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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

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smcder said:
Innately to my body and mind or innately to all bodies and minds?
Click to expand...
Lets assume that organisms with very similar physiologies are subjects of very similar phenomenal fields. When they experience fear, is this fear innately uncomfortable, comfortable, or neither?
 
Steve, your links began here. I surfed from there and posted some additional links, which I'll repost in my next post here.

smcder said:
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
Click to expand...
 
smcder said:
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.
Click to expand...
Am I no longer a monist?
 
Constance said:
Steve, your links began here. I surfed from there and posted some additional links, which I'll repost in my next post here.
Click to expand...

I like the historical examination of Valera's ideas in that article: (it's messy pasting from a PDF, but takes a while to clean it up)



At the same time, this sense of continuity
should not leave us blind to the fact that the
historical progression was punctuated by a number
of profound transitions, which are indicative
of qualitative leaps. The development of the
foundations of the biology of cognition can be considered
as one example:

‘The mature concept of
autopoiesis did have, as we have seen, clear roots,
but between an idea and its roots exists a crucial
jump

’ (Varela, 1996a: 413). Another notable qualitative
leap took us from Maturana

’s theoretical
acknowledgment of the background praxis of
living to Varela

’s attempt to establish the foundations
of a phenomenological pragmatics.
 
Steve, re constructivism, I posted the following links after you drew my attention to Bitbol:

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

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
 
Soupie said:
Lets assume that organisms with very similar physiologies are subjects of very similar phenomenal fields. When they experience fear, is this fear innately uncomfortable, comfortable, or neither?
Click to expand...

And where are we going with all of this? And are we headed in that direction and if so, will we get there soon?
 
http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/coretexts/riegler2005editorial.pdf

1. attach the altimeter to a rope and lower it almost to the ground, then swing it until it comes to the height of the tower on apogee, the period of the pendulum can determine the height of the tower

2. drop the altimeter off the tower and count how long it takes to hit the ground

3. drop the altimeter on a passing city engineeer, while he is unconscious, steal his keys and get into his office, the height of the tower should be on some blue prints there

4. drop it on a passing police officer, when he fires up at you, reckon the height of the tower by the time difference in the muzzle flash and the sound of the gun

5. sell the altimeter to your buddy, who is much smarter than you, in exchange for the height of the tower - then accuse him of stealing it, rumple your hair and tear your shirt, so people will believe you - you'll get an A, the altimeter back and you keep the money and get ahead of your "smarter" friend because it's hard to study in jail

that's all I can think of off the top of my head ...
But what
about the following example, originally
attributed to Danish nobel prize winner Niels
Bohr and retold by Humberto Maturana? A
teacher “who asks a student to measure the
height of a tower with the use of an altimeter,
may flunk the student if he uses the length of
the altimeter to triangulate the tower and
obtains the height of the tower through
geometry and not through physics. The
teacher may say that the student does not
know physics” (Maturana 1978, p. 42). What
this episode suggests is twofold. Firstly, by
focusing on one particular approach only we
will quickly get caught in ignorance and
denial of other approaches that might turn
out much more fruitful. Of course, such is the
human psyche: functionally fixed (Duncker
1935/1945). Once we have found a viable
solution (such as reading the display of an
altimeter) we tend to stubbornly apply the
pattern of our solution to all other problems
as well.

Riegler
Constructivism
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Constance said:
Steve, re constructivism, I posted the following links after you drew my attention to Bitbol:

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

This editorial article from the initial issue of the journal Constructivism provides an interdisciplinary definition of constructionism:

[URL='http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/coretexts/riegler2005editorial.pdf[/QUOTE']http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/coretexts/riegler2005editorial.pdf[/QUOTE[/URL]]

I like the editorial very much:

But secondly, the analogy also warns
us of authoritarian attempts to think there is
only true solution to a whatever we identify as
a problem. Their appeal to “reality” as the
ultimate arbiter of (scientific) disputes gives
rise to the belief that there exists a mind-independent
reality which defines what is true and
what is not. However, as Mitterer (1992)
pointed out, isn’t claiming authority by referring
to an external truth the attempt to make
one’s own point of view unassailable? The two
analogies above should make it clear that science
and philosophy gain from variety and
the possibility of choosing from other
options.
Click to expand...
 
Such variety and freedom of choice has always been a major aspect a constructivist
philosophies and sciences.

Heinz von Foerster’s (1973/2003, p. 227)

“ethical imperative”:
“Act always so as to increase the number of choices”

does not only anthropo-morphize
W. Ross Ashby’s (1956)
Law of Requisite Variety

which states that the variety of actions available to a control system must be at least as large as the variety of actions in the system to be controlled (so by having more choice you stay in control).
 
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Foerster’s imperative is also a reminder to the fact that most problems in science are undecidable in principle. These are problems of “organized complexity”
(Weaver 1948), characterized by a “sizeable number of factors which are interrelated into an organic whole” (p. 539). Any attempt to

capture their behavior in neat formalisms in order to make reliable predications is rendered impossible.

It is the responsibility of the scientist to decide these problems:

“Only
those questions which are in principle undecidable
we
can decide” (Foerster 1991/2003).
The solution to such “big problems” in science simply cannot be delegated to nature as the monolithic “objective arbiter.” Therefore pluralistic perspectives are of utmost importance when scientifically approaching phenomena of organized complexity.
 
smcder said:
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
Click to expand...

Yes, that's why language changes, to accommodate ideas it has not yet fully expressed. Or never expressed in the case of newly discovered phenomena. Language is a tool of human expression, but not the only one; human expression, communication, and meaningful interaction took place before the development of language. Any language is a limiting system for the development of thought and the exchange of ideas, which is why dialogue is essential to developing and refining mutual understanding of complex and/or subtle and new ideas. The most deleterious effect of language is the tendency it provokes in humans to mis-take words and terms for realities, and eventually to take language itself as definitive of a determined reality.
 
smcder said:
1. attach the altimeter to a rope and lower it almost to the ground, then swing it until it comes to the height of the tower on apogee, the period of the pendulum can determine the height of the tower

2. drop the altimeter off the tower and count how long it takes to hit the ground

3. drop the altimeter on a passing city engineeer, while he is unconscious, steal his keys and get into his office, the height of the tower should be on some blue prints there

4. drop it on a passing police officer, when he fires up at you, reckon the height of the tower by the time difference in the muzzle flash and the sound of the gun

5. sell the altimeter to your buddy, who is much smarter than you, in exchange for the height of the tower - then accuse him of stealing it, rumple your hair and tear your shirt, so people will believe you - you'll get an A, the altimeter back and you keep the money and get ahead of your "smarter" friend because it's hard to study in jail

that's all I can think of off the top of my head ...
But what
about the following example, originally
attributed to Danish nobel prize winner Niels
Bohr and retold by Humberto Maturana? A
teacher “who asks a student to measure the
height of a tower with the use of an altimeter,
may flunk the student if he uses the length of
the altimeter to triangulate the tower and
obtains the height of the tower through
geometry and not through physics. The
teacher may say that the student does not
know physics” (Maturana 1978, p. 42). What
this episode suggests is twofold. Firstly, by
focusing on one particular approach only we
will quickly get caught in ignorance and
denial of other approaches that might turn
out much more fruitful. Of course, such is the
human psyche: functionally fixed (Duncker
1935/1945). Once we have found a viable
solution (such as reading the display of an
altimeter) we tend to stubbornly apply the
pattern of our solution to all other problems
as well.
Click to expand...

Excellent. Where did you get the Maturana quote? It sounds like something he said in the dialogue I read yesterday and am still looking for.
 
1. Constructivist approaches question the Cartesian separation between objective world and subjective experience.

As argued by Josef
Mitterer (2001), such dualistic approaches,
being the prevailing scientific orientation, are
based on the distinction between description
and object, and their argumentation is
directed towards the object of thought.

His thesis says:

The dualistic method of searching
for truth is but an argumentative technique
that can turn any arbitrary opinion either true
or false.

Therefore the goal of dualistic philosophies, i.e., philosophies based on the subject–
object dichotomy, is to convince a public audience (readers, listeners, discussion partners)
of the truth.

An example to surmount
the separation is the concept of “co-enaction”
(Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991, p. 150)
according to which “...knower and known,
mind and world, stand in relation to each
other through mutual specification or dependent
co-origination.”

dependent co-origination
 
Last edited by a moderator:
smcder said:
Foerster’s imperative is also a reminder to the fact that most problems in science are undecidable in principle. These are problems of “organized complexity”
(Weaver 1948), characterized by a “sizeable number of factors which are interrelated into an organic whole” (p. 539). Any attempt to

capture their behavior in neat formalisms in order to make reliable predications is rendered impossible.

It is the responsibility of the scientist to decide these problems:

“Only
those questions which are in principle undecidable
we
can decide” (Foerster 1991/2003).
The solution to such “big problems” in science simply cannot be delegated to nature as the monolithic “objective arbiter.” Therefore pluralistic perspectives are of utmost importance when scientifically approaching phenomena of organized complexity.
Click to expand...

Links please? Please, LINKS. The only fault I can find with you is your forgetting to post links to your quotations. :)
 
smcder said:
An example to surmount
the separation is the concept of “co-enaction”
(Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991, p. 150)
according to which “...knower and known,
mind and world, stand in relation to each
other through mutual specification or dependent
co-origination.”
Click to expand...

Bears repeating since it so elegantly expresses the idea, the insight, that is so difficult for people in our time to recognize.

That quotation is apparently from The Embodied Mind, which laid the groundwork for Thompson's Mind in Life.
 
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