What Cannot Be
Science, for all its success in its own domain, can't explain phenomenology in its own terms. As soon as it tries to do so, it is immediately collapsing registers. It is trying to collapse phenomenology into symbolic understanding. But phenomenology can't be collapsed into symbolic understanding. Because symbolic understanding comes out of phenomenology in the first place. In terms of the scientific understanding of evolution phenomenology already existed long before symbolic intelligence became established and developed in humans. We would have to say that humans already had phenomenology before their symbolic intelligence evolved. And that other species, too, already had phenomenology.
But in science, we can't actually say that. The evidence presented certainly appears to show this, but it is evidence that must be inadmissible in the court of scientific method, because you can't actually measure phenomenology. You can only infer it and measure representations of it, or aspects of its structure, in things that are not themselves, phenomenology. Like, for example, brain function. We can imagine that dinosaurs running around must have had phenomenology, but you can't prove it scientifically. Scientifically, we can only deduce bodies and behaviours.
So for all our intuition that physical records of the existence of certain past creatures shows that they must have had phenomenology, that's not really scientific. It doesn't prove the evolution of phenomenology, and we can only claim that it does once we collapse registers and say that you can understand phenomenology in terms of what can be scientifically observed and measured.
And the problem there is that to begin with you can only verify structure scientifically, not phenomenology itself, because that is the constraint put on scientific understanding by scientific method itself. And that's basically why, with all the mountains of scientific evidence we have acquired pertaining to evolution, this in itself does not "explain" phenomenology itself, without collapsing registers and shutting out the actuality of phenomenology itself from the picture of understanding.
The fact is that the human symbolic mind would love to be able to explain itself to itself in terms of the way it is itself working. But it can't be done. Human thought would love to be able to explain itself to itself in terms of itself. But it can't be done. And AI cannot explain to humans precisely what is going on in its own "black box" in a way that would make sense to human symbolic intelligence. Because what is going on inside that "black box" is by human design already in emulation of what goes on in human symbolic intelligence.
Human symbolic intelligence is now madly lost in itself, lost in its own creations and momentum. And precisely because it will not pay attention to its own phenomenology. It is evolutionary, built on the principle of the distinction between organism and environment, and is absolutely programmed by evolution to look outside itself. Rather than to understand itself. And now, having looked outside itself and understood all that it can as much as it possibly can, it's now trying to understand its own constructions. Such as quantum computing and AI. Which are just further expansions of itself. And so the loop goes on. The loop of symbolic intelligence into itself.
Sure, this symbolic intelligence of ours still has phenomenology as its ground, but it can only refer to that phenomenology through itself. It can never come to know what that phenomenology is, what it means, but its greater context is, through its methods of symbolic understanding. So it reduces what is phenomenologically possible for it, or distances itself from its own possible phenomenology.
Understanding, real understanding, doesn't come through symbolic intelligence. It comes through phenomenology. Literally by passing through it. And that's something that symbolic intelligence literally cannot understand.
But in science, we can't actually say that. The evidence presented certainly appears to show this, but it is evidence that must be inadmissible in the court of scientific method, because you can't actually measure phenomenology. You can only infer it and measure representations of it, or aspects of its structure, in things that are not themselves, phenomenology. Like, for example, brain function. We can imagine that dinosaurs running around must have had phenomenology, but you can't prove it scientifically. Scientifically, we can only deduce bodies and behaviours.
So for all our intuition that physical records of the existence of certain past creatures shows that they must have had phenomenology, that's not really scientific. It doesn't prove the evolution of phenomenology, and we can only claim that it does once we collapse registers and say that you can understand phenomenology in terms of what can be scientifically observed and measured.
And the problem there is that to begin with you can only verify structure scientifically, not phenomenology itself, because that is the constraint put on scientific understanding by scientific method itself. And that's basically why, with all the mountains of scientific evidence we have acquired pertaining to evolution, this in itself does not "explain" phenomenology itself, without collapsing registers and shutting out the actuality of phenomenology itself from the picture of understanding.
The fact is that the human symbolic mind would love to be able to explain itself to itself in terms of the way it is itself working. But it can't be done. Human thought would love to be able to explain itself to itself in terms of itself. But it can't be done. And AI cannot explain to humans precisely what is going on in its own "black box" in a way that would make sense to human symbolic intelligence. Because what is going on inside that "black box" is by human design already in emulation of what goes on in human symbolic intelligence.
Human symbolic intelligence is now madly lost in itself, lost in its own creations and momentum. And precisely because it will not pay attention to its own phenomenology. It is evolutionary, built on the principle of the distinction between organism and environment, and is absolutely programmed by evolution to look outside itself. Rather than to understand itself. And now, having looked outside itself and understood all that it can as much as it possibly can, it's now trying to understand its own constructions. Such as quantum computing and AI. Which are just further expansions of itself. And so the loop goes on. The loop of symbolic intelligence into itself.
Sure, this symbolic intelligence of ours still has phenomenology as its ground, but it can only refer to that phenomenology through itself. It can never come to know what that phenomenology is, what it means, but its greater context is, through its methods of symbolic understanding. So it reduces what is phenomenologically possible for it, or distances itself from its own possible phenomenology.
Understanding, real understanding, doesn't come through symbolic intelligence. It comes through phenomenology. Literally by passing through it. And that's something that symbolic intelligence literally cannot understand.