I remember that post and remember asking Pharoah to tell us how Nagel conceptualizes the objective/subjective relation after he finished Nagel's The View from Everywhere.
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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3
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I remember that post and remember asking Pharoah to tell us how Nagel conceptualizes the objective/subjective relation after he finished Nagel's The View from Everywhere.
S
smcder
Guest
One thing I’ve noticed from a lot of the mail is that SR and OOO have started to bleed together in many people’s minds. For example, Meillassoux is sometimes being referred to as an “object-oriented philosopher,” which isn’t true. So, for those who are new to this part of the blogosphere, here is a renewed summary of what the different terms mean.
brief SR/OOO tutorial | Object-Oriented Philosophy
brief SR/OOO tutorial | Object-Oriented Philosophy
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S
smcder
Guest
Browsing the many papers and abstracts by Max Velmans at the link Soupie provided I came across this one, available only in the abstract at present. I clicked to request that Velmans put the whole paper up at academia.edu. Here's the title and abstract, which I've re-spaced to highlight the five individual steps Velmans identifies:
From West towards East in Five Simple Steps
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Abstract:
Drawing on aspects of Reflexive Monism, this talk suggests how one can move from a careful, Western analysis of ordinary conscious experience towards a more Eastern understanding of its transformative potential in five simple steps.
Step 1: accept that the boundaries of ordinary conscious experience encompass the entire phenomenal world, which requires an understanding of reflexivity and perceptual projection.
Step 2: accept that experiences arise from somewhere—that there is a chain of normally unconscious/preconscious causation that precedes the arising of each experience that one can investigate in both a third- and first-person way.
Step 3: accept that it is only when entities, events and processes are directly experienced that they become real-ized in the sense of becoming subjectively real, and that this applies not just to everyday conscious processes such as speaking, reading and thinking, but also to one’s conscious sense of Self.
Step 4: accept an expanded sense of Self that includes not just one’s conscious Ego but also the unconscious embedding and supporting ground of which it is an expression.
Step 5: accept that human consciousness is not a “freak accident of nature”; rather it is one natural expression of what the universe is like (although we have some way to go to discover the precise psychophysical laws that govern how conscious experiences relate to their associated material forms).
I then show how these aspects of Reflexive Monism take one in the direction of Advaita Vedanta and other forms of perennial philosophy—although the point of balance between Eastern and Western ways of understanding mind, consciousness and self may need to be somewhere midway between the two. This talk is available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63QdHwnKf5I
Suggested readings: the book Understanding Consciousness Edition 2 (2009-particularly Chapters 12 and 14); online papers: How to arrive at an Eastern Place from a Western direction (2013); Reflexive Monism: Psychophysical relations among mind, matter and consciousness (2012); Reflexive Monism (2008)
Research Interests:
Buddhism, Psychology, Cognitive Psychology, Philosophy of Mind, Perception, and 17 moreSelf and Identity, Consciousness (Psychology), Metaphysics of Consciousness, Theory of Mind, Phenomenology, Reflexivity, Consciousness, Eastern Philosophy, Metaphysics of Mind, Extended Mind, Philosophies of Human Nature, Advaita Vedanta, Reflexive Monism, Subjectivity Studies, Subjectivity, Self-Realization, and Perceptual Projection
According to Velman's site, this article:
HOW TO ARRIVE AT AN EASTERN PLACE FROM A WESTERN DIRECTION: CONVERGENCES AND DIVERGENCES AMONG SAMKYA DUALISM, ADVAITA NONDUALISM, THE BODY-MIND-CONSCIOUSNESS (TRIDENT) MODEL AND REFLEXIVE MONISM | Max Velmans - Academia.edu
Should cover the same ground as the YouTube video - I got through around 40 minutes of the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63QdHwnKf5I
and I'm finishing it this morning -
part 3 (about 36 minutes into the talk)
What do conscious experiences add to existence?
Is interesting ... he challenges the mainstream literature re: the "necessity of consciousness" that ties consciousness to the evolutionary model, that says we have to have consciousness to do certain things and those things give us an evolutionary advantage and that's why we have consciousness
which sounds to me a lot like what @Pharoah is saying ... but that was my challenge to Pharoah which is that it doesn't appear to me (Velmans doesn't necessarily make this exact point) that conscious awareness is necessary for any give kind of thing that we do.
Velmans doesn't believe the necessity of consciousness either and that's because of his own conscious experience and how it realted to his brain's information processing - he says he was not aware of what was going on in his brain, so how could consciousness control what it wasn't aware of?
His example is that speech requires 10-15,000 neuromuscular events per minute - how conscious can that be?
And he asks the listeners to perform a thought experiment which he claimes demonstrates that the thought comes after the thinking, that there is a sense in which one is only conscious of what one wants to say after one has said it ...
I'd be curious what you and @Soupie make of this thought experiement if you try it.
S
smcder
Guest
And also what you make of this:
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/188_s05/pdf/Carman_Sensation.pdf
but typically we see objects and hear noises made by things and events. This is in part just to say that perceptual experience is intentional, that it is of something, whereas impressions, sensations, and sense data are supposed to be the non intentional stuff from which the mind somehow extracts or constructs an experience of something.
But the of in “sensation of pain” is not the of in “sensation of red,” for the latter is intentional while the former is not. In the latter case, that is,
we can draw a distinction in principle between the red thing and our sensation of it,
whereas a sensation of pain just is the pain. And even pains are not just feelings that we associate with parts of our bodies; rather, my pain is my leg, my hand, my head hurting. Perception is essentially interwoven with the world we perceive, and each feature of the perceptual field is interwoven with others: Each part arouses the expectation of more than it contains, and this elementary perception is therefore already charged with a meaning. …The perceptual “something” is always in the middle of something else, it always forms part of a “field.” … The pure impression is therefore not just undiscoverable, but imperceptible and thus inconceivable as a moment of perception. (PP 9–10/4/4)The concept of sensation in philosophy and psychology thus finds virtually no support in our actual experience, however firmly planted the word may be in ordinary discourse.
Can you distinguish the two "ofs" above?
http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~hdreyfus/188_s05/pdf/Carman_Sensation.pdf
but typically we see objects and hear noises made by things and events. This is in part just to say that perceptual experience is intentional, that it is of something, whereas impressions, sensations, and sense data are supposed to be the non intentional stuff from which the mind somehow extracts or constructs an experience of something.
But the of in “sensation of pain” is not the of in “sensation of red,” for the latter is intentional while the former is not. In the latter case, that is,
we can draw a distinction in principle between the red thing and our sensation of it,
whereas a sensation of pain just is the pain. And even pains are not just feelings that we associate with parts of our bodies; rather, my pain is my leg, my hand, my head hurting. Perception is essentially interwoven with the world we perceive, and each feature of the perceptual field is interwoven with others: Each part arouses the expectation of more than it contains, and this elementary perception is therefore already charged with a meaning. …The perceptual “something” is always in the middle of something else, it always forms part of a “field.” … The pure impression is therefore not just undiscoverable, but imperceptible and thus inconceivable as a moment of perception. (PP 9–10/4/4)The concept of sensation in philosophy and psychology thus finds virtually no support in our actual experience, however firmly planted the word may be in ordinary discourse.
Can you distinguish the two "ofs" above?
S
smcder
Guest
Michel Bitbol on "Pure experience, from Zen to phenomenology"
Michel Bitbol is Director of research at CRNS, Paris, currently based at the Archives Husserl, a center of research in Phenomenology.
MICHEL BITBOL PHILOSOPHIE DE LA PHYSIQUE
Published on Aug 24, 2014
Reaching back to pure experience, below the level of the fabrications, judgments, and conceptualizations of ordinary consciousness, was Nishida Kitaro’s expression of the heart of Zen practice. The main thrust of this philosophical expression was its ability to overturn the usual schemes of the theory of knowledge, thus going beyond the circle of Zen and questioning some of the dearest presuppositions of the Western science of nature.
The most central presupposition of science, perhaps, is that objectivity is universal.
This does not only create a blindspot in knowledge, but also forces one to ignore it. Several strategies were accordingly adopted in the West to overcome this ignorance.
One of them is Phenomenology, with its project of stripping the layers of interpretation by way of a complete suspension of judgment (epochè), and evaluating any claim of knowledge from such a basis of “pure consciousness”. Another one is pan-experientialist metaphysics, that puts back pure experience in the very domain that was deprived of it by the act of objectification. I will compare these various approaches of pure experience, thereby establishing a hierarchy of radicality between avoiding the blindspot from the outset and compensating for it retrospectively.
Suggested readings: Online papers, “Is Consciousness Primary?”, NeuroQuantology, 6, 53-71, 2008
http://michel.bitbol.pagesperso-orang..., “Neurophenomenology, an ongoing practice of/in consciousness”, Constructivist Foundations, 7(3), 165-173, 2012 http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivis...
Michel Bitbol is Director of research at CRNS, Paris, currently based at the Archives Husserl, a center of research in Phenomenology.
He successively received his M.D., a Ph.D. in physics, and an “Habilitation” in philosophy in Paris. He first worked as a research scientist in biophysics from 1978 to 1990 and from 1990 onwards, turned to the philosophy of physics. He edited texts by Erwin Schrödinger, and developed a neo-Kantian philosophy of quantum mechanics for which he received an award from the "Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques" in 1997. Subsequently, he focused on the relations between the philosophy of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind and consciousness, working in close collaboration with Francisco Varela. He is presently developing a conception of consciousness inspired from neurophenomenology and an epistemology of first-person knowledge. He has over 130 publications including Schrödinger's philosophy of quantum mechanics, 1996, Physique et philosophie de l’esprit, 2000, and De l’intérieur du monde, 2010, in which he draws a parallel between Buddhist dependent arising and non-supervenient relations, in quantum physics and the theory of knowledge.
MICHEL BITBOL PHILOSOPHIE DE LA PHYSIQUE
Michel Bitbol is Director of research at CRNS, Paris, currently based at the Archives Husserl, a center of research in Phenomenology.
MICHEL BITBOL PHILOSOPHIE DE LA PHYSIQUE
Published on Aug 24, 2014
Reaching back to pure experience, below the level of the fabrications, judgments, and conceptualizations of ordinary consciousness, was Nishida Kitaro’s expression of the heart of Zen practice. The main thrust of this philosophical expression was its ability to overturn the usual schemes of the theory of knowledge, thus going beyond the circle of Zen and questioning some of the dearest presuppositions of the Western science of nature.
The most central presupposition of science, perhaps, is that objectivity is universal.
This does not only create a blindspot in knowledge, but also forces one to ignore it. Several strategies were accordingly adopted in the West to overcome this ignorance.
One of them is Phenomenology, with its project of stripping the layers of interpretation by way of a complete suspension of judgment (epochè), and evaluating any claim of knowledge from such a basis of “pure consciousness”. Another one is pan-experientialist metaphysics, that puts back pure experience in the very domain that was deprived of it by the act of objectification. I will compare these various approaches of pure experience, thereby establishing a hierarchy of radicality between avoiding the blindspot from the outset and compensating for it retrospectively.
Suggested readings: Online papers, “Is Consciousness Primary?”, NeuroQuantology, 6, 53-71, 2008
http://michel.bitbol.pagesperso-orang..., “Neurophenomenology, an ongoing practice of/in consciousness”, Constructivist Foundations, 7(3), 165-173, 2012 http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivis...
Michel Bitbol is Director of research at CRNS, Paris, currently based at the Archives Husserl, a center of research in Phenomenology.
He successively received his M.D., a Ph.D. in physics, and an “Habilitation” in philosophy in Paris. He first worked as a research scientist in biophysics from 1978 to 1990 and from 1990 onwards, turned to the philosophy of physics. He edited texts by Erwin Schrödinger, and developed a neo-Kantian philosophy of quantum mechanics for which he received an award from the "Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques" in 1997. Subsequently, he focused on the relations between the philosophy of quantum mechanics and the philosophy of mind and consciousness, working in close collaboration with Francisco Varela. He is presently developing a conception of consciousness inspired from neurophenomenology and an epistemology of first-person knowledge. He has over 130 publications including Schrödinger's philosophy of quantum mechanics, 1996, Physique et philosophie de l’esprit, 2000, and De l’intérieur du monde, 2010, in which he draws a parallel between Buddhist dependent arising and non-supervenient relations, in quantum physics and the theory of knowledge.
MICHEL BITBOL PHILOSOPHIE DE LA PHYSIQUE
A wonderful find, Steve.
See these links from that site to subscribe to the free ejournal Constructivism. This approach is described at the second link below.
Constructivist Foundations
The Key to Radical Constructivism
See these links from that site to subscribe to the free ejournal Constructivism. This approach is described at the second link below.
Constructivist Foundations
The Key to Radical Constructivism
This editorial article from the initial issue of the journal Constructivism provides an interdisciplinary definition of constructionism:
http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/coretexts/riegler2005editorial.pdf
http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/coretexts/riegler2005editorial.pdf
I find myself increasingly uninterested in issues such as this one, which seem to me to miss the forest of experience by concentrating on the categorization of the species of a few trees.
S
smcder
Guest
I have to start somewhere, though, for you this is probably very basic - and I need more background in phenomenology, the author it seems to me is making specific phenomenological claims - the author says this is true, this is the way it is for us and so it seems to me to be crucial to the author's argument and conclusions that it is true and that everyone should be able to see it this way and agree that is the way it is ... because if we all look inside and see something different ... or if we have to be trained and learn a specific vocabulary, then phenomenology seems subject to the same criticism of any kind of introspection - namely that you see what you've been taught to see.
So what is the best way to read an article like this or am I even prepared to do so?
S
smcder
Guest
The Hard Problem ... in its own words:
OK, here we go ... I am going to try to get the basic description of the hard problem from some key players, with enough context but without quoting yards of material for each person.
I will keep these in a word document as I go along.
First Nagel and Chalmers:
Thomas Nagel What It Is Like To Be a Bat (1974)
But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.
in context:
Conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon. It occurs at many levels of animal life, though we cannot be sure of its presence in the simpler organisms, and it is very difficult to say in general what provides evidence of it. (Some extremists have been prepared to deny it even of mammals other than man.) No doubt it occurs in countless forms totally unimaginable to us, on other planets in other solar systems throughout the universe. But no matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism.
There may be further implications about the form of the experience; there may even (though I doubt it) be implications about the behavior of the organism. But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.
OK, here we go ... I am going to try to get the basic description of the hard problem from some key players, with enough context but without quoting yards of material for each person.
I will keep these in a word document as I go along.
First Nagel and Chalmers:
Thomas Nagel What It Is Like To Be a Bat (1974)
But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.
in context:
Conscious experience is a widespread phenomenon. It occurs at many levels of animal life, though we cannot be sure of its presence in the simpler organisms, and it is very difficult to say in general what provides evidence of it. (Some extremists have been prepared to deny it even of mammals other than man.) No doubt it occurs in countless forms totally unimaginable to us, on other planets in other solar systems throughout the universe. But no matter how the form may vary, the fact that an organism has conscious experience at all means, basically, that there is something it is like to be that organism.
There may be further implications about the form of the experience; there may even (though I doubt it) be implications about the behavior of the organism. But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.
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smcder
Guest
David Chalmers Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness (1995)
Since Chalmers is seen as the one to bring attention (recently) to the hard problem, I want to include a little more material - although I would not his defintion is the same as Nagel's.
Nagel: But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.
"The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience."
"This subjective aspect (what it is like) is experience."
"Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does."
1. the easy problem
2. the hard problem
3. why those who claim to solve the hard problem have been wrong
The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena:
If these phenomena were all there was to consciousness, then consciousness would not be much of a problem. Although we do not yet have anything close to a complete explanation of these phenomena, we have a clear idea of how we might go about explaining them. This is why I call these problems the easy problems. Of course, "easy" is a relative term. Getting the details right will probably take a century or two of difficult empirical work. Still, there is every reason to believe that the methods of cognitive science and neuroscience will succeed.
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.
(@Soupie ... or here?)
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. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?
It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.
Since Chalmers is seen as the one to bring attention (recently) to the hard problem, I want to include a little more material - although I would not his defintion is the same as Nagel's.
Nagel: But fundamentally an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is to be that organism—something it is like for the organism.
"The really hard problem of consciousness is the problem of experience."
"This subjective aspect (what it is like) is experience."
"Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does."
1. the easy problem
2. the hard problem
3. why those who claim to solve the hard problem have been wrong
The easy problems of consciousness include those of explaining the following phenomena:
- 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.
If these phenomena were all there was to consciousness, then consciousness would not be much of a problem. Although we do not yet have anything close to a complete explanation of these phenomena, we have a clear idea of how we might go about explaining them. This is why I call these problems the easy problems. Of course, "easy" is a relative term. Getting the details right will probably take a century or two of difficult empirical work. Still, there is every reason to believe that the methods of cognitive science and neuroscience will succeed.
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.
(@Soupie ... or here?)
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. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all?
It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.
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smcder
Guest
Is this the kind of thing you are talking about? It's taken from an article @Constance posted:
Who am I in Out of Body Experiences? Implications from OBEs for the explanandum of a theory of self-consciousness
There was another post you made recently, I think, where you ascribed some kind of tripartite view to me ... but I can't find it.
body
ownership
subjectivity
Conclusion
OBEs provide a striking set of unusual experiences of the self which should be accounted for by a theory of self-consciousness. More than this, OBEs have been used to propose distinctions between forms of self-consciousness, generally between experience of a mental and experience of a bodily self. I have argued that the phenomenology of OBEs does not straightforwardly support this distinction.
However, by proposing a tripartite distinction between the sense of embodiment, the sense of ownership and the sense of subjectivity, a more accurate description of the phenomenology of OBEs can be given.
A consideration of OBEs thus suggests that a theory of self-consciousness should explain at least these three forms of self-consciousness.
Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
Nagel's expansionism is expressed in different ways in different contexts. He is basicaly anti reductionist and anti eliminativist but thinks the objective/subjective bridge is attainable (probably not for centuries, he says lol).
Anyway, this might help:
CONCEIVING THE IMPOSSIBLE AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM
Royal Institute of Philosophy annual lecture, given in London on February 18, 1998 published in Philosophy vol. 73 no. 285, July 1998, pp 337-352 Copyright 1998 Cambridge University Press : end of section III:
The ordinary concept of water is unsaturated, so to speak, since it contains a blank space to be filled in by the discovery of the real, and essential, chemical composition of water. Just as we make room for the possibility of such discovery by denying that the manifest properties of water exhaust its nature, so we can open the possibility of an a posteriori answer to the mind- body problem by denying that the manifest properties of experience exhaust its nature. 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. 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.
@smcder what paper do you want help with and in what regard? So long as it has nothing to do with the hard problem I am happy to do my bit
Anyway, this might help:
CONCEIVING THE IMPOSSIBLE AND THE MIND-BODY PROBLEM
Royal Institute of Philosophy annual lecture, given in London on February 18, 1998 published in Philosophy vol. 73 no. 285, July 1998, pp 337-352 Copyright 1998 Cambridge University Press : end of section III:
The ordinary concept of water is unsaturated, so to speak, since it contains a blank space to be filled in by the discovery of the real, and essential, chemical composition of water. Just as we make room for the possibility of such discovery by denying that the manifest properties of water exhaust its nature, so we can open the possibility of an a posteriori answer to the mind- body problem by denying that the manifest properties of experience exhaust its nature. 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. 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.
@smcder what paper do you want help with and in what regard? So long as it has nothing to do with the hard problem I am happy to do my bit
S
smcder
Guest
This was for @Soupie - I tagged you in a post to him where he asked about what was meant by an expansionist view.
Have you read Mind and Cosmos?
S
smcder
Guest
Hard problem: I am going through and pulling out descriptions, definitions as we have read and discussed them here, in their original context, historical descriptions of the problem and also going to have a look at what some others have said, that we might not have looked at ...
I am keeping this in a Word document, as far as I can tell, no one has published anything looking at all the different versions, not to mention "harder" and "hardest" problems ...
We'll see what emerges ... so to speak
S
smcder
Guest
Not sure if Academia.edu follows me around on the internet or what, but there were several relevant articles, as always in my digest this week, including:
Introspective Knowledge of Experience and Its Role in Consciousness Studies | Jesse Butler - Academia.edu
Introspective Knowledge of Experience and Its Role in Consciousness Studies | Jesse Butler - Academia.edu
S
smcder
Guest
This ties in with Chapter 1o of "What is Philosophy"
The greater the work of a thinker – which in no way coincides with the breadth and number of writings – the richer is what is un-thought in this work, which means, that which emerges in and through this work as having not yet been thought.
S
smcder
Guest
Hard problem as "Why I am me"
The Secrets of Consciousness and the Problem of God | The Los Angeles Review of Books
William Flesch
But he (Tononi in Phi) misses, or nearly misses, the force of Nagel’s critique. Nagel’s deepest question about consciousness is not provoked by the sheer fact of conscious experience. It’s the plurality of consciousness that’s strange. No objective scientific account of all the elements in the universe could say why I am me and you are you. Objectively speaking, we could accept that there are many different conscious beings. But we don’t have the ghost of an idea of how there could be an objective explanation for the distribution of subjectivities among them. Why is my consciousness mine? Why isn’t your consciousness mine? The hard question of consciousness is less this question, “How can consciousness exist?” than the question of how there can be more than one. What is the principle of discrimination between them?
When I get a little further along listing descriptions of the hard problem, I will e-mail Flesch and ask for clarification on this - it's intriguing to me, I think it folows directly from Nagel's paper - "to be a bat" but he doesn't in WILTBAB draw that implication out specifically and neither does Chalmers ... so it's very interesting to me that Flesch says Tononi misses the force of Nagel's critique, that it's Nagels deepest question ...
The Secrets of Consciousness and the Problem of God | The Los Angeles Review of Books
William Flesch
But he (Tononi in Phi) misses, or nearly misses, the force of Nagel’s critique. Nagel’s deepest question about consciousness is not provoked by the sheer fact of conscious experience. It’s the plurality of consciousness that’s strange. No objective scientific account of all the elements in the universe could say why I am me and you are you. Objectively speaking, we could accept that there are many different conscious beings. But we don’t have the ghost of an idea of how there could be an objective explanation for the distribution of subjectivities among them. Why is my consciousness mine? Why isn’t your consciousness mine? The hard question of consciousness is less this question, “How can consciousness exist?” than the question of how there can be more than one. What is the principle of discrimination between them?
When I get a little further along listing descriptions of the hard problem, I will e-mail Flesch and ask for clarification on this - it's intriguing to me, I think it folows directly from Nagel's paper - "to be a bat" but he doesn't in WILTBAB draw that implication out specifically and neither does Chalmers ... so it's very interesting to me that Flesch says Tononi misses the force of Nagel's critique, that it's Nagels deepest question ...
Soupie
Paranormal Adept
I finished reading Velmas's "Evolution of Consciousness" and found it very helpful. In particular, his description of continuous and discontinuous approaches to consciousness was very helpful. I wonder how @Pharoah would categorize HCT?
This description of the continuous approach (which is compatible with a dual-aspect/property metaphysics) is interesting:
This approach continues to have a lot of appeal to me; it manages to address/avoid the hard problem, and it explains why experience is correlated with physical forms/processes.
It brings me back to the concept of Unbound Telesis and the Unus Mundus. And I think @Pharoah HTC addresses this as well.
Why does energy/matter differentiate into the particular forms in which it does? (I'm in no way qualified to discuss the concept, but I think codependent origination fits here too.) Why does experience differentiate into the particular forms (qualities) which it does?
I've BSd about this as well: the forms that arise and persist in nature do so because they are self-persisting. But no form is truly self dependent; all forms are causally interconnected — or as Pharoah's might say, informed.
At its most primal level, nature has two aspects: an object, physical aspect and a subjective, experiential aspect.
As nature differentiates various physical and experiential qualities emerge.
Interestingly, this approach leads me to the noumenal problem. If phenomenal qualities co-evolve with physical qualities, a problem arises.
The boundaries between differentiated physical forms are not firm as I understand it. I could be wrong on this; however, it seems to me that physically speaking, everything in nature is really one physical process.
If phenomenal forms/qualities co-evolve with physical forms/qualities, then it would follow that boundaries between phenomenal qualities would be blurred as well. So the combination problem enters here, I think. For example, why don't my feet and brain all have minds?
If there is a continuity of experience in physical forms, why doesn't a human body—composed of billions of physical forms—have billions of minds?
How do differentiated physical forms with co-evolved/differentiated qualitative forms combine to create one unified phenomenal point of view.
I don't think this problem is insurmountable and sees easier then Chalmers hard problem.
Another thing that this approach addressed that I like, as noted in the quoted paragraph, is that experience is fundamental in nature; but the question then becomes how experience differentiates and evolves along with physical forms. This is the question I am most interested in, even more than the hard problem.
So, how does nature evolve from differentiating into the experience "green" to the experience "I am seeing green." That is, as Velman's notes above: the evolution from representation to self-representation. This I have referred to as experience and meta-experience.
This description of the continuous approach (which is compatible with a dual-aspect/property metaphysics) is interesting:
The co-evolution of conscious experiences with their associated material forms
Continuity theorists do not face this problem for the simple reason that they do not believe that consciousness suddenly emerged at any stage of evolution. Rather, as Sherrington suggests above, consciousness is a “development of mind from unrecognisable intorecognisable.” On this panpsychist or panexperientialist view, all forms of matter have anassociated form of consciousness (see Skrbina, 2005a, b; De Quincy, 2002; Weber & Desmond,2008; Seager, 2012; Weekes, 2012). In the cosmic explosion that gave birth to the universe,consciousness co-emerged with matter and co-evolves with it. As matter became moredifferentiated and developed in complexity, consciousness became correspondinglydifferentiated and complex. The emergence of carbon-based life forms developed into creatures with sensory systems that had associated sensory “qualia.” The development of representation was accompanied by the development of consciousness that is of something.The development of self-representation was accompanied by the dawn of differentiated self-consciousness and so on. On this view, evolutionary theory can in principle account for the different forms that consciousness takes. But, consciousness, in some primal form, didnot emerge at any particular stage of evolution. Rather, it was there from the beginning. Its emergence, with the birth of the universe is neither more nor less mysterious than the emergence of matter and energy.
Continuity theorists do not face this problem for the simple reason that they do not believe that consciousness suddenly emerged at any stage of evolution. Rather, as Sherrington suggests above, consciousness is a “development of mind from unrecognisable intorecognisable.” On this panpsychist or panexperientialist view, all forms of matter have anassociated form of consciousness (see Skrbina, 2005a, b; De Quincy, 2002; Weber & Desmond,2008; Seager, 2012; Weekes, 2012). In the cosmic explosion that gave birth to the universe,consciousness co-emerged with matter and co-evolves with it. As matter became moredifferentiated and developed in complexity, consciousness became correspondinglydifferentiated and complex. The emergence of carbon-based life forms developed into creatures with sensory systems that had associated sensory “qualia.” The development of representation was accompanied by the development of consciousness that is of something.The development of self-representation was accompanied by the dawn of differentiated self-consciousness and so on. On this view, evolutionary theory can in principle account for the different forms that consciousness takes. But, consciousness, in some primal form, didnot emerge at any particular stage of evolution. Rather, it was there from the beginning. Its emergence, with the birth of the universe is neither more nor less mysterious than the emergence of matter and energy.
This approach continues to have a lot of appeal to me; it manages to address/avoid the hard problem, and it explains why experience is correlated with physical forms/processes.
It brings me back to the concept of Unbound Telesis and the Unus Mundus. And I think @Pharoah HTC addresses this as well.
Why does energy/matter differentiate into the particular forms in which it does? (I'm in no way qualified to discuss the concept, but I think codependent origination fits here too.) Why does experience differentiate into the particular forms (qualities) which it does?
I've BSd about this as well: the forms that arise and persist in nature do so because they are self-persisting. But no form is truly self dependent; all forms are causally interconnected — or as Pharoah's might say, informed.
At its most primal level, nature has two aspects: an object, physical aspect and a subjective, experiential aspect.
As nature differentiates various physical and experiential qualities emerge.
Interestingly, this approach leads me to the noumenal problem. If phenomenal qualities co-evolve with physical qualities, a problem arises.
The boundaries between differentiated physical forms are not firm as I understand it. I could be wrong on this; however, it seems to me that physically speaking, everything in nature is really one physical process.
If phenomenal forms/qualities co-evolve with physical forms/qualities, then it would follow that boundaries between phenomenal qualities would be blurred as well. So the combination problem enters here, I think. For example, why don't my feet and brain all have minds?
If there is a continuity of experience in physical forms, why doesn't a human body—composed of billions of physical forms—have billions of minds?
How do differentiated physical forms with co-evolved/differentiated qualitative forms combine to create one unified phenomenal point of view.
I don't think this problem is insurmountable and sees easier then Chalmers hard problem.
Another thing that this approach addressed that I like, as noted in the quoted paragraph, is that experience is fundamental in nature; but the question then becomes how experience differentiates and evolves along with physical forms. This is the question I am most interested in, even more than the hard problem.
So, how does nature evolve from differentiating into the experience "green" to the experience "I am seeing green." That is, as Velman's notes above: the evolution from representation to self-representation. This I have referred to as experience and meta-experience.
S
smcder
Guest
Just finished no easy problems by Lowe ... and this helped me with my question in the Merleau-Ponty paper:
"As a preliminary to tackling this task, I want to say something more about Chalmers’ notions of experience and consciousness, which I find seriously inadequate. As regards the notion of experience, it seems to me that he distorts this notion by focusing exclusively upon the sensuous, or phenomenal, or qualitative character of experience (the ‘what it is like’ aspect of experience, to use Thomas Nagel’s well-worn phrase). And this distortion serves, in my view, to obscure the intimate relation between experience and thought. Some experiences — pains provide a possible example — are indeed almost purely sensational in character, but the sort of experiences which are central to our cognitive capacities — namely, perceptual experiences — are certainly not. Perceptual experiences — such as, for example, a visual experience of seeing a red book lying on top of a brown table — possess not only qualitative or phenomenal characteristics but also, most importantly, intentional or representational content. Not only is it ‘like something’ to enjoy such an experience, in which the phenomenal character of sensed colours impresses itself upon our awareness, but also such an experience represents — or, better, presents — our immediate physical environment as being some way (in this case, as containing a red book on top of a brown table). Moreover, and quite crucially, the intentional content of such an experience stands in an especially intimate relation to its qualitative or phenomenal character: the two aspects of the experience are not simply independent of one another."
Now, From the Merleau Ponty paper:
But the of in “sensation of pain” is not the of in “sensation of red,” for the latter is intentional while the former is not. In the latter case, that is, we can draw a distinction in principle between the red thing and our sensation of it, wheras a sensation of pain just is the pain.
And now back to Lowe:
Some experiences — pains provide a possible example — are indeed almost purely sensational in character, but the sort of experiences which are central to our cognitive capacities — namely, perceptual experiences — are certainly not. Perceptual experiences — such as, for example, a visual experience of seeing a red book lying on top of a brown table — possess not only qualitative or phenomenal characteristics but also, most importantly, intentional or representational content.
Not only is it ‘like something’ to enjoy such an experience, in which the phenomenal character of sensed colours impresses itself upon our awareness, but also such an experience represents — or, better, presents — our immediate physical environment as being some way (in this case, as containing a red book on top of a brown table). Moreover, and quite crucially, the intentional content of such an experience stands in an especially intimate relation to its qualitative or phenomenal character: the two aspects of the experience are not simply independent of one another."
and now back to the Merleau Ponty article:
Perception is essentially interwoven with the world we perceive, and each feature of the perceptual field is interwoven with others: Each part arouses the expectation of more than it contains, and this elementary perception is therefore already charged with a meaning. …The perceptual “something” is always in the middle of something else, it always forms part of a “field.” … The pure impression is therefore not just undiscoverable, but imperceptible and thus inconceivable as a moment of perception. (PP 9–10/4/4)The concept of sensation in philosophy and psychology thus finds virtually no support in our actual experience, however firmly planted the word may be in ordinary discourse.
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