Conventional vs. Framework's Stance. A continuation from ↗
What is probability? What is quantum mechanics? What is the observer? The frame of reference is paramount. I as intellectual I would focus on a subject, I take a position and go into some explanations webs. These would carry along their meaning, as in, with them a causal nexus is embedded. Let's say it comes to my mind, after spending much years in physics, to concentrate on subdomains in it, like quantum physics, and more specialized, in particles physics, etc. Once there, I would go through specific methods, formalization ways, that go deeper and deeper, so deep that there would be no phenomenal meaning attached to the methods. So I will form Symbols like: probability, wave functions, collapse, measurement, and all the other details, that have moved very much into mathematics, as looking very abstract, that would have to be attached to a phenomenal, causal nexus of a physical reality. Whereas there is an only one realm "real" real, through own functional, meaning-making, language items (that rests on the continual flow of items: the "qualia" Symbols.)
The underlying ideas within the Symbols Framework (let's take the following as C.Stefan's interpretation of quantum mechanics - for now, as it is not checked against other like: QBism, Relational Quantum Mechanics, Everettian, other views without "magic", "chasms" or "beyond"): through the "externsion" (see thesis) one enacts Symbols (see their properties, as "not in isolation" too), a process of unconscious and a slight conscious act. One then engages into the causal nexus within, into a rule-following game, in which logic and meaning follows de facto, it is embedded, "logic takes care of itself" (see Wittgenstein). Having that areal, the Symbols constrains then down the path some more solutions through the process, which along the way enacts new Symbols. Symbols gets imprinted, they are formed into the solution space of the overall position taken.
The past is changed by going in the forward: the seen past is an interpretation with which the forward is developed.
At one point I will form Symbols with less phenomenal meaning attached to them: this means Symbols connected in web, towards a cone in the Symboliad, they are physically present (as the Symbols is formed in the brain in the form of the electrical substrate.) (Access consciousness, a hierarchy of some sort is under question.)
At one point I will have the whole in front of me as a web of all the abstract concepts (the Symbols are there imprinted in Smboliad) with their Omniload capacity (the web behind, within their causal nexus structure.) I will try to operate with this view, which in itself positions as "half the questions and half the answers medium" as the way the learning, intelligence, free will is based on. Because this working in a space that is "abstract" as there is less and less phenomenon attached to the whole structure. The only things that remain in the attention, through the interpreted effect as seen intelligence, through this causal nexus structure are the things with which I will make a reality looking that way, but at that boundary, within a causal nexus that is further moved out of a frame (one can be very good at that areal, develop a great vocabulary within that cone, a super-intellectual/intelligent looking, yet that has less to do with a "reality.")
Then, let's say I am versed in probability, I then take a frame, a system, in this space, and try to see what is out there. The moment I look at it I see it from the perspective of the cone I am in. This means, when I am looking as an entity that knows probability, then the whole system and space is looking that way. At this boundary I see the systems as being that way, the way which my load is prepared to see. Yet this position may go a bit deeper and give a new interpretation, new Symbols may emerge, yet this space goes through that observer's interpretation from the former abstract level, with it's tools that are taken actually from another, original, sensible frame. And from that position in which one is siting, one would not have to do with a reality out there. But at that boundary one has to battle the very issues of the areal is in and how it got there. Overall one has to take a backwards step, it would go so far as to change a scientific demarcation. (see Symbolosophy.) One is to take another slice in the Symboliad. And the ones deep in already are not able to do that (because of a very hard work in against self-domestication, against a prestige through his rigurous penetration, considered intelligence and against a position within the society's Symboliad, that within the Zeitgeist promotes that way of glorification. So this change comes at a cost, it is someone from outside to change that, which it will make itself a sacrificial move. The others will come and correct him, yet coming to the same roughly conclusions of change and ideas of how that change should go, and of course it can be even dismissed it as (partially) wrong (it may be so as one can not contain a whole view with all aspects rigorously stated) when in fact he is the pioneer as it opened up another big round Symbol, another slice. (see Thesis.)
What is agency, intelligence and free will? Life as arcs and instances of an environment's niche.
The Symbols are developing along an homeostatic arc, and as a life form, as instance of its environment, there is no real incentive to think in terms of "adapt, cause learning, intelligence, free will..." in a strong sense because instance itself is an accurate reflection of the environment, of its niche. The instance as a natural one, is attuned and ready. What would be driving, as mechanism, it is called the "externsion" that it is happening in a state space (sensorymenal), and looks as solving a differential which would take place at some time. The solving itself is not pursuing alone, so to speak, but it comes from the base space that is loaded already with the "half question-half solution" space. Instance is thus or need to be seen as a malleable arc, reflecting its environment, within the niche, and intelligence taken, basically, as that solving of differentials, yet as a navigating activity, not disruptive. With that, one of the valid statements may seem that a rock is not able to solve anything, as there is no differential and no possibility to solve it (it is disputable, but taking different frames of reference.) But through the proper frame, when seeing instances as that, it is a position that would exclude de facto discussions as to why nature does not combine differently, or does not represent alien solutions (or thinking why there are no zombies). It includes de facto, as instance: the arc, the observer, a "sensorymenal" space and many instances of that kind of life form.
Intelligence, agency, free will are not the main drivers, rather the mechanisms within instances that are doing much of the load and drive. I advance and present all that tableau in here. OK, do instances can represent for themselves a hierarchy of selves or others? But then there must be some cognition test out there to see that. It is then the "mirror test" in animals offering some details? It looks as it is not. The problem of access consciousness seems here to be slowly dissolving.
The "self" is a story, a story imprinted within Symbols (no different in essence as the homeostatic Symbols ones: the nature and the substrate is the same.) And it is also not a story as naturally needed in an abstract sense (it is orthogonal to the instance.) Yet it goes on and on through mechanism of enacting new Symbols and imprinting them further. Through the mechanisms and the colony.
The thesis is that any life form has a *Symbol* for that self, in its way, by itself, homeostatically bounded. We, as a kind of life form, we have that malleability and are malleable, that offers us body-expressions, through that we create Symbols, and can give an "uttering", a name, to that Symbol within. Yet also through differentials and a proper medium for that to get imprinted (colony, culture, common spaces.) I am looking at how also a Symbol develops, to be within us through that soft spaces: from the body to the arc and units - themselves as electric-magnetic-ring-attractors and the "webs" they entail further in between the colony members, as that catalyst in the mix, which drives and accounts for a lot of naturalizations of our stance.
The Symbol for "self" it is round and seems to be doing stuff in a meaningful manner, with a purpose, etc. aka. "consciousness". But, I identified also how it develops, how it comes along due factors such as self-domestication, modeling as arcs, observers as makers of Symbols and through a colony, a resonating one.