Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

[Constance]

This means thinking of experiences, contrary to intuition, as events whose full nature is not revealed to experience -- and more generally, thinking of the mind, contrary to Cartesian intuition, as only partially available, even in principle, to introspection.

I can buy both those premises without abandoning phenomenological philosophy as the best description of consciousness yet available.

If we can do this without denying the phenomenology or reducing it to something else, we will be on the first step toward an expansionist but still nondualist response to the mind-body problem. This is so far pure fantasy, but it is the fantasy of a theoretical identification of mental events with an inner constitution that includes but is not exhausted by their introspectible or manifest character.

I now think that you should after all read Hegel's Phenomenology of Geist, and employ Russon as a guide. You might also begin to read MP's Phenomenology of Perception alongside Hegel and Russon for interludes of relief from the density of Hegel's work. I've just ordered a copy of Russon for myself.

 

[smcder]

That is not how I was interpreting Nagel. Btw I think his paper is outstanding:
CONCEIVING THE IMPOSSIBLE AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM
the manifest properties of experience aren't all there is to the mind-body problem, is how I was interpreting it. I am not sure though... perhaps you can enlighten me

It's been so long since I've enlightened ... I'm learning a new way to think of the hard problem, I don't know if I can tie it to Nagel, Chalmers, but I think I can make an argument. Remember what I am trying to do is hit HCT from every angle, think of it as a kind of "intellectual hacking" ... if I can poke holes in it, you can patch it up (with more jello ;-)

 

[Constance]

He [Chalmers] is saying that a fundamental shift is required that science is incapable of making namely, the shift into the world of qualitative phenomena.

I think Chalmers is correct about that. He has not yet, however, so far as I've seen, explained cohesively and comprehensively why neither cognitive nor computational neuroscience, EKG's, fMRI, 'intelligent' robots, etc. can account for or duplicate consciousness as the natural and necessary ground of human thinking. To provide that explanation Chalmers would have to read phenomenological philosophy and neurophenomenology as well as affective neuroscience [Panksepp et al]. We are likely not going to be receiving sufficient clarity from either Chalmers or Nagel, though Nagel is a better bet..

 

[Pharoah]

It's been so long since I've enlightened ... I'm learning a new way to think of the hard problem, I don't know if I can tie it to Nagel, Chalmers, but I think I can make an argument. Remember what I am trying to do is hit HCT from every angle, think of it as a kind of "intellectual hacking" ... if I can poke holes in it, you can patch it up (with more jello ;-)

@smcder - Go for it. I love ruthless intellectual hacking. Not sure which color jello would do a better job... green or red?
@Constance - Thanks for the reading suggestions. Perhaps if we read the Russon intro at the same time, we can reflect together on passages of it.

 

[smcder]

@smcder - Go for it. I love ruthless intellectual hacking. Not sure which color jello would do a better job... green or red?
@Constance - Thanks for the reading suggestions. Perhaps if we read the Russon intro at the same time, we can reflect together on passages of it.

Not ruthless! There will be plenty of ruth.

look forward now to arguing for the defense - that the noumenal is distinct from the hard problem.

 

[smcder]

That is not how I was interpreting Nagel. Btw I think his paper is outstanding:
CONCEIVING THE IMPOSSIBLE AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM
the manifest properties of experience aren't all there is to the mind-body problem, is how I was interpreting it. I am not sure though... perhaps you can enlighten me

I'm not sure either ... Look forward to reading that paper.

 

[smcder]

@Pharoah

what if we mark each post as:

Twenty questions

Or something unique so Then we can find the entries easier by search?

We could also c/p all entries in a doc so we have the whole progression in one place

"Q2 The kinds of mechanism that have evolved because of replication (and necessary conditions as per Darwin) are exclusively physiological."

I can't think of any mechanism that so came about that isn't physiological, by definition.

Why not just add that evolution has no purpose, intention or direction?

 

[smcder]

Test

 

[smcder]

@smcder
I want to read Nagel 20 years on paper and the Kripke which were linked above.

Another way of understanding Chalmers' Hard Problem is to recognise how he aligns himself with the conceivability arguments (inverted spectra, zombie, other worlds, Jackson's Mary). I think it is very clear what he means by the Hard Problem. We are talking in these examples about qualitative phenomenal experience non-individuated i.e. the general property of phenomenal consciousness; that mysterious qualitative experience "we all refer to as the experience of consciousness". He thinks that this is the mind-body problem—this encapsulate the mind-body problem—but it is not the mind-body problem if you explain the qualitative phenomenon of experience. When you do have that explanation, you realise the mind-body problem is the person specific nature of being not that of the qualitative phenomenal experience.

When people talk of phenomenal feeling, they talk about "the smell of a red rose" the feeling of "green" etc. They don't talk of "my feelings as a unique identity in this world of qualitative experience"

What does Chalmers mean by easy problems? basically the ones that can be objectively measured by science: correlations between phenomenal feelings and ECG such that we can say ECG pattern (mathematically translated) = feeling blue etc. He is talking about the natural sciences and the kinds of progress they make. He is saying that a fundamental shift is required that science is incapable of making namely, the shift into the world of qualitative phenomena.

@smcder
you say:
"Q2 physiological mechanisms evolved by natural selection
Q3?
By the way -- tell me what happens on or before Q21?"

On or before Q21, you probably fall asleep! or jump off something too high. No, we are supposed to arrive at x=phenomenal experience... or something like that. I don't have much confidence but I am enjoying the pernickety task so far.
We can't have your version of Q2 though. It is implying that natural selection is the cause; that there is a direction or purpose to Mother Nature. We can't have that.

Q2 The kinds of mechanism that have evolved because of replication (and necessary conditions as per Darwin) are exclusively physiological.

So we get an explanation of the qualitative phenomenon of experience at the end of Q21?

I'll re read the above again but it's very interesting to me that the Phi author essentially ascribes the Noumenal Problem to Nagel and Chalmers ... the NP in the sense of yamime? Is perennial, ... I think I linked some articles on it - but to say it IS the "hard problem" of Nagel and Chalmers - why would he do that? He must see it as implicit in their writing or they've written explicitly of it elsewhere or ... what?

Maybe an email to the author.

 

[smcder]

@Pharoah

great big DUH on my part ... the Phi book will have the Nagel quotation or citation, I'll bet you ... he refers to chapter 8 I think or somewhere where Tononi has a talk with Nagel and his bat ... so if it's not there, it's in a footnote, the evidence we need to see how the author makes the connection ... if not, then it's email time

@Constance - would you have access to do a search through Google books?
@Soupie - do you have this book?

 

[smcder]

Second big duh
@Constance
@Pharoah
@Soupie

we have Phi here in the library, pulled it off the shelves ... no footnotes, no index - (only a list of illustrations??) - the only reference I see as I scan it (while getting ready to open the library for the day) is WIILTBAB ... so maybe it's e-mail time ...

DANG

 

[smcder]

I also need to read the comments after the article for clues ...

The Secrets of Consciousness and the Problem of God | The Los Angeles Review of Books

 

[smcder]

OK ... 1 comment

done

:-(

 

[Constance]

I can't think of any mechanism that so came about that isn't physiological, by definition.
Why not just add that evolution has no purpose, intention or direction?

Physical/physiological evolution is not the only kind of evolution we see. Consciousness evolves, mind evolves. Evolution is also apparent in human culture, thinking, planning, the polis, political and economic thinking. For example, the revolution of the proletariat evolves from the inherent injustice of unregulated capitalism. Imperialism, colonialism, exploitation and repression of people and their resources in undeveloped parts of the planet grow out of unregulated capitalism.. Late [Global] Capitalism was predicted and predictable by Marx. We do, as you suggest, have to stop thinking of 'evolution' as 'progress' in the development of homo sapiens, which we generally unthinkingly do (even those of us who do not postulate teleological goals in physical evolution), and instead see 'evolution' as continual process, change, more or less beneficial depending on many unpredictable factors sedimented in history and active in the present. 'Survival of the fittest' is shallow, reductive thinking except in Darwin's original sense of the evolution of species.

yamime?

What does that term mean? I searched for a definition, but came up with results indicating 'an evil spirit'.

@Constance - Thanks for the reading suggestions. Perhaps if we read the Russon intro at the same time, we can reflect together on passages of it.

I'd enjoy that and I think it would be productive here in the forum.

 

[Pharoah]

According to wiki, Nagel says the following in 2010 Oxford Companion to Philosophy: "An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something that it is like for the organism to be itself."
So it would seem it took him 36 years to be explicit and qualify his words with "itself". He fails to do this in 1974 paper WIILTBAB
But I still think he would be wrong to define this self, "the subjective character of experience". In fact, I can't accept wiki has attributed this correctly via the entry in 2010.

 

[smcder]

Physical/physiological evolution is not the only kind of evolution we see. Consciousness evolves, mind evolves. Evolution is also apparent in human culture, thinking, planning, the polis, political and economic thinking. For example, the revolution of the proletariat evolves from the inherent injustice of unregulated capitalism. Imperialism, colonialism, exploitation and repression of people and their resources in undeveloped parts of the planet grow out of unregulated capitalism.. Late [Global] Capitalism was predicted and predictable by Marx. We do, as you suggest, have to stop thinking of 'evolution' as 'progress' in the development of homo sapiens, which we generally unthinkingly do (even those of us who do not postulate teleological goals in physical evolution), and instead see 'evolution' as continual process, change, more or less beneficial depending on many unpredictable factors sedimented in history and active in the present. 'Survival of the fittest' is shallow, reductive thinking except in Darwin's original sense of the evolution of species.



What does that term mean? I searched for a definition, but came up with results indicating 'an evil spirit'.




I'd enjoy that and I think it would be productive here in the forum.

yamime = why am I me (and not you)



@Pharoah will you accomodate the above for the purposes of 21 questions?

 

[smcder]

According to wiki, Nagel says the following in 2010 Oxford Companion to Philosophy: "An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something that it is like for the organism to be itself."
So it would seem it took him 36 years to be explicit and qualify his words with "itself". He fails to do this in 1974 paper WIILTBAB
But I still think he would be wrong to define this self, "the subjective character of experience". In fact, I can't accept wiki has attributed this correctly via the entry in 2010.

You think Wiki misquoted him? The "itself" hasn't been implied all along? What else would an organism be if not itself?

I wrote to Flesch, we 'll see what he had in mind ...

 

[smcder]

According to wiki, Nagel says the following in 2010 Oxford Companion to Philosophy: "An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something that it is like for the organism to be itself."
So it would seem it took him 36 years to be explicit and qualify his words with "itself". He fails to do this in 1974 paper WIILTBAB
But I still think he would be wrong to define this self, "the subjective character of experience". In fact, I can't accept wiki has attributed this correctly via the entry in 2010.

The original quote is:

"An organism has conscious mental states, he argues, "if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something it is like for the organism."

"... to be that organism"

"-something it is like for the organism"

Not sure you can hang a major philosophical distinction on that "itself" it's the kind of thing you add for emphasis ... In fact to say:

"to be that organism itself" might get stricken in red by an English prof (like Flesch) as redundant.

 

[smcder]

Bad weather here ... ice/snow - internet goes out at the drop of a hat here so if I'm offline for a bit that's what's going on ...

 

[Pharoah]

You think Wiki misquoted him? The "itself" hasn't been implied all along? What else would an organism be if not itself?

I wrote to Flesch, we 'll see what he had in mind ...

Perhaps it comes down to my interpretation of the term subjective.
I think of "subject" as referring to the form of an existing being, whilst subjectivity is the content.
so,
"the subjective character of experience" refers to the content of experience, which does require a subject, but is not subject specific (bat subjective experience in general versus a specific bat's experience). So, explaining the subjective character of content does not entail explaining the subject "itself".

Nagel's phrase, (according to wiki) "An organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism—something that it is like for the organism to be itself."
is problematic to me. The first half of the sentence "it is like" refers to 'content' in my interpretation, the second half "it is like" refers to 'subject'. So they should not be separated by a dashhyphen (whatever – is called)
In the original paper, as per my post #884, there is a constant flitting from one to the other as if there is no distinction. I have to assume that he believes no distinction needs be articulated, but I find that very hard to believe. But... I can't second guess what Nagel thinks.