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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 12

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Soupie said:
That as we know is a slippery slope but generally speaking it would be causal, objective, physical goings on.
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In that case you're interpretation would seem to arbitrarily exclude ( P ). The question then is: What reasoning sufficiently justifies excluding ( P ) from the set of neural processes? As usual, I find the analogy to electromagnets useful here.
 
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Soupie said:
First, this is the illusionist view, not mine.

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

ETA -- I'll try to be more articulate in my response. When have I ever expressed such a viewpoint? The simplest way to express what I think is to say that consciousness cannot be accounted for/explained by neural processes. At the same time it's obvious that neural nets and processes facilitate consciousness by enabling what has been called a 'global workspace' in which both embodied consciousness and mind become coherent (except in cases in which the capacities of an individual consciousness are compromised neurologically and or psychologically. See works by Sass and Parnas, several of which I've linked here earlier re: Schizophrenia and Autistic spectrums.
 
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smcder said:
"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.
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This post of yours reminds me of trains of thought expessed in Stevens's poetry. In short, I follow you. :)
 
USI Calgary said:
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?"
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I like the way you persist in attempting to 'make sense' of the claims of eliminativists of both experience and consciousness. Permit me to insert a few parenthetical adjustments into that second paragraph:

". . . 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. {from a phenomenological point of view, we do not 'construct' but rather respond to encountered phenomena available to our senses and experienced sensually, physically, and thus absorbed in our prereflective and reflective consciousness of the world around us}. To me it seems obvious that those constructs are subjective in that they aren't the external objects they represent. {again, they are not mental 'constructs' but experienced phenomenal aspects of the sensed environment} {They are mental models.} {They can't be 'mental models' since our experience of phenomena in our environment begins in prereflective, pre-thetic, consciousness, which in fact does not disappear, fall away, once we have entered the stage of reflective consciousness. The 'models' @Soupie speaks of are constructed by neuroscientists as generalizations of objective descriptions, from a third-person perspective, of what they wish to think can account for 'mental' functioning' without the input of phenomenologically sensed, felt, and increasingly understood experience.}

Your next questions are very good:

"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?"

It seems to me that eliminativists entertain either or both of these notions but fail to justify or even explicate them separately or together in terms of, on the basis of, what we and other conscious animals actually experience.
 
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USI Calgary said:
In that case you're interpretation would seem to arbitrarily exclude ( P ). The question then is: What reasoning sufficiently justifies excluding ( P ) from the set of neural processes? As usual, I find the analogy to electromagnets useful here.
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Because physicalist finds “p” metaphysically challenging. The hp and all that.

if your not a physicalist than you’re more open to metaphysically challenging stuff like qualia.
 
smcder said:
because, in away this ability is an ability to understand our own basis of questioning, ability to think and to think about questioning.


Soupie said:
Perhaps in a way. But not in the way we are interested in.
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'We'? Who is 'we'? Perhaps we'd all best speak for ourselves (without becoming solipsists).
 
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Constance said:
'We'? Who is 'we'? Perhaps we'd all best speak for ourselves (without becoming solipsists).
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Unless I am even more confused on your position then even I realize, which may be the case, it’s fair to say that you have been exploring how the body gives rise to phenomenal consciousness.

Thus it’s fair to say that so far, in only a small way, we have an understanding of how the body might give rise to consciousness.

This conversation seems to have taken a harsh tone of late, and I’m not sure why.

Despite your strong reactions, I don’t believe I’ve misrepresented your positions or affinities in my recent posts.

You clearly believe that consciousness is something more than neural processing, and as far as you seem to embrace the HP, you wouldn’t say we’re close to solving it.
 
Soupie said:
Because physicalist finds “p” metaphysically challenging. The hp and all that. if your not a physicalist than you’re more open to metaphysically challenging stuff like qualia.
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Why create a metaphysical challenge when simply including ( P ) in the set of neural processes removes the need? Is it creating a challenge just for the sake of a challenge? If not, what revelations might we hope to uncover? Or are we just shaking the tree to see what falls out?
 
Soupie said:
Unless I am even more confused on your position then even I realize, which may be the case, it’s fair to say that you have been exploring how the body gives rise to phenomenal consciousness.

Thus it’s fair to say that so far, in only a small way, we have an understanding of how the body might give rise to consciousness.
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Not in a small way; in a broad and complex way. Affective neuroscience makes this clear. Also 'gives rise to' is a vague expression that we should try to improve on. Perhaps 'enables' would do. Other suggestions are welcome.

This conversation seems to have taken a harsh tone of late, and I’m not sure why.

Despite your strong reactions, I don’t believe I’ve misrepresented your positions or affinities in my recent posts.
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It could be that my recently more brief, telegraphic, and conversational posts in response to similar posts of yours give you that impression. What they express is, rather, shock and disappointment that you remain unaware of the propositions and evidences provided by phenomenology.

You clearly believe that consciousness is something more than neural processing, and as far as you seem to embrace the HP, you wouldn’t say we’re close to solving it.
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Right. We are not close to fully comprehending, let alone solving, the HP. :)
 
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USI Calgary said:
Why create a metaphysical challenge when simply including ( P ) in the set of neural processes removes the need? Is it creating a challenge just for the sake of a challenge? What revelations might we hope to uncover? Or are we just shaking the tree to see what falls out?
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Agreed. I would only alter the phrase "including (P) in the set of neural processes" to "recognizing that the information organized and integrated in neural processing and neural nets includes experientially sensed and realized information." This has led to the developments in Neurophenomenology that have forged understanding shared by analytic and phenomenological philosophers of mind. It is that 'bridge' you mentioned the need for.
 
USI Calgary said:
Why create a metaphysical challenge when simply including ( P ) in the set of neural processes removes the need? Is it creating a challenge just for the sake of a challenge? If not, what revelations might we hope to uncover? Or are we just shaking the tree to see what falls out?
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Can you explain how p-consciousness is involved in neural processes?
 
Constance said:
I'm repeating this link because I think Zahavi's paper can go far in clarifying what phenomenology is.
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I know the mbp is not phenomenology’s focus, but could you outline the, say, three biggest contributions phenomenology has made to our understanding of the mbp?
 
Soupie said:
I know the mbp is not phenomenology’s focus, but could you outline the, say, three biggest contributions phenomenology has made to our understanding of the mbp?
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Or maybe the three biggest insights phenomenology has given us into understating the relation between the mind and body.
 
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