[ExI] Subjective/Objective

Tue Jul 14 14:39:14 UTC 2026

On Tue, Jul 14, 2026, 3:33 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> On 13/07/2026 22:08, Brent Allsop wrote:
> >
> > Hi Ben,
> >
> > On Mon, Jul 13, 2026 at 4:57 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat <
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
> >
> >     On 13/07/2026 02:23, Brent Allsop wrote:
> >     > When we are aware of many qualities at one time as one unified
> gestalt experience, something more is happening — effing of the ineffable.
> >
> >
> >     Nope, nothing more is happening. When we become aware of something,
> when many signals are happening at the same time and influencing each
> other, that is what is happening - we become aware of it. I don't know what
> else could be happening. Isn't it remarkable enough?
> >
> >
> > That is a falsifiable claim.
>
>
> Hmm, I'm not sure that it is, but if it is, well, that's how science
> proceeds. We create a falsifiable hypothesis then try to falsify it.
>
> So, please proceed with falsifying it. Either logically or (preferably)
> experimentally.
>
> My hypothesis is that you can't. Prove me wrong.
>
>
> >
> >
> >     Can I ask that you actually define the words 'ineffable' and 'eff',
> and explain what you think the phrase means? Do you think 'possing the
> impossible' means something? It would seem to imply something other than
> proving that something thought to be impossible is possible after all. What
> the Wright brothers did, for example.
> >
> >
> > I don't know what more I can say to define this, given everything we've
> discussed.  You can't tell someone what redness is like, with words alone,
> because the quality is ineffable.  Parts of our brain integrate
> information, so we can directly apprehend many qualities into one unified
> gestalt experience.  I predict we will soon discover new qualities, and
> achieve the ability to integrate them into our experiences (including the
> ability to integrate regular qualities into people who suffer from
> achromatopsia) - the second of 3 different ways to eff the ineffable. And
> that this will be demonstrated to be more than just abstract messaging.
>
>
> Here's my proposal for telling someone what redness is like with words
> alone, in the real world: Do what we do with small children. Show them a
> red thing, and say "Red". Show them another red thing, and repeat "Red". Do
> this enough times that they can reliably use the label "Red" whenever they
> are experiencing 'their redness' when they look at something.
>
> I know that this is slightly different to what you are asking, but seeing
> as you are asking for something impossible (give someone else the same
> experience that you are having), I'm going for the nearest practical thing:
> Give them a name for what they are experiencing, so that they can reliably
> communicate with other people about the red things that we are all having
> our own private experience of.
>
> I don't know what "we will soon discover new qualities ..." means, but I
> do know that each person will, throughout their lives, constantly discover
> new experiences. Or at least, I know that I have. I can't truly speak for
> anyone else, of course.
>
> And again, you're saying that there is a type of message that is not
> abstract. This is an extraordinary claim, as I've already said. Please give
> us some extraordinary evidence for this physics-breaking new kind of
> message. If you can't, then you shouldn't be saying that such a thing
> exists. If I said that we see colours because tiny unicorns charge around
> in our brains with coloured horns, and jab them into the parts of our
> visual cortex that make us see colours, I would only expect to be
> challenged for proof, and if I couldn't provide any, I could only expect to
> be told to shut up and come back when I had some. That's fair, isn't it?
>
> I tell you what, let's drop the requirement for extraordinary evidence.
> Just /some/ evidence. Just give us one example. One single example of a
> message that carries within it its own meaning. A message that can be
> understood without context, without having to use some method of decoding
> it. I've been racking my brains trying to disprove this hypothesis that all
> messages are abstract (that's what scientists do, and while I'm not
> actually a scientist, I'm a big fan of the scientific method), and have so
> far drawn a blank, so that's still my default position. Even ".  ..  ..."
> is not an unambiguous message, needing no context to decode. So that's a
> second hypothesis you are invited to disprove.
>

There are two tracks that lead in opposite directions.

In the first track, it can be proved that any message can be interpreted in
any way, and this is a result from cryptography, in particular the OTP
encryption method allows any message to be encrypted to any other message
with equal probability. In this sense, every message can be viewed as
entirely abstracted from its meaning and interpretation.

In the second track, which I think you were alluding to with ". .. ..." I
think you are showing that some messages inherently convey meaning, even
without any pre-existing shared context. Think about the Arecebo message
broadcast to aliens, or deciphering an ancient language, or how LLMs learn
about the world given only a large corpus of text.

This I think can be proved about messages that are compressible. For any
string that is compressible has inherent discoverable patterns within it.
Discovering the patterns in the text can allow someone, even who has no
prior context, to understand the meaning of the message. Consider that in
the massive text corpus are all kinds of measured data about the world, say
the positions of the planets at various days across many years. Given
enough analysis, a compression algorithm could figure out that these
positions correspond to elliptical orbits that follow Kepler's law and as
viewed from one of the orbiting bodies. So from merely a list of numbers, a
sufficient analysis can reveal all kinds of things about the universe in
which this list of numbers was generated.

Jason

> Or, of course, you have a second option. You can use the 'Philosophy'
> get-out clause: "No, you misunderstand. This is PHILOSOPHY, not science.
> It's not meant to be taken seriously!"
>
> --
> Ben
>
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