen is already latent in it, but there is no global flow across the whole thing.
In that sense, the pane is a bit like block theory. A block universe treats past, present and future as existing together in a fixed structure. That works well at a local level, like one pane or one slice.
But the full ball of wool is richer than that. It is not just one flat block. It is the larger atemporal tangle of possible configurations and connections, without one global ordering.
Each droplet is like a self sustaining system moving through that structure. It does not follow a pre laid track. The surface only offers possibilities. The droplet itself maintains a coherent path because its internal cohesion is stronger than its interaction with the surroundings. From the inside, that sustained path feels like a sequence. That is what we experience as time?
Different droplets can take different routes through the same surface. Some meander, some move more directly, some merge into larger droplets with greater stability. The underlying structure does not change, but what counts as a path depends on what can actually sustain one.
So for me, block theory fits part of the picture, but only locally. The pane captures a fixed slice. The wool is the bigger relational whole. And the droplet is the system sustaining a path within it.
That still brings me back to the same trinity of structure, evolution and experience.
And now I think I'm done with this particular pondering session. Be grateful for any thoughts however and thank you for entertaining a ponderer.
A further point to address a critique I’ve had around consciousness and feelings.
Feelings are clearly biology led. We can see that directly. Some people do not experience pain due to genetics or injury. Brain damage can change personality. Chemical imbalance can increase or reduce what we describe as feelings. So whatever feelings are, they are strongly tied to biological structure.
But that is not the same as reflection on those feelings.
Animals appear to be conscious in the sense that they respond and experience, but they do not seem to reflect on their state in the way humans do. The inner voice we have likely developed alongside language. Before that, human experience may have existed without that layer of reflection.
So there is a difference between having an experience and thinking about that experience.
That distinction feels important in the context of this discussion.
Feelings are clearly biology led. We can see that directly. Some people do not experience pain due to genetics or injury. Brain damage can change personality. Chemical imbalance can increase or reduce what we describe as feelings. So whatever feelings are, they are strongly tied to biological structure.
But that is not the same as reflection on those feelings.
Animals appear to be conscious in the sense that they respond and experience, but they do not seem to reflect on their state in the way humans do. The inner voice we have likely developed alongside language. Before that, human experience may have existed without that layer of reflection.
So there is a difference between having an experience and thinking about that experience.
That distinction feels important in the context of this discussion.
exchemist
Valued Senior Member
I am pleased to see that at last you are starting to think about what can be meant by consciousness.
It seems obvious that at one level even a creature like a wasp is conscious, in that it reacts to stimuli and can make decisions in a limited way. If what interests you is the capacity to reflect on experience, that is consciousness in a far narrower sense. As for which animals may possess this capacity for reflection, it is hard to be sure. Creatures like crows and octopuses seem to have quite highly developed intelligence and have the ability to use tools. Many animals play, indicating a sense of fun. Whether they reflect on experience is impossible to know, but it seems to me unsafe to assume they do not.
Since mental processes go on in the brain, a biological organ that works through biochemical processes, it seems to me that consciousness is an activity of the brain, not a "thing" in its own right. What we call "experience" is just that mental activity taking place inside our own skulls.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
That's what Cosmology is, gravity, space time, radiation, the density shape and expansion rate, are described by equations.
Yes, Cosmologists know what these equations mean. This is why they think the universe is flat, expanding, a certain density and temperature.
This is false. Quantum Theory grew from anomalous observations and the failure of classical Theories to explain them.
There are many interpretations of QT and none of those affect the equations or predicted outcomes and these were put forward AFTER the equations were all established in the 1920s. Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, Pauli, Dirac, De Broglie.
It is not restricting the physics, the equations ARE the physics, that is what is discussed.
It would be like discussing Biochemistry without all the chemical equations.
foghorn
Valued Senior Member
Einstein didn’t like a particular solution thrown up by his own field equations, black holes.
Einstein even tried to show they couldn’t exist.
J. Oppenheimer and H. Snyder using Einstein’s field equations showed they could exist.
J. R. Oppenheimer and H. Snyder paper:
On Continued Gravitational Contraction
***************************
Gravitational waves predicted by equations, detected 2015.
***************************
Higgs Boson was predicted by equations years before it was indirectly detected.
How is using equations to model space, time, and mass limiting anything.
Last edited:
Your thought process is in alignment with that of the 'many' ... it doesn't however change what I am proposing.
To be clearer ( again ) I’m not separating consciousness from biology. I’m questioning whether biology produces it, or whether it’s the kind of system that sustains it. That’s the distinction I’m trying to get at. Feelings are an 'add on'.
And by that I mean
Feelings are biologically shaped expressions of experience and reflection on those feelings is a separate layer.
To be clearer ( again ) I’m not separating consciousness from biology. I’m questioning whether biology produces it, or whether it’s the kind of system that sustains it. That’s the distinction I’m trying to get at. Feelings are an 'add on'.
And by that I mean
Feelings are biologically shaped expressions of experience and reflection on those feelings is a separate layer.
Last edited: