Hmm. They must have used Elizabethan sheeps' blood for the performances at the Globe. Ok, you have me there. In fact, I've only seen a half-dozen Shakespeare plays staged and none of them involved bloodshed. I read all of them over a two-semester course but that was a long time ago, and our concentration was on Shakespeare's language.
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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3
- Thread starter Gene Steinberg
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Hmm. They must have used Elizabethan sheeps' blood for the performances at the Globe. Ok, you have me there. In fact, I've only seen a half-dozen Shakespeare plays staged and none of them involved bloodshed. I read all of them over a two-semester course but that was a long time ago, and our concentration was on Shakespeare's language.
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smcder
Guest
@Constance
I'm finishing up "On Philosophy" what did you make of it?
Was the article on "The View From Nowhere" helpful?
I'm finishing up "On Philosophy" what did you make of it?
Was the article on "The View From Nowhere" helpful?
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smcder
Guest
Can you post the passages where phenomenal experience is shown to be foundational?
What you write above about the work of associations and comparisons can still conceivably be done without phenomenal experience - imagine a very sophisticated Mars rover that is organized in a very different way from a brain if a Zombie is unpalatable ... I can imagine it doing what an organism does in terms of your examples above without there being anything it is like to be a Mars rover.
Or do you explain why a phenomenal experience is required for such processing?
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smcder
Guest
From Chalmers 2009 what philosophers believe survey:
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?
Accept or lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible 331 / 931 (35.6%)
Other 234 / 931 (25.1%)
Accept or lean toward: metaphysically possible 217 / 931 (23.3%)
Accept or lean toward: inconceivable 149 / 931 (16.0%)
Zombies: inconceivable, conceivable but not metaphysically possible, or metaphysically possible?
Accept or lean toward: conceivable but not metaphysically possible 331 / 931 (35.6%)
Other 234 / 931 (25.1%)
Accept or lean toward: metaphysically possible 217 / 931 (23.3%)
Accept or lean toward: inconceivable 149 / 931 (16.0%)
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smcder
Guest
OK, I've found the sections ... but I don't see where you show qualitative experience has to come in - attention can be paid or attenuated without "something there is like to be"? What am I missing?
@Soupie - do you see? I thought your critique above was on target - what did we miss?
For example:
Conversely, some rare objects that reflect frequencies within 400-484 THz are important to Berrybug’s survival because of their nutritional content.4 It would be qualitatively pertinent—i.e., it would have an impact on survival pressures—for that species to evolve mechanisms (innate biochemical and neurological mechanisms) that are alert to 400-484 THz reflecting colouration. By ‘alert’, what I mean is that it would be qualitatively pertinent for mechanisms to prioritise 400-484 THz colourations over other frequencies during the assimilation of sensory stimulation. These prioritising biochemical and neurological mechanisms would intensify focus in favour of this range of colours; augment feedback through perceptual re-enforcement; and more accurately direct further sensory exploration and assimilation. These accentuating mechanisms would facilitate operational economy for more responsive and ultimately rewarding motor activities. Conversely, it would be pertinent for innate mechanisms to be indifferent to the ubiquitous 526-606 THz reflecting objects by attenuating their focal impact neurologically. Additionally, if those desirable 400-484 THz objects had the added characteristic of possessing spherical contours (rather than jagged, for instance), any individuals of the species possessing autonomic shape-distinguishing neurological capabilities would possess an additional qualifying survival advantage. In themselves, these coloured and shaped objects have no intrinsic phenomenal identity, but the species will tend to evolve increasingly subtle and sophisticated biochemical and neurological mechanisms that are qualitatively delineated due to their impact on survival potentials. These capabilities might remain innately acquired, and therefore appear non-representational from an orthodox philosophical perspective (such as expressed in Block, 1995; McGinn, 1986; and Searle, 1983), but the physiologies do represent something; they represent the qualitative relevancy of environments in terms of the particular survival requirements of that species.
In the above, it seems to me a mechanism can prioritise, intensify, augment feedback etc - do whatever it needs to do without there being something it is like to be that mechanism. A nerual net, simulated on a computer, could do this for example ... would there then be something it is like to be that simulation?
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smcder
Guest
Re-reading this ... so you don't yet have an account of phenomenal experience, correct? That the qualitative foundation is there, is clear ... then you seem to be saying there has to be phenomenal experience for higher levels of organiztion to occur, for evaluation to occur ... but you don't seem to show why this is necessary?
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
@Pharaoh Said:
@Soupie: Hm, okay, let me be a little more clear:
Let’s say there are two kinds of bugs that have evolved in the same environment: Bononobug and Opplebug.
The bonono fruit is qualitatively relevant (ie good) to the Bononobug while the opple fruit is also qualitatively relevant (ie bad) but in a negative way as it’s poisonous to the Bononobug. The Bononobug experiences the bonono fruit as blue and the opple fruit as red.
On the other hand, the opple fruit is qualitatively relevant (ie good) to the Opplebug while the bonono fruit is also qualitatively relevant (ie bad) but in a negative way as it’s poisonous to the Opplebug. The Opplebug experiences the opple fruit as green and the bonono fruit as brown.
Questions: (1) Why do the bugs experience colors when looking at the fruits? (2) Why do they experience the specific colors that they do? Note: When looking at the fruits, they experience different colors for each. Why?
Pharaoh said:
Soupie: So to repeat the question, why do humans see grass as green and blood as red? You say the phenomenal colors are observer dependent (on my current view, I don’t disagree), but the question still remains: why do certain stimuli have phenomenal colors “mapped” onto them (on the representationalist view) and how do they come to have the specific phenomenal colors that are mapped onto them?
Pharaoh said:
Soupie: You say that “to possess phenomenal experience is a stage beyond,” but the problem is you are appealing to phenomenal experience (red and green) in the very earliest of stages organism development; if I follow correctly, you have organisms experiencing phenomenal qualities at the pre-reflective stage. (In your language: Before there is an “understanding [of] the relevancy of its qualitative phenomenal experiences…”)
Again, what you’ve established is that certain environmental stimuli will be qualitatively relevant to evolved organisms. However, as you note, said organisms may not--at early stages--understand the relevancy of these qualitative relevancies. That is, stimuli may be qualitatively relevant to an organism (good or bad) but it does not follow that an organism will have the experience of feeling good or bad.
Furthermore, while an organism may indeed have incredibly complex physiological mechanisms that are “about” environmental stimuli, how nor why these complex physiological mechanisms might have phenomenal qualities such as red, green, bitter, or sweet, “mapped” onto them has not been established.
You suggest reading on further into section 6 and 7, which I have done, but you appear to only move forward taking for granted that the complex, evolved physiological mechanisms you’ve described “possess” accompanying phenomenal qualities (not to mention that implied capacity for organisms to feel good or bad about environmental stimuli).
For example, in the opening paragraph of section 6 you write:
Pharaoh:
Soupie: In other words, you’ve moved onto the stage wherein organism begin to understand their phenomenal experiences (what I call meta-awareness) but--as noted above--you have yet to establish how and why organisms have phenomenal experiences.
I follow you when you say that organism are--or possess--evolved physiological mechanisms that are “about” environmental stimuli; informing the organisms about good and bad stimuli, and about the variety of physical characteristics of said stimuli.
However, again, you don't seem to have established why/how said stimuli come to “acquire” phenomenal characteristics.
“1. Blue Bananas:
The blue bananas is in reference to Dennett's response to the Knowledge Argument. e.g.
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1298298.files/Dennett%20on%20the%20Knowledge%20Argument.pdf
I have re-written the passage:
A creature that gains nutritional benefits from blue bananas whilst being indifferent to the nutritional content of red berries will possess inverted affectations to that of Berrybug (because its survival would depend on it). In other words, it would evolve physiologies that would be alert (excitable and focused) to blue colourations at the expense of red coloured perceptions—its blue would be Berrybugs red and its red would be equivalent to Berrybugs green—giving us a plausible account that undermines the view, that it is not possible for organisms that are sensitive to the same range of wavelengths as ourselves to have inverted or contrasting affective valencies to ourselves. [I am keeping this double negative - Some argue (see footnote) that a colour's phenomenal quality is external to the organism i.e. qualia are observer independent... they are properties of things. According to this view, which I reject, you could not have inverted phenomenal experiences of colours. The Berrybug exposition indicates that is false... the qualitative nature of colour is ultimately observer dependent.”
The blue bananas is in reference to Dennett's response to the Knowledge Argument. e.g.
http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic1298298.files/Dennett%20on%20the%20Knowledge%20Argument.pdf
I have re-written the passage:
A creature that gains nutritional benefits from blue bananas whilst being indifferent to the nutritional content of red berries will possess inverted affectations to that of Berrybug (because its survival would depend on it). In other words, it would evolve physiologies that would be alert (excitable and focused) to blue colourations at the expense of red coloured perceptions—its blue would be Berrybugs red and its red would be equivalent to Berrybugs green—giving us a plausible account that undermines the view, that it is not possible for organisms that are sensitive to the same range of wavelengths as ourselves to have inverted or contrasting affective valencies to ourselves. [I am keeping this double negative - Some argue (see footnote) that a colour's phenomenal quality is external to the organism i.e. qualia are observer independent... they are properties of things. According to this view, which I reject, you could not have inverted phenomenal experiences of colours. The Berrybug exposition indicates that is false... the qualitative nature of colour is ultimately observer dependent.”
@Soupie: Hm, okay, let me be a little more clear:
Let’s say there are two kinds of bugs that have evolved in the same environment: Bononobug and Opplebug.
The bonono fruit is qualitatively relevant (ie good) to the Bononobug while the opple fruit is also qualitatively relevant (ie bad) but in a negative way as it’s poisonous to the Bononobug. The Bononobug experiences the bonono fruit as blue and the opple fruit as red.
On the other hand, the opple fruit is qualitatively relevant (ie good) to the Opplebug while the bonono fruit is also qualitatively relevant (ie bad) but in a negative way as it’s poisonous to the Opplebug. The Opplebug experiences the opple fruit as green and the bonono fruit as brown.
Questions: (1) Why do the bugs experience colors when looking at the fruits? (2) Why do they experience the specific colors that they do? Note: When looking at the fruits, they experience different colors for each. Why?
Pharaoh said:
“2. On human phenomenal experiences of red and green.
re Red: Much like Berrybug, humans have evolved a physiology that draws our attention to red. Why? there are sexual reasons (red lips = healthy mate = interested mate = mate ready to mate). There are scavenging reasons (we need to be able to spot red berries in the bushes amongst all the green). There are hunting reasons (blood red needs to excite us... to release adrenalin and get us pumped up).
re Green: green is altogether more mellow feeling. It is a sign of renewal (a good place to camp for the season). A place of refuge (to hide and be silent = not to be heard).
If grass was red, and blood green our phenomenal experience would be inverted according to my account.”
re Red: Much like Berrybug, humans have evolved a physiology that draws our attention to red. Why? there are sexual reasons (red lips = healthy mate = interested mate = mate ready to mate). There are scavenging reasons (we need to be able to spot red berries in the bushes amongst all the green). There are hunting reasons (blood red needs to excite us... to release adrenalin and get us pumped up).
re Green: green is altogether more mellow feeling. It is a sign of renewal (a good place to camp for the season). A place of refuge (to hide and be silent = not to be heard).
If grass was red, and blood green our phenomenal experience would be inverted according to my account.”
Soupie: So to repeat the question, why do humans see grass as green and blood as red? You say the phenomenal colors are observer dependent (on my current view, I don’t disagree), but the question still remains: why do certain stimuli have phenomenal colors “mapped” onto them (on the representationalist view) and how do they come to have the specific phenomenal colors that are mapped onto them?
Pharaoh said:
“3. Qualitatively relevant physiologies do not account for phenomenal experience (I was not clear there... thanks for the heads up). However, they are foundational. They are necessary for phenomenal experience to evolve (this diffuses the zombie argument because you can't have higher order processes in a physical universe like ours with the foundations missing). Read the sections after 4. Berrybug for more on phenomenal experience.
Physiological mechanisms assimilate the qualitative relevancy of environment.
So the qualitative foundation is there.
To possess phenomenal experience is a stage beyond that.”
Physiological mechanisms assimilate the qualitative relevancy of environment.
So the qualitative foundation is there.
To possess phenomenal experience is a stage beyond that.”
Soupie: You say that “to possess phenomenal experience is a stage beyond,” but the problem is you are appealing to phenomenal experience (red and green) in the very earliest of stages organism development; if I follow correctly, you have organisms experiencing phenomenal qualities at the pre-reflective stage. (In your language: Before there is an “understanding [of] the relevancy of its qualitative phenomenal experiences…”)
Again, what you’ve established is that certain environmental stimuli will be qualitatively relevant to evolved organisms. However, as you note, said organisms may not--at early stages--understand the relevancy of these qualitative relevancies. That is, stimuli may be qualitatively relevant to an organism (good or bad) but it does not follow that an organism will have the experience of feeling good or bad.
Furthermore, while an organism may indeed have incredibly complex physiological mechanisms that are “about” environmental stimuli, how nor why these complex physiological mechanisms might have phenomenal qualities such as red, green, bitter, or sweet, “mapped” onto them has not been established.
You suggest reading on further into section 6 and 7, which I have done, but you appear to only move forward taking for granted that the complex, evolved physiological mechanisms you’ve described “possess” accompanying phenomenal qualities (not to mention that implied capacity for organisms to feel good or bad about environmental stimuli).
For example, in the opening paragraph of section 6 you write:
Pharaoh:
“6 Beyond innate biochemical and neurological mechanisms
...
If a creature of this level of sophistication can also modify its evaluation of perceptions in light of its previous actions, one might have cause to conclude that it would be, to some small degree, ‘understanding the relevancy of its qualitative phenomenal experiences’. For example, a Drosophila fly might relate to innate qualitative valencies in a manner that modifies mere reactivity. With multiple biochemical and neurological affectations accompanying a host of sensory stimulations of colour, shade, shape, movement, scent, volume, pitch, temperature etc, combined with the directive of primal needs (which have also evolved in complexity in terms of their influence on bodily and cognitive function), such a creature has a continually changing landscape of qualitative impressions and responsive motivations which are assimilated and evaluated in advance of prioritising action.”
...
If a creature of this level of sophistication can also modify its evaluation of perceptions in light of its previous actions, one might have cause to conclude that it would be, to some small degree, ‘understanding the relevancy of its qualitative phenomenal experiences’. For example, a Drosophila fly might relate to innate qualitative valencies in a manner that modifies mere reactivity. With multiple biochemical and neurological affectations accompanying a host of sensory stimulations of colour, shade, shape, movement, scent, volume, pitch, temperature etc, combined with the directive of primal needs (which have also evolved in complexity in terms of their influence on bodily and cognitive function), such a creature has a continually changing landscape of qualitative impressions and responsive motivations which are assimilated and evaluated in advance of prioritising action.”
Soupie: In other words, you’ve moved onto the stage wherein organism begin to understand their phenomenal experiences (what I call meta-awareness) but--as noted above--you have yet to establish how and why organisms have phenomenal experiences.
I follow you when you say that organism are--or possess--evolved physiological mechanisms that are “about” environmental stimuli; informing the organisms about good and bad stimuli, and about the variety of physical characteristics of said stimuli.
However, again, you don't seem to have established why/how said stimuli come to “acquire” phenomenal characteristics.
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Do you mean What is Philosophy?: Embodiment, Signification, Ideality by Jere O’Neill Surber?
I'm still reading it. I'm finding it to be an incisive and broadly informed treatment of what seem to me to be the essential characteristics of human consciousness and mind. {Are you a speed reader by an chance? I marvel at the number of sources you are able to consume in relatively short periods of time.}
I haven't gotten to it yet. I'm still reading the links you posted yesterday.
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smcder
Guest
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smcder
Guest
@Pharoh - have you abandoned the line of argument that HCT solves Chalmers' hard problem and that the hard problem is now "the noumenal"?
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Im thinking that I think youre thinking what I'm thinking about what Pharoah's thinking.
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smcder
Guest
OK ... but what exactly is she saying? That self awareness is a rare state, illusory and can be dismissed?
First off - her analysis seems subject to the same criticism she applies to everyone else:
The major problem facing these attempts is that each explorer can proclaim their own discoveries to be right and other people’s to be wrong – their own minds to be typical and others’ aberrant – a problem tackled in different ways by these various disciplines. ...
And then there is this:
This second, apparently simple, question typically provokes two contrary reactions. One is “Yes, I must have been conscious because I am awake, alert, thinking and feeling, and I know I have been like that since I got up this morning.” The other is “No, I can’t have been conscious because when you asked me the first question it felt as though I was waking up, or becoming conscious in a way that I was not a moment before. Something changed.” ...
So that raises the question of what are the atypical reactions? Did she record those or file drawer them?
This state is not a common state of mind for most people – or even for philosophers and consciousness researchers. Indeed it may happen rarely and last only a short time. Yet it causes all the trouble.
This is the state she is talking about:
In this state there seems to be a magic difference between conscious and unconscious processes; there seems to be a self who is separate from the conscious processes; and there seems to be a duality between the subjective world and an objective world.
Is that a rare state?? Can't we invoke it simply by pointing it out to someone?
If I ask you does there seem to be a self who is separate from the conscious prcoesses, a duality between the subjective and objective world? Bam - you go there. Dont you? Or do you have to grope around for it? To me it's immediately at hand - does that make me atypical? I doubt it.
So again, is it really a rare state? And if it occurs spontaneously only rarely (we won't get into culutral conditioning and mindless Babylonians) - what is rare, one in a million thoughts? And how many thoughts do we have a day? So is it a daily occurence? I don't think people go for years and years without experiencing this ... or do they? And so what if they do ... if it's something that can be accessed instantly or pointed out or elicited in most anyone ... I don't follow her point here.
And again, she begs the question for whom is it a common state of mind? Who is highly self conscious most of the time? Buddhist monks?
And finally:
[Soupie: And the following should sound eerily familier, and by that I mean, "The mind is green."]
These observations suggest a different way of looking at the problem of consciousness based on distinguishing between two different states of mind, only one of which creates the appearance of the hard problem. We might want to call these the “thinking about consciousness” state and the “ordinary state of consciousness”, but I think they are better described as the “self-reflexive state” and the “scattered state”.
So am I some kind of a freak to think that this is nothing extraordinary but rather a very ordinary fluctuation in awareness? @Constance - how does your awareness flow?
I do remember your basketball experience description and find it the more interesting that you couldn't duplicate the "awareness without content" experiment ... again, it seems normal that we shift awareness like this to and from the self. In the course of our discussions and my own introspection, I may have lost the perspective to see these as extraordinary events or insights?
Sign me,
Mixed up in Montana
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smcder
Guest
Ba da bum! I'm here every night folks! Try the fish.
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smcder
Guest
Well, that is a relief! Now, we just have to figure out what Pharoah thinks about what you're thinking about what I'm thinking about what you think about Pharaoah's thinking.
... I think ...
Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
@Soupie @smcder concerning recent comments on paper.
I take your criticisms onboard: The link into phenomenal experience has been rubbish.
So, I have been editing sections 4, 5, 6(especially), 8, 10 and 11 to accommodate.
Importantly, none of the footnotes were in the previous version, so this is the latest as from today. Some of the footnotes are cool I think.
www.mind-phronesis.co.uk/Synthese-14-3-15.pdf
I have not had time to review it much myself.
Sorry I can't be more specific because I have to go now. I have addressed the issues in the re-draft though.
Will respond to specific queries tomorrow
I take your criticisms onboard: The link into phenomenal experience has been rubbish.
So, I have been editing sections 4, 5, 6(especially), 8, 10 and 11 to accommodate.
Importantly, none of the footnotes were in the previous version, so this is the latest as from today. Some of the footnotes are cool I think.
www.mind-phronesis.co.uk/Synthese-14-3-15.pdf
I have not had time to review it much myself.
Sorry I can't be more specific because I have to go now. I have addressed the issues in the re-draft though.
Will respond to specific queries tomorrow
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smcder
Guest
Schweet! Look forward to it!
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