Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 3

[Soupie]

Soupie: 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."

Constance: 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..

The question is whether our phenomenal experiences are always triggered by external, objective stimuli.

When we experience green, are we experiencing some palpable quality of the external environment? That is, the quality of "green" is not endogenous, it is exogenous. If we make that claim, then how do we explain intense, vivid experiences of "green" during sleep states or drug states? If we are sitting in a dark room with our eyes closed -- and we are having intense phenomenological experiences -- can we say that our experience of green comes to us from some external stimuli? No, we can't.

So the question is, how are we experiencing (vivid) green in the absence of external stimuli?

(1) The quality of green is produced in the brain.
(2) When in dream/drug states, we really are experiencing a (different) external reality.
(3) ?

Pharoah: [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. 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?"

Constance: 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?

Wavelengths, frequencies, and other physical energies are the "physical environment" we orient to.

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.

A la Chalmers, consciousness appears to be non-physical. How do we account for that?

I think the concept that consciousness is non-physical information embodied in physical organisms accounts for this very well.

Consciousness = non-physical
Information = non-physical

Consciousness = subjective
Information = subjective

Consciousness = embodied by physical systems (organisms)
Information = embodied by physical systems

Etc.

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.

Yes, that is the narrative. Can you explain why information cannot/is not the medium by which organisms make meaning of their environment?

Additionally, your long post above re: your journey with phenomenology was nice. Thanks for that. However, it did not address my question: What insight(s) have you gained from introspection that allows you to state unequivocally that consciousness is not synonymous with information?

It's increasingly recognized in science that the 'genetic code' cannot be understood to explain consciousness.

Genetic code + environment = Unfolding of the organism = Unfolding of the mind

I didn't mean it in a deterministic sense. Only in the above sense.

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?

I'm not saying the physical world is constituted of information, only the phenomenal, subjective world. The physical is real and is constituted of energy. The phenomenal world is equally real and is constituted of information (about the relationships of energy in the physical world).

How and why would individuals and their differing perspectives on and interpretations of 'reality' be distinguishable from one another?

Because individuals all have different experiences and narratives regarding their experiences. Consciousness being constituted of information would not exclude this in any way shape or form.

Also, what do you mean by "ontological information"?

The phrase was ontologically information, meaning consciousness is ultimately constituted of information.

 

[Pharoah]

The question is whether our phenomenal experiences are always triggered by external, objective stimuli.

When we experience green, are we experiencing some palpable quality of the external environment? That is, the quality of "green" is not endogenous, it is exogenous. If we make that claim, then how do we explain intense, vivid experiences of "green" during sleep states or drug states? If we are sitting in a dark room with our eyes closed -- and we are having intense phenomenological experiences -- can we say that our experience of green comes to us from some external stimuli? No, we can't.

So the question is, how are we experiencing (vivid) green in the absence of external stimuli?

(1) The quality of green is produced in the brain.
(2) When in dream/drug states, we really are experiencing a (different) external reality.
(3) ?


Wavelengths, frequencies, and other physical energies are the "physical environment" we orient to.


A la Chalmers, consciousness appears to be non-physical. How do we account for that?

I think the concept that consciousness is non-physical information embodied in physical organisms accounts for this very well.

Consciousness = non-physical
Information = non-physical

Consciousness = subjective
Information = subjective

Consciousness = embodied by physical systems (organisms)
Information = embodied by physical systems

Etc.

Yes, that is the narrative. Can you explain why information cannot/is not the medium by which organisms make meaning of their environment?

Additionally, your long post above re: your journey with phenomenology was nice. Thanks for that. However, it did not address my question: What insight(s) have you gained from introspection that allows you to state unequivocally that consciousness is not synonymous with information?


Genetic code + environment = Unfolding of the organism = Unfolding of the mind

I didn't mean it in a deterministic sense. Only in the above sense.


I'm not saying the physical world is constituted of information, only the phenomenal, subjective world. The physical is real and is constituted of energy. The phenomenal world is equally real and is constituted of information (about the relationships of energy in the physical world).


Because individuals all have different experiences and narratives regarding their experiences. Consciousness being constituted of information would not exclude this in any way shape or form.


The phrase was ontologically information, meaning consciousness is ultimately constituted of information.

When you say the following below, I understand why you like IIT:

"I think the concept that consciousness is non-physical information embodied in physical organisms accounts for this very well.
Consciousness = non-physical
Information = non-physical
Consciousness = subjective
Information = subjective
Consciousness = embodied by physical systems (organisms)
Information = embodied by physical systems"

IIT does not link to the real world of experience to explain qualitative experience. Quality is constituted purely by mechanisms of complexity, be they a photodiode or a brain. ( I have critiqued this in my analysis of Dennett on my website btw.)
This presents no problem for you because you think information is non-physical: in other words, you don't require the connection to exist.
I am not going to argue the case because I think you will find that philosophy has been quite successful at explaining why this stance is flawed. If you don't see why this is problematic then IIT is a coherent proposition.
You are assuming that a link between non-physical and physical worlds is viable without recourse to explain the connection or how one realm might influence the other.

 

[Soupie]

IIT does not link to the real world of experience to explain qualitative experience. Quality is constituted purely by mechanisms of complexity, be they a photodiode or a brain.

(1) ITT does not directly link real world experience to qualitative experience. But to say they are not linked at all is incorrect. As I explained (the narrative/idea) above, the human organism and its mind (phenomenal landscape) evolved together within the real world over billions of years.

So in that sense, our capacity to experience phenomenal green evolved in direct response to real world experiences of wavelength X.

However, IIT suggests that humans have the capacity to experience phenomenal green in the absence of wavelength X (a la dreams and drugs).

If HCT posits that quality/subjectivity is always "linked to the real world of experience" how does it account for dream/drug/NDE experiences in which humans have qualitative experiences which appear not to be linked to the "real" world? Or situations in which very real qualitative/phenomenal experiences are elicited by a surgeon poking regions of an individual's brain?

(2) IIT does not claim that subjectivity arises from "complexity" alone. There are very complex and neuron laden regions of the brain that appear to have no correlation to subjectivity. IIT posits that subjectivity arises from very specific physical architecture.

This presents no problem for you because you think information is non-physical

I subscribe to the description of information articulated by Bob Doyle:

A common definition of information is the act of informing - the communication of knowledge from a sender to a receiver that informs (literally shapes) the receiver. As a synonym for knowledge, information traditionally implies that the sender and receiver are human beings, but many animals clearly communicate. Information theory studies the communication of information.
Information philosophy extends that study to the information content in material objects, including how it is changed by interactions with the rest of the universe.

We call a material object with information content an information structure.

The sender of information need not be a person, an animal, or even a living thing. It might be a purely material object, a rainbow, for example, sending color information to your eye.

The receiver, too, might be merely physical, a molecule of water in that rainbow that receives too few photons and cools to join the formation of a crystal snowflake, increasing its information content. ...

But information is neither matter nor energy, though it needs matter to be embodied and energy to be communicated. Information can be created and destroyed. The material universe creates it. The biological world creates it and utilizes it. Above all, human minds create, process, and preserve information, the sum of human knowledge that distinguishes humanity from all other biological species and that provides the extraordinary power humans have over our planet.

Information is the modern spirit, the ghost in the machine, the mind in the body. It is the soul, and when we die, it is our information that perishes. The matter remains. We will claim that information is a potential objective value, the ultimatesine qua non.

Information philosophy claims that man is not a machine and the brain is not a computer. Living things process information in ways far more complex, if not faster, than the most powerful information processing machines.​

in other words, you don't require the connection to exist.

Physical processes exist in reality and organisms subjectively represent them. The physical processes, organisms, and subjective representations all evolved together in intimate relationship over billions of years.

However, I do not believe a phenomenal experience (say, green) must always be directly connected to an external physical stimuli to exist. [However, if IIT is correct, then phenomenal experience will always be directly connected to causally integrated neurons. I believe NDEs may challenge this, thus more research is needed.]

You are assuming that a link between non-physical and physical worlds is viable without recourse to explain the connection or how one realm might influence the other.

And you are perhaps assuming that a link between the two must always be present. I have explained the connection. We haven't discussed influence but I believe they do influence one another.

 

[Constance]

Pharoah wrote: "You are assuming that a link between non-physical and physical worlds is viable without recourse to explain the connection or how one realm might influence the other."

Soupie responded: "And you are perhaps assuming that a link between the two must always be present. I have explained the connection."

Soupie, you haven't responded to Pharoah's point, which is essential and critical in both philosophy of mind and phenomenology. In neither discipline is it necessary that "a link between the [physical environment/world and consciousness/mind] must always be present." Consciousness and mind are non-physical and cannot be reduced to a sequence of stimulus-response mechanisms operating moment by moment in the environment. Both consciousness and mind are cumulative, retaining and integrating their accumulations of past experiences and reflections (ideas) into continuing informed presence in the world, consciousness remaining open to new experience in the present and the immediately succeeding anticipated future. Consciousness and mind continually refine an individual's sense of the world that has been built out of temporal existence and experience in the world. That accomplished sense of the world as lived by an individual can be temporarily obliterated by anesthesia, coma, and amnesia, or temporarily distorted in dreams and hallucinations, particularly under the influence of brain-altering drugs. But that sense of the world returns whole in most circumstances. It returns whole almost immediately when we awaken from sleep. So moment-by-moment perceptual connection with objects in the physical environment is not necessary to maintain what is accumulated, remembered, or even only half-remembered in consciousness and mind.

Consciousness and mind work with and develop through in-formation received directly, personally, from the physical environment as it impinges on the self's existence -- in its lived reality -- rather than 'generating' their sense of reality from <information> received and operating exclusively in the brain. The latter, more abstract, concept of 'information' you attempt to apply to lived reality -- the reality we experience -- is no doubt involved at deep levels in the physical evolution of the universe and the biological evolution of species. But much as that kind of 'information' generates the physical world in which we have at length evolved, 'we' don't live there. That kind and level of 'information' cannot explain us -- what we feel, what we experience, what we think -- to ourselves.

As Pharoah suggested, well-argued critiques of the type of theory you presently hold are available in POM -- and in phenomenology. The only way to understand and appreciate those critiques is to immerse yourself in reading in those disciplines.

 

[Pharoah]

(1) ITT does not directly link real world experience to qualitative experience. But to say they are not linked at all is incorrect. As I explained (the narrative/idea) above, the human organism and its mind (phenomenal landscape) evolved together within the real world over billions of years.

So in that sense, our capacity to experience phenomenal green evolved in direct response to real world experiences of wavelength X.

However, IIT suggests that humans have the capacity to experience phenomenal green in the absence of wavelength X (a la dreams and drugs).

If HCT posits that quality/subjectivity is always "linked to the real world of experience" how does it account for dream/drug/NDE experiences in which humans have qualitative experiences which appear not to be linked to the "real" world? Or situations in which very real qualitative/phenomenal experiences are elicited by a surgeon poking regions of an individual's brain?

(2) IIT does not claim that subjectivity arises from "complexity" alone. There are very complex and neuron laden regions of the brain that appear to have no correlation to subjectivity. IIT posits that subjectivity arises from very specific physical architecture.


I subscribe to the description of information articulated by Bob Doyle:

A common definition of information is the act of informing - the communication of knowledge from a sender to a receiver that informs (literally shapes) the receiver. As a synonym for knowledge, information traditionally implies that the sender and receiver are human beings, but many animals clearly communicate. Information theory studies the communication of information.
Information philosophy extends that study to the information content in material objects, including how it is changed by interactions with the rest of the universe.

We call a material object with information content an information structure.

The sender of information need not be a person, an animal, or even a living thing. It might be a purely material object, a rainbow, for example, sending color information to your eye.

The receiver, too, might be merely physical, a molecule of water in that rainbow that receives too few photons and cools to join the formation of a crystal snowflake, increasing its information content. ...

But information is neither matter nor energy, though it needs matter to be embodied and energy to be communicated. Information can be created and destroyed. The material universe creates it. The biological world creates it and utilizes it. Above all, human minds create, process, and preserve information, the sum of human knowledge that distinguishes humanity from all other biological species and that provides the extraordinary power humans have over our planet.

Information is the modern spirit, the ghost in the machine, the mind in the body. It is the soul, and when we die, it is our information that perishes. The matter remains. We will claim that information is a potential objective value, the ultimatesine qua non.

Information philosophy claims that man is not a machine and the brain is not a computer. Living things process information in ways far more complex, if not faster, than the most powerful information processing machines.​

Physical processes exist in reality and organisms subjectively represent them. The physical processes, organisms, and subjective representations all evolved together in intimate relationship over billions of years.

However, I do not believe a phenomenal experience (say, green) must always be directly connected to an external physical stimuli to exist. [However, if IIT is correct, then phenomenal experience will always be directly connected to causally integrated neurons. I believe NDEs may challenge this, thus more research is needed.]


And you are perhaps assuming that a link between the two must always be present. I have explained the connection. We haven't discussed influence but I believe they do influence one another.

1. "So in that sense, our capacity to experience phenomenal green evolved in direct response to real world experiences of wavelength X."

But with IIT, the link is not between the wavelength and the quality (of the experience). With IIT the quality happens in a qualia space by virtue solely of integrated information - where what it is for something to be 'integrated' is not specified (what is a nerve that it can be said to integrated with another?), nor is it explained what information is (what is a nerve that it is information - making a difference?). A coherent theory must make a connection between the wavelength (out there in reality) and the mechanism itself (the mechanism that generates the qualitative experience - in theory; for one does not have to determine what the exact nature of the neural correlations are).

2. "If HCT posits that quality/subjectivity is always "linked to the real world of experience" how does it account for dream/drug/NDE experiences in which humans have qualitative experiences which appear not to be linked to the "real" world? Or situations in which very real qualitative/phenomenal experiences are elicited by a surgeon poking regions of an individual's brain?"

You clearly do not understand the nature of the link that is required here. HCT does make the link by explaining how the environment influences the evolution of life forms to the extent that they develop physiological and neurological mechanisms that are responsive to those environmental specifics as they relate to the organism, its survival, and at its multitude of needs. That my personal physiology has thereby evolved a complex repulsion response to pain in my knee does not mean that I can't stimulate those same mechanisms, (or thoughts about those experiences) in my head through drugs, imaginings or dreams. Introspective thinking is largely possible through the revisitation of experience. I certainly cannot imagine what breen or glue might look like - because they do not exist.

3. "IIT posits that subjectivity arises from very specific physical architecture." Yes it does. Thanks for pointing out the flaw because it also says,
"Simple as it is, the photodiode system satisfies the postulates of IIT: both of its elements specify selective causes and effects within the system (each element about the other one), their cause-effect repertoires are maximally irreducible, and the conceptual structure specified by the two elements is also maximally irreducible. Consequently, the system DP~11 forms a complex that gives rise to a MICS, albeit one having just two concepts and a WMax value of 1 (Figure 19C). DP is therefore conscious, albeit minimally so." p. 19 Left
In fact the requisite architecture seems to negate only "feed-forward" mechanisms.
Which begs even more questions.

4. I am not happy with the Bob Doyle interpretation for information. I just think it is wrong.
He says,
"The sender of information need not be a person, an animal, or even a living thing. It might be a purely material object, a rainbow, for example, sending color information to your eye."
What the rainbow sends is not information. What the eye detects is not information. If, for argument we say that it is information, why is it? There is no such thing as information that is intrinsic by virtue of it being transmitted or received (except in information technology in the Shannonian sense, which is a valued definition from which I think we have both moved when relating to consciousness).

"The receiver, too, might be merely physical, a molecule of water in that rainbow that receives too few photons and cools to join the formation of a crystal snowflake, increasing its information content."
Likewise, a crystal snowflake does not increase its information content: it just doesn't; anymore than were I to throw a smoked mackerel at a snowflake.

But, at least you are prepared to state what information means to you which is more than can be said for Tononi. How on earth can you write about information integration to explain consciousness without articulating what information is nor what it is for it to become integrated, nor what consciousness is (apart from saying it is constituted by quale) - each of these three terms are missing from the glossary? In our heads, we can assume to know what these terms mean, what this integration might entail for example, but it is not stipulated why an eye, receiving light, and experiencing a quality about the colour, constitutes information, nor how this integrates with a network of neurones and a 3D qualia space to create the quale it says emerges as a irreducible entity into the world of physics.

 

[Constance]

your long post above re: your journey with phenomenology was nice. Thanks for that. However, it did not address my question: What insight(s) have you gained from introspection that allows you to state unequivocally that consciousness is not synonymous with information?

Good question. I did refer to that experience in another place in this thread -- the sudden vivid recognition of the stream of reflective consciousness operating alongside my ongoing prereflective consciousness of my surroundings as I walked down a hill on my way to my next class. It felt initially as if I had encountered another mind operating inside my skull, even that I was perhaps experiencing a mental breakdown. But I soon became accustomed to this more complex state of affairs and from that time forward attended far more closely to the intermingling levels of my phenomenological awareness and mental activity. When I later read phenomenological philosophy I was already familiar with much of what is to be learned from it concerning the open-ended complexity of consciousness and mind and the consequent existentiality of our way of being in the world -- in the physical world that provokes and sustains our experience and the non-physical world of ideas and concepts we produce as a result of our experience. .

 

[Pharoah]

Pharoah wrote: "You are assuming that a link between non-physical and physical worlds is viable without recourse to explain the connection or how one realm might influence the other."

Soupie responded: "And you are perhaps assuming that a link between the two must always be present. I have explained the connection."

Soupie, you haven't responded to Pharoah's point, which is essential and critical in both philosophy of mind and phenomenology. In neither discipline is it necessary that "a link between the [physical environment/world and consciousness/mind] must always be present." Consciousness and mind are non-physical and cannot be reduced to a sequence of stimulus-response mechanisms operating moment by moment in the environment. Both consciousness and mind are cumulative, retaining and integrating their accumulations of past experiences and reflections (ideas) into continuing informed presence in the world, consciousness remaining open to new experience in the present and the immediately succeeding anticipated future. Consciousness and mind continually refine an individual's sense of the world that has been built out of temporal existence and experience in the world. That accomplished sense of the world as lived by an individual can be temporarily obliterated by anesthesia, coma, and amnesia, or temporarily distorted in dreams and hallucinations, particularly under the influence of brain-altering drugs. But that sense of the world returns whole in most circumstances. It returns whole almost immediately when we awaken from sleep. So moment-by-moment perceptual connection with objects in the physical environment is not necessary to maintain what is accumulated, remembered, or even only half-remembered in consciousness and mind.

Consciousness and mind work with and develop through in-formation received directly, personally, from the physical environment as it impinges on the self's existence -- in its lived reality -- rather than 'generating' their sense of reality from <information> received and operating exclusively in the brain. The latter, more abstract, concept of 'information' you attempt to apply to lived reality -- the reality we experience -- is no doubt involved at deep levels in the physical evolution of the universe and the biological evolution of species. But much as that kind of 'information' generates the physical world in which we have at length evolved, 'we' don't live there. That kind and level of 'information' cannot explain us -- what we feel, what we experience, what we think -- to ourselves.

As Pharoah suggested, well-argued critiques of the theory you presently hold are available in POM -- and in phenomenology. The only way to understand and appreciate those critiques is to immerse yourself in reading in those disciplines.

Yea whatever... as you will. But then, I don't understand why you bother contemplating the nature of consciousness at all. Pretty much any theory - so long as it is irreductive - is a theory that you might entertain as valid. "All the cards are left on the table" - they always will be - for there is no impulse to differentiate one from the other. Alternatively, I am only interested in explanation. I have tried the Varela and Thompson. I have absolutely no patience for it. I can't stand reading it for it tells me nothing. I have issue with virtually every sentence.

smcder: I read all of the threads that you posted in succession a few days ago. I consider all the examples as being explainable in classical terms. I didn't think the authors got off to a good start my miss-stating what physicalism is and stating that it denies free will and the self. Am still hoping you will write that SEP entry on Paranormalism though.

 

[Pharoah]

Soupie:
What does IIT say that experience is?

 

[Constance]

A coherent theory must make a connection between the wavelength (out there in reality) and the mechanism itself (the mechanism that generates the qualitative experience - in theory; for one does not have to determine what the exact nature of the neural correlations are).

Physical, physiological, and neurological 'mechanisms' do indeed operate in us, as well as in butterflies and slugs, barracuda and deer, and enable increasing levels of experience involved in the evolution of living organisms. But self-referential experience itself, beginning with affectivity in primordial organisms as Panksepp stresses, grounds the felt and subsequently [in us] thought connections with our environments that develop into capacities for expanding awareness, consciousness, and thought. Our physical organisms enable but do not define what we are, which exceeds merely mechanistic description.

Yea whatever... as you will. But then, I don't understand why you bother contemplating the nature of consciousness at all. Pretty much any theory - so long as it is irreductive - is a theory that you might entertain as valid. "All the cards are left on the table" - they always will be - for there is no impulse to differentiate one from the other. Alternatively, I am only interested in explanation. I have tried the Varela and Thompson. I have absolutely no patience for it. I can't stand reading it for it tells me nothing. I have issue with virtually every sentence.

"I don't understand why you bother contemplating the nature of consciousness at all."

Then you must not yet grasp what consciousness is and how it enables mind, which requires that you understand phenomenology.

"I am only interested in explanation."

And like most humans, you look for and entertain only those 'explanations' that accord with your already fixed conceptualization of 'what-is'.

As I said to Soupie a little while ago, you need to be willing to immerse yourself for awhile in research and theories (scientific and philosophical) that are not yet part of the furniture of your mind if you are going to comprehend their significance. I'm slightly distressed that you approach reading the summary of Varela et al's research and thinking by challenging each sentence as you read it. You can't grasp the coherence of their analyses and insights unless you stand back far enough from your own presuppositions to pursue their evidence and their reasoning. Understanding any complex theory and the research on which it is built requires patience and diligent effort. But as I've said before, it's your choice whether or not to do the work.

 

[Pharoah]

Soupie:
INTEGRATION: Consciousness is integrated: each experience is (strongly) irreducible to non-interdependent components.
What do you make of this? I am trying to work out if it is self-evidently true.
similarly:
"Consciousness is exclusive: each experience excludes all others – at any given time there is only one experience having its full content, rather than a superposition of multiple partial experiences"

 

[Pharoah]

Restrain your thought from this route of enquiry, and do not let accustomed habit drag you down that route to scatter your unseeing eye, your echoing ear and tongue; but judge by reason the battle-hardened proof proclaimed by me...
The trouble is Constance, I see reason, as did Parmenides, whilst elsewhere I see accustomed habit. I will try and read Varela and Thompson again.

 

[Constance]

Good choice. You'll find plenty of reasoning in Varela and Thompson. You might also dip into MP's Phenomenology of Perception, downloadable at this link:

https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/download/attachments/73535007/Phenomenology+of+Perception.pdf

 

[Pharoah]

Good choice. You'll find plenty of reasoning in Varela and Thompson. You might also dip into MP's Phenomenology of Perception, downloadable at this link:

https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/download/attachments/73535007/Phenomenology of Perception.pdf

Don't push your luck

 

[Constance]

"Consciousness is exclusive: each experience excludes all others – at any given time there is only one experience having its full content, rather than a superposition of multiple partial experiences"

Tononi is off on that formulation. But he probably hasn't done the reading that would inform him otherwise.

 

[Soupie]

[W]ith IIT, the link is not between the wavelength and the quality (of the experience). With IIT the quality happens in a qualia space by virtue solely of integrated information...

Correct. Which is why we can have the qualitative experience of green in the absence of receiving wavelengths.

At this point, you're going to have to explain how you think wavelength X is linked to the (neural) mechanism and its corresponding phenomenal representation X, i.e, green.

(what is a nerve that it can be said to integrated with another?)

(what is a nerve that it is information - making a difference?).

My understanding is that the architecture of the nerves is such that the state of one nerve can causally impact the state of many nerves, and vice versa.

Consider a long chain of neurons where information (a pattern of firings) is passed from one end to the other, one neuron at a time. Each neuron is only causally influenced by the nerve directly preceeding it. A feed forward setup.

Now consider a web of neurons where information (a pattern of firings) is passed throughout the web, multiple neurons firing and interacting - exciting or dampening the others. Each neuron is causally influenced by multiple others and vice versa. An integrated setup.

The firing patterns of the neurons is "information" (maybe not according to your definition, just substitute "data" if you need to), and the difference they make is to excite or inhibit the firing of the other neurons with which it is integrated. The result: integrated information.

HCT does make the link by explaining how the environment influences the evolution of life forms to the extent that they develop physiological and neurological mechanisms that are responsive to those environmental specifics as they relate to the organism, its survival, and at its multitude of needs.

Okay. This description however does not exclude IIT.

Thus, I can only assume that you mean "neurological mechanisms" that are each unique in some way.

Thus, humans will have a special neurological mechanism for green, a special neurological mechanism for sour, a special neurological mechanism for happy, a special neurological mechanism for itchy, etc.

Each of these specially adapted neurological mechanisms will have evolved in response to particular environmentsl stimuli.

(1) Is that what HCT posits, and (2) is there emperical data to support this idea?

I certainly cannot imagine what breen or glue might look like - because they do not exist.

Because you lack a specially evolved neurological mechanism for producing phenomenal breen.

3. "IIT posits that subjectivity arises from very specific physical architecture."

Yes it does. Thanks for pointing out the flaw because it also says, "Simple as it is, the photodiode system satisfies the postulates of IIT: both of its elements specify selective causes and effects within the system (each element about the other one), their cause-effect repertoires are maximally irreducible, and the conceptual structure specified by the two elements is also maximally irreducible. Consequently, the system DP~11 forms a complex that gives rise to a MICS, albeit one having just two concepts and a WMax value of 1 (Figure 19C). DP is therefore conscious, albeit minimally so." p. 19 Left

In fact the requisite architecture seems to negate only "feed-forward" mechanisms. Which begs even more questions.

I don't see a flaw.

IIT negates all mechanistic (neural) architectures except integrated ones, but it specifically mentions feed forward architectures because they are very complex and can produce the same output as integrated systems. But despite their complexity and their equal output, subjectivity is not generated.

However, according to Tonini, integrated architectures are superior in many ways to feed forward architectures. For one, they do more with fewer neurons.

My guess is that Tonini et al reached this conclusion via elimination. They've identified the cortex as the seat of consciousness (and ruled out others), and they've noted that neurons in the cortex are integrated whereas in the other brain regions they are not.

 

[Soupie]

Consciousness is integrated: each experience is (strongly) irreducible to non-interdependent components.

A frame of consciousness is like a water color and unlike a color by number picture. The qualia are interwoven with each other. (This directly corresponds to the causally integrated neurons which give rise to the constellation of concepts.)

"Consciousness is exclusive: each experience excludes all others – at any given time there is only one experience having its full content, rather than a superposition of multiple partial experiences"

This too connects the conceptual structure to the causally integrated neurons.

In other words, the conceptual structure (consciousness) corresponds to the causally driven state of the integrated neurons which give rise to it. So as goes the neurons which causally influence one another, so goes the conceptual structure.

I take this to mean that our phenomenal experiences are grounded in the behavior of neurons operating in accordance with the laws of physics.

It goes without saying that these are my interpretations of these axioms. Im probably wrong.

 

[smcder]

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

My two questions are:

1 how to differentiate causation / correlation ... what would an experiment look like that could prove consciousness is generated by/originates in the brain and not just correlated with it? I can't think of one offhand, not have I heard of one ... it certainly hasn't been done, or serious philosophers like chalmers wouldn't consider consciousness as a fundamental property - this is why I say "all cards are still on the table" because I see frequently where someone thinks if this or that is established, then such and such is proven about consciousness ... but they've mistaken correlation for causation.

2 what do we do with evidence that seems to have been scientifically gathered, peer reviewed and statistically validated which indicates things like the big five in parapsychology and which some argue supports the idea that the mind is non-local?

for 2, it seems we can either:

1. dismiss it outright - I can't do that after reading lots of studies that seem to me to be as well designed, executed and analyzed as experiments in other fields, if not more so due to the scrutiny of skeptics
2. identify the flaws in each experiment or locate systematic flaws in all the experiments or identify systematic flaws in experimental design and statistical analysis in general and accept the consequences for mainstream science
3. accept the evidence and explore the consequences

that seem very fair to me ... and until we do that, I'm not going to invest in any particular model that hasn't done one of the three

 

[smcder]

Yea whatever... as you will. But then, I don't understand why you bother contemplating the nature of consciousness at all. Pretty much any theory - so long as it is irreductive - is a theory that you might entertain as valid. "All the cards are left on the table" - they always will be - for there is no impulse to differentiate one from the other. Alternatively, I am only interested in explanation. I have tried the Varela and Thompson. I have absolutely no patience for it. I can't stand reading it for it tells me nothing. I have issue with virtually every sentence.

smcder: I read all of the threads that you posted in succession a few days ago. I consider all the examples as being explainable in classical terms. I didn't think the authors got off to a good start my miss-stating what physicalism is and stating that it denies free will and the self. Am still hoping you will write that SEP entry on Paranormalism though.

Use an @ sign in front of the user name to let someone know you are addressing them:

@Pharoah

Did you read the 15 page paper itself or just the extracts I posted?

What is meant by "classical terms" and could you provide the explanations for the examples?

Could you (briefly) provide a correct statement of physicalism and it's relationship to free will and self?

I don't think paranormalism is a field of philosophy is it? I know I'm neither qualified nor interested to write such an article ... what makes you think I am? (you say "still hoping" I would write the article) ... I may have said something misleading.

 

[smcder]

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

one idea does provide significant explanatory power to eclipse the likelihood of others holding validity.

Of course ... phil sci 101 ... have you read Kuhn?

 

[smcder]

You may have mentioned this, I've only had time to skim the thread lately ... but did you get your paper published in the Australian (I believe it was?) journal? Have you thought about taking a philosophy of mind course and submitting HCT as a term paper (or a thesis?) - you mentioned peer review being hard to get, so I was trying to think of ways to do that.

I just looked at HCT again a little this morning and read this from your philosophy club talk:

3.7 Billions of years ago a unique systems construct emerged as an accidental consequence of the uncontrolled evolution of atomic compounds. What was so special about this systems construct?

Well… this construct was able to control the evolution of its systems structures.

Have I mentioned Braitenberg vehicles before?

Braitenberg vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Braitenberg vehicle is an agent that can autonomously move around based on its sensor inputs. It has primitive sensors (measuring some stimulus at a point) and wheels (each driven by its own motor) that function as actuators or effectors. A sensor, in the simplest configuration, is directly connected to an effector, so that a sensed signal immediately produces a movement of the wheel. Depending on how sensors and wheels are connected, the vehicle exhibits different behaviors (which can be goal-oriented). This means that, depending on the sensor-motor wiring, it appears to strive to achieve certain situations and to avoid others, changing course when the situation changes.[1]The connections between sensors and actuators for the simplest vehicles (2 and 3) can be ipsilateral or contralateral, and excitatory or inhibitory, producing four combinations with different behaviours named; fear, aggression and love.[2]

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262521121/?tag=rockoids-20

These imaginative thought experiments are the inventions of one of the world's eminent brain researchers. They are "vehicles," a series of hypothetical, self-operating machines that exhibit increasingly intricate if not always successful or civilized "behavior." Each of the vehicles in the series incorporates the essential features of all the earlier models and along the way they come to embody aggression, love, logic, manifestations of foresight, concept formation, creative thinking, personality, and free will. In a section of extensive biological notes, Braitenberg locates many elements of his fantasy in current brain research.Valentino Braitenberg is a director of the Max Planck Institute of Biological Cybernetics and Honorary Professor of Information Science at the University of Tübingen, West Germany. A Bradford Book

TOC

Introduction:
Let the problem of the mind dissolve in your mind
Vehicle 1 getting around
2. fear and aggression
3 love
4 Values and Special tastes
5 logic
6 selection, the impersonal engineer
7 concepts
8 space, things and movements
9 shapes
10 getting ideas
11 rules and regularities
12 trains of thought
13 foresight
14 egotism and optimism