Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 13

[smcder]

In your example above, I would say that pain serves as an identifying phenomenon that provides motivation for an organism to avoid damage. It may be the case that it is not strictly necessary because some other non-phenomenal system could handle the task, and I would suggest that in some living things, particularly much more basic systems, that is exactly what is going on.

However nature has obviously found that pain is useful in our avoidance of biological damage, and therefore it is something we have evolved with, because that's how evolution works. It may also be the case that pain is a shortcut for what would otherwise be more complicated non-qualia based biological control systems in species that are more complex. It also facilitates the choice of whether or not we want to ignore it despite the unpleasantness.

This is what I wanted to quote in the post about deer antlers. Can you guess what the purpose is (without looking it up?)

 

[smcder]

It does seem that consciousness is so pervasive (not just showing up where it might really be needed) and probably reaches down fairly far into the evolutionary path that it either has some real purpose or is a consequence of the biological materials needed. Again this is where phenomenology can come in - or something like Buddhist meditation. As I type this post, a fairly complex action, it's hard to say what my experience is and how it relates to the post. I don't seem to be consciously aware of what I am going to post (and maybe I am changing everything by trying to pay attention to it) just more of a feel (grab that from up here, don't leave that out - with some kinesthetic imagery standing in for a phrase or concept) so yes, that might not be phenomenology but its 100% on point to the question of what role conscious experience plays in our actions.

 

[Randall]

See my post above.

 

[smcder]

You started it. ;-)

 

[Constance]

That is why I also included this:

"Or you could also take an approach that would facilitate a detailed description of experiences in the world as they relate to each other, and other things we have already described. @Constance is already on this path in her fascination with phenomenology."​

I'm beyond being 'fascinated' with phenomenology after decades of reading it, writing a dissertation grounded in it, and discussing consciousness in terms of phenomenology for years, mostly here. The major phenomenological philosophers, and most especially Merleau-Ponty, respond to and illuminate all the questions we have about how to understand the lived nature and complexity of human consciousness and mind in our embedded enactivism in the world that constitutes our situational reality, now and in our recorded past.

 

[Randall]

I'm beyond being 'fascinated' with phenomenology after decades of reading it, writing a dissertation grounded in it, and discussing consciousness in terms of phenomenology for years, mostly here. The major phenomenological philosophers, and most especially Merleau-Ponty, respond to and illuminate all the questions we have about how to understand the lived nature and complexity of human consciousness and mind in our embedded enactivism in the world that constitutes our situational reality, now and in our recorded past.

My use of the word "fascination" was a compliment. Please don't take it as any attempt to diminish your perspective on phenomenology. Would you kindly share or link to your paper ( again if you already have done that someplace ).

 

[Constance]

It does seem that consciousness is so pervasive (not just showing up where it might really be needed) and probably reaches down fairly far into the evolutionary path that it either has some real purpose or is a consequence of the biological materials needed. Again this is where phenomenology can come in - or something like Buddhist meditation. As I type this post, a fairly complex action, it's hard to say what my experience is and how it relates to the post. I don't seem to be consciously aware of what I am going to post (and maybe I am changing everything by trying to pay attention to it) just more of a feel (grab that from up here, don't leave that out - with some kinesthetic imagery standing in for a phrase or concept) so yes, that might not be phenomenology but its 100% on point to the question of what role conscious experience plays in our actions.

MP writes about the way in which we speak or write without fully knowing, fully having worked out, what it is we want to say and then find ourselves expressing what we were stirred or motivated to say, sometimes in more detail than we had previously thought. He also writes about how modern painters don't perform on the canvas a fully pre-conceptualized image they first have in mind conceptually and in the details, the means, by which the painting subsequently becomes expressed. Don't take it from me; you have to read him to get what he's pointing to in the layers of what we don't yet understand about consciousness and expression.

 

[Constance]

My use of the word "fascination" was a compliment. Please don't take it as any attempt to diminish your perspective on phenomenology. Would you kindly share or link to your paper ( again if you already have done that someplace ).

I took no offense in what you wrote, just wanted to clarify my ongoing interest in and deepening satisfaction with phenomenology. What paper do you want me to link?

 

[Soupie]

Why do you need a unified self-experience? There is presumably a physical connection in terms of the nervous system that produces pain and coordinates the response of the organism. In cases of reflex action, this happens locally before the signal gets to the brain the hand is pulled away. And in any case it seems to be that consciousness is constructed afterward. Now that experience should also be instantiated in the nervous system (so the theory goes) and any learning from past experience can then be worked out neurally with the experience itself being irrelevant. If this is not the case, if experience itself is needed to coordinate the organism then the experience itself has to be causal, not the action of the nerves. The phenomenal feeling of pain has to be causal, not just the action of the nerves. That's a problem for any kind of substance/stuffy view, not just physicalism.

The experience is the action of the nerves. Subjective - experience, Interobjective - nerves, objective - ?

there is no duality nor therefore overdetermination.

you keep wanting to say there is neurons action and then this additional phenomenal experience. The are one and the same seen from two different perspectives.

why does the organism need an expediting self model? There are limits to be stimulus response can allow an organism to do. I would say, re Constance, conscious experience always an organism to be a creative force over large spatiotemporally windows.

 

[Randall]

I took no offense in what you wrote, just wanted to clarify my ongoing interest in and deepening satisfaction with phenomenology. What paper do you want me to link?

You mentioned your dissertation. I'm not sure how many others you have. I'm sorry if I missed your mention of academic credentials in past. I attended university but don't have any degrees ( was in a car accident in my final year - nothing special anyway - just Fine Arts & General Studies ). I'm assuming you got a PhD. What in?

 

[Soupie]

In a way, this is similar to any argument that says things get so complicated that there is consciousness. So this assumes that consciousness itself is a simpler way of organizing things - that all this complexity coalesces into simple experience ... like a tornado from a complex weather system - then that feeds back into the system ... maybe consciousness is a kind of information compression - but isn't that access consciousness? (not sure)

Yes, conscious experience is an interface. It presents the organism with an incredibly simplistic perspective of reality.

I was thinking about the fact that at some point in the not to distant past humans knew nothing about the inner workinhs of the body; the nervous system, circulatory system, etc.

From subjective experience our bodies are kind of like puppets. Our arms and legs move at the joints “on our command” and we look directly at the world etc.

We know things are much much more complex than that but we don’t experience it first hand.

there is a plethora of psychiatric literature that chronically unfortunate individuals who have all kinds of quirks of consciousness.

I have a one bookmarked now where a gentleman apparently cannot consciousnly see certain numbers.

 

[Constance]

The experience is the action of the nerves. Subjective - experience, objective - nerves

there is no duality nor therefore overdetermination.

Why is it then that when my dentist has injected novocaine into my gum tissue to shut down the nerves and their responses I continue to have a surfeit, an overflow, of continuing experiences during the procedure he performs. This usually takes the form of a stream of thought I carry on in my mind about other things, other places, whatever, intermittently disturbed by having to guard against the dental tech drowning me in a flood of rinsing (don't swallow) and similar discomforts almost too minor to mention, and always returning to my stream of consciousness pursuing the subject I set for it at the outset.

 

[Soupie]

A man who can't see numbers provides new insight into awareness

By studying an individual with an extremely rare brain anomaly that prevents him from seeing certain numbers, Johns Hopkins University researchers provided new evidence that a robust brain response to something like a face or a word does not mean a person is aware of it.

medicalxpress.com

I didn’t read it yet.

 

[Randall]

Yes, conscious experience is an interface.

No argument there. Sorry to have to ask, but since I'll be reviewing some of @Constance's writings, can you please re-post another link to any paper(s) of yours that describe your present view. Same for you @smcder ( if you have any ). I don't have any such papers for myself. The subject has been too fluid for me to think anything I would put into a fixed record wouldn't need revisions by the time I was done. But perhaps some sort of summary might be in order ( not that anyone would care. ).

 

[Soupie]

Why is it then that when my dentist has injected novocaine into my gum tissue to shut down the nerves and their responses I continue to have a surfeit, an overflow, of continuing experiences during the procedure he performs. This usually takes the form of a stream of thought I carry on in my mind about other things, other places, whatever, intermittently disturbed by having to guard against the dental tech drowning me in a flood of rinsing (don't swallow) and similar discomforts almost too minor to mention, and always returning to my stream of consciousness pursuing the subject I set for it at the outset.

If he injected the novocaine into your brain—anesthesia—your organism would cease instantiating a self-model and this your conscious experience would cease, as well as your ability to create self memories.

 

[Constance]

You mentioned your dissertation. I'm not sure how many others you have. I'm sorry if I missed your mention of academic credentials in past. I attended university but don't have any degrees ( was in a car accident in my final year - nothing special anyway - just Fine Arts & General Studies ). I'm assuming you got a PhD. What in?

In literature and philosophy, mentored by the phenomenologist in the Dept of Philosophy {note to Steve: that was Kaelin}. Nobody writes more than one dissertation unless they're pursuing degrees in several fields. The diss is probably still available from the national archive of dissertations at a university I've forgotten the name of, (perhaps U of Michigan) and would have to be purchased in a bound hard copy. Gene Kaelin also asked me to write a paper based in the diss to publish in the Analecta Husserliana, and I think that's available for purchase online at Springer. If you want to read in phenomenology, however, I'd recommend texts I've linked here over the years or to some introductions to phenomenology published by a number of philosophers.

 

[Soupie]

Why do you need a unified self-experience? There is presumably a physical connection in terms of the nervous system that produces pain and coordinates the response of the organism. In cases of reflex action, this happens locally before the signal gets to the brain the hand is pulled away. And in any case it seems to be that consciousness is constructed afterward. Now that experience should also be instantiated in the nervous system (so the theory goes) and any learning from past experience can then be worked out neurally with the experience itself being irrelevant.

This is what I meant about people not fully realizing what it means when it is said everything your are experiencing right now via perception and introspection is a model being instantiated by your transcendent organism.

the you experiencing all this is part of the model.

there is no duality of brain processes and experience. There is a brain processes that embody a model of an experiencing self.

Bach and Dennett would privilege the inter subjective “onject” world. They would say there “really” is only neural activity. The experiencing self is an illusion or virtual.

one could see that argument bc for me personally my self experience goes away at night and the two times I’ve had to go under. So it does seem that the “objective” world is primary and my conscious self experience is derivative.

however, I understand that the objective world of neurons and atoms is also a model. So I don’t really know what’s out there beyond my subjective perspective on the world.

that’s one reason I’ve shied away from panpsychism as of late. I think reality beyond our physics models and folk experiences is even stranger than we can imagine.

 

[Constance]

If he injected the novocaine into your brain—anesthesia—your organism would cease instantiating a self-model and this your conscious experience would cease, as well as your ability to create self memories.

So my 'self-model' [where is that again?] has the experiences and stream of consciousness I have taken to be mine all these years? It's my self-model that wrote poetry, studied literature and philosophy, moved from Wisconsin to Florida and continued to study literature and philosophy, shopped for groceries and cooked dinner, made love with my husband, gave birth, directed the development of a university press for 15 years, later edited legislation for another 15 years for the Florida Senate, and oh, almost forgot, sometime back before the Senate job had to escape the marital home for three months back in Wisconsin to protect our three-year-old child from the guy that soon became my ex. Sorry but I find the whole premise to be absurd. I was there for all that and more. I know what happened. I remember all of it in sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying, detail.

 

[Soupie]

So my 'self-model' [where is that again?] has the experiences and stream of consciousness I have taken to be mine all these years? It's my self-model that wrote poetry, studied literature and philosophy, moved from Wisconsin to Florida and continued to study literature and philosophy, shopped for groceries and cooked dinner, made love with my husband, gave birth, directed the development of a university press for 15 years, later edited legislation for another 15 years for the Florida Senate, and oh, almost forgot, sometime back before the Senate job had to escape the marital home for three months back in Wisconsin to protect our three-year-old child from the guy that soon became my ex. Sorry but I find the whole premise to be absurd. I was there for all that and more. I know what happened. I remember all of it in sometimes beautiful, sometimes terrifying, detail.

>> So my 'self-model' [where is that again?] has the experiences and stream of consciousness I have taken to be mine all these years?

No, your self-model IS your experience and your stream of consciousness.

It is instantiated by the physiological processes of your body, mostly your brain.

where is it? That’s kind of tricky. It’s instantiated by your brain—if you mess with your brain, your model (your phenomenology) will be effected. So we could say it’s “in” your brain. But that creates a duality and isn’t correct.

it’s more eaxact to say it IS your brain (processes).

But where is consciousness really? It’s within the umwelt. It’s within our subjective perspective of/on the world. That’s “where” it is.

 

[Constance]

Here's a review by Galen Strawson of Nicholas Humphrey's book entitled Soul Dust, published in 2011 --

Soul Dust by Nicholas Humphrey – review