Authors:

 Jones, Stephen.

Title:

 The Physics of Subjectivity
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Keywords:

 information, relations, emergence, subjectivity

Abstract:

 If physics is seen as the relations between its particulars then the large-scale aspects of the universe are a function of relational processes between these elements. These processes follow a procedural combinatorics similar to cellular automata, the emergent behaviour of which can show considerable coherence. Ie., emergent systems in the physical world are a function of the relations that persist between their parts. If emergence is considered as a function of relations, then consciousness can be understood as an emergent property of the relations persisting in the architecture of the body/brain.

In my paper at CRII I suggested that information was a more fundamental factor in the universe than physical objects as such. This implies that the relations between things are the actual fundamental elements of the universe. But, as relations are essentially informational and knowable as sense-data, our knowledge of these relations is our subjectivity. Thus, it is possible that the deep structure of the universe is actually knowable, despite Kant.

The problem then becomes not where does our subjectivity come from but how is it that there is an apparently objective physical aspect to the universe which may be seen as the source of the sense-data in the first place? Whence arises the solidity and objectivity of things? How do we come to speak of a physical universe, when what we know is informational and the particulateness of things is a matter of its relations, its procedural evolution? It is very likely that the deep structure of the universe is all we actually know. The so-called objective world exists in a bootstrap relationship with us and perhaps we have to say that I am not something which exists in this body but something which is a process of relations with the informational universe from which the by-products, such as "separate" objects, fall out as artifacts of our way of speaking about things. But one must ask then: Why have we developed this way of speaking? and to what extent are other, say tribal, ideas of the physical actually ideas of the physical at all?
Jones, Stephen. sjones@merlin.com.au http://www.culture.com.au/brain_proj/ Stephen Jones is an Australian video artist of long standing. For many years he was the videomaker for the electronic music band Severed Heads. He has been involved with the philosophical aspects of the nature of consciousness for almost longer than his involvement in video. He now works as an electronic engineer, on equipment ranging from analog video synthesisers to motion JPEG compressors. He has been producing The Brain Project web site since August 1996.