Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 11

[smcder]

The conclusion I am drawing is that we don't know anything about <MATTER> that would disqualify it from being the ground of mind.

Is that incoherent?

"We have no good reason (as Priestley, Eddington, Russell and others observe) to think that we know anything about the physical that gives us any reason to find any problem in the idea that consciousness is wholly physical."

-Galen "fighting Irish" Strawson

 

[Soupie]

"We have no good reason (as Priestley, Eddington, Russell and others observe) to think that we know anything about the physical that gives us any reason to find any problem in the idea that consciousness is wholly physical."

-Galen "fighting Irish" Strawson

I'm not claiming to be the originator of the idea, if that's what your concern is.

My piece—and I'm not arguing this is original either as I came to it via Hoffman—was that the no good reason is due to the nature of perception; matter as perceived is not matter as is.

I don't need to tell you that the HP hinges on the presumption that we do know something about matter which indicates that it can't be the ground of consciousness, without having to resort to strong emergence.

And I'm not suggesting this knowledge is a revelation for anyone other than myself.

 

[smcder]

I'm not claiming to be the originator of the idea, if that's what your concern is.

My piece—and I'm not arguing this is original either as I came to it via Hoffman—was that the no good reason is due to the nature of perception; matter as perceived is not matter as is.

I don't need to tell you that the HP hinges on the presumption that we do know something about matter which indicates that it can't be the ground of consciousness, without having to resort to strong emergence.

And I'm not suggesting this knowledge is a revelation for anyone other than myself.

"I don't need to tell you that the HP hinges on the presumption that we do know something about matter which indicates that it can't be the ground of consciousness, without having to resort to strong emergence."

I don't see it as hinging on that - I don't think of Strawson as solving the hard problem just because he doesn't make that assumption.

"The hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995) is the problem of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain processes, and experience (i.e., phenomenal consciousness, or mental states/events with phenomenal qualities or qualia). Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience? And why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does—why an experience of red rather than green, for example?"

So there's still some 'splainin to do.

Maybe it is a matter of perception - McGinn says the hard problem may be trivial to some other kind of mind and maybe that because they see matter in a way that it's relationship to mind is obvious.

 

[Constance]

The question of directness is in regards to perceptual experience, not experience per se.


It's perception that is non-veridical. Not necessarily conceptions. Can we have largely veridically conceptions of the world based on non-veridical perceptions? It doesn't seem like the earth orbits the sun but we know it does. How?

The comment about hallucination is misleading but not inaccurate. The same area of the brain active during hallucination is the same area active during perceptual experience. I don't think we should be surprised by that, but obviously this immediately causes us to question the veridicality of perception. And is particularly troubling for DRs.

A Neuroscientist Explains: where perception ends and hallucination begins - podcast


Of course it's confusing. Every conversation ever held in this thread has been confusing. It's a confusing topic.

We have experience (consciousness), perceptual experience, the individual/organism, and the world. (And I'm sure anyone can ask a thousand questions about those "simple" terms.)

1. "All that is or can be experienced by an individual is the individual's mind itself."

Here is referring to the indirectness of perception, whether you call it causal indirectness or just scientific realism.

2."the illusionary or perhaps more correctly hallucinatory world experienced by the mind"

Here he is referring to the distinction between the world as it is and the world as it is in human perception.

Yes, I would not say the mind "experiences" perceptions. But I don't think that's what he is saying and it's besides the point anyhow. The thing is, I get exactly what he is saysing. And he said it four years ago. As noted, something which took me about 4-5 years to understand myself. The role perception plays in the MBP. Amazing.

I don't get what you find persuasive in @Michael Allen's quoted post, and I hope he'll return here to help us understand why he finds his characterization of perception, consciousness, and the MBP to be persuasive.

For me the essential question remains the relationship between mind and world/the relationships among minds and worlds, or more specifically the question 'what is the use and the value and the meaning of the ways in which we and other sentient beings experience our being-in-the-world as we recognize the limitations and also the revelations of what we experience and can therefore think?' You, @Soupie, seem to want quite desperately, as @Michael Allen also seems to want, to efface or dismiss the significance of the presence of consciousness and mind in the world rather than to recognize it as the grounding-within-the-world of what we can and do understand about the nature of our existence and in general the nature of life itself. For the life of me I cannot understand what comfort or satisfaction is to be found in thinking that what we see and otherwise sense, what we feel and think, is a total 'illusion' or 'hallucination' disconnected from the nature and structure of being/Being as we experience it.

I also question the application of the concept 'hallucination' to the situated conditions and attainments of consciousness, perception, and mind in our species as we seek an understanding of precisely our 'situatedness' within the Being of All That Is as that Being extends invisibly and immeasureably beyond the horizons of what we can perceive and experience. How long have we recognized and identified in our languages the understanding that hallucinations are ideations without veridicality, to be distinguished from veridical perceptions? On what rational basis can we now erase that distinction and still make sense of the history of our thought, our philosophy, as a species?

Why not come to terms with the evident fact that the kind of 'knowledge' you value {and against which you dismiss all other kinds of knowledge} -- this postulated but unattainable knowledge of the entirety of Being-in-Itself -- is in fact unattainable in these lives we lead within the precincts of our local being and that which it bodies forth in thought concerning the inscrutable whole of Being?

It there were no truths to be discovered in the reflections and thoughts we build upon in describing our inescapably worldly situation, it might seem reasonable to simply blow ourselves and our world up. We've certainly come to the edge of doing that again and again since the invention and stockpiling of nuclear weapons. Could you complacently kiss this world good-bye if those weapons were unleashed? Even if you yourself did not value your own existence (which I doubt), could you let this world we live in vanish without regret?

 

[Constance]

I just followed an alert to @Tyger's "Consciousness and Magic" thread, newly revived, and found this post from several years ago by @trained observer. It seems identical to what's being attributed here to @Michael Allen. Did 'trained observer' become 'Michael Allen' somewhere along the line?

 

[smcder]

I just followed an alert to @Tyger's "Consciousness and Magic" thread, newly revived, and found this post from several years ago by @trained observer. It seems identical to what's being attributed here to @Michael Allen. Did 'trained observer' become 'Michael Allen' somewhere along the line?

Hi @Constance, where do you see this atrributed to Michael Allen? I think it is TO's post from the C&M thread, I picked it up from @Soupie when he mentioned me in a post on that thread.

 

[smcder]

I'm not claiming to be the originator of the idea, if that's what your concern is.

My piece—and I'm not arguing this is original either as I came to it via Hoffman—was that the no good reason is due to the nature of perception; matter as perceived is not matter as is.

I don't need to tell you that the HP hinges on the presumption that we do know something about matter which indicates that it can't be the ground of consciousness, without having to resort to strong emergence.

And I'm not suggesting this knowledge is a revelation for anyone other than myself.

"]I'm not claiming to be the originator of the idea, if that's what your concern is."

No it's that we've bandied that quote around a lot in some form or other, so I thought you were being rhetorical - so of course I didn't think it was incoherent.

 

[Soupie]

"I don't need to tell you that the HP hinges on the presumption that we do know something about matter which indicates that it can't be the ground of consciousness, without having to resort to strong emergence."

I don't see it as hinging on that - I don't think of Strawson as solving the hard problem just because he doesn't make that assumption.

"The hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995) is the problem of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain processes, and experience (i.e., phenomenal consciousness, or mental states/events with phenomenal qualities or qualia). Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience? And why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does—why an experience of red rather than green, for example?"

So there's still some 'splainin to do.

Maybe it is a matter of perception - McGinn says the hard problem may be trivial to some other kind of mind and maybe that because they see matter in a way that it's relationship to mind is obvious.

First of all, I agree that there remains much to be explained. More than we know.

>> Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience?

My approach is perhaps a bit "stronger" than Strawson's. In response to the question above, I say physical processes just are experience.

I know that you don't see how that can be. We've rightly so hagglers over the term 'experience.' Do there need to be subjects for there to be experience, etc.

(Think of the relationship between perception and hallucination; they are both the 'same' from one perspective, but also different from another.)

I've tried many different ways to express my thoughts to no avail. Suffice it to say that a physical process that we would call experiential is not ontologically distinct from a physical process that is non-experiential. Both processes consist of exactly the same thing.

In my way of thinking, the fact that some physical processes are 'experiential' has to do with their phenomenal character. It's akin to the adverbial approach to perception.

Why do the physical processes of organism have the phenomenal character that they do? My thinking is along the lines of @Pharoah 's HCT here. Although we differ on which stage phenomenal consciousness enters the picture, of course. I'm arguing that it just is physical processes, he seems to believe that it emerges from/with brain processes.

My position said differently, I would say all physical processes are phenomenal, but not all are experiential.

Why red and not green. I'm not sure. Yes, needs explaining. I'm fascinated by this question.

 

[Soupie]

For the life of me I cannot understand what comfort or satisfaction is to be found in thinking that what we see and otherwise sense, what we feel and think, is a total 'illusion' or 'hallucination' disconnected from the nature and structure of being/Being as we experience it.

Neither can I because that's not my position.

 

[smcder]

First of all, I agree that there remains much to be explained. More than we know.

>> Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience?

My approach is perhaps a bit "stronger" than Strawson's. In response to the question above, I say physical processes just are experience.

I know that you don't see how that can be. We've rightly so hagglers over the term 'experience.' Do there need to be subjects for there to be experience, etc.

(Think of the relationship between perception and hallucination; they are both the 'same' from one perspective, but also different from another.)

I've tried many different ways to express my thoughts to no avail. Suffice it to say that a physical process that we would call experiential is not ontologically distinct from a physical process that is non-experiential. Both processes consist of exactly the same thing.

In my way of thinking, the fact that some physical processes are 'experiential' has to do with their phenomenal character. It's akin to the adverbial approach to perception.

Why do the physical processes of organism have the phenomenal character that they do? My thinking is along the lines of @Pharoah 's HCT here. Although we differ on which stage phenomenal consciousness enters the picture, of course. I'm arguing that it just is physical processes, he seems to believe that it emerges from/with brain processes.

My position said differently, I would say all physical processes are phenomenal, but not all are experiential.

Why red and not green. I'm not sure. Yes, needs explaining. I'm fascinated by this question.

Then you have redefined the term "phenomenal". Phenomenal is defined as that which is perceptible by immediate experience - if we insert that into your statement:

"I would say all physical processes are perceptible by immediate experience, but not all are experiential."

Or just "I would say all physical processes are experiential, but not all are experiential."

As to experiences without a subject - what are they?

So is there something else you mean by phenomenal that isn't contradictory?

 

[Constance]

Hi @Constance, where do you see this atrributed to Michael Allen? I think it is TO's post from the C&M thread, I picked it up from @Soupie when he mentioned me in a post on that thread.

I'm not sure. Somewhere along the line, recently, in posts here and at several threads revived by @Tyger in which @Soupie has been posting. Maybe @Soupie can point to a post or posts in @Tyger's threads where he has quoted a post by @Michael Allen.

 

[Constance]

Neither can I because that's not my position.

Then my ability to understand what your position is is confounded by the way in which you express it. That seems also to be the case for Steve.

To cut to the chase, it seems to me that you want to eliminate the hard problem as defined by Chalmers (and the core problem approached by interdisciplinary consciousness studies for the last 30+ years) -- quoted in the following post by Steve today -- because you are either unable or unwilling to accept it as a real problem.​

"The hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers 1995) is the problem of explaining the relationship between physical phenomena, such as brain processes, and experience (i.e., phenomenal consciousness, or mental states/events with phenomenal qualities or qualia). Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience? And why does a given physical process generate the specific experience it does—why an experience of red rather than green, for example?"

 

[Soupie]

Phenomenal is defined as that which is perceptible by immediate experience

Firstly, where is it defined like that? I think it's confusing to use the term 'perception' to refer to introspection like that. It creates what I believe is a false duality between experience and the contents of experience. The mind is green after all.

Secondly:

"I would say all physical processes are perceptible by immediate experience, but not all are experiential."

What's wrong with that? Yes, it sounds clunky and confusing that way, as you intended it to. But it is not incoherent.

Experiential processes just are physical processes, so it's confusing but, sure, you could say experience perceives itself. Sure. I don't like using the word 'perceive' there though.

Another way is to say that while 'phenomenal' is that which is 'perceptable' to immediate experience, we can infer that it doesn't —poof— disappear in the absence of 'experience.'

That is to say, experience is constituted of the phenomenal, and the phenomenal just is <MATTER>.

Take the issue of anesthesia for example; we've discussed this back and forth for years now. You and Constance argue that consciousness never ceases or goes away during anesthesia but most people argue that it does.

In a loosely similar vein, i argue that the phenomenal nature of <MATTER> does not go away in the absence of subjects of experience. On the contrary, subjects of experience are constituated of <MATTER> and what we recognize to be its physical and phenomenal nature.

 

[Soupie]

Then my ability to understand what your position is is confounded by the way in which you express it. That seems also to be the case for Steve.

To cut to the chase, it seems to me that you want to eliminate the hard problem as defined by Chalmers (and the core problem approached by interdisciplinary consciousness studies for the last 30+ years) -- quoted in the following post by Steve today -- because you are either unable or unwilling to accept it as a real problem.​

Doh! I do recognize it's a real problem, and Inthink the approach that Strawson takes, which my approach closely mirrors, largely revolves the HP. Of course the approach that Strawson and my version are not proven. Sheesh.

 

[smcder]

Firstly, where is it defined like that? I think it's confusing to you the term perception to refer to experience. It creates what I believe is a false duality between experience and the contents of experience. The mind is green after all.

Secondly:

"I would say all physical processes are perceptible by immediate experience, but not all are experiential."

What's wrong with that? Yes, it sounds clunky and confusing that way, as you intended it to. But it is not incoherent.

Experiential processes just are physical processes, so it's confusing but, sure, you could say experience perceives itself. Sure. I don't like using the word 'perceive' there though.

Another way is to say that while 'phenomenal' is that which is 'perceptable' to immediate experience, we can infer that it doesn't oof: disappear in the absence of 'experience.'

Take the issue of anesthesia for example; we've discussed this back and forth for years now. You and Constance argue that consciousness never ceases or goes away during anesthesia but most people argue that it does.

In a loosely similar vein, i argue that the phenomenal nature of <MATTER> does not go away in the absence of subjects or experience. On the contrary, subjects of experience are constituated of <MATTER> and what we recognize to be its physical and phenomenal qualities.

My position said differently, I would say all physical processes are phenomenal, but not all are experiential.

I think you mean all physical processes are potentially phenomenal - (neutrinos?) but not all are in fact experienced. That's trivial. Other places you seem to argue for subjectless experiences, which is problematic, so I am not certain this is what you mean.

Take the issue of anesthesia for example; we've discussed this back and forth for years now. You and Constance argue that consciousness never ceases or goes away during anesthesia but most people argue that it does.

Nooooo, I said it would be difficult to prove - for example, it might be indistinguishable from alternating instances of experience and forgetting - and I posted a paper on consciousness and dreamless sleep, but I don't argue that it is that way.

 

[smcder]

Doh! I do recognize it's a real problem, and Inthink the approach that Strawson takes, which my approach closely mirrors, largely revolves the HP. Of course the approach that Strawson and my version are not proven. Sheesh.

in re: "largely resolves the HP:" yes ... all it lacks for is the details ;-)

Strawson himself says: (have you read this?)

Current physics is profoundly beautiful and useful, but it is in a state ofchronic internal tension. It may be added, with Russell and others, that although physics appears to tell us a
great deal about certain of the general structural or mathematical characteristics of the physical, it fails to give us any further insight into the nature of whatever it is that
has these structural or mathematical characteristics—apart from making it plain that it is utterly bizarre relative to our ordinary conception of it.

It is unclear exactly what this last remark amounts to (is it being suggested that physics isfailing to do something it could do?), but it already amounts to something very important when it comes to what is known as the ‘mind–body problem’. For many take this to be the problem of how mental experiential phenomena can be physical phenomena
given what we already know about the nature of the physical. But those who think this are already lost. For we have no good reason to think that we know anything about the physical that gives us any reason to find any problem in the idea that mental phenomena are physical phenomena. If we consider the nature of our knowledge of the physical, we realize with Eddington that ‘no problem of irreconcilability arises’ (1928: 260). Joseph Priestley saw this very clearly overtwo hundred years ago, and he was not the first. Noam Chomsky reached essentially the sameconclusion over thirty years ago, and he was not the last (see e.g. Chomsky 1968: 6–8, 98;1988: 142–7; 1994 passim; 1995: 1–10; 1996: 38–45; 1998:
437–41; compare Crane andMellor 1990). Most present-day philosophers take no notice of it and waste a lot of time as a result. Much of the present debate about the ‘mind–body’ problem is beside the point."

So he is saying that consciousness is material is not contradicting by what we already know of physics (of course he doesn't say we could learn something about matter that would make it problematic) and he is not saying we know how consciousness is material. To say

I say physical processes just are experience.

is either to posit a brute fact or there is something more to know about how physical processes are experiences. I think you are positing a brute fact, if so there is no knowing how as there is no how to know.

The above is a good example of ambiguity:

1. I say physical processes just are experience.

2. My position said differently, I would say all physical processes are phenomenal, but not all are experiential.

Less confusing would be to say that experiences just are physical processes, but not all physical processes are experiential.

 

[Soupie]

My position said differently, I would say all physical processes are phenomenal, but not all are experiential.

I think you mean all physical processes are potentially phenomenal - (neutrinos?) but not all are in fact experienced. That's trivial. Other places you seem to argue for subjectless experiences, which is problematic, so I am not certain this is what you mean.

Hm, how to express it...

We know that Nature has a phenomenal nature because we are subjects of experience constituted of Nature.

However, the mainstream presumption of our day is that the phenomenal nature of Nature emerges with and only with subjects of experience.

I argue that the phenomenal nature of Nature is fundamental along with what we recognize to be it's physical nature. We recognize the phenomenal character of human experience to be things such as greenness, sweetness, etc. however these are very rich and complex phenomenal characteristics of the human mind. And they are experiential.

The phenomenal nature of <MATTER> outside of organisms that are subjects of experience is, I argue, nothing like the phenomenal character we recognize in experience.

How <MATTER> with its physical and phenomenal nature differentiates and evolves into organisms/subjects of experience is a question that we are a long way from answering.

 

[smcder]

First of all, I agree that there remains much to be explained. More than we know.

>> Why are physical processes ever accompanied by experience?

My approach is perhaps a bit "stronger" than Strawson's. In response to the question above, I say physical processes just are experience.

I know that you don't see how that can be. We've rightly so hagglers over the term 'experience.' Do there need to be subjects for there to be experience, etc.

(Think of the relationship between perception and hallucination; they are both the 'same' from one perspective, but also different from another.)

I've tried many different ways to express my thoughts to no avail. Suffice it to say that a physical process that we would call experiential is not ontologically distinct from a physical process that is non-experiential. Both processes consist of exactly the same thing.

In my way of thinking, the fact that some physical processes are 'experiential' has to do with their phenomenal character. It's akin to the adverbial approach to perception.

Why do the physical processes of organism have the phenomenal character that they do? My thinking is along the lines of @Pharoah 's HCT here. Although we differ on which stage phenomenal consciousness enters the picture, of course. I'm arguing that it just is physical processes, he seems to believe that it emerges from/with brain processes.

My position said differently, I would say all physical processes are phenomenal, but not all are experiential.

Why red and not green. I'm not sure. Yes, needs explaining. I'm fascinated by this question.

My approach is perhaps a bit "stronger" than Strawson's. In response to the question above, I say physical processes just are experience.

Isn't that what Strawson says too?

Realistic materialists—realistic anybodys—must grant that experiential phenomena are real, concrete phenomena, for nothing in this life is more certain.

They must therefore hold that they are physical phenomena, although physics contains only predicates for non-experiential being, and so cannot characterize the qualitative character of experiential being in any way. It may at first sound odd to use the word ‘concrete’ to characterize the qualitative character of experiences of colour, gusts of depression, thoughts about diophantine equations, and so on, but it isn’t odd, because ‘concrete’ simply means ‘not abstract’.

For most purposes one may take ‘concrete’ to be coextensive with ‘possessed of spatiotemporal existence’, although thiswill be directly question-begging in some contexts.

 

[Constance]

Phenomenal is defined as that which is perceptible by immediate experience

Firstly, where is it defined like that? I think it's confusing to use the term 'perception' to refer to introspection like that. It creates what I believe is a false duality between experience and the contents of experience. The mind is green after all.

The mind is not green, @Soupie. Indeed, the mind is invisible despite the multitude of things and appearances and ideas that enter into and constitute it, including the color green when and where it has been consciously observed and reflected upon.


The River Of Rivers In Connecticut

There is a great river this side of Stygia
Before one comes to the first black cataracts
And trees that lack the intelligence of trees.

In that river, far this side of Stygia,
The mere flowing of the water is a gayety,
Flashing and flashing in the sun. On its banks,

No shadow walks. The river is fateful,
Like the last one. But there is no ferryman.
He could not bend against its propelling force.

It is not to be seen beneath the appearances
That tell of it. The steeple at Farmington
Stands glistening and Haddam shines and sways.

It is the third commonness with light and air,
A curriculum, a vigor, a local abstraction . . .
Call it, once more, a river, an unnamed flowing,

Space-filled, reflecting the seasons, the folk-lore
Of each of the senses; call it, again and again,
The river that flows nowhere, like a sea.

Wallace Stevens

 

[smcder]

Hm, how to express it...

We know that Nature has a phenomenal nature because we are subjects of experience constituted of Nature.

However, the mainstream presumption of our day is that the phenomenal nature of Nature emerges with and only with subjects of experience.

I argue that the phenomenal nature of Nature is fundamental along with what we recognize to be it's physical nature. We recognize the phenomenal character of human experience to be things such as greenness, sweetness, etc. however these are very rich and complex phenomenal characteristics of the human mind. And they are experiential.

The phenomenal nature of <MATTER> outside of organisms that are subjects of experience is, I argue, nothing like the phenomenal character we recognize in experience.

How <MATTER> with its physical and phenomenal nature differentiates and evolves into organisms/subjects of experience is a question that we are a long way from answering.

That's panpsychism.