Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

[Constance]

Yes. The isomorphism, if you will, between the development of the brain and the co-development of the mind is another indicator of the brain-mind nexus.

Wouldn't all of us agree that there is a brain-mind relationship? What work do you want the term 'nexus' to do in your statement above? In my view, not mine alone I take it, the brain facilitates the growth and interconnection of a variety of mental capacities and psychological aptitudes [importantly for empathy, communication, sharing of values, constructive work toward social progress, etc.], but that does not mean that the brain and consciousness/mind are indistinguishable, that brain = mind.

ETA: an important contribution to this conclusion is the increasing recognition in psychology and neurology that some neurological differences/limitations in parts of the brain produce preconditions for the development of autism spectrum disorders and schizophrenia among other conditions. See the relevant links I provided about two weeks ago.

 

[Constance]

@Soupie posted a quotation from a source I haven't yet tracked down (computer out for two days until this afternoon):

“In other words, there is a subjective experiential component of perception that can never be captured in a model expressed in objective neurophysiological terms.”

The question I would ask is: Does that really matter? I would submit that it doesn't. All we really need to know is the physical situation required for consciousness to happen. As we get better and better at identifying and replicating those situations, we can then engineer a variety of conscious systems.

It matters in spades, Randle, which you would appreciate if you spent enough time investigating phenomenological understandings of consciousness. We are conscious for long time before we begin developing what we can call reflective consciousness and 'mind'. Before that time, our developing consciousness is heavily influenced by emotions that we share with our biological forebears. See Jaak Panksepp's publications for verification of this. Emotions and feeling in general originate in our bodies and are recognized in others we interact with from infanthood forward. We learn a great deal about the nature of what we feel and what others feel before we reach the level of reflective consciousness.


You add:

Whether or not we should engineer conscious systems is a whole other question. Personally, I would suggest that perhaps it's better to advance our knowledge in this area so that we know what situations to avoid, rather than what situations to replicate, except perhaps in the case of medicine, where it could be used to repair damaged brains in patients that cannot regain consciousness.

Consciousness cannot be 'engineered'.

 

[Constance]

Yes, he still seems to assume that some events have a qualitative/phenomenal “perspective” but not all.

My approach to this question is to say that all of nature is qualitative, not just some brain states some of the time.

I recognize that many feel that this isn’t an “answer” and moreover runs against intuition.

But so far science has not established any special privilege that quantum fields constituting brains have over quantum fields constituting the rest of nature.

Re the underlined statement, what does it mean to say that "all of nature is qualitative"? Do you mean that every particle, field, force, and process in nature is subject to qualitative experiences -- in other words, is conscious of the qualities of its experience? And responds to these qualities? How do we find out about the nature of these experiential qualities? Do we yet know of any qualities, qualia, experiences taking place in the quantum substrate?

 

[Constance]

Here's a more philosophical and academic treatment of the perspectival nature of the MBP/HP.

https://www.academia.edu/37116372/Identity_Reconsidered_taking_a_dual_perspective_on_the_Hard_Problem_of_Consciousness?email_work_card=view-paper

I agree that we will never be able to account in physical terms for the phenomenal nature of experience, if this requires that anyone having such an account (Mary, Martians or, simply, omniscient beings) may be expected to therefore have the experience as well. However, as I’ve already made clear above, if this is the reason for dismissing a physical explanation of experience, we should reconsider it.

But I agree that we will never be able to give a causal account of experience, so that we could say that, because of such and such causal event, this is what it’s like to see red. The reason is not, however, that experience is something that is insusceptible to our physical descriptions,

the reason is that the ‘what it is like character’ of an experience is not reducible to, but identical to events that can be described in a physical discourse.

This is why, above, I’ve stressed the crucial, yet easily overlooked difference between identity and reduction.

The identity theory I endorse holds that, whatever we identify as an experiential phenomenon can in principle also be identified as a physical phenomenon because both can be identified with each other. Put differently, what is accessible via subjective experience is also in principle accessible via the (scientific) intersubjective approach.

We can give a physical description/explanation of an experience qua physical event (i.e., qua intersubjectively observable and confirmable) and, vice versa, we can give a phenomenal description/explanation18 of a physical event qua phenomenal event (i.e., qua subjectively experienced). But the idea that the occurrence of one can provide a causal explanation for the occurrence of the other makes no sense because they are strictly identical. There simply is no causal connection between two things that are seemingly different, but actually one and the same entity.

So to the sceptic of physicalism, we should say: experience can be, and actually is being investigated from a physical perspective. And perhaps it is our best way of understanding experience. However, pace the ontological reductionist, the idea that we will one day be able to give a causal story of how physical phenomena cause experience qua experience should be put away as both impossible and unnecessary. ...

To illustrate this crucial point, Myin returns to Merleau-Ponty’s own example20 of one person’s hand touching the other:

One of the hands is exploring the other as object. Though a measure of ambiguity applies to both hands, the one that is touching and exploring exemplifies the lived pole, while the other hand exemplifies the objective pole. ...Crucially, the same hand can’t be fully touching and touched: when it switches to the touched mode, it is no longer touching; it can’t be fully lived and experienced as objective at the same time. (Myin 2016: 84, m.e.)

Ultimately, then, the hard problem of consciousness, or the so-called explanatory gap, or simply, the perennial mind-body problem, all seem to derive from the same source. The felt schism is the seemingly inevitable by-product of this specific capacity of relating to the world from two different perspectives, together with our inability to unite these perspectives.

I'm just back from two days w/o my computer so am just discovering this link. I will read the paper with interest.

 

[Randall]

It matters in spades

I suspect that what you are referring to as "it" is not the same thing I was referring to. What specifically were you referring to by "it" in your counterpoint?

Consciousness cannot be 'engineered'.

You are entitled to your belief, but personally, I'm not ready to assert without any doubt that if geneticists were to genetically engineer a perfectly healthy living human being, that consciousness would not simply occur as a result. In fact I would wager everything I own on the opposite. That is to say: This particular type of engineered person would indeed experience the world pretty much the same as anyone else. Prove they don't, and everything I own is yours. I also submit that such a person should be afforded all the same rights and responsibilities as anyone else. The real question is whether or not it is responsible to create them in the first place?

 

[Constance]

I suspect that what you are referring to as "it" is not the same thing I was referring to. What specifically were you referring to by "it" in your counterpoint?

The referent of it is explicit in @Soupie's quotation: "“In other words, there is a subjective experiential component of perception that can never be captured in a model expressed in objective neurophysiological terms.”

You are entitled to your belief [i.e., that consciousness cannot be engineered], but personally, I'm not ready to assert without any doubt that if geneticists were to genetically engineer a perfectly healthy living human being, that consciousness would not simply occur as a result. In fact I would wager everything I own on the opposite. That is to say: This particular type of engineered person would indeed experience the world pretty much the same as anyone else. Prove they don't, and everything I own is yours. I also submit that such a person should be afforded all the same rights and responsibilities as anyone else. The real question is whether or not it is responsible to create them in the first place?

I did not realize that you were referring to a genetically 'engineered' living human being. If that became possible, it seems more than likely that the resulting living being would develop consciousness (although the qualities to which that being became receptive in time/its temporality would depend on the nature of its early experiences). I'm assuming that the attempted production of such a being would involve fertilization and embryonic development in an artificial 'womb' if not a human one, and then development from infanthood to young adulthood in a nurturing human setting?

 

[Randall]

The referent of it is explicit in @Soupie's quotation: "“In other words, there is a subjective experiential component of perception that can never be captured in a model expressed in objective neurophysiological terms.”

Okay thanks. So what I was submitting is that it doesn't matter that the subjective experiential component of perception can never be captured in a model expressed in objective neurophysiological terms, because it's not relevant to the effect of creating the subjective experiential component of perception that we're talking about.

In other words, whatever it is that imparts a given situation with consciousness isn't relevant. All that matters is that when that situation happens, so does consciousness, and because that seems to have been the case with billions of humans over millions of years. We ourselves make a very reliable model for how such such situations can be created.

I did not realize that you were referring to a genetically 'engineered' living human being. If that became possible, it seems more than likely that the resulting living being would develop consciousness (although the qualities to which that being were receptive would depend on the nature of its early experiences). I'm assuming that the attempted production of such a being would involve fertilization and embryonic development in an artificial 'womb' if not a human one, and then development from infanthood to young adulthood in a nurturing human setting?

Engineering takes many forms and we are in the frontier of genetic engineering now. So in every sense of the word "engineering" is a perfectly accurate term. Typically we think of engineering as the building of machinery. Essentially that is what genetic engineering is, only the machinery is very small. Once we have that all mapped out, then it's just a matter of isolating what situations are directly responsible. Or shall I say directly correlative.

Then, once we know what situations are directly correlative, it may be possible to improve on them by engineering more efficient systems. In the EM analogy, we don't know exactly what imparts the fundamental EM force on the world. We just know that it's there, and that we have identified what situations manifests it, and from that knowledge we have created rules that allow us to engineer all sorts of amazing things.

 

[Pharoah]

Very good point of view, I would assert that you can only ever be that which you have touched seen, socialized etc etc anything outside of that is a total unknowable and becomes pure hypothesis and conjecture.

What we see or should I say perceive as consciousness is a by product of interaction and development within this physical existence, as such to assert that there is anything else beyond it is pure supposition, I mean how could it be anything else but?

You can only ever truly know that which you can see, smell, taste, interact with etc etc that is the sum total of the human experience, physical stimulus like pain and pleasure are feed backs from our physical world, emotions are socialized into us as we grow from birth... all of this is a result of being immersed in a physical world and it is that which we call consciousness arises from... literally a by product of a physical existence and no more.

“You can only ever truly know that which you can see, smell, taste, interact” so you can not know 2+2 is 4 because ...?
“anything else is totally unknowable and conjecture... ”
what, like quantum mechanics? Matter is matter and no more because I can’t see beyond it?
i think what you are saying is ridiculous really.

Something to think about: If mind is only a byproduct of physical existence, then you don’t exist

 

[Pharoah]

But what I will say is that the question we are asking is much narrower than that: we are asking how the qualitative and the spatial are related.

If an experienced world is experienced in terms of its qualities then, through its varied incantations both in space and time, that world potentially will be delineated spatiotemporally.
Alternatively, if an experienced world is experienced spatially what is it about that space that would have to also be qualitative?

 

[Pharoah]

Yes. The isomorphism, if you will, between the development of the brain and the co-development of the mind is another indicator of the brain-mind nexus.

Let me tell you about the train–mind nexus: scientists have found this remarkable connection between people getting on a train at A and arriving at B, and a train travelling from A to B. They conclude they know everything there is to know about the people who wanted to get from A to B because that’s what the train does: it goes from A to B. It’s the train–mind nexus.

 

[Soupie]

Let me tell you about the train–mind nexus: scientists have found this remarkable connection between people getting on a train at A and arriving at B, and a train travelling from A to B. They conclude they know everything there is to know about the people who wanted to get from A to B because that’s what the train does: it goes from A to B. It’s the train–mind nexus.

That’s actually not a bad example haha. So what do you think explains the brain-mind nexus?

My understanding is that you believe the brain causes the mind, correct?

 

[Soupie]

If an experienced world is experienced in terms of its qualities then, through its varied incantations both in space and time, that world potentially will be delineated spatiotemporally.
Alternatively, if an experienced world is experienced spatially what is it about that space that would have to also be qualitative?

>>what is it about that space that would have to also be qualitative?

The HP.

 

[Soupie]

Re the underlined statement, what does it mean to say that "all of nature is qualitative"?

It means that the quantum fields constituting our bodies are of the same nature as those constituting all of nature.

 

[Pharoah]

Yes, he still seems to assume that some events have a qualitative/phenomenal “perspective” but not all.

My approach to this question is to say that all of nature is qualitative, not just some brain states some of the time.

I recognize that many feel that this isn’t an “answer” and moreover runs against intuition.

But so far science has not established any special privilege that quantum fields constituting brains have over quantum fields constituting the rest of nature.

1) All of nature is qualitative, not just certain brain states.

Ok... therefore dung just is qualitative. But whereas a dung beetle rolls it into a ball and eats it for breakfast, I scrape it off my shoe while holding my nose. So in what sense can we say something is “qualitative” in absence of brain states? Answer: in no sense (?)

 

[Pharoah]

>>what is it about that space that would have to also be qualitative?

The HP.

I’m not sure you got my point. What I am saying is that the perception of qualities ultimately necessitates the perception of time and space. The opposite however is not the case: the perception of space does not necessitate the perception of qualities

 

[Soupie]

Ok... therefore dung just is qualitative. But whereas a dung beetle rolls it into a ball and eats it for breakfast, I scrape it off my shoe while holding my nose. So in what sense can we say something is “qualitative” in absence of brain states? Answer: in no sense (?)

That’s not an argument mate.

 

[Soupie]

I’m not sure you got my point. What I am saying is that the perception of qualities ultimately necessitates the perception of time and space. The opposite however is not the case: the perception of space does not necessitate the perception of qualities

You can have phenomenal perception sans quality? Is that what you’re saying?

Or are you saying we can perceive qualities; ie we can literally, directly see, say, the color blue that someone is experiencing?

 

[Soupie]

Ok... therefore dung just is qualitative. But whereas a dung beetle rolls it into a ball and eats it for breakfast, I scrape it off my shoe while holding my nose. So in what sense can we say something is “qualitative” in absence of brain states? Answer: in no sense (?)

We could say we need brain states to have mental states like perceptions, emotions, concepts, etc.

But it hasn’t been established that 1) brain states give rise to the qualitative nature of experience or 2) that all of nature is not qualitative.

I’m not arguing that dung has headaches or enjoys tea and crumpets.

 

[Soupie]

Pharoah if you want to overcome the intrinsic nature argument, you need to:

1) explain how quality emerges from spatial relationships

2) explain how non-brain states are fundamentally different from brain states as it pertains to their qualitative nature

 

[Soupie]

Pharoah, as I understand it, you’re approach hinges on the notion that the qualitative nature of experience is causes by non-qualitative, spacial relations of brain/body processes.

I don’t share that notion.

Rather I believe that all of nature is qualitative and that brain/body processes are the way in which nature becomes self-aware.