Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[smcder]

Those two are actually a handy reference for the possible positions along with Chalmers' taxonomy:

Consciousness and its Place in Nature

 

[smcder]

Consciousness and its Place in Nature

F-type monism from Chalmers ... I don't see:

Mental = Information = Immaterial

"At the same time, there is another metaphysical problem: how can phenomenal properties be integrated with the physical world? Phenomenal properties seem to be intrinsic properties that are hard to fit in with the structural/dynamic character of physical theory; and arguably, they are the only intrinsic properties that we have direct knowledge of. Russell's insight was that we might solve both these problems at once. Perhaps the intrinsic properties of the physical world are themselves phenomenal properties. Or perhaps the intrinsic properties of the physical world are not phenomenal properties, but nevertheless constitute phenomenal properties: that is, perhaps they are protophenomenal properties. If so, then consciousness and physical reality are deeply intertwined.

This view holds the promise of integrating phenomenal and physical properties very tightly in the natural world. Here, nature consists of entities with intrinsic (proto)phenomenal qualities standing in causal relations within a spacetime manifold. Physics as we know it emerges from the relations between these entities, whereas consciousness as we know it emerges from their intrinsic nature. As a bonus, this view is perfectly compatible with the causal closure of the microphysical, and indeed with existing physical laws. The view can retain the structure of physical theory as it already exists; it simply supplements this structure with an intrinsic nature. And the view acknowledges a clear causal role for consciousness in the physical world: (proto)phenomenal properties serve as the ultimate categorical basis of all physical causation.

This view has elements in common with both materialism and dualism. From one perspective, it can be seen as a sort of materialism. If one holds that physical terms refer not to dispositional properties but the underlying intrinsic properties, then the protophenomenal properties can be seen as physical properties, thus preserving a sort of materialism. From another perspective, it can be seen as a sort of dualism. The view acknowledges phenomenal or protophenomenal properties as ontologically fundamental, and it retains an underlying duality between structural-dispositional properties (those directly characterized in physical theory) and intrinsic protophenomenal properties (those responsible for consciousness). One might suggest that while the view arguably fits the letter of materialism, it shares the spirit of antimaterialism.

In its protophenomenal form, the view can be seen as a sort of neutral monism: there are underlying neutral properties X (the protophenomenal properties), such that the X properties are simultaneously responsible for constituting the physical domain (by their relations) and the phenomenal domain (by their collective intrinsic nature). In its phenomenal form, can be seen as a sort of idealism, such that mental properties constitute physical properties, although these need not be mental properties in the mind of an observer, and they may need to be supplemented by causal and spatiotemporal properties in addition. One could also characterize this form of the view as a sort of panpsychism, with phenomenal properties ubiquitous at the fundamental level. One could give the view in its most general form the name panprotopsychism, with either protophenomenal or phenomenal properties underlying all of physical reality."

 

[Constance]

"With admirable arrogance, it is the question of being that Heidegger sets himself the task of inquiring into in Being and Time. He begins with a series of rhetorical questions . . .

Still catching up in this thread. Is that Critchley you're quoting?

 

[smcder]

Now, the combination problem:

"There is one sort of principled problem in the vicinity. Our phenomenology has a rich and specific structure: it is unified, bounded, differentiated into many different aspects, but with an underlying homogeneity to many of the aspects, and appears to have a single subject of experience. It is not easy to see how a distribution of a large number of individual microphysical systems, each with their own protophenomenal properties, could somehow add up to this rich and specific structure. Should one not expect something more like a disunified, jagged collection of phenomenal spikes?

This is a version of what James called the combination problem for panpsychism, or what Stoljar (2001) calls the structural mismatch problem for the Russellian view (see also Foster 1991, pp. 119-30). To answer it, it seems that we need a much better understanding of the compositional principles of phenomenology: that is, the principles by which phenomenal properties can be composed or constituted from underlying phenomenal properties, or protophenomenal properties. We have a good understanding of the principles of physical composition, but no real understanding of the principles of phenomenal composition. This is an area that deserves much close attention: I think it is easily the most serious problem for the type-F monist view. At this point, it is an open question whether or not the problem can be solved.

Some type-F monists appear to hold that they can avoid the combination problem by holding that phenomenal properties are the intrinsic properties of high-level physical dispositions (e.g., those involved in neural states), and need not be constituted by the intrinsic properties of microphysical states (hence they may also deny panprotopsychism). But this seems to be untenable: if the low-level network is causally closed and the high-level intrinsic properties are not constituted by low-level intrinsic properties, the high-level intrinsic properties will be epiphenomenal all over again, for familiar reasons. The only way to embrace this position would seem to be in combination with a denial of microphysical causal closure, holding that there are fundamental dispositions above the microphysical level, which have phenomenal properties as their grounds. But such a view would be indistinguishable from type-D dualism.[*] So a distinctive type-F monism will have to face the combination problem directly."

So, what we are looking for is principles of phenomenal composition which Chalmers says we have no real understanding of this ...

Clearly the rules of phenomenal and physical composition have to result in minds and bodies that work and work together - and are grounded in physical reality in order to survive and have to allow enough freedom for rationality to operate (Searle, right?) so
the contents of our minds can be no more arbitrary than our bodies but if our bodies on evolutionary theory are shaped by physical contingency ... Well, Nagel challenges this point in Mind and Cosmos:

"So the physical sciences, in spite of their extraordinary success in their own domain, necessarily leave an important aspect of nature unexplained. Further, since the mental arises through the development of animal organisms, the nature of those organisms cannot be fully understood through the physical sciences alone. Finally, since the long process of biological evolution is responsible for the existence of conscious organisms, and since a purely physical process cannot explain their existence, it follows that biological evolution must be more than just a physical process, and the theory of evolution, if it is to explain the existence of conscious life, must become more than just a physical theory."

And then he commits the further heresy of reintroducing teleology into the discussion!

Where Thomas Nagel Went Wrong - The Chronicle of Higher Education

So, that's why I say the combination problem just shifts the hard problem around and why the CRpP theory leaves so much to be desired.

 

[smcder]

Still catching up in this thread. Is that Critchley you're quoting?

Yes sorry - from here:

Being and Time, part 2: On 'mineness' | Simon Critchley | Comment is free | theguardian.com

 

[Soupie]

Everything is

"... ultimately grounded in a single class of property - the intrinsic properties of physical entities."

That's the point of monism ... So, be patient with me, but where is the immaterial in a monistic philosophy in which everything is ultimately grounded in one kind of entity?

Is information a phenomenal property? If so it's a property ultimately of physical entities ...

Isn't that the whole basis of the combination problem?

First of all, I'm not even going to attempt to wade through the terminological train wreck that is the discussion of intrinsic vs extrinsic/relational properties. Ultimately these are labels/concepts that might not have a direct correlation to reality.

For instance, is mass an intrinsic or extrinsic/relational property? So, I can't say whether information is an intrinsic property of the primary substance. Based on this philosophical definition from Wikipedia, it might be:

An intrinsic property is a property that an object or a thing has of itself, independently of other things, including its context.

If a physical substance exists, then it's state of existence (information) will exist as well.

I'm thinking of something like a traffic light: if the light is in the physical state of being green, then it will also have the informational property of being green; if the light is in the physical state of being red, then it will also have the informational property of being red.

So, information may be the intrinsic property of the primal substance, while it's physical properties may be extrinsic. Perhaps the primal substance is information (although I haven't worked that out conceptually, but I believe some mathematicians and physicists have argued this).

But the information would be proto-phenomenal. Information isn't just phenomenal as is. It would need to be combined (or integrated) in specific ways to realize phenomenal experience/mind.

But since information is intrinsic and ontologically fundamental, mental/mind (although in a proto phenomenal form) can be considered to be fundamental as well (panprotopsychism).

How do material organisms integrate immaterial information (the proto-phenomenal) in such a way that phenomenal consciousness is realized? No one knows.

Don't get me wrong: the idea that the mind is constituted of immaterial information is bizarre and nearly impossible to conceptualize. When an organism (temporal, differentiated cluster of particles) is holding a relatively small, round sphere (temporal, differentiated cluster of particles) the information exchanged between these two differentiated systems realizes the phenomenal experience of a young man holding a red apple.

 

[Constance]

@Constance:

Part 2 of Critchley's series:

Being and Time, part 2: On 'mineness' | Simon Critchley | Comment is free | theguardian.com

... Is he right?

"Regardless of the twin modes of authenticity and inauthenticity, Heidegger insists early in Being and Time that the human being must first be presented in its indifferent character, prior to any choice to be authentic or not. In words that soon become a mantra in the book, Heidegger seeks to describe the human being as it presented "most closely and mostly" (Zunächst und Zumeist).

Note the radical nature of this initial move: philosophy is not some otherworldly speculation as to whether the external world exists or whether the other human-looking creatures around me are really human and not robots or some such. Rather, philosophy begins with the description – what Heidegger calls "phenomenology" – of human beings in their average everyday existence. It seeks to derive certain common structures from that everydayness.

But we should note the difficult of the task that Heidegger has set himself. That which is closest and most obvious to us is fiendishly difficult to describe. Nothing is closer to me than myself in my average, indifferent everyday existence, but how to describe this? Heidegger was fond of quoting St Augustine's Confessions, when the latter writes, "Assuredly I labour here and I labour within myself; I have become to myself a land of trouble and inordinate sweat." Heidegger indeed means trouble and one often sweats through these pages. But the moments of revelation are breathtaking in their obviousness."

I think I can see my way in to Heidegger now ... Going to order a copy ... Critchley says:

"... Macquarrie and Robinson, in their 1962 Blackwell English edition, produced one of the classics of modern philosophical translation ..."

Do you have a translation you recommend?

Ah, I see in this next post that it is Critchley. You ask me if he is 'right' in these little blogs in the Guardian. I don't think so, based on these snippets, but I would have to read a longer work on B&T by Critchley to comment. Critchley is an analytical philosopher who has dipped to some extent into phenomenology. How far he gets in it remains to be seen. He wrote a small book on Stevens's poetry, entitled Things Merely Are, which I found inadequate to the poetry. He's written another that I haven't yet read. He's by no means anyone's best guide to Heidegger based on what I've read of him so far. The translation of B&T he recommended is probably the best one available. It also helps to read a scholarly commentary on/explication of B&T alongside that work. I recommend the one by E.F.Kaelin, who was my mentor in phenomenology and my dissertation on Stevens's poetry as phenomenological poetry. It's linked here:



It's also available online at Questia, where you can read the table of contents and preface in a preview before joining. Questia is well worth joining for the texts it makes available in philosophy.

Read Heidegger's Being and Time: A Reading for Readers - 1988 by E. F. Kaelin. | Questia, Your Online Research Library

 

[Constance]

Now, the combination problem:

"There is one sort of principled problem in the vicinity. Our phenomenology has a rich and specific structure: it is unified, bounded, differentiated into many different aspects, but with an underlying homogeneity to many of the aspects, and appears to have a single subject of experience. It is not easy to see how a distribution of a large number of individual microphysical systems, each with their own protophenomenal properties, could somehow add up to this rich and specific structure. Should one not expect something more like a disunified, jagged collection of phenomenal spikes?

This is a version of what James called the combination problem for panpsychism, or what Stoljar (2001) calls the structural mismatch problem for the Russellian view (see also Foster 1991, pp. 119-30). To answer it, it seems that we need a much better understanding of the compositional principles of phenomenology: that is, the principles by which phenomenal properties can be composed or constituted from underlying phenomenal properties, or protophenomenal properties. We have a good understanding of the principles of physical composition, but no real understanding of the principles of phenomenal composition. This is an area that deserves much close attention: I think it is easily the most serious problem for the type-F monist view. At this point, it is an open question whether or not the problem can be solved.

Some type-F monists appear to hold that they can avoid the combination problem by holding that phenomenal properties are the intrinsic properties of high-level physical dispositions (e.g., those involved in neural states), and need not be constituted by the intrinsic properties of microphysical states (hence they may also deny panprotopsychism). But this seems to be untenable: if the low-level network is causally closed and the high-level intrinsic properties are not constituted by low-level intrinsic properties, the high-level intrinsic properties will be epiphenomenal all over again, for familiar reasons. The only way to embrace this position would seem to be in combination with a denial of microphysical causal closure, holding that there are fundamental dispositions above the microphysical level, which have phenomenal properties as their grounds. But such a view would be indistinguishable from type-D dualism.[*] So a distinctive type-F monism will have to face the combination problem directly."

So, what we are looking for is principles of phenomenal composition which Chalmers says we have no real understanding of this ...

Clearly the rules of phenomenal and physical composition have to result in minds and bodies that work and work together - and are grounded in physical reality in order to survive and have to allow enough freedom for rationality to operate (Searle, right?) so
the contents of our minds can be no more arbitrary than our bodies but if our bodies on evolutionary theory are shaped by physical contingency ... Well, Nagel challenges this point in Mind and Cosmos:

"So the physical sciences, in spite of their extraordinary success in their own domain, necessarily leave an important aspect of nature unexplained. Further, since the mental arises through the development of animal organisms, the nature of those organisms cannot be fully understood through the physical sciences alone. Finally, since the long process of biological evolution is responsible for the existence of conscious organisms, and since a purely physical process cannot explain their existence, it follows that biological evolution must be more than just a physical process, and the theory of evolution, if it is to explain the existence of conscious life, must become more than just a physical theory."

And then he commits the further heresy of reintroducing teleology into the discussion!

Where Thomas Nagel Went Wrong - The Chronicle of Higher Education

So, that's why I say the combination problem just shifts the hard problem around and why the CRpP theory leaves so much to be desired.

Great post. Love the review from the Chronicle on Nagel's recent book. It's unnecessarily harsh but at least recognizes that Nagel opens the way forward to what science and philosophy must work together to accomplish.

 

[smcder]

Physical reality — trees, cars, music, clouds, and wind — doesn't seem digitized to me, but empirical science has revealed that it is. (Unless you simply discount modern physics.)

If the field of phenomenology discounts the possibility that our phenomenal reality might be "digitized" as well based on "how it feels" then I'm not surprised that the field is little regarded.

I'm not trying to trash the field of phenomenology, but I asked a simple question and I didn't really get an answer. :/

I am very interested in phenomenology, but I'm simply asking what it has taught us about the nature of consciousness?

Re: no good theories

I think the comment re "vitalism" is apt in the regard that it's way too early to say the physicalists or Chalmers-types are destined to fail. Way too early.

You've mentioned secondary gain; I've asked before: what do those who want to keep "consciousness" from the Materialists have to gain? Are they afraid of a Meaningless reality?

Re Idealism

So let's assume our reality is virtual. So what then? If our material reality is faux, what of the real one? The question can't be avoided. Sure, if this is the case, our physics are a joke and were a laughing stock — unless our physics leads to the conclusion that physical reality is virtual, as some have proposed.

@Soupie writes:

"I am very interested in phenomenology, but I'm simply asking what it has taught us about the nature of consciousness? "

Russell wasn't a phenomenologist but this article makes a point that might help answer your question:

Scientism and Bertrand Russell's Neutral Monism - Evolution News & Views

Basically the article argues:

"In addition to refuting materialism, as Russell's theory nicely and decisively does, neutral monism makes scientism, which is the view that scientific investigation is the ultimate arbitrator of our understanding of nature, a difficult proposition to defend. The scientific endeavor, laudable and effective as it undoubtedly is in some circumstances, is sharply limited. Science can only investigate causal relations between things, not the things in themselves.

The only things we can know directly, in themselves, are our own mental states.
Introspection, not perception nor science, provides the only direct kind of knowledge."

So Russell argues that we don't see the world as it is, we see things as they appear to us.

But science has problems too - Russell says science describes the causal relations between things but doesn't say what things are in themselves.

"Science describes relations we understand in nature, just as perceptions describe sensations we have of nature."

So neither perceptions nor scientific understanding are an understanding of nature as it really is.

But there is another way of knowing: introspection.

And introspection is direct knowledge of mental states, we know our mental states as they really are, it's the only thing we know as they really are.

From what I currently understand, to the extent that phenomenology is a philosophy and examination of mental states, it is a formal pursuit of the only kind of direct knowledge we can have.

 

[smcder]

First of all, I'm not even going to attempt to wade through the terminological train wreck that is the discussion of intrinsic vs extrinsic/relational properties. Ultimately these are labels/concepts that might not have a direct correlation to reality.

For instance, is mass an intrinsic or extrinsic/relational property? So, I can't say whether information is an intrinsic property of the primary substance. Based on this philosophical definition from Wikipedia, it might be:
If a physical substance exists, then it's state of existence (information) will exist as well.

I'm thinking of something like a traffic light: if the light is in the physical state of being green, then it will also have the informational property of being green; if the light is in the physical state of being red, then it will also have the informational property of being red.

So, information may be the intrinsic property of the primal substance, while it's physical properties may be extrinsic. Perhaps the primal substance is information (although I haven't worked that out conceptually, but I believe some mathematicians and physicists have argued this).

But the information would be proto-phenomenal. Information isn't just phenomenal as is. It would need to be combined (or integrated) in specific ways to realize phenomenal experience/mind.

But since information is intrinsic and ontologically fundamental, mental/mind (although in a proto phenomenal form) can be considered to be fundamental as well (panprotopsychism).

How do material organisms integrate immaterial information (the proto-phenomenal) in such a way that phenomenal consciousness is realized? No one knows.

Don't get me wrong: the idea that the mind is constituted of immaterial information is bizarre and nearly impossible to conceptualize. When an organism (temporal, differentiated cluster of particles) is holding a relatively small, round sphere (temporal, differentiated cluster of particles) the information exchanged between these two differentiated systems realizes the phenomenal experience of a young man holding a red apple.

Ok , so why not drop as much terminology as possible? - that gets rid of the train wreck!

You might have to use three words or five instead of one but it will be clear what you mean. I'm trying to be more aware of this.

If a term is unavoidable, then define it as soon as it's used and define it every time you use it (each post) especially if it's a word with another more common meaning or a word you've defined in a special way. That's easier for new, occasional readers or if we come back to a post in six months (or two days with my memory ...)

Next I'd say that some of this can really be simplified as to your philosophical position, at least from your readers' point of view.

This chart breaks things into monism and dualism and further breaks monism into material and immaterial and material monism into reductive and non reductive:

Nonreductionist Materialism

"The mind is a unique system that cannot be explained in simple molecular terms but is still the result of material causes."

The Mind-Body Problem | UsefulCharts.com

This article is also a good overview of the positions, although the arguments pro and con for the positions are limited:

http://www.deanza.edu/faculty/ramireztono/phil01/Dualism and Monism.pdf

And The Basics of Philosophy: A huge subject broken down into manageable chunks appears to be another accessible overview.

So in this case, to get to a position you pick one from column A: monism/dualism and one from column B: material/ immaterial to get to your philosophy of choice.

Yes, there is neutral monism and dual aspect monism and that complicates the use of "materialism" ... but the bone I pick with your use of "immaterial" has to do with monism more than materialism.

So you write:

"Mental = Information = Immaterial"

And

"I agree that we are much more than experiences. I say we have a body-self (material) and a mental-self (immaterial)."

But that's dualist language and as much as I can understand your posts in terms of monism, I can't make sense of your use of "immaterial" because I can't make sense of any ultimate duality in monism.

For example, neutral monism can argue for a neutral substance with phenomenal and physical properties but it's said that way -

"I agree that we are much more than experiences . I say we have a body-self (physical properties) and a mental-self (phenomenal properties) both of which are aspects of a primal substance."

Or ...

"I agree that we are much more than experiences. We are made of the same thing as everything else - a primal substance that has physical and phenomenal properties."

Now, if you are no longer a monist, that's different!

 

[smcder]

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.

I'll give a little more ground here because spiritual is more commonly understood in psychological terms today but it's the same contention as using the term "immaterial" ... which is that they rob the meaning of existing dualist systems that recognize the immaterial and the soul.

To my mind the word should be preserved in this original, unambiguous context or it's use made explicit There are plenty of other words for the psychological state you describe and they also protect you from having someone ascribe a religious meaning to your use of the word spiritual.

So what I take you to mean by the above is that physical beauty triggers an emotional reaction that you experience as awe or are unable to completely put in words - a feeling perhaps the result of an evolutionary process that reinforced your sense of dependence on the physical environment ... etc.

Rather than:

Physical beauty stirs your immaterial soul as it is an echo of a higher, more perfect realm - a pre-sentiment of heaven.

 

[smcder]

Ah, I see in this next post that it is Critchley. You ask me if he is 'right' in these little blogs in the Guardian. I don't think so, based on these snippets, but I would have to read a longer work on B&T by Critchley to comment. Critchley is an analytical philosopher who has dipped to some extent into phenomenology. How far he gets in it remains to be seen. He wrote a small book on Stevens's poetry, entitled Things Merely Are, which I found inadequate to the poetry. He's written another that I haven't yet read. He's by no means anyone's best guide to Heidegger based on what I've read of him so far. The translation of B&T he recommended is probably the best one available. It also helps to read a scholarly commentary on/explication of B&T alongside that work. I recommend the one by E.F.Kaelin, who was my mentor in phenomenology and my dissertation on Stevens's poetry as phenomenological poetry. It's linked here:



It's also available online at Questia, where you can read the table of contents and preface in a preview before joining. Questia is well worth joining for the texts it makes available in philosophy.

Read Heidegger's Being and Time: A Reading for Readers - 1988 by E. F. Kaelin. | Questia, Your Online Research Library

I was afraid of that, although I didn't expect too much from the articles - it seems there were glimpses, but anyway it's time for me to read Being and Time. I'll have a look at the Kaelin book too!

This is an interesting article on Heidegger

Martin Heidegger Talks Philosophy with a Buddhist Monk on German Television (1963) | Open Culture

A television interview from 1963 with a Buddhist monk. There's a transcript for the second part linked in the article:

Interview - Martin heidegger and Thai monk bhikku maha mani - English subtitles - Part 2/2 | Readable

The gist is that Heidegger doesn't seem to be greatly influenced by Eastern Philosophy or affected in a hidden way, but he was aware of it.

"While it may be tempting to view Heidegger’s work—and that of other phenomenological, existential, or skeptical philosophers—as working in tandem with much Eastern thought, as perhaps “the” German philosopher himself would caution, the differences are significant."

But reading about the influence of the Romantic Movement on American Buddhism has also helped me understand how Buddhism has been seen in everything. (Think "Zen and the Art of ... )

 

[smcder]

A couple of relevant podcasts:

Expanding Mind - Buddhas and Machines - 07/06/14 - PRN.fm - PRN.fm

"Chinese typewriters, Alan Watts, and how Buddhism (and motorcycle maintenance) infected digital capitalism: a talk with Professor R. John Williams about his new book, The Buddha in the Machine: Art, Technology, and the Meeting of East and West"

And this one may be of interest to @Soupie:

Expanding Mind - The Yoga of Psi - 08/03/14 - PRN.fm - PRN.fm

And for another excellent interview of Radin, this time by Jeff Kripal of Rice University - a particularly sane commentator on the paranormal, see episode 2 here:

The Impossible Talk Podcast — Jones Cinema Arts

 

[Soupie]

I'll give a little more ground here because spiritual is more commonly understood in psychological terms today but it's the same contention as using the term "immaterial" ... which is that they rob the meaning of existing dualist systems that recognize the immaterial and the soul.

To my mind the word should be preserved in this original, unambiguous context or it's use made explicit There are plenty of other words for the psychological state you describe and they also protect you from having someone ascribe a religious meaning to your use of the word spiritual.

So what I take you to mean by the above is that physical beauty triggers an emotional reaction that you experience as awe or are unable to completely put in words - a feeling perhaps the result of an evolutionary process that reinforced your sense of dependence on the physical environment ... etc.

Rather than:

Physical beauty stirs your immaterial soul as it is an echo of a higher, more perfect realm - a pre-sentiment of heaven.

I appreciate what you're saying.

How about this: When our phenomenal experience transcends the capacity of our conceptual mind, one can be said to have a transcendent experience.

You may balk at that, but I've always maintained the subjective mind transcends objective reality.

 

[Soupie]

Yes, there is neutral monism and dual aspect monism and that complicates the use of "materialism" ... but the bone I pick with your use of "immaterial" has to do with monism more than materialism.

So you write:

"Mental = Information = Immaterial"

And

"I agree that we are much more than experiences. I say we have a body-self (material) and a mental-self (immaterial)."

But that's dualist language and as much as I can understand your posts in terms of monism, I can't make sense of your use of "immaterial" because I can't make sense of any ultimate duality in monism.

The intuitive appeal of substance monism to me is that dual substances could not interact. So when people claim that the body is of one substance and the mind another, the question is how do these two substances interact?

Information theory addresses several of the odd characteristics of consciousness.

Brains and mind seem to be intimately connected; so are physical properties and informational properties. Mind — or at least "mental" — appears to be ontologically fundamental; so too is information. The brain is physical (objective), but the mind appears to be immaterial (subjective); matter is material, information is immaterial.

Information is not a dual substance. It's not a substance at all. Thus calling this model substance dualism would be incorrect. Information only is property of this primal substance. And it happens to be a non-material property, or an immaterial property.

You may feel that this steps on the toes of spiritual dualism, but it is a purely physical model. Information is physical, but not material.

 

[smcder]

I appreciate what you're saying.

How about this: When our phenomenal experience transcends the capacity of our conceptual mind, one can be said to have a transcendent experience.

You may balk at that, but I've always maintained the subjective mind transcends objective reality.

I balk at nothing! It's an old habit of mine ...

 

[smcder]

The intuitive appeal of substance monism to me is that dual substances could not interact. So when people claim that the body is of one substance and the mind another, the question is how do these two substances interact?

Information theory addresses several of the odd characteristics of consciousness.

Brains and mind seem to be intimately connected; so are physical properties and informational properties. Mind — or at least "mental" — appears to be ontologically fundamental; so too is information. The brain is physical (objective), but the mind appears to be immaterial (subjective); matter is material, information is immaterial.

Information is not a dual substance. It's not a substance at all. Thus calling this model substance dualism would be incorrect. Information only is property of this primal substance. And it happens to be a non-material property, or an immaterial property.

You may feel that this steps on the toes of spiritual dualism, but it is a purely physical model. Information is physical, but not material.

Yep got it - in fact ... I covered all that in my posts above ... and carefully sorted through the types of monism and dualism so there's no confusion about this being substance dualism! None at all. ;-)

But ... using "spiritual" for a psychological state is confusing because dualist systems mean something very different for spiritual and transcendent. Transcendent may mean stepping outside of the physical or natural system entirely ... Something you do not mean to say.

So forget about stepping on toes ... You risk being misunderstood when you could easily avoid it.

And using immaterial when you mean that something is a phenomenal aspect of an ultimately physical (or neutral) stuff is confusing because dualism hinges on the terms material and immaterial - so why not spell it out so others won't confuse your position?

The difficulties for me have been your use of terminology - the concepts you refer to are clear enough.

I'm trying to jettison the jargon as much as possible and define the terms i do use, especially if they have more than one common meaning ... Spiritual and immaterial are good examples and you actually have better words for what you mean.

 

[smcder]

The intuitive appeal of substance monism to me is that dual substances could not interact. So when people claim that the body is of one substance and the mind another, the question is how do these two substances interact?

Information theory addresses several of the odd characteristics of consciousness.

Brains and mind seem to be intimately connected; so are physical properties and informational properties. Mind — or at least "mental" — appears to be ontologically fundamental; so too is information. The brain is physical (objective), but the mind appears to be immaterial (subjective); matter is material, information is immaterial.

Information is not a dual substance. It's not a substance at all. Thus calling this model substance dualism would be incorrect. Information only is property of this primal substance. And it happens to be a non-material property, or an immaterial property.

You may feel that this steps on the toes of spiritual dualism, but it is a purely physical model. Information is physical, but not material.

@Soupie

"The intuitive appeal of substance monism to me is that dual substances could not interact. So when people claim that the body is of one substance and the mind another, the question is how do these two substances interact?"

Right - but how reliable is intuition? do you remember I posted something offering possible answers to this question? So don't think there are no answers so you just have to be a monist! (Reminder: I'm not a dualist)

And what you get with monism is the equally daunting problem of how little bits of subjectivity add up to a single unified subject, more or less. The combination problem.

So ... neither dualism or monism is completely satisfying.

What do you mean above by information theory? Wikipedia says:

"Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics, electrical engineering, and computer science involving the quantification of information."

But the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy does not have an entry. It does have a major article on information.

What is meant by ontologically fundamental? Do you mean mind or mental just is, right? Phenomenal experience is an ultimately irreducible aspect of an ultimately physical or neutral stuff.

I can see information is gojng to be the next difficulty - so I want to avoid any further verbal disputes over monism ... And I think we have THAT down warts and all ... and you still identify as a CRpP? Is that correct?

Finally is it your position that nothing is ultimately paranormal, it just hasn't received a normal explanation ... Yet? Can we call that "pre-normalism"?? ;-)

 

[smcder]

I think phenomenologists are needlessly verbose. I seem to find the writing style of most (all?) phenomenologists - including @Constance - incredibly difficult to digest.

Here is how I say the above: We are experiences.

So you must have been asleep for that lecture but part of what the phenomenologists are doing is re conceptualizing philosophy and along with it language ... If you don't get it you don't get it ... But at least you should know they aren't just being wordy for the hell of it!

And as to we are our experiences - i don't get it, I've never been green in all my life! I think that phrase has caught your fancy and it means something to you ... But I get the sense no one else can make heads or tails of it.

 

[Soupie]

What do you mean above by information theory? Wikipedia says:

"Information theory is a branch of applied mathematics, electrical engineering, and computer science involving the quantification of information."

Sorry. Information Philosophy.

Note that just as language philosophy is not the philosophy of language, so information philosophy is not the philosophy of information. It is rather the use of information as a tool to study philosophical problems, some of which are today yielding tentative solutions. It is time for philosophy to move beyond logical puzzles and language games.

You don't like applying the descriptor immaterial to information as it related to physical material. Which descriptor would you prefer?