Mind, Reality, or Mere Language?
Polylogue on Reality and Language between Eytan Suchard, Shimon Vaknin, and Sam Vaknin
The gauge principle is indeed totally contrary to the principle of parsimony. The justification for the principle of parsimony is the avoidance of overfitting. A model too complex loses its prediction capability, however, symmetry within a model and the existence of Gauge fields need not reduce its predictive power and in some cases, such Gauge fields have a clear measurable outcome and are therefore dictated by empirical measurement results.
Scientific models are best when they balance between overfitting and over-generalization and thus underfitting and failing to predict the outcome of an experiment. Asking existential questions is not within the scope of such predictive models in general, unless the answer does have implications that can be measured.
By your worldview, there is no need for an entity beyond the brain that uses the probabilistic quantum degrees of freedom in the brain to influence decisions, to feel pain and pleasure and to experience colors, due to the principle of parsimony, however, by the Gauge principle, if such an entity can exist without contradicting physical measurements then it does exist and if it does exist then we are not just biochemical machines but we also have true free will at least in some decisions we make.
The Gauge principle requires symmetry to exist within a language description of a physical object.
With the current technology, e.g. Transformer Neural Networks and physical implementations, it is possible to build such an object and show a degree of freedom in its color perception.
SV: What I am saying is that “feeling”, “pain”, “pleasure”, “color” etc. have no ontological status.
These are all mere epistemic elements – or even mere figments of language. They are not real.
So, there is no need – or possibility - to account for them in any way: not within a theory of the brain as an exclusive entity (materialism) and not with the introduction of any other entity.
Like “god”, for example - pain, pleasure, colors, etc., are not legitimate objects of scientific discourse (though, of course, they do have a limited place in metaphysics).
Moreover:
Not everything that can exist does exist.
The existence of statements and theorems and theories (“gauge fields”) is not the same as the existence of apples and space shuttles. It is not the same kind of existence:
Bestowed Existence
There is no way in principle to prove some statements, such as “god exists” “god does not exist”, “subjects perceive color”, and “subjects do not perceive color”. These statements can never acquire a truth value. They are empty null sets, so to speak.
ES: 1) You say: "These are all mere epistemic elements – or even mere figments of language. They are not real".
They are very real to each one of us. Don't you feel pain? Don't you enjoy good music?
Denying your own experiences as figments of language does not make them go away.
If mathematical language cannot account for these experiences and therefore dismisses "experience" altogether, it only tells us that mathematics and scientism are limited to describe the common knowledge we call "the physical world" and on which we all agree. The "internal" world of yours which is your experiences is inaccessible to me even if your brain would be wired to mine. I would be able to get the same input but would not know what experience they correlate with, for you.
You write: "Like “god”, for example - pain, pleasure, colors, etc., are not legitimate objects of scientific discourse (though, of course, they do have a limited place in metaphysics)"
Metaphysics does not equal leprosy.
