Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4

[smcder]

We have a lot of directions we could go ... the paranormal, I'm also interested in enactivism, externalism ... pluralism ... the OOO stuff is less interesting to me ... but mainly I'd like to see us focus on a single text for a period of time.

Any suggestions from anyone?

 

[Constance]

How do minds and qualia emerge from information, as I suggest? That is, why is there something it is like to be some information but not all information? (For example, why are some brain states sometimes associated with conscious mental contents, but at other times not?)

"Why is there something it is like to be some information?" This is why I, and also Steve, become frustrated by some of your claims, Soupie. There is an enormous, and likely unbreachable, gap between what you refer to (but never define) as 'information' and what it is experientially like to be a human embodied consciousness. You blink this gap as if it doesn't exist. It apparently doesn't exist in the way you personally think about consciousness or biological evolution. But it certainly exists for neuroscientists, philosophers of mind, and consciousness researchers in general, and it is by now the main direction of research crossing the disciplines involved in consciousness research.

 

[Constance]

In another thread someone asked about actually discussion of the paranormal in the C


I don't think either Steve or I are 'challenged' by cognitive neuroscience or information theory; we simply don't find them adequate to account for what consciousness is.

That's well put - my own default position is the hard core materialism/reductionism I was brought up in so I'm very comfortable with neuroscience/information theory (I have a fair background in math and the physical sciences as well as computer science). So it's not challenging as in a new idea or as in an idea I'm not comfortable with or somehow want to deny or flies in the face of my beliefs.

But that comfort with physicalism/reductionism also what lead me to question the assumed underpinnings of math and science and to look for a more nuanced dialogue.

I'd really like to look at emergence in particular as a claimed basis for consciousness ... the view from 20,000 feet is epitomized in the "and then a miracle occurs" cartoon-meme. The conscious entities blogpost really made sense to me as a critique of panpsychism. And so my quesiton is

what has to be fundamentally present on the mental side to avoid emergence?

Raw/undifferentiated feeling doesn't seem like enough - after all, there are six kinds of quarks and other fundamental particles for the physical to work with - not raw/undifferentiated prima materia from which everything comes, as well as fields and forces and the "rules of the game" that go into how these things combine - but on the mental side we are only going to allow the bare minimum in?

But only permitting raw/undifferentiated feeling and experience (kind of a paradox in itself) that, right now, doesn't make sense to me as being all we need on the mental side.

"mindedness" not whole minds but "mindedness" qualia/something it is like and maybe even intentionality I think are minimums ... maybe,

so it does make more sense, or at least I'm coming up with a feel for consciousness shaping (or these fundamental qualities constraining) the neurons as much as the neurons "shaping" experience ... we've given primacy to the physical for mainly historical reasons.

And maybe we need to get away from thinking in minimums (and minimal thinking) on the whole.

Great post putting together the different perspectives from which you approach the question of what consciousness is and how it arises. I think you might be very interested in the work of @Eric Wargo, discussed briefly in the thread I linked you to last night and also in the endophysics material I linked in that thread. Wargo is the one who mentioned the recent publication of the Beyond Physicalism book by Kelly and others. He was interviewed in a recent Paracast program as well, perhaps a place to begin..

 

[Constance]

We have a lot of directions we could go ... the paranormal, I'm also interested in enactivism, externalism ... pluralism ... the OOO stuff is less interesting to me ... but mainly I'd like to see us focus on a single text for a period of time.

Any suggestions from anyone?

I think you should strike out in the direction you prefer at this point. Enactivism, originating in phenomenology and neurophenomenology, seems to me to be at the core of the new directions in consciousness studies, affective neuroscience, neurophenomenology, endophysics, psychical research, and some theories concerning the paranormal. Perhaps we should start by characterizing the enactive theory of consciousness developed by Varela and Thompson.

 

[Constance]

Here's a paper that might clarify enactivism for us:

Enactive neuroscience, the direct perception hypothesis, and the socially extended mind | Tom Froese - Academia.edu

 

[Constance]

The above paper is indeed very informative concerning the significance of enactivism for understanding consciousness. This paragraph, in particular, interests me:

"This convergence also provides an opportunity for neuroscience to help resolve a puzzle that has emerged for enactive theory. In short, if sense-making is the default mode of being in the world, such that an organism's point of view is saturated with affordances that are meaningful in terms of its potential actions, then how do we explain the emergence of the detached observer's stance and dispassionate reflection, that is, precisely the hallmarks of higher-level cognition (Cappuccio & Froese, 2014)? The problem is no longer just to understand how perception, cognition, and emotion are integrated, but likewise under what conditions they can become temporarily separated. This task becomes especially pressing when it comes to explaining the unusual requirements of sense-making in the context of symbolic culture."

Froese is, of course, talking about the experiential distinction between prereflective and reflective consciousness, the first sign in phenomenology of the presence of different levels within consciousness, even potentially distinct personae emerging, or appearing, out of our individual introspective reflections on our own consciousnesses. Add to that and our increasing recognition of the subconscious mind our species' numberless reports of telepathic pathways between one's own consciousness and that of another, reports of veridical precognition, demonstrations of remote viewing and mediumship that reveal veridical information, consciousness as experienced in NDEs, the persistence of consciousness between lives reported in reincarnation research and past-life regression, and we are left surveying an immense complexity of the capabilities of consciousness and mind that reveals the inadequacy of reductive cognitive neuroscience and information theory as methods by which to understand consciousness.

 

[Pharoah]

@Pharoah

You recently tweeted out a link to the following, old article. Did you recently revise it?

Here are some thoughts:

Intentionality & Non-Mental Representation | Tye | Philosophy of Consciousness

... Understanding the qualitative relevance of colour

There are two ways of understanding the colour of an object.

From a physical standpoint, an object might reflect light in the frequency 526–606 THz whilst a second object 400-484 THz. That these objects reflect light in these frequencies is objectively the case, whilst the identified frequencies are a correlative concept that humans have determined by associating spectral frequencies (quantified by physics laws) with particular qualitative colour phenomena.

Alternatively, colour can be understood as follows:

Let us say, that on earth, surfaces that reflect frequency 526-606 THz are ubiquitous (for complex reasons that we shall not explore here for the sake of brevity) and that these surfaces are of no material evolutionary benefit to a particular organism species. Conversely, some rare objects that reflect frequency 400-484 THz are highly prized by this particular organism species for their nutritional content. It would be qualitatively pertinent, and responsive to survival pressures, for that species to evolve mechanisms (innate mechanisms) that are hyper-alert to 400-484 THz reflecting colourations as these mechanisms would enable the organisms of that species to locate those nutritional highly prized objects more efficiently.

Conversely, it would be pertinent for innate mechanisms to be indifferent to the ubiquitous 526-606 THz reflecting objects. Additionally, if those desirable 400-484 THz objects had the added characteristic of possessing the contours of a sphere, rather than jagged contours, this would supplement the role of shape in the qualitative identifications of those objects and further benefit those individuals that possessed innate mechanisms capable of making the distinction with automated efficiency. In themselves, these coloured objects have no phenomenal identity, but the organism will tend to evolve innate mechanisms that are phenomenally and qualitatively distinctive and relevant. Their mechanisms might remain innately acquired and therefore, appear both non-representational and “hardwired” much like computational mechanisms, but these appearances would be deceptive as the innate physiologies would be representative of the environment’s qualitative relevance to that organism species.

Thus, it makes sense to interpret each of these frequencies (whose colours we experience as green and red), and each shape (spherical and jagged), as qualitatively differentiated and observer-dependent phenomenologically in this particular species. The organism’s innately acquired mechanisms are an observer-dependent phenomenological representation whose qualitative relevancy is engaged anatomically before any associative learning, introspection, feeling, or emotion capabilities have evolved. ...​

Unfortunately, this scenario does not answer how, when, or why phenomenal color/representation might exist.

You say: It would be qualitatively pertinent, and responsive to survival pressures, for that species to evolve mechanisms (innate mechanisms) that are hyper-alert to 400-484 THz reflecting colourations as these mechanisms would enable the organisms of that species to locate those nutritional highly prized objects more efficiently.

I agree. But such mechanisms could evolve and function effectively in the absence of phenomenal color/representation.

For example, lets suppose the species thus evolved a primitive retina that was "hyper-alert" to 400-484 THz. Lets say the organism possessed flagella that could propel it in any direction. When the retina encountered 400-484 THz, it would send electro-chemical signals to appropriate flagella that would propel it in the direction from whence the 400-484 THz was eminating.

Such a mechanistic processes would check all your boxes. The species will have evolved a mechanism that allowed it to locate and respond to a physical stimuli that was qualitatively relevant to its survival.

However, this can all be accomplished in the absence of phenomenal color/representations.

@Soupie I have recently made changes.
You have highlighted an error in this section. I have actually revamped it for my submission to JCS, which is under review presently and in that version I have been much clearer.
So... I am wrong to imply the presence of phenomenal experience in this situation. And it is good of you to realise that this is a error because it must mean you are understanding things.

To clarify, I am talking about physiological developments which are qualitatively relevant to the environment in terms of the impact on the survival of a replicating species. Such physiologies, being innate, drive responsive autonomic behaviours. Such mechanisms as those instituted by complex physiologies, are nevertheless, the foundations for the emergence and evolutionary development of phenomenal experience (phenomenal properties must be observer-dependent therefore, not out there in the environment). They are the foundations, because they are qualitatively relevant; in so far as they implement a complex array of stances to environmental conditions. Such stances may instantiate complex pheremonal/hormonal/neural/autonomic/modal revulsions to toxicities, attractions to sources of nutrition, alertness to opportunity and/or danger and so on. And these stances will differentiate environmental particulars if those particulars are relevant to species survival. These environmental particulars may include variations in types of, light frequency, vibration, chemical concentration (airborne and water-borne), temperature, pH etc.

So... where does phenomenal experience come into the equation. This requires an answer that is harder to articulate.
A physiology is acquired over generations of adaptations. Consequently, the qualitative relevancies of the innate adaptations are not individual-specific, rather, they are species-specific. Whilst these physiologies are sensitive to temporal and spatial constraints, the individual (where in such situations that an individual possesses only innate capabilities) does not relate (individualistically) to those spatiotemporal constraints at all. For that individual, therefore, there is no spatio-temporal reality: the responsivity to the good and the bad of the environment and to the relevance of time and space is generational - it is a relation of meaning between environment and species only. The individual can be regarded as but an instrument of measure, an automaton of the species, or an environmental-barometer acting on behalf of, or as a representative of, the species.
As soon as a neural network is capable of comparative evaluation of qualitative merits one potential response over another, it is capable individuating its innate qualitative responses to an individuated spatio-temporal 'world-view'. As these capabilities become increasingly sophisticated, an organism develops a world-view that is phenomenally differentiated on a moment by moment basis thereby generating a phenomenal landscape of experience that is qualitatively and spatiotemporally relevant to its particular environmental conditions.

Hope that helps clarify... Let me know if not... Have to go watch a movie with my daughter now.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie

see if I am caught up on liking your posts now!

;-)

 

[smcder]

@Soupie I have recently made changes.
You have highlighted an error in this section. I have actually revamped it for my submission to JCS, which is under review presently and in that version I have been much clearer.
So... I am wrong to imply the presence of phenomenal experience in this situation. And it is good of you to realise that this is a error because it must mean you are understanding things.

To clarify, I am talking about physiological developments which are qualitatively relevant to the environment in terms of the impact on the survival of a replicating species. Such physiologies, being innate, drive responsive autonomic behaviours. Such mechanisms as those instituted by complex physiologies, are nevertheless, the foundations for the emergence and evolutionary development of phenomenal experience (phenomenal properties must be observer-dependent therefore, not out there in the environment). They are the foundations, because they are qualitatively relevant; in so far as they implement a complex array of stances to environmental conditions. Such stances may instantiate complex pheremonal/hormonal/neural/autonomic/modal revulsions to toxicities, attractions to sources of nutrition, alertness to opportunity and/or danger and so on. And these stances will differentiate environmental particulars if those particulars are relevant to species survival. These environmental particulars may include variations in types of, light frequency, vibration, chemical concentration (airborne and water-borne), temperature, pH etc.

So... where does phenomenal experience come into the equation. This requires an answer that is harder to articulate.
A physiology is acquired over generations of adaptations. Consequently, the qualitative relevancies of the innate adaptations are not individual-specific, rather, they are species-specific. Whilst these physiologies are sensitive to temporal and spatial constraints, the individual (where in such situations that an individual possesses only innate capabilities) does not relate (individualistically) to those spatiotemporal constraints at all. For that individual, therefore, there is no spatio-temporal reality: the responsivity to the good and the bad of the environment and to the relevance of time and space is generational - it is a relation of meaning between environment and species only. The individual can be regarded as but an instrument of measure, an automaton of the species, or an environmental-barometer acting on behalf of, or as a representative of, the species.
As soon as a neural network is capable of comparative evaluation of qualitative merits one potential response over another, it is capable individuating its innate qualitative responses to an individuated spatio-temporal 'world-view'. As these capabilities become increasingly sophisticated, an organism develops a world-view that is phenomenally differentiated on a moment by moment basis thereby generating a phenomenal landscape of experience that is qualitatively and spatiotemporally relevant to its particular environmental conditions.

Hope that helps clarify... Let me know if not... Have to go watch a movie with my daughter now.

Have to go watch a movie with my daughter now.

Good for you!

 

[Constance]

Here's an interesting page on Whitehead and Harman:

Shaviro on Harman and Whitehead: Process- vs. Object-Oriented Philosophies | Footnotes 2 Plato

 

[Constance]

Here's a paper that might clarify enactivism for us:

Enactive neuroscience, the direct perception hypothesis, and the socially extended mind | Tom Froese - Academia.edu

@Soupie, I want to recommend this paper to you; it's a remarkably clear presentation of the enactive approach in neuroscience and consciousness studies, indeed, the best I have seen.

Here is a list of his publications. I think you'll be impressed with his credentials in neuroscience and AI as well as brain, mind, and consciousness studies:

Publications | Dr. Tom Froese

 

[Soupie]

As soon as a neural network is capable of comparative evaluation of qualitative merits one potential response over another, it is capable individuating its innate qualitative responses to an individuated spatio-temporal 'world-view'. As these capabilities become increasingly sophisticated, an organism develops a world-view that is phenomenally differentiated on a moment by moment basis thereby generating a phenomenal landscape of experience that is qualitatively and spatiotemporally relevant to its particular environmental conditions.

That sounds like executive functioning. While not necessarily a book devoted to philosophy of mind, it is an interesting book and worth mentioning here:

Executive Functions: What They Are, How They Work, and Why They Evolved

 

[Soupie]

The individual can be regarded as but an instrument of measure, an automaton of the species, or an environmental-barometer acting on behalf of, or as a representative of, the species.

Hm, very interesting perspective on individual-species relationship. How about how each species relates to the entire biosphere?

Also, while your approach makes sense and gives consciousness a function, a la executive functioning, it still doesnt address that pesky hard problem.

 

[Soupie]

@Soupie

see if I am caught up on liking your posts now!

;-)

I wasnt asking for "likes." I was just pointing out that rather than my writing being consistently impenetrable, it appears that only when i am sharing thoughts on consciousness that perhaps run counter to yins' that you find my writing confusing.

Ive suggested before that perhaps its not a matter of confusion about what im saying but instead simple disagreement. As in, i know what youre saying but i disagree with it.

 

[smcder]

I wasnt asking for "likes." I was just pointing out that rather than my writing being consistently impenetrable, it appears that only when i am sharing thoughts on consciousness that perhaps run counter to yins' that you find my writing confusing.

Ive suggested before that perhaps its not a matter of confusion about what im saying but instead simple disagreement. As in, i know what youre saying but i disagree with it.

Sometimes it is confusion.

You've posted before about having some difficulties and confusion in other conversations (conversations with others) - I'll find that again and repost to see exactly what you said there.

 

[smcder]

I wasnt asking for "likes." I was just pointing out that rather than my writing being consistently impenetrable, it appears that only when i am sharing thoughts on consciousness that perhaps run counter to yins' that you find my writing confusing.

Ive suggested before that perhaps its not a matter of confusion about what im saying but instead simple disagreement. As in, i know what youre saying but i disagree with it.

Here's the post (I did a search on "confusion" against your name and this was the first result returned)

smcder:
Why do you think your intuitions typically leave others bewildered and confused?

Why do you think your associations "leave conversations participants" (sic) befuddled?

You say you will try to do better ... try to do better in what way exactly? Does this indicate that you have some idea as to how you might "do better"?


Soupie:
I'm not sure why. Probably several reasons. I see my thinking style as holistic; so when I think about a concept, I tend to think about it in relation to, well, everything. Many of the people I interact with are more pragmatic/down to earth, and thus think of concepts in a more compartmentalized fashion.

Thus, when I suggest that concept might apply to domain that is far removed from the typical domain to which the concept is associated, it confuses people.

I will try to do better at explaining how I am conceiving of and connecting two concepts.

 

[Soupie]

"Why is there something it is like to be some information?" This is why I, and also Steve, become frustrated by some of your claims, Soupie. There is an enormous, and likely unbreachable, gap between what you refer to (but never define) as 'information' and what it is experientially like to be a human embodied consciousness. You blink this gap as if it doesn't exist. It apparently doesn't exist in the way you personally think about consciousness or biological evolution. But it certainly exists for neuroscientists, philosophers of mind, and consciousness researchers in general, and it is by now the main direction of research crossing the disciplines involved in consciousness research.

Constance, read pages 83-84 from Mind and Life at link below for an understanding of what i mean by "information" as it relates to mind.

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4 | Page 21 | The Paracast Community Forums

See also Robin Faichney's excellent dissertation re how I define information and how it relates to mind.

http://www.robinfaichney.org/pdf/MScDissertation.pdf

 

[Soupie]

Raw/undifferentiated feeling doesn't seem like enough - after all, there are six kinds of quarks and other fundamental particles for the physical to work with - not raw/undifferentiated prima materia from which everything comes, as well as fields and forces and the "rules of the game" that go into how these things combine - but on the mental side we are only going to allow the bare minimum in?

Smcder, i really like this post of yours. Its the most speculating ive read from you in many posts.

When it comes to fundamental substances and/or properties, im not sure where physics stands. Is the fundamental physical substrate composed of analog energy or digital quanta. I think the jury is still out.

My way of thinking about information and pansychism, is that information (forms/patterns) is fundamental in that it will exist whenever energy/matter exist, which appears to be fundamental (although in which form, analog or digital, we dont know).

As ive speculated in the past, perhaps "unbound telesis" is the primal substrate, from which quanta (matter) and information (the form/patterns of quanta) emerge and self-organise.

Smcder, i hear your argument about the challenges of getting lots of different structures from one bland material.

The way i conceive of this is that it appears nothing is static; everything is a constantly unfolding process re process philosophy. This may go all the way down. What we conceive of as static structures are really processes.

So, the six different quarks may "simply" be energy vibrating at six different frequencies.

So we have undifferentiated energy differentiating into six processes by way of vibrations/movement.

If we think of what-is as self-organizing, then perhaps these six different vibration patterns (which we conceive of as quarks) interact with one another to give rise to more complex patterns and processes of movement.

Thats just how i conceive of it. Im sure there are problems with this, but i essentially see properties and structures arising from movement and interaction.

(I read the quark consciousness post.)

 

[Pharoah]

Hm, very interesting perspective on individual-species relationship. How about how each species relates to the entire biosphere?

Also, while your approach makes sense and gives consciousness a function, a la executive functioning, it still doesnt address that pesky hard problem.

It does solve the orobelm of phenomenal experience

 

[Soupie]

As soon as a neural network is capable of comparative evaluation of qualitative merits one potential response over another, it is capable [of] individuating its innate qualitative responses to an individuated spatio-temporal 'world-view'.

Such "comparative evaluation" need not involve phenomenal experience. Why would such "comparative evaluation" require phenomenal consciousness?

Is the "individuated spatio-temporal world-view" phenomenal? If so, by what mechanism/process is this "individuated spatio-temporal world view" generated? Neural networks? How do the actions of neural networks give rise to phenomenal consciousness?

As these capabilities become increasingly sophisticated, an organism develops a world-view that is phenomenally differentiated on a moment by moment basis thereby generating a phenomenal landscape of experience that is qualitatively and spatiotemporally relevant to its particular environmental conditions.

Again, Pharoah, what you have done is to articulate a function for phenomenal consciousness and how/why this function may have evolved. (However, I don't think your case is closed. You're essentially arguing that consciousness is executive functioning which others have claimed. The idea is not accepted by the mainstream. I happen to have an affinity for the idea that consciousness and EF are strongly related which is best articulated by Russell Barkley.)

So it's great that you've offered a function for consciousness and how this function has evolved, but you have not solved/addressed the hard problem, i.e., how phenomenal experience arises from physical processes.