Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

[Soupie]

how does a particular qualia - created in the brain - come to correlate with an environmental colur that actually exists.

(1) The phenomenal color does not exist in the environment, only in the brain. Ex: wavelengths exist in the environment, green exists in our phenomenal landscape.

(2) How does the phenomenal color of green come to be correlated with a particular pattern of wavelengths in the historical environmental niche? You explain this quite well in HTC; the particular pattern of wavelengths has a qualitative relevancy to the organism, and thus the organism (and its brain) adapt. Since the wavelengths are important to the organism, it evolves/adapts the capacity to represent these wavelengths (the representation happens to be phenomenal green but it certainly could have been "breen").

Couldn't I have been born coincidentally with the qualia in my brain of breen or glue or a million other non-existent colours from a colour spectrum that does not exist.

It's possible that by some mechanism of evolution this could and has happened. However, if the capacity is not helpful — or worse, harmful — it won't be passed through the species.

Ah, but you would say, 'But the experiences don't arise until you see a breen or glue piece of paper'. Ok, so what if I saw a breen or glue piece of paper...what is it about the seeing that would evince the experience of breen and goue? What is it about the sighting of these colour breen and glue, that should align them to their respective correlated qualitative feel?

As @smcder and I have discussed, qualia (representations) could be arbitrary, so long as they are consistent.

However, since all humans share the same/similar brains which have evolved in similar niches over the eons, we can cautiously say that we all — for the most part — have the same qualia for the same environmental stimuli.

Thus, we all see phenomenal yellow when we see a banana. Why? Because experiencing that wavelength was/is qualitatively relevant for humans and we — humans — arbitrarily (but consistently) represent it as phenomenal yellow. Let me be clear that it not a choice we make; it's based on the structure of the visual cortex and the "concept" it adds to the conceptual structure.

Thus, if there were a new wavelength that was qualitatively relevant to us, we might develop a representation of it and it might be "breen."

But otherwise, people wouldn't likely see "breen" unless there was a mutation in their genes or some other abnormality.

 

[Soupie]

Further, I do think the capacity to create a phenomenal landscape evolved grounded in palpable reality. Thus, we experience green when we receive wavelenghts of a certain type. But as Tonini says, our brains are not computers "computing" phen green from these wavelenghts.

However, dreams and drugs have taught us that we can have a very real — even more vivid — phenomenal landscape in the complete absence of environmental stimuli.

So palpable reality isn't always involved in phenomenal experience.

 

[Pharoah]

Further, I do think the capacity to create a phenomenal landscape evolved grounded in palpable reality. Thus, we experience green when we receive wavelenghts of a certain type. But as Tonini says, our brains are not computers "computing" phen green from these wavelenghts.

However, dreams and drugs have taught us that we can have a very real — even more vivid — phenomenal landscape in the complete absence of environmental stimuli.

So palpable reality isn't always involved in phenomenal experience.

Hmmm.... Good answers.

you say, the phenomenon of green exists in our brain but only the wavelength exists outside the brain. Why is the quality of green come to be associated with the wavelength green. Surely the quality exists despite the environment. When the environment comes along, why does the phenomenal green happen to correlate with the quality the wavelength happens to have by virtue of its adaptive relevancy?

Furthermore, Given that I could have breen and glue, the likelihood is that I must have an infinite number of colour experiences of colours that do not exist, and in fact, an infinite number of all types of experiences, that don't actually exist in the environment of my reality - I must have a proportion, however small, of an infinite number of possible non-existence experiences, which amounts to an infinite number of actual non-existence experiences [otherwise, one has to ask why the information in the brain as of IIT is limited to reality] Even though these infinite experiences are not stimulated by environment (because they don't actually exist in the environment), would not my brain overload me with experience sensations that don't have cause to exist? They would impact on the causal-effect repetoire without external relation. Additionally, surely I could stick a probe in my brain and stimulate the experience of ultraviolet light, even though I can't see it because my retina can't respond to its real existence. Wouldn't a probe in my brain potentially give rise to any experience be it exist in reality or be it non-existent?
Why is their an exact correlation between nerve clusters producing qualitative experience and environment?
Furthermore, if you electrocute me every time I see green, would that change my qualitative impression of green? Would seeing green cause me an experience of pain or an expeirence of red maybe? I think seeing green would certainly cause fear in me yes, but the phenomenal quality of green would not change. If IIT is correct, is it not that case that we could manipulate the qualitative feel of things through experiential negative/ positive manipulation like electrocution or morphine inducements? - because we would be changing the cause-effect repertoire (or whatever his terminology is... I can't get my head round it).

 

[Constance]

I have been trying to make sense of Tononi's terms. Go to the end of the thread for my favourite. They are taken from the glossary of IIT 3.0 but exclude their further qualifications for simplicity:

MICS (maximally irreducible conceptual structure): The conceptual structure generated by a complex in a state...
Complex: A set of elements within a system...
Conceptual structure: A conceptual structure is the set of all concepts...
Concept: A set of elements within a system...

My interpretation:
MICS is the conceptual structure - which is the set of all concepts; which is a set of elements within a system - is generated by a complex; which is a set of elements within a system in a state
Importantly, what the heck is an element? He does not say.

alternatively,

a maximally irreducible conceptual structure (MICS) is the conceptual structure generated by a complex in a state, where a Complex is a set of elements within a system
A conceptual structure is the set of all concepts where a Concept is a set of elements within a system
A set of elements within a system is, as a concept, an identity (a noun)
A set of elements within a system is, as a complex, an activity (a verb)

Elsewhere "a concept expresses a causal effect", "Every concept is a point...", "the set of concepts in the quale is the content of consciousness", "a concept is how..."

given that "a complex is a set of elements in a system", the following is particularly noteworthy:
"Note that all the concepts are generated by elements of the complex"

Difficult to critique this stuff, wouldn't you say? It is like trying to identify specifically why a piece of plinky plonk avant garde music is tosh. I'll carry on with the analysis, but it might be worth holding out for IIT 4.0

Pharoah, I had the same problems you have with trying to make sense of Tononi's abstractions. As you ask, and as I asked earlier in Part 2, what does he mean by 'information'? And how does whatever he means by <information> constitute a 'world' that can be (a) described and interpreted on the basis of many commonly held perspectives by the majority of humans and (b) yet remain open to a wide variety of other differing perspectives available to and taken by individuals and groups of thinkers? We can take as an example of the latter the collective of interdisciplinary consciousness researchers who have articulated their differing perspectives on consciousness for going on thirty years now with no resolution of differences in sight.

 

[Soupie]

you say, the phenomenon of green exists in our brain but only the wavelength exists outside the brain.

Why is the quality of green come to be associated with the wavelength green.

Deep question.

In my opinion, wavelengths X existed before humans and before (human) phen green.

Thus, human brains evolved in adaptive response to wavelengths X.

Phenomenal green is the phenomenal representation the human (any neurotypical human) brain will have of wavelengths X.

Surely the quality exists despite the environment.

Yes, the brain a la dreams and drugs can generate phen green in the absense of wavelengths X. However, the capacity first evolved as an adaptive response to wavelength X.

When the environment comes along, why does the phenomenal green happen to correlate with the quality the wavelength happens to have by virtue of its adaptive relevancy?

The environment "came along" before humans and phen green. So, sans the environment — and wavelength X — humans would not have developed a capacity for phen green. (A la fish in caves have no eyes.)

Furthermore, Given that I could have breen and glue, the likelihood is that I must have an infinite number of colour experiences of colours that do not exist, and in fact, an infinite number of all types of experiences, that don't actually exist in the environment of my reality - I must have a proportion, however small, of an infinite number of possible non-existence experiences, which amounts to an infinite number of actual non-existence experiences [otherwise, one has to ask why the information in the brain as of IIT is limited to reality] Even though these infinite experiences are not stimulated by environment (because they don't actually exist in the environment), would not my brain overload me with experience sensations that don't have cause to exist? They would impact on the causal-effect repetoire without external relation.

I dont follow.

As I say, its possible some people experience qualia that the rest of us dont. Good for them. However, if those qualia arent adaptive — randomly seeing unusual colors or hearing unusual sounds, smells, etc — it wont be adaptive and may even be harmful.

Now, I would assume "life" does have the ability to produce novel qualia. Thus, if an organism were to move into a new niche with novel — but qualitatively relevent — physical stimuli, then life will adapt by evolving phenomenal representations of said stimuli.

Additionally, surely I could stick a probe in my brain and stimulate the experience of ultraviolet light, even though I can't see it because my retina can't respond to its real existence.

Cant this be tested empirically? Have people ever reported novel colors, smells, emotions, textures, tastes, etc. aften having their brains poked? How about drugs states, dreams, or NDEs?

Why is their an exact correlation between nerve clusters producing qualitative experience and environment?

Because they evolved together in a qualitative relationship over billions of years.

If IIT is correct, is it not that case that we could manipulate the qualitative feel of things through experiential negative/ positive manipulation like electrocution or morphine inducements? - because we would be changing the cause-effect repertoire (or whatever his terminology is... I can't get my head round it).

I dont think so, unless we grant that this manipulation changes the neural complex themselves, which they might in some cases.

Re the cause-effect repertoire: as far as I can tell, this refers to the fact the neurons causally effect one another. In other words, there are real, causal, physical actions behind the phenomenal landscape.

 

[Pharoah]

IIT: I can also imagine that were I to move my eyes from green to red rapidly, I would get experiential bleed. I would also anticipate that red might change its qualitative feel during my lifetime, or even from one day to the next as the perturbations of my brain become modulated by cell growth, cell death and other factors. I would expect clinical conditions of drastic experiential switching and the such like.

Actually, if a red and yellow wheel of colour is spun fast, one sees orange. I wonder hiw that works with IIt Aren't many exoeriences like tastes for example, complexes of individual flavours

 

[Soupie]

what does he mean by 'information'?

As best I can gather, it refers to the causal state of neural complexes and the systems they form.

And how does whatever he means by <information> constitute a 'world' that can be (a) described and interpreted on the basis of many commonly held perspectives by the majority of humans and (b) yet remain open to a wide variety of other differing perspectives available to and taken by individuals and groups of thinkers?

Because we all have human brains that come from the same human genetic code, we will all experience a fairly similar phenomenal lanscape. This is the collective unconscious to an extent.

I'm not sure why IIT would interfere with (b). Saying that consciousness is ontologically information has no bearing on the disparate concepts that individual people may hold to.

Said differently: all humans will experience a pretty similar phenomenal landscape, but will build much different conceptual landscapes out of it.

 

[Soupie]

IIT: I can also imagine that were I to move my eyes from green to red rapidly, I would get experiential bleed. I would also anticipate that red might change its qualitative feel during my lifetime, or even from one day to the next as the perturbations of my brain become modulated by cell growth, cell death and other factors. I would expect clinical conditions of drastic experiential switching and the such like.

Actually, if a red and yellow wheel of colour is spun fast, one sees orange. I wonder hiw that works with IIt Aren't many exoeriences like tastes for example, complexes of individual flavours

These are all emperical questions which have probably been asked and studied. Id be interested to know what you find.

 

[Constance]

Soupie said: ↑
"Further, I do think the capacity to create a phenomenal landscape evolved grounded in palpable reality. Thus, we experience green when we receive wavelenghts of a certain type. But as Tonini says, our brains are not computers "computing" phen green from these wavelenghts.

That would be a sensible statement from Tononi. Where does he take it in his information theory?

However, dreams and drugs have taught us that we can have a very real — even more vivid — phenomenal landscape in the complete absence of environmental stimuli."

I don't think that statement makes sense. Both states may alter the world of our ordinary waking experiences, but they are built on the structures of the actual world as we have encountered and experienced it in waking life. Otherwise they would literally make 'no sense' to us; they would be so alien to us that we could extract no meaning whatever from them..

Pharoah said:
"So palpable reality isn't always involved in phenomenal experience.Hmmm.... Good answers.

you say, the phenomenon of green exists in our brain but only the wavelength exists outside the brain. Why is the quality of green come to be associated with the wavelength green. Surely the quality exists despite the environment. When the environment comes along, why does the phenomenal green happen to correlate with the quality the wavelength happens to have by virtue of its adaptive relevancy?"

If we and the world we exist in were entirely composed of wavelengths and frequencies interpreted by the brain, why would we (and all other living organisms) have evolved senses that open us and orient us to our physical environment and sensorimotor contingencies that enable us to interact with our environment?

The physical and neurological analysis of vision (seeing) cannot underwrite a comprehensive hypothesis concerning consciousness. Even less so can the specific research on color vision. Those analyses were comparatively easy to undertake and thus a lot of researchers engaged in them. They cannot do the work required to underwrite a comprehensive theory of consciousness. We should move beyond them. I suggest, again, the paper surveying Varela's compounding insights in neuroscience, systems theory, and consciousness to provide a more comprehensive scientific basis for our discussions..

 

[Pharoah]

Soupie: You have a positive interpretation of IIT. I think that is good. Whilst I like IIT as an abstract concept about the interactive components of systems, I as yet, can't see how it relates to quality or environment or consciousness. In my view, a key to information, is how it relates to environment, how it comes to be through environmental discourse. It is not enough to sqy, it is a difference that makes a difference, because that does not put the quality into experience nor the quality into the percpetion of environments. The petty issues I have could run to tens of pages. I will still write up a critique for my website, but as with all panpsychist theories, it is impossible to demonstrate they are false; merely that they don't provide the answers to what we what answered.

 

[Constance]

As best I can gather, it {'information'} refers to the causal state of neural complexes and the systems they form.

But those 'neural complexes' and 'the systems they form' have evolved over millions of years, bootstrapped on the basis of what organisms need to develop in order to interact with their environments and to survive in them.

Because we all have human brains that come from the same human genetic code, we will all experience a fairly similar phenomenal lanscape. This is the collective unconscious to an extent.

It's increasingly recognized in science that the 'genetic code' cannot be understood to explain consciousness. And what the subconscious mind absorbs comes from experience in the world which requires protoconsciousness and consciousness, both prereflective and reflective in the case of humans (and perhaps in elephants, whales, and some other species).

I'm not sure why IIT would interfere with (b). Saying that consciousness is ontologically information has no bearing on the disparate concepts that individual people may hold to.

This is where the rubber meets the road. If what you conceive to be 'ontological information' systematically constitutes the physical world and the consciousnesses of organisms in it, why would there be such a thing as differences in the way we experience and interpret the world? How and why would individuals and their differing perspectives on and interpretations of 'reality' be distinguishable from one another? Also, what do you mean by "ontological information"?

Said differently: all humans will experience a pretty similar phenomenal landscape, but will build much different conceptual landscapes out of it.

That's my point and the viewpoint of phenomenological-existentialist philosophy and neurophenomenology, and it doesn't follow from much/most of what you claim for Tononi's information theory. The key difference in his Version 3 points to his incipient recognition of the previous limitations of his thinking about consciousness. More than likely he has increased the scope of his own reading in consciousness studies as a result of critiques of his theory received from other consciousness researchers. Btw, I read in another forum recently that Tononi has issued further versions of his 'integrated information' theory, most recently .8. I think it's obvious that Tononi's periodic IIT research reports have been theory-laden from the outset, and that he is only now beginning to contemplate other theories and the research behind them.

 

[Pharoah]

Have any G7 philosophers critiqued IIT

 

[Constance]

Deep question.

In my opinion, wavelengths X existed before humans and before (human) phen green.

Thus, human brains evolved in adaptive response to wavelengths X.

Phenomenal green is the phenomenal representation the human (any neurotypical human) brain will have of wavelengths X.

As you see it all, are wavelengths more real than neurons? Are either or both more real than human experience?

 

[Constance]

Have any G7 philosophers critiqued IIT

G7 philosophers?

 

[Pharoah]

G7 philosophers?

The top 7 types. Whoever they are... in your opinion

 

[smcder]

"What predictions and manipulations will we need to determine the exact relationship of brain to mind?"

What do you say to this smcder?

"Thus, the brain/brain processes may generate phenomenal experiences, or the brain/brain processes may manipulate some generic "phenomenal" property that exists external to the brain. Or something else altogether or perhaps some combination of both. Until humans are able to make strong predictions about the brain/mind or manipulate consciousness at will, all options are on the table."

I'm wanting to know what kind of experiment we could perform that would prove either that the brain generates consciousness or that it manipulates something that is external to the brain.

Here is how I look at the evidence that supports the possibility of the existence of consciousness independent of the brain, including survival of independent consciousness: it's been obtained scientifically and validated statistically. The evidence for Parapsychology is at least as rigorous as and possibly more rigorous than that obtained to support current theories in Psychology.

To dissuade me of that you're going to have to get into the nitty gritty of experimental design and statistics with me.

That means either we have problems with experimental methods, statistical methods or very subtle human errors ... or the data has some flaw we've not found ... and these two could then call mainstream results into question as well ... or we have to show massive fraud and collusion over a century among hundreds of experimenters ... or we have to dismiss it out of hand.

Or ... we have to try and deal with the evidence and decide what effect it has on current theories of the mind.

Did you read the article on Irreducible Mind I posted?

 

[Constance]

Here is an assortment of responses to recent posts by Pharoah and Soupie (most but not all directed to me) that I haven't yet taken up.

The top 7 types. Whoever they are... in your opinion

I have looked for and not found papers by POM and consciousness studies thinkers concerning Tononi's theory. I have seen a few references to it in philosophy blogs, but I rarely read blogs.

I don't consider you, Constance, to be particularly analytical - which I think frustrates me - and I think you misunderstand my project in some important ways. My job is to try to improve my communication and become more informed by the discussions...

Analytical capability depends on one's awareness of and knowledge about that which is being analyzed. I'm certainly not a member of the so-called 'analytical' branch of philosophy, the main issues and approaches in which do not interest me much, but I must point out that analytic skill and capability are exercised in spades in phenomenological method, phenomenological philosophy, and the neurophenomenological approach to brain, mind, and consciousness that has developed in recent years.

how does a particular qualia - created in the brain - come to correlate with an environmental colur that actually exists.

You're begging the question. It is not proved that qualia are "created in the brain."

it would help me if you briefly articulated what you understand of the distinction between objective and subjective

Kant is not of much help there is he?

Thus, the objective/subjective bridge is closed. The dynamic physical constellation of concepts embodies an equally dynamic (informational) conceptual structure.

The subjective-objective bridge is never 'closed'. The subjective and objective poles involved in conscious experience in a world that is presented to consciousness through phenomenal appearances are compresent aspects of reality, of what-is.

"the first [Chalmers's hard problem] seems the more formidable of the two."? Really? I am surprised. Is this what Constance thinks too?

Yes, but with a clarification. I see the hard problem as the most formidable problem in philosophy of mind and in consciousness studies, with relevance to every other field of philosophy. I see the second problem you attempt to foreground as a replacement for the hard problem as contingent on first resolving the hard problem and comprehending the nature of consciousness. I also see it as a question impossible to answer since the answer would require a complete understanding of every momentary feeling and thought that has passed through the consciousness and into the subconscious of any given individual through their lived experience to date.

 

[Constance]

[QUOTE="smcder, post: 212623, member: 5134. . . Did you read the article on Irreducible Mind I posted?[/QUOTE]

I've been meaning to come to back to those twelve sequential posts, Steve, first to thank you for the effort you took to identify the main issues and arguments in Irreducible Mind, and also to suggest that we take each segment up for discussion individually, one at a time. We've had such an active board since @Gene Steinberg launched Part 3 that all that was quickly displaced by other equally significant discussions. Withal, we are moving from strength to strength in C&P.

 

[Pharoah]

"Thus, the brain/brain processes may generate phenomenal experiences, or the brain/brain processes may manipulate some generic "phenomenal" property that exists external to the brain. Or something else altogether or perhaps some combination of both. Until humans are able to make strong predictions about the brain/mind or manipulate consciousness at will, all options are on the table."

I'm wanting to know what kind of experiment we could perform that would prove either that the brain generates consciousness or that it manipulates something that is external to the brain.

Here is how I look at the evidence that supports the possibility of the existence of consciousness independent of the brain, including survival of independent consciousness: it's been obtained scientifically and validated statistically. The evidence for Parapsychology is at least as rigorous as and possibly more rigorous than that obtained to support current theories in Psychology.

To dissuade me of that you're going to have to get into the nitty gritty of experimental design and statistics with me.

That means either we have problems with experimental methods, statistical methods or very subtle human errors ... or the data has some flaw we've not found ... and these two could then call mainstream results into question as well ... or we have to show massive fraud and collusion over a century among hundreds of experimenters ... or we have to dismiss it out of hand.

Or ... we have to try and deal with the evidence and decide what effect it has on current theories of the mind.

Did you read the article on Irreducible Mind I posted?

I woke up this morning thinking about yur irreducible mind posts. I haven't given it my attention yet. I was feeling bad about that so I had better look today; toddler willing.
I think that the lack of attention from the G7 to IIT says something in itself... maybe.

Do you think that deep brain stimulation - such as Panksepp's work - identifies brain loci relating to aspects of consciousness. or that dementia and stroke indicate how brain areas generate the content of consciousness? Perhaps you think that is merely part of it and that there are extensions that need to be considered.
btw, when you say that all options are on the table, that is always true, but usually, one idea does provide significant explanatory power to eclipse the likelihood of others holding validity. One might think by way of example, of the vitalists and the nature of life. The power of the science now eclipses the vitalist argument, but never completely.

@Constance , I can also imagine that the vitalists might have considered that the hard problem of life, encapsulated the sense of living, or being alive. But of course, the solution as to why/how life happens, does not tackle our personal sense of being alive. The hard problem of consciousness is exactly the same but much more subtle which is why Philosophers are failing to make important distinctions. I have only come to realise this because I had to resolve in my own mind how it could be that I had reason to believe phenomenal consciousness could be explained by HCT and yet it does not address the deep question I have about my own place in existence

 

[Constance]

Pharoah, you might find this paper (chapter) on Kant and MP helpful:

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