Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[smcder]

Ive heard of Popper but I dont know his work. I included that part and tagged you because i thought youd appeciate a scientist appreciating philosophy. No goose chases alluded to here.

I recommend Logic of Scientific Discovery by Popper

and

Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Kuhn


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[Soupie]

Not specifically about consciousness nor the paranormal, but definitely fits into our general discussion (especially HCT):

Groundbreaking Idea Of Life's Origin - Business Insider

Using Jarzynski and Crooks’ formulation, he derived a generalization of the second law of thermodynamics that holds for systems of particles with certain characteristics: The systems are strongly driven by an external energy source such as an electromagnetic wave, and they can dump heat into a surrounding bath. This class of systems includes all living things. England then determined how such systems tend to evolve over time as they increase their irreversibility. “We can show very simply from the formula that the more likely evolutionary outcomes are going to be the ones that absorbed and dissipated more energy from the environment’s external drives on the way to getting there,” he said.

The finding makes intuitive sense: Particles tend to dissipate more energy when they resonate with a driving force, or move in the direction it is pushing them, and they are more likely to move in that direction than any other at any given moment.

“This means clumps of atoms surrounded by a bath at some temperature, like the atmosphere or the ocean, should tend over time to arrange themselves to resonate better and better with the sources of mechanical, electromagnetic or chemical work in their environments,” England explained.

Courtesy of Michael Brenner/Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesSelf-Replicating Sphere Clusters: According to new research at Harvard, coating the surfaces of microspheres can cause them to spontaneously assemble into a chosen structure, such as a polytetrahedron (red), which then triggers nearby spheres into forming an identical structure.​

That last, underlined section really resonates with HCT and the idea I shared in the SIM thread about an object containing information about its environment (which is a concept of HCT, not my own).

 

[smcder]

Not specifically about consciousness nor the paranormal, but definitely fits into our general discussion (especially HCT):

Groundbreaking Idea Of Life's Origin - Business Insider

Using Jarzynski and Crooks’ formulation, he derived a generalization of the second law of thermodynamics that holds for systems of particles with certain characteristics: The systems are strongly driven by an external energy source such as an electromagnetic wave, and they can dump heat into a surrounding bath. This class of systems includes all living things. England then determined how such systems tend to evolve over time as they increase their irreversibility. “We can show very simply from the formula that the more likely evolutionary outcomes are going to be the ones that absorbed and dissipated more energy from the environment’s external drives on the way to getting there,” he said.

The finding makes intuitive sense: Particles tend to dissipate more energy when they resonate with a driving force, or move in the direction it is pushing them, and they are more likely to move in that direction than any other at any given moment.

“This means clumps of atoms surrounded by a bath at some temperature, like the atmosphere or the ocean, should tend over time to arrange themselves to resonate better and better with the sources of mechanical, electromagnetic or chemical work in their environments,” England explained.

Courtesy of Michael Brenner/Proceedings of the National Academy of SciencesSelf-Replicating Sphere Clusters: According to new research at Harvard, coating the surfaces of microspheres can cause them to spontaneously assemble into a chosen structure, such as a polytetrahedron (red), which then triggers nearby spheres into forming an identical structure.​

That last, underlined section really resonates with HCT and the idea I shared in the SIM thread about an object containing information about its environment (which is a concept of HCT, not my own).

Where is our local HCT expert these days?

 

[smcder]

Also from Doyle’s ebook, a brief introduction to ‘biological information’:

"The Biology of Free Will

Perhaps physics now puts no limits on human freedom, but what about biology? Each of us gets a significant amount of genetic information from our parents, which at least predisposes us to certain behaviors that have evolved to improve our reproductive success, sexual behavior, for example.

Are we completely “determined” by a combination of our biological nature and the social nurture of our environmental conditioning? Is biology itself all a causal process that is simply unfolding from a distant past that contained all the information about the one possible biological future?

Information biology says no. While the stability of biological systems is extraordinary, and while their error-free performance of vital functions over many-year lifetimes is astonishing, their dependence on randomness is clear. Biological laws, like physical laws, are only adequately determined, statistical laws.

At the atomic and molecular level, biological processes are stochastic, depending on thermal and quantal noise to deliver the “just-in-time” parts needed by assembly lines for the basic structural elements of life, such as the amino acids needed by the ribosome factories to assemble proteins.

So our question is how the typical structures of the brain have evolved to deal with microscopic, atomic level, noise. Do they simply ignore it because they are adequately determined large objects, or might they have remained sensitive to the noise because it provides some benefits?

We can expect that if quantum noise, or even ordinary thermal noise, offered benefits that contribute to reproductive success, there would have been evolutionary pressure to take advantage of the noise.

Many biologists argue that quantum-level processes are just too small to be important, too small for the relatively macroscopic biological apparatus to even notice. But consider this evidence to the contrary." . . . see the chapter titled "The Biology of Free Will," following the chapter on the physics of free will.

So our question is how the typical structures of the brain have evolved to deal with microscopic, atomic level, noise. Do they simply ignore it because they are adequately determined large objects, or might they have remained sensitive to the noise because it provides some benefits?
We can expect that if quantum noise, or even ordinary thermal noise, offered benefits that contribute to reproductive success, there would have been evolutionary pressure to take advantage of the noise.

Does this mean that the brain may have evolved to harvest randomness for reproductive benefit from quantum noise? I think that's what he is saying ...

that makes sense ... it opens another niche in the same environment ... can complexity itself be a competitive niche for organisms, I'm sure that's obvious ... once the easy pickings are taken, an organism that struggles to compete could move into complexity in order to exploit more sand more subtle aspects of a niche - we see this in thought as well, the Nietzsche niche!

 

[smcder]

"Humanism: the fourth wave"
John Heron

Published in R. House, D. Kalisch and J. Maidman (eds), The Future of Humanistic Psychology, Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books, 2013

Untitled 1

And see: From the quest for certainty to

Then simply my presence is releasing and helpful to the other. When I can relax and be close to the transcendental core of me it seems that my inner spirit has reached out and touched the inner spirit of the other. Our relationship transcends itself and becomes a part of something larger" (Rogers, 1980: 129). Rogers died in 1987.

I've been practicing something like this at work - if I remain centered and in touch with "the transcendental core"

for me it's something I've established in my meditation practice:

check in first with the breath, relate it to what is going on in the body - then emotions and finally overall mental quality or state, from there you can work yourself around into a better mood, if not a good one!

and then you just settle in, taking the breath as far as you can go in terms of being comfortable in the body -

if I do that, and it's just a matter of a few moments when it becomes routine, like an athlete warming up (kinda) then I can focus my awareness outside with an attitude of goodwill to everyone. People almost invariable respond, even if harried or distracted - and children of course in particular, they see through you right away with beautiful smiles. About 90% of my routine exchanges then become very pleasant and I stay energized throughout the day.

5. Daily living experience. It also seems to me that these three kinds of animation are also available for co-creating my daily living - if and when I am available, and not forgetful and distracted, not caught up in self-perpetuating maladaptive attitude and action. In this context, the interpersonal widens out into the situational, a felt dynamic resonance with the presence between myself and the other persons and the place here where I am now. The intrapersonal is the ongoing play of animations deep within my psyche, each animation arousing a creative adaptation to and interaction with the immediate presenting situation. The transpersonal is an animation from the beyond, arousing me from the sleep of limited awareness, and inviting me to open the margins of my mind to an all-embracing awareness, in the light of which everything integrally possible is appropriate.
... this is what I think lies at a particular level of Buddhist practice, you remain in a state of potential, the ability to respond to every situation authentically ... you can see how this is a part of the very practical in martial arts, sports and any performance situation - a state of flow for Csikszentmihalyi but it's a very old idea.

 

[smcder]

"Humanism: the fourth wave"
John Heron

Published in R. House, D. Kalisch and J. Maidman (eds), The Future of Humanistic Psychology, Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books, 2013

Untitled 1

And see: From the quest for certainty to

The quest for certainty link is a good one to bookmark - the flow throughout the history of Western philosophy, from the pre-socratics (Heidegger wanted to go back there by the early 20th century) to the Socratics, then various forms of mysticism following and the mystery cults, Christianity, Neo-Platonism that preserved Greek philosophy inside Christianity, for re-introduction into the Renaissance and Enlightenment and then the modern story in the above link ... the more times I see this cycle (and it's in Eastern philosophy) the clearer things become ... now we see a struggle I think to embody this cycle in the thinking of individuals - proper relationship of Master and Emissary, the balance of holistic and discursive thinking.

 

[smcder]

"Humanism: the fourth wave"
John Heron

Published in R. House, D. Kalisch and J. Maidman (eds), The Future of Humanistic Psychology, Ross-on-Wye: PCCS Books, 2013

Untitled 1

And see: From the quest for certainty to

This is an interesting place to be after a year - (the Consciousness and the Paranormal thread started Dec 13, 2013) - and over 200 pages.

Learning to oscillating between the experience of personal/ego and universal/transcendent mind and between holistic and discursive thinking - coming to be aware of these epicycles, which I feel are partly under our control and partly influenced by ... well, everything else ... and coming to be skillful with them and the transitions they bring - that's my daily practice.

Being human I think gives us a deep resilience, a shaky confidence as Pema Chodron puts it - because we know we have the ability to go all the way down and come back again, to fall apart, to be knocked flat by the waves ... it's the patient, simple getting back up and returning to the breath that seems to flatten those waves and lead to equanimity.

 

[Constance]

Heron is really something, isn't he? I knew you would find both of those papers to verify ideas and values you'd already developed yourself. It would be interesting to read those two papers alongside the recent papers cited by Deutsch and his young colleague Marletto. In fact I suggest that we do that in the coming discussions here. I too have found this two-part thread to be a wonderful learning experience. Onward to Part III?

 

[smcder]

Heron is really something, isn't he? I knew you would find both of those papers to verify ideas and values you'd already developed yourself. It would be interesting to read those two papers alongside the recent papers cited by Deutsch and his young colleague Marletto. In fact I suggest that we do that in the coming discussions here. I too have found this two-part thread to be a wonderful learning experience. Onward to Part III?

Onward!

I haven't read the Deutsch /Marletto papers closely yet ... Will try and catch up.


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[Soupie]

the flow throughout the history of Western philosophy, from the pre-socratics (Heidegger wanted to go back there by the early 20th century) to the Socratics, then various forms of mysticism following and the mystery cults, Christianity, Neo-Platonism that preserved Greek philosophy inside Christianity, for re-introduction into the Renaissance and Enlightenment and then the modern story in the above link ...

Is there a book that presents a reasonably unbiased overview of the history of (philosophical) thinking that you would recommend?

 

[smcder]

Is there a book that presents a reasonably unbiased overview of the history of (philosophical) thinking that you would recommend?

Hmm ... Good question ... I have submitted your request to my data banks ... Please standby for response ...

Do you prefer Muzak or a whirring noise?


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[smcder]

Is there a book that presents a reasonably unbiased overview of the history of (philosophical) thinking that you would recommend?

Will Durant and Bertrand Russell did overviews ... Probably recommend Russell ... But it's dated now ... there are some good series ... trying to find a single or multi volume set by one author .... still whirring


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[smcder]

Is there a book that presents a reasonably unbiased overview of the history of (philosophical) thinking that you would recommend?

This would make a great thread ...

Still searching and I'll post it on another forum for you if something similar hasn't already been posted.

ItMT (from the Latin) ... The Wikipedia article isn't bad, it will give you the broad sweep and then SEP to go in depth ...

There's a podcast:

History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

Which is very good, but it seems to me to require a background - a supplement for students of the field - ... he does have a book on Classical Philosophy at the podcast site.



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[smcder]

Update: reviewing Amazon with my left hemisphere and Wikipedia with my right ...

On the third hemisphere I'm contemplating a history of philosophy thread as a holiday interlude ... anyone interested?


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[smcder]

@Soupie

Better than Bertrand





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[smcder]

@Soupie

Better than Bertrand





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Also started a thread on history of philosophy ... will fill in as I go.


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[smcder]

@Constance
@Soupie
@Pharoah

D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson's little book with a big influence on Pharoah.


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[smcder]

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[smcder]

Thompson's writing is beautiful

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[Soupie]

A discussion betwixt two psychologists about whether our conception of mental illness is mired in the past. Or, essentially, about what mental illness is and what causes it.

Much of their discussion is relevant to our discussion here.

http://xperiment.psychiat.ucl.ac.uk/vaughan/Cromby_Bell_2015_Psychologist.pdf

"Vaughan, there are various assumptions embedded in your response. It may help to make some of them explicit. Your response assumes I would deny meaning to a person experiencing epilepsy: this is wrong. Both theory and evidence suggest it is part of our species-nature to be meaning creators who use cultural resources to narrate our experiences.

According to the neuroscientist Gazzaniga (2000), we even have a left hemisphere system specialised for this. Likewise, your response assumes that I am saying that biology is irrelevant to distress: this is also wrong. Biology continuously enables all experiences, including experiences of distress." ​