Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[smcder]

Not a bad summary of the choices for explaining consciousness and their problems:

http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/CrazyMind-111107.htm

I am making an empirical claim about the history of philosophy and offering a psychological explanation for this putative empirical fact. The empirical claim is that all existing well developed accounts of the metaphysics of mind are bizarre. The psychological explanation is that common sense is incoherent with respect to the metaphysics of mind. Common sense, and indeed I think simple logic, requires that one of four options be true: materialism, dualism, idealism, or a compromise/rejection view. And yet common sense conflicts with each option, either on its face or implicitly as revealed when metaphysical choices are made and implications pursued. If common sense is indeed incoherent in the metaphysics of mind, then the empirical claim can be modally extended: It is not possible to develop a metaphysics of mind that is both coherent and non-bizarre by the standards of current common sense, if that view involves specific commitments on tricky issues like fundamental ontology, mind-body causation, and the scope of mentality. Call this thesis universal bizarreness.

If I had to put a pin in the map right now, I'd put it on universal dubiety:

Crazyism requires conjoining universal bizarreness with a second thesis, universal dubiety, to which I will now turn.

The universal dubiety thesis is just the thesis that none of the bizarre options compels belief.

At a moderate grain of specificity – say, with three starkly different variants of each of the four broad metaphysical positions – we are left with only dubious choices. No commonsensical or well justified option remains.

 

[smcder]

Even more as to the pertinence of dubiety:

http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/CrazyMind-111107.htm

"Let’s assume that you, reader, are not among the world’s leading metaphysicians of mind. And let’s assume that you’re drawn toward some particular metaphysics of mind other than David Chalmers’s property dualism. It seems likely that David Chalmers, who is one of the world’s leading metaphysicians of mind, and who is by all accounts highly intelligent and well read, could run argumentative rings around you, including pointing out relevant considerations of which you are now unaware. Any unbiased referee would call a knockout in the first or second round. Given that fact, how confident should you be in your opinion? Or suppose you’re drawn toward something like the Chalmers view after all. Likely David Lewis could have run rings around you, defending his version of materialism. Last summer, I described various metaphysical options to my then eleven-year-old son (yet another David). Davy immediately adopted one position against all others, and he refused to be budged by my counterarguments. It seems a kind of epistemic failing – although also, in a different way, a kind of intellectual virtue that will serve him well in his education – for Davy to be confident in his view. He barely even understood the issues, much less had a deep appreciation of the arguments. If you or I stand confidently against the giants, armed only with our weaker comprehensions, are we so different from Davy? Some of us might happen to have the right view, maybe even because we are sensitive, as others of us are not, to the real considerations that decisively favor it; but in some epistemically important sense that’s just luck."

"Suppose that’s a fair assessment of the epistemic situation in your own case in particular. What should you do about it? Read enough philosophy to become one of the world’s leading metaphysicians? Even if that weren’t hopelessly impractical, it wouldn’t settle what your attitude should be right now, which is the question. Should you simply, then, bow to expert opinion, as one might bow to the expert opinion of a chemist about the electronegativity of fluorine? That doesn’t seem right either. For one thing, there is no consensus expert opinion to bow to. For another, on an issue as central to one’s worldview as mind and body (especially because of its connection to religious belief), and as subject to preconception and bias even among experts, it may be wise not to cede one’s intellectual autonomy. I recommend this: Spread your confidence distribution broadly enough that your credence in your own favored view (at a moderate grain of specificity) does not exceed your estimation of the likelihood of all other competing positions combined. For those of us who are not among the world’s leading metaphysicians of mind, the sweet spot between autonomous self-confidence and appropriate intellectual humility is, I submit, somewhat south of a 50% credence in that favored view."

In other words, he thinks, among the non-experts among us anyway, we stand a less than fifty-fifty shot at being right.

 

[Soupie]

So if consciousness is fundamental, it seems to me that it could be the whole thing ... not something you build up from particles, because thats stuff - and consciuousness doesnt seem to be stuff, my experience sure doesnt feel stuffy.

Physical reality — trees, cars, music, clouds, and wind — doesn't seem digitized to me, but empirical science has revealed that it is. (Unless you simply discount modern physics.)

If the field of phenomenology discounts the possibility that our phenomenal reality might be "digitized" as well based on "how it feels" then I'm not surprised that the field is little regarded.

I'm not trying to trash the field of phenomenology, but I asked a simple question and I didn't really get an answer. :/

I am very interested in phenomenology, but I'm simply asking what it has taught us about the nature of consciousness?

Re: no good theories

I think the comment re "vitalism" is apt in the regard that it's way too early to say the physicalists or Chalmers-types are destined to fail. Way too early.

You've mentioned secondary gain; I've asked before: what do those who want to keep "consciousness" from the Materialists have to gain? Are they afraid of a Meaningless reality?

Re Idealism

So let's assume our reality is virtual. So what then? If our material reality is faux, what of the real one? The question can't be avoided. Sure, if this is the case, our physics are a joke and were a laughing stock — unless our physics leads to the conclusion that physical reality is virtual, as some have proposed.

 

[Constance]

Steve wrote: "1927 Brittanica article on Phenomenology by Husserl and Heidegger, introduced by Thomas Sheehan ... A good starting point?"

An excellent starting point. Here are some parts that struck me as critically important:

Extracts from
PART I
THE IDEA OF A PURE PSYCHOLOGY
drafted by
Martin Heidegger


". . .
that which is experienced in such lived experiences does not appear simply as
identical and different, individual and general, as an entity or not an entity, a possible and probable entity, as useful, beautiful, or good; rather, it is confirmed as true or untrue, genuine or not genuine. But the essential forms of individual lived experiences are embedded in typical forms of possible syntheses and flows within a closed mental nexus. The essential form of this [nexus], as a totality, is that of the ‘mental life of an individual self as such. This self exists on the basis of its abiding convictions, decisions, habits, and character-traits. And this whole of the self's habituality manifests in turn the essential forms of its genesis and of its current possible activity, which for its part remains embedded in the associative matrices whose specific form of happening is one with that activity throughout typical relations of change.

Factically the self always lives in community with others. Social acts (such as appealing
to other persons, making an agreement [p. 260] with them, dominating their will, and so on) not only have about them their own proper form as the lived experiences of groups, families, corporate bodies, and societies, but also have a typical form of the way they happen, of the way they effect things (power and powerlessness), of their development and progression. Intrinsically and thoroughly structured as intentional, this totality of life of individuals in possible communities makes up the whole field of the pure mental. By what means does one achieve secure access to this region, and what kind of disclosure is appropriate to it?"

. . .

"Of course, the physical thing in nature, by reason of its very essence,
is itself never a possible object of a psychological reflection [Reflexion]. Nevertheless, it shows up in the reducing gaze that focuses on the act of perceiving, because this perceiving is essentially a perceiving of the thing. The thing belongs to the perceiving as it's perceived. The perceiving's intentional relation is certainly not some free-floating relation directed into the void; rather, as intentio it has an intentum that belongs to it essentially. Whether or not what-is perceived in the perception is itself in truth present at hand, the perception's intentional act-of meaning [Vermeinen], in keeping with its own tendency to grasp something, is nonetheless directed to the entity as bodily present. Any perceptual illusion makes this plain. Only because the perceiving 3 essentially has its intentum, can it be modified into a deception about something.

Through the performance of the reduction the full intentional make-up of a lived
experience becomes visible for the first time. But because all pure lived experiences and their interrelations are structured intentionally, the reduction guarantees universal access to the pure mental, that is to say, to the phenomena. For this reason the reduction is called “phenomenological.” However, that which first of all becomes accessible in the performance of
9
the phenomenological reduction is the purely mental as a factically singular context of life experience of this particular here-and-now [jeweiligen] self. But over and above the descriptive characterization of this momentary and unrepeatable stream of lived experience, is a genuine, scientific -- that is, objectively valid -- knowledge of the ‘mental possible?

. . .

"Inasmuch as the reduction, as we have characterized it, mediates access only to the
‘mental life that is in each case [je] one's own, it is called the egological reduction. Nevertheless, because every self stands in a nexus of empathy with others, and because this nexus is constituted in intersubjective lived experiences, the egological reduction requires a necessary expansion by means of the intersubjective reduction. The phenomenology of empathy that is to be treated within the framework of the intersubjective reduction leads -- by clarifying how the phenomena of empathy within my pure ‘mental nexus can unfold in mutually felt confirmation -- to more than the description of this type of syntheses as syntheses of my own mind. What is
confirmed here, in a peculiar form of evidence, is the co-existence [Mitdasein] of a concrete subjectivity, 4 indicated consistently and with ever new determining content -- co-present with a bodiliness that is experienced originally and harmoniously in my own sphere of consciousness; and [yet], on the other hand, not present for me originaliter [p. 263] the way my own subjectivity is [present] in its original relation to my corporeality.5 The carrying out of the phenomenological
10
reduction in my actual and possible acceptance of a “foreign” subjectivity in the evidential form
of mutually felt empathy is the intersubjective reduction, in which, on the underlying basis of the reduction to my pure and concrete subjectivity, the foreign subjectivities that are originally confirmed in it, come to be accepted as pure, along with, in further sequence, their pure ‘mental connections. 6

3. The Basic Function of Pure Psychology
. . .

 

[Soupie]

Can you summarize the above? I simply can't get the context of what he is trying to say... We're socially and physically embedded in our environments? Our consciousness extends to the physical world around us? Great!

But how do organisms "generate" consciousness in the first place? Etc?

What am I missing?

 

[Constance]

I think what you are missing is what you hope physical science can still give you and which, at this stage of its development, cannot give you. I don't know why you cannot or perhaps will not read phenomenological philosophy with more ease by now. It might be that you experience a block concerning it derived from a fixed definition of phenomena and phenomenology (conscious or even by now subconscious) rooted in resistance to seeing one's own lived experience as your -- and everyone else's -- original ground for thinking in general -- and what this ground reveals about the nature of human thought in general, that it is rooted in and on an existential ground of conscious presence to the world that enables progress in human knowledge of what is real on the basis of shared and multiplied perspectives on 'what-is',.locally and ontologically.

 

[Constance]

To add: phenomenological philosophy is immensely complex and takes a great deal of time to download to your own mind. It cannot be summarized and must be understood as a whole theory of mind and world and their interrelation. I suggest that you begin by understanding parts of it and that you continue until you begin to grok the whole of it. If you want to, of course. Because this is a long process.

 

[Constance]

Can you summarize the above? I simply can't get the context of what he is trying to say... We're socially and physically embedded in our environments? Our consciousness extends to the physical world around us? Great!

But how do organisms "generate" consciousness in the first place?

One thing that might help is to bracket the presupposition that organisms "generate consciousness" from some fixed fund of microphysical 'information' that can explain everything we seek to understand about the world and ourselves.

 

[Constance]

Physical reality — trees, cars, music, clouds, and wind — doesn't seem digitized to me, but empirical science has revealed that it is. (Unless you simply discount modern physics.)

I doubt that, based on my reading in physical theory over the last five years or so. I don't think most quantum physicists would agree that the entirety of what is real exists only in the quantum substrate, though some might. I'm recalling something you wrote early in your participation in this thread, that your whole view of reality changed when a teacher of yours pounded on a table and told you that the table was not real -- that only q particles and the space between them were real. Is that moment perhaps still blocking your potential openness to other descriptions of reality?

If the field of phenomenology discounts the possibility that our phenomenal reality might be "digitized" as well based on "how it feels" then I'm not surprised that the field is little regarded.

Fighting words, and I don't feel like fighting. If you think phenomenology is "little regarded," you need to read much more in interdisciplinary conscious studies and also philosophy of mind. I suggest as I have before that the Varela and Thompson books Embodied Mind and Mind in Nature would be of greatest use to you at this point since they are based in reasoning from both science and philosophy.

I'm not trying to trash the field of phenomenology, but I asked a simple question and I didn't really get an answer.

You want a simple answer to a complex question.

I am very interested in phenomenology, but I'm simply asking what it has taught us about the nature of consciousness?

As I said in another post to you today, I think that you {because of your confessed dismissal of phenomenology, likely picked up from what and whom you have read to date} would need to read the major works of phenomenological philosophy to appreciate its contributions to answering that question {i.e., what is the nature of consciousness?}. Several of us have posted summaries and breakdowns of core ideas involved in an understanding of phenomenology but you haven't engaged those core ideas in subsequent discussion, instead repeating your general viewpoint and expectations based in Chalmers, Tononi, and several other sources. Nothing Steve or I can say in a post here will expand the perimeters of your thinking so long as you maintain the presuppositions involved in your viewpoint.

Re: no good theories

I think the comment re "vitalism" is apt in the regard that it's way too early to say the physicalists or Chalmers-types are destined to fail. Way too early.

That remark about 'vitalism' seemed fairly contemptuous. But you might find some satisfaction in reading Pharoah's book-length manuscript, which he linked a day or two ago. I'm still not clear about his own premises and possible presuppositions after reading 40-50 pages into this work. My impression is that he has his own interpretation of consciousness, mind, and nature, and it might come close to yours. No way of telling for me at this point.

You've mentioned secondary gain; I've asked before: what do those who want to keep "consciousness" from the Materialists have to gain? Are they afraid of a Meaningless reality?

I haven't used the term 'secondary gain', but I think Steve might have, likely in the context of social responsibility and value. Re the part of your remark highlighted in blue, if you take seriously enough the reality and character of human existence in (the) world to the extent that we presently understand the world, and then read phenomenological philosophy, you will recognize that 'meaning' is inescapable in the world given consciousness, mind, and our temporal, situated existence, as a species, historically and in the present and future. This is an ontological fact opened up through phenomenology. It will not comfort those who seek an ontotheological certainty.

Re Idealism

So let's assume our reality is virtual. So what then? If our material reality is faux, what of the real one? The question can't be avoided. Sure, if this is the case, our physics are a joke and were a laughing stock — unless our physics leads to the conclusion that physical reality is virtual, as some have proposed.

You may of course assume that 'our reality is virtual' if it satisfies you to do so. This hypothesis is attractive to many people in our time, not surprisingly given the dominant technological memes in our culture. I personally find this hypothesis uninteresting because if we do live in a 'virtual reality' we are most unlikely ever to be capable of seeing the reality behind it or comprehending the entirety of the reality in which it exists.

 

[Constance]

Even more as to the pertinence of dubiety:

http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzPapers/CrazyMind-111107.htm

"Let’s assume that you, reader, are not among the world’s leading metaphysicians of mind. And let’s assume that you’re drawn toward some particular metaphysics of mind other than David Chalmers’s property dualism. It seems likely that David Chalmers, who is one of the world’s leading metaphysicians of mind, and who is by all accounts highly intelligent and well read, could run argumentative rings around you, including pointing out relevant considerations of which you are now unaware. Any unbiased referee would call a knockout in the first or second round. Given that fact, how confident should you be in your opinion? Or suppose you’re drawn toward something like the Chalmers view after all. Likely David Lewis could have run rings around you, defending his version of materialism. Last summer, I described various metaphysical options to my then eleven-year-old son (yet another David). Davy immediately adopted one position against all others, and he refused to be budged by my counterarguments. It seems a kind of epistemic failing – although also, in a different way, a kind of intellectual virtue that will serve him well in his education – for Davy to be confident in his view. He barely even understood the issues, much less had a deep appreciation of the arguments. If you or I stand confidently against the giants, armed only with our weaker comprehensions, are we so different from Davy? Some of us might happen to have the right view, maybe even because we are sensitive, as others of us are not, to the real considerations that decisively favor it; but in some epistemically important sense that’s just luck."

"Suppose that’s a fair assessment of the epistemic situation in your own case in particular. What should you do about it? Read enough philosophy to become one of the world’s leading metaphysicians? Even if that weren’t hopelessly impractical, it wouldn’t settle what your attitude should be right now, which is the question. Should you simply, then, bow to expert opinion, as one might bow to the expert opinion of a chemist about the electronegativity of fluorine? That doesn’t seem right either. For one thing, there is no consensus expert opinion to bow to. For another, on an issue as central to one’s worldview as mind and body (especially because of its connection to religious belief), and as subject to preconception and bias even among experts, it may be wise not to cede one’s intellectual autonomy. I recommend this: Spread your confidence distribution broadly enough that your credence in your own favored view (at a moderate grain of specificity) does not exceed your estimation of the likelihood of all other competing positions combined. For those of us who are not among the world’s leading metaphysicians of mind, the sweet spot between autonomous self-confidence and appropriate intellectual humility is, I submit, somewhat south of a 50% credence in that favored view."

In other words, he thinks, among the non-experts among us anyway, we stand a less than fifty-fifty shot at being right.

Thanks for posting this paper, Steve. It's a refreshing statement about the complexity of the philosophical and scientific issues that need to be resolved in consciousness studies (and can't yet be resolved), and I appreciate the author's concluding advice (in blue).

 

[Pharoah]

I don't have any strong predilection for things to be a particular way, no intuitions that keep bringing me back to say - "ok, for all your pretty words I just know it has to be that way" and that being materialism or idealism or neutral monism or whatever - I don't have that gene, in fact I have a sneaking suspicion we've all got it wrong and how can anyone be so sure except they have a body of work to defend? so I'm a hard sell and my attention tends to wander to the next shiny thing.

It is good to see that you remain openminded to contrasting ideas rather be quick to judge (like me).

Constance:
you ask,
Why not just tell us where you think Goff is off-base and how your approach corrects him?
The article I wrote about panpsychism and emergentism was a response to a chat I had with Galen Strawson. Before we met, I thought, 'give me one maybe two minutes of questioning, and I will back him into a corner from which he will not be able to emerge a panpsychist'. Well, when I delivered what I thought was the defining blow, I waited for his response. I expected confusion and bafflement. Instead, he said something in a very excited tone that I found very puzzling: "Exactly!"
I thought, "exactly?"... exactly what?
Basically, I thought I'd demonstrated that his version of panpsychism denies a relation between consciousness, and interaction and experience: there was no relation between consciousness and anything physical - despite Strawson calling himself a materialist panpsychist.
Perhaps this problem with experience prompted his article, "What is the relation between an experience, the subject of the experience, and the content of the experience?" which was posted on this forum.
When Goff says something like, there is consciousness in tables and chairs... well of course this is the problem c.f. Strawson draft paper at page 31 in regard 'subject' and 'object'. Tables are objects. But importantly it is the nature of the process that defines the object that is important with regard consciousness, not the fact that we call it an object. The kinds of processes that define what we label as 'objects' differ, as do their relation to experience and how they might interpret experience.
It is 3.15am and I don't think I have done a particularly good job with this post.
It would take me weeks to do a detailed analysis of the Strawson article... I'd probably focus in on page 31. It is what I do in my critique of Dennett's Intentional Stance; where he aligns artefacts like thermostats and complex computers as 'objects' to creatures that possess Intentionality (and consciousness). Of course, it is not that they are all objects (as are tables and chairs), but rather it the nature of the construct itself (of what we uniformly label as 'objects' but are of course objects of process), that come to define the properties of such things - and which determine the interactive experiential consequences of their environmental interactions.

 

[Constance]

Perhaps this problem with experience prompted his article, "What is the relation between an experience, the subject of the experience, and the content of the experience?" which was posted on this forum.

In note 99 of that Strawson paper he writes:

"[99] Given that some form of panpsychism is the most plausible, parsimonious, and ‘hard-nosed’ option for materialism (see Strawson 2002) , the way lies open for a truly spectacular Aufhebung of Dennett’s apparently completely reductionist, consciousness-denying account of consciousness as ‘just’ ‘cerebral celebrity’ or ‘fame in the brain’ (see e.g. Dennett 2001). If the present view is right, Dennett’s fame story can be aufgehoben (raised up, cancelled and yet preserved) into a consciousness-affirming account of consciousness that is fully realist about consciousness. This is a story for another paper."

Has he written and made available a draft of that paper yet? Also, can you provide a link to your "critique of Dennett's Intentional Stance"? Thanks.

 

[Pharoah]

In note 99 of that Strawson paper he writes:

"[99] Given that some form of panpsychism is the most plausible, parsimonious, and ‘hard-nosed’ option for materialism (see Strawson 2002) , the way lies open for a truly spectacular Aufhebung of Dennett’s apparently completely reductionist, consciousness-denying account of consciousness as ‘just’ ‘cerebral celebrity’ or ‘fame in the brain’ (see e.g. Dennett 2001). If the present view is right, Dennett’s fame story can be aufgehoben (raised up, cancelled and yet preserved) into a consciousness-affirming account of consciousness that is fully realist about consciousness. This is a story for another paper."

Has he written and made available a draft of that paper yet? Also, can you provide a link to your "critique of Dennett's Intentional Stance"? Thanks.

1.This is very interesting - what is "the present view" about which Strawson speaks? When I submitted my first paper on my Hierarchical Systems theory to JCS, a reviewer 'accused' me of being a panpsychist. This idea comes from the fact that I describe and explain a hierarchical link between consciousness (as humans think of it experientially) and material constructs. So in a way, one might be forgiven for thinking there is a possible synthesis of disparate ideas.
2. Even if one goes along with panpsychism, for me the remaining question is, how human mentality - and its particular kind of phenomenal conscious content which arises from activity and mechanisms in the brain - differentiates and emerges from matter with its 'different kind of consciousness'. Inevitably, I am not happy as a panpsychist, because I get none of the explanations to the questions that I want answered. Now if you are not interested in these questions about the unique and distinctive experience of being human - that there is no question - then perhaps panpsychism is for you.
My Dennett paper is at Intentional Stance | Dennett | Representation | Philosophy of Consciousness
In addition to the article, there is an interesting exchange in the comments section that came about from me posting the article on a LinkedIn philosophy network forum.
Dennett also sent me an email response to the article that you may find of interest:
"I quickly skimmed your paper. I think you have a hard time taking
seriously my resolute refusal to be an essentialist, and hence my elision
(by your lights) between the "as if" cases and the "real" cases. When I
put "really" in italics, I'm being ironic, in a way. I am NOT
acknowledging or conceding that there is a category of REAL beliefs
distinct from the beliefs we attribute from the intentional stance. I'm
saying that's as real as belief ever gets or ever could get. Similarly, of
course, I would say the self as a center of narrative gravity is as real a
self as anyone could ever have, and my compatibilist version of free will
is not just the best we can hope for; there is no reason at all to hope it
is anything else! Contra-causal freedom would add nothing valuable.
Have I misunderstood YOU? I did just skim the paper.
DCD"
I replied that I thought he had misunderstood me and I have since made changes to the paper to try to remedy this.

 

[Soupie]

@Constance

No, no, I don't want to fight. I was reflecting your opinion that many top philosophers of mind do not incorporate true phenomenology into their practices and models.

Not that it matters, but I can never tell where you stand: sometimes you seem to indicate that information is key to consciousness, at other times you seem to reject it as reductionist; you seem to believe the micro-physical/phenomenal plays a role in consciousness and brain function, but then seem to reject it as reductive; at times you seem to agree that "mental" is fundamental, but then at others seem to indicate that it emerges only at the macro level; and sometimes I get the sense that your a monist regarding the mental and physical, and then other times a dualist.

I suppose you simply remain open to the possibilities, as perhaps you feel no affinity for any model.

You obviously approve of the phenomenological approach, so I merely ask what core ideas regarding consciousness the approach has so far reveled. Sometimes I think it is Idealism, but other times I think Physical Emergentist.

On a related note, I am beginning to wonder more about consciousness' relation to Vitalism... Is it closer than one might think? Is that why C always seems to evaporate the closer we get to it? Life is a series of complex processes, not a thing. Is it the same with consciousness? This isn't to deny conscious experience, but only the idea that it is singular; Strawson's idea of the multiple, temporal thin subjects along with James' idea of consciousness as a container resonate with me. Co-dependent arising.

 

[Soupie]

I've stumbled upon the following website many times over the past months, but haven't fully investigated it. However, I think there may be some fertile ideas there:

The Information Philosopher - dedicated to the new information philosophy

 

[Soupie]

Soupie said: "Physical reality — trees, cars, music, clouds, and wind — doesn't seem digitized to me, but empirical science has revealed that it is."

I doubt that, based on my reading in physical theory over the last five years or so. I don't think most quantum physicists would agree that the entirety of what is real exists only in the quantum substrate, though some might.

I'm unclear what you mean by the underlined -- an idea you've expressed before.

I recently came across an excellent explanation of this view via The Center for Naturalism, by way of an article critical of the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. (One of the most well-written critiques I've ever read.)

Naturalism is simply the understanding that there exists a single, natural, physical world or universe in which we are completely included. There are not two different worlds, the supernatural and natural. . . . Naturalism says we are completely physical, material creatures, a complex, highly organized collection of atoms, molecules, cells, neurons, muscles, bone, etc., produced by evolution. So we don’t possess immaterial souls, or spirits, or any “mental” stuff inside us that’s separate from our physical being. . . . We are not “causally privileged” over the rest of nature, that is, we don’t get to cause without being fully caused ourselves. To think that would be to hold a supernatural view of ourselves, the opposite of naturalism.16

So materialistic naturalism, by definition, denies the reality of anything immaterial. However, the existence of our libertarian freedom—our ability to think, act, and reason freely—seems to require some mental or spiritual reality that is independent and capable of directing the biological machine that is our body. Put more simply, the reality of libertarian freedom just cannot be explained by the current understanding of evolution. Though the existence of this “self” appears evident to each of us, materialistic naturalism implies that this is merely an illusion. Consequently, so is free will.

Thus, I find it hard to believe that most physicists would deny that reality -- which they take to be physical [material] -- was constituted of the quantum substrate.

Which objects/processes do you suppose physicists might believe weren't constituted of the quantum substrate? Any of the few I listed?

I'm recalling something you wrote early in your participation in this thread, that your whole view of reality changed when a teacher of yours pounded on a table and told you that the table was not real -- that only q particles and the space between them were real. Is that moment perhaps still blocking your potential openness to other descriptions of reality?

Ha. That's not quite what I said.

It didn't change my whole view of reality, but it certainly stuck with me. He didn't pound the table either. (Very fascinating what one takes/adds to a story.) He merely said that when one touches a table, the particles of which one's finger is composed do not "actually" touch the particles of which the table is composed. Rather, the forces from these particles push against each other. (And I would now add: It's like two magnets with opposite charges pushing against one another; the magnets don't touch, but they "feel" each other.

Furthermore, the exact view/story shared above was recently repeated on an internationally televised TV show called "Cosmos" that imparted the most-up-to-date scientific theories. So while it may ultimately be wrong, it's not some fringe idea... This is the current, scientific view of our (physical) reality.

I'm not sure who/what you're reading to believe otherwise.

 

[Constance]

@Constance

No, no, I don't want to fight. I was reflecting your opinion that many top philosophers of mind do not incorporate true phenomenology into their practices and models.

To be more exact, my opinion is that analytic philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists have, until quite recently, remained ignorant of the phenomenology of mind developed by Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others, and thus they have been disinterested in it. A recent book, The Phenomenological Mind, by Shaun Gallagher and Dan Zahavi attempts to remedy this situation and is probably the first book you should consult (followed by Varela and Thompson et al, The Embodied Mind and Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, which I have recommended several times already. The introductory pages of The Phenomenological Mind available at the amazon link below trace the disparate paths taken by analytical and phenomenological philosophy over the last century until the interdisciplinary work in Consciousness Studies provoked a needed rapprochement.
The Phenomenological Mind: Shaun Gallagher, Dan Zahavi: 9780415610377: Amazon.com: Books

Not that it matters, but I can never tell where you stand: sometimes you seem to indicate that information is key to consciousness, at other times you seem to reject it as reductionist; you seem to believe the micro-physical/phenomenal plays a role in consciousness and brain function, but then seem to reject it as reductive; at times you seem to agree that "mental" is fundamental, but then at others seem to indicate that it emerges only at the macro level; and sometimes I get the sense that your a monist regarding the mental and physical, and then other times a dualist.

I don't think we know enough yet to justify any of the ontological positions yet taken concerning the place of consciousness in the world or the relation of mind and world. I doubt that 'information' exchanged at the quantum level of the physical universe constitutes an ontological primitive that can account in itself for the lived experience of human consciousness. I do think that informational exchange in the quantum substrate is probably causative in the emergence of complex systems, and systems of systems, in the expanding physical universe. It remains to be shown in detail how and where -- at what points in the emergence and evolution of life in the universe -- consciousness evolves and becomes mind in human life (and possibly in other highly evolved species).

I suppose you simply remain open to the possibilities, as perhaps you feel no affinity for any model.

In fact I'm attracted to monistic models rather than dualistic ones, but opposed to the reductiveness of most forms of monism.

You obviously approve of the phenomenological approach, so I merely ask what core ideas regarding consciousness the approach has so far reveled. Sometimes I think it is Idealism, but other times I think Physical Emergentist.

The 'core ideas' as developed by the primary phenomenological philosophers are not all identical since they involve differences in interpretation of the nature of reality. One needs to invest time in reading all four philosophers named above to grasp the differences, as developed in their individual philosophies, as well as the profundity of their common insights into the nature of reality as disclosed by consciousness. The label 'Idealism' is a misapprehension of phenomenological philosophy, justified only in aspects of Husserl's early writings (and even that can be, and has been, argued). Merleau-Ponty's philosophy was founded in a rejection of both idealism and what we might today call 'objectivism'. The development of his philosophy must be followed through his entire published oeuvre in order to obtain an appreciation of the subtlety of his ontology. Maturana, Varela, and Thompson et al all read and were deeply influenced by Merleau-Ponty. Complex systems theory and emergence are compatible with phenomenology.

On a related note, I am beginning to wonder more about consciousness' relation to Vitalism... Is it closer than one might think?

Maybe someone has pursued that question, though one doesn't need Vitalism to support phenomenology.

Is that why C always seems to evaporate the closer we get to it?

Would you expand on that thought?

Life is a series of complex processes, not a thing. Is it the same with consciousness? This isn't to deny conscious experience, but only the idea that it is singular; Strawson's idea of the multiple, temporal thin subjects along with James' idea of consciousness as a container resonate with me. Co-dependent arising.

We can look at life -- and the evolution of life -- as the result of "a series of complex processes." That doesn't mean that complex systems theory provides a complete explanation or characterization of life (including the evolution of consciousness in life, which is our particular interest here). I think Strawson treds on thin physical ice in the papers linked here. Where do you get the term 'container' as an adequate representation of James's thinking about consciousness? Have you read the series of lectures he presented in the last years of his life in which he expressed his final theory, Radical Empiricism?

addendum: I recommend this book on James's radical empiricism . . .

http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Empiricism-William-James/dp/0313226415/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1405895370&sr=1-1&keywords=john+wild%2C+william+james%27s+radical+empiricism

 

[Soupie]

Here's a close follow-up to the above post:

I read the intro page at The Information Philosopher, and I do think there are some fascinating ideas to be had there and in information theory in general. (It all comes back to Langan for me.)

What is Information?

... But information is neither matter nor energy, though it needs matter to be embodied and energy to be communicated. Information can be created and destroyed. It is the modern spirit, the ghost in the machine, the mind in the body. It is the soul, and when we die, it is our information that perishes. The matter remains. Information is a potential objective value, the ultimate sine qua non.

How is Information Created?

Ex nihilo, nihil fit, said the ancients, Nothing comes from nothing. But information is no (material) thing. Information is physical, but it is not material. Information is a property of material. We can create something (immaterial) from nothing! But we shall find that it takes a special kind of energy (free or available energy, with negative entropy) to do so. Information is not constant. Where matter and energy are conserved quantities in physics, information is not conserved. ...

We identify three fundamental processes of information creation - the purely material, the biological, and the mental. ...

The third process of information creation, and the most important to philosophy, is human creativity. Almost every philosopher since philosophy began has considered the mind as something distinct from the body. We can now explain that distinction. The mind is the immaterial information in the brain. The brain, part of the material body, is a biological information processor. ...

Why is information better than logic and language for solving philosophical problems?

The theory of communication of information is the foundation of our "information age." To understand how we know things is to understand how knowledgerepresents the material world of embodied "information structures" in the mental world of immaterial ideas. All knowledge starts with the recording of experiences. The experiences of thinking, perceiving, knowing, feeling, desiring, deciding, and acting may be bracketed by philosophers as "mental" phenomena, but they are no less real than other "physical" phenomena. They are themselves physical phenomena. They are just not material things.

All science begins with information gathered from experimental observations, which are mental phenomena. So all knowledge of the physical world rests on the mental. All scientific knowledge is shared information and as such science is immaterial and mental, some might say fundamental. Recall Descartes' argument that the experience of thinking is that which for him is the most certain.

I don't agree with a few of the ideas presented on the page, but much of it resonates with my thinking (and my orchestra-symphony analogy of consciousness).

Consciousness and the Paranormal

@Langan

Berlinski observes that since the information embodied in a string of DNA or protein cannot affect the material dynamic of reality without being read by a material transducer, information is meaningless without matter.

This brings to mind your recent quote @Constance about: "No thoughts without things; no things without thoughts."

 

[Soupie]

Here is an absolutely fascinating article about psychiatry in ancient Babylon.

Babylonian Neurology and Psychiatry - Neuroskeptic | DiscoverMagazine.com

The sources they discuss are almost 4,000 years old, dating to the Old Babylonian Dynasty of 1894 – 1595 BC. Writing in cuneiform scriptimpressed into clay tablets, the Babylonians left records that (unlike paper) were inherently durable, so many of them have survived. All understanding of cuneiform was lost, however, for thousands of years, only to be deciphered in the 19th century. ...

The text shows a detailed understanding of the symptoms and prognosis of this disorder, which the Babylonians called miqtu. However, they didn’t think it had anything to do with the brain. Rather:

Throughout the text, the Babylonian conception of epilepsy as a supernatural disorder due to invasion of the body by evil demons or spirits is evident, sometimes with individual names for the spirits associated with particular seizure types. The first line states:

‘If epilepsy falls once upon a person [or falls many times] it is the result of possession by a demon or departed spirit.’

Nonetheless some of the clinical observations are spot on:

The following account of a unilateral focal motor seizure, which today we call ‘Jacksonian’, illustrates the accurate attention to clinical detail by Babylonian scholars:

‘If at the time of his possession, while he is sitting down, his (left) eye moves to the side, a lip puckers, saliva flows from his mouth, and his hand, leg and trunk on the left side jerk (or twitch) like a newly-slaughtered sheep – it is miqtu. If at the time of the possession he is consciously aware, the demon can be driven out; if at the time of the possession he is not so aware, the demon cannot be driven out’

However, for me, the most interesting tidbit comes at the end:

Yet, interestingly, the texts contain no account of the ‘inner’, subjective symptoms of these disorders, even though today, these are considered the essence of ‘mental’ illness. The Babylonians simply didn’t write about:

subjective thoughts or feelings, such as obsessional thoughts or ruminations in obsessive compulsive disorder, or suicidal thoughts or sadness in depression. These latter subjective phenomena only became a relatively modern field of description and enquiry in the 17th and 18th centuries, possibly under the influence of the Romantic movement. This raises interesting questions about the evolution of human self-awareness.

Indeed! The same has been said about the ancient Greeks and the "subject of experience" or "the self."

I really need to find an article/book dedicated to this topic!

 

[Constance]

I'm unclear what you mean by the underlined -- an idea you've expressed before.

Supplying the quote:

"I doubt that, based on my reading in physical theory over the last five years or so. I don't think most quantum physicists would agree that the entirety of what is real exists only in the quantum substrate, though some might."

Do you think the physical universe (as we see and experience it today, to the extent we can) and human consciousness/mind (late-comer in the scene) have been fully explained, completely accounted for, by an already achieved understanding of either quantum mechanics or the holographic theory of universally entangled quantum interactions? I don't, and my impression is that most quantum theorists and other physical theorists do not make those claims.

. . .the exact view/story shared above was recently repeated on an internationally televised TV show called "Cosmos" that imparted the most-up-to-date scientific theories. So while it may ultimately be wrong, it's not some fringe idea... This is the current, scientific view of our (physical) reality.

I didn't say that you're propounding a 'fringe' theory. It's one theory among others.