Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

[smcder]

Why cant you differentiate pain and red?

So youre not a monist or dualist, youre a polyist?

I don't know why you can't:

"But, no, I don't distinguish between a perception/sensation of red or pain. They are both about something, something objective."

An observation which I think I've made before:

It seems very important to you to ascribe views to other people and then try to differentiate your view
And it also seems very important to not change that view ... I've described this approach as Procrusteanism.

I think intelligent inquiry requires flexibility and changes of mind. A lot of mental work can be done fitting things into your view, but that doesn't make it true.

I like the following position, you can ascribe it to me (for now!)

(Philosophy is)

It’s just inquiry, unbounded (in principle at least) by any fixed assumptions. While scientific and religious endeavors can be self-questioning as well, there’s a limit to that self-questioning; you have to grant some foundational principles as true (e.g. about natural laws or the existence of God) as true before you can get far enough into your inquiry to figure out what questions are still to be answered. The same is true, of course, of particular philosophic inquiries (arguably, particular sciences are just more narrowly focussed, empirical strains of philosophy; that’s certainly how the creation of sciences has played out historically), but for philosophy as a whole, nothing is off limits to questioning.

 

[Constance]

I don't know if you support the idea or not, but my phrase "the mind is X" is in response to it regardless.

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3 | Page 26 | The Paracast Community Forums

The core `I' of subjectivity is different from any content because it turns out to be that which witnesses — not that which is observed.

The `I' can be experienced, but it cannot be `seen'. `I' is the observer, the experiencer, prior to all conscious content.​

The `I' can be experienced, but it cannot be `seen'. `I' is the observer, the experiencer, prior to all conscious content.

Where is the 'I' in your view? In the mind? Does the 'mind' have phenomenological experiences? Phenomenology claims that 'embodied consciousness' has phenomenological experiences, which the mind can and does work upon in reflection and thought. What differentiates analytical from phenomenological philosophers is fundamentally the extent to which they attempt to work with phenomenological experience.

Re your second paragraph, can you become an observer, an experiencer, "prior to all conscious content"? Browsing at the constructivist site Steve linked I came across this attempt at communication between Bitbol and Maturana during a seminar/conference on consciousness during which that question is pursued. The issue they attempt to work through seems to be a central issue in constructivism.

(STILL looking for the link; will post when I find it)

 

[Constance]

"Reads like a Socratic dialogue!" is that good, bad or boring? I was trying to pin the guy down. I think he likes writing about pseudoscience... not sure

I enjoyed that. You had him going around in circles, which he only gradually realized. I think he's typical of a lot of Neo-Darwinists.

 

[smcder]

Does the 'mind' have phenomenological experiences? Phenomenology claims that 'embodied consciousness' has phenomenological experiences, which the mind can and does work upon in reflection and thought. What differentiates analytical from phenomenological philosophy is fundamentally the extent to which they attempt to work with phenomenological experience.

Re your second paragraph, can you become an observer, an experiencer, "prior to all conscious content"? Browsing at the constructivist site Steve linked I came across this attempt at communication between Bitbol and Maturana during a seminar/conference on consciousness during which that question is pursued. The issue they attempt to work through seems to be a central issue in constructivism.

(STILL looking for the link; will post when I find it)

Look forward to it ... !

Chapter 10 in What is Philosophy says philosophy is an activity done by finite embodied beings ... I think it somewhat captures (though literature or a good diary could do this better) what it's like to do philosophy, for those who have an ideal images of the mind doing philosophy in a vaccuum:

The only way to rectify our reasonings is to make them as tangible as those of the Mathematicians, so that we can find our error at a glance, and when there are disputes among persons, we can simply say: Let us calculate [calculemus], without further ado, to see who is right.

That, obviously, ain't gonna happen ... but the dream lives on. For me, part of finding my assumptions is locating an image ... so if my ideal is a cerebrotonic Sherlock Holmes (or even better, Mycroft!) who works by pure rationcination, then there are a whole slew of things that follow from that image. What is my ideal?

But to realize Kant itched and was in pain and had personality quirks, Wittgenstein chewed the carpet in anxiety, Nietzsche was ust weird and Socrates was henpecked ... we think that's an incidental biographical tidbit, but if philosophy is done by finited, embodied beings ... then those things take on a philosophical importance.

I'm reading this now ...

Amazon.com: How the Body Knows Its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel (9781451626681): Sian Beilock: Books

 

[Constance]

Look forward to it ... !

Chapter 10 in What is Philosophy says philosophy is an activity done by finite embodied beings ... I think it somewhat captures (though literature or a good diary could do this better) what it's like to do philosophy, for those who have an ideal images of the mind doing philosophy in a vaccuum:

The only way to rectify our reasonings is to make them as tangible as those of the Mathematicians, so that we can find our error at a glance, and when there are disputes among persons, we can simply say: Let us calculate [calculemus], without further ado, to see who is right.

That, obviously, ain't gonna happen ... but the dream lives on. For me, part of finding my assumptions is locating an image ... so if my ideal is a cerebrotonic Sherlock Holmes (or even better, Mycroft!) who works by pure rationcination, then there are a whole slew of things that follow from that image. What is my ideal?

But to realize Kant itched and was in pain and had personality quirks, Wittgenstein chewed the carpet in anxiety, Nietzsche was ust weird and Socrates was henpecked ... we think that's an incidental biographical tidbit, but if philosophy is done by finited, embodied beings ... then those things take on a philosophical importance.

I'm reading this now ...

Amazon.com: How the Body Knows Its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel (9781451626681): Sian Beilock: Books

I think you'll find much value in constructivism.

 

[Soupie]

I don't know why you can't:

"But, no, I don't distinguish between a perception/sensation of red or pain. They are both about something, something objective."

An observation which I think I've made before:

It seems very important to you to ascribe views to other people and then try to differentiate your view
And it also seems very important to not change that view ... I've described this approach as Procrusteanism.

I think intelligent inquiry requires flexibility and changes of mind. A lot of mental work can be done fitting things into your view, but that doesn't make it true.

I like the following position, you can ascribe it to me (for now!)

(Philosophy is)

It’s just inquiry, unbounded (in principle at least) by any fixed assumptions. While scientific and religious endeavors can be self-questioning as well, there’s a limit to that self-questioning; you have to grant some foundational principles as true (e.g. about natural laws or the existence of God) as true before you can get far enough into your inquiry to figure out what questions are still to be answered. The same is true, of course, of particular philosophic inquiries (arguably, particular sciences are just more narrowly focussed, empirical strains of philosophy; that’s certainly how the creation of sciences has played out historically), but for philosophy as a whole, nothing is off limits to questioning.

Something got lost in translation. I meant "red" and "pain" are both about something objective. So I don't distinguish them in that regard. Ultimately, they are both 1st person experiences. However, the experience of red and the experience of pain as experiences are different.

 

[smcder]

Philosophical reflection is a special sort of activity on the part of finite embodied beings. This activity, in deploying the resources of a significational system, is expressed and concretized in texts, a type of communication with other embodied beings. Such texts express something that is excessive to them: a thought-process, viewpoint, distinctive set of ideas, or even a body of ‘doctrine’ (as when we speak of Platonism, Idealism, Positivism, and so on). None of these are ever fully expressible in any singular text, both because it is always possible to compose other texts expressing these in different ways and because the significational system deployed introduces its own excessive features into any text. Still, philosophical texts do provide a singular way of access to something from which they arose; that ‘something’ is what I’ve called ‘ideality.’ Put simply, philosophical reflection issues in texts and these texts express the concepts or ideas constructed in the process of reflection or thought.

smcder's "plain language" version

Philosophy is something we do. We communicate it to other people when we write it down. These texts in some ways are bigger than we are:

• a way of thinking
• a viewpoint
• a distinctive set of ideas
• a body of doctrine ( lots of big ideas that go together to form a way of thinking about the world: Platonism, Idealism, Positivism, etc)

We can't express any of these things in just one book because:

1. it is always possible to write about these ideas in other ways
2. the language we use never quite fits exactly what we want to say, never quite exactly matches what we think - but we have to use the language, words, diagrams we have or can make

Butg philosophical texts do provide a way into something from which they arose ... that something I call ideality.

Put simply, philosophical reflection issues in texts and these texts express the concepts or ideas constructed in the process of reflection or thought.

(now why didn't he just say that??)

 

[Soupie]

@smcder

Re valence

Valence (psychology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[smcder]

Something got lost in translation. I meant "red" and "pain" are both about something objective. So I don't distinguish them in that regard. Ultimately, they are both 1st person experiences. However, the experience of red and the experience of pain as experiences are different.

Much is lost in translation ... from here, a reader might even think that experiences are always about something objective ...

Still, the crucial question is

How are they different?

How is a sense of self? Of identity, of ownership different?

If you self = experience = mind, then why do you write:

Soupie's body?

 

[smcder]

@smcder

Re valence

Valence (psychology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In your own words, please!

 

[smcder]

@smcder

Re valence

Valence (psychology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the kind of thing you throw around in a college bull session, I remember in fact two guys getting into it in college over whether it was possible for a woman not to enjoy sex (stupid, stupid, stupid, though no doubt both had excessive IQs) -

Q. If fear is a negative emotion, why do people go see horror movies?
A. Well, you know, they know they are safe and they undergo some unpleasantness in order to get a catharsis, an ultimately pleasurable relief. Besides, the adrenaline rush is a positive

(and it is in real life, I've been beat to a pulp in real life and come out high as a kite, the endorphins and adrenaline, even when someone is trying to kill you, change everything - change the whole world, just as being in love does - so it doesn't even make sense to me to talk about isolated valences ... see the discussion on sensation per Merleau Ponty somewhere up above)

Or you can have the discussion about well, it's not really unpleasant even if it's painful because it turns you on and in the end that's what defines the experience and it may even be more pleasurable in the remembering and especially in the anticipation (we don't seem to be able to remember pain) ... so yes while the actual thing going on at that part of the body hurts, in the overall context - the state of the body at the moment is pleasurable or the future state will be worth the momentary unpleasantness

etc etc

So yes we can generally talk about pleasure and pain and pretty accurately but because we take the situation/context into account automatically.

When we pull it out of the context, pull it apart, a process known as:

analysis (n)
1580s, "resolution of anything complex into simple elements" (opposite of synthesis), from Medieval Latin analysis (15c.), from Greek analysis "a breaking up, a loosening, releasing," noun of action from analyein "unloose, release, set free; to loose a ship from its moorings," in Aristotle, "to analyze," from ana "up, throughout" (see ana-) + lysis "a loosening," from lyein "to unfasten" (see lose). Psychological sense is from 1890. Phrase in the final (or last) analysis (1844), translates French en dernière analyse.

we have truly loosened the ship from its moorings.

In the laboratory, I have no doubt what is supposed to hurt, hurts ... and what is supposed to be pleasurable, feels good ...

unless the lead scientist looks like Audrey Hepburn, then you might have fond memories of that needle prick ...

... there is simply no end of these things, because once broken into pieces, a thing can be put back together in an infinite number of ways

 

[Constance]

I think that this paper is another we should read to clarify the issues Steve is working through with Soupie and also to prepare the way for our integrating constructivism into our discussions, which I think is a necessary next step.

Tom Froese, “From Second-order Cybernetics to Enactive Cognitive Science:
Varela’s Turn From Epistemology to Phenomenology”

Abstract: Varela is well known in the systems sciences for his work on second-order cybernetics, biology of cognition and especially autopoietic theory. His concern during this period was to find an appropriate epistemological foundation for the self-reference inherent in life and mind. In his later years, Varela began to develop the so-called ‘enactive’ approach to cognitive science, which sets itself apart from other sciences by promoting a careful consideration of concrete experiential insights. His final efforts were thus dedicated to finding a pragmatic phenomenological foundation for life and mind. It is argued that Varela’s experiential turn – from epistemology to phenomenology – can be seen as a natural progression that builds on many ideas that were already implicit in second-order cybernetics and biology of cognition. It is also suggested that the rigorous study of conscious experience may enable us to refine our theories and systemic concepts of life, mind and sociality.

http://sacral.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/pdf/froese_systres_2011.pdf


ps: I saw a paper referenced at the Constructivism site asking whether a Third-Order Cybernetics is needed.

 

[smcder]

The `I' can be experienced, but it cannot be `seen'. `I' is the observer, the experiencer, prior to all conscious content.

Where is the 'I' in your view? In the mind? Does the 'mind' have phenomenological experiences? Phenomenology claims that 'embodied consciousness' has phenomenological experiences, which the mind can and does work upon in reflection and thought. What differentiates analytical from phenomenological philosophers is fundamentally the extent to which they attempt to work with phenomenological experience.

Re your second paragraph, can you become an observer, an experiencer, "prior to all conscious content"? Browsing at the constructivist site Steve linked I came across this attempt at communication between Bitbol and Maturana during a seminar/conference on consciousness during which that question is pursued. The issue they attempt to work through seems to be a central issue in constructivism.

(STILL looking for the link; will post when I find it)

What is the link to the constructivist site I linked?

 

[Soupie]

Much is lost in translation ... from here, a reader might even think that experiences are always about something objective ...

Still, the crucial question is

How are they different?

How is a sense of self? Of identity, of ownership different?

If you self = experience = mind, then why do you write:

Soupie's body?

This is an issue that I tried to raise in Part 1.

I used the terms body-self and mental-self.

My body is different from all other bodies and my mind is different from all other minds.

Who am I? Am "I" my body or my experiences? Or both?

Re: valence

I use the words comfortable and uncomfortable. Are there phenomenal experiences that are innately uncomfortable or comfortable?

 

[Constance]

we have truly loosened the ship from its moorings.

In the laboratory, I have no doubt what is supposed to hurt, hurts ... and what is supposed to be pleasurable, feels good ...

unless the lead scientist looks like Audrey Hepburn, then you might have fond memories of that needle prick ...

... there is simply no end of these things, because once broken into pieces, a thing can be put back together in an infinite number of ways

Bravo. That hits the problematic nail on the head.

 

[Constance]

Are there phenomenal experiences that are innately uncomfortable or comfortable?

Yes. Perhaps most of them to some extent.

 

[smcder]

This is an issue that I tried to raise in Part 1.

I used the terms body-self and mental-self.

My body is different from all other bodies and my mind is different from all other minds.

Who am I? Am "I" my body or my experiences? Or both?

Re: valence

I use the words comfortable and uncomfortable. Are there phenomenal experiences that are innately uncomfortable or comfortable?

Innately to my body and mind or innately to all bodies and minds?

 

[smcder]

This is an issue that I tried to raise in Part 1.

I used the terms body-self and mental-self.

My body is different from all other bodies and my mind is different from all other minds.

Who am I? Am "I" my body or my experiences? Or both?

Re: valence

I use the words comfortable and uncomfortable. Are there phenomenal experiences that are innately uncomfortable or comfortable?

What I am trying to communicate is that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

You need more than just body / mind = experience = self to work with. Just as you needed more than oneprimal stuff, back when you were a monist.

 

[smcder]

This is an issue that I tried to raise in Part 1.

I used the terms body-self and mental-self.

My body is different from all other bodies and my mind is different from all other minds.

Who am I? Am "I" my body or my experiences? Or both?

Re: valence

I use the words comfortable and uncomfortable. Are there phenomenal experiences that are innately uncomfortable or comfortable?

Again, allow me shades of grey and I can answer any question, because the world is (mostly) a "maybe" and a "sometimes".

Your process seems to be to keep setting up rules until you get the response you want. You just and try that on Mother Nature:

 

[smcder]

I think that this paper is another we should read to clarify the issues Steve is working through with Soupie and also to prepare the way for our integrating constructivism into our discussions, which I think is a necessary next step.

Tom Froese, “From Second-order Cybernetics to Enactive Cognitive Science:
Varela’s Turn From Epistemology to Phenomenology”

Abstract: Varela is well known in the systems sciences for his work on second-order cybernetics, biology of cognition and especially autopoietic theory. His concern during this period was to find an appropriate epistemological foundation for the self-reference inherent in life and mind. In his later years, Varela began to develop the so-called ‘enactive’ approach to cognitive science, which sets itself apart from other sciences by promoting a careful consideration of concrete experiential insights. His final efforts were thus dedicated to finding a pragmatic phenomenological foundation for life and mind. It is argued that Varela’s experiential turn – from epistemology to phenomenology – can be seen as a natural progression that builds on many ideas that were already implicit in second-order cybernetics and biology of cognition. It is also suggested that the rigorous study of conscious experience may enable us to refine our theories and systemic concepts of life, mind and sociality.

http://sacral.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/pdf/froese_systres_2011.pdf


ps: I saw a paper referenced at the Constructivism site asking whether a Third-Order Cybernetics is needed.

Why do all the good polymath visonaries die young?