Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4

[Constance]

Has anyone attempted to 'translate' the terms (and their definitions) attached to the distinctions we lack in Western scientific and philosophical discourse concerning consciousness and mind?

 

[smcder]

Can you break down/explicate what you're saying there about 'preconceptions' and why Eastern philosophies haven't had to deal with the hard problem?

Other philosophies haven't had to deal with it because of preconceptions on that side of things (maybe) ... what I'm not saying is there is no hard problem or that we turn to the East and all our problems are solved.

I'll try to write more in the next day or two hopefully.

 

[smcder]

Has anyone attempted to 'translate' the terms (and their definitions) attached to the distinctions we lack in Western scientific and philosophical discourse concerning consciousness and mind?

That's what I'm hoping to look into ... to see if this is the case ... some of these words, Pali and Sanskrit mostly - used to describe experiences or states in meditation, I've had some exposure to ... I didn't quote the entire text from Spivack above, he goes on for a few more sentences ...

 

[smcder]

@Constance - how does this

I thought you had something else in mind, something more exotic. There is, indeed, no view from 'nowhere' available to us, just as there is no view from 'everywhere' {i.e., no objective view on the whole of what-is} available to us.

... relate to OOBE? Is it fair to say there is an expanded view in these (and other) states? In other words are you just ruling out ultimate states of mind, but not "extraordinary" ones?

 

[Randall]

"If consciousness is some sort of thing separate from the body that can wander around disembodied at will ..." I'm not finding that posted anywhere ... whose view is that?

Why do you ask? Of what relevance do you think it would be to the question posed?

 

[Constance]

@Constance - how does this

I thought you had something else in mind, something more exotic. There is, indeed, no view from 'nowhere' available to us, just as there is no view from 'everywhere' {i.e., no objective view on the whole of what-is} available to us.

... relate to OOBE? Is it fair to say there is an expanded view in these (and other) states? In other words are you just ruling out ultimate states of mind, but not "extraordinary" ones?

I can only speak from my own OBE and what I have read about other spontaneous OBEs. These experiences are not sought but simply occur. (This is distinct from what is called 'astral traveling' and techniques taught at research centers such as the Monroe Institute to help people achieve 'astral travel'.) In spontaneous OBEs, such as the one I experienced when I was an undergraduate, the individual's normal point of view changes, relocates out of the body, but the actual visible location/environment remains the same. In my case, as I sat reading in the photo lab's studio, the normal origin of my line of sight was abruptly relocated to an upper corner of the room, a point just beneath the ceiling, at a distance of 30-35 feet from where my body still sat at the desk facing the opposite wall, still holding the book. So I saw the room from an abnormal point of view and observed my body at a distance, from behind. I was conscious of the details of what I was seeing. Then my consciousness and visual viewpoint moved about a third of the way along the ceiling to a point where I observed myself more directly from behind. I was not articulating any thoughts I can remember except for noting that my blue tweed coat was still beneath me and overhanging the back of the chair my body was still sitting on. I did feel, though, that there was an absolute emptiness, an inertness, a vacuum in the body I'd formerly taken as my own.

Then, as I've described before, I became aware of another consciousness just to the left of mine who was commenting to herself on the situation I was in, not directly addressing me. She referred to me as "she." I had the impression that she'd rushed to the scene to check out what was happening to me, seemed to feel that it was 'no big deal', and then disappeared, at which point I suddenly found my consciousness and point of vision back in my body.

I don't consider that I achieved any "ultimate state" (such as you refer to above), whether of insight or grace or whatever. I didn't have any understanding of what had just happened to me, but knew that it was abnormal, so I packed up my books and went to the University Counselling office and was sent to a nearby neurologist who could not detect any neurological reason for the experience. He wrote me an Rx for Valium. That was the end of it.

I did not at that point in my education know anything at all about psychical research or 'paranormal' or mystical experiences. If I weren't so busy and quickly recaptured by my normal life and schedule I might have had the sense to pursue an understanding of what I had experienced.

I don't doubt at all that there are mystics who achieve out of body states in deep meditation and that they seem to the experiencer to bring him or her into an elevated state of being, perhaps one of cosmic connection or insight. I think such experiences have different characteristics and likely different causes than spontaneous OBEs occurring during normal waking life.

OBEs often occur in near-death situations and in various extreme situations in which death is not imminent but expected. They are reported in the SPR mediumship archives and as far back in our history as ancient Greece. (I think Plato reports on an OBE/NDE described by a friend of his.) Numerous NDEs begin with an OBE in a hospital room or emergency room or at the scene of an accident. The veridical information obtained by the OBE-er in many of these cases, including cases of very young children, make it impossible to deny that something significant and inexplicable is going on in these experiences.

 

[Randall]

... The veridical information obtained by the OBE-er in many of these cases, including cases of very young children, make it impossible to deny that something significant and inexplicable is going on in these experiences.

Those aspects of claims that are verifiable or speak to what people might believe is true and what they honestly think happened to them can be considered veridical, but that's where the veridicality ends and the subjective, questionable, and inconclusive begins.

 

[Constance]

Veridical:

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

• adj. True.
• adj. Pertaining to an experience, perception, or interpretation that accurately represents reality; as opposed to imaginative, unsubstantiated, illusory, or delusory.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

• adj. Truth-telling; truthful; veracious.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

• Truth-telling; veracious; truthful.
• True; being what it purports to be.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• adj. coinciding with reality

veridical - definition and meaning

 

[smcder]

@Constance

I'm still trying to understand this statement:

There is, indeed, no view from 'nowhere' available to us, just as there is no view from 'everywhere' {i.e., no objective view on the whole of what-is} available to us.

What I'm trying to do is see if there is a way to think about subjectivity as "fundamental" and reconcile this with our individual experience of subjectivity.

There's no trouble talking about fundamental physical aspects of the universe, we can see from the physical laws we have how more complex physical forms can arise ... but if we start with subjectivity as a fundamental aspect of the universe, we don't have any such laws that tell us how we end up with a sense of subjectivity, the "what it is like" to be a human being.

Panpsychism says this process is very much like the physical process, starting with simple building blocks and ending with complex "what it is like to be" constructions ... but every approach to this I've seen has serious problems.

So I am asking - what if - subjectivity, "what it is like", is fundamental and not particulate - then there would be a kind of view from everywhere and nowhere ... and one source for all of our experiences, mundane and exotic.

 

[Soupie]

@smcder

The "view from nowhere" is essentially omniscience, no? If a limited "subjective" POV expands to all of what-is, it becomes "objective". Since it becomes all of what-is, it's no longer a "point" of view. It becomes the view from nowhere/everywhere.

Do you recall some time ago I was looking for a description of such a view? I described it as the perspective of a 3D room looking at its occupants. The concept of the view from nowhere seems to be what I was looking for.

(I've been reading a lot about how the ability to obtain a view from nowhere—attain a measure of objectivity—is crucial for social interaction. Thompson discusses it at length in MIL. It's the ability for an individual to mentally "step back" from an interaction and mentally view themself and the other party from "nowhere.")

This is also the idea of the "windows" that I shared a few posts ago. If we say "subjectivity" is fundamental, then we are saying POVs are fundamental. But how can that be possible without it being "attached" to individual bodies existing in spacetime? It would seem that the "attachment" to individual bodies (points in spacetime) is from whence the subjective POV comes.

Thus, I described consciousness as an undifferentiated "view from nowhere" which peers through the "windows" of individual, human POVs, giving it subjectivity.

I think the popular metaphor is an omniscient God becoming incarnate in a mortal human.

 

[smcder]

@smcder

The "view from nowhere" is essentially omniscience, no? If a limited "subjective" POV expands to all of what-is, it becomes "objective". Since it becomes all of what-is, it's no longer a "point" of view. It becomes the view from nowhere/everywhere.

Do you recall some time ago I was looking for a description of such a view? I described it as the perspective of a 3D room looking at its occupants. The concept of the view from nowhere seems to be what I was looking for.

(I've been reading a lot about how the ability to obtain a view from nowhere—attain a measure of objectivity—is crucial for social interaction. Thompson discusses it at length in MIL. It's the ability for an individual to mentally "step back" from an interaction and mentally view themself and the other party from "nowhere.")

This is also the idea of the "windows" that I shared a few posts ago. If we say "subjectivity" is fundamental, then we are saying POVs are fundamental. But how can that be possible without it being "attached" to individual bodies existing in spacetime? It would seem that the "attachment" to individual bodies (points in spacetime) is from whence the subjective POV comes.

Thus, I described consciousness as an undifferentiated "view from nowhere" which peers through the "windows" of individual, human POVs, giving it subjectivity.

I think the popular metaphor is an omniscient God becoming incarnate in a mortal human.

Nagel means it as the ability to step back and take an objective view.

I used the phrase "view from nowhere" rhetorically to contrast the "subjectivity" that we experience as physically embodied beings, as you describe above.

 

[smcder]

Has anyone attempted to 'translate' the terms (and their definitions) attached to the distinctions we lack in Western scientific and philosophical discourse concerning consciousness and mind?

I think there are many such projects - you sent a couple of links recently - one on cross cultural cognitive science, I expect to find something there - Alan Wallace has done a lot of work on this, there have been annual meetings with the Dalai Lama on neuroscience and Buddhism.

 

[smcder]

Not necessarily (though I suspect you do), but I'm suggesting that you seemed to suggest that @ufology was suggesting that you suggested people could experience OOBEs at will. And maybe you havent suggested that, but youre certainly more entertaining of the idea than others in this thread have been.


By "approach," I just mean a view of consciousness in which the self/observer, phenomenal consciousness, and the brain have three distinct origins.


So are you suggesting that the apparently identified correlation between certain brain waves and reports of conscious experience is mistaken?

I just often get the sense—rightly or wrongly—that youre not pulling with the group. I've said you have some tricksterish qualities. You like to challenge the viewpoints of others. Which is great. However, sometimes, in the course of this discussion, we've hit a particular topic that seems to engage all of us, and then you blow it up.

You'll want examples, im sure, but I'm not gonna dig through the thread. Its just my perception after several months of participation. Im not mad or angry. Im not suggesting you do differently. Just sharing.

soupie
Not necessarily (though I suspect you do), suspect I do, what? but I'm suggesting that you seemed to suggest that @ufology was suggesting that you suggested people could experience OOBEs at will. And maybe you havent suggested that, but youre certainly more entertaining of the idea than others in this thread have been. I've been more entertaining of a lot of ideas than others in this thread have been. Instead of paring down, I try to keep a lot of things in mind and then come back to them as I've found in the past there are sometimes surprising connections to be made. And because it makes me happy

soupie
By "approach," I just mean a view of consciousness in which the self/observer, phenomenal consciousness, and the brain have three distinct origins.

what do you mean by three distinct origins?

So are you suggesting that the apparently identified correlation between certain brain waves and reports of conscious experience is mistaken?
do I think there is a correlation between say "alpha waves" and certain states of mind? I frequently use binaural beats at night to help shift my brain toward certain states to help me fall asleep ... so I would say "yes" here - if that's the sort of thing you are talking about?
On a somewhat related note, have you read "Killing the Observer?" yet? If so, have a look at this exchange and help me understand it:

... an exchange between the author (Thomas W Clark) and a poster on the conscious entities blog:
Interesting Stuff

Trond says:
I don’t understand Tom Clark’s argument. On one hand he says that the brain and consciousness are completely detached and no effect on each other. On the other hand he acknowledges that the content of consciousness depends on the brain. Isn’t that the very epiphenomenalism he denies?
Tom Clark says:
Trond, thanks for the feedback. What I’m suggesting is that the sense in which one’s consciousness depends on being a representational system, like a brain, isn’t a causal relation. Epiphenomenalists usually think that there’s a one way causal relation from brain to mind, that the physical somehow produces or generates the mental, but that the mental has no effect on the physical. What I’m suggesting is a psycho-physical parallelism between phenomenal consciousness and the brain, with no causal interaction and in which the physical doesn’t have ontological priority (as it does for epiphenomenalists). But of course I reserve the right to be wrong about all this!

Trond says:
So in a nutshell you are suggesting that phenomenal consciousness *exists* independently from the brain, but in our case the brain affects consciousness?

Tom Clark says:
I wouldn’t say that consciousness exists independently of the brain. We only find phenomenal states associated with brain states, so there’s clearly a relation. But it doesn’t seem to be a causal relation, since if it were we’d see consciousness as something in addition to brain states that those states produce or generate, and we don’t.
If you want to say that consciousness just *is* those states, perhaps at some functional or representational level, then again there’s no causal relation, but rather an identity. But that would mean when we look at the operations of the brain, we would be literally seeing consciousness, and that seems wrong. Consciousness isn’t observable from the outside (or inside for that matter); it exists for the instantiating system alone, not as an object of observation but as the (phenomenal) medium of representation which includes the conscious phenomenal subject as an element.

soupie
I just often get the sense—rightly or wrongly—that youre not pulling with the group.

I would look at why you often get that sense. Constance has responded to this with a sense of frustration too, but she has a very different interpretation. She has also directly asked me about it in the past in PM.

1. I don't sense that there is a group to pull with here - there are four strong, independent people here with different views, I could say of all of them that they "like to challenge the viewpoints of others" and I can provide numerous examples.

I've said you have some tricksterish qualities. You like to challenge the viewpoints of others. Which is great. However, sometimes, in the course of this discussion, we've hit a particular topic that seems to engage all of us, and then you blow it up.
You'll want examples, im sure, but I'm not gonna dig through the thread. Its just my perception after several months of participation. Im not mad or angry. Im not suggesting you do differently. Just sharing.

I do want examples of the last, yes and in addition you'll need to show where others have not done this ... I think of when I spent hours summarizing Irreducible Mind, something @Constance and I both expressed an interest in and explained the relevance of - I can point to many examples where I've summarized the various viewpoints and then asked the group where we might like to go ... etc etc

So, if and when it is of sufficient important to you to dig through the thread, I'll take a look at your examples and you can have a look at mine. We can do that through email unless the group wants to be involved.

 

[Constance]

I wrote: "Can you break down/explicate what you're saying there about 'preconceptions' and why Eastern philosophies haven't had to deal with the hard problem?"

Other philosophies haven't had to deal with it because of preconceptions on that side of things (maybe) ... what I'm not saying is there is no hard problem or that we turn to the East and all our problems are solved.

It seems to me that any embodied consciousness would be subject to qualia -- subjectively qualitative experience -- given the mind/body complex within which we have our experiences and gradually move from prereflective to reflective consciousness in our development. The qualities of human life anywhere would naturally include the full gamut of emotional responses and increasingly 'mental' responses to the complexity of what goes on around us and impinges upon us from outside ourselves, from the pleasureable aesthetic responses we have to beauty and sensed/sensual vitality in nature itself to the misery we witness and personally experience in many human social situations marked by poverty, exploitation, and other forms of degradation. It's true that some human beings seem to be or become able to ignore the claims and demands of the reality in which they live, and this seems to me to amount to a shutting down (or lowering the volume of) the openness of consciousness to the world that is generally given to us.

It's possible and perhaps likely that Eastern attempts to achieve other, higher, levels of consciousness -- in which the troubles of humanity at least temporarily fade away [even become 'unreal'] -- might have been motivated by the need to suppress awareness of the panorama of human suffering as qualitatively experienced in ordinary waking consciousness.

I'll try to write more in the next day or two hopefully.

Good. I'm very interested in learning more about what Eastern explorers of consciousness and mind have discovered about harmless means of self-adjustment away from continual confrontation with human misery and outrage.

.

 

[Constance]

Nagel means it as the ability to step back and take an objective view.

We can and do attempt to understand the objective nature of things (by multiplying our own perceptions on a thing and adding these to the multiple perspectives of others on that thing) but as Kant assured us we never achieve knowledge of 'the thing in itself', i.e., know it objectively. We also seek a comprehensive knowledge of the nature of the whole of 'reality', and approaching that goal requires exploration of innumerable perspectives taken up in many disciplines. This is the work of philosophy and science and numerous other fields of inquiry including psychology, sociology, politics, etc. But no matter how much one can persuade oneself that he or she has a broad grasp of 'reality', each individual remains subject to, has access to, experiences that cannot be accounted for as objectively describable. I ran across a paper by Varela that concerns this issue and will link it below.[/quote]

I used the phrase "view from nowhere" rhetorically to contrast the "subjectivity" that we experience as physically embodied beings, as you describe above.

I can't conceive of a view from 'nowhere'. This concept is a great puzzle to me and I should probably read Nagel's book. (So many books, so little time.)

 

[Randall]

soupie
Not necessarily (though I suspect you do), suspect I do, what? but I'm suggesting that you seemed to suggest that @ufology was suggesting that you suggested people could experience OOBEs at will ...

To help clarify for @Soupie's benefit, I've probably mentioned that astral travel, which, perhaps, depending on which interpretation of it one chooses, assumes that ones consciousness can become disembodied and float around in a manner that is for all intent and purpose the same as what happens with an OOBE, but in the case of astral travel, it's been claimed to be a skill that is learned and can be induced on command during the proper meditations. IMO an astral travel experience is one form of OOBE, and no OOBE, to my knowledge have ever been substantiated as having a direct real-time correlation to what is objectively happening in the real world beyond the mind of the experiencer.

 

[Constance]

While I trace back to the Varela paper, here's a related paper by Zahavi:

Phenomenology and the project of naturalization DAN ZAHAVI

The pdf is here: http://cfs.ku.dk/staff/zahavi-publications/Phenomenology-naturalization.pdf_copy

 

[smcder]

@Constance said

Good. I'm very interested in learning more about what Eastern explorers of consciousness and mind have discovered about harmless means of self-adjustment away from continual confrontation with human misery and outrage.

I don't know about harmless ... I'll give the disclaimer that meditation should be explored with an experienced and reliable teacher. I'll leave it to the gentle reader to figure out how to find such a person. ;-) And I'll also note that this isn't what I did. I'll also mention that I don't think meditation, eastern philosophy is the be-all, end-all, but is instead the result of another way of trying to cope with the world ... western psychotherapy, wetsern philosophy, psychiatry, etc - all the modalities, approaches have their place. So let me head off any talk that "I" am a Buddhist. "I" am a human being who reads about, talks to others about and tries to practice some of the teachings of the eastern traditions.

That said, Pema Chodron (Deirdre Blomfield-Brown of NYC) writes of "the wisdom of no escape". Her work is widely available and accessible.

The Wisdom of No Escape: Pema Chödrön on Gentleness, the Art of Letting Go, and How to Befriend Your Inner Life

Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives. It’s about seeing how we react to all these things. It’s seeing our emotions and thoughts just as they are right now, in this very moment, in this very room, on this very seat. It’s about not trying to make them go away, not trying to become better than we are, but just seeing clearly with precision and gentleness.

The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself. The other problem is that our hangups, unfortunately or fortunately, contain our wealth. Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.

Gentle being with ourselves, as we are ... here, now - is the essence of this kind of meditation.

We base our lives on seeking happiness and avoiding suffering, but the best thing we can do for ourselves—and for the planet—is to turn this whole way of thinking upside down.

Zen is interested in a direct confrontation with reality - it was the choice of the Samurai.

In my own experience, I have to continually remind myself to turn into the things that disturb me most. When I have my weekly blood draw I watch the needle put into the flesh while staying relaxed. It rarely hurts. Turning toward pain and suffering is counter-intuitive. I spoke with a sheriff's deputy the other day and he told me about having to start an IV on himself during his training in the millitary. He showed me what that was like with his right arm "chasing" his left arm ... it was very funny but made the point.

When I turn into my pain, when I directly confront it (when I can) and make it an object of attention - things start to change. I engage an objective part of myself. I hurt the most when I try to distract myself or tense up with the thought of "this is terrible!". I hurt the least when I confront the pain directly.

In Tong-Len practice, one sends and receives - what this means is that you imagine drawing in all the dark, gritty aspects of the world around you and within you, all the negativity and hostility and then your breathe out a pure light and wishes for true happiness. If you cannot do this, with a difficult person for example, or you can't bring yourself to take on the suffering of someone because it is too painful, then you do the practice for everyone who is in your situation - who can't bring themselves to take on this suffering. And you are gentle with yourself as you take yourself where you are.

Opening to the full experience of consciousness is another thing one can do in meditation/contemplation.

 

[Constance]

Good. I'm very interested in learning more about what Eastern explorers of consciousness and mind have discovered about harmless means of self-adjustment away from continual confrontation with human misery and outrage.

Pema Chodron (Deirdre Blomfield-Brown of NYC) writes of "the wisdom of no escape". Her work is widely available and accessible.

The Wisdom of No Escape: Pema Chödrön on Gentleness, the Art of Letting Go, and How to Befriend Your Inner Life

Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives. It’s about seeing how we react to all these things. It’s seeing our emotions and thoughts just as they are right now, in this very moment, in this very room, on this very seat. It’s about not trying to make them go away, not trying to become better than we are, but just seeing clearly with precision and gentleness.

The problem is that the desire to change is fundamentally a form of aggression toward yourself. The other problem is that our hangups, unfortunately or fortunately, contain our wealth. Our neurosis and our wisdom are made out of the same material. If you throw out your neurosis, you also throw out your wisdom.

Gentle being with ourselves, as we are ... here, now - is the essence of that meditation.

We base our lives on seeking happiness and avoiding suffering, but the best thing we can do for ourselves—and for the planet—is to turn this whole way of thinking upside down.

Zen is interested in a direct confrontation with reality - it was the choice of the Samurai.

In my own experience, I have to continually remind myself to turn into the things that disturb me most. When I have my weekly blood draw I watch the needle put into the flesh while staying relaxed. It rarely hurts. Turning toward pain and suffering is counter-intuitive. I spoke with a sheriff's deputy the other day and he told me about having to start an IV on himself during his training in the millitary. He showed me what that was like with his right arm "chasing" his left arm ... it was very funny but made the point.

When I turn into my pain, when I directly confront it (when I can) and make it an object of attention - things start to change. I engage an objective part of myself. I hurt the most when I try to distract myself or tense up with the thought of "this is terrible!". I hurt the least when I confront the pain directly.

In Tong-Len practice, one sends and receives - what this means is that you imagine drawing in all the dark, gritty aspects of the world around you, all the negativity and hostility and then your breath out a pure light and wishes for true happiness. If you cannot do this with a difficult person, for examle, or you can't bring yourself to take on the suffering of someone because it is too painful, then you do the practice for everyone who is in your situation - who can't bring themselves to take on this suffering.

Opening to the full experience of consciousness is another thing one can do in meditation/contemplation.

Thanks. I've been somewhat aware of this viewpoint on what can be achieved {or at least hoped/intended to be achieved} -- the surcease of sorrow in the world -- in and through meditation. It doesn't negate the reality of the hard problem, though. It demonstrates the effort required to come to terms with, find peace with, our condition in the world.

 

[Constance]

Here is the Varela paper I mentioned:

Biological Research - From autopoiesis to neurophenomenology: Francisco Varela's exploration of the biophysics of being