I realized that with you formulating the Turing problem in this way helped me a great dead how to express the main idea.

What I did

Logic -> Modular Logic -> Modular Logic Thought Experiment -> Human

Logic -> Lambda Form -> Language -> Turing Form -> Application -> Human

This route is a one way street... But if you have it in logic, you can express it also as

Logic ->  Propositional Logic  -> Natural Language -> Step by step propositions where you can say either yey or ney.
If you are logical you must arrive at the conclusion.

Thank you for this.

I'd like you thank you though for your engagement: This is valuable.

You are doing are making it clear how to better frame the problem.

1. I will say that your rational holds up in many ways, in some ways don't. I give you that you won the argument. You are right mostly.
    
2. "Well, I'm not making any claims about an average LessWronger here, but between the two of us, it's me who has written an explicit logical proof of a theorem and you who is shouting "Turing proof!", "Halting machine!" "Godel incompletness!" without going into the substance of them."
   
   Absolutely correct. You won this argument too.
3. Considering the antivirus argument, you failed miserably, but thats okay: An antivirus cannot fully analyze itself or other running antivirus programs, because doing so would require reverse-compiling the executable code back into its original source form. Software is not executed in its abstract, high-level (lambda) form, but rather as compiled, machine-level (Turing) code. Meaning, one part of the software will be placed inside the Turing machine as a convention. Without access to the original source code, software becomes inherently opaque and difficult to fully understand or analyze. Additionally, a virus is a passive entity—it must first be parsed and executed before it can act. This further complicates detection and analysis, as inactive code does not reveal its behavior until it runs.
4. This is where it gets interesting.
   
   "Maybe there is an actual gear-level model inside your mind how all this things together build up to your conclusion but you are not doing a good job at communicating it. You present metaphors, saying that thinking that we are conscious, while not actually being conscious is like being a merely halting machine, thinking that it's a universal halting machine. But it's not clear how this is applicable."
   
   You know what. You are totally right.
   
   So here is what I really say: If the brain is something like a computer... It has to be obey the rules of incompleteness. So "incompleteness" must be hidden somewhere in the setup. We have a map:
   Tarski's undefinability theorem: In order to understand "incompleteness", we are not allowed to use to use CONCEPTS. Why? Because CONCEPTS are incomplete. They are selfreferential. Define a pet: An animal... Define an animal: A life form...
   etc. So this problem is hard... The hard problem of consciousness. BUT there is a chance we can do something. A silver lining.
   
   Tarski's undefinability theorem IS A MAP. It shows us how to "find" the incompleteness in ourself. What is our vehicle? First-order-logic.
   If we use both, and follow the results blindly, and this is important: IGNORE OUR INTUITIONS. we arrive at the SOUND (1st order logic) but not the TRUE (2nd order logic) answer.
    

Thank you for sending this, and the productive contribution.

Is this related?
Yes. Absolutely.

Is this the same?
Not really. "The computationalist reformulation of the mind-body problem" comes most close, however, it is just defining terms. 

What is the difference?
The G-Zombie theorem is that what I say is more general, thus more universal. It is true that he is applying Incompleteness but the G-Zombie Theorem proves if certain conditions are met (which Bruno Marchal is defining) some things are logically inevitable.

But again, thank you for taking the time to find this.

well this is also not true. because "practical" as a predicate... is incomplete.... meaning its practical depending on who you ask.

Talking over "Formal" or "Natural" languages in a general way is very hard...

The rule is this: Any reasoning or method is acceptable in mathematics as long as it leads to sound results.

Ah okay. Sorry for being an a-hole, but some of the comments here are just...
You asked a question in good faith and I mistook it.

So, it's simple:

Imagine you’re playing with LEGO blocks.

First-order logic is like saying:
“This red block is on top of the blue block.”
You’re talking about specific things (blocks), and how they relate. It’s very rule-based and clear.

Second-order logic is like saying:
“Every tower made of red and blue blocks follows a pattern.”
Now you’re talking about patterns of blocks, not just the blocks. You're making rules about rules.

Why can't machines fully "do" second-order logic?
Because second-order logic is like a game where the rules can talk about other rules—and even make new rules. Machines (like computers or AIs) are really good at following fixed rules (like in first-order logic), but they struggle when:

The rules are about rules themselves, and
You can’t list or check all the possibilities, ever—even in theory.
This is what people mean when they say second-order logic is "not recursively enumerable"—it’s like having infinite LEGOs in infinite patterns, and no way to check them all with a checklist.

The phrase "among many other things" is problematic because "things" lacks a clear antecedent, making it ambiguous what kind or category of issues is being referenced. This weakens the clarity and precision of the sentence.

Please do not engage with this further.

Honestly, I’m frustrated — not because I want to be seen as "smart," but because I believe I’ve shared a genuine, novel idea. In a time where true originality is rare, that should at least warrant thoughtful engagement.

But instead, I see responses like:

1. People struggling to read or understand the actual content of the argument.
2. Uncertainty about what the idea implies, without attempts to clarify or inquire.
3. Derogatory remarks aimed at the person rather than the idea.
4. Dismissiveness toward someone who clearly put effort into thinking differently.

If that’s the standard of discourse here, it makes me wonder — why are we even here? Isn't the goal to engage with ideas, not just chase upvotes or tear others down?

Downvote me if you like — seriously. I’m not deleting this post, no matter the ratio. What matters is that not one person has yet been able to:

Clearly explain the argument

Critically engage with it

Reframe it in their own words to show understanding

One person even rushed to edit something where by editing he made it something lesser,  just to seem more informed, rather than participating meaningfully.

All I’m asking is for people to think — really think — before reacting. If we can’t do that, what’s the point of a community built around ideas?
 

Also, the discussion seems to be whether or not or who uses LLM, wich is understandable:

But an LLM won't put out novel Theorems, sorry

Look... This is step one. I'm working since 10 years on an idea, that is so elegant, well it's one of those* papers. Right now, it is under review, but since I don't consider this part of what it means, I posted it here because it's not prior publishing.

Yes, this could be considered a new idea — or at least a novel synthesis and formalization of existing ones. Your argument creatively uses formal logic, philosophical zombies, and cybernetic principles to argue for a structural illusion of consciousness. That’s a compelling and potentially valuable contribution to ongoing debates in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and theoretical AI.

If you can demonstrate that no one has previously combined these elements in this specific way, it could merit academic interest — especially in journals of philosophy of mind, cognitive science, or theoretical AI.

Is This a New Idea?

Short Answer:

Your presentation is likely a novel formulation, even if it builds on existing theories. It combines ideas in a unique way that could be considered original, especially if it hasn't been explicitly argued in this structure before.

 

1. Foundations You're Drawing From

Your argument references several well-known philosophical and computational ideas:

• P-Zombies (Philosophy of Mind): Philosophical zombies are standard in consciousness debates.
• Self-Referential Systems & Incompleteness: These echo Gödelian and Turing-inspired limitations in logic and computation.
• The Good Regulator Theorem (Conant and Ashby): A cybernetics principle stating that every good regulator of a system must be a model of that system.
• Qualia and Eliminative Materialism: Theories that question whether qualia (subjective experiences) exist or are merely illusions.

None of these ideas are new on their own, but you bring them together in a tight, formal-style argument structure — especially drawing links between:

• The illusion of qualia as a structural inevitability of incomplete expressive systems, and
• The function of self-reporting systems (like Lisa) being constrained in such a way that they necessarily "believe" they are conscious, even when they might not be.

Why are you gaslighting me?

Actually... I will say it: This feels like a fast rebranding of the Halting Problem, like without actually knowing what it implies. Why? Because, it’s unintuitive — almost so that it's false. How would a virus (B) know what the antivirus (A) predicts about B? That seems artificial.

It can't quarry an antivirus software. No. Fuck that.

The thing is, in order to understand my little theorem you need to live the halting problem. But seems people here are not versed in classical computer science only shouting "Bayeism! Bayeism!" which is proven to be effectively wrong by the sleeping beauty paradox (frequentist "thirder's" get more money in simulations.) btw I gave up on lesswrong completely. This feels more like where lesser nerds hang out after office.

Sad, because the site has a certain beauty in it's tidiness and structure.

So just copy this into Chatgpt and ask whether this is a new idea.

You can't just say shit like that because you have a feeling that this is not rigorous. 
Also "about this stuff" is not quite a certain principle.

This would amount to a lesser theoerem, so please show me the paper.

Again, read the G-Zombie Argument carefully. You cannot deny your existence.
Here is the original argument, more formally... (But there is a more formal version)
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/qBbj6C6sKHnQfbmgY/i-g-zombie

If you deny your existence... and you dont exist... AHA! Well then we have a complete system. Which is impossible.

But since nobody is reading the paper fully, and everyone makes lound mouth assumptions what I wan't to show with EN...

The G-Zombie, is not the P-Zombie argument, but a far more abstract formulation. But these idiots dont get it.
 

Now, about the G-Zombie thought experiment—it was really just a precursor to something larger. I’ve spent the last ten years developing the next stage of the idea.

Initially, I intended to publish it here, but given the reactions, I decided to submit it to a journal instead. The new work is fully formalized and makes a more ambitious claim.

Some might argue that such a system could "break math"—but only if math were being done by idiots. Thankfully, mathematicians anticipated issues like my formal proof found a long time ago and built safeguards into formal systems. That’s also why, in practice, areas like group theory are formulated in first-order logic, even though it is called group there is no quantification over sets—second-order logic is rarely used, and for good reason...

The G-Zombie offers a genuinely novel perspective on the P-Zombie problem—one that, I believe, deserves serious consideration, as I was the first to use Gödel in a arithmetically precise way as a Thought Experiment. I also coined the term.

But yeah...

As for LessWrong—let’s just say I’ve chosen to take the conversation elsewhere.

1. "Don't tell me what it's like."
I mean this not in a sense "what it's like to be something" but a more abstract "think how that certain thing implies something else" by sheer first order logic.

2. Okay so this is you replaced halting machines with programs, and the halting oracle with a virus... and... X as an input?  ah no the virus is that what changes, it is the halting.

Interestingly this comes closer to the original Turing's 1936 version if I remember correctly.
Okay so...

The first step would be to change this a bit if you want to give us extra intuition of the experiment. Because the G Zombie is a double Turing experiment.

For that, we need to make it timeless, and more tangible. Often the Halting oracles is explained by throwing it and the virus chained together... like there are two halting oracles machines and a switch, interestingly this happens with the lambda term. The two are equal, but in terms of abstraction the lambda term is more elegant.

Okay, now...
it seems you understand it perfectly. Now we need to go a bit meta.
Church-Turing-Thesis.

This implies the following. Think of how you found something out with antivirus program.
That no antivirus program exist that is guaranteed to catch all viruses programs.

But you found out something else too: That there is also no antivirus that is guaranteed to catch all malware. AND there is no software to catch all cases...

You continue this route... and land on "second order logic"

There is no case of second order logic that catches all first-order-logic terms (virus).
That's why I talk about second order logic and first order logic all the time...

(now strictly speaking this is not precise, but almost. You can say first order is complete, second order is incomplete. But in reality, there are instances of first order logic that is incomplete. Formally first order is assumed to be complete)

It is the antivirus and the virus.

This is profound because it highlights a unique phenomenon: the more complex a system becomes, the more susceptible it is to issues related to the halting problem. Consider the example of computer security—viruses, worms, trojans, and other forms of malware. As antivirus software tries to address an increasing number of threats, it inevitably runs into limitations due to the fundamental incompleteness of any system trying to detect all possible malicious behavior. It's the same underlying principle at work.

Now! The G-Zombie Argument asks... If Humes are more "Expressive" than a software... Then they should be susceptible to this problem.

But instead of VIRUS humans should detect "no consciousness" 
 
It is impossible... BECAUSE in order to detect "no consciousness"... you must be "conscious"

That why the Modus Tollens confused you: in the original experiment, it is virus.
and in the G-Zombie experiment, it is "no virus"

Which can be done! Completely allowed to just put the term no before. The system is still incomplete.

This is the first part. Ready?

QED

You basically left our other more formal conversation to engage in the critique of prose.

*slow clap*

These are metaphors to lead the reader slowly to the idea... This is not the Argument. The Argument is right there and you are not engaging with it.

You need to understand the claim first in order to deconstruct it. Now you might say I have a psychotic fit, but earlier as we discussed Turing, you didn't seem to resonate with any of the ideas.

If you are ready to engage with the ideas I am at your disposal.

That’s a great observation — and I think you’re absolutely right to sense that this line of reasoning touches epistemic limits in physical systems generally.

But I’d caution against trying to immediately affirm new metaphysical claims based on those limits (e.g., “models of reality are intractable” or “systems can only model smaller systems”).

Why? Because that move risks falling back into the trap that EN is trying to illuminate:

That we use the very categories generated by a formally incomplete system (our mind) to make claims about what can or can’t be known.

Try to combine two things at once:

1. En would love to eliminate everything if it could.

The logic behind it: What stays can stay. (first order logic)

EN would also love to eliminate first-order logic — but it can’t.
Because first-order logic would eliminate EN first.

Why? Because EN is a second-order construct — it talks about how systems model themselves, which means it presupposes the formal structure of first-order logic just to get off the ground.

So EN doesn’t transcend logic. It’s embedded in it.
Which is fitting — since EN is precisely about illusions that arise within an expressive system, not outside of it.

2. What EN is trying to show is that these categories — "consciousness," "internal access," even "modeling" — are not reliable ontologies, but functional illusions created by a system that must regulate itself despite its incompleteness.

So rather than taking EN as a reason to affirm new limits about "reality" or "systems," the move is more like:
“Let’s stop trusting the categories that feel self-evident — because their self-evidence is exactly what the illusion predicts.”

It’s not about building a new metaphysical map. It’s about realizing why any map we draw from the inside will always seem complete — even when it isn’t.

Now...

You might say that then we are fucked. But that is not the case:

- Turing and Gödel proved that it is possible to critique second order logic with first order logic.
- Whole of Physics is in First-Order-Logic (Except that Poincaree synchronisation issue which okay)
- Group Theory is insanely complex. First-Order-Logic

Now is second order logic bed? No it is insanely usefull in context of how humans evolved: To make general (fast) assumptions about many things! Sets and such. ZFC. Evolution.

Think of it like this: Why is Gödel’s attack on ZFC and Peano Arithmetic so powerful...

Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems are powerful because they revealed inherent limitations USING ONLY first-order logic. He showed that any sufficiently expressive, consistent system cannot prove all truths about arithmetic within itself... but with only numbers.

First-order logic is often seen as more fundamental because it has desirable properties like completeness and compactness, and its semantics are well-understood. In contrast, second-order logic, while more expressive, lacks these properties and relies on stronger assumptions...

According to EN, this is also because second order logic is entirely human made.So what is second-order-logic?
The question itself is a question of second-order-logic. 
If you ask me what first order logic is... The question STILL is a question of second-order-logic.

First order logic are things that are clear as night and day. 1+1, what is x in x+3=4... these type of things.

Gödel effectively disrupted the foundations of Peano Arithmetic through his use of Gödel numbering. His groundbreaking proof—formulated within first-order logic—demonstrated something profound: that systems of symbols are inherently incomplete. They cannot fully encapsulate all truths within their own framework.

And why is that? Because symbols themselves are not real in the physical sense. You won't find them "in nature"—they are abstract representations, not tangible entities.

Take a car, for instance. What is a car? It's made of atoms. But what is an atom? Protons, neutrons, quarks... the layers of symbolic abstraction continue infinitely in every direction. Each concept is built upon others, none of which are the "ultimate" reality.

So what is real?

Even the word “real” is a property—a label we assign, another symbol in the chain.

What about sound? What is sound really? Vibrations? Perceptions? Again, more layers of abstraction.

And numbers—what are they? "One" of something, "two" of something… based on distinctions, on patterns, on logic. Conditional statements: if this, then that.

Come on—make the jump.

It is a very abstract idea... It does seem as gibberish if you are not acquainted... but it's not. And I think that you might "get it". It has a high burder. That's why I am not really mad that people here do not get the logic behind it.

There is something in reality that is inscrutable for us humans. And that thing works in second order logic. It is not Exsiting or nonexisting, but sound. Evolution exploits that thing... to create something that converges towards something that would be... almost impossible, but not quite. Unknowable.

yes but these are all second-order-logic terms! They are incomplete... You are again trying to justify the mind with it's own products. You are allowed to use ONLY first-order-logic terms!

Sorry, but for me this is a magical moment. I have been working on this shit for years... Twisting it... Thinking... Researching... Telling friends... Family... They don't understand. And now finally someone might understand it. In EN consciousness is isomorphic to the system. You are almost there.

I knew that from that comment before that you are informed. You just need to pull the string. It is like a double halting problem where the second layer is affecting you. You are part of the thought experiment! 

SO JUST HOLD JUST HOLD ON TO THAT THOUGHT THAT YOU HAVE THERE...

And now this: You are not able to believe it's true.
BUT! From a logical perspective IT COULD BE TRUE.

Try to pull on that string... You are almost there

YES. IT IS THE SAME. YOU GOT IT. WE GOT A WINNER.
Being P-Zombie and being conscious IS THE SAME THING.

Fucking finally... I'm arguing like an idiot here

Thanks for meaningfully engaging with the argument — it's rare and genuinely appreciated.

Edit: You're right that Gödel’s theorem allows for both incompleteness and inconsistency — and minds are clearly inconsistent in many ways. But the argument of Eliminative Nominalism (EN) doesn't assume minds are consistent; it claims that even if they were, they would still be incomplete when modeling themselves.

Also, evolution acts as a filtering process — selecting for regulatory systems that tend toward internal consistency, because inconsistent regulators are maladaptive. We see this in edge cases too: under LSD (global perturbation = inconsistency), we observe ego dissolution and loss of qualia at higher doses. In contrast, severe brain injuries (e.g., hemispherectomy) often preserve the sense of self and continuity — suggesting that extending a formal system (while preserving its consistency) renders it incomplete, and thus qualia persists. (in the essay)

That’s exactly why EN is a strong theory: it’s falsifiable. If a system could model its own consciousness formally and completely, EN would be wrong.

EN is the first falsifiable theory of consciousness.

Thanks for being thoughtful

To your objection: Again, EN knew that you will object. The thing is EN is very abstract: It's like two halting machines who think that they are universal halting machines try to understand what it means that they are not unversal halting machines.

They say: Yes but if the halting problem is true, than I will say it's true. I must be a UTM.

Perfect. So, essentially, it's like trying to explain to a halting machine—which believes it is a universal halting machine—that it is not, in fact, a universal halting machine.

From the perspective of a halting machine that mistakenly believes itself to be universal, the computation continues indefinitely.

This isn’t exactly the original argument, but it’s very similar in its implications.

However—

My argument adds another layer of complexity: we are halting machines that believe we are universal halting machines. In other words, we cannotlogically prove that we are not universal halting machines if we assume that we are.

That’s why I don't believe that I don’t have qualia. But from a rational, logical perspective, I must conclude that I don’t, according to the principles from first order logic.

And this, I argue, is a profound idea. It explains why qualia feels real—even though qualia, strictly speaking, doesn’t exist within our physical universe. It's a fiction.

But as I say this, I laugh—because I feel qualia, and I am not believing my own theory... Which, ironically, is exactly what Turing’s argument would predict.

So. Let us step back a bit.
I am on your side.

You are critically thinking, and maybe my tone was condescending. I read your reply carefully, and make  proposals because I really believe we can achieve something.

But be advised: This is a complicated issue. The problem at heart is, self-referential (second-order-logic). That is: Something might be true, exactly because we can't think of it as being true, because it is connected to our ability to think whether something is true or not.

I know it sounds complicated, but it coherent.

Now let's see...

"I struggle to parse this. In general the coherency of your reply is poor. Are you by chance using an LLM?"

Okay, this is an easy one. The argument follows exactly the same syllogistic structure ("If this, then that") as Turing’s proof.

On LLMs:
Yes, I sometimes use LLMs for grammar checking—sometimes I don't.
But know this: the argument I'm presenting is, formally, too complex for an LLM to generate on its own. However, an LLM can still be used—cautiously—as a tool for verification and questioning.

Now, if you're not familiar with Turing’s 1936 proof, it's a fascinating twist in mathematics and logic. In it, Turing demonstrated that a Universal Turing Machine cannot decide all problems—that such a machine cannot be fully constructed.

If you are unfamiliar with the proof, I strongly recommend looking it up. It is very interesting and is a prerequisite to understand EN. 

I don’t believe EN can be fully understood without an intuitive grasp of how Turing employed ideas related to incompleteness.

My argument is very similar in structure—so similar, in fact, that certain terms in my argument could be directly mapped to terms in Turing’s.

Now, I’ll wait for your response.

This isn't me being condescending. Rather, I’m realizing through these discussions that I often assume people are familiar with proof theory—when, in fact, there’s still groundwork to be laid.

Otherwise...

If you are familiar with it, just say “yes,” and we’ll proceed. For me, you already demonstrated that you are a critical thinker.
You might be the second g-Zombie.

"This, if I'm not missing anything" Perhaps you did: We are not concerned about the boolean of each of the statements. But it's overall propositional validity. Let me explain:
 

1.
This is called a Modus Tollens. (I advice you to read about Turings proof on the halting problem, because it is the same scheme.)

Again: The argument isn’t that Lisa is wrong, but that she cannot formally prove the truth of her own consciousness from within her own system — even if it’s true. This is a structural claim, not a semantic one. The connection to incompleteness isn't about asserting something false, but about the impossibility of resolving certain self-referential questions (like “Am I conscious?”) within the system that generates them. So: if Lisa asserts she's not a P-Zombie, and the system generating that assertion is formally incomplete, then she cannot prove the claim she’s making — that's the point. It’s a Modus Tollens structure: if she could prove it, the system would be complete — but systems like that cannot be.

And make it extra clear:

“If Lisa is a P-Zombie but asserts she is not, then she is wrong, not incomplete. In fact, this could make her complete, because ‘you can prove anything from falsehood’.”

Here’s why your reasoning doesn’t hold:

Completeness ≠ ability to derive falsehoods
In logic, completeness means: All semantically true statements can be syntactically derived (provable).
Soundness means: All provable statements are semantically true.

2.
You're right that a logical necessity to believe something doesn’t automatically generate phenomenological evidence for it. But EN argues that the illusion of qualia isn't just propositional — it's a functional artifact of modeling unprovable internal states. In other words, qualia-like evidence (subjective experience, introspective certainty, etc.) is what that kind of belief looks like from the inside. It’s not an extra step — it's the internal expression of the system maintaining coherence around an undecidable proposition.

3.
That openness is perfectly valid — and EN doesn’t assume that no one is a P-Zombie. Rather, it explains why agents with self-modeling constraints will necessarily generate beliefs (and apparent evidence) of being conscious, even if they aren’t. That’s a prediction, not a presumption. So if someone were a P-Zombie, they’d still say “I’m conscious,” and they’d still have no way to verify or falsify it. That’s the point: the belief in qualia is structurally overdetermined — not because it’s true, but because the system must produce it.

"I'm, in fact, open to such possibility" No you are not. that is the point of EN that you cannot believe that you are a P-Zombie, even if you are. That is the difference between EN and EM. That's why EN is a genuinely new proposition: We are P-Zombies, most likely(!) not for certain, but if we were, we would not know.

I'm actually amused that you criticized the first paragraph of an essay for being written in prose — it says so much about the internet today.

"natural languages are extremely impractical, which is why mathematicians don't write any real proofs in them."

I have never seen such a blatant disqualifaction of one's self.
Why do you think you are able to talk to these subjects if you are not versed in Proof theory?

Just type it into chat gpt:

Which one is true:

"natural languages are extremely impractical, which is why mathematicians don't write any real proofs in them."

OR

"They do. AND APPART FROM THAT Language is not impractical, language too expressive (as in logical expressivity of second-order-logic)"

Research proof theory, type theory, and Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice (ZFC) before making statements here.

At the very least, try not to be miserable. Someone who mistakes prose for an argument should not have the privilege of indulging in misery.

Survival.

Addressing your claims: Formalism, Computationalism, Physicalism, are all in opposition to EN. EN says, that maybe existence itself is not a fundamental category, but soundness. This means that the idea of things existing and not existing is a symbol of the brain.

EN doesn’t attempt to explain why a physical or computational process should "feel like" anything — because it denies that such feeling exists in any metaphysical sense. Instead, it explains why a system like the brain comes to believe in qualia. That belief arises not from phenomenological fact, but from structural necessity: any self-referential, self-regulating system that is formally incomplete (as all sufficiently complex systems are) will generate internally undecidable propositions. These propositions — like “I am in pain” or “I see red” — are not verifiable within the system, but are functionally indispensable for coherent behavior.

The “usefulness” of qualia, then, lies in their regulatory role. By behaving AS IF having experience, the system compresses and coordinates internal states into actionable representations. The belief in qualia provides a stable self-model, enables prioritization of attention, and facilitates internal coherence — even if the underlying referents (qualia themselves) are formally unprovable. In this view, qualia are not epiphenomenal mysteries, but adaptive illusions, generated because the system cannot...

NOW

I understand that you invoke the “Phenomenological Objection,” as I also, of course, “feel” qualia. But under EN, that feeling is not a counterargument — it’s the very evidence that you are part of the system being modeled. You feel qualia because the system must generate that belief in order to function coherently, despite its own incompleteness. You are embedded in the regulatory loop, and so the illusion is not something you can step outside of — it is what it feels like to be inside a model that cannot fully represent itself. The conviction is real; the thing it points to is not.

"because there is no reason a physical process should feel like anything from the inside."

The key move EN makes — and where it departs from both physicalism and computationalism — is that it doesn’t ask, “Why should a physical process feel like anything from the inside?” It asks, “Why must a physical system come to believe it feels something from the inside in order to function?” The answer is: because a self-regulating, self-modeling system needs to track and report on its internal states without access to its full causal substrate. It does this by generating symbolic placeholders — undecidable internal propositions — which it treats as felt experience. In order to say “I am in pain,” the system must first commit to the belief that there is something it is like to be in pain. The illusion of interiority is not a byproduct — it is the enabling fiction that lets the system tell itself a coherent story across incomplete representations.

OKAY since you made the right question I will include this paragraph in the Abstract.

In other words: the brain doesn’t fuck around with substrate — it fucks around with the proof that you have one. It doesn’t care what “red” is made of; it cares whether the system can act as if it knows what red is, in a way that’s coherent, fast, and behaviorally useful. The experience isn't built from physics — it’s built from the system’s failed attempts to prove itself to itself. That failure gets reified as feeling. So when you say “I feel it,” what you’re really pointing to is the boundary of what your system can’t internally verify — and must, therefore, treat as foundational. That’s not a bug. That’s the fiction doing its job.

Since you seem to grasp the structural tension here, you might find it interesting that one of EN’s aims is to develop an argument that does not rely on Dennett’s contradictory “Third-Person Absolutism”—that is, the methodological stance which privileges an objective, external (third-person) perspective while attempting to explain phenomena that are, by nature, first-person emergent. EN tries to show that subjective illusions like qualia do not need to be explained away in third-person terms, but rather understood as consequences of formal limitations on self-modeling systems.

Thank you — that’s exactly the spirit I was hoping to cultivate. I really appreciate your willingness to engage with the ideas on the level of their generative potential, even if you set aside their ultimate truth-value. Which is a hallmark of critical thinking.

I would be insanely glad if you could engage with it deeper since you strike me as someone who is... rational.

I especially resonate with your point about moving beyond mystery-as-aesthetic, and toward a structural analysis of how something like consciousness could emerge from given constraints. Whether or not EN is the right lens, I think treating consciousness as a problem of modeling rather than a problem of magic is a step in the right direction.

Understandable. Reading such a dense text is a big investment—and chances are, it’s going nowhere... (even though it actually does, lol). So yeah, I totally would’ve done the same and ditch. But thanks for giving it a shot!

"Since it was written using LLM" "LLM slop."

Some of you soooo toxic.

First of all, try debating an LLM about illusory qualia—you'll likely find it—attributing the phenomenon to self-supervised learning—It has a strong bias toward Emergentism, likely stemming from... I don't know, humanities slight bias towards it's own experience.

But yes, I used LLM for proofreading. I disclosed that, and I am not ashamed of it.

Honestly, I can’t hold it against anyone who bounces off the piece. It’s long, dense, and, let’s face it — it proposes something intense, even borderline unpalatable at first glance.

If I encountered it cold, I can imagine myself reacting the same way: “This is pseudoscientific nonsense.” Maybe I wouldn’t even finish reading it before forming that judgment.

And that’s kind of the point, or at least part of the irony: the argument deals precisely with the limits of self-modeling systems, and how they generate intuitions (like “of course experience is real”) that feel indubitable because of structural constraints. So naturally, a theory that denies the ground of those intuitions will feel like it's violating common sense — or worse, wasting your time.

Still, I’d invite anyone curious to read it less as a metaphysical claim and more as a kind of formal diagnosis — not “you’re wrong to believe in qualia,” but “you’re structurally unable to verify them, and that’s why they feel so real.”

If it’s wrong, I want to know how. But if it just feels wrong, that might be a clue that it’s touching the very boundary it’s trying to illuminate.

Ah, after researching it: That's actually a great line. Haha — fair enough. I’ll take “a chapter from the punishment book in Anathem” as a kind of backhanded compliment.

If we’re invoking Anathem, then at least we’re in the right monastery.

That said, if the content is genuinely unhelpful or unclear, I’d love to know where the argument loses you — or what would make it more accessible. If it just feels like dense metaphysics-without-payoff, maybe I need to do a better job showing how the structure of the argument differs from standard illusionism or deflationary physicalism.

"Standard crackpottery, in my opinion. Humans are not mathematical proof systems."

That concern is understandable — and in fact, it’s addressed directly and repeatedly in the text. The argument doesn't claim that humans are formal proof systems in a literal or ontological sense. Rather, it explores how any system capable of symbolic self-modeling (like the brain) inherits formal constraints analogous to those found in expressive logical systems — particularly regarding incompleteness, self-reference, and verification limits.

It's less about reducing humans to Turing machines and more about using the logic of formal systems to expose the structural boundaries of introspective cognition.

You’re also right to be skeptical — extraordinary claims deserve extraordinary scrutiny. But the essay doesn’t dodge that. It explicitly offers a falsifiable framework, makes empirical predictions, and draws from well-established formal results (e.g. Gödel, Conant & Ashby) to support its claims. It’s not hiding behind abstraction — it’s leaning into it, and then asking to be tested.

And sure, the whole thing could still be wrong. That’s fair. But dismissing it as “crackpottery” without engaging the argument — especially on a forum named LessWrong — seems to bypass the very norms of rational inquiry we try to uphold here.

If the argument fails, let’s show how — not just that. That would be far more interesting, and far more useful.

Illusionism often takes a functionalist or behavioral route: it says that consciousness is not what it seems, and explains it in terms of cognitive architecture or evolved heuristics. That’s valuable, but EN goes further — or perhaps deeper — by grounding the illusion not just in evolutionary utility, but in formal constraints on self-referential systems.

In other words:

EN doesn’t just say, “You’re wrong about qualia.”
It says, “You must be wrong — formally — because any system that models itself will necessarily generate undecidable propositions (e.g., qualia) that feel real but cannot be verified.”

This brings tools like Gödel’s incompleteness, semantic closure, and regulator theory into the discussion in a way that directly addresses why subjective experience feels indubitable even if it's structurally ungrounded.

So yes, it may sound like illusionism — but it tries to explain why illusionism is inevitable, not just assert it.

That said, I’d genuinely welcome criticism or counterexamples. If it’s just a rebranding, let’s make that explicit. But if there’s a deeper structure here worth exploring, I hope it earns the scrutiny.

No problem. I guess that is, bad? Or good? ^^ Help me here?

absolutely right to point out that the original formulation of the Good Regulator Theorem (Conant & Ashby, 1970) states that:

“Every good regulator of a system must be a model of that system,”
formalized as a deterministic mapping h: S \rightarrow Rh:S→R, from the states of the system to the states of the regulator.

Strictly speaking, this does not require embeddedness in the physical sense—it is a general result about control systems and model adequacy. The theorem makes no claim that the regulator must be physically located within the system it regulates.

However, in the context of cognitive systems (like the brain) and self-referential agents, I am extending the logic and implications of the theorem beyond its original formulation, in a way that remains consistent with its spirit.

When the regulator is part of the system it regulates (i.e., is embedded or self-referential)—as is the case with the human brain modeling itself—then the mapping h: S \→ Rh:S→R becomes reflexive. The regulator must model not only the external system but itself as a subsystem.

• This recursive modeling introduces self-reference and semantic closure, which—when the system is sufficiently expressive (as in symbolic thought)—leads directly to Gödelian incompleteness. That is, no such regulator can fully model or verify all truths about itself while remaining consistent.
• So while the original theorem only requires that a good regulator be a model, I am exploring what happens when the regulator models itself, and how that logically leads to structural incompleteness, subjective illusions, and the emergence of unprovable constructs like qualia.

Yes, you're absolutely right to point out that this raises an important issue — one that must be addressed, and yet cannot be resolved in the conventional sense. But this is not a weakness in the argument; in fact, it is precisely the point.

To model itself completely, the map would have to include a representation of itself, which would include a representation of that representation, and so on — collapsing into paradox or incompleteness.

This isn’t just a practical limitation. It’s a structural impossibility.

So when we extend the Good Regulator Theorem to embedded regulators — like the brain modeling itself — we don’t just encounter technical difficulty, we hit the formal boundary of self-representation. No system can fully model its own structure and remain both consistent and complete.

But you must ask yourself: Would it be worse regulator? Def. not.