Consciousness and the Paranormal

[Constance]

Haha, okay, so not reading through it together then... Alright. When I have questions/comments, I'll continue to post them here.

Yes, I think our trying to read through those lengthy SEP articles together, section by section, would prove onerous and time-consuming. It might work if we selected one day of each week to take up a segment of an article and respond to it, otherwise continuing to pursue our own reading and interests related to consciousness, mind, machine, myth, etc. But it would be like signing up for a seminar and then having to persist even when one or more participants lost interest. I do have one question for you, however: did the rest of the article you linked clarify what you found puzzling in the first few paragraphs?

 

[smcder]

@Soupie the Jordan Peterson lecture on Carl Rogers deals with phenomenology and the beginning of the lecture on existentialism discusses it and the relationship to embodied cognition. - helpful to me in understanding it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Constance]

. . . I read a few pages in the intro to Nagel's Mind and Cosmos before going to bed. Thought this was worth sharing, to give a flavor:

"I would like to defend the untutored reaction of incredulity to the reductionist neo-Darwinian account of the origin of and evolution of life. It is prima facie highly improbable that life as we know it is the result of a sequence of physical accidents together with the mechanism of natural selection. We are expected to abandon this naive response, not in favor of a fully worked out physical/chemical explanation but in favor of an alternative that is really a schema for explanation, supported by examples. What is lacking, to my knowledge, is a credible argument that the story has a nonnegligible probability of being true."
...
I realize that such doubts will strike many people as outrageous, but that is because almost everyone in our secular culture has been browbeaten into regarding the reductive research program as sacrosanct , on the ground that anything else would not be science."

Steve, you will appreciate Evan Thompson's detailed critique of the neo-Darwinist claim that the evolution of species is all down to genetics and natural selection. The Google Books' preview of Mind in Life is linked below and if you search there for "developmental systems theory" the first of many references to that theory will take you to pg. 187 and a number of subsequent pages where Thompson presents a series of arguments demonstrating the superiority of the developmental systems theory to the neo-Darwinist theory. The preview also includes, at the opening, Thompson's overview of cognitivism, connectionism, and computationalism as dominant reductive views over the period since the 60s, his critique of all three, and his initial presentation of embodied dynamicism and enactivism as originated by Maturana and Varela and developed by Varela and himself with others.

Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind - Evan Thompson - Google Books

 

[Constance]

Note: Appendix B of Mind and Life concerns the complexities involved in use of the terms reduction and emergence and begins on pg. 417. A search using the term 'emergence' should probably link that page for you.

 

[smcder]

Note: Appendix B of Mind and Life concerns the complexities involved in use of the terms reduction and emergence and begins on pg. 417. A search using the term 'emergence' should probably link that page for you.

Good resources ... thank you, and it does sound a lot like Nagel's ideas - the intro to Mind and Cosmos is on Amazon.com "look inside" all or almost all of it - only 4-5 pages, its a very short book overall - but so far that's all I've had time to read in the book, will probably go ahead and buy it as interlibrary loan only lasts a week - :-(

 

[Soupie]

@Constance

I do have one question for you, however: did the rest of the article you linked clarify what you found puzzling in the first few paragraphs?

I didn't read it yet. I'll read the recommended SEP entry on Phenomenology and post all questions/comments.

 

[Soupie]

Regarding Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness:

I still haven't made it through the entire SEP entry. I've gotten through the intro and part way through the first section, Pre-reflective self-consciousness.

Before reading the entry though, I wanted to understand what the term Phenomenology means. I got this from the SEP entry on Phenomenology.

Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. The central structure of an experience is its intentionality, its being directed toward something, as it is an experience of or about some object. An experience is directed toward an object by virtue of its content or meaning (which represents the object) together with appropriate enabling conditions.

I have a number of questions, concerns, and thoughts about this definition and what follows.

Essentially, it seems that Phen. (my abbreviation) is the attempt of the "what-it's-like to be a human" to describe via symbols what-it's-like to be a human.

There are inherent limitations with this way of knowing. It's the subjective attempting to use the objective to describe the subjective. (This is the opposite of science - the objective - attempting to use the objective to describe the subjective.)

But the biggest limitation that I see is summed up best by Julian Jaynes as quoted in the paper: From Panexperientialism to Conscious Experience:

In his watershed book, Julian Jaynes (1976) made the point even more simply:‘Consciousness is a much smaller part of our mental life than we are conscious of, because we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of’ (p. 23). He continued with an apt metaphor:

How simple that is to say; how difficult to appreciate! It is like asking a flashlight in a dark room to search around for something that does not have any light shining up on it. The flashlight, since there is light in what-ever direction it turns, would have to conclude that there is light every- where. And so consciousness can seem to pervade all mentality when actually it does not (p. 23).​

So if Phen. is the study of consciousness from the first-person point of view, anything outside of the first-person point of view will be unable to be studied. This is a problem because objective ways of knowing have revealed that there are many things - permanently and episodically - outside of the first-person view.

Thus, I have a problem with the very next sentence in the definition of Phen.: The central structure of an experience is its intentionality...

I think that sentence needs to be loaded with qualifiers. I would write the sentence as: The central structure of a human experience of which the human having the experience is aware is its intentionality...

Indeed, even the first sentence of the defining paragraph needs the qualifier "human" in it.

Phenomenology is the study of structures of human consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view of a human.

That is to say, "we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of" and that includes several aspects of our human minds and of course the minds of non-humans.

I'll relate my questions and concerns about the Phen. concept of Pre-reflective self-consciousness when I get a chance.

 

[Constance]

Soupie, I haven't read Julian Jaynes so can't follow you there. The linked NYT review of Damasio's Self Comes to Mind by Ned Block might clarify for you the distinction between phenomenal consciousness and self-consciousness, especially this extract from it:

The philosopher W. V. Quine once told me that he thought Jaynes might be on to something until he asked Jaynes what it was like to perceive before consciousness was invented. According to Quine, Jaynes said it was like nothing at all — exactly what it is like to be a table or a chair. Jaynes was denying that people had experiential phenomenal consciousness based on a claim about inflated self-consciousness.

Merleau-Ponty recognizes the incipient sense of an individual's experience as 'my own experience' even in pre-reflective consciousness. As I recall this was developed in the SEP article you recently linked on Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness {at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-consciousness-phenomenological}. I still think, as I suggested the other day, that it would clarifying for you to begin with that article before proceeding to the SEP article on Phenomenology.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/books/review/Block-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

[Soupie]

@Constance

Soupie, I haven't read Julian Jaynes so can't follow you there.

I haven't read any of Jaynes works either. However, I think the meaning of his quote is self-evident (unless one has conflicting core beliefs).

Consciousness is a much smaller part of our mental life than we are conscious of, because we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of.

In any case, any comments regarding my other noted concerns/confusions?

I believe part of my puzzlement/disagreement with Phen. is due to semantics and partly to different core beliefs.

Semantics: Phenomenologists seem to equate the terms self-aware, self-conscious, and conscious.

I think the first two terms can be used interchangeably, but my belief is the latter term does not imply nor necessitate consciousness of self. Therein lies most of the disagreement and confusion.

To be clear: I think organisms can be either 1) conscious of experiences, or 2) conscious of experiences and self having experiences.

If I understand correctly, Phens seem to reject (1) and only hold that (2) is possible.

Core Beliefs: It seems to me that Phens believe in the existence of something akin to a homunculus. Their writing seems to suggest that inside every human is a homunculus that is experiencing the physical world via the physical body. I've seen the phrase "embodied consciousness" and I'm wondering if that represents this concept: the idea that inside every human is another "human" - or self-aware homunculus.

If this is what Phens believe, then of course they reject (1) above. If there is an a priori self-aware entity living within each of us, then how could we ever have experiences of which we aren't aware? But of course, this then begs the question, how did this homunculus - or formerly disembodied consciousness but currently embodied consciousness - come to be conscious in the first place?

@Constance

The linked NYT review of Damasio's Self Comes to Mind by Ned Block might clarify for you the distinction between phenomenal consciousness and self-consciousness, especially this extract from it:

The philosopher W. V. Quine once told me that he thought Jaynes might be on to something until he asked Jaynes what it was like to perceive before consciousness was invented. According to Quine, Jaynes said it was like nothing at all — exactly what it is like to be a table or a chair. Jaynes was denying that people had experiential phenomenal consciousness based on a claim about inflated self-consciousness.​

Hm, not sure how to respond here. 1) This doesn't serve to help clarify the Phens' distinction between phenomenal consciousness and self-consciousness at all. 2) This is an alleged "once told me" taken out of context, posted in a review by an author I don't know, about a book I haven't read, haha.

My guess is that this is once again a Phen using their version of "consciousness" - which to them means self-conscious - with their core belief that inside all of us is a homunculus with an a priori self-awareness. I'd guess that Jaynes probably said: "we cannot be conscious of what we are not conscious of." And Quine heard: "People don't have experiential phenomenal self-consciousness."

Re: re-reflective self-consciousness at SEP.

In line with Edmund Husserl (1959, 189, 412), who maintains that consciousness always involves a self-appearance (Für-sich-selbst-erscheinens), and in agreement with Michel Henry (1963, 1965), who notes that experience is always self-manifesting, and with Maurice Merleau-Ponty who states that consciousness is always given to itself and that the word ‘consciousness’ has no meaning independently of this self-givenness (Merleau-Ponty 1945, 488), Jean-Paul Sartre writes that pre-reflective self-consciousness is not simply a quality added to the experience, an accessory; rather, it constitutes the very mode of being of the experience:

This self-consciousness we ought to consider not as a new consciousness, but as the only mode of existence which is possible for a consciousness of something (Sartre 1943, 20 [1956, liv]).
​

The notion of pre-reflective self-awareness is related to the idea that experiences have a subjective ‘feel’ to them, a certain (phenomenal) quality of ‘what it is like’ or what it ‘feels’ like to have them.

Based on my experience as a human, I disagree with the concept being presented here.

I'll give two quick examples from my personal life in the past two weeks, and one example from medical science that I think refutes the above claims.

1) The other day I was on a walk and I was thinking about consciousness. I was thinking particularly about subconsciousness, consciousness, and self-consciousness (or reflexive consciousness). It was a beautiful, sunny day. I was noticing that I seemed to be conscious of whatever I turned my attention to (and of course I was self-conscious of this noticing). While I was reflecting, some basketball players got into an argument. I became absorbed in this fight: all my senses were locked in on the argument.

However, I was not aware of this fact at the time. No, I was only aware of this fact after the fight had stopped, and I once again entered a self-conscious state of mind. I realized that while the men were fighting, I was conscious ONLY of them fighting. I wasn't conscious of anything else in the environment nor my self. There was no "what-it's-like." There was no sense of a "me" standing there watching these guys fight.

There was ONLY consciousness of the guys fighting.

It was only afterward that I was able to reflect back on what I had been seeing while in my self-conscious state of mind.

2) I came home from work on Monday and there was a groundhog on my back porch eating my doorframe! When I realized there was a groundhog on my porch eating my doorframe (I live in an urban area) my mind went "blank." I was once again absorbed in experience, but also action. I ran into the garagem out the back door, and onto the porch. The groundhog scurred away before I could get to it and kick it into the next county.

Of course, while all this was going on, there was NO experience of "what it's like." I didn't "know what I was doing." I was just doing it.

Afterward, I was able to reflect on what I had done and seen while in this state of mind, and even feel empathy for the groundhog.

In neither of those instance did the experience have any quality or feeling of "self" or "what it's like." Only afterward in the self-conscious or reflexive consciousness state of mind did feelings/qualities of self and "what it was like" emerge.

3) Blindsight is the ability of people who are cortically blind due to lesions in their striate cortex, also known as primary visual cortex or V1, to respond to visual stimuli that they do not consciously see.[1] The majority of studies on blindsight are conducted on patients who are blind on only one side of their visual field. Following the destruction of the striate cortex, patients are asked to detect, localize, and discriminate amongst visual stimuli that are presented to their blindside, often in a forced-response or guessing situation, even though they cannot actually see the stimulus. Research shows that blind patients achieve a higher accuracy than would be expected from chance alone.

Type 1 blindsight is the term given to this ability to guess—at levels significantly above chance—aspects of a visual stimulus (such as location or type of movement) without any conscious awareness of any stimuli. Type 2 blindsight occurs when patients claim to have a feeling that there has been a change within their blind area—e.g. movement—but that it was not a visual percept.[2] Blindsight challenges the common belief that perceptions must enter consciousness to affect our behavior;[3] it shows that our behavior can be guided by sensory information of which we have no conscious awareness.[3] It may be thought of as a converse of the form of anosognosia known as Anton–Babinski syndrome, in which there is full cortical blindness along with the confabulation of visual experience. Source: Wiki

If one were to ask a person with blindsight "what it's like" to see a ball, they would say - a la Jaynes - "It's like... nothing."

 

[smcder]

@Soupie - this is the Jordan Peterson lecture with a fair amount about phenomenology - it helped me out,

... and this one is about conciousness and quite funny - he really seems frustrated by those who think we know anything at all about consciousness (in terms of a scientific explanation) and there is a good bit on free will too, a little more sharp or cutting than his usual stuff . . . eh?

by the way, in the still above, Peterson is mimicking a groundhog

 

[Soupie]

@smcder
@Constance

I wonder what Tonini and ITT might say about Blindsight (documented cognition sans experience).

My initial thought was that this would pose a problem for ITT, the idea that experience is Integrated Information. I think ITT would perhaps account for Bindsight in two ways:

• 1) ITT might hold that the information from the eye(s) was simply not fully integrated and thus it did not produce experience, or 2) ITT, like Jaynes, asserts that experience and self-awareness are distinct. Thus, just because an organism has experiences doesn’t mean an organism is aware of its experiences. So in the case of Blindsight, the organism is still experiencing sight, but this experience is outside the reach of consciousness awareness for some reason; ITT - so far as I know - does not address how self-consciousness arises, only experience/qualia.

• Blindsight seems to provide a real-life example of Chalmers’ zombie. That is, an organism that has cognition (can identify an object and where it’s located) but does not have an experience/qualia of the object.

• This also gives some insight into the creepiness of machine intelligence; cognition without experience. I find that intuitively gross, but it is what it is.

Monism Vs Dualism

On the way to work this morning, I was reflecting on this topic. I was thinking: While I feel that my mind is distinct from my body, I do not feel that my mind is composed of a different substance than my body.

In a way, that’s the complete opposite of what the two of you have expressed! If I recall, you both have expressed not feeling that your mind and body were distinct; you’ve never felt “alienated” from your bodies. On the other hand, you both seem to feel that your bodies and your minds are made of two different substances.

These two opposing feelings are interesting, no!? You would think it would be the reverse: I, who often feels alienated from my own body, might thus believe that my body and mind are made of different substance.

You, who feel that your body and mind are completely integrated, might thus feel that they are made of the same substance.

This led to me thinking again about the comparison of the concept of life to the concept of consciousness.

Life-monists believed that life could be reduced to physical material. Life-dualists believed that life was composed of a different substance than physical substance. While there are undoubtedly still life-dualists, the life-monists have won the scientific consensus: We now accept that “life” can be reduced to physical material and processes.

Now, there are consciousness-monists and consciousness-dualist. They hold similar beliefs to life-monists and life-dualists.

Consciousness-monists believe consciousness can be reduced to physical material and processes. On the other hand, consciousness-dualists believe that consciousness is composed of a different substance than physical substance.

I believe the two of you are consciousness-dualists. I am as well. I think we all agree that the mind/consciousness cannot be reduced to physical material and processes.

However, there are two flavors of consciousness-dualists: substance dualists and property dualists. Whereas the two of you may believe that consciousness is composed of a different substance than physical matter, I believe that consciousness is instead composed of a different, ontologically unique property of the substance of which physical matter is composed.

Since the two of you may believe that mind/consciousness is made of a different substance than physical matter, you may believe that the physical brain cannot produce or emit consciousness. You may instead believe the brain only mediates consciousness: kind of like how a river bed mediates the flow of water and together they create a river.

Since I believe that mind and matter are two sides of the same coin (substance), I believe that mind/consciousness can emerge from certain states of this substance; states such as brains.

 

[Jeff Davis]

I'm not sure I follow you completely, but this sentence reminded me of this quote that Langan features in the introduction to his CTMU:
Take for instance this very thread/discussion that all of us are having. Is it alive? Conscious?

These words that we write using symbols... they represent our consciousness, but without our physical bodies we wouldn't be able to share or receive them.

This is certainly an interesting idea.

If I'm not mistaken, I think it is based on phenomena such as OBEs and NDEs as well as episodic numinous experiences. Furthermore, I agree that the mind is distinct from the brain and that the mind extends from the body. I also think it's possible that minds exist/operate in a field. I think it's possible and likely that minds can interact.

However, my approach to these phenomena is much more natural as opposed to supernatural. (Thus my monism.)

I think our reflexive state of consciousness is inferior (for lack of a better term) to our non-reflexive states of consciousness. To me, this makes sense if what science tells us is true: that is, that non-reflexive states of consciousness have evolved and sustained terrestrial organisms for billions of years and - at least in human organisms - the reflexive state of consciousness is comparatively young.

This sense of something greater than our "selves" may not be a supernatural connection to the core of reality or a universal consciousness, but rather a sense of non-conscious states of experience.

I agree with you 100%, (the emboldened above) except for simple semantics. IMO, consciousness represents entrainment, not thought. So in this sense, I think it's our non-reflexive state of cognitive determination that exemplifies the greatest efficiency in what underlines the human/consciousness relationship. Also, to better put into context what I am stating with respect to your excellent response above, try this. Instead of realizing that consciousness is what give's these symbols meaning, try substituting "cognitive determinations" as being the interpretive agent giving the symbols their meaning, and at the same time, make consciousness the large white space that exists behind and between the symbols that allows for the exacting relationship that affords cognition it's ability to make these determinations.

 

[Constance]

Soupie, the best way to address the questions and objections you raise from your reading of some SEP entries concerning consciousness and phenomenology is to copy here the last few pages of Evan Thompson's 12-page precis/summary of Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind.
I hope this extract will encourage you to read the 12-pg summary itself and then the book as a whole. There is no better guide to understanding the progress being made in Consciousness Studies in understanding how consciousness arises in a world that our species has for several centuries attempted to reduce to one-dimensional materiality/physicality. ps: this is the book Tononi needs to read.

The Body–Body Problem

Phenomenologists distinguish between two ways the body can be disclosed to our experience — as a materialthing (Körper) and as a living subject of experience or lived body (Leib).

In addition to this basic distinction, we can distinguish between the structural morphology of the physical body and its living and lived dynamics. The morphology comprises the bodily structures of limbs, organs, regulatory systems, brain structures, and so on, whereas the dynamics comprises the lived flow of life, that is, the flow of intentional movement and lived sensations (interoceptive, exteroceptive, and proprioceptive). There does
not seem to be any explanatory gap between seeing the body as a material object and seeing it in its structural morphology as a living body. But there does seem to be a gap or discontinuity between seeing the body as a living body and seeing it as a lived body, as a locus of feeling and intentional activity — in short as sentient. The body–body
problem is to understand the relation between the body as a living being and the body as a lived body or bodily subject of experience.

Two points are important here. First, the explanatory gap is no longer between two radically different ontologies (mental and physical), but between two types within one typology of embodiment. Second
the gap is no longer absolute because in order to formulate it we need to make common reference to life or living being.
These differences between the body–body problem and the Cartesian hard problem are philosophically non-trivial. In the hard problem the explanatory gap is absolute because there is no common factor
between the mental and the physical (and there can be none given how they are defined). Hence the main options are either to accept the gap as a brute ontological fact (dualism), to close the gap by reduction (materialism or idealism), or to bridge the gap by introducing some third and speculative ‘extra ingredient’ (for which there is no scientific evidence or motivation). These options make little sense for the body–body problem. The lived body is the living body; it is a dynamic condition of the living body. We could say that our lived body is a performance of our living body, something our body enacts in living. The philosophical task is to show how there can be an account of the lived body that integrates biology and phenomenology, and so goes ‘beyond the gap’. The scientific task is to understand how the organizational and dynamic processes of a living body can become constitutive of a subjective point of view, so that there is something it is like to be that body. Although the explanatory gap does not go away when we adopt this perspective based on life or living being, it does take on a different character. The guiding issue is no longer the contrived one of whether a subjectivist concept of consciousness can be derived from an
objectivist concept of the body. Rather, the guiding issue is to understand the
emergence of living subjectivity from living being, where living being is understood as already possessed of an interiority that escapes the objectivist picture of nature, and living subjectivity is understood as
already possessed of an exteriority that escapes the internalist picture of consciousness.

Overview

Mind in Life addresses this guiding issue in three stages. Part One revises and restates the ‘enactive approach’ in cognitive
science, first proposed by Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991), and it links this approach to certain key ideas of phenomenological philosophy. In particular, I propose that intentionality can be related to the
behaviour of autonomous self-organizing systems (pp. 27, 159), and that the notion of emergent dynamic patterns in autonomous systems provides a bridge to Merleau-Ponty’s idea that certain forms or structures of behaviour are constitutive of life and mind (Chapter Four).

Part Two offers an account of what it is to be a living being or living system; this account is based on integrating the theory of autopoiesis (Maturana and Varela, 1980; 1987) with the phenomenological
account of life developed by Hans Jonas (1966). One of the key proposals of Part Two is that the theory of autopoiesis provides a naturalistic account of minimal selfhood and minimal cognition. Along the
way I show how the theory of autopoiesis addresses Kant’s concern to understand the organism as a self-organizing being by providing a naturalistic account of his conception of the organism as a ‘natural
purpose’ (in a way Kant thought was impossible). Finally, by combining the theory of autopoiesis and developmental systems theory, I criticize genocentrism and adaptationism in evolutionary theory and in
their place offer an enactive account of evolution and development.

Part Three focuses on consciousness. Here my concern is to bring the resources of phenomenology directly to bear on current topics in the cognitive and brain sciences and the philosophy of mind, specifi-
cally bodily awareness and self-consciousness (Chapter Nine), per-
ception and mental imagery (Chapter Ten), time consciousness and temporality (Chapter Eleven), affect and emotion (Chapter Twelve), and empathy, social cognition and intersubjectivity (Chapter Thirteen). Throughout these chapters I give special attention to what phenomenologists call pre-reflective self-awareness (or pre-reflective self-consciousness), that is, the implicit and intransitive (non-object-
directed) ways we experience ourselves in world-directed cognition and action.
The relation between selfhood as a mode of being or structure of existence and phenomenal selfhood as a structure of experience stands at the heart of the body–body problem. This relation is pre
cisely the relation between the living body (or living being) and the lived body (pre-reflective self-awareness as pre-reflective bodyawareness). Again, I do not propose to close this gap in
Mind in Life or to bridge it in some speculative metaphysical way. Rather, my aim throughout is to develop new ways for science and philosophy to address this gap based on an appreciation of the deep continuity of life and mind.
.
The Enactive Approach

The term the enactive approach and the associated concept of enaction were introduced by Varela, Thompson and Rosch (1991) in order to unify under one heading several related ideas. The first idea is that living beings are autonomous agents that actively generate and maintain themselves, and thereby also enact or bring forth their own cognitive domains. The second idea is that the nervous system is an autonomous dynamic system: it actively generates and maintains its own coherent and meaningful patterns of activity, according to its operation as a circular and re-entrant network of interacting neurons.
The nervous system does not process information in the computationalist sense, but creates meaning. The third idea is that cognition is the exercise of skilful know-how in situated and embodied action. Cognitive structures and processes emerge from recurrent sensorimotor patterns of perception and action. Sensorimotor coupling between organism and environment modulates, but does not determine, the formation of endogenous, dynamic patterns of neural activity, which in turn inform sensorimotor coupling. The fourth idea is that a cognitive being’s world is not a pre-specified, external realm, represented internally by its brain, but a relational domain enacted or brought forth by that being’s autonomous agency and mode of coupling with the environment. The fifth idea is that experience is not an epiphenomenal side issue, but central to any understanding of the mind, and needs to
be investigated in a careful phenomenological manner. For this reason, the enactive approach maintains that the cognitive and brain sciences and phenomenological investigations of human experience need to be pursued in a complementary and mutually informing way.

There is also a deeper convergence of the enactive approach and phenomenology. Both share a view of the mind as having to ‘constitute’ its objects. ‘Constitution’ does not mean fabrication or creation; the mind does not fabricate the world. ‘To constitute’, in the technical phenomenological sense, means to bring to awareness, to present, or
to disclose. The mind brings things to awareness; it discloses and presents the world. Stated in a classical phenomenological way, the idea is that objects are disclosed or made available to experience in the ways they are thanks to the intentional activities of consciousness.
Things show up, as it were, having the features they do, because of how they are disclosed and brought to awareness by the intentional activities of our minds. Such constitution is not apparent to us in
everyday life, but requires systematic analysis to disclose. Consider
our experience of time (Chapter Eleven). Our sense of the present moment as both simultaneously opening into the immediate future and slipping away into the immediate past depends on the formal structure of our consciousness of time. The present moment manifests as a zone or span of actuality, instead of an instantaneous flash, thanks to the way our consciousness is structured. As I discuss (Chapter Eleven), the present moment also manifests this way because of the nonlinear dynamics of brain activity. Weaving together these two types of analysis, the phenomenological and neurobiological, in order to bridge the gap between subjective experience and biology, defines the aim of ‘neurophenomenology’ (Varela, 1996), an offshoot of the enactive approach presented in Chapters Ten and Eleven.

The enactive approach and phenomenology also meet on the common ground of life or living being. For the enactive approach, autonomy is a fundamental characteristic of biological life, and there is a deep continuity of life and mind. For phenomenology, intentionality is a fundamental characteristic of the lived body. The enactive approach and phenomenology thus converge on the proposition that subjectivity and consciousness have to be explicated in relation to the autonomy and
intentionality of life, in a full sense of ‘life’ that encompasses the organism (Chapters Five and Six), one’s subjectively lived body (Chapters Nine through Twelve), and the life-world (Chapter Thirteen).

Conclusion

One of the guiding ideas of Mind in Life
is that the human mind is embodied in our entire organism and in the world. Our mental lives involve three permanent and intertwined modes of bodily activity —
self-regulation, sensorimotor coupling, and intersubjective interaction (Thompson and Varela, 2001). Self-regulation is essential to
being alive and sentient. It is evident in emotion and feeling, and in conditions such as being awake or asleep, alert or fatigued, hungry or satiated. Sensorimotor coupling with the world is expressed in perception, emotion, and action. Intersubjective interaction is the cognition and affectively-charged experience of self and other. The human brain is crucial for these three modes of activity, but it is also reciprocally shaped and structured by them at multiple levels throughout the lifespan. If each individual human mind emerges from these extended modes of activity, if it is accordingly embodied and embedded in them as a ‘dynamic singularity’ — a knot or tangle of recurrent and reentrant processes centred on the organism (Hurley, 1998) — then the ‘astonishing hypothesis’ of neuroreductionism — that you are ‘nothing but a pack of neurons’ (Crick, 1994, p. 2) or that ‘you are your synapses’ (Le Doux, 2002) — is both a category error and biologically unsound. On the contrary, you are a living bodily subject of experience and an intersubjective mental being.

In this Précis I have chosen to highlight some of the book’s main themes instead of summarizing the book’s detailed analyses and arguments. My hope is that I have provoked the interest of my readers
while orienting them to the commentaries and my replies.

http://evanthompsondotme.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/thompson_precis_jcs_author_proof.pdf

 

[Jeff Davis]

This is so clearly said that I finally understand what you've been saying when you refer to "our experiential relationship to consciousness." I didn't see that you were referring to our being part of consciousness in general. (Pls correct me if I don't follow you correctly now.) We are individually and collectively connected to a holographically integrated (and continually added to) record of all conscious (including subconscious, unconscious, supraconscious) experience that takes place in the universe. Quantum physics tells us that all information is permanent, does not escape the universe, and indeed constitutes the universe in its physical integrity and expansion. As I see it, the most profound entanglements formed in our own experience as individuals issue from our intersubjective relations with others, weaving a fabric of personal bonds that cannot be broken or dissolved even by physical distance or bodily death. Our consciousnesses survive as intricately interwoven holistic information produced in and out of our individual experiential lives on earth. Everything we feel and think and do remains part of what each of us is and is involved both with those closest to us and with our species' development as a whole. Our souls are apparently indestructible and, indications are, continue to evolve once out of the body.




I think we need to refer equally to our prereflective experience -- which occurs in daily experience throughout our lifetimes, is precognitive, and gives way to reflection and thinking. Reflection and cognition always follow prereflective experience, which is the site at which consciousness emerges from nature and can be understood to exist in a 'chiasmic' relationship with nature as described by Merleau-Ponty in his late.



It seems to me that cognition {thought, values, ethics} are the highest achievements of consciousness but that they don't account for all of what consciousness is. To understand consciousness I think we need to understand it in its evolution from protoconsciousness {the sense of self/nonself beginning in the single cell as shown by Maturana and Varela and called autopoesis} and from there explore qualities of consciousness as identified in Evan Thompson's enlightening book Mind in Nature: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, which I'm reading again after several years and highly recommend. {see link below}



It seems to me you are trying to integrate your own ideas about consciousness as founded in experiential presence to the sensible, palpable, world we live in locally with the worldview implied in Tononi's IIT and by others in computer science and neuroscience who think of consciousness as no more than an information processing system, a computer in which 'information' is abstract and digitized, not sensed, felt, endured, enjoyed, and ultimately problematized by mind {consciousness at its peak operation studying itself}. In the view exemplified by Tononi, there seems to me to be no place for the 'sacred' or any structure of meaning outside the physical exchange of data. We more than process information existing in the physical universe; we realize the actuality of our existence as part of nature and capable of standing several degrees apart from nature in our efforts to understand it. Indeed, we "world the world" in MP's phrase, and, in your thinking and mine, we are open to more of the world than that which meets the eye, more than is simply visible.




Re 'time', it's a problem for physicists these days, but some of them and also some philosophers concerned with understanding consciousness recognize the reality of temporality as experienced time, not just for human consciousness but for processes in life and also in physics. Temporality is inescapable in the "lived world" as described by phenomenology. It led to Heidegger's 'being towards death' as a core element of Dasein. It founds the importance of existential philosophy as a way of coming to terms with the limits of mortal existence and meeting the challenge of how one should therefore live in the recognition and construction of value, that of other persons and animals, of the ecology on which all life depends, of the economic and political problems that must be resolved in the interests of more than mere survival for our species and others. Our temporality sets prominent boundaries for us as we live these embodied lives, but it appears that we also receive (and throughout our short history have always received) information from beyond the limits of own situated temporality -- through seers, prophets, mediums, NDEs, remote viewers, past-life regressions, reincarnation cases, and our own occasional precognitive insights. At a subliminal level, we might carry a sense of the cosmic time (or larger temporal extension) of our own consciousnesses with which we are connected through the subconscious and collective unconscious. It seems that we are not limited in what we are able to learn from the varieties of information we receive in this world to only information serviceable to our own personal or species survival, and this underscores the uniqueness and significance of embodied consciousness and mind -- the means (through processes we don't yet understand) by which we sense what-is in the local world and what might be beyond its apparent horizons. .

Constance, Constance, Constance...where do I start with all this? I'll tell you one thing, my goodness are you ever one knowledgeable and well read person concerning this subject. I mean that as wholeheartedly as is possible. I do not have a mind that works like yours. You and MR. Steve are VERY fortunate to have brains wired for reading like you do. Have you ever seen the brain lit up neurally as someone who has a logical, as opposed to abstract, propensity? I am certain it should be able to be googled super easily. It clearly shows that in the predominantly logical mind, information goes straight from the optic nerve to the comprehensive memory. Complete and total retention and comprehension. People wired like me however are what are commonly referred to as a neural clusterfuck. I'm sorry, but it had to be stated. Information leaves the optic nerve and proceeds to look like a fireworks display. The information goes everywhere instantly. That's why I consider it such a gift to be able to truly read powerful which I myself cannot. I am a somewhat bright human being and love to read, but I can literally be half way down a page, having read every word, and be 8 million miles away in my imagination. I simply have to go back and re-read what has not been cognitively placed directly into my memory.

I emboldened the sentence above with a provocative motive in mind. I am such the trouble maker. What if I were to tell you that it is phenomenology (the strict appearance of reality based on the notion that apart from the human condition as much only exists as information) that has afforded us a glimpse into our misunderstandings concerning time. You would think me delusional correct? Wouldn't just about anyone? Yet, that is precisely what I am claiming.

I am going to lay out some belief derived points of conviction for you to keep from confusing my personal position on consciousness.

I believe that reality is real. I do not for one second believe that consciousness produces our reality. That IMO, is absolutely silly.

HOWEVER, I also believe that we are in no way experiencing what is the totality of our reality's experience due to the fact that we are by no means done evolving. Not even close. If you think that sounds fishy, you're right! That's because we all come from fish. Now tell me, how much has humanity REALLY changed over the years? Consciousness never changes, however as we ourselves are in constant transition, it is always there to meet us on our terms.

I believe that consciousness is NOT inside your or my head. Consciousness never emerges, we do. Consciousness is there so we can cognitively achieve sentience and understanding. JMO.

 

[Constance]

Constance, Constance, Constance...where do I start with all this? I'll tell you one thing, my goodness are you ever one knowledgeable and well read person concerning this subject. I mean that as wholeheartedly as is possible. I do not have a mind that works like yours. You and MR. Steve are VERY fortunate to have brains wired for reading like you do. Have you ever seen the brain lit up neurally as someone who has a logical, as opposed to abstract, propensity? I am certain it should be able to be googled super easily. It clearly shows that in the predominantly logical mind, information goes straight from the optic nerve to the comprehensive memory. Complete and total retention and comprehension. People wired like me however are what are commonly referred to as a neural clusterfuck. I'm sorry, but it had to be stated. Information leaves the optic nerve and proceeds to look like a fireworks display. The information goes everywhere instantly. That's why I consider it such a gift to be able to truly read powerful which I myself cannot. I am a somewhat bright human being and love to read, but I can literally be half way down a page, having read every word, and be 8 million miles away in my imagination. I simply have to go back and re-read what has not been cognitively placed directly into my memory.

Can you clarify what you mean by the distinction highlighted in green between logical and abstract "propensities"? I think all of our brains operate alike in terms of interrelating and interconnecting information we encounter (in any medium, including the local environment) and storing memory of it broadly in parts of the brain (and mind).

I emboldened the sentence above with a provocative motive in mind. I am such the trouble maker. What if I were to tell you that it is phenomenology (the strict appearance of reality based on the notion that apart from the human condition as much only exists as information) that has afforded us a glimpse into our misunderstandings concerning time. You would think me delusional correct? Wouldn't just about anyone? Yet, that is precisely what I am claiming.

Having read Husserl's Phenomenology of Inner Time-Consciousness, I would not think you delusional for stating that phenomenological philosophy has made an immense difference in our formerly Newtonian understanding of time. I do wonder, though, how you figure this difference in your view of consciousness as I've been able to understand it so far. It would help if you would clarify and expand the statement I've highlighted in blue. Here is a link to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's very good article explaining Husserl's analysis of inner time-consciousness, which is foundational for phenomenology:

Phenomenology and Time-Consciousness [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

And an extract:

Phenomenology and Time-Consciousness
Edmund Husserl, founder of the phenomenological movement, employs the term “phenomenology” in its etymological sense as the activity of giving an account (logos) of the way things appear (phainomenon). Hence, a phenomenology of time attempts to account for the way things appear to us as temporal or how we experience time. Phenomenology offers neither metaphysical speculation about time’s relation to motion (as does Aristotle), nor the psychological character of time’s past and future moments (as does Augustine), nor transcendental-cognitive presumptions about time as a mind-dependent construct (as does Kant). Rather, it investigates the essential structures of consciousness that make possible the unified perception of an object that occurs across successive moments. In its nuanced attempts to provide an account of the form of intentionality presupposed by all experience, the phenomenology of time-consciousness provides important contributions to philosophical issues such as perception, memory, expectation, imagination, habituation, self-awareness, and self-identity over time.Within the phenomenological movement, time-consciousness is central. The most fundamental and important of all phenomenological problems, time-consciousness pervades Husserl’s theories of constitution, evidence, objectivity and inter-subjectivity. Within continental philosophy broadly construed, the movements of existential phenomenology, hermeneutics, post-modernism and post-structuralism, as well as the work of Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Hans George Gadamer and Jacques Derrida, all return in important ways to Husserl’s theory of time-consciousness. After devoting considerable attention to Husserl’s reflections on time-consciousness, this article treats the developments of the phenomenological account of time in Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty.

I am going to lay out some belief derived points of conviction for you to keep from confusing my personal position on consciousness.

I believe that reality is real. I do not for one second believe that consciousness produces our reality. That IMO, is absolutely silly.

I hope you do not think that phenomenological philosophy takes the view that "consciousness produces our reality." {???}

HOWEVER, I also believe that we are in no way experiencing what is the totality of our reality's experience due to the fact that we are by no means done evolving. Not even close. If you think that sounds fishy, you're right! That's because we all come from fish. Now tell me, how much has humanity REALLY changed over the years? Consciousness never changes, however as we ourselves are in constant transition, it is always there to meet us on our terms.

You won't get an argument from a phenomenologist that humans 'experience the totality of reality'. It's not clear what you mean by "the totality of our reality's experience." Can you clarify what you mean by "the totality of our reality's experience"? Re your second statement, I would say that consciousness has clearly changed over human history (from ~ 50,000 BPE). It would have to do so in its interaction with its environment, both natural and cultural, both changing significantly as a result of human choices and activities in the local reality in which our species has evolved.

I believe that consciousness is NOT inside your or my head. Consciousness never emerges, we do. Consciousness is there so we can cognitively achieve sentience and understanding. JMO.

Phenomenologists do not believe that consciousness is 'inside the head'. What makes you think they do?

Going back to your first paragraph above, I empathize with your difficulty staying on the page in pursuing other peoples' texts, but I don't see how we can understand the grounds for competing theories about what consciousness is and how it emerges in nature without absorbing the philosophical, psychological, and scientific texts that delineate those theories and comprehending the scientific and philosophical grounds that either support or fail to support them. No inquiry is more complex -- or fascinating, in my view -- than interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies has become in its three decades of development. To engage the conversation in this field is daunting; someone approaching it for the first time can only jump in somewhere and become acquainted with the issues, questions, proposed answers, and increasingly integrated research.

I think Thompson's Mind in Nature is very helpful in laying out the issues involved in understanding the complexity of embodied consciousness in a comprehensive way that is grounded in biology, information theory, developmental systems theory, neuroscience, philosophy, and human experience. If you decide to try this book out, you can begin by reading available sections of the book at the Google Book's link I provided yesterday.

 

[Jeff Davis]

) Can you clarify what you mean by the distinction highlighted in green between logical and abstract "propensities"? I think all of our brains operate alike in terms of interrelating and interconnecting information we encounter (in any medium, including the local environment) and storing memory of it broadly in parts of the brain (and mind).



Having read Husserl's Phenomenology of Inner Time-Consciousness, I would not think you delusional for stating that phenomenological philosophy has made an immense difference in our formerly Newtonian understanding of time. I do wonder, though, how you figure this difference in your view of consciousness as I've been able to understand it so far. It would help if you would clarify and expand the statement I've highlighted in blue. Here is a link to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's very good article explaining Husserl's analysis of inner time-consciousness, which is foundational for phenomenology:

Phenomenology and Time-Consciousness [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]

And an extract:






I hope you do not think that phenomenological philosophy takes the view that "consciousness produces our reality." {???}



You won't get an argument from a phenomenologist that humans 'experience the totality of reality'. It's not clear what you mean by "the totality of our reality's experience." Can you clarify what you mean by "the totality of our reality's experience"? Re your second statement, I would say that consciousness has clearly changed over human history (from ~ 50,000 BPE). It would have to do so in its interaction with its environment, both natural and cultural, both changing significantly as a result of human choices and activities in the local reality in which our species has evolved.



Phenomenologists do not believe that consciousness is 'inside the head'. What makes you think they do?

Going back to your first paragraph above, I empathize with your difficulty staying on the page in pursuing other peoples' texts, but I don't see how we can understand the grounds for competing theories about what consciousness is and how it emerges in nature without absorbing the philosophical, psychological, and scientific texts that delineate those theories and comprehending the scientific and philosophical grounds that either support or fail to support them. No inquiry is more complex -- or fascinating, in my view -- than interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies has become in its three decades of development. To engage the conversation in this field is daunting; someone approaching it for the first time can only jump in somewhere and become acquainted with the issues, questions, proposed answers, and increasingly integrated research.

I think Thompson's Mind in Nature is very helpful in laying out the issues involved in understanding the complexity of embodied consciousness in a comprehensive way that is grounded in biology, information theory, developmental systems theory, neuroscience, philosophy, and human experience. If you decide to try this book out, you can begin by reading available sections of the book at the Google Book's link I provided yesterday.

 

[Jeff Davis]

Constance,
I will respond tomorrow as I am exhausted right now. I will state that you might want to review what I have written. I am in no way stating some of the things you have interpreted. You must isolate my statements in and of themselves.

I have no problem with phenomenology whatsoever. I never contended that they believe consciousness is isolated to the head, nor that it lends itself to a misunderstanding of time. In fact, I stated that for me it has most definitely illuminated the matter somewhat. I am not sure where you are coming from, but I promise I will clarify your confusion concerning what I stated, tomorrow. Thanks.

 

[Constance]

Sorry for misunderstanding some of your statements. As I noted in an earlier post to you, "it seems to me you are trying to integrate your own ideas about consciousness as founded in experiential presence to the sensible, palpable, world we live in locally with the worldview implied in Tononi's IIT and by others in computer science and neuroscience who think of consciousness as no more than an information processing system, a computer in which 'information' is abstract and digitized, not sensed, felt, endured, enjoyed, and ultimately problematized by mind . . . ." When you get back to the thread would you respond to that especially?

You wrote in this last post: "You must isolate my statements in and of themselves." I don't actually see why that's necessary or helpful in a conversation in which we're attempting to present to one another the coherence of our own theories concerning consciousness, brain, mind, and meaning. Perhaps you disagree; if so, why?

 

[smcder]

@smcder
@Constance

I wonder what Tonini and ITT might say about Blindsight (documented cognition sans experience).

My initial thought was that this would pose a problem for ITT, the idea that experience is Integrated Information. I think ITT would perhaps account for Bindsight in two ways:

• 1) ITT might hold that the information from the eye(s) was simply not fully integrated and thus it did not produce experience, or 2) ITT, like Jaynes, asserts that experience and self-awareness are distinct. Thus, just because an organism has experiences doesn’t mean an organism is aware of its experiences. So in the case of Blindsight, the organism is still experiencing sight, but this experience is outside the reach of consciousness awareness for some reason; ITT - so far as I know - does not address how self-consciousness arises, only experience/qualia.

• Blindsight seems to provide a real-life example of Chalmers’ zombie. That is, an organism that has cognition (can identify an object and where it’s located) but does not have an experience/qualia of the object.

• This also gives some insight into the creepiness of machine intelligence; cognition without experience. I find that intuitively gross, but it is what it is.

Monism Vs Dualism

On the way to work this morning, I was reflecting on this topic. I was thinking: While I feel that my mind is distinct from my body, I do not feel that my mind is composed of a different substance than my body.

In a way, that’s the complete opposite of what the two of you have expressed! If I recall, you both have expressed not feeling that your mind and body were distinct; you’ve never felt “alienated” from your bodies. On the other hand, you both seem to feel that your bodies and your minds are made of two different substances.

These two opposing feelings are interesting, no!? You would think it would be the reverse: I, who often feels alienated from my own body, might thus believe that my body and mind are made of different substance.

You, who feel that your body and mind are completely integrated, might thus feel that they are made of the same substance.

This led to me thinking again about the comparison of the concept of life to the concept of consciousness.

Life-monists believed that life could be reduced to physical material. Life-dualists believed that life was composed of a different substance than physical substance. While there are undoubtedly still life-dualists, the life-monists have won the scientific consensus: We now accept that “life” can be reduced to physical material and processes.

Now, there are consciousness-monists and consciousness-dualist. They hold similar beliefs to life-monists and life-dualists.

Consciousness-monists believe consciousness can be reduced to physical material and processes. On the other hand, consciousness-dualists believe that consciousness is composed of a different substance than physical substance.

I believe the two of you are consciousness-dualists. I am as well. I think we all agree that the mind/consciousness cannot be reduced to physical material and processes.

However, there are two flavors of consciousness-dualists: substance dualists and property dualists. Whereas the two of you may believe that consciousness is composed of a different substance than physical matter, I believe that consciousness is instead composed of a different, ontologically unique property of the substance of which physical matter is composed.

Since the two of you may believe that mind/consciousness is made of a different substance than physical matter, you may believe that the physical brain cannot produce or emit consciousness. You may instead believe the brain only mediates consciousness: kind of like how a river bed mediates the flow of water and together they create a river.

Since I believe that mind and matter are two sides of the same coin (substance), I believe that mind/consciousness can emerge from certain states of this substance; states such as brains.

Monism Vs Dualism
On the way to work this morning, I was reflecting on this topic. I was thinking: While I feel that my mind is distinct from my body, I do not feel that my mind is composed of a different substance than my body.
In a way, that’s the complete opposite of what the two of you have expressed! If I recall, you both have expressed not feeling that your mind and body were distinct; you’ve never felt “alienated” from your bodies. On the other hand, you both seem to feel that your bodies and your minds are made of two different substances.

I'm not sure that's right (for me) - ... and I'm not sure I have an absolutely well developed sense about these things but I do think the idea of Dependent Origination or Dependent Arising, as I understand it, is consistent with my subjective sense of self . . .

These two opposing feelings are interesting, no!? You would think it would be the reverse: I, who often feels alienated from my own body, might thus believe that my body and mind are made of different substance.

You, who feel that your body and mind are completely integrated, might thus feel that they are made of the same substance.

I'm not sure how one "feels" about their mind and body follows from beliefs about what they are made of .... ? Can you describe more how this alienation feels for you?

This led to me thinking again about the comparison of the concept of life to the concept of consciousness.

Life-monists believed that life could be reduced to physical material. Life-dualists believed that life was composed of a different substance than physical substance. While there are undoubtedly still life-dualists, the life-monists have won the scientific consensus: We now accept that “life” can be reduced to physical material and processes.

I'm not sure I look at science in a way that consensus can be "won" (although that's a good description of how it is in fact practiced?) we don't have an explanation for the origins of life yet and there are a fair number of mainstream scientists who question the orthodox views on how complexity in life emerged . . . I've recently posted in this thread some links on this, including a passage from Nagel's new book in the last day or so.

Now, there are consciousness-monists and consciousness-dualist. They hold similar beliefs to life-monists and life-dualists.

Consciousness-monists believe consciousness can be reduced to physical material and processes. On the other hand, consciousness-dualists believe that consciousness is composed of a different substance than physical substance.

I believe the two of you are consciousness-dualists. I am as well. I think we all agree that the mind/consciousness cannot be reduced to physical material and processes.
However, there are two flavors of consciousness-dualists: substance dualists and property dualists. Whereas the two of you may believe that consciousness is composed of a different substance than physical matter, I believe that consciousness is instead composed of a different, ontologically unique property of the substance of which physical matter is composed.

Since the two of you may believe that mind/consciousness is made of a different substance than physical matter, you may believe that the physical brain cannot produce or emit consciousness. You may instead believe the brain only mediates consciousness: kind of like how a river bed mediates the flow of water and together they create a river.

Since I believe that mind and matter are two sides of the same coin (substance), I believe that mind/consciousness can emerge from certain states of this substance; states such as brains.

Not sure about this either (for me) - right now the panpsychism/panprotopsychism of Chalmers is interesting and I'm also hoping to read Nagel's Mind and Cosmos for his take on consciousness as a fundamental property or aspect of the universe ... however, I don't think anyone has much of a clue about consciousness (in terms of a scientific explanation - see Peterson's video above) ... so I'm not caught up on substances and properties at this point.

I am interested very interested though in what people think are the consequences of their beliefs . . .

... so, for you, what do you think the differences in the world are for a substance vs a property dualist? Does one view rule out certain religious beliefs for example that the other does not? Or are there moral consequences for one view vs another? Do you think certain things about free will and responsibility necessarily follow from one of these views vs another? In other words, what practical differences (if any) follow from holding these different beliefs about the mind?

 

[smcder]

Lining up my listening for the morning commute and I came across this -

Entitled Opinions is a wonderful podcast in general, Robert Harrison has excellent guests and his conversations with them are exceeded only by his monologues - I don't know anything about Kearney, but I am intrigued by the term "Anatheism"

@Constance - Levinas and the French turn are discussed

Entitled Opinions (about Life and Literature)

kearney.html