NEW! LOWEST RATES EVER -- SUPPORT THE SHOW AND ENJOY THE VERY BEST PREMIUM PARACAST EXPERIENCE! Welcome to The Paracast+, eight years young! For a low subscription fee, you can download the ad-free version of The Paracast and the exclusive, member-only, After The Paracast bonus podcast, featuring color commentary, exclusive interviews, the continuation of interviews that began on the main episode of The Paracast. We also offer lifetime memberships! Flash! Take advantage of our lowest rates ever! Act now! It's easier than ever to susbcribe! You can sign up right here!
By way if contrast to Evans cf Dummett's book 'The seas of language' Chapter "what is a theory of meaning (I)" first couple of pages.
@Constance re the B&T review... interesting I thought, the reference to theology and Christianity
2. is there such a thing as part of a mind? if not ... at what point does it become a mind? (emergence)
3. if qualia isn't fundamental, then something entirely novel has to emerge ... how do we account for that? is emergence fundamental?
4. if we think of brains as networks that filter or move consciousness around, then we are picturing consciousness as a field or a fluid, would it be possible then to empty a brain of this field or fluid? Sometimes this field or fluid is called "information" there the picture is that somehow the electro-chemical "signals" (which are also a kind of fluid) give rise to (emergence) information/consciousness, it leaks or bubbles up out of electricity and chemistry and then this whole thing is moved around in the brain to produce "what it is like". I think such pictures stand behind our mainstream concept of the briain and are very misleading.
Another way to think about "what it is like" is to think that when I look at the sun, there is something it is like for me and the sun to be in a relationship of looking and being looked at that is not contained inside my skull.
The way I think about this is to try not to use metaphors or images. Think only with the words - this is what people gripe about with mystical writing because it leads to paradox or (non)-sense. That may be OK - Zeno's Paradox is non-sense but leads to the idea of limits which is fundamental to Calculus. There may not be a physics of consciousness, we may not be able to move from object to subject continuously - if so, this argues against a physicalist view of the world.
The bone boundary of the skull is what demaractes these two philosophies, nicht wahr?
If we assume that individual neurons, or perhaps small clusters of integrated neurons, are directly correlated to this protoconsciousness (the way a subatomic particle is correlated with mass), . . .
. . . then it's not hard for me to see how a truly vast system of billions of neurons firing, spiking, communicating, feeding back, and synchronizing together might give rise to a rich array of phenomenal, emotional, and conceptual qualia that comprise the conscious narrative we call the mind.
This is clarifying re Harman's Object-Oriented Ontology:
REVIEW: THE THIRD TABLE
by Terence Blake
Review of Graham Harman's THE THIRD TABLE (Hatje Cantz, 2012)
...
So a liberation from the limiting conceptual schemas of philosophy is possible if, as Feyerabend invites us, we think and act outside stable frameworks (“There are many ways and we are using them all the time though often believing that they are part of a stable framework which encompasses everything”) and fixed paths (“Is argument without a purpose? No, it is not; it accompanies us on our journey without tying it to a fixed road”). This is what one could call a“diachronic ontology”. It is the exact opposite of the path that OOO has chosen, where we find increasingly no mysticism and no arguments.
REVIEW Of GRAHAM HARMAN’S “THE THIRD TABLE” | AGENT SWARM
@Soupie: It's not easy for me to see how qualia or whole minds could be fundamental.
I don’t think so. Why do you ask?
I think of a brain as a physical, objective structure/process. And while the general, global structure/processes of an individual brain are fairly stable, they can and do change over time. While locally, a living brain is constantly changing.
Perhaps an analog would be a city; a living city is full of constant movement and change, but globally it’s structure/processes remain fairly stable; however, cities can and do undergo large, global changes as well.
I have come to think of the mind as the quasi-physical, subjective, (intentional) information embodied by the brain. If the brain can be said to be dynamic, the information it embodies is even more so. However, just as some structures/processes of the brain remain stable over time, so too can some of the information it carries.
I don’t think of the brain as a digital computer that is computing the mind. Nor do I think of the mind as a digital program that is running on the brain.
But I do think of the mind as information that is embodied by physical processes in the body/brain.
Finally, I cannot answer why some of the information embodied by the brain at any given time feels like something, and why some does not.
It seems that typically our (phenomenal, emotional, and conceptual) conscious awareness is spun into a not-so-accurate, ongoing narrative of what it's like to be.
There are exactly zero models to account for how and why this conscious narrative phenomena exists. Amazing.
I don't know that there is "part" of a mind. However, there are many, many accounts of brain insult, injury, or illness which lead to individuals with once "whole" minds, losing which is essentially "part" of their mind.
I understand that you want to resist thinking of consciousness in physical terms. However, if protoconsciousness exists, it's possible that it can be combined, shaped, and/or filtered in such a way that differentiated qualia emerge. Perhaps not unlike a host of various colors emerging from a few primary colors.
If we assume that individual neurons, or perhaps small clusters of integrated neurons, are directly correlated to this protoconsciousness (the way a subatomic particle is correlated with mass), then it's not hard for me to see how a truly vast system of billions of neurons firing, spiking, communicating, feeding back, and synchronizing together might give rise to a rich array of phenomenal, emotional, and conceptual qualia that comprise the conscious narrative we call the mind.
@Soupie: It's not easy for me to see how qualia or whole minds could be fundamental.
I don’t think so. Why do you ask?
I think of a brain as a physical, objective structure/process. And while the general, global structure/processes of an individual brain are fairly stable, they can and do change over time. While locally, a living brain is constantly changing.
Perhaps an analog would be a city; a living city is full of constant movement and change, but globally it’s structure/processes remain fairly stable; however, cities can and do undergo large, global changes as well.
I have come to think of the mind as the quasi-physical, subjective, (intentional) information embodied by the brain. If the brain can be said to be dynamic, the information it embodies is even more so. However, just as some structures/processes of the brain remain stable over time, so too can some of the information it carries.
I don’t think of the brain as a digital computer that is computing the mind. Nor do I think of the mind as a digital program that is running on the brain.
But I do think of the mind as information that is embodied by physical processes in the body/brain.
Finally, I cannot answer why some of the information embodied by the brain at any given time feels like something, and why some does not.
It seems that typically our (phenomenal, emotional, and conceptual) conscious awareness is spun into a not-so-accurate, ongoing narrative of what it's like to be.
There are exactly zero models to account for how and why this conscious narrative phenomena exists. Amazing.
I don't know that there is "part" of a mind. However, there are many, many accounts of brain insult, injury, or illness which lead to individuals with once "whole" minds, losing which is essentially "part" of their mind.
I understand that you want to resist thinking of consciousness in physical terms. However, if protoconsciousness exists, it's possible that it can be combined, shaped, and/or filtered in such a way that differentiated qualia emerge. Perhaps not unlike a host of various colors emerging from a few primary colors.
If we assume that individual neurons, or perhaps small clusters of integrated neurons, are directly correlated to this protoconsciousness (the way a subatomic particle is correlated with mass), then it's not hard for me to see how a truly vast system of billions of neurons firing, spiking, communicating, feeding back, and synchronizing together might give rise to a rich array of phenomenal, emotional, and conceptual qualia that comprise the conscious narrative we call the mind.
The weight of opinion against HCT and Evans on lexical concepts is considerable and historic. But these opposing views do look remarkably silly. For an intersting appraisal of this area see first introductory pages from:Thanks very much for that reference. I was going to ask you for an approach to contrast with Evans's.
Apropos of that, read the review of the pamphlet on OOO by Graham Harman posted just above.
ps: there's something for all of us there.
@Constance: Except, as Panksepp has pointed out, the seeds of protoconsciousness have germinated before neurons have evolved in the evolution of living organisms, revealed in the 'affectivity' and 'seeking behavior' recognizable in primordial organisms and, indeed, even in the earliest single-celled organism observed and described by Maturana and Varela and termed 'autopoiesis'.
Actually, I thought we determined that Panksepp’s “Affective Neuroscience” was indeed based on neurons?
From wiki:
“Affective neuroscience is the study of the neural mechanisms of emotion. This interdisciplinary field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood.[1]”
@smcder: I myself can't see how this happens ... how something of a different order altogether (experience) arises from electro-chemical interactions. And I don't think you can see it either, I think you are simply claim it - based on the idea of emergence, but emergence itself isn't something you can see or have any intuitions about - it's just a statement that more complex things come out of interactions according to simple rules.
If you do actually see this, then what imagery, what metaphor, what comparisons, what intuitions fo you have about it and can you make to something that we do know about?
@Soupie: I’m not claiming that phenomenal experience arises from electro-chemical interactions.
I’m saying that phenomenal experience/feeling is fundamental. I’m not saying -- in this present discussion -- that feeling emerges from two neurons firing together. (Although it might.)
I’m saying that feeling is fundamental to all interactions of matter/energy. Fundamental = It just is.
Then what I’m saying is that the actions of neurons (and perhaps other special physical structures) interacting with one another in such a way facilitate the shaping of this fundamental experience/feeling into what we know as our phenomenal, narrative landscape.
So, no, I can’t see how “phenomenal feeling” emerges from matter, hence phenomenal feeling is fundamental.
Yes, I can see how a process of billions of integrated, synchronizing neurons can take this fundamental, phenomenal feeling and shape it into a process of experience we call mind.
The weight of opinion against HCT and Evans on lexical concepts is considerable and historic. But these opposing views do look remarkably silly. For an intersting appraisal of this area see first introductory pages from:
Radical concept nativism by Stephen Laurence, Eric Margolis.