Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

[smcder]

I was a little surprised to find this, but starting at

1200 - there is a discussion on language, then at 14:00, the speaker discusses Greek two value logic - the law of the excluded middle and how that produces mysteries and then at

14:35 the tetralemma

is discussed.

 

[Constance]

Soupie you say:
1. "From what I can gather, IIT says that the phenomenal feel arises from the way in which neurons interact (integrate) with one another to create internal physical representations of external physical events. They have several lines of empirical data to support their model; not least of which is that integrated neurons appear to be vastly more effecient to non-integrated neurons."

It's neurons what does it.
Well, I'm glad IIT ticked that box and sorted the problem of phenomenal experience. Next problem please...

Even Tononi no longer believes that. See his papers re IIT.3 and look for further developments there.

2. However, ive been reading several recent hints that internal representations may acquire their feel upon introspection

Introspection does require representation, but representation most certainly does not require introspection. But many would argue otherwise.

Indeed. 'Representation' is a concept that requires further critical thinking.

3. At this point, Im not clear how internal physical representation (organisms) acquire their feel in HTC? How/why do the internal physical representations of the external physical environment/landscape give rise to a corresponding (?) phenomenal landscape?

Is that a question for me and HCT?

Yes.

 

[smcder]

re above post, the software is gummed up. Click to expand for my response.

I had trouble downloading the PDF to my computer but I was able to open it to read in the browser.

 

[Constance]

Are you saying that philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, etc. should be factoring NDEs, past life memories, and PSI into their models? (OBEs seem to be incorporated.)

Not yet - the first step is to look at the evidence. Kuhn explains why this hasn't happened. Either this evidence will remain a fringe activity or it will become part of a paradigm shift.

My suggestion above was that we define consciousness (as best we can) so that we can come to an agreement on what needs explaining, what explanations (models) have so far been offered, and to suggest some models of our own.

"I think we should drop the word consciousness. We end up having to explain what we mean any way or defend that definition - plus, if we don't use the word consciousness, we don't take over more territory than our use of the word entitles.

". . . I think we should drop the word consciousness."

?? I can't agree. Our purpose here for 200 pages has been to pursue the nature of consciousness. We need to maintain that focus or the thread will disintegrate in a multitude of directions.

As for your definition, the first sentence in your defintion is the definition of consciousness, but the second sentence defines mind in terms of the first defintion and also makes a claim of possession for the organism. There's nothing wrong with it - I'm just pointing out it's not just a definition of consciousness.

Consciousness cannot be 'defined' until we comprehend its complexity both in terms of how it is generated in nature and in terms of what it enables in human experience and thought.

 

[smcder]

?? I can't agree. Our purpose here for 200 pages has been to pursue the nature of consciousness. We need to maintain that focus or the thread will disintegrate in a multitude of directions.



Consciousness cannot be 'defined' until we comprehend its complexity both in terms of how it is generated in nature and in terms of what it enables in human experience and thought.

I'm not saying drop the focus or the meaning ... I'm looking at the problem caused when everyone uses the specific word "consciousness" in a different way ... and ends up having to explain it or else it goes unnoticed until someone realizes it claimed more territory than they feel is appropriate.

So I'm just calling for extra care in not assuming our definition is everyone's - as an exercise, intentionally NOT using the word "consciousness" for a bit makes one aware of how the word is being used.

A less controversial example is paranormal and we have lots of choices of words and phrases in different contexts.

Consciousness cannot be 'defined' until we comprehend its complexity both in terms of how it is generated in nature and in terms of what it enables in humanyo experience and thought.

I agree, let me re-word that:

"As for your definition, the first sentence in your defintion is YOUR definition of consciousness, but the second sentence defines mind in terms of the first defintion and also makes a claim of possession for the organism. There's nothing wrong with it (as YOUR definition of consciousness) - I'm just pointing out it's not just a definition of consciousness."

Does that make sense @Constance? I'm not saying he has the definition of consciousness, I'm saying he's done more than define consciousnsess.

This is the sort of thing that's hard to convey on a forum - in two seconds we'd have it (and lots more) sorted if we had other forms of communication.

 

[Constance]

I'd like a clean thread to actually discuss Consciousness and the Paranormal and that was where we started, so it makes sense for the new thread to break off on the IIT/HTC side.

I don't think it's necessary to split off discussion of information theory-based models of consciousness. And I think it's clear that we need to sort out the differences between that approach and the approach taken in the embodied mind/enactive cognition/neurophenomenology approach, which is coherent with the more recent 'affective neuroscience' approach of Panksepp [part of the 'cognitive-affective neuroscience' developments referred to by Thompson in that other important paper which we all need to read.

 

[Constance]

I'm not saying drop the focus [on consciousness]... I'm looking at the problem caused when everyone uses the word consciousness in a different way ... and ends up having to explain it or else it goes unnoticed until someone realizes it claimed more territory than they feel is appropriate.

Yes, we have to stop doing that if we want to make sense. We can begin to make sense if we possess a common understanding of the two leading approaches/models -- the reductive 'informational' approach and the biologically-phenomenologically grounded approach taken by Varela, Thompson, et al.

 

[smcder]

I was a little surprised to find this, but starting at

12 minutes - there is a discussion on language, then at 14:00, the speaker discusses Greek two value logic - the law of the excluded middle and how that produces mysteries and then at

14:35 the tetralemma

is discussed.

The very last part about using not only different language but different logic and ways of thinking resonates with a couple of posts I made last night - well, didn't make because I had trouble editing and because they began to take on more and more of a form I could use in my short story - so I pulled them down to put them in one post later - I may make them into a fictional dialogue, not sure.

 

[smcder]

Yes, we have to stop doing that if we want to make sense. We can begin to make sense if we possess a common understanding of the two leading approaches/models -- the reductive 'informational' approach and the biologically-phenomenologically grounded approach taken by Varela, Thompson, et al.

Computationalist, functionalist or neuroreductionist approaches generally lead to a paradoxical eliminativism, i.e. the elimination of consciousness as the domain of our subjective experience during the very process of explanation. No evidence about the relation between the objective and subjective realms can be provided if the initial explanandum itself (that which has to be explained), has been banished as a valid object of study! In the explanation, phenomenal properties of consciousness as such must appear.
Contrary to eliminativism, it is well known that Francisco’s position was situated squarely in the context of what he saw as the irreducible nature of conscious experience.

 

[Constance]

That paper on Varela is a mine of insights and the neurophenomenological
research program he conceived with Thompson should be our next order of business for discussion here. We've spent a lot of time in Part 2 of the thread talking about and around the information theory approach that currently dominates neuroscience and philosophy of mind. Critical thinking about that approach requires an understanding of Varela and Thompson et al's research, theory, and experimentation. If we don't go there we've only gone halfway through the forest.

 

[Constance]

And I should add that if we don't understand Varela and Thompson's reasoning we will also be out of the loop in the next developments in neuroscience, already in motion and no doubt contributing already to Tonini's thinking as indicated in IIT.3 with his recognition that information in consciousness/mind is not equivalent to information processing in computational substrates.

 

[Pharoah]

IIT isn't a model something cobbled together in the basement. It's based on neurology and phenomenology. Neurons might not be the only thing what does it, but IIT may a great case for how they're involved. Sure, it needs to be critically evaluated, but you've not done that.
The point is not that representations can't exist in the absence of introspection, but that representations may lack phenomenal feel in the absence of introspection.

At this point, Im not clear how internal physical representation (organisms) acquire their feel in HTC? How/why do the internal physical representations of the external physical environment/landscape give rise to a corresponding (?) phenomenal landscape?
That is the question. And if the question itself is erroneous, as some believe, an explanation would be great.

1. Ok. I will try to do a detailed analysis of IIT 3.0
2. "representation may lack phenomenal feel in the absence of introspection" I don't think so. I think that our brains assimilate the feel of multiple inputs outside of introspection. The brain then dirrects attention and focus to the input that its feeling-assimilations deem the most pressing, whereupon introspection may or may not be engaged. I was analysing my own perceptual experience recently and was amazed at how my eyes tended to dart to movements. The assimilation of movements was happening in peripheral vision outside of introspection and awareness, and then my brains would direct my eyes 'look at this movement... look at that' etc. Interestingly, as i say on a train, my brain filtered out the movements outside the windows and drew my attention only to movements within the carriage, thereby telling me how soohisticated the assimilations of relevancy were to my intrasitive consciousness. (intrasitive? I think)
3. I will give a go at this question. I have answered in many varied ways and will dig these up and post them. And then you can question me further on this Soupie.

 

[Constance]

I'm looking for a link I posted in Part 2 of this thread to the second paper Tononi published last May about IIT.3, which foregrounded its differences from earlier versions. That paper should be helpful to you Pharoah. On the way to finding it I came across this post in which I responded to yours on rejoining the discussion, and I see that I want to add something to it.

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2 | Page 92 | The Paracast Community Forums

I must have been in a hurry or I would have added to your third statement there by suggesting that the location of the 'interaction' you referred to is the central issue and essentially the question we are now finally exploring..

 

[Constance]

Here is the link to that second paper by Tononi concerning IIT.3:

[1405.7089v1] Consciousness: Here, There but Not Everywhere

 

[Soupie]

Here is the link to that second paper by Tononi concerning IIT.3:

[1405.7089v1] Consciousness: Here, There but Not Everywhere

And here is a more technical look at IIT 3.0

http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article....1371/journal.pcbi.1003588&representation=PDF

 

[Soupie]

1. Ok. I will try to do a detailed analysis of IIT 3.0

Have a look at the two papers above. Id be curious (1) to see how it differs from your model, and (2) what you feel its flaws are.

2. "representation may lack phenomenal feel in the absence of introspection" I don't think so. I think that our brains assimilate the feel of multiple inputs outside of introspection.

That has been my thought as well: That organisms can have phenomenal experience in the absence of an awareness of such experience.

Thus, organisms lacking conceptual thinking and a sense of mental self will still have phenomenal experiences.

I will give a go at this question. I have answered in many varied ways and will dig these up and post them. And then you can question me further on this Soupie.

Great. Just how phenomenal experience comes to be associated with (not possessed by!) the brain is quite an interesting puzzle!

 

[Soupie]

• Rodolfo Llinás and his co-workers have advanced the view, which we believe is profoundly correct, that dreaming, far from being an odd and incidental part of our mental life, represents the fundamental form of this world-creating activity.
• Ordinary perceptual synthesis, on this inverted view of things, amounts to oneiric (dreamlike) activity constrained by sensory input.
• Psychoanalyst Ernest Hartmann has proposed similar ideas in regard to hallucinatory activity more generally, with dreaming included. ... and the critical question is not "why do we sometimes hallucinate?" but rather "what keeps us from hallucinating most of the time?"
• The answer, he suggests, lies in inhibitory influences exerted by the brain activity that accompanies ongoing perceptual and cognitive functions of the ordinary waking sorts.

Fascinating.

I continue to be interested in the similarities between dreaming, hallucinogens, and NDEs. (In IIT 3.0, Tonini refers to everday experience as wakeful dreaming.)

Below is a detailed description by TM about DMT experiences. He describes (as best he can) a completely alien, non-euclidian phenomenal landscape in which his discursive, conceptual mind is completely intact and unchanged. (And apparently real, conscious entities he encounters.)

As for the other phenomena listed, while they are certainly fascinating and beg explanation, I'm not ready to appeal to a supernatual soul or realm just yet. But yes, our models of reality and of the mind will need to account for them.

 

[Soupie]

The Division of Perceptual Studies — School of Medicine at the University of Virginia

This was great. I was really impressed with the speaker, Bruce Greyson. I will be pursuing his writing, assuming there is some.

And although Greyson didn't endorce the "receiver" model of the mind, I have been thinking of Tesla's quote for the past couple days:

“My brain is only a receiver, in the Universe there is a core from which we obtain knowledge, strength and inspiration. I have not penetrated into the secrets of this core, but I know that it exists.”
― Nikola Tesla

 

[Pharoah]

Have a look at the two papers above. Id be curious (1) to see how it differs from your model, and (2) what you feel its flaws are.

That has been my thought as well: That organisms can have phenomenal experience in the absence of an awareness of such experience.

Thus, organisms lacking conceptual thinking and a sense of mental self will still have phenomenal experiences.

Great. Just how phenomenal experience comes to be associated with (not possessed by!) the brain is quite an interesting puzzle!

"That has been my thought as well: That organisms can have phenomenal experience in the absence of an awareness of such experience.
Thus, organisms lacking conceptual thinking and a sense of mental self will still have phenomenal experiences."
Of course Carruthers explicitily states that this is not the case which is so counter intuitive as to make his dispositional HOT theory difficult to take seriously.

"Great. Just how phenomenal experience comes to be associated with (not possessed by!) the brain is quite an interesting puzzle!"
associated with versus possessed by? Can you clarify this distinction for me pls?

 

[smcder]

Fascinating.

I continue to be interested in the similarities between dreaming, hallucinogens, and NDEs. (In IIT 3.0, Tonini refers to everday experience as wakeful dreaming.)

Below is a detailed description by TM about DMT experiences. He describes (as best he can) a completely alien, non-euclidian phenomenal landscape in which his discursive, conceptual mind is completely intact and unchanged. (And apparently real, conscious entities he encounters.)

As for the other phenomena listed, while they are certainly fascinating and beg explanation, I'm not ready to appeal to a supernatual soul or realm just yet. But yes, our models of reality and of the mind will need to account for them.

As I've said many times before - be very careful of TM ... you think I'm a Trickster ... ;-)

Where was supernatural soul or realm appealed to? I missed that. I think Kelly's paper ends with the idea of mind being in tune with our deepest physical science.