Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[Soupie]

So how would you describe the basketball incident without the term conceptual/non? And how do you control for the experience vs the memory of the experience? What you relate is your latest memory of the incident - how do you know it's not different from the actual experience you describe as non conceptual? For example, maybe you believe intense moments are remembered in this way and so you end up forgetting aspects of the experience that conflict with that belief?

My first thought as to say: I wasn't thinking. And I recalled that Keller had said she didn't "think" until she had language.

When the players were fighting I was simply watching and listening. Afterward, I was thinking about what I had just seen and heard.

 

[smcder]

My first thought as to say: I wasn't thinking. And I recalled that Keller had said she didn't "think" until she had language.

When the players were fighting I was simply watching and listening. Afterward, I was thinking about what I had just seen and heard.

Thinking with words? Do you only have concepts with words? How about categories? This link discusses the Buddhist idea of non conceptual thinking ... It also shows a dog has categories: human, other dog, food ... Domestic dogs have many more - but maybe they do have words.

Developing the Mind Based on Buddha-Nature – Session Three: Conceptual and Nonconceptual Cognition

How do you control for memory in the above experience? If you set a random alert and reported at that instant - would that be any more reliable? A memory has to be constructed for you to respond to the alert.

I always wondered what effect gaining language had on Keller 's memory of life without language? I have what I think are early memories and I remember for example being unable to understand the moon was outside the earth or miscroscopic particles - I thought you could see everything - also I remember a little learning to read ( I has this experience as an adult with foreign language) I also have memories of things that never happened to me and things I still don't know if they are dreams - a tricky thing memory

 

[smcder]

rl=Developing the Mind Based on Buddha-Nature – Session Three: Conceptual and Nonconceptual Cognition

To me this is a very good explanation of freedom/liberation of the mind - responding vs reacting - being involved in the world without attachment and therefore without suffering. ...


"Does a Buddha Only Have Pleasant Contacting Awareness?

But first I’d like to answer a question that was asked during the break, which is a very good question. It was asked: if a Buddha has these ever-functioning mental factors, then does a Buddha only have pleasant contacting awareness? The answer is yes, but we need to understand that when a Buddha sees or knows of someone who is suffering very badly, it isn’t that a Buddha is, “Oh, I’m so happy” and sees it joyfully. It’s not nice for a Buddha to see this. I mean, a Buddha doesn’t find it nice to see others suffering.

But again we have to go back to what I explained is the actual meaning of this word that I’ve been translating as “pleasant”: it comes to the mind. Meaning it comes easily and comfortably to the mind. When many of us see people who are intensely suffering – like someone who is bleeding on the street from an accident, or an old senile person with Alzheimer’s disease – that doesn’t come easily or nicely to our minds. We don’t want to deal with it. We want to shut it out and run away; it’s too difficult to deal with. Whereas, for a Buddha, when he sees someone like this it comes easily to the mind, in the sense that, yes, he wants to be involved and wants to help. It’s not that he feels delighted and happy. We see that there’s a difference here. In general, a Buddha’s happy all the time, but he’s not happy that you’re suffering (if you can make that difference in Russian). Okay?"

 

[smcder]

In my opinion, based on what I've learned and experienced, the human brain generates the human mind. To me there is no question that prior to having a brain, an organism does not have a mind; and as an organism's brain develops, so too does the mind. Furthermore, as one's brain deteriorates so too does their mind; and/or if the brain is damaged, so too is the mind. Furthermore, when the brain ceases to function "normally" such as when one is in a coma, knocked out, sleeping, or using drugs, the mind ceases to function normally as well.

So for me, this is primary: the brain realizes the mind. As goes the brain, so goes the mind. While they are distinct, they are directly linked.

On the other hand, I take NDEs and OBEs very seriously. Past lives as well. However, descriptions of these experiences in no way cause me to believe that human minds are actually discarnate and non-local i.e. not generated by the human brain.

Thus, I think there are other explanations for these phenomena; explanations that we would currently consider paranormal. Perhaps when we have a better understanding of how the brain realizes consciousness, the relation between physical structures and informational structures, and (quantum) physics, NDEs and OBEs will no longer be paranormal but only normal phenomena.

It seems to me that your position is the opposite of mine: You take OBEs, NDEs, and past lives to be primary, and thus try to understand consciousness secondarily.

Anything we know is through consciousness and memory, right?

So it seems we could run this discussion the other direction - what I mean is that instead of trying to say or predict how the mind works, which so far seems to be self fulfilling prophecy or confirmation bias where consciousness is concerned ... what tests can we make to see if the "hardware" and "software" are actually linked?

@Soupie - what is the explanation you give for CBT exercises changing the brain in terms of the brain generating that conscious decision in the first place? In other words how do you answer those who say my ( non physical) decision caused my brain to physically change?

Is science designed around replicable events? Does it only capture what can be predicted and repeated, things that follow rules?

If so, does it make sense to ask how do we perceive the unpredictable? Aren't there one-offs? One time events? Things that simply happen only one time? It seems conceivable. What we mark off as outliers, no one goes back to look for patterns in outliers because it's expensive and inefficient? We file drawer those experiments and sometimes could whole fields open up from these files, given someone obsessive and well funded? Are we in other words only getting the science we can afford or deserve?

Any intelligence greater or equal but very different from ours of course might produce these effects .

So could we set up experiments that look for signs of a truly different kind of intelligence? Like Cryptoterresterials only using cognitive cloaking - what if everyone evolved a double who used our brain too and inter layered their responses to all the other others and maybe they don't know about us either but maybe they do but can't separate from us and so are painfully aware of the limits to free will we impose whereas we are only aware to some degree until we do something inexplicable - if we even notice?

That's pretty much the theory of the subconscious and personality generally, do the planets really inhabited by 14 or 21 billion people or more. Why does psychotherapy only set the one goal of unification? For purposes of population control?

Stanislaw Lem imagined truly alien intelligences - an intelligent ocean in Solaris for example - when the scientists conducted experiments the results were incomprehensible, is cosmic habituation a related concept? Has the decline effect been replicated? Is it the positive result of an experiment that asks if nature is unpredictable? What if we ask the question whether the answer to any question posed to nature depends on how it's asked plus am arbitrary factor? Is that why there are problems with replicability and consensus?

 

[Soupie]

First, Tye lists ten problems of phenomenal consciousness, such as ownership (feelings are private to an individual, i.e. "why can't anyebody else feel my feelings?"

@Soupie said: That like someone asking why a trumpet makes a trumpet sound and not a flute sound.

@Constance said: The analogy is not clarifying anything for me.

This is an important question, as my answer is connected to a cornerstone of my thinking re consciousness.

While dull-bladed @smcder won't admit it, ( wink ) he seems to subscribe prefer to not have ruled out the "radio" model of consciousness, and you as well. This view is the antithesis of the "generation" theory, which I prefer.

That is, the two of you seem to hold that human minds are non local and merely corralte with the brain. This, the brain is like a radio which receives the mind from some unknown locale.

If this is indeed the case, then it's fair to ask: why does Soupie feel his feelings and not Constance's feelings? Why does Constance receive her mind and not the mind of a tit mouse?

I reject the radio model and prefer the generation model. On this model, the brain and mind aren't merely correlated, but the mind is produced/generated by the brain.

Moreover, the brain does not generate phenomenal experiences which additionally a homunculus mind then experiences. Rather, the brain generates a stream of experiences which constitute the mind. (There are other mental structures that the brain generates in addition to phenomenal experiences, such as concepts.)

On this view, it's silly to ask why Soupie feels his feelings and not Smcder's feelings. The answer is: because I am my feelings. That is, once a brain generates experiences, there is no additional steps needed for realization. These feelings don't need to be "experienced" by some additional, mental homunculus; these feelings aren't waiting to be felt by me, you, or someone else. These feelings are a mental self unto themselves.

Thus, I use the analogy of the musical instruments:

On the radio model, a trumpet is like a speaker, not an instrument. So the speaker will emit whichever sounds are sent to it from a non-local location.

On the generation model, the sounds the trumpet emits are generated locally, by the trumpet itself.

So while it makes sense to ask: why does that speaker emit sound A and not sound B. We wouldn't ask the same question about a trumpet: why does a trumpet emit a trumpet sound and not a flute sound? Answer: because it's a trumpet and not a flute.

Likewise with brains and feelings: why does Soupie's brain emit Soupie's mind and not Constance's mind? Because it's Soupie's brain and not Constance's brain.

 

[Soupie]

First, Tye lists ten problems of phenomenal consciousness, such as ownership (feelings are private to an individual, i.e. "why can't anyebody else feel my feelings?"

I'm anticipating some confusion, so here's more:

Why can't I feel Smcder's feelings?

Answer: Because brains don't feel feelings, they make them!

Once my brain generates the feeling of anger, this feeling does not need to be "felt" by my brain nor some mental, Soupie homunculus. Once my brain generates anger, that's it. That's my anger. That anger is me, my mental me. I am anger.

This anger can't therefore float over to smcder so his brain can "feel" it, if my brain doesn't feel it, his certainly won't either. Furthermore, this anger won't float over to smcder so some mental, smcder homunculus can "feel" my feeling.

My feeling is. It stands alone.

 

[Soupie]

I think therefore I am.

Why isn't there an equivalent: I feel therefore I am?

"I" is a concept, and without the conceptual mind, there is no awareness of the nonconceptual mind.

Nonconceptual mind = animal nature. Conceptual mind = spiritual nature.

 

[smcder]

I'm anticipating some confusion, so here's more:

Why can't I feel Smcder's feelings?

Answer: Because brains don't feel feelings, they make them!

Once my brain generates the feeling of anger, this feeling does not need to be "felt" by my brain nor some mental, Soupie homunculus. Once my brain generates anger, that's it. That's my anger. That anger is me, my mental me. I am anger.

This anger can't therefore float over to smcder so his brain can "feel" it, if my brain doesn't feel it, his certainly won't either. Furthermore, this anger won't float over to smcder so some mental, smcder homunculus can "feel" my feeling.

My feeling is. It stands alone.

How do you deal with cases in which people report experiencing/ receiving others thought and emotions?

 

[smcder]

I think therefore I am.

Why isn't there an equivalent: I feel therefore I am?

"I" is a concept, and without the conceptual mind, there is no awareness of the nonconceptual mind.

Nonconceptual mind = animal nature. Conceptual mind = spiritual nature.

"Why isn't there an equivalent: I feel therefore I am?"

Because Aristotle includes it in his original formulation of the idea. Descartes applies it to everything that enters his awareness.

How are you making the move to spiritual nature from conceptual mind?

 

[smcder]

This is an important question, as my answer is connected to a cornerstone of my thinking re consciousness.

While dull-bladed @smcder won't admit it, ( wink ) he seems to subscribe prefer to not have ruled out the "radio" model of consciousness, and you as well. This view is the antithesis of the "generation" theory, which I prefer.

That is, the two of you seem to hold that human minds are non local and merely corralte with the brain. This, the brain is like a radio which receives the mind from some unknown locale.

If this is indeed the case, then it's fair to ask: why does Soupie feel his feelings and not Constance's feelings? Why does Constance receive her mind and not the mind of a tit mouse?

I reject the radio model and prefer the generation model. On this model, the brain and mind aren't merely correlated, but the mind is produced/generated by the brain.

Moreover, the brain does not generate phenomenal experiences which additionally a homunculus mind then experiences. Rather, the brain generates a stream of experiences which constitute the mind. (There are other mental structures that the brain generates in addition to phenomenal experiences, such as concepts.)

On this view, it's silly to ask why Soupie feels his feelings and not Smcder's feelings. The answer is: because I am my feelings. That is, once a brain generates experiences, there is no additional steps needed for realization. These feelings don't need to be "experienced" by some additional, mental homunculus; these feelings aren't waiting to be felt by me, you, or someone else. These feelings are a mental self unto themselves.

Thus, I use the analogy of the musical instruments:

On the radio model, a trumpet is like a speaker, not an instrument. So the speaker will emit whichever sounds are sent to it from a non-local location.

On the generation model, the sounds the trumpet emits are generated locally, by the trumpet itself.

So while it makes sense to ask: why does that speaker emit sound A and not sound B. We wouldn't ask the same question about a trumpet: why does a trumpet emit a trumpet sound and not a flute sound? Answer: because it's a trumpet and not a flute.

Likewise with brains and feelings: why does Soupie's brain emit Soupie's mind and not Constance's mind? Because it's Soupie's brain and not Constance's brain.

Remember, I don't hold a particular theory of consciousness.

In this case, I don't think it has to be either-or between the two theories, some could be generated, some received.

Some parts of self, the "I" could be local, that's efficient - some parts received - that seems to match some transcendent experiences. At death, maybe the local "I" dies.

See "big mind", mental fabrications, consciousness stream, Akashic record.

The analogy is the Mars Rover with local control for immediate reaction to the environment but connected to NASA for overall guidance and receiving data in case the rover is destroyed.

 

[Soupie]

How do you deal with cases in which people report experiencing/ receiving others thought and emotions?

If you could direct me to some documentation of this, I'd appreciate it.

Entertaining the idea in light of my "model," I'd guess it was a form of extra sensory communication. That is, one wouldn't feeling another persons feelings or thinking another persons thoughts, rather, one may be receiving information about another's thoughts and feelings via a currently nonunderstood manner.

An analogy might be that two flutes could become "equally resonated" with one another. (Ha, I'm not sure what the correct phrase is.) However, each flute would still be generating its own sound, though the sounds are isomorphic.

 

[Soupie]

"Why isn't there an equivalent: I feel therefore I am?"

Because Aristotle includes it in his original formulation of the idea. Descartes applies it to everything that enters his awareness.

How are you making the move to spiritual nature from conceptual mind?

It is the conceptual, autobiographical, creative, narrative-making mind that allows humans to spiritually transcend objective, physical reality.

When our phenomenal experience transcends the capacity of our conceptual mind, one can be said to have a spiritual experience.

This happens to me all the time with physical beauty.

 

[Soupie]

Remember, I don't hold a particular theory of consciousness.

In this case, I don't think it has to be either-or between the two theories, some could be generated, some received.

Some parts of self, the "I" could be local, that's efficient - some parts received - that seems to match some transcendent experiences. At death, maybe the local "I" dies.

See "big mind", mental fabrications, consciousness stream, Akashic record.

The analogy is the Mars Rover with local control for immediate reaction to the environment but connected to NASA for overall guidance and receiving data in case the rover is destroyed.

A fascinating idea, indeed! But who controls the controllers? (Let me guess: no one controls the controllers. This is akin to: god created us because, but no one created god... because.)

It is an interesting idea though!

Langan asserts in his theory that the universe (ie god) preserves the immaterial souls/minds of humans upon death of the physical (material) body.

I think it's possible that the immaterial information generated by the material body can be recorded. However, it needs to be recorded in a material substrate.

 

[Soupie]

There are many schools of thought and reports by various people that reality as we know it is a facade.

The "I" is primary, while everything else is secondary. But what is this "I?"

 

[Pharoah]

Hello again,
I have written a reply for Constance regarding the Mary Argument. As it is 2,900 words, I thought it too long to post here so have posted it at Jackson Mary Argument | HCT | Philosophy of Consciousness Hope that is ok.

Also,
soupie asked
"To clarify, can you provide some micro and macro examples of both emergent phenomena and emergent properties? Struggling to think of any emergent macro properties."
I will be preparing a decent reply to this over the next week or so. I am going away again but will try to respond to any queries in the meantime. I am sorry in advance if I don't respond but the internet will be rubbish where I am going.

 

[Burnt State]

What we know in what we see, what we feel in what
We hear, what we are, beyond mystic disputation,
In the tumult of integrations out of the sky,

And what we think, a breathing like the wind,
A moving part of a motion, a discovery
Part of a discovery, a change part of a change,

A sharing of color and being part of it.
The afternoon is visibly a source,
Too wide, too irised, to be more than calm,

Too much like thinking to be less than thought,
Obscurest parent, obscurest patriarch,
A daily majesty of meditation,

That comes and goes in silences of its own.
We think, then as the sun shines or does not.
We think as wind skitters on a pond in a field

Or we put mantles on our words because
The same wind, rising and rising, makes a sound
Like the last muting of winter as it ends.

A new scholar replacing an older one reflects
A moment on this fantasia. He seeks
For a human that can be accounted for.

The spirit comes from the body of the world,
Or so Mr. Homburg thought: the body of a world
Whose blunt laws make an affectation of mind,

The mannerism of nature caught in a glass
And there become a spirit's mannerism,
A glass aswarm with things going as far as they can.

Sorry, this is a total drive by comment but i felt a little compelled to respond to all the excellent writing here, even though I'm only at the bottom of page 2. You all bring such great clarity, wit, sincerity and personality to the thread. It's a rarity on the forum to have such a succession of strength in your critical observations of reality. So many times I have felt reflected and engaged, as you define a number of the ongoing perplexing challenges and experiences in this life. Good writing lets you see your own narrative riding alongside its descriptiongs and the ideas you present about meaning, about our process & practice resound with familiarity.

Life is a daily mediation for me because without Buddhist precepts to practice and keep myself steady I think I would not be entirely up to negotiating all the trauma, struggle and strain experienced by everyone including me. I find family to provide strong motivations to be and be better. Though at the end of the day, despite death, disease and desire I still might give in to thinking about living in places like Palestine, Serbia, Rwanda when their violent tragedy is/was exploding. A sad comment and even exploitative but i can't deny my western privilege and it's own nihilist/absurdist reality. Still, some close external stimuli can produce emotions that are tricky and that's where the precepts help a lot, and I can use them to create a steadiness then for those nearby who might need it.

Constance, thanks so much for all the Wallace Stevens' paraphernalia you've been littering this forum with, it really spruces up the place. As a UFO/paranormal crossover, the mind will never be satisfied because we will really never know it as we can't know those transparent weavings of nature. Even though, from what I read in the poem, we are a part of nature, thinking subtly as it does (or we can mantle our words with proclamations, name things and account for them as well) but that because of our blunt laws & mantled words we have turned our own thoughts & spirit into something limited, aswarm in a glass jar, going only so far as it can, like this thread, though the firelies are wonderful to read as they scrawl & swim inside this glass matrix. You all do a very fine job of pushing at margins.

& thanks Steven for that notion of being known by the interlocutors - a very powerful way of making work life authentic, also a good answer to what can still be the drudgery of existing. Oddly enough I feel comfortably buffered by the insect buzz, bird call chorus & the crippled flight of butterflies through the trees and flowers that surround me at this moment. No words, thoughts or emotions needed at all really.

 

[Constance]

Thanks for these comments, Burnt. I'm very glad that you find the discussions in this thread valuable and that you also appreciate the quotations from Wallace Stevens's poetry that I sometimes drop in. I love to bring his rich, rewarding, and ramifying poetry into places where his thinking is relevant and people can enjoy its complex poetic qualities and insights into the phenomenology of consciousness.

 

[Constance]

Burnt, you might enjoy this introductory chapter of J. Hillis Miller's Poets of Reality, which follows five major modern poets, including Stevens, in their thinking beyond nihilism, dualism, and objectivism in exploring the nature of reality as given to embodied consciousness.

http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1308144.files/February 3/Poetry of Reality.pdf

 

[smcder]

If you could direct me to some documentation of this, I'd appreciate it.

Entertaining the idea in light of my "model," I'd guess it was a form of extra sensory communication. That is, one wouldn't feeling another persons feelings or thinking another persons thoughts, rather, one may be receiving information about another's thoughts and feelings via a currently nonunderstood manner.

An analogy might be that two flutes could become "equally resonated" with one another. (Ha, I'm not sure what the correct phrase is.) However, each flute would still be generating its own sound, though the sounds are isomorphic.

Links to documentation are throughout this thread.

 

[smcder]

A fascinating idea, indeed! But who controls the controllers? (Let me guess: no one controls the controllers. This is akin to: god created us because, but no one created god... because.)

It is an interesting idea though!

Langan asserts in his theory that the universe (ie god) preserves the immaterial souls/minds of humans upon death of the physical (material) body.

I think it's possible that the immaterial information generated by the material body can be recorded. However, it needs to be recorded in a material substrate.

"fascinating idea, indeed! But who controls the controllers? (Let me guess: no one controls the controllers. This is akin to: god created us because, but no one created god... because"

You might enjoy and benefit from reading a little in the history of philosophy and theology - the "because" is fleshed out a bit. And the problem of existence stands whether there is a God or not - Big Bang or any singularity has to deal with this "because".

The Puzzle of Existence: Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? (Routledge Studies in Metaphysics):Amazon:Books

A series of reviews can be found here:

Introducing The Puzzle of Existence | The Prosblogion