Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[Constance]

Perhaps you could help me understand what Merryman was trying to say?

I found it quite disconnected from the article.

I'll re-read Merryman (note: I linked two FQXi posts by him yesterday) and attempt to represent his ideas. In the meantime, I urge you to read the papers I linked for Soupie.

 

[smcder]

No I have not. Thanks for the link.

This interview is worth listening to from beginning to end
http://www.shrinkrapradio.com/images/329-The-Emotional-Foundation-of-Mind-with-Jaak-Panksepp2.mp3

Panksepp has asked me, "Do you have a set of differential predictions that may help me focus on what differences there may be between my empirical work & perspectives, and your HCT formulation? I do see the many surface similarities. . . but are there differential empirical predictions that HCT would make that Affective Neuroscience views would not?"

I am awaiting his reply to my reply.

I used to listen to shrinkrapradio on my long, long commute! I'm excited Panksepp (why can't his name be Panskepp?) is on there, thanks for sharing and glad you guys are corresponding.

 

[Constance]

The whole point of the new scientist article was to come up with a new way of thinking about things that don't get into the kind of philosophical entanglements that I think are such a problem. Apparently this scientist feels the same way.

Yes, I thought that was what you approved of in the post. Of course we all like to read claims and interpretations that confirm the point of view we've already adopted, including its presuppositions, but no one can make progress in understanding consciousness and mind (or in this discussion thread) without entertaining in detail perspectives developed in other relevant disciplines. Your prejudice against philosophy is dysfunctional in the current discourse concerning consciousess, which we reflect and link here. It's also why science has been dysfunctional with regard to consciousness and mind throughout the modern period, and why a paradigm change is under way now.

 

[smcder]

Constance, I am not ignoring the para-normal evidence that you and @smcder have posted here regarding Psi, NDEs, reincarnation, and OOBs. I do think these are real phenomena that directly relates to consciousness, and they need to be explained in any theory/model of consciousness.

At the same time, from my pov, consciousness is clearly related to physical structures, namely organisms. For me, that the mind develops as the physical organism develops is undeniable. Furthermore, that the structure of a mind appears to correlate with the structure of an organisms, also cannot be denied. Additional evidence that the structure of the mind is affected by the structure of the brain can be seen in the affects of chemicals on the phenomenology of the mind, brain injury, and disease.

In short, it appears to me that the mind and body are directly, and intimately related. As I've shared, for these reasons, I feel that the mind is generated by the body-environment.

Thus, for me, I will try to understand para-normal phenomena (Psy, NDEs, OOBs, etc.) from within this framework. I am cognizant of the risks of doing so.

Now, you know that I am currently very partial to the information philosophy of mind. (Let me stress that this is not the same as the information theory or computation theory of mind; that is, I'm not suggesting that the mind is an algorithm that the computer/brain is running.)

I think there is plenty of room in the IPoM for phenomena such as Psy, NDEs, and OOBs. That is, if reality is a two sided coin with energy on one side and information on the other; I think there are a multitude of ways to explain how a dynamic pattern of information (mind) might relate to NDEs, reincarnation, OOBs, and other paranormal phenomena. The IPoM, in my opinion, does not rule out paranormal phenomena, but instead gives us a different model of thinking about them.

For example, if the mind is an information structure, can this information structure survive the death of the physical body? I think it is theoretically possible.

---

Regarding phenomenology:

Again, I do not think the IPoM makes phenomenology irrelevant in any way, shape, or form.

When I attempt to focus on my own mind and how it feels, I do not experience it to be made of millions of bits of information. On the other hand, when swimming in a pool, I do not experience it to be made of millions of molecules. This is why, in my opinion, phenomenology is limited in what it can tell us. How something feels and what something is are separate things, in my opinion.

Furthermore, when I do focus on my mind - or think about my mind - it does not seem to me to always be in the same state; that is, sometimes my mind is pure experience, sometimes thoughts, and sometimes self-awareness. You and @smcder have shared that in your experience, self-awareness is always present; that is not my experience.

Constance, you have said that you don't think consciousness can be reduced in any way, shape, or form. And yet you say that reality and consciousness have evolved together (as have organisms).

What we know (or think we know) about evolution is that - despite what the layperson thinks - it is not directed toward complexity. That is, evolution is not striving for complexity for the sake of complexity or superiority for the sake of superiority. Therefore, while reality and life has evolved, we know that there are different forms of life. Some more "basic" and some more complex than others.

I think it is the same with consciousness and minds. So, Constance, when you say that consciousness cannot be reduced, I disagree. (This is what I was getting at with my jellyfish question that you did not address.) In my opinion, not all forms of mind will be like the human form of mind. This means that consciousness/mind must needs be reduced/
differentiated, in much the same way that organisms are differentiated.

If you do not believe this is the case, then I submit that you do not think mind has evolved in the same way that organisms have evolved.

---

@smcder Regarding the combination problem.

I am currently reading a wonderful article about a model of consciousness derived by Carl Jung and a physicist. I will share it here with commentary once I'm done reading it. Their model is a dual-aspect model. It has been immensely helpful and insightful.

In it, they discuss the mind/body distinction as being "complimentary." That is, we can't get a full picture (jig saw puzzle) of reality without considering both sides. But perhaps rather than thinking of subject/object, mind/matter as two sides of reality, they are the same side... So I don't know if they "constrain" one another, or if they rely on one another.

(And I'll apologize in advance, but I am again reminded of the information/energy duality. I'm sorry, but I think it's unavoidable.)

At the same time, from my pov, consciousness is clearly related to physical structures, namely organisms. For me, that the mind develops as the physical organism develops is undeniable. Furthermore, that the structure of a mind appears to correlate with the structure of an organisms, also cannot be denied. Additional evidence that the structure of the mind is affected by the structure of the brain can be seen in the affects of chemicals on the phenomenology of the mind, brain injury, and disease.

For me, that the mind develops as the physical organism develops is undeniable.

Research on "reincarnation" or anomalous cognition where there is knowledge of a previous life could be used to argue against this. Or a child that speaks the language of the "previous" life.

Furthermore, that the structure of a mind appears to correlate with the structure of an organisms, also cannot be denied. Additional evidence that the structure of the mind is affected by the structure of the brain can be seen in the affects of chemicals on the phenomenology of the mind, brain injury, and disease.

Correlate is the key word ... but again, NDEs and psychedelic experiences where the brain is shut down or clinically dead (which might mean working at a level below what we can detect) and the remembered experience is rich, seem to belie a straight correlation, at least of the type that more consciousness takes more energy. Also ... here is a personal example ... I was stung in the same place by a wasp (three times total, probably the same damn wasp) but twice in the exact place - a few nights later I dreamt of the sting and I felt the pain ... and I remember thinking, in the dream, "no one feels pain in a dream" - and it does seem that pain is a little different, we certainly can't remember pain, not the way we felt it - I remember what the wasp sting felt life, but I don't feel the sting itself when I remember, but I did when I was dreaming - could I have rolled over on something that exactly replicated that feeling ... of a wasp sting? Probably not. It proves nothing, on the other hand it has to be accounted for.

The radio theory/reception theory of consciousness also explains the correlation.

Thus, for me, I will try to understand para-normal phenomena (Psy, NDEs, OOBs, etc.) from within this framework. I am cognizant of the risks of doing so.

I think my point was more that any theory is going to have to explain all the data ... there is a lot of data in the psi/paranormal field and you have to either dismiss it, explain it as erroneous (tough to do) or as a social phenomena that regular science is not subject to, in other words if you require a higher standard, then all science has to come up with that and we can argue out the extraordinary claims thin if you like ... (cracking knuckles) ... Dean Radin points out that experimental protocol has improved in Psi research as a result of criticism and Psi experiments often exceed experiments in psychology in terms of rigor - I'll get you a cite if you want it.

So if you agree with all this, when do you start showing how your theory explains Psi phenomena? You could start here:

For example, if the mind is an information structure, can this information structure survive the death of the physical body? I think it is theoretically possible.

How?

I think the first step is to see if the phenomena fit within that framework ...

 

[Constance]

Where Thomas Nagel Went Wrong - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

The odd thing is, however, that for all of this academic high dudgeon, there actually are scientists—respected ones, Nobel Prize-winning ones—who are saying exactly what Nagel said, and have been saying it for decades. Strangely enough, Nagel doesn't mention them. Neither have his critics. This whole imbroglio about the philosophy of science has left out the science.

Of course Nagel's critics wouldn't mention the great minds expressing minority opinions for a hundred years or more now. Someone should and will write an intellectual history that brings together and articulates the conflicts between the objectivist paradigm and thinking beyond it, expressed by scientists and philosophers who have found it deficient in accounting for the nature of reality. But most scientists aren't interested in the philosophy of science [or philosophy in general] and remain blissfully unaware of the challenges to the standard presuppositions of materialism and its latest stand-in -- computational information theory.

 

[smcder]

Constance, I am not ignoring the para-normal evidence that you and @smcder have posted here regarding Psi, NDEs, reincarnation, and OOBs. I do think these are real phenomena that directly relates to consciousness, and they need to be explained in any theory/model of consciousness.

At the same time, from my pov, consciousness is clearly related to physical structures, namely organisms. For me, that the mind develops as the physical organism develops is undeniable. Furthermore, that the structure of a mind appears to correlate with the structure of an organisms, also cannot be denied. Additional evidence that the structure of the mind is affected by the structure of the brain can be seen in the affects of chemicals on the phenomenology of the mind, brain injury, and disease.

In short, it appears to me that the mind and body are directly, and intimately related. As I've shared, for these reasons, I feel that the mind is generated by the body-environment.

Thus, for me, I will try to understand para-normal phenomena (Psy, NDEs, OOBs, etc.) from within this framework. I am cognizant of the risks of doing so.

Now, you know that I am currently very partial to the information philosophy of mind. (Let me stress that this is not the same as the information theory or computation theory of mind; that is, I'm not suggesting that the mind is an algorithm that the computer/brain is running.)

I think there is plenty of room in the IPoM for phenomena such as Psy, NDEs, and OOBs. That is, if reality is a two sided coin with energy on one side and information on the other; I think there are a multitude of ways to explain how a dynamic pattern of information (mind) might relate to NDEs, reincarnation, OOBs, and other paranormal phenomena. The IPoM, in my opinion, does not rule out paranormal phenomena, but instead gives us a different model of thinking about them.

For example, if the mind is an information structure, can this information structure survive the death of the physical body? I think it is theoretically possible.

---

Regarding phenomenology:

Again, I do not think the IPoM makes phenomenology irrelevant in any way, shape, or form.

When I attempt to focus on my own mind and how it feels, I do not experience it to be made of millions of bits of information. On the other hand, when swimming in a pool, I do not experience it to be made of millions of molecules. This is why, in my opinion, phenomenology is limited in what it can tell us. How something feels and what something is are separate things, in my opinion.

Furthermore, when I do focus on my mind - or think about my mind - it does not seem to me to always be in the same state; that is, sometimes my mind is pure experience, sometimes thoughts, and sometimes self-awareness. You and @smcder have shared that in your experience, self-awareness is always present; that is not my experience.

Constance, you have said that you don't think consciousness can be reduced in any way, shape, or form. And yet you say that reality and consciousness have evolved together (as have organisms).

What we know (or think we know) about evolution is that - despite what the layperson thinks - it is not directed toward complexity. That is, evolution is not striving for complexity for the sake of complexity or superiority for the sake of superiority. Therefore, while reality and life has evolved, we know that there are different forms of life. Some more "basic" and some more complex than others.

I think it is the same with consciousness and minds. So, Constance, when you say that consciousness cannot be reduced, I disagree. (This is what I was getting at with my jellyfish question that you did not address.) In my opinion, not all forms of mind will be like the human form of mind. This means that consciousness/mind must needs be reduced/
differentiated, in much the same way that organisms are differentiated.

If you do not believe this is the case, then I submit that you do not think mind has evolved in the same way that organisms have evolved.

---

@smcder Regarding the combination problem.

I am currently reading a wonderful article about a model of consciousness derived by Carl Jung and a physicist. I will share it here with commentary once I'm done reading it. Their model is a dual-aspect model. It has been immensely helpful and insightful.

In it, they discuss the mind/body distinction as being "complimentary." That is, we can't get a full picture (jig saw puzzle) of reality without considering both sides. But perhaps rather than thinking of subject/object, mind/matter as two sides of reality, they are the same side... So I don't know if they "constrain" one another, or if they rely on one another.

(And I'll apologize in advance, but I am again reminded of the information/energy duality. I'm sorry, but I think it's unavoidable.)

Furthermore, when I do focus on my mind - or think about my mind - it does not seem to me to always be in the same state; that is, sometimes my mind is pure experience, sometimes thoughts, and sometimes self-awareness. You and @@smcder have shared that in your experience, self-awareness is always present; that is not my experience.

Noooo ... I don't think self-awareness is always present ... memory has to come in to all of these discussions of awareness for them to be coherent. I'm going to pick back up on the podcast Schwietzgerbil or whatever his name is later to give us some vocabulary in common - but it ties in with an idea that Jung seemed to have or his interpreters that there were other psychic processes active in the mind, MPD is another example - where are the other personalities when Soupie is green?

I've asked this question before too ... but look at how much credit the subconscious mind is given, we often say someone is doing something and they didn't even realize it - they did it subconsciously, this is often given as a skeptical argument in paranormal reports in the sense "he was just fooling himself" ... now think about that in the context here ... we either have unconscious processes capable of outwitting the conscious mind - so what is conscious awareness for? (and what does this say about free will?) or we have multiple conscious processes simultaneously in the mind/brain/body/information ... etc etc.

On the other hand, when swimming in a pool, I do not experience it to be made of millions of molecules. This is why, in my opinion, phenomenology is limited in what it can tell us. How something feels and what something is are separate things, in my opinion.

It's limited in what it can tell us about swimming pools, that's for sure ... but are you really arguing:

1. the brain generates consciousness, consciousness is correlated very closely with the brain activity
2. but introspecting consciousness doesn't "feel" like the brain, can tell us nothing about the brain?

hmmmmm .... then why does everyone go "ooh! ooh! what about that brain surgeon that touches a neuron and you think of your grandmother?? or feel a wasp sting?

Try this ... google Hiedegger and AI ... one example is that "good old fashioned AI" failed (DARPA spent lots of money on a research project based on substance ontology in the 70s. Turns out, substance ontology is a philosophical theory (the philosophical theory since Plato) but people thought it was the way things are.

But had those computer scientists paid attention in Heidegger class (what? they didn't take Heidegger?) they would have known he already said why this would fail. Basically (@Constance help me if I get this wrong) because of how the world shows up for us ... if the researchers had just stopped to think, is this the way it is for me? Do I categorize and represent all the objects in my environment or is what a hammer is part of the world is for me? Thinking about how our mind works here could have at least given us another paradigm for AI and in fact it now has.

Here's another one - if AI is going to cross "the uncanny valley" it's going to have to be a lot like us on the inside or appear to be, phenomenology is the tool that does that.

 

[smcder]

From Radin's page, links to theoretical approaches ... some may be in line with your ideas.

Theory
Josephson & Pallikari-Viras (1991). Biological Utilisation of Quantum NonLocality
May et al (1995). Decision augmentation theory: Towards a model of anomalous mental phenomena
Houtkooper (2002). Arguing for an Observational Theory of Paranormal Phenomena
Bierman (2003). Does Consciousness Collapse the Wave-Packet?
Dunne & Jahn (2005). Consciousness, information, and living systems
Henry (2005). The mental universe
Hiley & Pylkkanen (2005). Can Mind Affect Matter Via Active Information?
Lucadou et al (2007). Synchronistic Phenomena as Entanglement Correlations in Generalized Quantum Theory
Rietdijk (2007). Four-Dimensional Physics, Nonlocal Coherence, and Paranormal Phenomena
Bierman (2010). Consciousness induced restoration of time symmetry (CIRTS ): A psychophysical theoretical perspective
Tressoldi et al (2010). Extrasensory perception and quantum models of cognition.
Tressoldi (2012). Replication unreliability in psychology: elusive phenomena or “elusive” statistical power?

 

[Constance]

Quoting Soupie: At the same time, from my pov, consciousness is clearly related to physical structures, namely organisms. For me, that the mind develops as the physical organism develops is undeniable. Furthermore, that the structure of a mind appears to correlate with the structure of an organisms, also cannot be denied. Additional evidence that the structure of the mind is affected by the structure of the brain can be seen in the affects of chemicals on the phenomenology of the mind, brain injury, and disease.

For me, that the mind develops as the physical organism develops is undeniable.

Research on "reincarnation" or anomalous cognition where there is knowledge of a previous life could be used to argue against this. Or a child that speaks the language of the "previous" life.

Quoting Soupie: Furthermore, that the structure of a mind appears to correlate with the structure of an organisms, also cannot be denied. Additional evidence that the structure of the mind is affected by the structure of the brain can be seen in the affects of chemicals on the phenomenology of the mind, brain injury, and disease.

What is "the structure of a mind"? Do you mean the neurological structure of the brain? If all members of our species think and act out of a structure of information inherent in physicality and out of the reception of which our neural nets organize themselves, how is that human behavior and thinking are so various in expression at any point in our history and in the present moment?

Correlate is the key word ... but again, NDEs and psychedelic experiences where the brain is shut down or clinically dead (which might mean working at a level below what we can detect) and the remembered experience is rich, seem to belie a straight correlation, at least of the type that more consciousness takes more energy. Also ... here is a personal example ... I was stung in the same place by a wasp (three times total, probably the same damn wasp) but twice in the exact place - a few nights later I dreamt of the sting and I felt the pain ... and I remember thinking, in the dream, "no one feels pain in a dream" - and it does seem that pain is a little different, we certainly can't remember pain, not the way we felt it - I remember what the wasp sting felt life, but I don't feel the sting itself when I remember, but I did when I was dreaming - could I have rolled over on something that exactly replicated that feeling ... of a wasp sting? Probably not. It proves nothing, on the other hand it has to be accounted for.

Yes, it has to be accounted for. As Carl Sagan was fond of saying, "correlation is not causation." That is why the explanatory gap remains one of the major problems in consciousness studies.

The radio theory/reception theory of consciousness also explains the correlation.

Would you explain what you're referring to as 'the radio theory/reception theory of consciousness'. I've seen versions of what I think you're referring to, using the metaphor of electronic transmission that results in audio and video received by electronic receiving equipment. I'm not sure that metaphor can do enough work in helping us to comprehend consciouness
though. The simple conclusion drawn from it would be that what is transmitted is 'information' (full stop). The question is what kinds of 'information' we receive from our environment and the ways in which they reach, affect, and even touch consciousness. There are myriad ways in which we receive impressions and information from the phenomena we encounter in the physical world and myriad ways in which we understand and use them. Reducing the plenitude and variety of our experiences in the world to 'information' is essentially, well, reductive.

Thus, for me, I will try to understand para-normal phenomena (Psy, NDEs, OOBs, etc.) from within this framework. I am cognizant of the risks of doing so.

I think my point was more that any theory is going to have to explain all the data ... there is a lot of data in the psi/paranormal field and you have to either dismiss it, explain it as erroneous (tough to do) or as a social phenomena that regular science is not subject to, in other words if you require a higher standard, then all science has to come up with that and we can argue out the extraordinary claims thin if you like ... (cracking knuckles) ... Dean Radin points out that experimental protocol has improved in Psi research as a result of criticism and Psi experiments often exceed experiments in psychology in terms of rigor - I'll get you a cite if you want it.[/quote]

The phrase highlighted in blue is ironic since social constructivism has been recognized in science as in all human institutions.


So if you agree with all this, when do you start showing how your theory explains Psi phenomena? You could start here:

For example, if the mind is an information structure, can this information structure survive the death of the physical body? I think it is theoretically possible.

How?

I think the first step is to see if the phenomena fit within that framework ...[/QUOTE]

 

[Constance]

Can someone tell me how to get rid of the strike-throughs in most of the above post? I must have inadvertently pressed some key.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie

if you replied to this, let me know but I didn't see it:

Eric Schwitzgebel, “Perplexities of Consciousness” (MIT Press, 2011)

Isn't this what you are talking about?

we don’t know whether conscious experience is confined to what we are paying attention to or more abundant

You would say "more abundant"? The terms seem to be sparseness and abundance ... Wiliam James says "radically abundant", Julian Jaynes says "radically sparse" ... Pauley Shore says "radical, dude" if so, at least we'd have some vocabulary and key words to research.

Then there is this:

Chapter Four

One must go surprisingly far afield to find major thinkers who unambiguously hold, as I do, that the introspection of current conscious experience is both (i.) possible, important, and central to the development of a full scientific understanding of the mind, and (ii.) highly untrustworthy, at least as commonly practiced. In some Eastern meditative traditions, I think this conjunction is a commonplace. Also the fiercest advocates of introspective training in the first era of scientific psychology (circa 1900) endorsed both claims – especially E.B. Titchener (see Chapter 5; for a brief discussion of the early “phenomenologists” see this note[3]). Both the meditators and Titchener, though, express optimism about introspection “properly” conducted – so they hardly qualify as general skeptics or pessimists. It’s as though their advocacy of a regimen set them free to criticize introspection as ordinarily practiced. But might they be right more in their doubts than in their hopes? Might understanding the human mind require introspection, though the prospects are bleak?

 

[smcder]

Can someone tell me how to get rid of the strike-throughs in most of the above post? I must have inadvertently pressed some key.

Can you "edit" then highlight everything and hit ctrl "i" or use the toolbar with the "I" button?

 

[smcder]

What is "the structure of a mind"? Do you mean the neurological structure of the brain? If all members of our species think and act out of a structure of information inherent in physicality and to which our neural nets respond, how is that human behavior and thinking are so various in expression at any point in our history as in the present moment?



Yes, it has to be accounted for. As Carl Sagan was fond of saying, "correlation is not causation." That is why the explanatory gap remains one of the major problem in consciousness studies.




Would you explain what you're referring to as 'the radio theory/reception theory of consciousness'. I've seen versions of what I think you're referring to, using the metaphor of electronic transmission that results in audio and video received by electronic receiving equipment. I'm not sure that metaphor can do enough work in helping us to comprehend consciouness
though. The simple conclusion drawn from it would be that what is transmitted is 'information' (full stop). The question is what kinds of 'information' we receive from our environment and the ways in which they reach, affect, and even touch consciousness. There are myriad ways in which we receive impressions and information from the phenomena we encounter in the physical world and myriad ways in which we understand and use them. Reducing the plenitude and variety of our experiences in the world to 'information' is essentially, well, reductive.

Thus, for me, I will try to understand para-normal phenomena (Psy, NDEs, OOBs, etc.) from within this framework. I am cognizant of the risks of doing so.

I think my point was more that any theory is going to have to explain all the data ... there is a lot of data in the psi/paranormal field and you have to either dismiss it, explain it as erroneous (tough to do) or as a social phenomena that regular science is not subject to, in other words if you require a higher standard, then all science has to come up with that and we can argue out the extraordinary claims thin if you like ... (cracking knuckles) ... Dean Radin points out that experimental protocol has improved in Psi research as a result of criticism and Psi experiments often exceed experiments in psychology in terms of rigor - I'll get you a cite if you want it.

The phrase highlighted in blue is ironic since social constructivism has been recognized in science as in all human institutions.


So if you agree with all this, when do you start showing how your theory explains Psi phenomena? You could start here:

For example, if the mind is an information structure, can this information structure survive the death of the physical body? I think it is theoretically possible.

How?

I think the first step is to see if the phenomena fit within that framework ...[/QUOTE][/QUOTE]

I just used the "reception theory" to show that other theories account for correlation ... is that theory used in the book "Irreducible Mind"? I have to get a copy of that and set it aside to read.

 

[smcder]

One challenge with using the observation problem (collapsing superposition) as a test or requirement for consciousness is that you don't actually need a conscious thing to collapse the superposition. In other words, QM doesn't seem to care about consciousness.

"Of course the introduction of the observer must not be misunderstood to imply that some kind of subjective features are to be brought into the description of nature. The observer has, rather, only the function of registering decisions, i.e., processes in space and time, and it does not matter whether the observer is an apparatus or a human being; but the registration, i.e., the transition from the "possible" to the "actual," is absolutely necessary here and cannot be omitted from the interpretation of quantum theory."

- Werner Heisenberg
​

More here: Observer effect (physics) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And even more here:

Interpretations of quantum mechanics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

and here:

Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

 

[Constance]

Steve wrote:

I just used the "reception theory" to show that other theories account for correlation ... is that theory used in the book "Irreducible Mind"? I have to get a copy of that and set it aside to read.

I just searched that term at the Google Books presentation of Irreducible Mind and the search found no usages of it. That book is a tome (about 800 pages including notes) and I have not yet read all of it. It's essential reading for consciousness researchers.

Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century - Michael Grosso, Edward F. Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly, Adam Crabtree, Alan Gauld - Google Books

 

[smcder]

Heidegger and AI | Minds and Brains

This is a blogpost covering an article by Hubert Dreyfus: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

Dreyfus is referring to the Physical Symbols Theory of Newell and Simon that strove to empirically show that what is “really going on” in minds is the shuffling of symbols in a systematic way. By setting up the framework of AI in terms of this input>>processing>>output “boxology”, AI researchers attempted to demonstrate that the brain is really a very complicated information processor that could in principle be replicated on a silicon medium. After all, if all that matters is the “function” of information processing, then the actual substrate of the mind is irrelevant. All that matters is the algorithms, or “software”, running over-top the “hardware”. Notice that the entire research paradigm of AI, derived from cognitive science, is based on the metaphor of the computer. It is this metaphor that Dreyfus wants to combat and instead replace it with a more phenomenologically accurate account of what goes on when humans with minds interact with the environment.

Dreyfus uses the “frame problem” as a prime example of why this traditional symbol-shunting, representationalist program was doomed from the beginning. The frame problem is simply the problem of knowing the relevant context for a particular problem. AI programs need to know what particular knowledge is relevant to the situation in order to realistically cope with the world. As Dreyfus is apt to point out, the human world of meaning is saturated with significance precisely because we are immersed in a “referential totality”. So for example, modeling the human use of tools can’t be done with “brute force” because whenever we use a hammer, the referential totality of nails and what-we-are-hammering-for comes into use. There is a particular way of being of hammers because they are embedded in a cultural “existential matrix” that is imparted onto the human world through the communal use of language.
Dreyfus concludes that in order for an AI to get past this crucial problem of contextual relevance, they would need to be imbued with particular “bodily needs” in order so that the AI could “cope” with the world. In other words, these AI need to be embodied and embedded in the world so that there is a particular significance for the program, or else it will never be able to act intelligently in the world. You can’t develop a truly artificial intelligence based on pure symbol shunting because the significance of the world stems not from our brain “processing” symbolically, but rather from the entire referential totality of culture. We can’t escape from the fact that our intelligence results from persons coping with an environment.

... in other words, for "artificial intelligence" to cope with the world (and us) it would have to be human.

 

[smcder]

I just used the "reception theory" to show that other theories account for correlation ... is that theory used in the book "Irreducible Mind"? I have to get a copy of that and set it aside to read.[/QUOTE]

I just searched that term at the Google Books presentation of Irreducible Mind and the search found no usages of it. That book is a tome (about 800 pages including notes) and I have not yet read all of it. It's essential reading for consciousness researchers.

Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century - Michael Grosso, Edward F. Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly, Adam Crabtree, Alan Gauld - Google Books[/QUOTE]

Oops I meant "transmission" theory ... the idea that the brain is a receiver ... like I said it was to show that this too accounts for mind/brain correlation without identity.

 

[smcder]

The Mind/Brain Identity Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Kripke's objections are discussed and then Chalmers':

Chalmers (1996) in the course of his exhaustive study of consciousness developed a theory of non-physical qualia which to some extent avoids the worry about nomological danglers. The worry expressed by Smart (1959) is that if there were non-physical qualia there would, most implausibly, have to be laws relating neurophysiological processes to apparently simple properties, and the correlation laws would have to be fundamental, mere danglers from the nomological net (as Feigl called it) of science.

Chalmers counters this by supposing

1) that the qualia are not simple but unknown to us,
2) are made up of simple proto-qualia,
3) and that the fundamental laws relating these to physical entities relate them to fundamental physical entities.

His view comes to a rather interesting panpsychism.

On the other hand if the topic neutral account is correct, then qualia are no more than points in a multidimensional similarity space, and the overwhelming plausibility will fall on the side of the identity theorist.

...
So ... first of all, beware of nomological danglers ...
...

On Chalmers' view how are we aware of non-physical qualia? It has been suggested above that this inner awareness is proprioception of the brain by the brain. But what sort of story is possible in the case of awareness of a quale? Chalmers could have some sort of answer to this by means of his principle of coherence according to which the causal neurological story parallels the story of succession of qualia. It is not clear however that this would make us aware of the qualia.

The qualia do not seem to be needed in the physiological story of how an antelope avoids a tiger.

(i.e. qualia is causally impotent)

People often think that even if a robot could scan its own perceptual processes this would not mean that the robot was conscious. This appeals to our intuitions, but perhaps we could reverse the argument and say that because the robot can be aware of its awareness the robot is conscious. I have given reason above to distrust intuitions, but in any case Chalmers comes some of the way in that he toys with the idea that a thermostat has a sort of proto-qualia. The dispute between identity theorists (and physicalists generally) and Chalmers comes down to our attitude to phenomenology. Certainly walking in a forest, seeing the blue of the sky, the green of the trees, the red of the track, one may find it hard to believe that our qualia are merely points in a multidimensional similarity space. But perhaps that is what it is like (to use a phrase that can be distrusted) to be aware of a point in a multidimensional similarity space. One may also, as Place would suggest, be subject to ‘the phenomenological fallacy’. At the end of his book Chalmers makes some speculations about the interpretation of quantum mechanics. If they succeed then perhaps we could envisage Chalmers' theory as integrated into physics and him as a physicalist after all. However it could be doubted whether we need to go down to the quantum level to understand consciousness or whether consciousness is relevant to quantum mechanics.

(a good beginning that devolves into more scientific hand-waving! ;-)

 

[smcder]

@Soupie ... OK, here we go:

The Mind/Brain Identity Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Suppose that I am riding my bicycle from my home to the university. Suddenly I realise that I have crossed a bridge over a creek, gone along a twisty path for half a mile, avoided oncoming traffic, and so on, and yet have no memories of all this.

In one sense I was conscious: I was perceiving, getting information about my position and speed, the state of the bicycle track and the road, the positions and speeds of approaching cars, the width of the familiar narrow bridge. But in another sense I was not conscious: I was on ‘automatic pilot’. So let me use the word ‘awareness’ for this automatic or subconscious sort of consciousness.

A-ha!

Perhaps I am not one hundred percent on automatic pilot. For one thing I might be absent minded and thinking about philosophy. Still, this would not be relevant to my bicycle riding. One might indeed wonder whether one is ever one hundred percent on automatic pilot, and perhaps one hopes that one isn't, especially in Armstrong's example of the long distance truck driver (Armstrong 1962). Still it probably does happen, and if it does the driver is conscious only in the sense that he or she is alert to the route, of oncoming traffic etc., i.e. is perceiving in the sense of ‘coming to believe by means of the senses’. The driver gets the beliefs but is not aware of doing so. There is no suggestion of ineffability in this sense of ‘consciousness’, for which I shall reserve the term ‘awareness’.

For the full consciousness, the one that puzzles us and suggests ineffability, we need the sense elucidated by Armstrong in a debate with Norman Malcolm (Armstrong and Malcolm 1962, p. 110). Somewhat similar views have been expressed by other philosophers, such as Savage (1976), Dennett (1991), Lycan (1996), Rosenthal (1996). A recent presentation of it is in Smart (2004). In the debate with Norman Malcolm, Armstrong compared consciousness with proprioception. A case of proprioception occurs when with our eyes shut and without touch we are immediately aware of the angle at which one of our elbows is bent. That is, proprioception is a special sense, different from that of bodily sensation, in which we become aware of parts of our body. Now the brain is part of our body and so perhaps immediate awareness of a process in, or a state of, our brain may here for present purposes be called ‘proprioception’. Thus the proprioception even though the neuroanatomy is different. Thus the proprioception which constitutes consciousness, as distinguished from mere awareness, is a higher order awareness, a perception of one part of (or configuration in) our brain by the brain itself. Some may sense circularity here. If so let them suppose that the proprioception occurs in an in practice negligible time after the process propriocepted. Then perhaps there can be proprioceptions of proprioceptions, proprioceptions of proprioceptions of proprioceptions, and so on up, though in fact the sequence will probably not go up more than two or three steps. The last proprioception in the sequence will not be propriocepted, and this may help to explain our sense of the ineffability of consciousness. Compare Gilbert Ryle in The Concept of Mind on the systematic elusiveness of ‘I’ (Ryle 1949, pp. 195–8).

Hmmmmm .... I'll have to go propriocept on that a bit ...

Place has argued that the function of the ‘automatic pilot’, to which he refers as ‘the zombie within’, is to alert consciousness to inputs which it identifies as problematic, while it ignores non-problematic inputs or re-routes them to output without the need for conscious awareness. For this view of consciousness see Place (1999).

So problematic inputs are routed to consciousness ... so proprioception, feeling our way around our thinking - is a necessary sense when the going gets tough, but that doesn't mean the subjective experience itself is causal ... now this makes a little sense ...

 

[Constance]

Oops I meant "transmission" theory ... the idea that the brain is a receiver ... like I said it was to show that this too accounts for mind/brain correlation without identity.

I think it can account for "mind/brain correlation without identity" only for those who wish to believe that the human being and its 'mind' are machines.

 

[smcder]

Where the rubber hits the road, consciousness and vegetative states:

Medically Incompetent Doctors Should Not Diagnose Disorders of Consciousness: The Sad Case of Haleigh Poutre | Minds and Brains

The Vegetative State as an Interactive Kind | Minds and Brains

Quote of the day – Depth of Processing in the Vegetative State | Minds and Brains

The Varieties of Consciousness Worth Wanting in the Vegetative State | Minds and Brains

Abstract: Which kinds of consciousness matter for moral status? According to welfarism, phenomenal consciousness is what matters because of its connection to sentience. A rival view is autonomism, which says that reflective self-consciousness is what matters because of its connection to rational autonomy. Recently, Suchy-Dicey (2009) used the vegetative state to argue for a hybrid view whereby welfare and autonomy both matter for moral status. Suchy-Dicey also argues that the value of welfare and autonomy is asymmetrical: a creature that was sentient without autonomy would have moral status but a creature that was autonomous but not sentient would lack moral status. I argue we should reject asymmetrical ethical dualism in favor of symmetrical ethical dualism: an entity that is autonomous but not sentient would have moral status too in virtue of the intrinsic value of autonomy.