Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 9

[DROBNJAK]

I think that whole idea of consciousness is total baloney.

Proof is very simple. Its pointless trying to say that a piece of silicon has consciousness.

Since AI had passed Turings test many years ago, and we can no more distinguish between human intelligence and AI. Does artificial intelligence (AI) have consciousness? Of course it doesn't. It just appears that it does, but we know it doesn't, because we made it. Its just a cold silicon underneath. That means that if cold silicone can fake consciousness, the whole concept of consciousness is fake.

There is no such a thing. Its was just invented to entertain philosophers and look smart.

 

[Constance]

Just a small quibble and based on other comments you've made I know you grok this, but the IU is based on reality.

It's forged against reality, it just doesn't veridically represent reality.

So the question is to what extent do our perceptual and conceptual representations depart from reality?

Of course if the above is true it means the question is based on non-veridical perceptions and conceptions about reality and therefore may be absurd.

Do you mean 'absurd' in the existentialist sense? Here is a brief (and thus oversimplified) characterization of the way in which existentialist philosophers use the term:

"Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human existence, and the feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no God or any other transcendent force, the only way to counter this nothingness (and hence to find meaning in life) is by embracing existence.


Thus, Existentialism believes that individuals are entirely free* [see *below] and must take personal responsibility for themselves (although with this responsibility comes angst, a profound anguish or dread). It therefore emphasizes action, freedom and decision as fundamental, and holds that the only way to rise above the essentially absurd condition of humanity (which is characterized by suffering and inevitable death) is by exercising our personal freedom and choice (a complete rejection of Determinism).

Often, Existentialism as a movement is used to describe those who refuse to belong to any school of thought, repudiating of the adequacy of any body of beliefs or systems, claiming them to be superficial, academic and remote from life. Although it has much in common with Nihilism, Existentialism is more a reaction against traditional philosophies, such as Rationalism, Empiricism and Positivism, that seek to discover an ultimate order and universal meaning in metaphysical principles or in the structure of the observed world. It asserts that people actually make decisions based on what has meaning to them, rather than what is rational.

Existentialism originated with the 19th Century philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche, although neither used the term in their work. In the 1940s and 1950s, French existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus (1913 - 1960), and Simone de Beauvoir (1908 - 1986) wrote scholarly and fictional works that popularized existential themes, such as dread, boredom, alienation, the absurd, freedom, commitment and nothingness."

Existentialism - By Branch / Doctrine - The Basics of Philosophy

Note: *"entirely free" is a mistatement of the development in existential philosophy [in Sartre, Bouvoir, Camus, Merleau-Ponty, Levinas, and others] toward an understanding of the freedom of individuals as always 'situated', its range and extent qualified or constrained by what is possible within one's actual situation in his or her lived world. Even within chains of physical imprisonment or reductive definitions of the individual projected on oneself (or on one's social/racial/gendered group by others), transcendence of one's objectified situation is possible by the attitude one takes, the inner revolt one can maintain and act upon, against this intended objectification.

The question your post raises for me is whether -- and how -- we can understand Hoffman's UI theory as 'absurd' in an existentialist sense. I think we can do so on the basis that Hoffman seems to deny that existentially conscious beings such as ourselves can understand enough about ourselves and our lived 'world' -- as we can think it within and speculate on it beyond the horizons of visibility -- to differentiate between meaning accessible within our own situated existences and a possible unified meaning of all being beyond our grasp. And yet, as Steve has suggested, Hoffman sees himself as capable of moving outside of the situated meaning attainable by human existents to define the entire/universal nature of being in informational/computational terms. I see Hoffman's claims about the 'UI' as a wild surmise that the informational/computational meme can explain [and radically reduce] the nature of human consciousness and mind. You go on to write:

But can we have our cake and eat it too, Dennett does: this this and this are phenomena but this this and this are noumena.

The above model may be wrong. And if it is we are confronted with even harder questions! If we do perceive and think about reality veridically how might that be?

For those who adopt the materialist, reductionist, mechanistic, determined worldview, why should (and it must be should, right?) reality have ticktocked to a point of perfect self-awareness?

On what grounds can it be said that "for those who adopt the materialist, reductionist, mechanistic, determined worldview, why should (and it must be should, right?) reality have ticktocked to a point of perfect self-awareness?"

What and whose tenable 'perfect self-awareness' do you have in mind as resulting from a 'determined worldview'?

You add:

That seems quite odd, no?

So which is it: We do and can know nothing or we do and can know all?"

Why must it be either/or? Our perceptions and experiences can be both veridical [actual] within the local world we exist in and yet limited regarding the nature of all-that-is in the world/universe/cosmos of which our being is part, about which we have learned some things that we can and do call facts (at least temporarily). The meaning we find in our own existences, individually and together, is not dispensable if we wish to understand our own nature as embodied consciousness, embedded and enactive in the temporal world whose being, like our own, is temporal.

As to the nature and possible meaning of Being as a whole, our only access to it must be through our own experience in be-ing, which is the ground of what we can think abstractly. It seems to me that our species' thinking about being has become short-circuited as a result of Kant's distinction between the categories of 'the noumenal' and 'the phenomenal'. Philosophers still struggle to understand the relation between the 'noumenal' and the 'phenomenal', assuming that they/we have no access to the noumenal. One might call that an absurd task. But what if the noumenal and the phenomenal interpenetrate one another? Shouldn't we pursue the analysis of human experiences in which this interpenetration has been sensed?

 

[Constance]

Abstract:
This paper has two aims: (1) to point the way towards a novel alternative to cognitive theories of emotion, and (2) to delineate a number of different functions that the emotions play in cognition, functions that become visible from outside the framework of cognitive theories. First, I hold that the Higher Order Representational (HOR) theories of consciousness ? as generally formulated ? are inadequate insofar as they fail to account for selective attention. After posing this dilemma, I resolve it in such a manner that the following thesis arises: the emotions play a key role in shaping selective attention. This thesis is in accord with A. Damasio?s (1994) noteworthy neuroscientific work on emotion. I then begin to formulate an alternative to cognitive theories of emotion, and I show how this new account has implications for the following issues: face recognition, two brain disorders (Capgras? and Fregoli syndrome), the frame problem in A. I., and the research program of affective computing.

Publication Date: 2003
Publication Name: Consciousness & Emotion

Is this extract connected to the paper you linked just previously or to another paper?

After posting this question I saw your stand-alone link to this paper by Megill:

Emotion, Cognition, and Artificial Intelligence

...so I'm assuming that the extracts you posted in the three (?) previous posts were all from this source. If not, please clarify. (Perhaps in similar postings of several extracts from a single source you could begin each extract you post with the name of the author, in parentheses or followed by a colon, after providing the source link in the first post connected to the source?)

 

[Constance]

William James

It's from the SEP on panpsychism, I believe, they describe it as an "emergence" problem.[/QUOTE]

So it's from the SEP's article on Panpsychism? (specific links would be so helpful so often

 

[Constance]

Some other interesting papers there: a new argument for Atheism ... and an alternative to cognitive theories of emotion.

Yes, it seems that you've quoted from three papers by Megill available in a list of his papers linked at academia.edu. Would you be a peach and set down the links to all three of these and any others you recommend by Megill? Thanks.

 

[smcder]

Yes, it seems that you've quoted from three papers by Megill available in a list of his papers linked at academia.edu. Would you be a peach and set down the links to all three of these and any others you recommend by Megill? Thanks.

10 4

 

[Constance]

http://organizations.utep.edu/portals/1475/nagel_bat.pdf

Conscious Entities » What is it like to be a bat

. . . 2. Actually, the claim being made is quite modest in some respects. Nagel himself says that his argument doesn’t disprove physicalism. It would be nearer the truth to say that physicalism, the view that mental entities are physical entities, is a hypothesis we can’t even understand properly…

Exactly.

 

[Michael Allen]

Yup. I think you've had that concept down all along. Something I'd like to ask your opinion on at this point is whether you've gained any new insights on the relationship between consciousness and the paranormal from this discussion? From what I can tell, we're still left with little choice other than conclude that ideas like afterlives aren't possible as they're typically portrayed, which is as some sort of continuity of consciousness and personhood following the death of the body. Or do you see any way around that?

The only insight I can admit is that of the fact that we are the most baffled (by the 9 parts of this thread) on something that should be the very center of what we consider to be ourselves. An irony that causes me to laugh hysterically every time I read or otherwise digest another book, paper or lecture on the subject matter. That being said, I think we spend most of our time trying to answer meaningless questions about ourselves, consciousness, existence, etc. But that seems to follow logically from our condition--i.e. that self-examination resolving into a concrete particular causes our own notions of "self" to disintegrate.

In that case, the "Hard problem" may actually be a polymorphism of the halting problem.

 

[Michael Allen]

I think that whole idea of consciousness is total baloney.

Proof is very simple. Its pointless trying to say that a piece of silicon has consciousness.

Since AI had passed Turings test many years ago, and we can no more distinguish between human intelligence and AI. Does artificial intelligence (AI) have consciousness? Of course it doesn't. It just appears that it does, but we know it doesn't, because we made it. Its just a cold silicon underneath. That means that if cold silicone can fake consciousness, the whole concept of consciousness is fake.

There is no such a thing. Its was just invented to entertain philosophers and look smart.

The "idea" or "notion" of consciousness is most certainly fake (for it is a symbol, an abstraction)...the reality of consciousness is something that cannot be easily formulated in simple strings of symbols passed from one person to another. The problem is so frustratingly simple...how do you describe a camera hooked up to a monitor pointing at the monitor? What happens when an "agent" sticks its big head in the middle and tries to ascertain itself in the very vanishing point covered by the same big head?

 

[Constance]

(According to Hoffman) We did evolve to perceive reality, our perceptions however are not veridical.

At the end of his Ted Talk he was asked the question you pose: doesn't this theory undermine itself. He said no. While our perceptions are not veridical he holds that our conceptions can be.

What is his evidence or reasoning in support of that claim?

No ... eliminativism doesn't ... and emergentism, doesn't it's just the opposite, only when things get complex enough, do you have consciousness emerge ... the combination problem says how do you get from a fundamental unit of consciousness to something like a mind - like our phenomenal experience? So I think it's limited to forms of panpsychism.

What is "a fundamental unit of consciousness" supposed/assumed to be by whoever it is that proposes that there is such a thing?

 

[Soupie]

Here's a creative attempt to explicate the HP:

Imagibe a being capable of perception, emotion, and cognition. We don't know the physical appearance of this being. In fact, completely ignore the physical appearance of this being and hold in mind only its perceptions, emotions, and cognitions. In fact, let's imagine this being has no physical appearance.

This being just is perceptions, emotions, and cognitions.

One day this being perceived itself in the mirror. It sees an object staring back it.

"What the devil is this, the being wonders. An odd looking thing this is. And here I thought mirrors were to reflect what fell upon them.

In this mirror I don't see myself; I don't see my perceptions, emotions, and cognitions.

All I see is this object. Hmph."

As the being moved away from the mirror, a reflection of the backside of a departing man shrunk to a black dot on its silver surface.

The problem is so frustratingly simple...how do you describe a camera hooked up to a monitor pointing at the monitor? What happens when an "agent" sticks its big head in the middle and tries to ascertain itself in the very vanishing point covered by the same big head?

Ok. I think we may be on the same page here but reaching different conclusions.

Dualism arises when a perceptual system (a mind) perceives itself, and then reifies the perception. So then there is a presumed duality between the self (mind) and the perceived self (body/brain).

If I follow you, you reject this dualism as ontologically real. So do I.

However, again if I follow you, you seem to reject the reality of the self (mind) and instead reify the perceived self (body/brain/material).

Doing so creates the HP.

What I am saying, following Kant, is that perceptions are phenomena and we mustn't reify them. Instead, it is the perceiving self that is primary in regard to perceptions (brains/bodies/material).

Thus, while mind/consciousness may not be the ontologically most primitive stuff, matter most certainly isn't.

So, I join you in rejecting dualism, but it follows that matter is not ontologically primary. And while consciousness may not be ontologically primary, it is in relation to matter.

Note: I'm not even suggesting here (a la Hoffman) that our perception of the noumena is radically different than the noumena.

But even if we argue that we have evolved to perceive (represent) the noumena pretty much as it is, our perceptions (representations) of the noumena will still not be 100% veridical. The maps simply are not the territory.

Even the most detailed and accurate maps (perceptions) will fail to completely capture the territory (noumena).

And what I am saying is that this leaves the door open for answering the HP.

 

[Constance]

how do you describe a camera hooked up to a monitor pointing at the monitor?

As an inadequate analogy for consciousness.

What happens when an "agent" sticks its big head in the middle and tries to ascertain itself in the very vanishing point covered by the same big head?

I'm fairly sure that that question is intended to speak for itself, but what does it wish to say?

 

[Constance]

Both of these papers are worth reading on the relationship of the phenomenal and the noumenal. The second provides genuinely creative thought and covers all the philosophers we have recently been discussing.


Kant’s noumenal realm reconsidered in the light of contemporary developments in physics
Willie McCloud

Extract

"The existence of the noumenal realm opens up the possibility that our knowledge could indeed to some extent be grounded in the human subject, not as standing apart from the world, but as being part of the world. His [Kant's] philosophy also, not only provides a unified perspective on our world that could incorporate disciplines as far apart as pschoanalysis and physics; it also enables us to reconcile the different interpretations of quantum physics."

Life in the Universe: Kant’s noumenal realm reconsidered in the light of contemporary developments in physics


The Phenomenal Presence of Noumena
April 15, 2015
Wilson Hurst
"The subject/object divide imposes doubt, as “all illusion consists in taking the subjective basis for a judgment to be objective” (Kant Prolegomena 80). The “distinction between empirical receptivity and transcendental constitution appears to be the obligatory framework for all modern thought” (Meillassoux 3). In this regard, the essential noumenal component is the unavoidable problematic limitation of human sensibility. This limitation opens up the possibility there may be real objects existing for a “quite different intuition [sensation] and quite different understanding from ours” (Kant CPR 287). This specifies the existence of a concealed unknown, but real realm. Thus in theoretical reason, the noumena may be accorded the title of “an unknown something” (Kant CPR 256). A phenomenon is a temporal or spatiotemporal object of sensory experience as distinguished from a noumenon. As received by the senses, any observable appearance occurrence understood as a phenomenon does not define itself, but rather announces itself. Announcing an entity entails presenting by not showing, indicating the presence of something concealed. This seems akin to the idea of the “presence of nothing” that Sartre discusses in Being and Nothingness: “What being will be must of necessity arise on the basis of what it is not. Whatever being is, it will allow this formulation: Being is that and outside of that, nothing. Thus a new component of the real has just appeared to us [as] non-being” (5). Here appearance becomes an indirect positive emissary of a reality that does not paradoxically appear in any manifest form. Whether by conjuring possibilities in appearance or by annihilating them, consciousness exercises the ability to conceptualize potential. The possible is available in our uncertain realities . . . . ."

The Phenomenal Presence of Noumena

 

[Randall]

... In that case, the "Hard problem" may actually be a polymorphism of the halting problem.

Hmm. Interesting way to look at it ( the hard problem ). It certainly tends to behave that way when it's approached as a "problem", but that doesn't mean it's unfathomable. Rather, I would suggest that it is precisely because it doesn't resolve into a solution, that irreducibility is what makes it something fundamental.

 

[Michael Allen]

As an inadequate analogy for consciousness.



I'm fairly sure that that question is intended to speak for itself, but what does it wish to say?

You are correct. But if an 'analogy' is something that is soley created and comprehended by consciousness for the purposes of consciousness, then it follows that all such analogies must remain trivially 'inadequate.' Hmmm?

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[Michael Allen]

I'm fairly sure that that question is intended to speak for itself, but what does it wish to say?

Meaning the question is rhetorical. Again, I am busted

The question is in-itself a disembodied reality...because it is meant to be asked by a seeking questioner. Can it speak for itself? Well...yes and no: yes in that the questioner might discover something through seeking and asking. No in that as a string of symbols, lacks the capability to have any "meaning." A pathological physicalist may demand that entire frameworks of related questioning may resolve themselves...and in doing so they may assume a perfect logical processor which does such and then quietly exits in the manner of deus ex machina. Or they may pretend that relations of the in-itself remnants of physically communicated questioning may in and of themselves take on flesh and answer themselves. The problem is that the answer of the HP of consciousness lies in the removal of this processor ...it is like trying to make sense out of machine code without the existence of a processor to execute the same.

But the "answer" consciousness would consider adequate in such cases must either supercede (and thus be incomprehensible) or lie beneath (be a mere reification or subset of consciousness for consciousness ) consciousness...in either case we end up with inadequacy or incomprehensibilty regarding our examination of consciousness.







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[Constance]

You are correct. But if an 'analogy' is something that is soley created and comprehended by consciousness for the purposes of consciousness, then it follows that all such analogies must remain trivially 'inadequate.' Hmmm?

Not following you here, as usual, beginning with your 'if' clause. What is the basis for thinking that analogical thinking is 'created by consciousness solely for consciousness's own purposes'? Would you explain more fully what you mean by that?

It seems to me that analogical thinking begins in prereflective consciousness and develops further in reflective consciousness and is a response to the recognition that some things encountered in the environment are similar to one another. Birds, for example, while varying among species in their appearances and even in their songs, are similar to one another and different from creatures that move about on the ground or disappear into it and never fly. This observation was doubtlessly made by species in the evolution of the primate line, and possibly in others, and is doubtless repeated in the obvious interest of small children in similarities and differences between and among the variety of living beings they encounter.

Given what we understand of the eons-long evolution of consciousness out of awareness, affectivity, and seeking behavior in the primordial world of organisms and animals, and its development of reflection/reflective thought in beings of our human type, consciousness does not create the concept of analogies for 'its own purposes' -- unless you mean by that that one of the motivations of/pressures on evolving consciousness, both prereflective and reflective, is to orient itself to changes in the structure and nature of the physical environment/world in which it finds itself existing, and that this development of consciousness occurs as the result of increasingly self-conscious subjective-objective experiences in the environing local world.

But this doesn't seem to be what you intend to say, to claim. Rather, you seem to present a notion of human reflective consciousness as suddenly appearing fully-fledged in beings formerly un-aware of their being in a world among things and others and, further, suddenly capable of higher-order thought. So that, rather than developing out of awareness, affectivity, and gradual orientation to one's situated existence, the human experience of consciousness is a sudden shock, an entirely new and perplexing experience of an unfamiliar, even alien, self-presence that cannot understand itself in relation to that which exists in its lived environment and is thus under immediate pressure to 'think up' explanations for itself, any one of which "must remain trivially inadequate."

I'm truly mystified by your ideas concerning consciousness; it does seem that somehow you yourself haven't experienced consciousness before beginning to think about it in abstract and objective terms.

 

[Constance]

Meaning the question is rhetorical. Again, I am busted

I'm not trying to 'bust' you, just to understand what you are saying and on what grounds you say it.

The question is in-itself a disembodied reality...because it is meant to be asked by a seeking questioner. Can it speak for itself? Well...yes and no: yes in that the questioner might discover something through seeking and asking. No in that as a string of symbols, lacks the capability to have any "meaning." A pathological physicalist may demand that entire frameworks of related questioning may resolve themselves...and in doing so they may assume a perfect logical processor which does such and then quietly exits in the manner of deus ex machina. Or they may pretend that relations of the in-itself remnants of physically communicated questioning may in and of themselves take on flesh and answer themselves. The problem is that the answer of the HP of consciousness lies in the removal of this processor ...it is like trying to make sense out of machine code without the existence of a processor to execute the same.

But the "answer" consciousness would consider adequate in such cases must either supercede (and thus be incomprehensible) or lie beneath (be a mere reification or subset of consciousness for consciousness ) consciousness...in either case we end up with inadequacy or incomprehensibilty regarding our examination of consciousness.

Unfortunately I am unable to comprehend what you are saying. Maybe another member of this forum can express what you're saying in language I can understand. Or perhaps you can and will. Either way I'm looking forward to clarification.

 

[Michael Allen]

I'm not trying to 'bust' you, just to understand what you are saying and on what grounds you say it.



Unfortunately I am unable to comprehend what you are saying. Maybe another member of this forum can express what you're saying in language I can understand. Or perhaps you can and will. Either way I'm looking forward to clarification.

I'll do what I can when I get back to the keyboard.

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[Randall]

... It seems to me that analogical thinking begins in prereflective consciousness and develops further in reflective consciousness and is a response to the recognition that some things encountered in the environment are similar to one another. Birds, for example, while varying among species in their appearances and even in their songs, are similar to one another and different from creatures that move about on the ground or disappear into it and never fly. This observation was doubtlessly made by species in the evolution of the primate line, and possibly in others, and is doubtless repeated in the obvious interest of small children in similarities and differences between and among the variety of living beings they encounter ...

Okay.

Given what we understand of the eons-long evolution of consciousness out of awareness, affectivity, and seeking behavior in the primordial world of organisms and animals, and its development of reflection/reflective thought in beings of our human type, consciousness does not create the concept of analogies for 'its own purposes' -- unless you mean by that that one of the motivations of/pressures on evolving consciousness, both prereflective and reflective, is to orient itself to changes in the structure and nature of the physical environment/world in which it finds itself existing, and that this development of consciousness occurs as the result of increasingly self-conscious subjective-objective experiences in the environing local world.

Okay.

But this doesn't seem to be what you intend to say, to claim. Rather, you seem to present a notion of human reflective consciousness as suddenly appearing fully-fledged in beings formerly un-aware of their being in a world among things and others and, further, suddenly capable of higher-order thought. So that, rather than developing out of awareness, affectivity, and gradual orientation to one's situated existence, the human experience of consciousness is a sudden shock, an entirely new and perplexing experience of an unfamiliar, even alien, self-presence that cannot understand itself in relation to that which exists in its lived environment and is thus under immediate pressure to 'think up' explanations for itself, any one of which "must remain trivially inadequate."

Okay

I'm truly mystified by your ideas concerning consciousness ...

Okay. Perfectly understandable. He's a deep thinker. Probably one of the real geniuses we are fortunate to have here on the forum ( apart from myself of course ).

... it does seem that somehow you yourself haven't experienced consciousness before beginning to think about it in abstract and objective terms.

That doesn't seem fair. Can you elaborate on that? ( Yes I understand that you're referring to @Michael Allen )

FWIW, when it comes to the topic of analogies. It sees to me that they are simply a product of our hardwired pattern recognition capacity. An analogy is something x is "like" something b. Apples are good food and tomatoes are sort of like apples so maybe they're good too. This is an advantageous survival mechanism, so it's completely understandable that it should evolve along with us and our expanding intellect so that we can handle more abstract versions of it, e.g. There are plenty of fish in the sea. ( For those looking for a mate ), and on to even more abstract analogies based on consciousness e.g. Life is but a dream.