Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[smcder]

[I made changes to (1) and (3).]

.....
Note: D'oh. Okay, I see what you mean! It might be more appropriate to say matter and motion are fundamental, and that information is a property of motion. But then, can we have motion without matter? Can we have matter without motion? I'm not sure. Still a wip (at least for me). Maybe there is a trinity of fundamentality: matter, motion, and information (the relationships betwixt matter).

There is the same problem here as when you try to say that information

Do you mean "explain how subjective experiences exist?" If so, I agree that they cannot, and that has been my only point regarding phenomenology.


Haha, yes, but (1) can we do so objectivily, and (2) I meant the subjective experiences of others.


We would be able to explain which physical systems generate/have subjective experiences and we would be able to explain how they generate/have subjective experiences.

However, we will never be able to objectively describe subjective experiences.


I dont disagree with this. I don't think we can ever objectively describe subjective experiences.


Hm, this might be some cross talk, and im not saying its your or Constances, or anybody's fault. (But it might be mine, haha.)

I think there is a difference between "explaining" subjectivity objectively, and "describing" subjectivity objectively.

For instance, we could explain subjectivity objectively by saying "its been discovered that when cluster X of X type neurons fire at X rate for X number of X seconds, patients report the subjective experience of the tast of apple pie. We've built an AI using the same architecture and principles and lo and behold, when an isomorphic,malbeit silicone cluster of X type neurons etc etc the AI reports experiencing the taste of apple pie."

Can we objectively describe the taste of apple pie? Nope. The best we could do is maybe create a printout of the pattern that the neurons fired at, haha. Or write a poem about apple pie.


Hm, I don't think subjective experience is physical. But as noted, I think it's conceivable that we could objectively explain how it exists.

You say you don't think subjective experience is physical but to me it appears you seem to continue to try and explain it in physical terms by looking for the neural substrate involved in a particular experience ... the phenomenal bonding solution is the only attempt I've seen to explain subjective experience on its own terms - if you have property dualism you have to account for both sides of the puzzle, as the neurons are put together into a brain, phenomenal experience (carried as a property of the primal stuff the neurons themselves are made of) has to also be put together and in a coherent way so that our subjective impression of the world is accurate ... so subjective experience, the mental, constrains the formation of the nervous system as much as vice versa and both have to be functional and point to the same thing, I won't survive if I perceive that apple pie as green velveeta.

Now, here you say:

For instance, we could explain subjectivity objectively by saying "its been discovered that when cluster X of X type neurons fire at X rate for X number of X seconds, patients report the subjective experience of the tast of apple pie. We've built an AI using the same architecture and principles and lo and behold, when an isomorphic,malbeit silicone cluster of X type neurons etc etc the AI reports experiencing the taste of apple pie."

1. that doesn't explain anything - it makes a correlation, when this, that
2.we already have this data, people's brains have been poked for apple pie responses
3. key word is "report" - so based on the above, if you want to rule out Zombies, fine but you have the same problem with AI, because its much easier to conceive of a machine giving such a response than it is a human, remember the report of the Turing test being passed recently? I don't think anybody believes that machine has something going on like a, what was it, seven year old child? If so, the inventor should probably be put in jail for child abuse for something or other he's done to that machine ...

Even if you plugged my brain into your brain and I somehow shared your memories, I could still argue that I don't know what it is like to be you ... that's even more clear if you hook me up to a bat, I will know about echolocation and living in the dark, etc but no one would say I know what its like to be a bat and even more clearly seen, no one would say the bat now knows what its like to be me .... so far I haven't seen anyway to get past the privacy of experience

 

[Soupie]

...change the input enough and it will feel "like" your real arm did ... where's the new information?

But thats my point, there is no new information. Its just information. What if it's information all the way down? What if the information never becomes anything else?

When, where, and how does the information get "turned into" subjective experience?

 

[Constance]

. . . Hm, I don't think subjective experience is physical.

Really? Lots of mine is.

remember the report of the Turing test being passed recently? I don't think anybody believes that machine has something going on like a, what was it, seven year old child? If so, the inventor should probably be put in jail for child abuse for something or other he's done to that machine ...

True and sad. Further insight for those who seek it can be obtained by watching Blade Runner.

 

[Constance]

But thats my point, there is no new information. Its just information. What if it's information all the way down? What if the information never becomes anything else?

When, where, and how does the information get "turned into" subjective experience?

How do you suppose it happened for you?

 

[smcder]

But thats my point, there is no new information. Its just information. What if it's information all the way down? What if the information never becomes anything else?

When, where, and how does the information get "turned into" subjective experience?

No, I mean where is the new information in this article? What does it tell us that we don't already know? How is the pencil example different, fundamentally from the artificial arm example? Both take some kind of ultimately physical input and in the end you have an experience.

Do the experiment - pick up a pencil and run it along some different surfaces ... you should be able to switch back and forth between feeling it 1) at the tip of the pencil, as if it were part of your hand and 2) where your hand and the pencil touch

 

[Soupie]

Now, here you say:

For instance, we could explain subjectivity objectively by saying "its been discovered that when cluster X of X type neurons fire at X rate for X number of X seconds, patients report the subjective experience of the tast of apple pie. We've built an AI using the same architecture and principles and lo and behold, when an isomorphic,malbeit silicone cluster of X type neurons etc etc the AI reports experiencing the taste of apple pie."

1. that doesn't explain anything - it makes a correlation, when this, that
2.we already have this data, people's brains have been poked for apple pie responses

I disagree. We have not been able to build an artificial organism capable of reporting the same subjective experiences when receiving the same stimuli.

Furthermore, while we have been able to poke people's brains, we dont have the understanding of the brain architecture and performance described above.

If we were able to reliably evoke the same report ( including objective, physiological responses ) from all humans and ai with isomorphic structures and process, we could say that the physical process caused the subjective experience.

We would not, however, be able to objectively describe the subjective experience. As you say, if we believe we can objectively describe a subjective experience, then the term subjectivity loses its meaning. And yes, it does seem that some physicalists simply chose to believe that subjectivity does not exist.

If it turns out that subjective experience is indeed information,mwe may be able to objectively describe the information, ie, a pattern of some type.

3. key word is "report" - so based on the above, if you want to rule out Zombies, fine but you have the same problem with AI, because its much easier to conceive of a machine giving such a response than it is a human, remember the report of the Turing test being passed recently? I don't think anybody believes that machine has something going on like a, what was it, seven year old child? If so, the inventor should probably be put in jail for child abuse for something or other he's done to that machine ...

We have the same problem with other humans who aren't us. When my neighbor says its hot, how do I know they are really feeling hot, eh?

This is a unique problem of subjectivity for sure, but I think this is the description problem, not the explanation problem.

If we had to, we could run the test on one person at a time. Since only the organism having the experiences knows what its like, then to be convinced that scientists have found the cause, they would have to make your neurons fire in X pattern and you would taste apple pie for yourself.

Then we would all get a apple pue app and taste it whenever we wanted. Qualia, theres an app for that.

Also, i think its conceivable that in the future there will be brain-to-brain interfaces, or maybe brain-to-comp-to-brain interfaces that will allow people to share phenomenal experiences.

As i noted awhile back, there were siamese twins connected at the brain who shared subjective experiences. They could tell you what it was like for the other to taste apple pie.

 

[smcder]

[I made changes to (1) and (3).]
.....
Note: D'oh. Okay, I see what you mean! It might be more appropriate to say matter and motion are fundamental, and that information is a property of motion. But then, can we have motion without matter? Can we have matter without motion? I'm not sure. Still a wip (at least for me). Maybe there is a trinity of fundamentality: matter, motion, and information (the relationships betwixt matter).

So now you are a trinitarian? ;-) You're also going to need time and space for motion.

from The Information Philosopher

Abstract information is neither matter nor energy, yet it needs matter for its concrete embodiment and energy for its communication. Information is immaterial.

smcder: "information is immaterial" but it needs matter and energy, sin fact we can completely define it in terms of matter and energy in fact, but it's still immaterial? ... how does it differ from any other process? I can't get my head around this ... because I think this is language.

First step: "immaterial" is defined in terms of the material, so there is no duality, this is what's also happening with ob and sub -jective, however we have two prefixes, otherwise the cause would be already lost, as follows:

instead of ob and sub jective or mental and physical we have physical and imphysical, then we could say (with the information philosopher, but of mind instead of information)

"information is immaterial"
"mind is imphysical"

Abstract information is neither matter nor energy, yet it needs matter for its concrete embodiment and energy for its communication. Information is immaterial.

Mind is imphysical it is neither matter nor energy, yet it needs matter for its concrete embodiment and energy for its communication. Therefore mind is imphysical. (but just as information is declared immaterial in terms only of the material, we declare mind imphysical only in terms of the physical not on its own terms. So having the subjective/objective keeps the debate alive.

We say dualism is crazy but we're OK with property dualism? Step back and what this says is:

one substance has two properties (so there is no interaction problem ... ?) and those substances come together in such a way that a physical instantiation like the brain is in complete sympathy with mental instantiation (one substance, two properties) such that the physical and the mental both make sense of reality simultaneously ... the reason that seems less crazy to us is because of some fundamental assumptions we make (based on things science had to take for granted starting in the Enlightenment for political reasons) ... so what does and does makes sense to us is conditioned on three hundred year old political agreements.

 

[Constance]

Relation, relatedness, interrelatedness seem to be the core phenomenon we're all approaching in our various ways. The relation of consciousness/mind to the environing world -- long expressed in misleading, oversimplified, terms as the 'subject-object' relationship -- has been, imo, most fully penetrated and articulated by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. The difficulty/complexity of this relation consists in the evident arising in/from nature of life forms, beings, that become capable of sensing and eventually recognizing that in their own reflective experience and consequent thinking they 'stand out' to a degree from the being that contains them. Heidegger's metaphor of the Lichtung opens us to this understanding of our situation in reality as constituting partial perspectives on the reality that contains us. A great deal follows from this in Heidegger and other phenomenological philosophers, especially Merleau-Ponty whose analysis of the relationship of consciousness and nature led him to perceive the relation as “chiasmic.” All of this is an intellectual trip that can only be appreciated by taking it.

 

[Soupie]

Sorry to be lazy, but i'll just post this link her for now:

Krista and Tatiana Hogan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Twins connected at the brain who share subjective experiences. Im not suggesting this solves the hard problem, only that subjective experience seems to be a very natural, if not completely physical, process. Theretically, then it is possible to artificially allow humans to share subjective experiences.

 

[smcder]

From the SEP article on Dualism:

Interactionism is the view that mind and body—or mental events and physical events—causally influence each other. That this is so is one of our common-sense beliefs, because it appears to be a feature of everyday experience. The physical world influences my experience through my senses, and I often react behaviourally to those experiences. My thinking, too, influences my speech and my actions. There is, therefore, a massive natural prejudice in favour of interactionism. It has been claimed, however, that it faces serious problems (some of which were anticipated in section 1).

So first off we have a denial of our most basic experience - not fatal in and of itself, but shouldn't we wonder why we went looking for explanations that contradict our experience? Why do we think science takes us down an inevitable route, experiment by experiment to the truth ... (Kuhn is shaking his head) ... when we have to think up each experiment the same we think up anything else we do, partly rationally, partly on hunch, partly on prejudice, partly on what will grant us the money - what is thinkable and unthinkable varies by culture and time, you better believe we don't even go down certain experimental paths because to do so would be to starve, not because there isn't good reason to think we'd get results. That would be "pure" science and I'm not sure anyone has ever done pure science.


The simplest objection to interaction is that, in so far as mental properties, states or substances are of radically different kinds from each other, they lack that communality necessary for interaction. It is generally agreed that, in its most naive form, this objection to interactionism rests on a ‘billiard ball’ picture of causation: if all causation is by impact, how can the material and the immaterial impact upon each other? But if causation is either by a more ethereal force or energy or only a matter of constant conjunction, there would appear to be no problem in principle with the idea of interaction of mind and body.

Now the article goes on to discuss causal closure, but I posted a paper recently that gave an argument to give that up, especially if we want free will.

The point is that with the state of the field now, with how little we know, in order to build a theory or hold on tight to a theory, you have to ignore massive amounts of information from the other side ... and everyone is ignoring the information from Pis because what it says is that none of our current theories is anywhere in the ball park, so no one is going to look at that.

Maybe there are other areas where this is the state of things, I'm not sure, but what it tells me about consciousness is that we have no idea, we really don't but it is very important that we do ... now think about why the dominant physicalist emergent theory really needs (politically) to be true?

 

[smcder]

I disagree. We have not been able to build an artificial organism capable of reporting the same subjective experiences when receiving the same stimuli.

Furthermore, while we have been able to poke people's brains, we dont have the understanding of the brain architecture and performance described above.

If we were able to reliably evoke the same report ( including objective, physiological responses ) from all humans and ai with isomorphic structures and process, we could say that the physical process caused the subjective experience.

We would not, however, be able to objectively describe the subjective experience. As you say, if we believe we can objectively describe a subjective experience, then the term subjectivity loses its meaning. And yes, it does seem that some physicalists simply chose to believe that subjectivity does not exist.

If it turns out that subjective experience is indeed information,mwe may be able to objectively describe the information, ie, a pattern of some type.


We have the same problem with other humans who aren't us. When my neighbor says its hot, how do I know they are really feeling hot, eh?

This is a unique problem of subjectivity for sure, but I think this is the description problem, not the explanation problem.

If we had to, we could run the test on one person at a time. Since only the organism having the experiences knows what its like, then to be convinced that scientists have found the cause, they would have to make your neurons fire in X pattern and you would taste apple pie for yourself.

Then we would all get a apple pue app and taste it whenever we wanted. Qualia, theres an app for that.

Also, i think its conceivable that in the future there will be brain-to-brain interfaces, or maybe brain-to-comp-to-brain interfaces that will allow people to share phenomenal experiences.

As i noted awhile back, there were siamese twins connected at the brain who shared subjective experiences. They could tell you what it was like for the other to taste apple pie.

I disagree. We have not been able to build an artificial organism capable of reporting the same subjective experiences when receiving the same stimuli.

I didn't say we did - I was referring to the brain poking experiment. And as for that, yes, I believe he located spots on the patient and went back and each time he poked them he got the same response ... what more do you want? Apple pie memories aren't going to be stored in the same place for each person but the point is proven.

If we were able to reliably evoke the same report ( including objective, physiological responses ) from all humans and ai with isomorphic structures and process, we could say that the physical process caused the subjective experience.

No, that doesn't establish causation, it establishes correlation ... but that raises an interesting question, have they done that experiment in reverse - ask the patient to think of that exact memory while monitoring that set of neurons? Did it fire? Does that prove that thinking causes neurons to fire? How do you control exactly for when the patient started thinking about the experience in relation to the neuron firing?

 

[smcder]

Sorry to be lazy, but i'll just post this link her for now:

Krista and Tatiana Hogan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Twins connected at the brain who share subjective experiences. Im not suggesting this solves the hard problem, only that subjective experience seems to be a very natural, if not completely physical, process. Theretically, then it is possible to artificially allow humans to share subjective experiences.

They share the same input, I don't see anybody claiming they share subjective experiences ... just like your technology to connect brains, I'd get Soupie sensory input, but it would me sorting that out - how would I prove that I knew exactly what it was like to be you ... ? Hook someone else into the machine ... and so on? And if you mash them all into one brain, you only get what it is like to be that brain ...

I would imagine if you hooked one person to another it would be a hell of a mess to sort out the incoming data that your brain has organized over decades in at least partially idiosyncratic way ... you'd probably learn to cope with it, but that's far different from me saying what it's like to be you. I'd get so much wrong you'd probably laugh and get furious with me. As I suspect has or will happen for the Siamese twins as they grow up.

Nobody seems to claim the twins have the same subjective experiences ... do they never argue? Are they never of two minds? Do they have the exactly the same dreams? Do they know the same things? Do they keep secrets? Will they be jealous of the same boy? (then they will keep secrets!) Once one of them had an experience the other didn't, they no longer knew what it was like to be the other.

Look at the recognition of the one being physically stronger than the other? Do they both think they are stronger? No. So only one knows what it is like to be the stronger - the other doesn't know exactly what this is like, that would be to be the other.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/magazine/could-conjoined-twins-share-a-mind.html?pagewanted=8&_r=0

That the girls each have clear distinction, despite what he considers to be the likely leakage of sensory impressions, was telling to Feinberg. “With the split brain, you essentially cut the brain in half, yet the person feels and acts as a whole,” Feinberg said. “In these girls, they’re linked, yet each acts as a whole. It’s like a force of nature — the brain wants to unify.”

Each acts as a whole.

Over the course of the days I spent with them, I witnessed the girls do seemingly remarkable things: say the precise name of the toy that could only be seen through the eyes of her sister or point precisely, without looking, to the spot on her sister’s body where she was being touched. But other times, the theoretical connection seemed to fail them. The family believes that making the effort to “tune in” sometimes tires them out. It’s possible that they are developing in such a way that their brains are trying hard to filter out input that originates from the other girl’s body.


David Carmel, a cognitive neuroscientist at New York University, suggested that even when the girls deliver right answers, the phenomenon could be explained by something other than a neural bridge. “If they’re really close, through minute movements that one makes — maybe a typical movement her sister cannot see, but can feel — the other sister intuits the association. Maybe she associates her sister’s reaction with a robin they once liked, not a turkey.” The connection then might be scientifically mundane, but a marvel nonetheless to the casual observer.

As would be true of any other two sisters, the girls’ relationship to each other and to their unusual connection is unpredictable. Their union could prove, as their grandmother predicts, a model of boundless, blissful empathy. The girls will show the world “true love,” she once said, tearing up. But their lives could also entail a barrage of confused impressions, with each girl having just enough of a sense of self to resent the intrusions of the other’s. Over time, would the girls increasingly tune out each other’s perceptions, with some kind of neural pruning doing the work that surgery could not? Or would some complicated, constant interplay of sensory input and response further fuse their personalities, rendering them ever more like one? Would they have any say in the matter?

It seemed to me that at bedtime, the two girls were more like one than when they first arose, as if the labors of the day steadily eroded whatever barriers separated them. Sometimes Krista, the physically stronger of the two, seemed to morph before my eyes, no longer one of two, but instead, a sturdy girl carrying around an elaborate appendage she considered part of herself. Perhaps, in submitting, Tatiana felt a kind of relief, the kind we all feel when we cede control to someone we trust. But I also felt a sense of loss — where was Tatiana in all her totality in those moments?

 

[Constance]

Qualia, theres an app for that.

Priceless.

 

[smcder]

A Fresh Coffee Experience

 

[smcder]

 

[smcder]

I don't just make this stuff up ... it's the stuff of cartoons!

 

[smcder]

Don't worry, other people don't get the so-called "hard problem" either!

 

[smcder]

That's four pictures, as I understand the exchange rate has dropped to 750 words/picture, so that should be 3,000 words-worth.

 

[smcder]

Relation, relatedness, interrelatedness seem to be the core phenomenon we're all approaching in our various ways. The relation of consciousness/mind to the environing world -- long expressed in misleading, oversimplified, terms as the 'subject-object' relationship -- has been, imo, most fully penetrated and articulated by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. The difficulty/complexity of this relation consists in the evident arising in/from nature of life forms, beings, that become capable of sensing and eventually recognizing that in their own reflective experience and consequent thinking they 'stand out' to a degree from the being that contains them. Heidegger's metaphor of the Lichtung opens us to this understanding of our situation in reality as constituting partial perspectives on the reality that contains us. A great deal follows from this in Heidegger and other phenomenological philosophers, especially Merleau-Ponty whose analysis of the relationship of consciousness and nature led him to perceive the relation as “chiasmic.” All of this is an intellectual trip that can only be appreciated by taking it.

I've been trying to think of a metaphor to relate phenomenology to consciousness studies - I've thought about the difference between driving a car and being a mechanic ... it's possible to imagine a good mechanic who has never driven or ridden in a car, but not a great one - he won't be able to communicate with a driver who doesn't know anything about what's under the hood, the mechanic won't know the sounds and feels that drivers consistently talk about that relate to specific mechanical problems ... etc etc ... the other analogy is someone in Shakespeare studies who has never seen a play performed, only read the texts (another Shakespeare analogy would be someone who says look Olivier or any given actor has nothing to tell us about Shakespeare) I think in both cases, seeing a play and seeing a great actor in a play, do give insight to the text itself ... imperfect, but the Heidegger AI example tells us a lot, and I have been thinking McGinn's mysterianism, or cognitive closure may also be telling us something very technical, even about the structure of our brains and possible other kinds of minds that could exist.

 

[smcder]

Relation, relatedness, interrelatedness seem to be the core phenomenon we're all approaching in our various ways. The relation of consciousness/mind to the environing world -- long expressed in misleading, oversimplified, terms as the 'subject-object' relationship -- has been, imo, most fully penetrated and articulated by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. The difficulty/complexity of this relation consists in the evident arising in/from nature of life forms, beings, that become capable of sensing and eventually recognizing that in their own reflective experience and consequent thinking they 'stand out' to a degree from the being that contains them. Heidegger's metaphor of the Lichtung opens us to this understanding of our situation in reality as constituting partial perspectives on the reality that contains us. A great deal follows from this in Heidegger and other phenomenological philosophers, especially Merleau-Ponty whose analysis of the relationship of consciousness and nature led him to perceive the relation as “chiasmic.” All of this is an intellectual trip that can only be appreciated by taking it.

phenomenology in consciousness studies
Phenomenology (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

one possible source of confusion:

Note that in recent debates the phenomenal character of an experience is often called its “phenomenology” — whereas, in the established idiom, the term “phenomenology” names the discipline that studies such “phenomenology”.