Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[Soupie]

If we "look" for chair in the "world", what will we find? Is "chair" in the memory? In the longing to sit? In the texture and color? Is chair in the "ah" at the end of a hard day?

Where is chair? Chair is immental. Chair exists - it is real - but iit needs to be thought of, it has to be brought to mind. Because where is "chair" when it's not thought of?

This is how I think of matter.

In this example, “chair” is no different from “five.” Both “chair” and “five” are immaterial concepts; however, certain organisms can apparently interact with a system of particles and experience “a chair” or “a five.”

In this case, we can say the systems of particles are material and they can be objectively described and measured.

However, phenomenal experience is different.

The example of “five” and “chair” are just that, examples. Metaphors, even. Again, we can’t objectively describe subjective experience. We are subjective experience.

A system of particles (chair) interacts with another system of particles (organism) and the immaterial experience of a chair is realized.

The experience of a chair is not in the particles of either system. It is nowhere because it is nothing. But it is real. It does exist. It is meaning. It is information.

@Soupie: So where and when does the physical "input" become or get "translated into" subjective experience? You seem to be suggesting that it does.

My contention is that the "pattern" of input is the phenomenal experience.

@smcder: Did you try the experiment?

Your first question is the $64 question.y point is just that we shouldn't be surprised that we can get an electrical impulse to feel like an arm ... but also remember there is active participation by the person, they know it's not their arm and so their attitude toward it has some effect, you make that point about the arbitrariness of qualia. You get used to things, you forget how things were and you get a new normal.

I agree with you re the experiment.

The point I’m trying to make is that so far doctors have been able to build artificial eyes, ears, and hands that are capable of interacting with the body-brain in such a way that the “realization” of phenomenal experience can proceed whereas before it was lacking.

If I understand correctly, it seems this is done via electrical impulses. Thus, if our sensory organs can be “reduced” to electrical impulses and phenomenal experiences can still be realized, than this is informative.

To me, this means one of two things: (1) somewhere in the body – other than our sense organs – incoming data triggers the “release” of a substance constituting phenomenal experience, or (2) the data itself becomes phenomenal experience by way of being meaningful information.

In other words, with the success of artificial sense organs, we are narrowing down list of physical systems required for the existence of phenomenal experience.

What is 3d matter? Carries space around as a property? You don't seem to be able to avoid adding things ... but now as properties. …

I think that remains to be seen actually; that is, whether matter has 3-dimensions as an intrinsic property or whether 3 dimensions are extrinsic/relational.

Maybe matter only has properties in relation to other matter: time, space, mass, velocity, etc. It certainly makes sense to me. Co-dependent arising. One unit of matter could never arise independently from the Unus Mundus; only multiple instances of matter could arise and persist due to the extrinsic relationships that “emerge.”

Not sure your point overall is here? Again looks like everything reduces to matter ... which is no problem information can be immaterial in a material world - that's semantics …

I don’t necessarily have a point per se; I’m simply attempting to think about the relationship between matter, information, and mind using the most concise concepts possible.

I disagree that the proposition that information is immaterial is semantics.

If I told you:

1 = H

2 = E

3 = L

4 = O

And then I created the following physical structures:

12334

12

1233

1432

I could say the above physical structures “carry” information. We know what information they carry. The information is very real. It exists. But where is the information physically located? Nowhere because it is nothing.

 

[Constance]

Not as far as I'm concerned!

I appreciate the candor - you've raised many good points and I'm examining my own thinking and responses in light of the criticism. I can see where I can make some changes.

You're not gong to hurt my feelings and if you do I'll probably get over it. I probably should get over it.

I like the idea of focusing the thread and I'm open to doing so.

I second this. I don't think you have anything to apologize for, Pharoah. It might be worthwhile, though, for you to skim through the earlier posts in this thread (beginning in part 1) but I don't see why you should stop posting in the present. Like Steve I think you have raised important points about how this discussion meanders from subtopic to subtopic in consciousness studies without working through to a mutual understanding of one subtopic before moving on to another. We all seem to be approaching the whole topic -- what consciousness is in its fullness and complexity -- like blindfolded people studying different parts of the anatomy of an elephant. I'm sure you've heard the term 'consciousness wars' used to describe the oppositional approaches taken in the interdisciplinary field of CS formalized just 20 years ago through the Tucson conferences. We've avoided war in this forum for a long time now and I noted your approval of our sustainedattempt at colleaguiality, and I think we can continue to give one another the benefit of the doubt while pursuing some meeting of minds. I'm very glad to see you participating more in this thread. I think we can all learn a lot from one another if we clarify our positions and think critically together about the limits of each of them taken alone.

You emphasize 'explanation' as the goal we should be pursuing, and I think that our little forum, like the big field of CS, is seeking an adequate explanation of consciousness. But that explanation requires more than a demonstrable account of the origins of consciousness in nature; it also requires investigation of what consciousness is. What is its structure? What kinds of 'information' does it address and work with in its development in the individual and in the collective? What aspects, capabilities, activities of consciousness as we experience it are important and in need of investigation if we are to understand what consciousness is? And what does the full nature of consciousness tell us about the nature of the reality in which we exist?

 

[Constance]

The experience of a chair is not in the particles of either system. It is nowhere because it is nothing. But it is real. It does exist. It is meaning. It is information.

We build our concepts out of our experience in the world, don't we? And as we are able to handle concepts in our thinking and dialogues with one another, do they not also become 'things' in the mind's eye, in your mind and mine? The chair I am sitting on as I type this is a real chair; it does exist or I would be sitting on the floor. It is meaningful to the extent that I need and use it. It is not the Ur-chair but a particular actual chair. 'Information' -- whatever it is and wherever in nature it arises -- might well have played a role in the evolution of a world in which humans found they could sit on logs and rocks as easily, more easily, than they could sit on the ground. The Ur-chair, like Goethe's Ur-pflanze, might be an 'idea' deep in nature (but I doubt it). It becomes an idea for humans at a certain point in their mental deliberations on the nature of the reality in which they find themselves living. Thus Plato's idea of the ideal chair arises, which is not a chair we can sit on. Where does this kind of speculation actually lead us? I think it leads to the displacement of thinking from the basis, the ground, of prereflective experience and reflective thinking sustained by our experience in the palpable world. The really interesting question is how a self-located point of view arises at some point in the evolution of nature (see Panksepp).

 

[Constance]

 

[Constance]

I've located a paper by Donald Hoffman [D.D. Hoffman] that is likely a version of the one he presented at Tucson 2014 to significant acclaim. This extract from the introductory portion of the paper might be useful to us here in distinguishing among major approaches to consciousness with which each of us might identify to some extent. This might be a step forward in sorting out our agreements and differences as we approach our subject, colored by what we conceive our subject to be.


“. . . following the demise of behaviorism in the 1950s, there have been several classes of
philosophical theories of the mind-body problem. Type physicalist theories assert that mental state types are numerically identical to certain neural state types (Place, 1956; Smart, 1959). This identity claim has seemed, to many philosophers, too strong. It seems premature to dismiss the possibility that creatures without neurons might have mental states, or that the same mental state type might be instantiated by different neural state types in different people or animals. Such considerations led to the weaker token physicalist theories, which assert that each mental state token is numerically identical to some neural state token (Fodor, 1974). Reductive functionalist theories assert that the type identity conditions for mental states refer only to relations, typically causal relations, between inputs, outputs, and each other (Block & Fodor, 1972). Nonreductive functionalist theories make the weaker claim that functional relations between inputs, outputs and internal system states give rise to mental states but are not identical with such states (Chalmers, 1995). These theories typically entail epiphenomenalism, the claim that conscious experiences are caused by neural activity but themselves have no causal consequences. This is thought by some to be a reductio of nonreductive functionalism, since it entails that a person’s beliefs about their conscious experiences are not caused by those experiences, and indeed their beliefs would be the same even if they had no such experiences. Representationalist theories (e.g., Tye, 1995, 2000) identify conscious experiences with certain tracking relationships, i.e., with certain causal covariations, between brains states and states of the physical world. On these theories it is the entire causal chain, not just the neural activity, that is to be identified with, or gives rise to, conscious experience. The “biological naturalism” theory of Searle (1992, 2004) claims that conscious states are caused by lower level neural processes in the brain. Single neurons are not conscious, but some neural systems are conscious. Consciousness can be causally reduced to neural processes, but it cannot be eliminated and replaced by neural processes.

This brief overview does not, of course, begin to explore these theories, and it omits important positions, such as the emergentism of Broad (1925), the anomalous monism of Davidson (1970), and the supervenience theory of Kim (1993). However it is adequate to make one obvious point. The philosophical theories of the mind-body problem are, as they advertise, philosophical and not scientific. They explore the conceptual possibilities where one might eventually formulate a scientific theory, but they do not themselves formulate scientific theories. The token identity theories, for instance, do not state precisely which neural state tokens are identical to which mental state tokens, together with principled reasons why. The nonreductive functionalist theories do not state precisely which functional relations give rise, say, to the smell of garlic versus the smell of a rose, and do not give principled reasons why, reasons that lead to novel, quantitative predictions. These comments are not, of course, intended as a criticism of these theories, but simply as an observation about their intended scope and limits.

http://www.federaljack.com/ebooks/Consciousness Books Collection/Hoffman - Conscious Realism and the mind body problem.pdf

 

[Soupie]

We build our concepts out of our experience in the world...

Who or what is this "we" having experiences?

 

[Soupie]

We build our concepts out of our experience in the world, don't we?

Yes, “we” do. But who or what are we? That is, who or what is having the experiences: a physical organism or a mental homunculus?

I say that it is the physical organism that is having the experiences; and we are the experiences the body is having. (The mind is green.)

A body-self with a mental-self is distinct from a body-self with a self-aware mental-self.

That is, in order for an organism to “build concepts out of experience” it must acquire a degree of meta-awareness.

That is: organism > aware > self-aware

The chair I am sitting on as I type this is a real chair; it does exist or I would be sitting on the floor.

You are a system of particles atop another system of particles. Particles do exist and they are physical. The phenomenal experience of a chair does exist and it is immaterial.

It is meaningful to the extent that I need and use it.

Any meaning that the collection of particles has is subjective/immaterial.

Where does this kind of speculation actually lead us? I think it leads to the displacement of thinking from the basis, the ground, of prereflective experience and reflective thinking sustained by our experience in the palpable world.

What is the palpable world? Palpable is physical.

What is experience in the [physical] world? Experience is meaning. What is meaning? Meaning is information.

How does information (meaning) arise in the physical world? How does information (meaning) become aware of itself?

The really interesting question is how a self-located point of view arises at some point in the evolution of nature...

That is the question I am asking.

 

[Pharoah]

In this example, “chair” is no different from “five.” Both “chair” and “five” are immaterial concepts; however, certain organisms can apparently interact with a system of particles and experience “a chair” or “a five.”

In this case, we can say the systems of particles are material and they can be objectively described and measured.

However, phenomenal experience is different.

The example of “five” and “chair” are just that, examples. Metaphors, even. Again, we can’t objectively describe subjective experience. We are subjective experience.

A system of particles (chair) interacts with another system of particles (organism) and the immaterial experience of a chair is realized.

The experience of a chair is not in the particles of either system. It is nowhere because it is nothing. But it is real. It does exist. It is meaning. It is information.


I agree with you re the experiment.

The point I’m trying to make is that so far doctors have been able to build artificial eyes, ears, and hands that are capable of interacting with the body-brain in such a way that the “realization” of phenomenal experience can proceed whereas before it was lacking.

If I understand correctly, it seems this is done via electrical impulses. Thus, if our sensory organs can be “reduced” to electrical impulses and phenomenal experiences can still be realized, than this is informative.

To me, this means one of two things: (1) somewhere in the body – other than our sense organs – incoming data triggers the “release” of a substance constituting phenomenal experience, or (2) the data itself becomes phenomenal experience by way of being meaningful information.

In other words, with the success of artificial sense organs, we are narrowing down list of physical systems required for the existence of phenomenal experience.



I think that remains to be seen actually; that is, whether matter has 3-dimensions as an intrinsic property or whether 3 dimensions are extrinsic/relational.

Maybe matter only has properties in relation to other matter: time, space, mass, velocity, etc. It certainly makes sense to me. Co-dependent arising. One unit of matter could never arise independently from the Unus Mundus; only multiple instances of matter could arise and persist due to the extrinsic relationships that “emerge.”



I don’t necessarily have a point per se; I’m simply attempting to think about the relationship between matter, information, and mind using the most concise concepts possible.

I disagree that the proposition that information is immaterial is semantics.

If I told you:

1 = H

2 = E

3 = L

4 = O

And then I created the following physical structures:

12334

12

1233

1432

I could say the above physical structures “carry” information. We know what information they carry. The information is very real. It exists. But where is the information physically located? Nowhere because it is nothing.

Later you also ask, "How does information (meaning) become aware of itself?"

The information is relevant in terms of what you as the interpreter know the symbolic digits to represent. Consequently, the information is a combined derivation of the digits on the one hand, and the representational designators on the other - the designators being the interpreting person.
This view of information is a problem for any theory of mind because it requires a homunculus, programmer, and/or external representational interpreter of the data in order to facilitate the derivation of meaningful informational. In other words, the information is extrinsic to the digits and their sequencing. Soupie says, (paraphrased), "the information is nowhere because it is nothing". This I understand to mean that in an of itself digits are not information; they require an interpreter.
In order to get 'information' into a theory of mind intrinsically, the digits (or whatever the construction consists of - in terms of process, function, mechanism or whatever) must be representational in and of themselves. In other words, they must constitute a constructed whole thereby requiring no extrinsic interpreter.
Yes or no:
Are there any potential flaws of reasoning in the ideas expressed?
Does this evaluation of intrinsic vs extrinsic information seem intuitively sensible?
Are there other interpretations that might be worth considering?

btw - I have created a Google group with the intention of exploring the idea of a Philosophy MasterMind group. If you want to join it as an experiment, message me privately on the forum and I'll arrange your inclusion - it is going to be private access only. Perhaps it will work, perhaps not... Topics that individuals wish to pursue can be isolated and posted in the group. Other functions of the MM group can be decided by members - suggestions are included in the welcome message within the MM group.

 

[Pharoah]

We build our concepts out of our experience in the world, don't we? And as we are able to handle concepts in our thinking and dialogues with one another, do they not also become 'things' in the mind's eye, in your mind and mine? The chair I am sitting on as I type this is a real chair; it does exist or I would be sitting on the floor. It is meaningful to the extent that I need and use it. It is not the Ur-chair but a particular actual chair. 'Information' -- whatever it is and wherever in nature it arises -- might well have played a role in the evolution of a world in which humans found they could sit on logs and rocks as easily, more easily, than they could sit on the ground. The Ur-chair, like Goethe's Ur-pflanze, might be an 'idea' deep in nature (but I doubt it). It becomes an idea for humans at a certain point in their mental deliberations on the nature of the reality in which they find themselves living. Thus Plato's idea of the ideal chair arises, which is not a chair we can sit on. Where does this kind of speculation actually lead us? I think it leads to the displacement of thinking from the basis, the ground, of prereflective experience and reflective thinking sustained by our experience in the palpable world. The really interesting question is how a self-located point of view arises at some point in the evolution of nature (see Panksepp).

you say, "We build our concepts out of our experience in the world, don't we?"
Can experience be categorized in a hierarchical fashion?

 

[Pharoah]

Can someone list for me, the various types of explanation?

 

[smcder]

In this example, “chair” is no different from “five.” Both “chair” and “five” are immaterial concepts; however, certain organisms can apparently interact with a system of particles and experience “a chair” or “a five.”

In this case, we can say the systems of particles are material and they can be objectively described and measured.

However, phenomenal experience is different.

The example of “five” and “chair” are just that, examples. Metaphors, even. Again, we can’t objectively describe subjective experience. We are subjective experience.

A system of particles (chair) interacts with another system of particles (organism) and the immaterial experience of a chair is realized.

The experience of a chair is not in the particles of either system. It is nowhere because it is nothing. But it is real. It does exist. It is meaning. It is information.


I agree with you re the experiment.

The point I’m trying to make is that so far doctors have been able to build artificial eyes, ears, and hands that are capable of interacting with the body-brain in such a way that the “realization” of phenomenal experience can proceed whereas before it was lacking.

If I understand correctly, it seems this is done via electrical impulses. Thus, if our sensory organs can be “reduced” to electrical impulses and phenomenal experiences can still be realized, than this is informative.

To me, this means one of two things: (1) somewhere in the body – other than our sense organs – incoming data triggers the “release” of a substance constituting phenomenal experience, or (2) the data itself becomes phenomenal experience by way of being meaningful information.

In other words, with the success of artificial sense organs, we are narrowing down list of physical systems required for the existence of phenomenal experience.



I think that remains to be seen actually; that is, whether matter has 3-dimensions as an intrinsic property or whether 3 dimensions are extrinsic/relational.

Maybe matter only has properties in relation to other matter: time, space, mass, velocity, etc. It certainly makes sense to me. Co-dependent arising. One unit of matter could never arise independently from the Unus Mundus; only multiple instances of matter could arise and persist due to the extrinsic relationships that “emerge.”



I don’t necessarily have a point per se; I’m simply attempting to think about the relationship between matter, information, and mind using the most concise concepts possible.

I disagree that the proposition that information is immaterial is semantics.

If I told you:

1 = H

2 = E

3 = L

4 = O

And then I created the following physical structures:

12334

12

1233

1432

I could say the above physical structures “carry” information. We know what information they carry. The information is very real. It exists. But where is the information physically located? Nowhere because it is nothing.

I do understand how you are using the term immaterial ... but it looks like I didn't convey my point about the immaterial by making the same statement using immental?

I don't know how else to put it across.

... just listened to a talk about a physicist who interprets QM to support Idealism, he uses a similar argument to your example of five but to support the opposite conclusion.

I posted the link and an article by the physicist a while back, also another article or book review by a mathematician who has i think a similar train of thought ... I'm reading a little more on Idealism and like Dualism there is really less objection available than I first thought ... we think it's crazy but people think Panpsychism is crazy, so I'm asking myself does our current choice of materialism as a dominant paradigm come about because it's supported by the evidence?

What do you mean by co-dependent arising? Is that a psychological disorder?

 

[Soupie]

The information is relevant in terms of what you as the interpreter know the symbolic digits to represent. ...

This view of information is a problem for any theory of mind because it requires a homunculus, programmer, and/or external representational interpreter of the data in order to facilitate the derivation of meaningful informational.

My understanding is that information/meaning requires a coder, a physical container, and a decoder.

On my (primitive) view, I wonder if the "physical container" is the physical environment and the "decoder" is the physical organism.

So the question is, who is the coder? Who is coding meaning into the physical environment? My (again primitive) view is that it may have something to do with a self-replicating physical system's ability to store data/information and pass it along from generation to generation; that is, its ability to learn and eternally embody this learning in successive generations.

This is why I'm excited about HCT and Pankseep's work. I think the phenomenal affect states of organisms are informational states about their body-environment.

Thus, the "coder" is (past) experience retained in the organism and passed on to future generations, the container is the environment, and the decoder is the (present) organism.

Organisms are conscious because they are meaning-making systems.

In other words, they must constitute a constructed whole thereby requiring no extrinsic interpreter.

This is certainly an idea worthy of investigation as well. I believe DNA may be one such structure; that is, container and decoder. Mutation and natural selection perhaps being the coder. A similar process may occur on the macro level as well.

 

[Constance]

Well fuck all, guys. I just spent several hours crafting a detailed response to Soupie's post to me earlier today and, when I clicked to post it, it disappeared, replaced with a demand that I log in again. I have filed a complaint with the management. I'd love to join you in this discussion tonight but I'm too pissed off to do it now. Going to have a beer. Have a nice night.

 

[Gene Steinberg]

There is no change in our forum software that should cause this. It doesn't happen at all to me, and it should auto save content. So I wonder if there isn't something in your setup that's causing this problem. I haven't had other complaints. Anyone?

 

[Constance]

It never happened before. Perhaps your new system is set up for a chat site. Aside from this 'event', I've noticed since you changed the software that I have to log in several times a day after I've been away from the paracast for hours at a time. That didn't used to happen either.

 

[Constance]

Maybe it's because I still haven't crossed the adware interruptor with silver, though that interruption (also preventing my logging in a week or so ago) has blessedly now subsided. Now I too shall subside.

ps: I know you've had complaints about that other disruptive mechanism.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie

I disagree that the proposition that information is immaterial is semantics.

If I told you:

1 = H

2 = E

3 = L

4 = O

And then I created the following physical structures:

12334

12

1233

1432

I could say the above physical structures “carry” information. We know what information they carry. The information is very real. It exists. But where is the information physically located? Nowhere because it is nothing.

i get all that ... my point was that defining the word "immaterial" in terms of "material" is a matter of semantics. My phrasing was confusing.

 

[Constance]

you say, "We build our concepts out of our experience in the world, don't we?"

Can experience be categorized in a hierarchical fashion?

In the human world (deftly displaced from these digitalized theories of consciousness and mind) you pays your money and you takes your choice about what you take to be significant in your experience in the world. Iow, you arrange your own hierarchies.

This probably sounds strange to people who think of themselves as strange loops.

 

[smcder]

@Constance

"They explore the conceptual possibilities where one might eventually formulate a scientific theory, but they do not themselves formulate scientific theories. "

That's a good statement about one of the ways philosophy relates to science.

 

[Constance]

@Soupie

I disagree that the proposition that information is immaterial is semantics.

If I told you:

1 = H

2 = E

3 = L

4 = O

And then I created the following physical structures:

12334

12

1233

1432

I could say the above physical structures “carry” information. We know what information they carry. The information is very real. It exists. But where is the information physically located? Nowhere because it is nothing.

i get all that ... my point was that defining the word "immaterial" in terms of "material" is a matter of semantics.

Where is Charles Peirce when we need him? No one's heard of semiotics?