Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

[smcder]

Yes, Ive read that article several times. I think the author and Pharaoh are describing the same problem.

I think I touched in this before (and wanted to discuss this in more depth several weeks ago) but there are at least two views of consciousness.

Pardon me while I whip out my white board (im a very visual thinker).

The ground water concept of consciousness. On this view, consciousness is one phenomenon. Thats it. It is a singular something that either also was or emerged at some point in the evolution of what-is. Human minds therefore exist within this singular thing we call consciousness. (Not unlike individual wells that all tap into the same resevoir of ground water.)

The pond concept of consciousness (TM). On this view, consciousness is not one singular phenomenon, but simply a form/processes that continuously emerges within what-is, not unlike a pond. While all ponds are constituted of water, the origin and features of individual ponds are independent of one another.

Does that make sense? Do we all subscribe to one or the other (or another) concept of consciousness?

Finally, while I dont think the plurality of consciousness is a problem from one who believes that consciousness is generated by the brain, it certainly is a big problem for a dualist.

I thought the quote I posted for you from the article described the problem for Tononi - and he believes consciousness is generated by the brain, doesn't he?

 

[Soupie]

I thought the quote I posted for you from the article described the problem for Tononi - and he believes consciousness is generated by the brain, doesn't he?

Yes, and I dont understand why his answer was so silly. If I get gored by a bull and I feel pain rather than you, I suppose we could characterize the pain I feel as "me shaped."

 

[Soupie]

The question of the plurality of consciousness to me, is the same as the plurality of subjectivity, which to me is the same as the plurality of POV.

I possess my unique, subjective, POV because it is generated by my unique body, sensory organs, CNS, and brain which are located in a unique location in spacetime.

 

[smcder]

I can see the close relation of the Chalmers and Nagels viewpoints (though I don't remember Chalmers making much of the radical plurality of consciousnesses among humans). I'm not sure yet about what Pharoah is saying because I don't yet have an understanding of what he means by 'the noumenal'.

That is one of the things the argument hinges on - whether plurality of consciousness really is in Nagel (and by reference, Chalmers view) ... it may be something the author derives or gets from other writings or commentaries on the hard problem or something he read into the WIILTBAB. I suspect it's not a new idea for him.

I am looking for support that the author of the article is right that this is Chalmers and Nagel's view or that it is considered the hard problem by other, earlier commentators ... it could also be that it's Nagel's view

(and I think it is throughout WIILTBAB, but not expressed as explicitly as in the article - I think it is in Nagel's emphasis on subjectivity and objectivity ... but I need to find a strong quote for support)

but not Chalmers - but note that that really doesn't change anything - because the hard problem was defined in WIILTBAB (as Chalmers refers to Nagel in his article).

If the author is wrong to attribue the idea to Nagel, where did it come from and is it as similar to @Pharaoh's idea as it looks?

If so, then it would be possible that Pharaoh has solved what we've been thinking as the hard problem - which I think would be a huge accomplishment! and then we would just continue to try and understand Pharaoh's formulation of the noumenal as the new hard problem.

C&P part 4,5,6 anyone?

 

[smcder]

The question of the plurality of consciousness to me, is the same as the plurality of subjectivity, which to me is the same as the plurality of POV.

I possess my unique, subjective, POV because it is generated by my unique body, sensory organs, CNS, and brain which are located in a unique location in spacetime.

What for you then is the hard problem?

article No objective scientific account of all the elements in the universe could say why I am me and you are you.

Pharoah It is a hard question because it is person specific and not a general rule of physics about first persons.

Look at Pharoah's formulation of "person specific" and the compare that to the article, the very end:

But the study of the brain and its relation to consciousness seems to prove that even if scientists could play God (“the Brain is just the weight of God,” Dickinson concludes), even if they did achieve divine omniscience, they could never know how any other consciousnesses could exist, nor whether they did exist, nor how there could be a plurality of them.

And this I think is what WIILTBAB is saying too. And Chalmers.

Does that help and do you have a solution for that problem?

 

[Soupie]

What for you then is the hard problem?

article No objective scientific account of all the elements in the universe could say why I am me and you are you.

Pharoah It is a hard question because it is person specific and not a general rule of physics about first persons.

Look at Pharoah's formulation of "person specific" and the compare that to the article, the very end:

But the study of the brain and its relation to consciousness seems to prove that even if scientists could play God (“the Brain is just the weight of God,” Dickinson concludes), even if they did achieve divine omniscience, they could never know how any other consciousnesses could exist, nor whether they did exist, nor how there could be a plurality of them.

And this I think is what WIILTBAB is saying too. And Chalmers.

Does that help and do you have a solution for that problem?

Yes, I think some people do view that as the Hard Problem.

Since I was introduced to the Hard Problem in this discussion, Ive thought of it as the problem of how my consciousness could exist; but I think it can, and is, characterized also as how other consciousnesses could exist, or perhaps, how we could know other consciousnesses exist.

Robien Faichney of the mmmi website recently addressed this on his blog: RobinFaichney.org The Hard Problem of consciousness and its easy answer - RobinFaichney.org

The Hard Problem of consciousness and its easy answer
And the answer is: the zombie is simply any person with whom you do not empathise.

The UK newspaper The Guardian recently published what I guess is quite a good account of the state of the art in consciousness studies, which asks Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness? Philosopher David Chalmers gave a conference speech in 1994.


"The brain, Chalmers began by pointing out, poses all sorts of problems to keep scientists busy. How do we learn, store memories, or perceive things? How do you know to jerk your hand away from scalding water, or hear your name spoken across the room at a noisy party? But these were all “easy problems”, in the scheme of things: given enough time and money, experts would figure them out. There was only one truly hard problem of consciousness, Chalmers said. It was a puzzle so bewildering that, in the months after his talk, people started dignifying it with capital letters – the Hard Problem of Consciousness – and it’s this: why on earth should all those complicated brain processes feel like anything from the inside? Why aren’t we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life? And how does the brain manage it? How could the 1.4kg lump of moist, pinkish-beige tissue inside your skull give rise to something as mysterious as the experience of being that pinkish-beige lump, and the body to which it is attached?"


These hypothetical brilliant robots, or zombies, are sufficiently “aware”, or whatever you want to call it, that they can do everything that you or I can do, but they lack an “inner life”, it’s all “dark inside”. What does that mean? It means very simply, quite precisely, that Chalmers chooses not to empathise with them. That’s all. People in the future are going to be very puzzled by the fact that so many of “the world’s greatest minds”, as this article calls them, fail to see that.

As to the question in the last sentence, how the brain generates a sense of self, the answer is very far from simple, but it’s not an ineffable mystery. Like many mysteries, it just requires some hard work to get your head around. You might like to start with my dissertation (it got some quite nice (and some not so nice) comments).
​

I think he makes a really good point. Essentially, any object that we project consciousness (or at least sentience) onto is not a zombie: other people, dogs, cats, mice, maybe insects, maybe bacteria, maybe things like cancer, etc. Any object that we do not project consciousness/sentience onto is a zombie. Its that simple.

When/if there are uber advanced machine that can pass for humans physically and behaviorally, some people will empathize with them and thus project consciousness onto them, other people likely won't and for them, the machines will be zombies.

 

[smcder]

I can see the close relation of the Chalmers and Nagels viewpoints (though I don't remember Chalmers making much of the radical plurality of consciousnesses among humans). I'm not sure yet about what Pharoah is saying because I don't yet have an understanding of what he means by 'the noumenal'.

Here is the abstract of Pharoah's paper, look at it in light of the above:

ABSTRACT: The phenomenon of our experience is the property we identify as consciousness, which is why a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience would seem to explain consciousness – Indeed, Chalmers (1995) has described the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ as the problem of experience. However, the specificity of our conscious identity as distinct from conscious experience in general, tells us that following a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience, questions must remain regarding personal identity and why each of us happen to be the individual we are, rather than anyone else. In this paper, I explore noumenal consciousness as distinct from the problem of phenomenal consciousness.

Now what this could mean is mistaking what Chalmers means by the hard problem - classing it as one of the "easy problems".

Here is what Chalmers lists as the "easy problems"

• the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to
  environmental stimuli;
• the integration of information by a cognitive system;
• the reportability of mental states;
• the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
• the focus of attention;
• the deliberate control of behavior;
• the difference between wakefulness and sleep.

All of these phenomena are associated with the notion of consciousness. For example, one sometimes says that a mental state is conscious when it is verbally reportable, or when it is internally accessible. Sometimes a system is said to be conscious of some information when it has the ability to react on the basis of that information, or, more strongly, when it attends to that information, or when it can integrate that information and exploit it in the sophisticated control of behavior. We sometimes say that an action is conscious precisely when it is deliberate. Often, we say that an organism is conscious as another way of saying that it is awake.

But all of these things he calls the easy problems: internally accessible, attending and awake. Is this what @Pharoah and @Soupie have in mind about consciousness?

If so, Chalmers says:

There is no real issue about whether these phenomena can be explained scientifically. All of them are straightforwardly vulnerable to explanation in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. To explain access and reportability, for example, we need only specify the mechanism by which information about internal states is retrieved and made available for verbal report. To explain the integration of information, we need only exhibit mechanisms by which information is brought together and exploited by later processes. For an account of sleep and wakefulness, an appropriate neurophysiological account of the processes responsible for organisms' contrasting behavior in those states will suffice. In each case, an appropriate cognitive or neurophysiological model can clearly do the explanatory work.

So Chalmers must mean something else when he talks about the hard problem of consicousness.

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience.

Pharaoh writes:

Indeed, Chalmers (1995) has described the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ as the problem of experience.

So far so good ... so maybe it hinges on what we are calling experience.

Pharoah writes:
However, the specificity of our conscious identity as distinct from conscious experience in general, tells us that following a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience, questions must remain regarding personal identity and why each of us happen to be the individual we are, rather than anyone else. In this paper, I explore noumenal consciousness as distinct from the problem of phenomenal consciousness.

What is the specificity of our conscious identity as distinct from conscious experience in general? What questions remain regarding personal identity? Isn't that what Chalmers and Nagel mean by being a subject? There is no other way to be a subject - except to have personal identity - otherwise you are an object - that's the whole rhetoric behind Nagel's argument.

Chalmers continues:
When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect.

the whir of information processing is what Pharoah calls conscious experience in general and what Chalmers calls "subjective aspect" (something it is like to be a "a" - singular, subject is always singular - I can't plurally be a subject

subject/object singular/plural

... cut my corpus collosum and there aren't two of me, there are two subjects - forever breached (see James' quote in the article) - what Chalmers calls "subjective aspect" is Pharoah's "personal identity" the noumenal consciousness.


Chalmers again:

As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.

It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience.

But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing.

Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. <--- @Soupie Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life* at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.

*smcder - this is my comment what is it to have a rich inner life emphasis on - inner - except to be you? Here "inner" doesn't mean in your head (and so also in yours and yours and yours) @Soupie has a potential contradiction here when he says we can't even know if someone else is conscious - the author says this is unbreachable even by God (or an omniscient science) - here "inner" means unaccessible, truly interior ... even if ESP is true, you only worry about someone knowing your thoughts but not someone knowing what it is like to be you.

Chalmers

If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one. In this central sense of "consciousness", an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and a mental state is conscious if there is something it is like to be in that state.

Sometimes terms such as "phenomenal consciousness" and "qualia" are also used here, but I find it more natural to speak of "conscious experience" or simply "experience". Another useful way to avoid confusion (used by e.g. Newell 1990, Chalmers 1995) is to reserve the term "consciousness" for the phenomena of experience, using the less loaded term "awareness" for the more straightforward phenomena described earlier. If such a convention were widely adopted, communication would be much easier; as things stand, those who talk about "consciousness" are frequently talking past each other.

*smcder - this may be crucial:

The ambiguity of the term "consciousness" is often exploited by both philosophers and scientists writing on the subject. It is common to see a paper on consciousness begin with an invocation of the mystery of consciousness, noting the strange intangibility and ineffability of subjectivity, and worrying that so far we have no theory of the phenomenon.

Here, the topic is clearly the hard problem - the problem of experience. In the second half of the paper, the tone becomes more optimistic, and the author's own theory of consciousness is outlined. Upon examination, this theory turns out to be a theory of one of the more straightforward phenomena - of reportability, of introspective access, or whatever.

*smcder - so Pharoah's theory will have to not be about one of these phenomena

Chalmers
At the close, the author declares that consciousness has turned out to be tractable after all, but the reader is left feeling like the victim of a bait-and-switch. The hard problem remains untouched.

*smcder
One last bit:

By contrast, the hard problem is hard precisely because it is not a problem about the performance of functions. The problem persists even when the performance of all the relevant functions is explained. (Here "function" is not used in the narrow teleological sense of something that a system is designed to do, but in the broader sense of any causal role in the production of behavior that a system might perform.)

"performance of functions" - would then be what Pharoah means by conscious experience in general and a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience

Pharoah
However, the specificity of our conscious identity as distinct from conscious experience in general, tells us that following a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience, questions must remain regarding personal identity and why each of us happen to be the individual we are, rather than anyone else. In this paper, I explore noumenal consciousness as distinct from the problem of phenomenal consciousness.

At least I've got something to look for now in Pharoah's noumenal paper and Chalmers and Nagel's orginal papers - and if these do turn out to be different things - then I am very excited to have a new understanding of the hard problem, for which there is a possible solution! and a new hard problem to think about.

 

[smcder]

Yes, I think some people do view that as the Hard Problem.

Since I was introduced to the Hard Problem in this discussion, Ive thought of it as the problem of how my consciousness could exist; but I think it can, and is, characterized also as how other consciousnesses could exist, or perhaps, how we could know other consciousnesses exist.

Robien Faichney of the mmmi website recently addressed this on his blog: RobinFaichney.org The Hard Problem of consciousness and its easy answer - RobinFaichney.org

The Hard Problem of consciousness and its easy answer
And the answer is: the zombie is simply any person with whom you do not empathise.

The UK newspaper The Guardian recently published what I guess is quite a good account of the state of the art in consciousness studies, which asks Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness? Philosopher David Chalmers gave a conference speech in 1994.


"The brain, Chalmers began by pointing out, poses all sorts of problems to keep scientists busy. How do we learn, store memories, or perceive things? How do you know to jerk your hand away from scalding water, or hear your name spoken across the room at a noisy party? But these were all “easy problems”, in the scheme of things: given enough time and money, experts would figure them out. There was only one truly hard problem of consciousness, Chalmers said. It was a puzzle so bewildering that, in the months after his talk, people started dignifying it with capital letters – the Hard Problem of Consciousness – and it’s this: why on earth should all those complicated brain processes feel like anything from the inside? Why aren’t we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life? And how does the brain manage it? How could the 1.4kg lump of moist, pinkish-beige tissue inside your skull give rise to something as mysterious as the experience of being that pinkish-beige lump, and the body to which it is attached?"


These hypothetical brilliant robots, or zombies, are sufficiently “aware”, or whatever you want to call it, that they can do everything that you or I can do, but they lack an “inner life”, it’s all “dark inside”. What does that mean? It means very simply, quite precisely, that Chalmers chooses not to empathise with them. That’s all. People in the future are going to be very puzzled by the fact that so many of “the world’s greatest minds”, as this article calls them, fail to see that.

As to the question in the last sentence, how the brain generates a sense of self, the answer is very far from simple, but it’s not an ineffable mystery. Like many mysteries, it just requires some hard work to get your head around. You might like to start with my dissertation (it got some quite nice (and some not so nice) comments).
​

I think he makes a really good point. Essentially, any object that we project consciousness (or at least sentience) onto is not a zombie: other people, dogs, cats, mice, maybe insects, maybe bacteria, maybe things like cancer, etc. Any object that we do not project consciousness/sentience onto is a zombie. Its that simple.

When/I there are uber advanced machine that can pass for humans physically and behaviorally, some people will empathize with them and thus project consciousness onto them, other people likely won't and for them, the machines will be zombies.

I'll try to find WIILTBAB quotes.

Do you think this:

they could never know how any other consciousnesses could exist, nor whether they did exist, nor how there could be a plurality of them.

... is a hard problem

article No objective scientific account of all the elements in the universe could say why I am me and you are you.
Pharoah It is a hard question because it is person specific and not a general rule of physics about first persons.

They seem to agree at least that there is not a scientific solution. Do you think there is?

The problem with the machine is finding a legal basis for personhood. Some people feel that way about any given (and some about all) sentient life now, but there is no law against doing anything to an insect (unless a protected species) - and animals are generally considered property and/or food. It's generally agreed we don't eat people no matter how they died or how long dead they are ... we can cut, chemically reduce a human to any given level and they will look like every other human - on the inside, so we can base laws on this ... that fails when we cut the computer open and find a tangle of wires. Note though, mammals pretty generally look like us when we cut them open.

 

[smcder]

Yes, I think some people do view that as the Hard Problem.

Since I was introduced to the Hard Problem in this discussion, Ive thought of it as the problem of how my consciousness could exist; but I think it can, and is, characterized also as how other consciousnesses could exist, or perhaps, how we could know other consciousnesses exist.

Robien Faichney of the mmmi website recently addressed this on his blog: RobinFaichney.org The Hard Problem of consciousness and its easy answer - RobinFaichney.org

The Hard Problem of consciousness and its easy answer
And the answer is: the zombie is simply any person with whom you do not empathise.

The UK newspaper The Guardian recently published what I guess is quite a good account of the state of the art in consciousness studies, which asks Why can’t the world’s greatest minds solve the mystery of consciousness? Philosopher David Chalmers gave a conference speech in 1994.


"The brain, Chalmers began by pointing out, poses all sorts of problems to keep scientists busy. How do we learn, store memories, or perceive things? How do you know to jerk your hand away from scalding water, or hear your name spoken across the room at a noisy party? But these were all “easy problems”, in the scheme of things: given enough time and money, experts would figure them out. There was only one truly hard problem of consciousness, Chalmers said. It was a puzzle so bewildering that, in the months after his talk, people started dignifying it with capital letters – the Hard Problem of Consciousness – and it’s this: why on earth should all those complicated brain processes feel like anything from the inside? Why aren’t we just brilliant robots, capable of retaining information, of responding to noises and smells and hot saucepans, but dark inside, lacking an inner life? And how does the brain manage it? How could the 1.4kg lump of moist, pinkish-beige tissue inside your skull give rise to something as mysterious as the experience of being that pinkish-beige lump, and the body to which it is attached?"


These hypothetical brilliant robots, or zombies, are sufficiently “aware”, or whatever you want to call it, that they can do everything that you or I can do, but they lack an “inner life”, it’s all “dark inside”. What does that mean? It means very simply, quite precisely, that Chalmers chooses not to empathise with them. That’s all. People in the future are going to be very puzzled by the fact that so many of “the world’s greatest minds”, as this article calls them, fail to see that.

As to the question in the last sentence, how the brain generates a sense of self, the answer is very far from simple, but it’s not an ineffable mystery. Like many mysteries, it just requires some hard work to get your head around. You might like to start with my dissertation (it got some quite nice (and some not so nice) comments).
​

I think he makes a really good point. Essentially, any object that we project consciousness (or at least sentience) onto is not a zombie: other people, dogs, cats, mice, maybe insects, maybe bacteria, maybe things like cancer, etc. Any object that we do not project consciousness/sentience onto is a zombie. Its that simple.

When/if there are uber advanced machine that can pass for humans physically and behaviorally, some people will empathize with them and thus project consciousness onto them, other people likely won't and for them, the machines will be zombies.

These hypothetical brilliant robots, or zombies, are sufficiently “aware”, or whatever you want to call it, that they can do everything that you or I can do, but they lack an “inner life”, it’s all “dark inside”. What does that mean? It means very simply, quite precisely, that Chalmers chooses not to empathise with them. That’s all. People in the future are going to be very puzzled by the fact that so many of “the world’s greatest minds”, as this article calls them, fail to see that.

As to the question in the last sentence, how the brain generates a sense of self, the answer is very far from simple, but it’s not an ineffable mystery. Like many mysteries, it just requires some hard work to get your head around. You might like to start with my dissertation (it got some quite nice (and some not so nice) comments).

A couple of thoughts:

1. Chalmers' argument doesn't depend on the existence of zombies and neither does Nagel's.

2. this appears to me to side-step the hard problem by assuming what is to be given an objective accounting of in the first place (namely subjectivity) - so that's circular ... if you can't objectively show who is and isn't conscious, then physicalism fails its claim which is to give a complete accounting of the world (that's what an -ism is).

NOTE: this is exactly what Chalmers' says people do in their papers when they claim to have solved the hard problem: bait and switch.

 

[smcder]

I'm thinking out loud (have been all night) - so you might not want to read all these following posts - I'll hope to decide I'm wrong or if I'm right, I hope to put it succinctly. I'll try to format these consistently but again it's just me thinking out loud mostly and making notes more for myself.

I'm reading @Pharoah's paper now (and he has said clearly that he hasn't visited this in ten years, I think and all cards on the table as far as noumneal consciousness is concerned, but the claim has been made that he can show the hard problem in 21 questions - so my focus is on whether or not he has a hold of the hard problem or if what he calls the noumenal is the same as Nagel/Chalmers hard problem - in which case he hasn't solved it.

Phenomenal experience is the term used to describe the rather subjective ‘something it is like’ aspect of experience. Examples of phenomenal experience include what it is to experience depths and shades of colours, the variety in the subtlety of aromas, the character of sound clusters, or the pleasantness of tactile sensations. Whilst being a fundamental aspect of the way we relate to the environment, the phenomenon of our subjective experience has ineffable qualities that evade objective analysis. Phenomenal experience is the experience that individuals identify as the subjective experience of consciousness.

Let's see if we can fit these in Chalmers' examples:

• the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to
  environmental stimuli;
• the integration of information by a cognitive system;
• the reportability of mental states;
• the ability of a system to access its own internal states;
• the focus of attention;
• the deliberate control of behavior;
• the difference between wakefulness and sleep.

It looks to me like these are all examples of Chalmers' first category*

discriminate, categorize and react to environmental stimuli

depths and shades of colors, variety in the subtlety of aromas, character of sound clusters, pleasantness of tactile sensations

*This is the first place I could be makinng a mistake.

With Chalmers’ stance one could conclude that a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience is by necessity also a reductive explanation of consciousness – Experience is the property we identify as consciousness, therefore, the phenomenon of experience is consciousness. However, why should one presume that a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience is not distinct from the materialist or dualist arguments regarding consciousness?

But is phenomenal experience what Chalmers' is talking about? The examples Phaorah gives above do not appear to be "what it is like to be" rather they seem to be the "whir of information-processing"

depths and shades of colors, variety in the subtlety of aromas, character of sound clusters, pleasantness of tactile sensations

We can imagine all of these and imagine other's experiencing them without knowing what it is like to be them. That's the left-over bit. If this all there is to what it is like to be someone, then I would know what it is like to be any one (any subject). Below Chalmers defines what he means by "experience" is the subjective aspect, the something it is like to be a conscious organism. Is this what Pharoah means by the noumenal. Well, if he means what it is like to be me and not someone else, then it appears to me to be what he means too.

Chalmers
The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.

Phaoroah
However, the specificity of our conscious identity as distinct from conscious experience in general, tells us that following a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience, questions must remain regarding personal identity and why each of us happen to be the individual we are, rather than anyone else. In this paper, I explore noumenal consciousness as distinct from the problem of phenomenal consciousness.

It looks like they are drawing the same distinction.

BUT Pharoah then says this:

I suggest therefore, that the nature of the concept of the “hard problem” of consciousness does not entail providing a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience.

Yet remember what Chalmers means by "experience" (he uses "experience" not phenomenal experience - there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience.

I'm still not 100% sure we have the vocabulary lined up.

continued

 

[Constance]

These hypothetical brilliant robots, or zombies, are sufficiently “aware”, or whatever you want to call it, that they can do everything that you or I can do, but they lack an “inner life”, it’s all “dark inside”. What does that mean? It means very simply, quite precisely, that Chalmers chooses not to empathise with them. That’s all. People in the future are going to be very puzzled by the fact that so many of “the world’s greatest minds”, as this article calls them, fail to see that.

As to the question in the last sentence, how the brain generates a sense of self, the answer is very far from simple, but it’s not an ineffable mystery. Like many mysteries, it just requires some hard work to get your head around. You might like to start with my dissertation (it got some quite nice (and some not so nice) comments).

A couple of thoughts:

1. Chalmers' argument doesn't depend on the existence of zombies and neither does Nagel's.

2. this appears to me to side-step the hard problem by assuming what is to be given an objective accounting of in the first place (namely subjectivity) - so that's circular ... if you can't objectively show who is and isn't conscious, then physicalism fails its claim which is to give a complete accounting of the world (that's what an -ism is).

NOTE: this is exactly what Chalmers' says people do in their papers when they claim to have solved the hard problem: bait and switch.

A couple of thoughts:

1. Chalmers' argument doesn't depend on the existence of zombies and neither does Nagel's.

2. this appears to me to side-step the hard problem by assuming what is to be given an objective accounting of in the first place (namely subjectivity) - so that's circular ... if you can't objectively show who is and isn't conscious, then physicalism fails its claim which is to give a complete accounting of the world (that's what an -ism is).

NOTE: this is exactly what Chalmers' says people do in their papers when they claim to have solved the hard problem: bait and switch.


Bravo. Thank you and good night.

 

[smcder]

I was reading something about how if you describe out loud everything that is going on in your head, you will become smarter - some kind of feedback loop or creating new networlks @Soupie meta-meta cognition?? Anyway, if you explain it in your head only ... you will go to sleep. I am a life-long insomniac ... my mom says I grabbed my cradle bars and pulled and banged my head against the crib to stay awake at night ... I tried this and it worked pretty well, so I am kind of muttering under my breath as I type here so I don't fall asleep as this is pretty much stream of conscious, real time.

OK - part tres, drei & three

Pharoah
3. On the nature of the mystery of consciousness
A reductive explanation of phenomenal experience demonstrates how there could be a phenomenal experience that identifies itself as a conscious individual. In this manner, there is a claim of logical supervenience where a physical description of the structure and dynamics of our world explains the existence of individuals that possess phenomenal experiences. Such understanding explains how phenomenal experience is personal and unique to each individual and explains that an individual with phenomenal concepts has a unique concept of self, thereby ensuring the existence of the first person perspective.

Note: does "identifies itself" fall under one of the "easy" problems?

• the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to
  environmental stimuli;

• the integration of information by a cognitive system;

• the reportability of mental states;

• the ability of a system to access its own internal states;

• the focus of attention;

• the deliberate control of behavior;

• the difference between wakefulness and sleep.

It looks like it might.

This seems to be your solution, @Soupie, too ... let's compare it:

Soupie
The question of the plurality of consciousness to me, is the same as the plurality of subjectivity, which to me is the same as the plurality of POV. I possess my unique, subjective, POV because it is generated by my unique body, sensory organs, CNS, and brain which are located in a unique location in spacetime.

Pharoah
In this manner, there is a claim of logical supervenience where a physical description of the structure and dynamics of our world explains the existence of individuals that possess phenomenal experiences. Such understanding explains how phenomenal experience is personal and unique to each individual and explains that an individual with phenomenal concepts has a unique concept of self, thereby ensuring the existence of the first person perspective.

Possibly.

What about Chalmers:

There is no real issue about whether these phenomena can be explained scientifically. All of them are straightforwardly vulnerable to explanation in terms of computational or neural mechanisms. To explain access and reportability, for example, we need only specify the mechanism by which information about internal states is retrieved and made available for verbal report. To explain the integration of information, we need only exhibit mechanisms by which information is brought together and exploited by later processes. For an account of sleep and wakefulness, an appropriate neurophysiological account of the processes responsible for organisms' contrasting behavior in those states will suffice. In each case, an appropriate cognitive or neurophysiological model can clearly do the explanatory work.

However, such an explanation will not explain why a particular consciousness identifies itself, as itself, rather than any other one of several billion other human phenomenal experiences of the past, present, or future. Following a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience, the question remains open to each individual: ‘Why is my consciousness determined as ‘me’, rather than anyone else?’

Is this the same as "what it is like to be (me)"?

Again, it goes on what Chalmers calls "experience" not phenomenal experience:

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.

I can see how this is confusing, because he seems to say you can pull apart the sensory aspect from the "what it is like" but remember his "easy" problems:

• the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to
  environmental stimuli;

• the integration of information by a cognitive system;

• the reportability of mental states;

• the ability of a system to access its own internal states;

• the focus of attention;

• the deliberate control of behavior;

• the difference between wakefulness and sleep.

But what he is talking about is the "there is something it is like to be in them" and that seems to me to be what Pharoah means too when he writes:

Following a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience (which Chalmers says is the "easy problem"), the question remains open to each individual: ‘Why is my consciousness determined as ‘me’, rather than anyone else?’

Is it that a question could remain open to an individual is possible only if there is something it is like to be them?

 

[Constance]

If the author is wrong to attribue the idea to Nagel, where did it come from and is it as similar to @Pharaoh's idea as it looks?

I was fairly impressed by the author of that review; he seems to have all his ducks in a row, so I would guess he's reporting accurately what he has found in Nagel. As to whether the idea he attributes to Nagel is "as similar to Pharoah's idea as it looks," I have no idea and won't have one until I understand what Pharoah means by 'noumenal consciousness'.

 

[Constance]

But all of these things he[Chalmers] calls the easy problems: internally accessible, attending and awake. Is this what @Pharoah and @Soupie have in mind about consciousness?

You addressed the post to me, but "what Pharoah and Soupie have in mind about consciousness" is not a question I can answer -- i.e., remains mysterious to me in both cases.

 

[smcder]

I was fairly impressed by the author of that review; he seems to have all his ducks in a row, so I would guess he's reporting accurately what he has found in Nagel. As to whether the idea he attributes to Nagel is "as similar to Pharoah's idea as it looks," I have no idea and won't have one until I understand what Pharoah means by 'noumenal consciousness'.

I hope I am narrowing in on what he means by it - I think he may mean the same thing as Nagel when Nagel says "what it is like to be"

... right now, I think the key is that he uses the term noumenal consciousness to distinguishes from phenomenal consciousness. In Chalmers term, this is distinguishing between "easy problems" of consciousness and "what it is like"

@Pharoah says when we have explained phenomenal consciousness, there is something left over and that is noumenal consciousness - Chalmers says when we have explained the "easy problems" something is left over which is "what it is like to be" - but all these terms refer to the same thing, so if I'm right, then Pharoah's noumenal consciousness is just Chalmers and Nagels "hard problem":

Two examples from Pharoah

1. However,

the specificity of our conscious identity as distinct from conscious experience in general,

tells us that following a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience, questions must remain regarding personal identity and why each of us happen to be the individual we are, rather than anyone else. In this paper, I explore noumenal consciousness as distinct from the problem of phenomenal consciousness.

2. If one assumes validity in the claim that Hierarchical Systems Theory provides a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience, how should we address this revamped central mystery of consciousness. In this regard, one’s specific consciousness would not be a function of one’s phenomenal experience, but determined materially, or otherwise, in a manner that is distinct from experiential detail and content. Assuming this is the case, what then is the nature of that difference between that which makes ‘your’ particular phenomenal experiences yours, as opposed, for example, to mine?

now Chalmers:

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience.

smcder experience is "phenomenal experience" for Pharoah

Chalmers
When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing,

smcder the whir of information-procssing is an "easy problem" for Chalmers and again "phenomenal experience" for Pharoah

Chalmers
but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.

smcder stripped of "easy problems" there is "something it is like to be" left over for Chalmers and stripped of "phenomenal experience" there is "noumenal experience" left over for Pharoah.

 

[smcder]

You addressed the post to me, but "what Pharoah and Soupie have in mind about consciousness" is not a question I can answer -- i.e., remains mysterious to me in both cases.

We have several different uses of the word consciousness (see Chalmers above on the confusion this creates).

Pharoah
If one assumes validity in the claim that Hierarchical Systems Theory provides a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience, how should we address this revamped central mystery of consciousness.

In this regard, one’s specific consciousness would not be a function of one’s phenomenal experience, but determined materially, or otherwise, in a manner that is distinct from experiential detail and content.

Assuming this is the case, what then is the nature of that difference between that which makes ‘your’ particular phenomenal experiences yours, as opposed, for example, to mine?

So this, is what I think @Pharoah means by noumenal consciousness:

In this regard, one’s specific consciousness would not be a function of one’s phenomenal experience, but determined materially, or otherwise, in a manner that is distinct from experiential detail and content.

one's specific consciousness here = noumenal consciousness

The next section will explain the use of "noumenon" - that may be helpful.

 

[Constance]

Again, it goes on what Chalmers calls "experience" not phenomenal experience:

The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience. When we think and perceive, there is a whir of information-processing, but there is also a subjective aspect. As Nagel (1974) has put it, there is something it is like to be a conscious organism. This subjective aspect is experience. When we see, for example, we experience visual sensations: the felt quality of redness, the experience of dark and light, the quality of depth in a visual field. Other experiences go along with perception in different modalities: the sound of a clarinet, the smell of mothballs. Then there are bodily sensations, from pains to orgasms; mental images that are conjured up internally; the felt quality of emotion, and the experience of a stream of conscious thought. What unites all of these states is that there is something it is like to be in them. All of them are states of experience.

I can see how this is confusing, because he seems to say you can pull apart the sensory aspect from the "what it is like" but remember his "easy" problems:

• the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to
  environmental stimuli;

• the integration of information by a cognitive system;

• the reportability of mental states;

• the ability of a system to access its own internal states;

• the focus of attention;

• the deliberate control of behavior;

• the difference between wakefulness and sleep.

But what he is talking about is the "there is something it is like to be in them" and that seems to me to be what Pharoah means too when he writes:

"Following a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience (which Chalmers says is the "easy problem"), the question remains open to each individual: ‘Why is my consciousness determined as ‘me’, rather than anyone else?’"

Is it that a question could remain open to an individual is possible only if there is something it is like to be them?

I'm equally perplexed by that last statement of Pharoah's. Is Pharoah going to provide a full critique of Chalmers' reasoning concerning the hard problem or is he acceding to there being a hard problem? How does Pharoah understand the term 'phenomenal experience'? It's also necessary to point out that what Chalmers refers to as 'easy problems', relative to the hardness of the hard problem, are not necessarily easily explained by cognitive neuroscience (though Chalmers might think they are). I cited a paper here in Part 2 by another philosopher of mind who demonstrates the challenges of the so-called easy problems . If I recall correctly, the title was "There are no easy problems of consciousness." I'll look for it and cite it again.

 

[Constance]

In this regard, one’s specific consciousness would not be a function of one’s phenomenal experience, but determined materially, or otherwise, in a manner that is distinct from experiential detail and content.

Less and less interesting, then.

 

[Constance]

There Are No Easy Problems of Consciousness

E. J. Lowe
Department of Philosophy, University of Durham, Durham, UK

Abstract: This paper challenges David Chalmers’ proposed division of the problems of consciousness into the ‘easy’ ones and the ‘hard’ one, the former allegedly being susceptible to explanation in terms of computational or neural mechanisms and the latter supposedly turning on the fact that experiential ‘qualia’ resist any sort of functional definition. Such a division, it is argued, rests upon a misrepresention of the nature of human cognition and experience and their intimate interrelationship, thereby neglecting a vitally important insight of Kant. From a Kantian perspective, our capacity for conceptual thought is so inextricably bound up with our capacity for phenomenal consciousness that it is an illusion to imagine that there are any ‘easy’ problems of consciousness, resolvable within the computational or neural paradigms.

http://anti-matters.org/articles/46/public/46-41-1-PB.pdf

 

[smcder]

Less and less interesting, then.

Hang on, I'm getting there ... I'm getting more sure that what Pharoah thinks Chalmers means by the hard problem are in fact "easy problems" ... and what Paroah means by the truly hard problem, ie "noumenal consciousness" is the same as the actual "hard problem" of Nagel and Chalmers. If so, then he hasn't solved the hard problem, because that is just the "easy problems" but he does make an interesting proposal about noumenal consciousness (again, what I think Nagel and Chalmers just call "the hard poblem") which is

The State Vector Interpretation of Consciousness

Pharoah
From Page’s (2002) model, one can propose that following the inception of its phenomenal experience, a human brain is compelled to explore all viable consciousness paths. Consequently, if all viable consciousnesses are assigned a certain weight, this means that some part of an individual’s consciousness is, just like the path of a photon to some improbable degree, every possible consciousness. However, the actual total resultant amplitude determines only one specific consciousness.

The specificity of this resultant consciousness is a temporal illusion.

For a photon, the probable path happens to be the quickest route from source and receptor. In the case of consciousness, an individual’s specific consciousness is the probabilistic outcome of the exploration of all possible consciousness paths.
Unfortunately, as is the case with a reductive explanation of phenomenal experience, interpreting consciousness in this manner does not identify the cause for the individual “me” as distinct from all other individuals that I might otherwise be or have been. If the application of state vectors as a solution to the problem of consciousness as suggested above had validity, it would apply to all individuals indistinguishably, excepting that the content of each individual’s values differ because their experiences differ.
In this model, quantum mechanics formulates a bridge between the phenomenon of experience and all possible consciousnesses which are; the noumenon of consciousness. Interestingly, one’s decisions affect one’s phenomenal experiences, which in turn influence the ‘resultant amplitude’ that determines the course of one’s consciousness. From this viewpoint, one can appreciate that the individual choices determine the weighted ‘path’ of our consciousness and also those other individuals’ paths in whom we have contact. In other words, our decisions impact on the evolution of consciousnesses.

there's more ...