Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[smcder]

I think I understand what you're trying to argue, and, yes, I do disagree with it.



This is close to the point where I disagree with your theory. What is it that enables an organism to respond to the sound of a tree crashing? It seems to me that it is that organism's ability to hear that enables it to hear the sound of a tree crashing. The organism must also hear other sounds, a myriad of them, generated in its ecological niche. The organism has grown up in a mileau that is sensible -- in which things and other creatures are visible, audible, palpable, tastable, smellable. The organism is experientially present to -- senses its presence in -- this mileau. No doubt its senses have been enabled through millenia during which 'information' exchange became the habit of nature, during which life emerged and living organisms became present to and within local reality. What that interaction and entanglement of information has led to in life, in living beings, is lived reality, which is experiential, temporal, and open-ended and thereby exceeds the integration of information that has produced its existential potentiality.

Embodied experience and the evolution of consciousness go beyond the information that has made them possible. Understanding how information exchange and integration have produced us as well as the world we live in is an interesting question. But it cannot explain to us our adventures on the planet. It does not contain the answers to the existential questions we ask ourselves: what is life? what is mind? why do we care? how should we live? It does not even contain an answer to the question 'why do we seek understanding of the world and of ourselves'. 'Information' does not ask this question. We do.

Maybe the above helps in understanding my disagreement that 'integrated information' can explain everything. Maybe not. I actually doubt that it can without your having become acquainted with school of phenomenological philosophy.

"Embodied experience and the evolution of consciousness go beyond the information that has made them possible. Understanding how information exchange and integration have produced us as well as the world we live in is an interesting question. But it cannot explain to us our adventures on the planet. It does not contain the answers to the existential questions we ask ourselves: what is life? what is mind? why do we care? how should we live? It does not even contain an answer to the question 'why do we seek understanding of the world and of ourselves'. 'Information' does not ask this question. We do."

This is the condition of "thrownness"?

 

[Constance]

Yes, I think that's a good way of looking at what Heidegger meant by 'thrownness'.

 

[Constance]

Your post quoting parts of the Chronicle's review of Nagel's most recent book raised some of the same issues. Who wrote that review? Never mind, I'll go check for myself. Here's that post of yours:

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2 | Page 21 | The Paracast Community Forums

 

[smcder]

Your post quoting parts of the Chronicle's review of Nagel's most recent book raised some of the same issues. Who wrote that review? Never mind, I'll go check for myself. Here's that post of yours:

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2 | Page 21 | The Paracast Community Forums

That links to the first post of part 2 ... Did you mean this link?

The Core of ‘Mind and Cosmos’ - NYTimes.com

It's by Nagel himself

 

[Constance]

I see that that review article was written by Michael Chorost. Reading your post again, it looks like much of what you quoted was from Chalmers.

 

[Constance]

No, I hadn't seen that Nagel piece in the NYT and am grateful for it. Here is the post I was referring to:

Now, the combination problem:

"There is one sort of principled problem in the vicinity. Our phenomenology has a rich and specific structure: it is unified, bounded, differentiated into many different aspects, but with an underlying homogeneity to many of the aspects, and appears to have a single subject of experience. It is not easy to see how a distribution of a large number of individual microphysical systems, each with their own protophenomenal properties, could somehow add up to this rich and specific structure. Should one not expect something more like a disunified, jagged collection of phenomenal spikes?

This is a version of what James called the combination problem for panpsychism, or what Stoljar (2001) calls the structural mismatch problem for the Russellian view (see also Foster 1991, pp. 119-30). To answer it, it seems that we need a much better understanding of the compositional principles of phenomenology: that is, the principles by which phenomenal properties can be composed or constituted from underlying phenomenal properties, or protophenomenal properties. We have a good understanding of the principles of physical composition, but no real understanding of the principles of phenomenal composition. This is an area that deserves much close attention: I think it is easily the most serious problem for the type-F monist view. At this point, it is an open question whether or not the problem can be solved.

Some type-F monists appear to hold that they can avoid the combination problem by holding that phenomenal properties are the intrinsic properties of high-level physical dispositions (e.g., those involved in neural states), and need not be constituted by the intrinsic properties of microphysical states (hence they may also deny panprotopsychism). But this seems to be untenable: if the low-level network is causally closed and the high-level intrinsic properties are not constituted by low-level intrinsic properties, the high-level intrinsic properties will be epiphenomenal all over again, for familiar reasons. The only way to embrace this position would seem to be in combination with a denial of microphysical causal closure, holding that there are fundamental dispositions above the microphysical level, which have phenomenal properties as their grounds. But such a view would be indistinguishable from type-D dualism.[*] So a distinctive type-F monism will have to face the combination problem directly."

So, what we are looking for is principles of phenomenal composition which Chalmers says we have no real understanding of this ...

Clearly the rules of phenomenal and physical composition have to result in minds and bodies that work and work together - and are grounded in physical reality in order to survive and have to allow enough freedom for rationality to operate (Searle, right?) so
the contents of our minds can be no more arbitrary than our bodies but if our bodies on evolutionary theory are shaped by physical contingency ... Well, Nagel challenges this point in Mind and Cosmos:

"So the physical sciences, in spite of their extraordinary success in their own domain, necessarily leave an important aspect of nature unexplained. Further, since the mental arises through the development of animal organisms, the nature of those organisms cannot be fully understood through the physical sciences alone. Finally, since the long process of biological evolution is responsible for the existence of conscious organisms, and since a purely physical process cannot explain their existence, it follows that biological evolution must be more than just a physical process, and the theory of evolution, if it is to explain the existence of conscious life, must become more than just a physical theory."

And then he commits the further heresy of reintroducing teleology into the discussion!

Where Thomas Nagel Went Wrong - The Chronicle of Higher Education

So, that's why I say the combination problem just shifts the hard problem around and why the CRpP theory leaves so much to be desired.

 

[smcder]

No, I hadn't seen that Nagel piece in the NYT and am grateful for it. Here is the post I was referring to:

Oops - yes Consciousness and it's Place and Nature - meant to cite, I'll edit the post.

This is my text:

"So, what we are looking for is principles of phenomenal composition which Chalmers says we have no real understanding of this ...

Clearly the rules of phenomenal and physical composition have to result in minds and bodies that work and work together - and are grounded in physical reality in order to survive and have to allow enough freedom for rationality to operate (Searle, right?) so
the contents of our minds can be no more arbitrary than our bodies but if our bodies on evolutionary theory are shaped by physical contingency ... Well, Nagel challenges this point in Mind and Cosmos:"

 

[Constance]

Hmm, the bulk of the quoted material^ likely isn't from Chalmers, or at least not all of it, because he's referred to in the third person at one point.

NOTE: I now see that that third-person reference was made in one of your comments.

 

[Constance]

Oops - yes Consciousness and it's Place and Nature - meant to cite, I'll edit the post.

This is my text:

"So, what we are looking for is principles of phenomenal composition which Chalmers says we have no real understanding of this ...

Clearly the rules of phenomenal and physical composition have to result in minds and bodies that work and work together - and are grounded in physical reality in order to survive and have to allow enough freedom for rationality to operate (Searle, right?) so
the contents of our minds can be no more arbitrary than our bodies but if our bodies on evolutionary theory are shaped by physical contingency ... Well, Nagel challenges this point in Mind and Cosmos:"

Ah, so it's Nagel you're quoting at the end, Chalmers beforehand. And Chalmers wrote, and I agree:

"The only way to embrace this position would seem to be in combination with a denial of microphysical causal closure, holding that there are fundamental dispositions above the microphysical level, which have phenomenal properties as their grounds."

Indeed, 'microphysical causal closure' is the presupposition that needs to be bracketed and eventually dismissed.

 

[smcder]

I can't edit the original post, so I'm re-posting and adding the attribution to the first quote:

Now, the combination problem:

David Chalmers
Consciousness and its Place in Nature

"There is one sort of principled problem in the vicinity. Our phenomenology has a rich and specific structure: it is unified, bounded, differentiated into many different aspects, but with an underlying homogeneity to many of the aspects, and appears to have a single subject of experience. It is not easy to see how a distribution of a large number of individual microphysical systems, each with their own protophenomenal properties, could somehow add up to this rich and specific structure. Should one not expect something more like a disunified, jagged collection of phenomenal spikes?

This is a version of what James called the combination problem for panpsychism, or what Stoljar (2001) calls the structural mismatch problem for the Russellian view (see also Foster 1991, pp. 119-30). To answer it, it seems that we need a much better understanding of the compositional principles of phenomenology: that is, the principles by which phenomenal properties can be composed or constituted from underlying phenomenal properties, or protophenomenal properties. We have a good understanding of the principles of physical composition, but no real understanding of the principles of phenomenal composition. This is an area that deserves much close attention: I think it is easily the most serious problem for the type-F monist view. At this point, it is an open question whether or not the problem can be solved.

Some type-F monists appear to hold that they can avoid the combination problem by holding that phenomenal properties are the intrinsic properties of high-level physical dispositions (e.g., those involved in neural states), and need not be constituted by the intrinsic properties of microphysical states (hence they may also deny panprotopsychism). But this seems to be untenable: if the low-level network is causally closed and the high-level intrinsic properties are not constituted by low-level intrinsic properties, the high-level intrinsic properties will be epiphenomenal all over again, for familiar reasons. The only way to embrace this position would seem to be in combination with a denial of microphysical causal closure, holding that there are fundamental dispositions above the microphysical level, which have phenomenal properties as their grounds. But such a view would be indistinguishable from type-D dualism.[*] So a distinctive type-F monism will have to face the combination problem directly."

...

So, what we are looking for is principles of phenomenal composition which Chalmers says we have no real understanding of this ...

Clearly the rules of phenomenal and physical composition have to result in minds and bodies that work and work together - and are grounded in physical reality in order to survive and have to allow enough freedom for rationality to operate (Searle, right?) so
the contents of our minds can be no more arbitrary than our bodies but if our bodies on evolutionary theory are shaped by physical contingency ...

Well, Thomas Nagel challenges this point in Mind and Cosmos:

"So the physical sciences, in spite of their extraordinary success in their own domain, necessarily leave an important aspect of nature unexplained. Further, since the mental arises through the development of animal organisms, the nature of those organisms cannot be fully understood through the physical sciences alone. Finally, since the long process of biological evolution is responsible for the existence of conscious organisms, and since a purely physical process cannot explain their existence, it follows that biological evolution must be more than just a physical process, and the theory of evolution, if it is to explain the existence of conscious life, must become more than just a physical theory."

And then Nagel commits the further heresy of reintroducing teleology into the discussion!

Where Thomas Nagel Went Wrong - The Chronicle of Higher Education

So, that's why I say the combination problem just shifts the hard problem around and why the CRpP theory leaves so much to be desired.

 

[Soupie]

It's more than my personal preference - it's clarity ... I don't read every post on this thread and sometimes I sleep in between what I do read ... And there may be other occasional readers or passers by, so if you're purveying a particular POV you might make posts as stand alone as possible - if you write:

"I agree that we are much more than experiences. I say we have a body-self (material) and a mental-self (immaterial). Both of these selves are complex however a la the conceptual and phenomenal aspects of the mental-self."

Then I think "oh Soupie is a dualist!" And I quit reading your stuff! ;-)
...

Dualism - By Branch / Doctrine - The Basics of Philosophy

"Dualism in Metaphysics is the belief that there are two kinds of reality: material (physical) and immaterial (spiritual). In Philosophy of Mind, Dualism is the position that mind and body are in some categorical way separate from each other, and that mental phenomena are, in some respects, non-physical in nature."

Monism - By Branch / Doctrine - The Basics of Philosophy

Neutral Monism:
This dual-aspect theory maintains that existence consists of one kind of primal substance (hence monism), which in itself is neither mental nor physical, but is capable of mental and physical aspects or attributes. Thus, there is some other, neutral substance (variously labelled as Substance, Nature or God), and that both matter and mind are properties of this other unknown substance. Such a position was adopted by Baruch Spinoza and also by Bertrand Russell for a time.

Reflexive Monism:
This is a dual-aspect theory (in the tradition of Spinoza) which argues that the one basic stuff of which the universe is composed has the potential to manifest both physically and as conscious experience (such as human beings) which can then have a view of both the rest of the universe and themselves (hence "reflexive"). It is a contemporary take on a concept which has been present in human thought for millennia, such as in later Vedic writings like the "Upanishads" and some beliefs from ancient Egypt.

... So ... We re- write the above as:

"I agree that we are much more than experiences. While there is only one primal substance, it has two aspects - so we have a body-self (physical aspect) and a mental-self (phenomenal aspect).

Or, for reflexive monism:

"I agree that we are much more than experiences. While I believe there is only one basic stuff of which the universe is comprised, it has the potential to manifest as a body-self (physical) and a reflexive mental-self that is a conscious experience that is capable of having a view of both the rest of the universe and of itself.

But information might be spiritual stuff.

 

[smcder]

But information might be spiritual stuff.

Ok - so would that introduce a second kind of stuff (Dualism) or a third aspect of one primal stuff (monism)?

 

[smcder]

But information might be spiritual stuff.

Or do you mean to say that information is the primal stuff of which the phenomenal and physical are made on? (aspects of) and thus all is spiritual?

Or ... ?

 

[Soupie]

Could you show me where I have pre-supposed that the mind/subject exists non-locally? I would like to clarify any such post that I have made.

I get the impression from your questions, and due to the fact that you don't understand the concept "we are experiences."

And then could you explain what you mean when you say I am the green, the love, the pain? I may not have read that post - plus it will be good to have it in part 2 of this thread. You could do a FAQ and then link back to it when these questions come up.

I'll try to explain it one more time, but this will be the last.

Imagine a fragrant flower with a buzzing bee around it. Now imagine a mindless zombie observing it. This zombie neither phenomenally sees, hears, nor smells. Because this zombie does not phenomenally see, hear, or smell anything, we say it has no mind.

Now, imagine a fragrant flower with a buzzing bee around it. Now imagine a girl observing it. This girl phenomenally sees, hears, and smells a beautiful scene. Because this girl phenomenally sees, hears, and smells something, we say she has a mind.

So what is her mind? Her mind is a phenomenal sight, sound, and smell. She (her mental-self) is her phenomenal experiences.

 

[Soupie]

Or do you mean to say that information is the primal stuff of which the phenomenal and physical are made on? (aspects of) and thus all is spiritual?

Or ... ?

That certainly could be it. You seem very concerned with labels. I appreciate that for the sake of communicating with one another and for posterity. However, we have to understand that labels put things/processes into faux boxes.

What we consider mental, spirit, and information may all be the same. What we consider physical may be completely different than how we conceptually understand it.

I don't know for sure which is which and what is what. However, what I do believe is that what we currently call physical and what we currently call mental likely arise from the same stuff and/or process.

When I'd say that information is ontologically fundamental I mean it's not made out of anything else. Information is not constituted of smaller "stuff."

Langan has offered the compelling idea of Unbound Telesis ie infinite potential. This could be the primal stuff. Perhaps out of this primal stuff comes the physical and informational properties.

 

[smcder]

I get the impression from your questions, and due to the fact that you don't understand the concept "we are experiences."

I'll try to explain it one more time, but this will be the last.

Imagine a fragrant flower with a buzzing bee around it. Now imagine a mindless zombie observing it. This zombie neither phenomenally sees, hears, nor smells. Because this zombie does not phenomenally see, hear, or smell anything, we say it has no mind.

Now, imagine a fragrant flower with a buzzing bee around it. Now imagine a girl observing it. This girl phenomenally sees, hears, and smells a beautiful scene. Because this girl phenomenally sees, hears, and smells something, we say she has a mind.

So what is her mind? Her mind is a phenomenal sight, sound, and smell. She (her mental-self) is her phenomenal experiences.

"I get the impression from your questions, and due to the fact that you don't understand the concept "we are experiences."

My questions are to clarify your position - if you could situate it within or in contrast to existing theories that would be helpful, but you can't assume that because someone can't understand what you claim is a radical idea described in idiosyncratic language is a result of their pre-suppositions. The burden of conveying a new idea is on the person who has it and has to be done in terms of existing ideas, otherwise no one else will ever get it.

Also, if you understand how someone's pre- suppositions prevent them from understanding your concept - then you can use that to explain it. In this case, how would a pre-supposition that the mind is non local prevent someone from understanding your idea?

As to my pre-suppositions what I've said is that I don't make any assumptions about the nature of consciousness or endorse any single theory as none seem adequate.

"This girl phenomenally sees, hears, and smells a beautiful scene. Because this girl phenomenally sees, hears, and smells something, we say she has a mind.

So what is her mind? Her mind is a phenomenal sight, sound, and smell. She (her mental-self) is her phenomenal experiences."

I would agree that something that has phenomenal experiences has a mind - I'm not sure that's a complete description or that a mind is phenomenal experiences except in a kind of "by definition" way ... what do you feel is radical about that idea?

I think of my mind as being capable of having phenomenal experiences, you could say all experiences are phenomenal maybe ... I think if self reflection and self awareness, sense of I or self - which can be seen more objectively in meditation as being "empty" ... Buddhism has five sense consciousnesses: seeing consciousness, hearing consciousness, etc and a sixth or consciousness of mental states ... I'll find a reference for you.

But I can't make sense of the bald statement "I am my phenomenal experiences" except in an obvious way.

Does anyone else see what I'm missing?

 

[Soupie]

I can see information is gojng to be the next difficulty - so I want to avoid any further verbal disputes over monism ...

And I think we have THAT down warts and all ... and you still identify as a CRpP? Is that correct?

At the outset of this discussion, I believed that the physical and mental were two sides of the same coin. I offered the analogy of the orchestra and the concerto to explain how I felt the brain generated the mind. At that time, I was not familiar with IIT nor Information Philosophy.

These two concepts have great intuitive and logical appeal to me. Matter and information, the material and immaterial are two sides of the same coin.

The idea that information can = the mental is a wild idea, but it's where my own logic and intuition has led me.

Regarding crpp: the appeal for me is 100% the constitutive aspect, even more so than the monistic aspect. And I'm not especially hung up on the intrinsic/extrinsic aspect either.

The main appeal is the concept that the mind is constituted of smaller parts.

Finally is it your position that nothing is ultimately paranormal, it just hasn't received a normal explanation ... Yet? Can we call that "pre-normalism"?"

Not so much a normal explanation, but definitely a natural explanation.

 

[smcder]

That certainly could be it. You seem very concerned with labels. I appreciate that for the sake of communicating with one another and for posterity. However, we have to understand that labels put things/processes into faux boxes.

What we consider mental, spirit, and information may all be the same. What we consider physical may be completely different than how we conceptually understand it.

I don't know for sure which is which and what is what. However, what I do believe is that what we currently call physical and what we currently call mental likely arise from the same stuff and/or process.

When I'd say that information is ontologically fundamental I mean it's not made out of anything else. Information is not constituted of smaller "stuff."

Langan has offered the compelling idea of Unbound Telesis ie infinite potential. This could be the primal stuff. Perhaps out of this primal stuff comes the physical and informational properties.

I'm very concerned with labels in communicating with you because that seems to be the basis of an enormous amount of confusion and I want to avoid that going forward.

I think we can locate your ideas at or near existing philosophical ideas (there is very little new under the sun and philosophy covers an enormous amount of ground) and doing so allows us to

1. Determine if you've said something new
2. If not, we know what you are saying and you then know where to look for supporting and opposing arguments

This is basic scholarship when entering a new field: survey the literature to see what's already been done. Then we can go looking for what's outside those boxes!

Have you looked at Whitehead and Hartshorne's panexperientialism?

 

[Soupie]

This is close to the point where I disagree with your theory. What is it that enables an organism to respond to the sound of a tree crashing? It seems to me that it is that organism's ability to hear that enables it to hear the sound of a tree crashing. The organism must also hear other sounds, a myriad of them, generated in its ecological niche. The organism has grown up in a mileau that is sensible -- in which things and other creatures are visible, audible, palpable, tastable, smellable.

I don't disagree with this in the least nor does the concept I present.

The ear and the brain are what enable an organism to hear. How? By processing information (air waves) and translating them into sounds (giving them meaning). The ear and the brain do this.

The organism is experientially present to -- senses its presence in -- this mileau.

And here I strongly disagree with you.

I don't think they all do. Many do, but many don't. They don't all sense their presence, they simply experience the world uninhibited with self-consciousness. I imagine them in a constant state of flow.

Hell, I'm most happy when I don't sense my presence; when I'm walking in the woods with my dogs and I am what I experience and nothing more. Of course, being human, this is constantly interrupted with moments of self-consciousness.

No doubt its senses have been enabled through millenia during which 'information' exchange became the habit of nature, during which life emerged and living organisms became present to and within local reality. What that interaction and entanglement of information has led to in life, in living beings, is lived reality, which is experiential, temporal, and open-ended and thereby exceeds the integration of information that has produced its existential potentiality.

You lost me here. Sorry.

Matter/energy and information have an intimate relationship. There are dynamic, evolving matter/energy processes/structures; and likewise there are dynamic, evolving information processes/structures.

I think organisms (brains) are examples of complex matter/energy structures, and minds are complex information structures.

I'm not sure we need to go further than the world, brains and minds to describe "lived experience."

Embodied experience and the evolution of consciousness go beyond the information that has made them possible. Understanding how information exchange and integration have produced us as well as the world we live in is an interesting question. But it cannot explain to us our adventures on the planet. It does not contain the answers to the existential questions we ask ourselves: what is life? what is mind? why do we care? how should we live? It does not even contain an answer to the question 'why do we seek understanding of the world and of ourselves'. 'Information' does not ask this question. We do.

Again, you lost me.

The creative, narrative mind (an information structure) is the one asking these questions, not naked* information, no. But who is claiming that naked information asks these questions?

*I once used the term "pure" in place of naked, and you asked me to clarify. What I mean by naked/pure information is undifferentiated information. Information that hasn't been received, processed, and integrated into a meaningful structure.

Naked information is merely the constitutive "unit" of the mind-structure/process.

 

[Soupie]

So, what we are looking for is principles of phenomenal composition which Chalmers says we have no real understanding of this ...

Clearly the rules of phenomenal and physical composition have to result in minds and bodies that work and work together - and are grounded in physical reality in order to survive and have to allow enough freedom for rationality to operate (Searle, right?) so
the contents of our minds can be no more arbitrary than our bodies...

Yes! Yes, this is what I've been saying from post one.

In the Vallee Ted Talk I posted, he says that the physics we have today are the physicas of matter and energy. They deal with matter/energy structure-processes. He calls for a new physics, a physics of information. This new physics would seek to explore information structure-processes. (Recall our 20+ page debate regarding me trying to "materialize" the spiritual. The idea that a pool appears to be a fluid (heh) whole but is actually a complex structure-process.)

Just as matter/energy can differentiate into structure-processes, I believe so too can information differentiate (combine) into structure-processes.

The trick is, information (mental) is subjective. It's hard to "see," to measure, and to manipulate. But the concept absolutely thrills me.

One paranormal phenomenon I think it could be applied to (other than minds of course!) is poltergeist, which seem to be information somehow stored in the environment. I think past life memories could be explored as well.