Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 10

[smcder]

The "feeling" is simply to indicate that it is phenomenal consciousness that we're after. It has nothing to do with feelings like angry, happy, sad, itchy, etc.

'

I know ...

 

[smcder]

'

I know ...

Thickness and thinness ... the "thin" crowd says it's all itchy, etc. the "thick" crowd says there is "what it is like" to solve a problem, to understand, etc ... but either way, it's not an issue for my objections: to wit, how can we have phenomenal consciousness without a subject?

 

[smcder]

the first reference I found to "subjectless" consciousness:

The Problem of Subjectless Consciousness in some Western and Eastern Traditions | Lifintseva | NeuroQuantology

 

[smcder]

The peculiar philosophical assumptions of Daniel Dennett

 

[Soupie]

Thickness and thinness ... the "thin" crowd says it's all itchy, etc. the "thick" crowd says there is "what it is like" to solve a problem, to understand, etc ... but either way, it's not an issue for my objections: to wit, how can we have phenomenal consciousness without a subject?

What I am arguing for is monism. I'm saying that the physical world and the mental world are one and the same. There are lots of reasons to suppose this is the case, but there are lots of problems with such an account.

Therefore, very roughly speaking, we can say there is a real relationship between the concepts of energy/matter and systems within energy/matter, and consciousness (feeling) as substrate and systems within consciousness (feeling) as substrate.

So how can we have phenomenal consciousness without a subject is—in my way of thinking—roughly analogous to asking how can we have energy/matter without structure.

This seems like cherry picking, as you've correctly identified. However, again, consider that I am saying that the mental and the physical are one. While I have argued that many of the properties we currently consider to be mind-independent, objective properties of matter may not be, I've also maintained that this noumenal substrate does indeed have mind-independent properties.

Some of those properties may already be in our conceptual repertoire, such as interaction and differentiation.

On the other hand, I also think this noumenal substrate will have properties that we can't begin to grok based on our perceptual-experience-embodied form of learning and knowing.

 

[smcder]

What I am arguing for is monism. I'm saying that the physical world and the mental world are one and the same. There are lots of reasons to suppose this is the case, but there are lots of problems with such an account.

Therefore, very roughly speaking, we can say there is a real relationship between the concepts of energy/matter and systems within energy/matter, and consciousness (feeling) as substrate and systems within consciousness (feeling) as substrate.

So how can we have phenomenal consciousness without a subject is—in my way of thinking—roughly analogous to asking how can we have energy/matter without structure.

This seems like cherry picking, as you've correctly identified. However, again, consider that I am saying that the mental and the physical are one. While I have argued that many of the properties we currently consider to be mind-independent, objective properties of matter may not be, I've also maintained that this noumenal substrate does indeed have mind-independent properties.

Some of those properties may already be in our conceptual repertoire, such as interaction and differentiation.

On the other hand, I also think this noumenal substrate will have properties that we can't begin to grok based on our perceptual-experience-embodied form of learning and knowing.

It doesn't work.

Phenomenal consciousness without a subject is like massless and non-extended matter or energy that does no work. Massless, non-extended matter is not matter.

You're trying to insert a duality between experience and experiencer where there is none. No experience, no subject, no subject, no experience - qualia are not free floating, pain or red does not hang in the air.

You're wanting to strip the subject out in order to use phenomenal consciousness as a substrate and confusing the varieties of experience with what you call "interaction and differentiation".

 

[smcder]

Thoughts on qualia and phenomenology

 

[Constance]

the first reference I found to "subjectless" consciousness:

The Problem of Subjectless Consciousness in some Western and Eastern Traditions | Lifintseva | NeuroQuantology

An interesting paper that ultimately rewards the persistence required to read it. Clarity begins with Section B on page 314, which seems to have a different author from the author of the preceding text. As a whole, I think, the paper raises more questions than it answers, and the references to 'poststructuralist' thinkers/writers including some phenomenological philosophers beginning at pg. 316 obviously call for much further reading and interpretation. The authors might be able to develop their thesis (or their overlapping theses) in a much longer work, which I'd read if it shows up in the future.

ps: much of the earlier part of the paper reviewing concepts arising in Eastern thought sounds very much like ideas that @Michael Allen has attempted to express in this thread. Hope to see a response to the paper by MA. I'm also looking forward to reading Steve's responses. And wondering whether @Soupie finds this paper valuable as support for his approach to consciousness.

 

[Soupie]

It doesn't work.

Phenomenal consciousness without a subject is like massless and non-extended matter or energy that does no work. Massless, non-extended matter is not matter.

You're trying to insert a duality between experience and experiencer where there is none. No experience, no subject, no subject, no experience - qualia are not free floating, pain or red does not hang in the air.

You're wanting to strip the subject out in order to use phenomenal consciousness as a substrate and confusing the varieties of experience with what you call "interaction and differentiation".

The mind is green.

There's a body of evidence strongly suggesting that the sense of being a subject is a quality of subjective experience. Individuals with mental illness and under the influence of psychedelics report temporary states of ego death. Consciousness without subjectivity. The feeling of being a subject.

As far as subjectivity as meaning a pov, this can be explained in 3rd person terms. Any system will have a subjective pov in relation to the rest of the system.

Furthermore, I am not positions the existincebof quality in the absence of the sense of subjectivity. Although as noted in the ego death litaretaure apparently there is an argument there.

Consciousness (feeling) as substrate is the ground for subjective experience and all the varieties of qualia therein.

If you can get past thinking of consciousness (feeling) as subjective experience, then perhaps thinking of noumena or proto-consciousness would be helpful.

You've rightfully asked me to describe this consciousness (feeling) as substrate; you've asked wiil to be this substrate. The only properties I feel confident saying it has are (1) feeling/proto-feeling, (2) interactivity, (3) differentiation/dynamism.

You say I am confusing the latter two with "varieties of experience." Sure, we can argue over the terms, but the fact that the stream of consciousness seems to change (dynamism/differentiation) in an ordered (interactive) way needs to be explained by nobody's and dualists. Dualists can't appeal to physical concepts.

A monist positing that mind and matter are one certainly can. Indeed, it would be bizarre if mind and matter didn't share certain qualities seeing as how they are one and the same. While at the same time the perceptual nature of their relationship can account for their weak duality.

 

[smcder]

The mind is green.

There's a body of evidence strongly suggesting that the sense of being a subject is a quality of subjective experience. Individuals with mental illness and under the influence of psychedelics report temporary states of ego death. Consciousness without subjectivity. The feeling of being a subject.

As far as subjectivity as meaning a pov, this can be explained in 3rd person terms. Any system will have a subjective pov in relation to the rest of the system.

Furthermore, I am not positions the existincebof quality in the absence of the sense of subjectivity. Although as noted in the ego death litaretaure apparently there is an argument there.

Consciousness (feeling) as substrate is the ground for subjective experience and all the varieties of qualia therein.

If you can get past thinking of consciousness (feeling) as subjective experience, then perhaps thinking of noumena or proto-consciousness would be helpful.

You've rightfully asked me to describe this consciousness (feeling) as substrate; you've asked wiil to be this substrate. The only properties I feel confident saying it has are (1) feeling/proto-feeling, (2) interactivity, (3) differentiation/dynamism.

You say I am confusing the latter two with "varieties of experience." Sure, we can argue over the terms, but the fact that the stream of consciousness seems to change (dynamism/differentiation) in an ordered (interactive) way needs to be explained by nobody's and dualists. Dualists can't appeal to physical concepts.

A monist positing that mind and matter are one certainly can. Indeed, it would be bizarre if mind and matter didn't share certain qualities seeing as how they are one and the same. While at the same time the perceptual nature of their relationship can account for their weak duality.

It may be best to wait until you have time to put your views into a more structured writing.

 

[smcder]

The mind is green.

There's a body of evidence strongly suggesting that the sense of being a subject is a quality of subjective experience. Individuals with mental illness and under the influence of psychedelics report temporary states of ego death. Consciousness without subjectivity. The feeling of being a subject.

As far as subjectivity as meaning a pov, this can be explained in 3rd person terms. Any system will have a subjective pov in relation to the rest of the system.

Furthermore, I am not positions the existincebof quality in the absence of the sense of subjectivity. Although as noted in the ego death litaretaure apparently there is an argument there.

Consciousness (feeling) as substrate is the ground for subjective experience and all the varieties of qualia therein.

If you can get past thinking of consciousness (feeling) as subjective experience, then perhaps thinking of noumena or proto-consciousness would be helpful.

You've rightfully asked me to describe this consciousness (feeling) as substrate; you've asked wiil to be this substrate. The only properties I feel confident saying it has are (1) feeling/proto-feeling, (2) interactivity, (3) differentiation/dynamism.

You say I am confusing the latter two with "varieties of experience." Sure, we can argue over the terms, but the fact that the stream of consciousness seems to change (dynamism/differentiation) in an ordered (interactive) way needs to be explained by nobody's and dualists. Dualists can't appeal to physical concepts.

A monist positing that mind and matter are one certainly can. Indeed, it would be bizarre if mind and matter didn't share certain qualities seeing as how they are one and the same. While at the same time the perceptual nature of their relationship can account for their weak duality.

Panexperientialism: Experience and the subject

The link to Strawson's paper isn't working - I found and linked a version of the paper above.

"One of the premises that Strawson starts with is that it is a necessary truth that “there cannot be an experience without a subject”, because experience is necessarily for someone or something.

smcder it's argued that this is also Nagel's position

Strawson moves on to distinguish various conceptions of the subject. Roughly explained, these are the thick subject (human beings or animals considered as a whole), the traditional inner conception of the subject (the persisting self) and the thin subject.

According to the conception of the thin subject, which is Strawson’s focus, a subject of experience does not and cannot exist unless it is having experience at that time.
Strawson notes that thin subjects are not an assumption but a “terminological rule” that picks out whatever portion of reality constitutes the existence of an experiencing subject.

Whilst thin subjects are unitary wholes, longevity and sustained persistence in time are not essential to them. Strawson speculates that they last for a maximum of three seconds in the human case. He also contends that thin subjects could be conceived as objects, as long as objects themselves are thought of as dynamic processes and matter itself is thought of as “process-stuff”. Strawson suggests that our experience consists of “one transient subject-constituting (and equally experience-constituting) synergy of process-stuff after another”. Thus, on this view rather than a persisting inner self there is a constant succession of thins subjects/experiences of short duration which together gives rise to one’s “stream of consciousness”.

Strawson goes on, after arguing at length, to say that the relationship between the experience, the subject and the content of the experience is one of identity. The existence of the experience is the existence of the subject which is also the content of the experience. Although experiences are necessarily “for” a subject , the two are in fact the same (to my mind, the term “subject” could therefore be redundant but I think this a terminological issue which I needn’t address here).

I won’t attempt to simplify Strawson’s arguments any more, but I think the conclusion he reaches, like the conclusion of Whitehead and others, is one which can address the intuitive qualms which surface when one considers talk of subjects and unified experience at the level of subatomic particles or below.

At such level there is no need to contemplate a persisting self which is the subject of continuous experience. Rather, the conception of brief, discrete processes or occasions of experience in which there is no subject distinct from the experience seems to me to be intuitively acceptable.

 

[Constance]

It doesn't work.

Phenomenal consciousness without a subject is like massless and non-extended matter or energy that does no work. Massless, non-extended matter is not matter.

You're trying to insert a duality between experience and experiencer where there is none. No experience, no subject, no subject, no experience - qualia are not free floating, pain or red does not hang in the air.

You're wanting to strip the subject out in order to use phenomenal consciousness as a substrate and confusing the varieties of experience with what you call "interaction and differentiation".

Well said.

One thing I found interesting in the first half of the 'subjectless consciousness' paper was the metaphorical reference to a theory of 'seeds of thought' [and/or experience] sprouting both within the "bag of grain" that contains them and (if I read that passage correctly) sprouting both inside and outside that 'seed bag'. Is the seed bag meant to be a reference to what consciousnesses experience and gather in their own temporal existences and out of the evolution of consciousness in lived experience?

But that doesn't make sense as part of a theory in which time, space, things, and others are claimed to be unreal. And then again, in this school of thought everything seems to be claimed to be "both real and unreal," ontically and ontologically. That's where I have to get off the train of thought suggested but not developed -- rather, simply asserted -- in these ancient Eastern philosophies.

In phenomenological philosophy, recognition of the capacity of imagination in embodied consciousness and perception [roughly, our ability to think beyond that which we empirically encounter in situated, local, being] produces a productive analysis of consciousness and mind in comprehending 'what-is' as we experience it. Ultimately, phenomenological philosophy leads to the discipline of hermeneutics, which we should move to at some point in our discussions.

 

[smcder]

The mind is green.

There's a body of evidence strongly suggesting that the sense of being a subject is a quality of subjective experience. Individuals with mental illness and under the influence of psychedelics report temporary states of ego death. Consciousness without subjectivity. The feeling of being a subject.

As far as subjectivity as meaning a pov, this can be explained in 3rd person terms. Any system will have a subjective pov in relation to the rest of the system.

Furthermore, I am not positions the existincebof quality in the absence of the sense of subjectivity. Although as noted in the ego death litaretaure apparently there is an argument there.

Consciousness (feeling) as substrate is the ground for subjective experience and all the varieties of qualia therein.

If you can get past thinking of consciousness (feeling) as subjective experience, then perhaps thinking of noumena or proto-consciousness would be helpful.

You've rightfully asked me to describe this consciousness (feeling) as substrate; you've asked wiil to be this substrate. The only properties I feel confident saying it has are (1) feeling/proto-feeling, (2) interactivity, (3) differentiation/dynamism.

You say I am confusing the latter two with "varieties of experience." Sure, we can argue over the terms, but the fact that the stream of consciousness seems to change (dynamism/differentiation) in an ordered (interactive) way needs to be explained by nobody's and dualists. Dualists can't appeal to physical concepts.

A monist positing that mind and matter are one certainly can. Indeed, it would be bizarre if mind and matter didn't share certain qualities seeing as how they are one and the same. While at the same time the perceptual nature of their relationship can account for their weak duality.

If you can get past thinking of consciousness (feeling) as subjective experience, then perhaps thinking of noumena or proto-consciousness would be helpful.

What is consciousness(feeling) if not subjective experience? What is experience if not subjective experience? (see my previous post) Calling it proto- or primitive consciousness is not helpful.

Let me ask again: what do you (literally) have in your head when you think about subject-less consciousness?

When I talk about a beam of dark, I can literally see turning on a dark-light and darkness spreading out in the room - that doesn't mean it's possible. I can also imagine non-extended matter - no, I can't, I can simply juxtapose rapidly two opposing thoughts in my head so fast that they seem to be one thing ...

You've rightfully asked me to describe this consciousness (feeling) as substrate; you've asked wiil to be this substrate. The only properties I feel confident saying it has are (1) feeling/proto-feeling, (2) interactivity, (3) differentiation/dynamism.

That's what dual-aspect or Russelian monism claims. The mental aspect is the intrinsic nature, the structure is the extrinsic relationship and Russell is a materialist / physicalist by some definition of the word.

 

[smcder]

Well said.

One thing I found interesting in the first half of the 'subjectless consciousness' paper was the metaphorical reference to a theory of 'seeds of thought' [and/or experience] sprouting both within the "bag of grain" that contains them and (if I read that passage correctly) sprouting both inside and outside that 'seed bag'. Is the seed bag meant to be a reference to what consciousnesses experience and gather in their own temporal existences and out of the evolution of consciousness in lived experience?

But that doesn't make sense as part of a theory in which time, space, things, and others are claimed to be unreal. And then again, in this school of thought everything seems to be claimed to be "both real and unreal," ontically and ontologically. That's where I have to get off the train of thought suggested but not developed -- rather, simply asserted -- in these ancient Eastern philosophies.

In phenomenological philosophy, recognition of the capacity of imagination in embodied consciousness and perception [roughly, our ability to think beyond that which we empirically encounter in situated, local, being] produces a productive analysis of consciousness and mind in comprehending 'what-is' as we experience it. Ultimately, phenomenological philosophy leads to the discipline of hermeneutics, which we should move to at some point in our discussions.

I think this is a problem when authors try to integrate Western and Eastern "philosophy" I don't think Buddhism is "philosophy" in that sense, it's a philosophy of life philosophy but not a rigorous analytical philosophy as we use the term. It's claim is to be "therapeutic" within the cultural/psychological context and the logic employed is based on the "trilemma" used in legal proceedings and polemics. Western logic is looking at some of this but I would make the point that there are many logics for many contexts, not that the trilemma is a superior form of logic - it is also a logic also embedded in a culture and psychology. So the logic and argumentation is meant to defeat the mind and quiten it - this I think is one of the roots of the maddening effect Buddhism can have on the "western" mind - if there is such a thing! And one of the difficulties Buddhism has in moving to the West.

I would be very interested in learning more about hermeneutics.

 

[Constance]

If you can get past thinking of consciousness (feeling) as subjective experience, then perhaps thinking of noumena or proto-consciousness would be helpful.

What is consciousness(feeling) if not subjective experience? What is experience if not subjective experience? (see my previous post) Calling it proto- or primitive consciousness is not helpful.

@Soupie, how do you connect 'noumena' [the noumenal] to 'proto-consciousness'? 'Proto-consciousness' seems to be generally understood in terms of stages of development of awareness on the way to the evolution of both prereflective and reflective consciousness. Panksepp identifies 'awareness' and 'affectivity' in primordial organisms as constituting the germinal core of protoconsciousness and consciousness.

You've rightfully asked me to describe this consciousness (feeling) as substrate; you've asked wiil to be this substrate. The only properties I feel confident saying it has are (1) feeling/proto-feeling, (2) interactivity, (3) differentiation/dynamism.

That's what dual-aspect or Russelian monism claims. The mental aspect is the intrinsic nature, the structure is the extrinsic relationship and Russell is a materialist / physicalist by some definition of the word.

Velmans's reflexive monism seems to me to be the best theory of consciousness yet developed. Maye we should reread some of his papers cited in earlier parts of his thread, or better, his book Reflexive Monism.

 

[Constance]

. . . So the logic and argumentation is meant to defeat the mind and quiten it - this I think is one of the roots of the maddening effect Buddhism can have on the "western" mind - if there is such a thing! And one of the difficulties Buddhism has in moving to the West.

That certainly expresses my experience. I personally don't see the value of 'defeating the mind and quieting it' since to do so is to disable perhaps half of our capacity to cope with the lived world and to improve it ethically. I do, however, recognize that meditative practices can illuminate more of the nature/deep structure of consciousness than we normally have access to, with beneficial consequences for openness to and compassion for others.

I would be very interested in learning more about hermeneutics.

I think now would be a good time for us to turn to hermeneutics. Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur will likely be major resources. Perhaps there's a website devoted to the history of hermeneutics.

ETA: There's another major exponent of phenomenological hermeneutics whose name I'm forgetting. Read him years ago and might be able to link to that text.

 

[Constance]

Whilst thin subjects are unitary wholes, longevity and sustained persistence in time are not essential to them. Strawson speculates that they last for a maximum of three seconds in the human case. He also contends that thin subjects could be conceived as objects, as long as objects themselves are thought of as dynamic processes and matter itself is thought of as “process-stuff”. Strawson suggests that our experience consists of “one transient subject-constituting (and equally experience-constituting) synergy of process-stuff after another”. Thus, on this view rather than a persisting inner self there is a constant succession of thins subjects/experiences of short duration which together gives rise to one’s “stream of consciousness”.

Would you link that paper again? I don't remember reading all of it. Does Strawson persuade you to agree with the speculations he engages in here?

 

[Constance]

Panexperientialism: Experience and the subject

I enjoyed your quoting from the above blog. Here's another paper by Strawson linked at the same site :

Mind and being: the primacy of panpsychism

The blogger {Justin} quotes this extract:

" ... '..why not suppose that the basic nature of concrete reality is non -experiential rather than experiential?’

Why suppose that its non-experiential—either in its basic nature or in any respect at all?

What evidence is there for the existence of non-experiential reality, as opposed to experiential reality? None. There is zero observational evidence for the existence of non-experiential reality—even after we allow in a standard realist way that each of us encounters a great deal in concrete reality that is not his or her own experience. Nor will there ever be any. All there is is one great big wholly ungrounded wholly question- begging theoretical intuition or conviction.

‘There isn’t any evidence that the intrinsic nature of reality is wholly experiential either.’

True—but we know that some of it is experiential. We know it for certain because [22] in the case of experience, the having is the knowing.

To have experience is not only to be directly acquainted with the fundamental nature of experience—at least in certain respects. It’s also of course to know that the experiential exists. The view that there is any non-experiential concrete reality is, by contrast, wholly ungrounded. It’s a radically and irredeemably verification-transcendent belief. Hume knew this. So did many others including Quine, who famously judged that physical objects that are assumed to be non-experiential are ‘posits comparable, epistemologically, to the gods of Homer’ (1951: 44) . . . . . "


Link to the blog:
Panexperientialism: On Non-experientiality

Link, again, to the Strawson paper:
Mind and Being: The Primacy of Panpsychism 2016

 

[smcder]

Would you link that paper again? I don't remember reading all of it. Does Strawson persuade you to agree with the speculations he engages in here?

Sure - I'll try to find it.

What I take from Strawson and the blog post is that talk of experience is necessarily talk of a subject and an object of experience. It's a confusion to talk about subject-less experience or experience-less subjects. That confusion may come from thinking of "experience" in the abstract, absent a particular subject or object of experience - i.e. we can talk about experience in general without explicitly referring to a subject, but to say "something it is like" - is to say "something it is like" for a subject.

Nagel in WILTBAB

But no matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism.

 

[smcder]

That certainly expresses my experience. I personally don't see the value of 'defeating the mind and quieting it' since to do so is to disable perhaps half of our capacity to cope with the lived world and to improve it ethically. I do, however, recognize that meditative practices can illuminate more of the nature/deep structure of consciousness than we normally have access to, with beneficial consequences for openness to and compassion for others.



I think now would be a good time for us to turn to hermeneutics. Heidegger, Gadamer, and Ricoeur will likely be major resources. Perhaps there's a website devoted to the history of hermeneutics.

ETA: There's another major exponent of phenomenological hermeneutics whose name I'm forgetting. Read him years ago and might be able to link to that text.

Seems like there is ... I'm blanking on it too - the SEP is always a good starting place and I'll look for other resources

Hermeneutics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)