Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

[Constance]

Here’s the article[s?] I quoted from above:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rstb.2014.0167

I love the four paragraphs Tononi writes under the subheading 'Animals':

"(d) Animals
The problem becomes even more acute when turning to other species. The study of consciousness in nature has been hindered for centuries by a strong belief in human exceptionalism. Yet the range and complexity of animal behaviour has laid rest to this belief, at least among biologists. This is particularly true for mammals. In psychophysical tasks involving simple button presses, trained macaque monkeys act very similarly to human volunteers, including signalling when they do not see anything [14]. Visual recognition of self, meta-cognition (knowing one's mind), theory of mind, empathy and long-range planning have all been demonstrated in primates, rodents and other orders [52].

It is also difficult to find anything exceptional about the human brain [53]. Its constitutive genes, synapses, neurons and other cells are similar to those found in many other species. Even its size is not so special, as elephants, dolphins and whales have even bigger brains [54]. Only an expert neuroanatomist, armed with a microscope, can tell a grain-sized piece of neocortex of a mouse from that of a monkey or a human. Biologists emphasize this structural and behavioural continuity by distinguishing between non-human and human animals [55]. Given this continuity, it seems unjustified to claim that only one species has consciousness while everybody else is devoid of experience, is a zombie. It is far more likely that all mammals have at least some conscious experiences, can hear the sounds and see the sights of life.

As we consider species that are progressively further removed from Homo sapiens in evolutionary and neuronal terms, the case for consciousness becomes more difficult to make. Two observations, one relating to complexity of behaviour and another one to complexity of the underlying nervous system, are critical. First, ravens, crows, magpies, parrots and other birds, tuna, coelacanths and other fish, octopuses and other cephalopods, bees and other members of the vast class of insects are all capable of sophisticated, learnt, non-stereotyped behaviours that we associate with consciousness if carried out by people [56–58]. Darwin himself set out ‘to learn how far the worms acted consciously’ and concluded that there was no absolute threshold between ‘lower’ and ‘higher’ animals, including humans, which would assign higher mental powers to one but not to the other [59]. Second, the nervous systems of these species display a vast and ill-understood complexity. The bee contains about 800 000 nerve cells whose morphological and electrical heterogeneity rivals that of any neocortical neuron. These cells are assembled in highly nonlinear feedback circuits whose density is up to ten times higher than that of neocortex [60]. Thus, neural signatures of consciousness that have some validity in humans and other mammals may not apply at all to invertebrates.

On the other hand, the lessons learnt from studying the behavioural (BCC) and neuronal correlates of consciousness in people must make us cautious about inferring its presence in creatures very different from us, no matter how sophisticated their behaviour and how complicated their brain. Humans can perform complex behaviours—recognizing whether a scene is congruous or incongruous, controlling the size, orientation and strength of how one's finger should grip an object, doing simple arithmetic, detecting the meaning of words or rapid keyboard typing—in a seemingly non-conscious manner [61–66]. When a bee navigates a maze, does it do so like when we consciously deliberate whether to turn right or left, or rather like when we type on a keyboard? Similarly, consider that an extraordinarily complicated neuronal structure in our brain, the cerebellum, home to 69 of the 86 billion nerve cells that make up the human brain [54], apparently has little to do with consciousness. Patients who lose part or nearly all of their cerebellum owing to stroke or other trauma show ataxia, slurred speech and unsteady gait [67] but do not complain of a loss or diminution of consciousness. Is the bee's brain central complex more like the cerebellum or more like the cerebral cortex with respect to experience? Thus, the extent to which non-mammalian species share with us the gift of subjective experience remains hard to fathom.3"


I would like to know where to look for more information concerning this section from the above extract:

". . . consider that an extraordinarily complicated neuronal structure in our brain, the cerebellum, home to 69 of the 86 billion nerve cells that make up the human brain [54], apparently has little to do with consciousness. Patients who lose part or nearly all of their cerebellum owing to stroke or other trauma show ataxia, slurred speech and unsteady gait [67] but do not complain of a loss or diminution of consciousness. Is the bee's brain central complex more like the cerebellum or more like the cerebral cortex with respect to experience? Thus, the extent to which non-mammalian species share with us the gift of subjective experience remains hard to fathom.3"

This claim is intriguing because it seems to me that the cerebellum ought to be essential for consciousness since it connects [integrates] the right brain and the left brain. Anyone have any guidance to offer? Or speculations? For example, might it be possible that the maintenance of familiar experiential qualities of consciousness in people whose cerebullum has been lost [note, T writes: "whether in part or nearly all of the cerebellum"] could be explained via the existence of some other, additional, means of integration of right and left hemispheres, a means that is not neuronally based? This would of course be heretical to suggest if I were a student of neuroscience. But really, what if such a development occurs in nature? Will neuroscientists be likely to discover it?

 

[Constance]

I see three separate issues. The first is that there is no way the HPC can be resolved ( other than to simply accept it as a given ). Therefore, the HPC's primary value is in leading those who ponder it to that understanding. The other two issues are the contexts in which we're using the word "simulation". As @Soupie points out, there are two contexts to the word "simulation" being referenced in this discussion. They are the cosmological and the experiential.

From an experiential perspective, the words "simulation" and "experience" appear to be occasionally conflated, which I think is a mistake, because one assumes the other, when that may not be the case. In other words, take away the simulation and hypothetically we would experience an absence of the simulation. It's a reversion back to the Cartesian Theatre problem where the simulation is the movie, and consciousness is the experiencer of the movie.

Interesting. I've never actually understood what Dennett means by 'the Cartesian Theatre'. I'll be grateful if you or anyone else can explain it to me.

The third issue is that of a simulation being responsible for the existence of our universe. This issue is tangential. But it does evoke some interesting questions, like the idea that if this realm is some sort of generated construct, then perhaps consciousness is quantized. How that relates to the fundamentalness of consciousness is interesting to ponder.

Another shortcoming of mine: I'm chronically unable to entertain that idea seriously.

 

[Constance]

Daniel J Nicholson and John Dupré, "A Manifesto for a Processual Philosophy of Biology"
[This is the first chapter of Everything Flows: Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology (Oxford UP),
edited by Daniel J. Nicholson and John Dupre

Abstract: This chapter argues that scientific and philosophical progress in our understanding of the living world requires that we abandon a metaphysics of things in favour of one centred on processes. We identify three main empirical motivations for adopting a process ontology in biology: metabolic turnover, life cycles, and ecological interdependence. We show how taking a processual stance in the philosophy of biology enables us to ground existing critiques of essentialism, reductionism, and mechanicism, all of which have traditionally been associated with substance ontology. We illustrate the consequences of embracing an ontology of processes in biology by considering some of its implications for physiology, genetics, evolution, and medicine. And we attempt to locate the subsequent chapters of the book in relation to the position we defend.

Chapter One
by Daniel J. Nicholson and John Dupre

"1. Introduction
This book is a venture in the metaphysics of science, the exploration of the most basic features of the world implied or presupposed by science. One of its main aims is to demonstrate the fundamental importance of such an investigation. Getting this very general picture right makes a real difference to whether we do the science well and understand properly what it tells us. The particular metaphysical thesis that motivates this book is that the world—at least insofar as living beings are concerned—is made up not of substantial particles or things, as philosophers have overwhelmingly supposed, but of processes. It is dynamic through and through. This thesis, we believe, has profound consequences.

More specifically, we propose that the living world is a hierarchy of processes, stabilized and actively maintained at different timescales. We can think of this hierarchy in broadly mereological terms: molecules, cells, organs, organisms, populations, and so on. Although the members of this hierarchy are usually thought of as things, we contend that they are more appropriately understood as processes. A question that arises for any process, as we shall discuss in more detail below, is what enables it to persist. The processes in this hierarchy not only compose one another but also provide conditions for the persistence of other members, both larger and smaller. So, if we take for example a liver, we see that it provides enabling conditions for the persistence of the organism of which it is a part, but also for the hepatocytes that compose it. Outside a very specialized laboratory, a hepatocyte can persist only in a liver. And reciprocally, in order to persist, a liver requires both an organism in which it resides, and hepatocytes of which it is composed. A key point is that these reciprocal dependencies are not merely structural, but are also grounded in activity. A hepatocyte sustains a liver, and a liver sustains an organism, by doing things. This ultimately underlies our insistence on seeing such seemingly substantial entities as cells, organs, and organisms as processes.

These processes—which have so often been taken for things, or substances—themselves engage in more familiar-sounding processes such as metabolism, development, and evolution; processes that, again, often provide the explanations for the persistence of more thing-like, or continuant processes. Do we not need things as the subjects of such non-controversially processual occurrences as metabolism, development, and evolution? Should we not be dualists, endorsing a world of both things and the processes they undergo? There are many responses to this line of thought, but the minimal condition for a position to count as a form of process ontology is that processes must be, in some sense, more fundamental than things. What this means, in very general terms, is that the existence of things is conditional on the existence of processes. Our own preferred view, which we shall elaborate upon later, is that things should be seen as abstractions from more or less stable processes. Peter Simons, in his chapter, suggests that things are ‘precipitates’ of processes. . . ."



Further Extract: ". . . If science is not to degenerate into a medley of ad hoc hypotheses, it must become philosophical and must enter upon a thorough criticism of its own foundations" (Whitehead 1925: 25). The organicists adopted this as a rallying cry in promoting their cause: to develop a new philosophy of biology that would emancipate their science from both the physico-chemical reductionism of mechanicism and the obscurantist holism of vitalism in coming to terms with life’s dynamic, systemic, and purposive character.⁵

The noted physiologist John Scott Haldane (father of J. B. S. Haldane) was the first to use the label
‘organicism’ to describe his own views. Looking back at his writings, it is easy to discern a processual thread running through them. Haldane regarded the organism as an integrated and coordinated whole exhibiting a
‘delicate regulation [that] is maintained, day after day, and year after year, in spite of all kinds of changes in the external environment, and in spite of the metabolic changes constantly occurring in all living tissues’ (Haldane 1917: 17). He observed that organisms remain physiologically constant over time even though, from a purely physical perspective, they are highly dynamic eddies of matter. ‘They are constantly taking up and giving off material of many sorts, and their “structure” is nothing but the appearance taken by this 'flow of material through them’ (ibid., 90). When we study the living world, according to Haldane, we are not really dealing with material things at all, but with stabilized processes. He even went as far as to remark that ‘[t]he conception of a
“thing”, or material unit, is. . .useless in the interpretation of distinctively biological facts’ (Haldane 1919: 125).

Another prominent organicist was Edward Stuart Russell, who is probably best known today for his historical treatise Form and Function (Russell 1916). In his later, more philosophical works, Russell repeatedly emphasized the purposive character of organisms, which are always striving ‘actively towards an end, whether of self-development, self-maintenance or the continuance of the race’ (Russell 1924: 56). Underlying this was a deeply processual understanding of the organism, which Russell described as ‘essentially an activity in course of passage, changing from one form to another, always developing or regressing, but never standing still’ (ibid.). Like most other organicists, Russell criticized the machine conception of the organism for neglecting the inherent dynamicity of life, and asserted that ‘[t]he organism is not, like a machine, a static construction, but a constantly changing organization of functional activities’ (Russell 1930: 169). Russell also drew attention to the temporal character of the organism, which ‘at any one moment of its history must be regarded as merely a phase of a life-cycle’, insisting that‘ t is the whole cycle that is the life of the individual’ (ibid., 171). As he put it in a subsequent discussion, ‘t is as a life-cycle progression and not as a static organisation that the living thing is ultimately to be conceived’ (Russell 1945: 186) . . . ."

https://www.academia.edu/35807723/A...losophy_of_Biology?email_work_card=view-paper

 

[Soupie]

From an experiential perspective, the words "simulation" and "experience" appear to be occasionally conflated, which I think is a mistake, because one assumes the other, when that may not be the case. In other words, take away the simulation and hypothetically we would experience an absence of the simulation. It's a reversion back to the Cartesian Theatre problem where the simulation is the movie, and consciousness is the experiencer of the movie.

Wow, @USI Calgary there is a LOT packed into that little paragraph. I think we should spend some time unpacking it. (@Constance asked about the Cartesian Theatre as well.)

I think a lot of our disagreements and confusions are encapsulated in the above paragraph. (@smcder thoughts?)

The way I understand the CT is via the homunculus argument.

“The homunculus argument is a fallacy arising most commonly in the theory of vision. One may explain human vision by noting that light from the outside world forms an image on the retinas in the eyes and something (or someone) in the brain looks at these images as if they are images on a movie screen (this theory of vision is sometimes termed the theory of the Cartesian theater: it is most associated, nowadays, with the psychologist David Marr). The question arises as to the nature of this internal viewer. The assumption here is that there is a "little man" or "homunculus" inside the brain "looking at" the movie.”

The homunculus problem arises, I believe, when one departs from naive realism. A naive realist views perception as like looking through a pair of binoculars. That is, perception is simply a matter of turning ones sensory organs to the world and determine what’s out there. It’s as if there is nothing happening inside the organism. It simply sees, hears, smells with its organs what is out there.

However, we know that naive realism—in this primitive form—is not viable. Perception is not about simply beholding Or “looking upon” what is “out there.”

Perception is better understood as an inferential process. A process of signaling. (One might cautiously use the idea of information processing.)

A stimulus in the environment—em waves, sound waves, olfactory molecules, etc—are picked up by a corresponding sensory organ, which then starts a cascade of neural signaling and neural processing.

The thinking, then, is that all these incoming signals come together to provide the organism with a unified “picture” of what is going on in the world around it.

The problems begin, I think, when we attempt to bring conscious perception into this narrative.

With naive realism, it’s fine to think that green trees, blue sky, and brown earth are just out there, and perceiving them is simply a matter of turning our sensory organs towards them and beholding them.

But what happens when we realize this is not how perception works? That perception is really a complex process of neural circuits signaling back and forth?

Where do the green trees, blue skies, and brown earth come from? Where are they?

The Humunculus Problem is to assume that they actually still exist somewhere in or about the brain. Maybe these tiny images of trees, sky, and earth exist in the brain. Or maybe in a field around the brain. And then, the brain beholds these tiny images.

But how does the brain behold these tiny images? Is there a tiny person in the brain who is perceiving these tiny images?

The answer is that there are no tiny images in or around the brain. In the brain are only neural signals shlepping all about. What gives?

In steps the simulation theory of perception. What are all these neural signals busy doing in the brain? Why, they are conjuring up a “simulation” of the world for the organism.

In other words, take away the simulation and hypothetically we would experience an absence of the simulation. It's a reversion back to the Cartesian Theatre problem where the simulation is the movie, and consciousness is the experiencer of the movie.

So we ask, naively, how does the organism “see” or “watch” this simulation? Is there a pair of 3D glasses in the brain?

The answer is that the brain doesn’t watch or see the simulation, the brain IS the simulation, or perhaps, the brain is the simulator.

@usi_calagry makes an absolutely amazing comment by suggesting that it’s not the brain (or a little person) that watches the simulation, but consciousness itself!

Now, this concept of consciousness as being something which can/could perceive the world or the brain is one that I’ve encountered before. The idea has popped up in here from time to time for sure.

But what would (a) consciousness “see” if it “looked” at a brain? It wouldn’t see the simulation. It would see neurons schlepping about, right?

Can we imagine a way that this consciousness could “see” the simulation being manifested by the simulator (brain)? I can’t.

Speaking of concepts that one can’t grok; I have never been able to grok the concept of consciousness as a “seer” or “beholder” or Homunculus.

So what is the answer here? Well, Bach would say: Physical systems aren’t conscious, simulations are.

Consciousness is not in the physical world. Consciousness is in the simulation.

Consciousness is not in the brain. It’s in the simulation being manifested by the simulator (brain.)

So to answer your statement, USI, a simulationist would say “if you take away the simulation, you take away experience.” If you take away the simulation, you wouldn’t experience anything.

Why? Because experiencing IS the simulation.

Experience isn’t something extra layered on top of the simulation. It’s the very thing being simulated.

Organisms create simulations of themselves experiencing the world. Why? Because it’s probably adaptive to do so.

But this still doesn’t resolve the hard problem. USI suggests that the HP can’t be resolved. I would say it can’t be SOLVED. You can’t get the phenomenal aspect of consciousness from non-phenomenal processes.

However, the HP can be resolved if we can show how its premise (that what-is is devoid of the phenomenal aspect of consciousness) is mistaken.

Well, it turns that we can’t show how this premise is mistaken, but we can point out that the premise is an assumption. Brains aren’t privileged. There’s nothing special about brains that would allow the phenomenal aspect of consciousness to spring forth from them.

I also think it’s problematic to say that the phenomenal aspect of consciousness is part of the simulation. To suggest as much is to say that brains can create the phenomenal aspect of consciousness. (And this is precisely where Dennett would say, it only seems like they create it; they don’t create p consciousness, they create the “seeming” of p consciousness.)

I don’t buy that. That’s why I say that the simulation approach to perception does not solve the HP.

The way to resolve the HP is to simply understand that its premise is false. As counter intuitive as that may be for most.

 

[Randall]

Interesting. I've never actually understood what Dennett means by 'the Cartesian Theatre'. I'll be grateful if you or anyone else can explain it to me.

I thought we were well past that by now. But probably best to hear it from Dennett himself:

Another shortcoming of mine: I'm chronically unable to entertain that idea seriously.

There is at least one brilliant physicist who may share your view. Nevertheless she still participated in a serious discussion about it, along with some other brilliant people, including one of our favorite philosophers, David Chalmers. Once again, I refer to the 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate ...

 

[Constance]

I thought we were well past that ['Cartesian Theatre] by now. But probably best to hear it from Dennett himself:

I would have thought so too because the notion was never worth entertaining. @Soupie makes clear in his lengthy post of last night that it developed out of a hypothesis concerning visual perception still maintained by a psychologist named David Marr. I think we need to look back at the critiques of the Cartesian Theatre/humunculus notion at the time Dennett propagated it.

ps, we do perceive what is happening in the actual world we live in. We see what it looks like, sounds like, feels like, and need to maintain the openness of our perceptual senses toward it, especially in the Trump-manipulated world of the moment. Vote Blue.

But probably best to hear it from Dennett himself:

I read Dennett at the time he wrote about it and thought then that the 'homunculus' notion made no sense. It's a red herring.


@Soupie wrote:

The homunculus argument is a fallacy arising most commonly in the theory of vision. One may explain human vision by noting that light from the outside world forms an image on the retinas in the eyes and something (or someone) in the brain looks at these images as if they are images on a movie screen (this theory of vision is sometimes termed the theory of the Cartesian theater: it is most associated, nowadays, with the psychologist David Marr). The question arises as to the nature of this internal viewer. The assumption here is that there is a "little man" or "homunculus" inside the brain "looking at" the movie.”

As we now understand, that assumption is absurd and best forgotten.


@Soupie also wrote:

So what is the answer here? Well, Bach would say: Physical systems aren’t conscious, simulations are.

Consciousness is not in the physical world. Consciousness is in the simulation.

I think Bach's notion is equally absurd and indeed does re-evoke the homunculus notion. Fortunately, interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies has moved beyond taking either of these notions seriously.

@Soupie concludes by dismissing the hard problem:

The way to resolve the HP is to simply understand that its premise is false. As counter intuitive as that may be for most.

How scientific is it to say that the most significant phenomenon experienced in the living world should be ignored or denied because we cannot yet account for it?

​

 

[Soupie]

we do perceive what is happening in the actual world we live in. We see what it looks like

How?

I think Bach's notion is equally absurd and indeed does re-evoke the homunculus notion. Fortunately, interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies has moved beyond taking either of these notions seriously.

I think it’s quite the contrary. The simulation approach to perception has probably never had more support. Btw what’s the alternative?

 

[Constance]

@Soupie, even Tononi recognized that 'information theories' alone cannot account for human experience, and that phenomenal consciousness must be recognized. And to my knowledge, he has not adopted a 'simulation' theory like that which Bach propagates.

You ask 'how' we can perceive what we and others do, and understand processes and events going on in the world around us. Major contributers to interdisciplinary consciousness studies are still working on that question. Until a comprehensive understanding of all the processes involved in producing consciousness and mind is reached, it ought to be -- and I think generally is -- well understood by now that consciousness exists and enables us to comprehend our own experiences and those of our fellow humans around the globe, and thereby hopefully to survive as a species.

You add:

Btw what’s the alternative [to Bach's simulation proposal]?

I recommend, as you know, phenomenological investigations of perception and consciousness, the rapprochement going forward between analytical and phenomenological philosophers of mind, the development of neurophenomenology, and the contributions of Affective Neuroscience led by Jaak Panksepp.

 

[Randall]

So to answer your statement, USI, a simulationist would say “if you take away the simulation, you take away experience.” If you take away the simulation, you wouldn’t experience anything.
Why? Because experiencing IS the simulation.
Experience isn’t something extra layered on top of the simulation. It’s the very thing being simulated.

I would respond that experiencing and simulating are two entirely separate concepts and that it is a fallacy to conflate the two. The primary rationale for this is that simulations are a class of things that are experienced, and therefore, logically, simulations must be something separate from experiencers. To illustrate further, there are a variety of types of simulations external to our bodies e.g. film, video, holograms, photos. All of them are separate from any experience we may have of them.

So regardless of the type of simulator, why should locating the mechanism that creates the simulation to a place inside our bodies, remove the requirement for an experiencer? In fact, during some phases of sleep, our visual cortex can be acting very much like we're awake, while there is no evidence that we have any experience of it. If the experiencer can leave the simulation, they cannot also be the simulation.

 

[Soupie]

So regardless of the type of simulator, why should locating the mechanism that creates the simulation to a place inside our bodies, remove the requirement for an experiencer? In fact, during some phases of sleep, our visual cortex can be acting very much like we're awake, while there is no evidence that we have any experience of it. If the experiencer can leave the simulation, they cannot also be the simulation.

As noted above, I reject the notion that consciousness (or as you say “experience”) is like a form of perception.

For this to be the case, something like the following would need to occur:

1) organism receives stimuli from environment.

2) Binds then into perceptions.

3) Humunculus perceives (consciousness experiences) these perceptions.

This issue also comes when people use the term “awareness” to refer to consciousness or experience.

In fact, during some phases of sleep, our visual cortex can be acting very much like we're awake, while there is no evidence that we have any experience of it. If the experiencer can leave the simulation, they cannot also be the simulation.

Rather than conceiving of consciousness as a Humunculus that perceives things like an organism perceives things, the idea is one of models. See my discussion with @Michael Allen above.

The difference between a conscious brain state and a non-conscious brain state is not understood.

You seem to suggest that the difference is the presence or absence of a Humunculus capable of experiencing/perceiving the brain state.

This is problematic for a number of reasons. If a humuculus “experienced” the brain state what would it experience? Neurons moving about? It certainly wouldn’t experience a perception, right? How could it. Or is this consciousness/homunculus able to experience/perceive brain states and somehow turn them into perceptions of colors, tastes, and sounds? That’s what you appear to be suggesting. Non-conscious brain states (neural patterns) become conscious (color, sounds, smells) when they are experienced/perceived by this homunculus.

What I am suggesting is that a non-consciousness brain state manifests a representation of the world, say, a tree. There would be no “experience” in this case. The organism would not report experiencing a tree. However, if later there were a brain state(s) that manifested a representation of the organism perceiving a tree, there would be “experience” in this case. The organism would report “experiencing” a tree.

This is why I say “experience” is part of the simulation/representation/model.

 

[Soupie]

Two of the leading theories of consciousness, global work space and higher order thought, I believe suggest the following:

global workspace says a brain state is conscious when it available (broadcast) to the entire brain system.

higher order thought says a brain state is conscious when it is representing a lower order representation.

btw is there a theory or paper you are aware of which describes “consciousness” as an “experiencer.” @smcder are you aware of anything. It’s an idea that comes up from time to time. I’d like to see it fleshed our somewhere.

 

[Randall]

You seem to suggest that the difference is the presence or absence of a Humunculus capable of experiencing/perceiving the brain state.

I referred to the Cartesian Theatre in the context of a movie playing inside ones's head being equivalent to the simulation. In Dennett's model there is a homunculus that does the experiencing of the simulation. That of course is not the case with humans, just as there is no projector inside our skulls.

Nevertheless, subjective idealism notwithstanding, there must obviously still be a simulator and an experiencer. We can think of them as modules. For example there is a visual module ( visual cortex ), and an experiential module ( the thalamocortical loop ). There is ample evidence that these modules are integrated into the brain, where they communicate biochemically and electrically, resulting in the experience of vision.

The argument against this is that correlation ≠ causation. However I would submit that we can say the same thing about something like gravity. Wherever there are large masses, there is some appreciable amount of gravity, yet the presence of matter and gravity are simply correlations. Even if there are such things as gravitons or Higgs Bosons, their existence doesn't explain how they are in and of themselves, imparted with mass or gravity. Higgs Bosons are essentially gravitational homunculi.

So in the end, despite that correlation ≠ causation, the correlation exists in so many cases ( literally billions ), that the theory for consciousness being caused by our bodies ( specifically our brains ) is so pervasive as to be as good an explanations as the explanations we have for other natural phenomena. It is just something that happens when the right ingredients come together in the right order. Beyond that, there is no more of an explanation than there is for existence itself ( IMO ).

 

[smcder]

Two of the leading theories of consciousness, global work space and higher order thought, I believe suggest the following:

global workspace says a brain state is conscious when it available (broadcast) to the entire brain system.

higher order thought says a brain state is conscious when it is representing a lower order representation.

btw is there a theory or paper you are aware of which describes “consciousness” as an “experiencer.” @smcder are you aware of anything. It’s an idea that comes up from time to time. I’d like to see it fleshed our somewhere.

I'm not sure what you are asking ... phenomenal consciousness is a property of a mental state when there is something it is like to undergo it ... whither goest conscious experience, there goeth also phenomenal consciousness.

The "Cartesian theater" is a term of derision for Daniel Dennett, not something he approves of ... using it to point to traces of dirty, nasty Cartesian dualism in contemporary theories ... the homunculus fallacy points to an infinite regress of "little men" (homunculi) in that the little man in the Cartesian theater in your head has to have a little man in the Cartesian theater of his head and so on, ad infinitum and nauseum, where each sticks his chewing gum under the seat or commits some other peccadillo, earning Dennett's ire.

In terms of some counterpoint to Dennett's idea of consciousness as an "illusion" I would say Strawson's "real materialism" and his articles on the history of consciousness in philosophy and on Descartes which takes into account Descartes awareness of the view of the church on materialism and how he might not have said exactly what we think he might have ... maybe. All of which is posted in the threads above.

Also, I'd bring up Colin McGinn, cognitive closure and how other minds might hypothetically see the "hard problem" as a matter of common sense - failure to get it, say by first grade, might indicate a developmental disability in such a mind, where the human mind, no matter how superb, might just not be able to "Grok" it. That's an interesting twist in terms of a counterpoint to arguments that mind (universally) can't understand or perhaps even inquire into the nature of consciousness. That paper too is above, but also I link it here:

http://beisecker.faculty.unlv.edu//Courses/PHIL-352/Dave%20-%20Consciousness%20PDFs/McGinn.pdf

from 1989 and:

Mysterianism Revisited - Colin McGinn

True Mystery The view now known as “mysterianism”, associated with Chomsky and me (though with many antecedents), has been called by other names. That label has (or once had) a rather pejorative connotation, as if the people who espoused the view so named were mystics enamored of spooky...

www.colinmcginn.net

in which our hero revisits his argument in 2014.

 

[Randall]

http://beisecker.faculty.unlv.edu//Courses/PHIL-352/Dave%20-%20Consciousness%20PDFs/McGinn.pdf

I suspect that @Michael Allen would appreciate this quote from McGinn's paper:

"It is just that, in the case of the mind-body problem, the bit of
reality that systematically eludes our cognitive grasp is an aspect of our
own nature. Indeed, it is an aspect that makes it possible for us to have
minds at all and to think about how they are related to our bodies. This
particular transcendent tract of reality happens to lie within our own
heads. A deep fact about our own nature as a form of embodied
consciousness is thus necessarily hidden from us. Yet there is nothing
inherently eerie or bizarre about this embodiment. We are much more
straightforward than we seem. Our weirdness lies in the eye of the
beholder."

 

[Constance]

I'm not sure what you are asking ... phenomenal consciousness is a property of a mental state when there is something it is like to undergo it ... whither goest conscious experience, there goeth also phenomenal consciousness.

The "Cartesian theater" is a term of derision for Daniel Dennett, not something he approves of ... using it to point to traces of dirty, nasty Cartesian dualism in contemporary theories ... the homunculus fallacy points to an infinite regress of "little men" (homunculi) in that the little man in the Cartesian theater in your head has to have a little man in the Cartesian theater of his head and so on, ad infinitum and nauseum, where each sticks his chewing gum under the seat or commits some other peccadillo, earning Dennett's ire.

In terms of some counterpoint to Dennett's idea of consciousness as an "illusion" I would say Strawson's "real materialism" and his articles on the history of consciousness in philosophy and on Descartes which takes into account Descartes awareness of the view of the church on materialism and how he might not have said exactly what we think he might have ... maybe. All of which is posted in the threads above.

Also, I'd bring up Colin McGinn, cognitive closure and how other minds might hypothetically see the "hard problem" as a matter of common sense - failure to get it, say by first grade, might indicate a developmental disability in such a mind, where the human mind, no matter how superb, might just not be able to "Grok" it. That's an interesting twist in terms of a counterpoint to arguments that mind (universally) can't understand or perhaps even inquire into the nature of consciousness. That paper too is above, but also I link it here:

http://beisecker.faculty.unlv.edu//Courses/PHIL-352/Dave%20-%20Consciousness%20PDFs/McGinn.pdf

Wonderful and clarifying post, Steve. I was aware that Dennett used the homunculus notion as a device by which to justify elimination of consciousness as a research subject, when of course there are many other viable approaches to understanding that consciousness is real if difficult to account for. I'm also grateful for your linking again McGinn's paper "Can We Solve the Mind-Body Problem?". I read it more closely this time and am impressed with the flexibility and subtlety of his intellect and his skill as a philosopher of mind.

 

[Michael Allen]

I suspect that @Michael Allen would appreciate this quote from McGinn's paper:

"It is just that, in the case of the mind-body problem, the bit of
reality that systematically eludes our cognitive grasp is an aspect of our
own nature. Indeed, it is an aspect that makes it possible for us to have
minds at all and to think about how they are related to our bodies. This
particular transcendent tract of reality happens to lie within our own
heads. A deep fact about our own nature as a form of embodied
consciousness is thus necessarily hidden from us. Yet there is nothing
inherently eerie or bizarre about this embodiment. We are much more
straightforward than we seem. Our weirdness lies in the eye of the
beholder."

"Necessarily hidden from us" --> and we are very "weirded out" by this fact, which also is predicted by a system examining it's own poignant [archaic] foundation which allows such "hidden necessities"...

I think the end of the mind-body problem is pure laughter...I predict that what we call laughter is the end and our solution of the problem...

Why? Because the state of laughter is a wordless vibration between two mental fixations...i.e. laughter can only exist where a self-aware being descends into deeper recursions of what it considers a "foundation" of it's own existence...this vibration is required in the same way the camera looking at it's own monitor or image recurses (i.e. laughs) to itself...the mirror image of two mirrors without the ending...which is so desired by the person standing and looking at itself looking at itself....ad infinitum....

So...Constanze...I am serious when I refer to laughter in these talks...it is a very important "phenomena" overlooked in the "serious" investigation of the foundations of what we know not what.

Or...the "what-er which create that for which we know not what"....

 

[Michael Allen]

The "Cartesian theater" is a term of derision for Daniel Dennett, not something he approves of ... using it to point to traces of dirty, nasty Cartesian dualism in contemporary theories ... the homunculus fallacy points to an infinite regress of "little men" (homunculi) in that the little man in the Cartesian theater in your head has to have a little man in the Cartesian theater of his head and so on, ad infinitum and nauseum, where each sticks his chewing gum under the seat or commits some other peccadillo, earning Dennett's ire.

In terms of some counterpoint to Dennett's idea of consciousness as an "illusion" I would say Strawson's "real materialism" and his articles on the history of consciousness in philosophy and on Descartes which takes into account Descartes awareness of the view of the church on materialism and how he might not have said exactly what we think he might have ... maybe. All of which is posted in the threads above.

Also, I'd bring up Colin McGinn, cognitive closure and how other minds might hypothetically see the "hard problem" as a matter of common sense - failure to get it, say by first grade, might indicate a developmental disability in such a mind, where the human mind, no matter how superb, might just not be able to "Grok" it. That's an interesting twist in terms of a counterpoint to arguments that mind (universally) can't understand or perhaps even inquire into the nature of consciousness. That paper too is above, but also I link it here:

You must take the short circuit that eliminates the unnecessary duality as a foundation of consciousness...or being...Descarte is a very destructive siren regarding the nature of being as ontologically seperated into mental and physical substance... the problem of course is one of unnecessarily multiplying entities to explain existence...

The infinite regress is designed to help the student to exit the failed metaphysics deployed by the mind...because it is the mind which creates this artificial division within itself and the world...or from the world's perspective a "subject" which in coming into being must misunderstand it's own foundation of what it "thinks" as "existence"...this is a necessary state for consciousness...a fundamental misunderstanding of it's own foundations must exist for it to feel conscious.

That structure is almost so simple as to be extremely comical...

 

[Constance]

I think the end of the mind-body problem is pure laughter...I predict that what we call laughter is the end and our solution of the problem...

Can you be more specific?

I've always felt comfortable in my consciousness, even while I one day experienced a spontaneous OBE. I'll admit to being slightly surprised in the event, but not at all frightened. We're here or wherever for the ride. Why worry about it?

 

[Randall]

I've always felt comfortable in my consciousness, even while I one day experienced a spontaneous OBE ...

How interesting. I would like to hear more. Perhaps it's time to revisit the idea of a round table episode?

 

[Constance]

How interesting. I would like to hear more. Perhaps it's time to revisit the idea of a round table episode?

You mean on the Paracast? As I've said to you on other occasions, I prefer not to participate in discussions recorded for broadcast on the radio. In any case you have heard, or rather read, about the OBE I experienced in this thread or perhaps another thread. I remember writing about it here several times in the past.