The Multimodal User Interface.
Regarding theories by Donald D. Hoffman and others.
It is absolutely plausible that fitness trumps truth (or objective reality, whatever that is) in biological evolution.
But I do not believe that consciousness is fundamental. I believe that consciousness is something that emerge in some biological information processing clusters, brains for example, and it is a result of biological Evolution. Consciousness is like all other neural systems, expressions and functions; like reflexes, vision, emotions and the Autonomic Nervous System. Consciousness may be an epiphenomenon and may be eliminated by evolutionary pressure one day.
I also believe that our SpaceTime world may be just an isolated phenomenon, or rather a construct or a projection, inside our heads, but if so I do not see how even math can explain anything outside this illusion of SpaceTime. Math may also just be “icons” fitting the SpaceTime patterns. Math may be just another User Interface inside or consciousness to “read” the SpaceTime world. We put colour on the world and we put math on it.
Math may not be fundamental at all, it may be an illusion covering an illusion, lines around the parts in a puzzle we lay, yet another of all languages/symbols and stories our consciousness produce (and maybe the sum of all those languages/symbols and stories is the Consciousness?). Outside our SpaceTime illusion, math may be obsolete, irrelevant.
I like all thought experiments, but for me it is all Meta, stories created by consciousness, stories about our illusion. It is entertainment and consolation, and for me even escapism, from the empty dark truth; there is no meaning (outside our bio-bubble which is full of “local” meaning) and even if there were a meaning outside our bio-bubble, we can never know that. We may feel it (religion, awe, etc), but never know it.
For me the theory that consciousness may be fundamental is a wish, a dream, a hope, it has a religious flavour.
This is what my brain, by causality, produces…right here and now. I may think differently next year, if my consciousness is still active.
Consciousness is a mystery and we have no clue what it is or how it works. It is what we are and maybe we will never ever be able to understand it. Maybe consciousness can never understand consciousness, like we can not lift ourselves by our hair with our own body, or construct a perpetuum mobile.
But an enigma is not “fundamental” just because it is, well, an enigma. We can not grasp Eternity either; is Eternity fundamental? Or Nothing (nothingness, void). Is Nothing fundamental? What do we mean by the concept “fundamental” anyway? And maybe Eternity and Nothing is just something in our heads, concepts with no relevans outside Consciousness? Outside the SpaceTime mirage?
Just because the electro-chemical process we call “consciousness” ask a question, produce a symbol, about itself, does that make it fundamental? Does it make it special at all? Is a mirror reflexion fundamental? Why should we consider consciousness more “special” than e.g. a flight reflex? Just because we feel that a mammals thoughts is more than a worm twitching when stung with a needle?
It is the “value” problem again. We, our consciousnesses, give values to phenomenon and events. Does those values have any merit outside our consciousnesses? Our emotions? Our culture? Our SpaceTime illusion?
So: Even if SpaceTime is a construction inside our consciousness, why should that make consciousness fundamental? Something rooted outside the SpaceTime illusion/projection? Why should anything that consciousness produce have anything to say about anything outside the illusion, outside SpaceTime?
Even if consciousness creates a perfect theory about its own fundamental properties, why should that be more “truthful” than the creation of SpaceTime? Is it not just another layer of illusion? Just another story?
For me the idea that consciousness is fundamental, that it is a part of the unknown mystery outside our SpaceTime illusion, has a taste of religion. Of course my statement is also just a consciousness producing a story and I will gladly change my mind if I stumble over information that contradict my story. But that information would also just be a consciousness telling a story. And so on.
