Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[smcder]

So how do we want to move forward? I like the idea of focusing ... we need a way to come to consensus on what to focus on and how to make the conversation productive.

 

[Soupie]

What I have said on the possible relation of quantum mechanics and q field theory to consciousness is that the entanglement demonstrated in quantum phenomena might account for both the way in which a) our ideas and feelings are entangled and remain so for long periods of time (some entanglements enduring for a lifetime), and b) the nonlocality of consciousness recognized in several key physics experiments and demonstrated in a half-dozen different types of 'para-normal' experience.

Quantum entangled ideas? Quantum entangled feelings? Enduring for a lifetime? The nonlocality of consciousness recognized in physics experiments?

Before this thread began many months ago, I'd been drawn for several years to the idea of quantum-entangled 'information' in the holographic mind of the individual and between individuals and in the holographically entangled universe (Bohm, Pribram) as the perhaps portable state of the personal self (with all its accomplished entanglements with significant others, with a loved and remembered experienced world, and with an achieved complex of ideas and insights) that could enable the survival of personal consciousness in some form after the death of the body. I see information in terms of what we produce in our lives through our continuous presence to our experiences in and of the world, to what we value, and to whom and what we love -- all of it entangled in the developing self and preserved in consciousness and mind.

Quantum entangled "information" in the holographic mind? Holographically entangled universe? Portable personal self? Entangled accomplishments of loved ones? Information produced via continuous presence? All of it entangled?

No doubt prior kinds of information exchanged in the evolution of the physical world and of life arising within it are also real, and I think arise in the quantum level of physical being, generating what I've called a 'habit' in nature of interaction and entanglement, in particles and waves producing fields and forces that constitute systems of systems maintained in and maintaining the universe as a system. Like the 'constants' recognized in the current standard model in physics (without which, we are told, this universe we're located in would fly apart rather than maintain its integrity, its holism), there is evidently an inherent, though evolving, order maintained by the integration of systems of systems in nature.

Prior kinds of information arising in the quantum level of physical being generating a habit of entangelment? Systems of systems?

Hope that clarifies what I've posted.

Hm, yes, very clarifying. @smcder what did you like about this post exactly?

Maybe @marduk can make some sense of this. I certainly can't.

It's truly been a pleasure. Ive learned lots from this discussion, and truly appreciate it, but I think that about does it for me. Take care.

 

[smcder]

Quantum entangled ideas? Quantum entangled feelings? Enduring for a lifetime? The nonlocality of consciousness recognized in physics experiments?


Quantum entangled "information" in the holographic mind? Holographically entangled universe? Portable personal self? Entangled accomplishments of loved ones? Information produced via continuous presence? All of it entangled?


Prior kinds of information arising in the quantum level of physical being generating a habit of entangelment? Systems of systems?


Hm, yes, very clarifying. @smcder what did you like about this post exactly?

Maybe @marduk can make some sense of this. I certainly can't.

It's truly been a pleasure. Ive learned lots from this discussion, and truly appreciate it, but I think that about does it for me. Take care.

It's unfortunate that you chose to leave at this time @Constance and @Pharoah have formulated some good questions about your ideas and it seems a continued exchange would be beneficial to you in developing those ideas. We're also at a point where we recognize a need for focus and can discuss how that could happen. I think one real possibility is to rotate the selection of topics from person to person with the person "ahead" facilitating the discussion. In this way we can bring particular focus to each person's interests in turn.

You ask what I "like" about the post ... I think the way the "like" button works for me is that I use it when a post is well-written but I don't make a response because I don't know enough about a subject or it's a response to someone else ... but when I respond to someone's post I don't always click "like" ... at any rate, maybe there is a research project there for someone or a thread to be started.

But when I look back at the post, what I like is that she is responding to your post about her ideas, she is discussing the paranormal on a thread entitled Consciousness and the Paranormal she cites at least a couple of sources and she uses "possible" "might" etc which indicates to me she is open to discussing these ideas. I don't know a lot about QM. entanglement, Pribram's theories and it's not a primary interest, but I have read a few articles and books (linked at the end) and would be willing to pursue a discussion - the ideas certainly provoke a variety of responses.

These aren't new ideas for the thread - although some of them may have been posted to the thread Death! instead of this thread. But I think many of them are on here - I know entanglement and non-locality have been topics with extensive citations and discussions with several other posters.

Take care and best of luck in your future pursuits.

PCNL Library - Consciousness Reassessed by Karl Pribram
Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a Quantum Reality: Dean Radin Ph.D.: 9781416516774: Amazon.com: Books
Quantum Approaches to Consciousness (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research


http://www.deanradin.com/evidence/evidence.htm

 

[Pharoah]

The difference between our approaches is that in my view our experience [prereflective and reflective] in the palpable world is sufficient to orient us to our possible actions within it and also to yield recognition of the nature of our own consciousness as a partial and concerned perspective on what-is to the limits of what we can see and otherwise sense -- and on that basis what we can think. Your approach is far less direct, seems to attempt to avoid/efface the tangible, sensual nature of our experienced presence in and to the world {and that of our forebears in evolution yielding for them responses along the continuum from 'affectivity', to intentionality, proto-consciousness, and in some cases consciousness similar to ours}, and to arrive at the conclusion that what we achieve in mind unique to our species is a computation of "data" ['information'] of an abstract, immaterial, still-undefined sort which only our computational physical brains receive and process. As far as I can understand your point of view, it loses the intimate integration of living species' sensually obtained awareness with the being of the 'world' in which that awareness has come to exist. The kind of informational hypothesis you present appears to radically separate, even disassociate, the subjective and objective poles of phenomenal experience, whereas in my view these poles are almost seamlessly interwoven in lived experience as analyzed by Merleau-Ponty.



I don't either. The body is also conscious; it is the location from which primordial organisms first begin to sense a further location of themselves in relation to "an outer bush", a larger mileau, "a place of being large and light" {I might be misquoting my poet there}. I'll insert a link to the post where I copied "The Dove in Spring."

I really like the content of this post for it clarifies my understanding of your stance, I believe.

you say
"The difference between our approaches is that in my view our experience [prereflective and reflective] in the palpable world is sufficient to orient us to our possible actions within it and also to yield recognition of the nature of our own consciousness as a partial and concerned perspective on what-is to the limits of what we can see and otherwise sense"
"to yield recognition of the nature of our own consciousness."
This sentence illustrates one of my points made earlier, namely, that it is essentially a 'person specific individuated analysis', and not an approach well suited to generalities or for obtaining principles about the first-person.

I can illustrate this point I think, with the following:
assume that I am a music composer. I say, "music speaks to me and I speak through music in my compositions. Music moves me, and through analysis of what moves me, I understand harmony, melody and form. That is all I need to know in my art form."
Mozart's symphony no.41 fourth movement contains a four note fugue and his treatment of it strictly obeys Schoenberg's twelve tone technique (I am reliably informed). Mozart in a phenomenological sense, applied a conceptual technique instinctively - a technique that was not "discovered" and the applied rigorously until the twentieth century.
I suppose, an equivalent would be for an individual to write a poem following iambic pentameter merely because he/she liked the cadential rhythm of it but without actually knowing he/she was writing iambic pentameter - a feat that I have managed myself. Similarly, many artists may follow the golden ratio unknowingly. But the sense of such feelings can be determined as a theoretical proposition - a conceptual analytic proposition - in the absence of the qualitative experience from which it is derived.
So my point is this, one can think and analyse many aspects of music, art, poetry and obtain principles about qualitative experience outside of its phenomenological characterisation.

you say of Soupie,
"Your approach is far less direct, seems to attempt to avoid/efface the tangible, sensual nature of our experienced presence in and to the world {and that of our forebears in evolution yielding for them responses along the continuum from 'affectivity', to intentionality, proto-consciousness, and in some cases consciousness similar to ours}, and to arrive at the conclusion that what we achieve in mind unique to our species is a computation of "data" ['information'] of an abstract, immaterial, still-undefined sort which only our computational physical brains receive and process. As far as I can understand your point of view, it loses the intimate integration of living species' sensually obtained awareness with the being of the 'world' in which that awareness has come to exist."

I think that the approach (Soupie's, mine et al.) can lead to computational type abstractions that are sterile, losing the intimate integration, sensual awareness and so on. This is true, just as it is true that Shoenberg's discovery of twelve tone technique has lead to the most dreadful period of antimusic composition in history, in synchrony with vacuous conceptually constructed "art". This is the danger, but it does not by necessity follow from the beauty of a unified principle that explains great diversity, a unity from which all great art emerges whether know or not yet revealed (now that's a thought ...)

 

[smcder]

I really like the content of this post for it clarifies my understanding of your stance, I believe.

you say
"The difference between our approaches is that in my view our experience [prereflective and reflective] in the palpable world is sufficient to orient us to our possible actions within it and also to yield recognition of the nature of our own consciousness as a partial and concerned perspective on what-is to the limits of what we can see and otherwise sense"
"to yield recognition of the nature of our own consciousness."
This sentence illustrates one of my points made earlier, namely, that it is essentially a 'person specific individuated analysis', and not an approach well suited to generalities or for obtaining principles about the first-person.

I can illustrate this point I think, with the following:
assume that I am a music composer. I say, "music speaks to me and I speak through music in my compositions. Music moves me, and through analysis of what moves me, I understand harmony, melody and form. That is all I need to know in my art form."
Mozart's symphony no.41 fourth movement contains a four note fugue and his treatment of it strictly obeys Schoenberg's twelve tone technique (I am reliably informed). Mozart in a phenomenological sense, applied a conceptual technique instinctively - a technique that was not "discovered" and the applied rigorously until the twentieth century.
I suppose, an equivalent would be for an individual to write a poem following iambic pentameter merely because he/she liked the cadential rhythm of it but without actually knowing he/she was writing iambic pentameter - a feat that I have managed myself. Similarly, many artists may follow the golden ratio unknowingly. But the sense of such feelings can be determined as a theoretical proposition - a conceptual analytic proposition - in the absence of the qualitative experience from which it is derived.
So my point is this, one can think and analyse many aspects of music, art, poetry and obtain principles about qualitative experience outside of its phenomenological characterisation.

you say of Soupie,
"Your approach is far less direct, seems to attempt to avoid/efface the tangible, sensual nature of our experienced presence in and to the world {and that of our forebears in evolution yielding for them responses along the continuum from 'affectivity', to intentionality, proto-consciousness, and in some cases consciousness similar to ours}, and to arrive at the conclusion that what we achieve in mind unique to our species is a computation of "data" ['information'] of an abstract, immaterial, still-undefined sort which only our computational physical brains receive and process. As far as I can understand your point of view, it loses the intimate integration of living species' sensually obtained awareness with the being of the 'world' in which that awareness has come to exist."

I think that the approach (Soupie's, mine et al.) can lead to computational type abstractions that are sterile, losing the intimate integration, sensual awareness and so on. This is true, just as it is true that Shoenberg's discovery of twelve tone technique has lead to the most dreadful period of antimusic composition in history, in synchrony with vacuous conceptually constructed "art". This is the danger, but it does not by necessity follow from the beauty of a unified principle that explains great diversity, a unity from which all great art emerges whether know or not yet revealed (now that's a thought ...)

I think that the approach (Soupie's, mine et al.) can lead to computational type abstractions that are sterile, losing the intimate integration, sensual awareness and so on. This is true, just as it is true that Shoenberg's discovery of twelve tone technique has lead to the most dreadful period of antimusic composition in history, in synchrony with vacuous conceptually constructed "art". This is the danger, but it does not by necessity follow from the beauty of a unified principle that explains great diversity, a unity from which all great art emerges whether know or not yet revealed (now that's a thought ...)

Excellent post. No, it doesn't necessarily follow, but there has to be an awareness (which you have I think by virtue of your music) and that awareness isn't always there. There are real concerns about an underlying scientism that need to be kept out in the air.

I think this is exactly what we should discuss. The underlying concerns of the two approaches and just exactly what the differences are. @Soupie may be right, there may be less difference than it first appears, but part of the difference is a difference of values and small differences of values can raise enormous concern.

This is CP Snow's concern in "The Two Cultures" and every public intellectual since then (at least) has weighed in on it: Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein a whole slate of recent scientists: EO Wilson, Dennett and Dawkins, most recently Ian McGilchrist's work frames it on the differences in the right and left hemispheres.

All that said, I think a simple division into the sciences and the humanities encourages dismissal from the other side. For example, there is a rigor and value in the phenomenological approach that isn't appreciable unless one has done the reading. The example I linked of Dreyfus' critique of AI is a paradigm. The implicit philosophy of AI was substance ontology and it took a philosopher to spot it and say why the project would (and it did) fail. Philosophy underlies scientific pursuits, the problem is it's often not recognized.

 

[smcder]

I meant to add that it seems to me Scientism isn't ethically self-correcting. It's primary position is one of value and authority as regards knowledge.

 

[Constance]

I really like the content of this post for it clarifies my understanding of your stance, I believe.

you say
"The difference between our approaches is that in my view our experience [prereflective and reflective] in the palpable world is sufficient to orient us to our possible actions within it and also to yield recognition of the nature of our own consciousness as a partial and concerned perspective on what-is to the limits of what we can see and otherwise sense"
"to yield recognition of the nature of our own consciousness."
This sentence illustrates one of my points made earlier, namely, that it is essentially a 'person specific individuated analysis', and not an approach well suited to generalities or for obtaining principles about the first-person.

Then you don't yet understand my phenomenological approach, based in phen. philosophy as a body of thought. While it's true that each individual human's consciousness and way of thinking about the world is unique in some ways to that individual, phenomenology studies the commonalities in human experience by virtue of our sharing the same ontological condition -- that of living as 'situated freedoms', thus sharing the core problems and responsibilities that situated freedom lays upon us. The generality of this human condition has clearly been assumed to be an (unstated) premise of all philosophy concerning consciousness and mind, determination and free will, morality and ethics.

I can illustrate this point I think, with the following:
assume that I am a music composer. I say, "music speaks to me and I speak through music in my compositions. Music moves me, and through analysis of what moves me, I understand harmony, melody and form. That is all I need to know in my art form."
Mozart's symphony no.41 fourth movement contains a four note fugue and his treatment of it strictly obeys Schoenberg's twelve tone technique (I am reliably informed). Mozart in a phenomenological sense, applied a conceptual technique instinctively - a technique that was not "discovered" and the[n] applied rigorously until the twentieth century.
I suppose, an equivalent would be for an individual to write a poem following iambic pentameter merely because he/she liked the cadential rhythm of it but without actually knowing he/she was writing iambic pentameter - a feat that I have managed myself. Similarly, many artists may follow the golden ratio unknowingly. But the sense of such feelings can be determined as a theoretical proposition - a conceptual analytic proposition - in the absence of the qualitative experience from which it is derived.
So my point is this, one can think and analyse many aspects of music, art, poetry and obtain principles about qualitative experience outside of its phenomenological characterisation.

These are fascinating references/examples, though I'm not sure what you intend them to demonstrate. The musical scales centered in diatonic ratios and the Golden Mean [Phi] example raise a question well suited to this discussion: do these characteristic forms recurring almost universally in human artistic expression signify the propagation of 'information' deeply embedded in nature? That seems to be the case. Phi is the great example, appearing in ancient 'sacred geometry' and continuously thereafter in paintings, sculpture, architecture, and design in general through the ages of human cultural history. Two or three years ago phi also showed up at the quantum level in experiments undertaken by Oxford University physicists and physicists at the Helmholtz Institute. They were not actually surprised by this since they had been seeking such a discovery. I'll post a link when I relocate one of the articles that reported the event at the time.

Diatonic scales in music, corresponding with diatonic ratios in classical geometry, are generally thought to arise from frequency relationships phenomenally encountered in nature. These scales have been employed almost everywhere in human musical history, but they have been adapted in various ways at various times by adjustments in tuning described in the Wiki article linked below. The twelve-tone scale seems to have evolved historically from adjustments in tuning and harmonics to expand musical possibilities (first to avoid dissonance and in time to increase it). All very complex (way too complex for me), but hinting at a kind of deep order in nature that is also expressed in the Fibonacci numbers, sequences, and patterns found to occur throughout the natural world. Getting back to Mozart and his fragment built on a twelve tone scale, what do you mean by 'the phenomenological sense' in which Mozart applied the twelve-tone scale? From what 'qualitative experience' do you think he employed it? My guess is that artists in general understand their medium in vastly more detail than a spectator or listener normally can, and attempt to extend the possibilities of expression in their medium. 'What' they are attempting to express is not something usually articulated, specified, by artists, and it needn't be because what the artist gives to the rest of us is the expressiveness of the work itself for each listener, viewer, or reader for whom the artwork expands the sense of being, of experience in and of the unfinished world in which we have our existence. We're drawn to artworks of all kinds because they expand and increase our sense of life. So my guess would be that Mozart experimented briefly with twelve tone harmonics because it enabled him to express a feeling or idea that he could not express in the standard scale and tuning of his time. Or he might have been engaging in a merely technical experiment. In either case, the example you cite concerns the imaginative and inventive capabilities of the artist to express something that cannot be expressed in any other way, and what he/she expresses is palpably something that we can and do identify with -- out of the commonality of our human condition.

Just intonation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Extract: The oldest known form of tuning, Pythagorean tuning, can produce a twelve tone scale, but it does so by involving ratios of very large numbers, corresponding to natural harmonics very high in the harmonic series that do not occur widely in physical phenomena.

you say of Soupie,
"Your approach is far less direct, seems to attempt to avoid/efface the tangible, sensual nature of our experienced presence in and to the world {and that of our forebears in evolution yielding for them responses along the continuum from 'affectivity', to intentionality, proto-consciousness, and in some cases consciousness similar to ours}, and to arrive at the conclusion that what we achieve in mind unique to our species is a computation of "data" ['information'] of an abstract, immaterial, still-undefined sort which only our computational physical brains receive and process. As far as I can understand your point of view, it loses the intimate integration of living species' sensually obtained awareness with the being of the 'world' in which that awareness has come to exist."

I think that the approach (Soupie's, mine et al.) can lead to computational type abstractions that are sterile, losing the intimate integration, sensual awareness and so on. This is true, just as it is true that Shoenberg's discovery of twelve tone technique has lead to the most dreadful period of antimusic composition in history, in synchrony with vacuous conceptually constructed "art". This is the danger, but it does not by necessity follow from the beauty of a unified principle that explains great diversity, a unity from which all great art emerges whether know or not yet revealed (now that's a thought ...)

". . . I think that the approach (Soupie's, mine et al.) can lead to computational type abstractions that are sterile, losing the intimate integration, sensual awareness and so on. This is true, just as it is true that Shoenberg's discovery of twelve tone technique has lead to the most dreadful period of antimusic composition in history, in synchrony with vacuous conceptually constructed "art". This is the danger, but it does not by necessity follow from the beauty of a unified principle that explains great diversity, a unity from which all great art emerges whether know or not yet revealed (now that's a thought ...)

Maybe what you're saying is that . . . Wait. I'm not going to hazard a guess and ask instead that you rephrase that in a way that might be clearer to me.

Re Schoenberg etc., I agree with your response.

 

[Constance]

pps: You might well have produced a poem in iambic pentameter without studying iambic pentameter since you've probably heard if not read poetry and drama written in this meter all of your life. Moreover, as this author says, "The rhythm of spoken English is naturally iambic."

Burns, Robert « PoemShape

 

[smcder]

@Pharoah

I think what's needed, and I'm only half joking (right hemisphere) is a third hemisphere.

I'm trying to sort this:

"But the sense of such feelings can be determined as a theoretical proposition - a conceptual analytic proposition - in the absence of the qualitative experience from which it is derived.

So my point is this, one can think and analyse many aspects of music, art, poetry and obtain principles about qualitative experience outside of its phenomenological characterisation."

The sense of such feelings here refers to the Mozart and poetry examples, right? theoretical proposition and a conceptual analytic proposition ... and working with the next sentence, I think this means you can derive a principle of composition from ... and here I'm not sure what you mean by the qualitative experience from which it's derived? Does this mean the experience of creative activity of the composer/poet? But this happens without phenomenological characterization ... so what is being analyzed? It has to be the poem and the composition itself, the notes and the words.

And how do we do that? We can't use phenomenological characterization - so we can't hire a bunch of college kids to listen or read and tell us what they experience or think (which is based on what they experience)... we have to mathematize it, but in doing so it seems we have to make decisions that are based on phenomenological characterization to decide what to mathematize ... there's not an obviousness to iambic pentameter other than that is how we naturally speak because that's how we are embodied, an alien from another planet would likely never figure that out ... or we have to train a neural network to do the listening but that's kind of a bit of both, because you're putting your intelligence in to the net once you made the decisions ... and it's way more expensive than college kids and the college kids might come up and say "hey, did you ever notice this stuff sounds like a bit in Mozart's symphony?" and boom, that's the thing you are looking for ... point is I don't see how you make an end run around human intuitive intelligence and specifically intuition and that is Dreyfus critique (based on Heidegger) of GOFAI which was an attempt to cope with the world based on rules.

The intuition is deeply embedded in who we are and how we evolved... in the specific structures and then from there in how the individual was raised and all of that comes directly from Heidegger.

I don't want to go much further because I may have missed the point entirely but if so, this should give you enough to see how I missed the point.

 

[Constance]

Golden ratio discovered in quantum world: Hidden symmetry observed for the first time in solid state matter
Date: January 7, 2010
Source: Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres

Extract:
'. . . By tuning the system and artificially introducing more quantum uncertainty the researchers observed that the chain of atoms acts like a nanoscale guitar string. Dr. Radu Coldea from Oxford University, who is the principal author of the paper and drove the international project from its inception a decade ago until the present, explains: "Here the tension comes from the interaction between spins causing them to magnetically resonate. For these interactions we found a series (scale) of resonant notes: The first two notes show a perfect relationship with each other. Their frequencies (pitch) are in the ratio of 1.618…, which is the golden ratio famous from art and architecture." Radu Coldea is convinced that this is no coincidence. "It reflects a beautiful property of the quantum system -- a hidden symmetry. Actually quite a special one called E8 by mathematicians, and this is its first observation in a material," he explains.'

Golden ratio discovered in quantum world: Hidden symmetry observed for the first time in solid state matter -- ScienceDaily

 

[Constance]

"Benjamin Libet's Half-Second" is a helpful overview of Libet's series of brain experiments
over several decades and the increasing appreciation of their significance on the part of neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and consciousness researchers. Here are several extracts:

". . . the question of attentional dwell time or the brain's processing frame rate has been a source of great confusion in cognitive psychology because it is assumed that as a computational device, the brain should have a single, fixed, processing cycle speed. Attention shifts should take a set time. The idea that the brain is always representing, and that sharp attention is the pinching up of this surface, helps explain the widely variable performance that is actually observed.

For the evolutionary nature of attentional state, see "Integrated field theory of consciousness," M Kinsbourne, in Consciousness in Contemporary Science, edited by Anthony Marcel and Edoardo Bisiach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988)."


From the notes:

"Preconscious and automatic modes of processing: The term preconscious is chosen in preference to others, such as subconscious, subliminal, implicit—or worst of all, unconscious—because it has the useful connotation of something that is on its way to being conscious, or which could become escalated to consciousness in the right circumstances. The implication is that all processing shares a common path and what differs is the depth of processing. Preattentive processing is perhaps a more standard term, but sounds as if it applies only to the sensory half of the equation and not to the full arc of processing that allows us to execute acts like changing gears, or opening doors, habitually.

For an excellent review of how the concept of preconsciousness has been dealt with in mind science, see "Is human information processing conscious?" M Velmans, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 14, p651-725 (1991). See also Preconscious Processing by Norman Dixon (Chichester, England: John Wiley, 1981), "The psychological unconscious and the self," JF Kihlstrom, in Experimental and Theoretical Studies of Consciousness: CIBA Foundation Symposium 174, edited by Gregory Bock and Joan March (Chichester, England: John Wiley, 1993), "Discrimination and learning without awareness: a methodological survey and evaluation," CW Eriksen, Psychological Review 67, p279-300 (1960), and Perception Without Awareness: Cognitive, Clinical and Social Perspectives, edited by Robert Bornstein and Thane Pittman (New York: Guilford Press, 1992).

Natural to see conscious and preconscious as separate modes: The reductionist hunt for some sharp dividing line between conscious and non-conscious brain processes has muddied the water tremendously, leading to much confusion in the literature. For recent examples of experiments that "prove" a brain mechanism difference, see "Classical conditioning and brain systems: the role of awareness," RE Clark and LR Squire, Science 280, p77-81 (1998), "Brain regions responsive to novelty in the absence of awareness," GS Berns, JD Cohen and MA Mintun, Science 276, p1272-1275 (1997), and "Dissociation of the neural correlates of implicit and explicit memory," MD Rugg et al, Nature 392, p595-598 (1998). For a review, see "Characteristics of dissociable human learning systems," DR Shanks and MF St John, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17, p367-447 (1994)."

Dichotomistic logic - Benjamin Libet's half second

 

[Constance]

Of special interest to @Pharoah (but now to others of us as well) will be this page at the same website cited above titled "logic > hierarchies -- an introduction."

Extract:

"What is a hierarchy? A shape, a geometry, an organisation, a form? A connection is a link, a relationship, between two things. A network is a lot of things connected. A hierarchy is then about levels of connectedness.

And normally the levels are ones of increasing scale. The small builds towards the larger scale. Cells make organs and bodies. Or alternatively the hierarchy is about a rising chain of command. Groups of soldiers are ruled by a sergeant, groups of sergeants by a captain, and so on.

At least this is the mechanical idea of a hierarchy – one constructed from the bottom upwards. Here we are going to take a very different logical view, one where hierarchies develop as a process of “1, 2, 3” .

That is they begin as a vagueness – a state of potential being. This initial fuzzy one-ness develops by a process of dichotomous separation towards a twoness. Then out of the mixing of the twoness comes the emergent threeness of a complex hierarchical system. We end up with a sandwich that has three logical components.

We shall see that this organic hierarchy has some special features. For instance, it is inherently dynamic – it is always expanding.

The middle ground of this hierarchy is also scale-free. The dichotomous separation creates divided scale and then the free mixing of what has been divided creates an internal – scale free or fractal - axis of symmetry. Features erupt over all scales in powerlaw fashion and so levels of scales become homogeneous and isotropic – lacking in distinctive scale to an observer.

And of course this organic hierarchy has holistic order. There is downward causation – top-down constraint as well as bottom-up construction. The global scale is as fundamental as the local or atomistic scale.

So the organic hierarchy is quite different from the conventional mechanical hierarchy. But before we get into describing it in detail, let’s further sharpen our impression of what the mechanical idea of a hierarchy is all about. . . ."

Dichotomistic logic - an introduction to hierarchy theory

 

[Pharoah]

smcder and Constance:
Not sure I was particularly clear before.
What I am saying, is that there are many examples of artists creating in the absence of conceptual principles and conceptual understanding. They create what they "feel" is right - Mozart didn't know about Schoenberg's serial technique (sorry, I said twelve tone before when I meant serial technique Serialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In the case of a composer, he/she might listen to the "natural" cadence of rhythm, harmony, and melody to create - often in the absence of conceptual knowledge about such things (similarly applicable to other art forms).
When I listen to music, I hear each key changes, often understand conceptually the impact they have on "feeling" or mood, as I understand conceptually the impact of articulation, rhythm, and melody. Alternatively, someone else might say, "I love that piece - but I don't know why".
So, someone (A) may create (or listen) intuitively through their sensibilities. They may understand the phenomenal characteristics related to that art form.
Someone else (B) might understand the concepts from which such sensibilities seem to arise.
I am a B person. I hanker (that word again!) for conceptual principles that explain the sensibilities. I am analytical, even in art.
Some people (many artistic people) hate conceptual analysis, and apply their gift of artistic intuition to mould sensibilities. For them, concepts are sterile and suspicious - but often their art is incredibly unified, as can be demonstrated through conceptual analysis.
Finally, there is a real danger and a good reason to be suspicious of B people. The danger is that B people give conceptual thought primacy over sensibilities in reverence to their explanatory power. Come to think of it, most crimes of humanity arise when primacy is given to conceptually derived ideals as they hold at bay what human sensibilities say to be wrong.
I probably haven't covered all the points... short of time

 

[smcder]

smcder and Constance:
Not sure I was particularly clear before.
What I am saying, is that there are many examples of artists creating in the absence of conceptual principles and conceptual understanding. They create what they "feel" is right - Mozart didn't know about Schoenberg's serial technique (sorry, I said twelve tone before when I meant serial technique Serialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In the case of a composer, he/she might listen to the "natural" cadence of rhythm, harmony, and melody to create - often in the absence of conceptual knowledge about such things (similarly applicable to other art forms).
When I listen to music, I hear each key changes, often understand conceptually the impact they have on "feeling" or mood, as I understand conceptually the impact of articulation, rhythm, and melody. Alternatively, someone else might say, "I love that piece - but I don't know why".
So, someone (A) may create (or listen) intuitively through their sensibilities. They may understand the phenomenal characteristics related to that art form.
Someone else (B) might understand the concepts from which such sensibilities seem to arise.
I am a B person. I hanker (that word again!) for conceptual principles that explain the sensibilities. I am analytical, even in art.
Some people (many artistic people) hate conceptual analysis, and apply their gift of artistic intuition to mould sensibilities. For them, concepts are sterile and suspicious - but often their art is incredibly unified, as can be demonstrated through conceptual analysis.
Finally, there is a real danger and a good reason to be suspicious of B people. The danger is that B people give conceptual thought primacy over sensibilities in reverence to their explanatory power. Come to think of it, most crimes of humanity arise when primacy is given to conceptually derived ideals as they hold at bay what human sensibilities say to be wrong.
I probably haven't covered all the points... short of time

This really helps to clarify, thank you.

I'm curious whether there is a "third hemisphere" ... Emergent/arising from the interaction of right/left - just a way to visualize it ... or call it a type A.B or A/B or A^B - I like that last for now ... that is evenly split between the intuitive and analytical ... better still can we train this so As can develop B qualities and vice versa ... Goodbye atrocities!

Seriously and synchronistically I saw a movie last night about a mathematical genius and he described his ability in more poetic or even kinesthetic terms - maybe there was a savant quality and I thnjk some prodigies fail or are incapable of developing because they have large "chunks" they can deftly manipulate but it's almost brute force so that analytical ability is actually hard to come by or hard to motivate ... I think of a composer who thinks in musical phrases or passages but can't scale this up to a completed musical work ... if that makes any sense ...

Or an intermediate type that can analyze their own rich phenomenological experience or intuition and derive first principles from it - this type identifiable from the outside because they seem to know concepts without being taught ... or an analytical genius who can reverse engineer a phenomenological experience from hard data ... This latter, if given to the primacy of "cold" analysis is particularly frightening in terms of their potential to manipulate ... you might find this type an effective interrogator or manipulative psychotherapist ... and marked from the outside by an impassive demeanor combined with deep "empathy" or understanding of individual moods and dynamics.

I think we see such types and they come across as complex and unpredictable and I suspect if B types are responsible for crimes against humanity they have in their league intermediate types ... and if so they should watch their backs, lest the Emissary usurp the Master.

"When I listen to music, I hear each key changes, often understand conceptually the impact they have on "feeling" or mood, as I understand conceptually the impact of articulation, rhythm, and melody."

It seems to me you are using both A and B abilities here ... but I trust you to use your powers for good! ;-)

 

[Constance]

smcder and Constance:
Not sure I was particularly clear before.

What I am saying, is that there are many examples of artists creating in the absence of conceptual principles and conceptual understanding. They create what they "feel" is right - Mozart didn't know about Schoenberg's serial technique (sorry, I said twelve tone before when I meant serial technique Serialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In the case of a composer, he/she might listen to the "natural" cadence of rhythm, harmony, and melody to create - often in the absence of conceptual knowledge about such things (similarly applicable to other art forms).

When I listen to music, I hear each key changes, often understand conceptually the impact they have on "feeling" or mood, as I understand conceptually the impact of articulation, rhythm, and melody. Alternatively, someone else might say, "I love that piece - but I don't know why".

So, someone (A) may create (or listen) intuitively through their sensibilities. They may understand the phenomenal characteristics related to that art form.
Someone else (B) might understand the concepts from which such sensibilities seem to arise.

I am a B person. I hanker (that word again!) for conceptual principles that explain the sensibilities. I am analytical, even in art.

What I am saying, is that there are many examples of artists creating in the absence of conceptual principles and conceptual understanding. They create what they "feel" is right - Mozart didn't know about Schoenberg's serial technique (sorry, I said twelve tone before when I meant serial technique Serialism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In the case of a composer, he/she might listen to the "natural" cadence of rhythm, harmony, and melody to create - often in the absence of conceptual knowledge about such things (similarly applicable to other art forms).

When I listen to music, I hear each key changes, often understand conceptually the impact they have on "feeling" or mood, as I understand conceptually the impact of articulation, rhythm, and melody. Alternatively, someone else might say, "I love that piece - but I don't know why".

So, someone (A) may create (or listen) intuitively through their sensibilities. They may understand the phenomenal characteristics related to that art form.
Someone else (B) might understand the concepts from which such sensibilities seem to arise.

I am a B person. I hanker (that word again!) for conceptual principles that explain the sensibilities. I am analytical, even in art.


Yes, that's clear. I think it's a function of your training in analytical and positivist philosophy, which has been dominated by science and its objectivist/materialist premises and presuppositions for a century and a half. Phenomenological philosophy began in a critique of those premises and presuppositions and has been a major influence in consciousness studies, changing the perspectives of an increasing number of neuroscientists and cognitive scientists. I do think you need to become aware of what phenomenology is before you attempt to explain it away or continue ignoring it. There is also this to consider: a rapproachement is in process [or at least beginning] between analytical and phenomenological perspectives in philosophy and consciousness/mind science as a result of the interdisciplinary work done in CS over the last 25 years.

Some people (many artistic people) hate conceptual analysis, and apply their gift of artistic intuition to mould sensibilities.

I'm not sure what you mean by "artistic intuition"? Can you explain that? Artists are generally more 'intuitive people' than analytical thinkers are, but that's an aspect of their approaching experience more openly, more holistically, more sensually through greater use of the right-hemisphere of the brain. You seem to be working toward a theory that artworks in general arise from 'intuition' of something informational that 'unifies' art and that is essentially the same kind of information that emerges from analytical concepts. Can you be more specific, provide illustrations?

For them, concepts are sterile and suspicious - but often their art is incredibly unified, as can be demonstrated through conceptual analysis.

That art, music, and literary critics use conceptual analysis in their attempts to analyze how artworks work and what they might be said to signify does not mean, in my experience, that their analyses and interpretations of artworks uncover the concepts that have been intuited by the makers of these works which turn out to be somehow "unified." We are on the cusp of another long digression here which I don't think we should undertake unless the resident company is agreed about the value of doing so. We'll be taking on the discipline of philosophy designated as "aesthetics," which would take another hundred pages to explore adequately. Getting back to art itself, in what sense do you consider it in general to be 'unified' conceptually? I also have to ask you to clarify and support your statement above that "Someone else (B) might understand the concepts from which such sensibilities seem to arise." Can you present a case that artistic sensibilities arise from concepts rather than from embodied conscious presence in the world? You also write above that you "hanker . . . for conceptual principles that explain the sensibilities." What conceptual principles do you think (or hope) might one day "explain the sensibilities"?

Finally, there is a real danger and a good reason to be suspicious of B people. The danger is that B people give conceptual thought primacy over sensibilities in reverence to their explanatory power. Come to think of it, most crimes of humanity arise when primacy is given to conceptually derived ideals as they hold at bay what human sensibilities say to be wrong.

Indeed, what Heidegger referred to as the "calculative thinking" rampant in the 20th century, itself developing out of overly categorical thinking which has long falsified the nature of phenomenological experience and expression in the world.

 

[Constance]

@Pharoah, have you engaged Whitehead's process philosophy? I reread your paper on HCT again today. I see what you're getting at in terms of 'constructs' of increasing relational complexity evolving with life in nature, but for me your theory still misses the 'sense of being' that is the core of what evolves and the source of grounded thought. Here's an extract from a paper I was reading tonight alongside what I was still reflecting on from your HCT theory. See if it strikes any chords for you.

A Process View of the Flesh: Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty

by William S. Hamrick

". . . The internal, rather than external, relations between occasions of experience which feelings of causal efficacy bring into being create the solidarity of nature -- its global, unfragmented nature -- the denial of simple location, and the rejection of Cartesian (and other) dualisms. Moreover, these chiasmatic internal relations create a temporal as well as spatial unity of nature because, as noted in the previous paragraph, a present act of concresence originates as a response to its past which it takes up and aims at its future to which it bequeaths itself.

The chiasm enacted through physical feelings not only remains beneath the level of conscious experience, but also below that of clear, sharp sensory perception in feelings of presentational immediacy. The latter, of course, grow out of feelings of causal efficacy in the second phase of concresence. Feelings of causal efficacy give us, as Merleau-Ponty appreciated in Whitehead, the infrastructure behind the presentation of sense data. Thus, the chiasm which they enact is one of being rather than of conscious discrimination.

There is also for Whitehead a chiasm of what Merleau-Ponty meant by idea and the flesh. First, in terms of their origin in the second phase of concrescence, ideas emerge as data of conceptual feelings -- pried out of immanence in feelings of causal efficacy as the objects of feelings of conceptual reproduction and reversion. A low-level example of the latter is thirst, which is "an immediate physical feeling integrated with the conceptual prehension of its quenching" (PR 25). In subsequent phases of concrescence, ideas are objects of more complex comparative feelings which may or may not reach conscious apprehension. But at whatever phase, ideas are invisible -- grounded in and expressive of physical, organic processes.

Moreover, the perception of possibility in these kinds of feelings speaks to what Merleau-Ponty meant by the latency and possibility of the flesh -- indeed, why he referred to the world as flesh at all. For example, consider the awareness of conceptually reverted feelings -- simple comparative, or "propositional" feelings (PR 214). A proposition is a "contrast" (comparison) of a reverted conceptual feeling with physical feelings in the first phase of concrescence. The comparison links together the novel eternal object and past actual occasions which serve as the source of those physical feelings. The latter becomes the "logical subject" of the proposition, and the novel form the "predicative pattern" (PR 257). Propositions reveal latency and potentiality because they are felt as "might be’s." The predicative patterns are "tales that perhaps might be told about particular actualities" (PR 256), and their principal role in the creative process is to serve as "a lure for feeling" (PR 25).9"

A Process View of the Flesh: Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty

 

[Constance]

Here's the 'About' page introducing the impressive website {dichotomistic.com} from which I linked two articles earlier today. Have a look. I think it's insightful and well-informed. Any initial responses?

Dichotomistic - an introduction to organic logic and
holistic causality

 

[smcder]

Here's the 'About' page introducing the impressive website {dichotomistic.com} from which I linked two articles earlier today. Have a look. I think it's insightful and well-informed. Any initial responses?

Dichotomistic - an introduction to organic logic andholistic causality

I read the about section and a couple other pieces, reading history now:

"Again this is probably a distortion of what mattered most to these ancient thinkers, but as we normally tell the history of philosophy, the burning question was what was everything made of? What was the fundamental principle or essence of being? The arche or the ousia?"

This is where Heidegger begins, right? And he says this idea of being is lost by the time of Plato.

 

[smcder]

"This cannot be the history of a movement as organicism has long existed as the vague other. Mechanical logic has had a proud steadily evolving tradition. As a way of thinking, it arose out of ancient maths and philosophy, got quietly polished up by medieval monks, then became a full-blown revolution with the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

Eventually the mechanical way was responsible for everything from the space shuttle to the Furbie. Organicism was only ever the weak voice of protest - the feeling that there had to be something more than simple-minded reductionism."

This really sounds like McGilchrist 's thesis ... he ties the two approaches Mechanicism and Organicism to the two hemispheres and their evolutionary purposes ... why we evolved to be of two minds. I'll have to see if he cites McGilChrist.

 

[Constance]

I read the about section and a couple other pieces, reading history now:

"Again this is probably a distortion of what mattered most to these ancient thinkers, but as we normally tell the history of philosophy, the burning question was what was everything made of? What was the fundamental principle or essence of being? The arche or the ousia?"

This is where Heidegger begins, right? And he says this idea of being is lost by the time of Plato.

That's my impression. In addition to Heidegger's own writing about the pre-Socratics this book will probably be very helpful:

The Presocratics after Heidegger

The SUNY Press has other books that will probably interest you (scroll down to the bottom of that page and then check their whole list in philosophy).