Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

[Soupie]

Of course. I only said that to make the point that I could be wrong. No response to the turtle question?

My response is that I’m interested in resolving the mind body problem. It certainly seems like matter and the phenomenal aspect of consciousness are two separate things. But on closer inspection, I don’t believe they are. I’m fact, I believe they are one and the same.

How this substrate came to be, I don’t know. Claiming that both mind and matter are real and happen to be the same substrate does not, as you point out, explain how this substrate came to exist.

 

[Soupie]

Still looking for a clarification of the terms 'intrinsic nature' and 'extrinsic nature' to inspire discussion.

So am I haha! That’s what I meant about discussing it. I reached out to an author about a year or so ago re intrinsic vs extrinsic and primary vs secondary qualities but alas they did not respond.

 

[Randall]

I wanted to bring that paper into discussions at the outset because of the usefulness and needfulness of C's concept of 'panprotopsychism'. Otherwise I see your points (except I am in need of a demonstration of "the existence of both mental and non-mental states within a physicalist model." Not saying that can't be demonstrated, only that I haven't seen it done persuasively so far.

Anyone who takes the time, can fit all the pieces together for themselves. In the past I've used the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for most citations, but a number of other papers have included much of the same supporting thought. I just don't recall them at the moment. At one point I also ran across something that suggested Maurice Merleau-Ponty's thinking was very much in tune with this. So perhaps the case has been made more persuasively than you realize, but just from a different perspective.

 

[Randall]

Everyone can read it on Kindle for $4. Let's all read it.

Unfortunately I've got 25 other things in my priority list that require the same amount of time. Hopefully I'll pull things together in 2020 so that I can accommodate a book discussion. I love the idea

 

[Soupie]

I am in need of a demonstration of "the existence of both mental and non-mental states within a physicalist model

Anyone who takes the time, can fit all the pieces together for themselves.

Explaining how the mental could exist within a physicalist model is the Hard Problem. If you “fit all the pieces together” @USI Calgary then buy a new suit. You’re getting a Nobel Prize.

The only ways to fit the phenomenal aspect of consciousness into a physicalist paradigm are to 1) deny the reality of the phenomenal (eliminatist, deflationism, or qualia anti-realist), or 2) expand the definition of physical to include the phenomenal aspect of consciousness (panpsychism).

Strong emergence is another pathway, but that would qualify as dualism.

Weak emergence, of course, hasn’t been even remotely demonstrated.

 

[Randall]

My response is that I’m interested in resolving the mind body problem. It certainly seems like matter and the phenomenal aspect of consciousness are two separate things. But on closer inspection, I don’t believe they are. I’m fact, I believe they are one and the same.

It all depends on one's definition of "matter". Classical materialism looked at it synonymously with "material" as in something with substance and form. As science evolved, so did the definition. Classical materialism has evolved into physicalism, and there are a number of flavors. The one I personally relate to includes all phenomena of nature, so not simply substances, but also fields, forces, and whatever else may exist, including consciousness, which essentially makes my perspective synonymous with naturalism.

In this view, there can be more than one phenomena of nature, and they can all interact. So for me, there is no "mind-body problem" any more than there is a mass-gravity problem. It's just a given. In the end it is the same problem as explaining existence itself. I'm not sure of the ramifications of this proposition. For example, if this universe is a generated construct, could the engineers have chosen not to include consciousness?

How this substrate came to be, I don’t know. Claiming that both mind and matter are real and happen to be the same substrate does not, as you point out, explain how this substrate came to exist.

Even if we were to figure out how the substrate came to exist, e.g. as part of a generated construct, and that the way it behaves is governed by algorithms, that would still only explain the behavior of the substrate, not any experience such substrate might have associated with it. The consciousness question seems to transcend all levels.

The irony is that despite the fact that we are conscious beings that experience consciousness directly, we still have no explanation for it, and probably never will. It is a familiar part of us, yet beyond us all at the same time. Perhaps this irony is at the foundation of @Michael Allen's laughter. How is it that we can be something that is by its very nature beyond its own understanding? Let alone skip merrily along down the road believing someone will eventually figure it out?

 

[Constance]

So am I haha! That’s what I meant about discussing it. I reached out to an author about a year or so ago re intrinsic vs extrinsic and primary vs secondary qualities but alas they did not respond.

Does the author you tried to contact employ these terms and if so where? Thanks.

 

[Michael Allen]

The starting point of the panpsychist is that physical science doesn’t actually tell us what matter is. That sounds like a bizarre claim at first; you read a physics textbook, you seem to learn all kinds of incredible things about the nature of space, time and matter. But what philosophers of science have realized is that physical science, for all its richness, is confined to telling us about the behavior of matter, what it does. Physics tells us, for example, that matter has mass and charge. These properties are completely defined in terms of behavior, things like attraction, repulsion, resistance to acceleration. Physics tells us absolutely nothing about what philosophers like to call the intrinsic nature of matter: what matter is, in and of itself.

So it turns out that there is a huge hole in our scientific story. The proposal of the panpsychist is to put consciousness in that hole. Consciousness, for the panpsychist, is the intrinsic nature of matter. There’s just matter, on this view, nothing supernatural or spiritual. But matter can be described from two perspectives. Physical science describes matter “from the outside,” in terms of its behavior. But matter “from the inside”—i.e., in terms of its intrinsic nature—is constituted of forms of consciousness.

What this offers us is a beautifully simple, elegant way of integrating consciousness into our scientific worldview, of marrying what we know about ourselves from the inside and what science tells us about matter from the outside.”

❤

Our "notion" or transparent simulation which pretends to be real evidently comes from a reality-world-generator..."matter" is just a reflection within the PSM that plays a role within the framework of recursive-world-reality-generation. The "from the outside" or "from the inside" are pointers that allow for differentiation and figure/ground to "exist" Same goes for the terms "intrinsic" vs "extrinsic" which are labels for a phenomenal simulacrum that allows for the entire framework to present something like a being-in-the-world.

The two views are illusory in isolation, and the world-as-being cannot dispel the illusion without removing it's own ability to experience. Yes the "physicalism" view is always something constructed after the framework for being is in place...it is fiction.

 

[Michael Allen]

Constance:
"I am in need of a demonstration of 'the existence of both mental and non-mental states within a physicalist model'"

A demonstration requires a being that makes being an issue to itself. So the demonstration would require throwing out any models (which only make sense to beings that make their own being an issue to itself (recursive)--that of what is labeled "mental" or "non-mental" already depend on the framework of the being analyzing it's own Being...

Corollary: a demonstration of mental and non-mental states within any model are made once you have read and understood this sentence

Thus the demonstration and demonstrator are assumed along with the physicalist point-of-view brought about by the same. A truism results and we are back where we started.

 

[Michael Allen]

Explaining how the mental could exist within a physicalist model is the Hard Problem. If you “fit all the pieces together” @USI Calgary then buy a new suit. You’re getting a Nobel Prize.

The only ways to fit the phenomenal aspect of consciousness into a physicalist paradigm are to 1) deny the reality of the phenomenal (eliminatist, deflationism, or qualia anti-realist), or 2) expand the definition of physical to include the phenomenal aspect of consciousness (panpsychism).

Strong emergence is another pathway, but that would qualify as dualism.

Weak emergence, of course, hasn’t been even remotely demonstrated.

I think it should be called the Impossible Problem. Every statement of the "Hard Problem" relies on hidden premises that are causing the problem before even considering the field of possibilities in the "answer" to what follows from the premises. I am certain that a "solution" to such a problem would require destroying the "mental" concept within...and even the background which allows such divisions to even persist in consciousness.

 

[Constance]

Anyone who takes the time, can fit all the pieces together for themselves. In the past I've used the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy for most citations, but a number of other papers have included much of the same supporting thought. I just don't recall them at the moment. At one point I also ran across something that suggested Maurice Merleau-Ponty's thinking was very much in tune with this. So perhaps the case has been made more persuasively than you realize, but just from a different perspective.

In tune with what?

 

[Constance]

Constance:
"I am in need of a demonstration of 'the existence of both mental and non-mental states within a physicalist model'"

A demonstration requires a being that makes being an issue to itself. So the demonstration would require throwing out any models (which only make sense to beings that make their own being an issue to itself (recursive)--that of what is labeled "mental" or "non-mental" already depend on the framework of the being analyzing it's own Being...

Corollary: a demonstration of mental and non-mental states within any model are made once you have read and understood this sentence

Thus the demonstration and demonstrator are assumed along with the physicalist point-of-view brought about by the same. A truism results and we are back where we started.

Sorry to say, MA, you have once again not explained or demonstrated anything I can make sense of. Perhaps if you drew a picture, diagram, or something. What your posts remind me of are the complex knots that magicians tie and with a last pull of the cord completely untie.

 

[Constance]

I think it should be called the Impossible Problem. Every statement of the "Hard Problem" relies on hidden premises that are causing the problem before even considering the field of possibilities in the "answer" to what follows from the premises. I am certain that a "solution" to such a problem would require destroying the "mental" concept within...and even the background which allows such divisions to even persist in consciousness.

I'll try once more re the above.

What are the "hidden premises" in Chalmers' identification of the 'hard problem'?

What and where is the "field of possibilities" he misses?

Why would finding a solution {supposing that there could be a 'solution'} to the hard problem destroy "the 'mental' concept" itself and indeed the "background?" of lived experience that leads so many philosophers of mind, phenomenological and analytic, to recognize the hard problem?

 

[Randall]

Constance:
"I am in need of a demonstration of 'the existence of both mental and non-mental states within a physicalist model'"

Please allow me to interject as this was probably something I started. What I said was: "Ultimately there's nothing preventing the existence of both mental and non-mental states within a physicalist model." This is entirely different from making a claim that there are both mental and non-mental states, or that there is proof for either state that would be sufficient for everyone.

However, given that we can define proof as evidence that is sufficient to justify belief in a claim, I personally think there is plenty of proof ( for me ). You and others may have an alternate view. That's okay. It makes the discussion interesting.

 

[Constance]

Please allow me to interject as this was probably something I started. What I said was: "Ultimately there's nothing preventing the existence of both mental and non-mental states within a physicalist model." This is entirely different from making a claim that there are both mental and non-mental states, or that there is proof for either state that would be sufficient for everyone.

However, given that we can define proof as evidence that is sufficient to justify belief in a claim, I personally think there is plenty of proof ( for me ). You and others may have an alternate view. That's okay. It makes the discussion interesting.

I think we need to reserve the term 'physicalist model' for those models developed by neuroscientists and computationalists, and by philosophers of mind who follow them, in denying the reality of consciousness and the significance of phenomenal experience in the development of mind, society, culture, and so forth. So that I would edit your underscored sentence (if you permitted me to edit it) to read:

"Ultimately there's nothing preventing the existence of both mental and non-mental states within a naturally evolved physical animal."

Information theorists such as Tononi have of course recognized my point, but many others here and elsewhere do not. Simulation theorists such as Bach do not, so far as I can tell. I think that MA, following Metzger, probably does not. Dennett, of course, did not. In nature, phenomenal perception, awareness, and consciousness belong to the living. So far, until proved otherwise.

I sort of expect flak for this response. That's ok. But what should be offered instead are clear articulations of the 'models' we are offered that dismiss or deny the reality and nature of consciousness. These need to do more than redefine words and manipulate language to obscure or efface the lived realities experienced by protoconscious and conscious animals recognized by biologists and affective neuroscientists in our time.

 

[Michael Allen]

I'll try once more re the above.

What are the "hidden premises" in Chalmers' identification of the 'hard problem'?

What and where is the "field of possibilities" he misses?

Why would finding a solution {supposing that there could be a 'solution'} to the hard problem destroy "the 'mental' concept" itself and indeed the "background?" of lived experience that leads so many philosophers of mind, phenomenological and analytic, to recognize the hard problem?

Because I deduce that consciousness depends on this very division of "felt" vs "unfelt" states in a model constructed by consciousness.
So trying to explain to our ourselves why and how some are "felt" vs "unfelt" may actually be a snake eating its own tail and expecting to disappear.

Assuming what we are trying to demonstrate. To explain both in terms of some other that is neither would fall into a kind of blind spot...

That is the best I can do for now. I will have to think more on this.

 

[Randall]

I think we need to reserve the term 'physicalist model' for those models developed by neuroscientists and computationalists, and by philosophers of mind who follow them, in denying the reality of consciousness and the significance of phenomenal experience in the development of mind, society, culture, and so forth. So that I would edit your underscored sentence (if you permitted me to edit it) to read:

"Ultimately there's nothing preventing the existence of both mental and non-mental states within a naturally evolved physical animal."

Information theorists such as Tononi have of course recognized my point, but many others here and elsewhere do not. Simulation theorists such as Bach do not, so far as I can tell. I think that MA, following Metzger, probably does not. Dennett, of course, did not. In nature, phenomenal perception, awareness, and consciousness belong to the living. So far, until proved otherwise.

I sort of expect flak for this response. That's ok. But what should be offered instead are clear articulations of the 'models' we are offered that dismiss or deny the reality and nature of consciousness. These need to do more than redefine words and manipulate language to obscure or efface the lived realities experienced by protoconscious and conscious animals recognized by biologists and affective neuroscientists in our time.

No "flak". Just the usual discussion based on whatever seems to be the case. In that regard, there is no consensus on an absolute definition for physicalism. This is all made quite clear here: Physicalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Consequently, anyone who can form a coherent philosophical position on physicalism, has all they need to substantiate their view. Therefore interpretations need not be restricted to Neuroscientists, computationalists, academics, or anyone else. Not to mention that it may be the case that some neuroscientists consider themselves to be physicalists, while others don't.

That being said, it would be nice to have some baseline for the discussion. Can we in this discussion even reach a consensus?

 

[Constance]

No "flak" from me. Just the usual discussion based on whatever seems to be the case. In that regard, there is no consensus on an absolute definition for physicalism. This is all made quite clear here: Physicalism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

I'll take another look at that SEP entry.

Consequently, anyone who can form a coherent philosophical position on physicalism, has all they need to substantiate their view.[/quote]

Note: a software glitch seems to be preventing me from showing the above quote as a continuation of Randle's post and the following as my response. Glitches continue below.

Not necessarily. Coherence is in the eye of many beholders, though not all will be willing to take the effort to make a case concerning the incoherence of what is claimed. I read many philosophical papers that I find to be incoherent, but I'll hardly respond to all of them. And if I respond it would usually be directly to the philosopher in an email.

Therefore interpretations need not be restricted to Neuroscientists, computationalists, academics, or anyone else. Not to mention that it may be the case that some neuroscientists consider themselves to be physicalists, while others don't.

I'm sure you realize the influence of science (especially the hard sciences) and the dominant physicalist paradigm on philosophers since the age of positivism. In many respects we're still laboring under the influence of positivism.

It's certainly the case that some neuroscientists depart from supporting the dominant presuppositions in that field. Damasio is one of the best. There are others, some of whom I cited in the first year of this thread. Affective neuroscience is a major departure from the previous norm in neuroscience, as is Neurophenomenology.

Finally it seems to me that if a variety of scientists and philosophers of science disagree on substantive claims under the heading of 'Physicalism', we are still in need of definitions, and that those definitions await increased insights into the nature of 'reality'.

 

[Randall]

Coherence is in the eye of many beholders ...

That was a cleverly baited hook. Tasty as it looks. I'm not going to bite. Instead I'll just provide that link to the principles of critical thinking ( again ): CriticalThinking.org - Critical Thinking Model 1
It's too bad there's been such a rejection of the idea of critical thinking here. Why after how many years now, haven't we been able to take the question, plug it into the process, and work on it together to see where it leads? It seems like a more healthy approach than offhandedly dismissing it. Then again, do I really have time for that? I'm not feeling like I want to have to write a series of philosophy papers.

Just for Kicks ... I suggest we start with:

Element : Purpose All reasoning has a PURPOSE.

• State your purpose clearly.
  • Distinguish your purpose from related purposes.
  • Check periodically to be sure you are still on target.
  • Choose significant and realistic purposes.

Can we even get past this one? What should the purpose of this effort be? Is it realistic?

 

[Pharoah]

Re particles having “minds.” Goff articulates it well methinks:

“Human beings have a very rich and complex experience; horses less so; mice less so again. As we move to simpler and simpler forms of life, we find simpler and simpler forms of experience. Perhaps, at some point, the light switches off, and consciousness disappears. But it’s at least coherent to suppose that this continuum of consciousness fading while never quite turning off carries on into inorganic matter, with fundamental particles having almost unimaginably simple forms of experience to reflect their incredibly simple nature. That’s what panpsychists believe.”

“Horses less so. mice less so again... and so on?“ What tosh.
“It is at least coherent” and at most ... what? Rather: It is at least daft and at most highly contentious.