Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

[Michael Allen]

So you say, Michael. Why don't you write a paper presenting a detailed critique of the article (better yet, the longer related paper) by Sabhash Kak that I've linked and see if NeuroQuantology will publish it? Or alternatively you could present such a critique here, if you prefer. I for one would need something more than your brief paragraphs of declarations and exhortations to doubt the validity of what Kak has written.

I think I have most likely fulfilled the alternative you mentioned...I wish I had the time to do the first.

 

[Michael Allen]

"Also, what persuades you that merely 'functional equivalence' between natural and artificial brains/neural nets can touch, much less exhaust, all the capacities of human consciousness and mind?"

I for one don't think that our understanding of "functional equivalence" is good enough to transport between what we consider "natural" and "artificial"--the problem is that we really don't need any transport. For what can "artificial" mean unless it's stated as some kind of "intention" to create something else? But a mind thinking and externalizing it's own processes into other modules and automata may be akin to the first molecular replicators prior to DNA--what does the "feeling" of "self-awareness" actually give us beyond the results already obtained in absence of our "consciousness?"

And what if consciousness is the presumption of self-ownership as something that lies outside the timeline of genetic and pre-genetic replicators bringing about the "feeling" of "self?"

Maybe we should look very very hard (and long) at our own terms "natural" and "artificial."

 

[Michael Allen]

I think you are misreading Heidegger, the remedy for which lies in carefully reading one or more of the clarifying scholarly texts produced by his primary expositors for the benefit of other philosophers and thinkers. .

For example, when H. wrote "This average and vague understanding of being is a fact," he was referring to the mis-understanding of the existential nature and meaning of 'be-ing' at the time of his writing, a situation he wrote voluminously to correct and overcome.

To be more precise--our misunderstanding of consciousness is rooted in the same confusion between "existential nature" and "meaning of be-ing." Which is why the word substitution of "consciousness" for "being" actually drives the point home (maybe recklessly...but poingnant)

 

[Michael Allen]

Jumping into a very interesting statement (sorry Constance )

"How are 'we' to accomplish this comp sci/AI goal if we do not begin with a better understanding of (a) consciousness as we experience it, and (b) the depth and complexity of the substrate of our existence and the evolution of all other sentient, protoconscious, and conscious living organisms preceding us?"

Interesting but perhaps "we" don't have to accomplish it -- consider the accomplishments of a rudimentary molecular nano-replicating machine leading to RNA and DNA reproduction and what "we" call ourselves (or retcon) is the END and not the means of replication ... (the correct answer is not the "END"). We don't have to understand to have the ability to create other beings chock full of understanding...even within our own means of reproduction.

 

[Michael Allen]

To boil it all down

(1) Human consciousness is a product of millions of years of self-replicating entities
(2) We don't have to understand our abilities in order to make a new questioning/thinking/consciousness laden entity (biological reproduction)
(3) Therefore it is possible that we don't have or will ever need the ability to understand our own basis of questioning our own ability to think or to think about questioning.

 

[Soupie]

Maybe someone can help me with this?

Here’s my understanding: phenomenal consciousness is not a stuff (qualia) that emerges, oozes, radiates, etc. from the brain. It just seems like it is.

the fact that phenomenal consciousness seems like something above and beyond neural processes is the illusion. On illusionism, it seems like it is but it isn’t.

 

[smcder]

To boil it all down

(1) Human consciousness is a product of millions of years of self-replicating entities
(2) We don't have to understand our abilities in order to make a new questioning/thinking/consciousness laden entity (biological reproduction)
(3) Therefore it is possible that we don't have or will ever need the ability to understand our own basis of questioning our own ability to think or to think about questioning.

"If both evolution and naturalism are true, then the probability of having reliable cognitive faculties is low."

This is Plantinga's "defeater" of naturalism, it reminds me of your argument above.

From and 1 and 2 we can conclude that we don't need this ability to reproduce, but I'm not sure we can conclude that our offspring can reliably use the questioning/thinking/consciousness that they are laden with, anymore than we can, without this ability to understand? ... what is the relationship of understanding our own basis of questioning, our own ability to think, or to think about questioning to our basis of questioning, our ability to think and to think about questioning? The ability to question, it seems to me, leads immediately to inquiry of the basis of questioning, which we may not have the ability to understand, which seems to bring into question our very ability to question. Or perhaps its enough to be able to question our own basis of questioning, ability to think (and to think about questioning) to reliably question, think and think about questioning because, in away this ability is an ability to understand our own basis of questioning, ability to think and to think about questioning.

 

[smcder]

This is the general position that I have settled into. (I’m sure there’s a philosophical position that captures this sentiment.)

There are some in this discussion who seem to think we’ve got it all pretty much figured out. We just need to understand just a last few bits of stuff and then we’ll have it, the TOE.

I think in practice we are a long way off from a toe, and in principle it’s impossible. (I know that sentence doesn’t make great sense haha.)

Our perceptual, conceptual, and mathematical tools are all descriptive and terribly biased/subjective.

I’m not denying objective reality, although it may sound like it. Rather I’m expressing skepticism about humanity’s or a human’s ability to grip objective reality.

What I need to do is some reading on metaphysics. @smcder any suggestions?

Yes! Read a good general history of philosophy, then you will know what you "should" read next.

 

[Randall]

Here’s my understanding: phenomenal consciousness is not a stuff (qualia) that emerges, oozes, radiates, etc. from the brain. It just seems like it is.

the fact that phenomenal consciousness seems like something above and beyond neural processes is the illusion. On illusionism, it seems like it is but it isn’t.

Thanks for trying, but I still don't know for sure what is meant by any of that. For example, phenomenal consciousness is often referred to as the "what it's like" aspect of conscious or the phenomena generated by sensory systems ( sounds, colors, shapes, textures, etc ) and yet we have someone saying that, philosophers often conflate WIL ( What It's Like ) properties with sensory qualities ?, so I still don't know for sure what phenomenal consciousness really means, or if there is any real consensus on it.

But let's assume for the time being that phenomenal consciousness is the latter of the above, where the phenomenal aspect includes the collective sensory constructs we perceive as images, sounds, textures, shapes, and so on. To me it seems obvious that those constructs are subjective in that they aren't the external objects they represent. They are mental models. But is this is what is meant by them being illusions, or are illusionismists saying that the very subjective experience itself is some sort of illusion, and if so an illusion of what? Is it like, "There is no spoon?"

 

[smcder]

A good time to re-post this:

130+ million publications organized by topic on ResearchGate

ResearchGate is a network dedicated to science and research. Connect, collaborate and discover scientific publications, jobs and conferences. All for free.

www.researchgate.net

 

[smcder]

This is the general position that I have settled into. (I’m sure there’s a philosophical position that captures this sentiment.)

There are some in this discussion who seem to think we’ve got it all pretty much figured out. We just need to understand just a last few bits of stuff and then we’ll have it, the TOE.

I think in practice we are a long way off from a toe, and in principle it’s impossible. (I know that sentence doesn’t make great sense haha.)

Our perceptual, conceptual, and mathematical tools are all descriptive and terribly biased/subjective.

I’m not denying objective reality, although it may sound like it. Rather I’m expressing skepticism about humanity’s or a human’s ability to grip objective reality.

What I need to do is some reading on metaphysics. @smcder any suggestions?

It seems like you are as interested in Epistemology as Metaphysics. I think what @Constance tells us is very useful here and that a lot of what leads us to think we know more than we do is a kind of vestigial Platonism - the Emissary off on a perpetual mission ... philosophy and thinking of any kind needs to stand guard for certainty, knowing when (rarely) to let it in and how (frequently) to keep it out.

 

[Constance]

To boil it all down

(1) Human consciousness is a product of millions of years of self-replicating entities
(2) We don't have to understand our abilities in order to make a new questioning/thinking/consciousness laden entity (biological reproduction)
(3) Therefore it is possible that we don't have or will ever need the ability to understand our own basis of questioning our own ability to think or to think about questioning.

Almost anything might be possible. I can sometimes think about 5 or 6 impossible things before I have my morning coffee and cigarette.

I don't know whether to categorize your general hypothesis as a thought experiment or a fable. In either case, though, I'm sorry to say, it no longer interests me to contemplate or talk about it. No hard feelings intended.

 

[Randall]

To boil it all down

(1) Human consciousness is a product of millions of years of self-replicating entities
(2) We don't have to understand our abilities in order to make a new questioning/thinking/consciousness laden entity (biological reproduction)
(3) Therefore it is possible that we don't have or will ever need the ability to understand our own basis of questioning our own ability to think or to think about questioning.

Exactly. If I understand you correctly, I made the same point not long ago in another post when I said that understanding consciousness isn't required in order for us to create conscious machines. All that is required is knowledge of the situations that make consciousness apparent. We may never know the rest or need to know the rest. Maybe we're coming at it from slightly different angles, but it seems to add-up to the same sort of thing.

Hey, do you get this whole Illusionism argument? I'm having trouble with it. If you would review my response to @Soupie here ?and help clarify it for me, it would be much appreciated.

 

[Constance]

Soupie said:

Here’s my understanding: phenomenal consciousness is not a stuff (qualia) that emerges, oozes, radiates, etc. from the brain. It just seems like it is.

Not to me. Who has described it that way?

the fact that phenomenal consciousness seems like something above and beyond neural processes is the illusion. On illusionism, it seems like it is but it isn’t.

"Seems like" to whom? It seems to be the case that none of us feels neural processes taking place in our brains, yet most of us can say that we sense, are indeed familiar with, what takes place in our own consciousness. Also, can you clarify the meaning of your last sentence 'illusionism seems like it is but it isn't'?

Thanks for trying, but I still don't know for sure what is meant by any of that. For example, phenomenal consciousness is often referred to as the "what it's like" aspect of conscious or the phenomena generated by sensory systems ( sounds, colors, shapes, textures, etc ) and yet we have someone saying that, philosophers often conflate WIL ( What It's Like ) properties with sensory qualities ?, so I still don't know for sure what phenomenal consciousness really means, or if there is any real consensus on it.

Nagel's phrase "what it's like" was never a very useful way to refer to the sensed experiences of bats or any other species, and Chalmers didn't help by simply adopting and perpetuating that phrase. Sensory qualia have a major role to play in the recognition of sensed qualities in our and other animal's environments, signalling at one and the same time (a) the actuality of our awareness/experience of the environing world and (b) the actuality of our own presence to and within it -- our 'being-there'. We have to study Affective Neuroscience [Panksepp et al] as an outcome of recent biological studies of animal behaviors and emotional reactions to begin to understand the affectivity arising in our own protoconscious and conscious experiences. Also, re your reference to "the phenomena generated by sensory systems (sounds, colors, shapes, textures, etc )", the sounds, colors, shapes, textures, smells, and tastes we encounter in our physical environment do not 'generate' phenomena but are in themselves phenomena to which we, like other animals, are open and receptive and which we actively integrate in developing our sense of the actuality and nature of the place where we exist.

But let's assume for the time being that phenomenal consciousness is the latter of the above, where the phenomenal aspect includes the collective sensory constructs we perceive as images, sounds, textures, shapes, and so on. To me it seems obvious that those constructs are subjective in that they aren't the external objects they represent. They are mental models. But is this is what is meant by them being illusions, or are illusionismists saying that the very subjective experience itself is some sort of illusion, and if so an illusion of what?

Good questions. I only want to add that what we sense, feel, and gradually understand about the actuality of the environing world -- which we sense multisensorially day after day -- does not constitute or form only a "mental model," a 'representation', that we can use in reflecting on what-is. We like all animals accumulate what Merleau-Ponty called a 'perceptual faith' that we live in an actual and relatively stable world that possesses depth horizons and possibilities for us to explore beyond them. And we do and we call it philosophy or science or art or cosmology. With the exception of mentally deranged or incapacitated humans [and likely some animals similarly closed to the actual world] we generally do not wake up one day to project or 'see' an illusionary world obscuring the world we've been accustomed to dwelling in. {Note to @Soupie, no, we do not ever see "things in themselves," but we do see things, and come to understand them, by analyzing the ways in which they appear to us and to others, from various viewpoints, points of access. We "multiply these perspectives", as MP says, by ourselves and with others, in the interest of learning as much as possible about the worldly things that appear to us phenomenally.}

Subjective experience in most cases is not 'some sort of illusion' because it is ordinarily related to/indeed tied to what the animal or human encounters and interacts with. To this extent, the world we live in is fundamentally stable throughout most of our lifetimes [exceptions occurring daily during Trump's presidency]. I can only account for hypotheses claiming that consciousness is an illusion by speculating that such hypotheses are formed and argued for by people who have somehow avoided confronting and examining the nature of their own consciousnesses as open to the world we experience as a vast commonality, one in which we have been able to develop both cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural understandings of the by-now fragile human situation in general and of the fragile nature/ecology of the planet we live on.

To understand 'subjectivity' we also need to understand 'intersubjectivity', and Dan Zahavi does a brilliant job of explaining both in his paper "Beyond Empathy," which can be read at this link:

https://cfs.ku.dk/staff/zahavi-publications/Zahavi_JCS_8_5-7.pdf/

 

[Constance]

(responding to a post by MA)
Exactly. If I understand you correctly, I made the same point not long ago in another post when I said that understanding consciousness isn't required in order for us to create conscious machines. All that is required is knowledge of the situations that make consciousness apparent. We may never know the rest or need to know the rest. Maybe we're coming at it from slightly different angles, but it seems to add-up to the same sort of thing.

I don't see how the underscored statement can be true. Moreover, computer scientists/AI designers had 'something' in mind -- a sense or an idea about what consciousness is and what it can enable -- when they declared an interest in producing robots capable of consciousness. Why did they want to accomplish that?

 

[Randall]

I don't see how the underscored statement can be true.

How very interesting. I can see it very clearly ( or at least I think I do ). Do we want to bridge this explanatory gap somehow?

Moreover, computer scientists/AI designers had 'something' in mind -- a sense or an idea about what consciousness is and what it can enable -- when they declared an interest in producing robots capable of consciousness. Why did they want to accomplish that?

I'm not sure if those are sci-fi plots or what is actually happening, or both. If I had to wager I'd say that within the better part of the group comprising such AI designers, both are likely to be the case, with a heavy majority against creating a conscious machine, an equally healthy majority in favor of creating an intelligent machine, a small group that is undecided, and an even smaller group that doesn't know what I'm actually talking about, which would of course include me as part of that last group.

 

[Randall]

I'll wait until you've done that ...

Having read through Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia once, my position as stated ? remains the same.

 

[Soupie]

To me it seems obvious that those constructs are subjective in that they aren't the external objects they represent. They are mental models. But is this is what is meant by them being illusions, or are illusionismists saying that the very subjective experience itself is some sort of illusion, and if so an illusion of what? Is it like, "There is no spoon?"

No. That’s indirect realism. Illusionism refers specifically to the sense or seeming (illusionists would say) that phenomenal consciousness is something more than neural processes. This “seeming” is an illusion.

 

[Soupie]

Not to me. Who has described it that way?

First, this is the illusionist view, not mine.

Second, your position is that phenomenal consciousness is nothing more than neural processes?

 

[Randall]

No. That’s indirect realism.

Indirect realism appears, at least in some cases to be something different that the situation in The Matrix I alluded to ( There is no spoon ), because Indirect realism doesn't necessarily do away with the idea that there is no external world in which the spoon exists, only that the perceiver's experience of it, is all in their mind.

Illusionism refers specifically to the sense or seeming (illusionists would say) that phenomenal consciousness is something more than neural processes. This “seeming” is an illusion.

I guess the question there would be: How do we define the word "process" in the context of neural processes? Let's call whatever the Illusionismists assume this "something more" is to non-Illusionismists ( P ). By arbitrarily excluding ( P ) from set of neural processes, their argument guarantees itself to be correct. If by allowing ( P ) to be part of the set of neural processes, it guarantees they are wrong. So what reasoning sufficiently justifies excluding ( P ) from the set of neural processes?