Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 5

[smcder]

@Constance - a retired professor of a local university came in today to donate books to include Dreyfus & Kelly's "All Things Shining" and Malabou's "What Do We Do With Our Brain?"

It turns out this professor had studied under Professor Dreyfus.

 

[Constance]

Sounds like synchronicity to me.

 

[Constance]

Perhaps someone has alluded to this but my thinking is that Dasein necessarily finds deterministic framework as a prerequisite (basis or pre-condition) for any experience of "freewill"...without a deterministic universe the very threads of Dasein and it's embedding in and as a world existing-ly would be a blatant contradiction.

On the other hand, Rupert Sheldrake is not the only scientist I've read who has come to contemplate natural laws as arising from habits in nature, not only habitual behaviors of living creatures but also of physical systems. At the quantum level, as I understand it (large qualifier), it appears that we observe both freedom and constraints producing interactions and integrations of fields and systems. {???}

 

[Michael Allen]

On the other hand, Rupert Sheldrake is not the only scientist I've read who has come to contemplate natural laws as arising from habits in nature, not only habitual behaviors of living creatures but also of physical systems. At the quantum level, as I understand it (large qualifier), it appears that we observe both freedom and constraints producing interactions and integrations of fields and systems. {???}

I'll have answers on this and other ties with AI research soon ... I've got a lot of ideas on this spinning in my head like a centrifuge--thoughts are too chaotic for me to make any sense of it at this moment, but time will sort it out.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Michael Allen]

Here's a quick thought...temporality in human presence (Hegels "indeterminate immediacy") realizes and makes concrete the relations of the world prior to the immediacy ...what we take as the "reflection" of ourselves in the here and now is merely the culmination of the physical universe...i.e. the roads of reality create and sustain a crossroads (Hegel's "stations of the cross") bearing the condition of possibilities for our immediate experience...in that respect we are as "artificial" as the very "intelligences" we wish to create in our machines...because we are already what we are trying to create.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Constance]

This paper is relevant and interesting:

http://www.lindahall.org/media/papers/fernandez/Peirce_habits.pdf

 

[smcder]

Not exactly. It's incomplete. There are other factors besides religion and personal experience of paranormal phenomena. There is also the issue of how different people define what is and isn't "material". There are theories based on a combination of religion, mythology, and other "movements" be they cultural like the New Age Movement or philosophy that are sometimes blended with scientific ideas. These ideas are held by individuals distributed throughout the general population, and given all the permutations it isn't possible to delineate each and every one of these theories, suffice it to say that I've discussed this topic informally with many people over the years, and it seems everyone who isn't affixed to a specific mainstream doctrine has some ideas of their own. Most people don't dwell on it as much as we see here in this thread, but for those who do, it can be likened to a personal journey of discovery.

So it doesn't boil down to a single recipe for understanding. More simply, none of us have been exposed to nor fully understand "all the available evidence" and therefore we cannot say with certainty what that would cause such a person to believe. All I can say with confidence is that anyone with a reasonably objective perspective on the issues, who applies critical thinking to the same breadth and depth of experiences and information as I have, should, at least in theory arrive at the same conclusions, and contrary to the opinion of at least one participant here, my explorations are not as shallow as have been assumed.

I'm now 57 years old and I've been exploring these topics for the majority of that time, hanging onto what is applicable, discarding that which isn't, and from all that, built what appears to be the most reasonable model I have yet to encounter so far, and again, to be clear, that's not to say I've been looking for evidence to suit my own theories. I change my views and beliefs to suit the evidence and ideas that makes the most sense from a detached logical perspective. Not the other way around. I may very well find in the future that new evidence will cause me to change it again, but that doesn't look too likely at this point in time.

All this taken together means that generally speaking, it's a significant underestimation for anyone to assume that because I don't hold the same views as they do, or agree with everything they do, that I don't understand the issues. It's usually more likely that they are simply so invested in their present viewpoint that they are resistant to change, and that makes it's easier to dismiss the contributions of others who hold different views. This becomes readily apparent when I ask someone to explain how a particular facet of their position nullifies a contradictory viewpoint based on other evidence or logic, and instead of providing an explanation, they hand wave, become personally critical, or refer me to volumes of peripherally relevant information rather than speaking to the specific issue at hand. I've run into that sort of thing time and time again, especially with skeptics while discussing UFOs. They are culturally invested in believing that alien visitation is woo and have assumed incorrectly on numerous occasions that the only reason I believe it is because I'm either uniformed or unintelligent.

To conclude this post, I have a couple of questions for you that I'll ask in a sort of round-about way. Your role here has been largely to facilitate and provide avenues for further exploration regardless of win phat path any individual might be on at any given time. This has made it easy for you to establish a very positive rapport with most everyone who has a genuine interest in the subject matter. You also seem at least as smart as I am, and that probably means you're even smarter, but I still don't have a clear idea where you stand on these issues yourself. Can you please put together a paragraph for me that sums up your present view, how close it comes to a belief for you, and if it's not sufficient for you to believe your view is actually be the case, what's still missing for you and which direction do you think the answer lies?

I'll most likely sleep on your questions before responding.

This statement:

All I can say with confidence is that anyone with a reasonably objective perspective on the issues, who applies critical thinking to the same breadth and depth of experiences and information as I have, should, at least in theory arrive at the same conclusions, and contrary to the opinion of at least one participant here, my explorations are not as shallow as have been assumed.
Seems to support the following statements as correct in your view?

This belief ("consciousness has a material basis") is caused as a result of processes of belief formation that are deterministic and subconscious.
Consciousness is epiphenomenal; causally impotent.

If that's correct, can you say more about the idea of determinism used here?

 

[Randall]

I'll most likely sleep on your questions before responding.

This statement:

All I can say with confidence is that anyone with a reasonably objective perspective on the issues, who applies critical thinking to the same breadth and depth of experiences and information as I have, should, at least in theory arrive at the same conclusions, and contrary to the opinion of at least one participant here, my explorations are not as shallow as have been assumed.
Seems to support the following statements as correct in your view?

This belief ("consciousness has a material basis") is caused as a result of processes of belief formation that are deterministic and subconscious.
Consciousness is epiphenomenal; causally impotent.

If that's correct, can you say more about the idea of determinism used here?

I wouldn't say that the view expressed above is entirely accurate with respect to my present belief. As I've said before, I would say that human consciousness is dependent on our functioning brain/body system ( BBS ), and that most of the functions of the BBS take place either autonomously and/or subconsciously. However when active, consciousness becomes part of the causal loop along with the rest of the loops that are processed in the system, and therefore consciousness is not causally impotent ( if I understand that phrase correctly ), but causally important.

So for example, the experience of pain is something with causal influence. Assuming a normally functioning BBS, if we touch a hot surface with our hand > pain signals are sent to the brain > and if consciousness is active > the brain registers the signals in a manner that results in the experience of pain > the experience of pain then causes the brain to send signals through the nervous system back to the hand which causes it to be removed from the heat source. If however, our consciousness is not active, there is no sensation of pain, and therefore no causal effect, which can be very bad if your house is on fire.

I've suggested in the past that it's this kind of causal effect that facilitated the evolution of consciousness. It gives us an advantage where survival is concerned. The example of pain is only one of many scenarios that could be constructed to show the benefit of having conscious experience, which I take to be synonymous with the state of consciousness itself.

 

[smcder]

I wouldn't say that the view expressed above is entirely accurate with respect to my present belief. As I've said before, I would say that human consciousness is dependent on our functioning brain/body system ( BBS ), and that most of the functions of the BBS take place either autonomously and/or subconsciously. However when active, consciousness becomes part of the causal loop along with the rest of the loops that are processed in the system, and therefore consciousness is not causally impotent ( if I understand that phrase correctly ), but causally important.

So for example, the experience of pain is something with causal influence. Assuming a normally functioning BBS, if we touch a hot surface with our hand > pain signals are sent to the brain > and if consciousness is active > the brain registers the signals in a manner that results in the experience of pain > the experience of pain then causes the brain to send signals through the nervous system back to the hand which causes it to be removed from the heat source. If however, our consciousness is not active, there is no sensation of pain, and therefore no causal effect, which can be very bad if your house is on fire.

I've suggested in the past that it's this kind of causal effect that facilitated the evolution of consciousness. It gives us an advantage where survival is concerned. The example of pain is only one of many scenarios that could be constructed to show the benefit of having conscious experience, which I take to be synonymous with the state of consciousness itself.

clarification:

However when active, consciousness becomes part of the causal loop along with the rest of the loops that are processed in the system, and therefore consciousness is not causally impotent ( if I understand that phrase correctly? ), but causally important.

causal impotence is associated with epiphenomenalism, which states that consciousness is an effect of physical causes or a by-product, but it doesn't do any work itself, it is normally analyzed in terms of two principles

causal closure over physics states that every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause
causal exclusion holds that normal event can have more than one sufficient cause

The example of pain is only one of many scenarios that could be constructed to show the benefit of having conscious experience, which I take to be synonymous with the state of consciousness itself.

Your response to Jaegwon Kim's analysis of non-reductive physicalism may be diagnostic here:

The non-reductive physicalist is committed to following three principles: the irreducibility of the mental to the physical, some version of mental-physical supervenience, and the causal efficaciousness of mental states. The problem, according to Kim, is that when these three commitments are combined with a few other well-accepted principles, an inconsistency is generated that entails the causal impotence of mental properties. The first principle, which most ontological physicalists would accept, is the causal closure of the physical domain, according to which, every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause. The second principle Kim notes is that of causal exclusion, which holds that no normal event can have more than one sufficient cause. The problem is that a behavior cannot have as its cause, both a physical event and a (supervening) mental event, without resulting in a case of overdetermination (thus violating the principle of causal exclusion). The result is that physical causes exclude mental states from causally contributing to the behavior.

Where/how does this apply and not-apply to your position?

 

[Randall]

clarification:

However when active, consciousness becomes part of the causal loop along with the rest of the loops that are processed in the system, and therefore consciousness is not causally impotent ( if I understand that phrase correctly? ), but causally important.

causal impotence is associated with epiphenomenalism, which states that consciousness is an effect of physical causes or a by-product, but it doesn't do any work itself, it is normally analyzed in terms of two principles

causal closure over physics states that every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause
causal exclusion holds that normal event can have more than one sufficient cause

The example of pain is only one of many scenarios that could be constructed to show the benefit of having conscious experience, which I take to be synonymous with the state of consciousness itself.

I assumed that the phrase causal impotence, in the context in which you used it, meant that consciousness has no effect on the BBS and is essentially only along for the ride, experiencing what is happening, but not having any influence on it. This seems to be in keeping ( at least in part ) with the interpretations described using philosophical jargon in the two locations I used as a reference point ( listed below ):

1. Epiphenomenalism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
2. LEZ give 'em something to talk about...: Causal Impotence

I didn't apply it in the sense of an ethical principle:

"There is a premise in the theory of ethics that asserts that there are some actions that an individual takes that have no extended relevance in the world; that there are some things you do that have no impact. In other words, what you do doesn't matter. Philosophers refer to this theory as 'causal impotence'", ​

I didn't apply it in an ethical context because of the nature of the question you posed, because if consciousness is capable of "taking action" then it implies that the question of it being capable of causation is already answered.

Your response to Jaegwon Kim's analysis of non-reductive physicalism may be diagnostic here:

The non-reductive physicalist is committed to following three principles: the irreducibility of the mental to the physical, some version of mental-physical supervenience, and the causal efficaciousness of mental states. The problem, according to Kim, is that when these three commitments are combined with a few other well-accepted principles, an inconsistency is generated that entails the causal impotence of mental properties. The first principle, which most ontological physicalists would accept, is the causal closure of the physical domain, according to which, every physical effect has a sufficient physical cause. The second principle Kim notes is that of causal exclusion, which holds that no normal event can have more than one sufficient cause. The problem is that a behavior cannot have as its cause, both a physical event and a (supervening) mental event, without resulting in a case of overdetermination (thus violating the principle of causal exclusion). The result is that physical causes exclude mental states from causally contributing to the behavior.

Where/how does this apply and not-apply to your position?

I'm not committed to any particular philosophical model as delineated by any particular textbook, and therefore some analysis might apply while other analysis doesn't. In the case of Non-Reductive Physicalism as defined above, the first issue I have is how we define the word "physical". I consider the word "physical" as separate from the word "material" in the sense that there are materials like solids, liquids, gasses, and plasmas, and there are non-material phenomena like magnetism, gravity, inertia, and other forces of nature. Together they constitute the physical universe of which we are a part, and therefore logically, we too, including our consciousness must be physical in nature. This doesn't mean we necessarily understand everything about that situation. There are physical phenomena that we have no fundamental explanation for. We only recognize that they exist and map out how they affect other physical things. So while the mental may not be reducible to the material, it is in my belief still physical in structure ( but not necessarily in meaning or other abstract concepts, but that's for another post ).

So let's see how this view of the physical applies to Kim's theory above: First there is no reason that an event can't have more than one cause. Note that I've excluded the words "normal" and "sufficient" because they either have some special philosophical connotation that arbitrarily imparts semantic coherence ( which means that reality may be entirely different ), or they imply a subjective valuation of causes and therefore introduce bias into the interpretation. The example I keep returning to, of an event that has, indeed requires, more than one cause, is the emergence of electromagnetism. It's gets more complex, but basically, here we have a phenomena that is a combination of an electric field and a magnetic field, and in turn, magnetic fields result from specific configurations of electric currents and magnetic materials ( e.g. Iron ). Because of this, it's clear that there are multiple root causes, because without any one ingredient the phenomena doesn't happen. And what's more, with electromagnetism, we have recognized physical and material factors working together to produce a new fundamental force.

So if we assume that consciousness is a physical phenomena analogous to magnetic fields with the property we call experience, then there's noting preventing behavior from having as its cause, both a physical ( material ) event and a mental event. Again, to simplify, a magnetic field is a fundamental interaction with more than one cause that can influence the behavior of the system to which it is attached. For example, a passive speaker crossover creates an electromagnetic field that stores energy in a particular manner so that when it is released back into the wires, the behavior of the transducer ( frequency produced ) is affected. Similarly, if consciousness has fields as its structure, then the evidence suggests that the material brain is producing those fields, which in turn interact back with material brain, causing new fields to form that affect behavior and the whole process repeats itself in a dynamic manner.

 

[smcder]

@ufology

"I'm now 57 years old and I've been exploring these topics for the majority of that time, hanging onto what is applicable, discarding that which isn't, and from all that, built what appears to be the most reasonable model I have yet to encounter so far, "

1 can you delineate "these topics"?

2 What is this model specifically? What is it of and does it exist in written form? What are its commitments?

 

[Soupie]

@ufology

I wanted to come back to your reply to my last post in part iv. It was my post about the theory/model in which consciousness is a model of attention.

You replied:

[T]he processes by which we come to focus our attention are still different than the issue of consciousness itself. Consciousness is that part of us that is experiencing what it is our attention is focused on ( regardless of how that happens ).

You've committed what I believe to be a very common error in discussions of consciousness. You say: "Consciousness is that part of us that is experiencing..."

There is a tendency to objectify consciousness. Sometimes this may be done accidentally, but sometimes it reveals how a person thinks about consciousness. So, I'm not sure where you stand. In the past, however, you've noted how you believe consciousness may be like a physical field.

What I would say is that consciousness does not experience, but rather, consciousness is experience. So, consciousness is not a part of us experiencing what we are paying attention to. (And that is not what Graziano is suggesting.)

So attention doesn't really explain anything about consciousness other than once again we have a powerful direct neural correlation between our brains and what we're conscious of, which again suggests that the BBS ( Brain-Body-System ) is probably responsible for generating consciousness.

If Graziano's model is correct, then attention does explain quite a bit about consciousness. It explains why consciousness and attention are so closely related and yet distinct.

On the other hand, if you are searching for a "consciousness substance," then yes, you will needs keep looking. Graziano's model doesn't tell us anything about such a substance.

To be clear, I don't think there is such a thing. And I think this is another big source of confusion within the consciousness discussion. Certain thinkers--such as Graziano--are fond of saying things like "consciousness is an illusion." This causes many people to gasp and point, etc. However, these individuals, I believe, are not saying that consciousness does not exist, clearly it does, and clearly they believe it does.

Rather, they are saying that the intuition/feeling that consciousness is a physical substance secreted by the body that "experiences" stuff is an illusion. These are very powerful intuitions, but they are illusions.

 

[Soupie]

Assuming a normally functioning BBS, if we touch a hot surface with our hand > pain signals are sent to the brain > and if consciousness is active > the brain registers the signals in a manner that results in the experience of pain > the experience of pain then causes the brain to send signals through the nervous system back to the hand which causes it to be removed from the heat source.

How does "the experience of pain" cause the brain to send signals?

brain signals > experience > brain signals

 

[Soupie]

. . . Merleau-Ponty appreciates the essentially incorporated structure of perception in a way that Husserl does not. For Merleau-Ponty, that is, the body plays a constitutive role in experience precisely by grounding, making possible, and yet remaining peripheral in the horizons of our perceptual awareness: “my body is constantly perceived,” Merleau-Ponty writes, yet “it remains marginal to all my perceptions” (PP, 90). Again, the body is neither an internal subject nor a fully external object of experience. Moreover, as embodied perceivers, we do not typically understand ourselves as pure egos standing in a merely external relation to our bodies, for example by “having” or “owning” them, instead the body is itself already the concrete agent of all our perceptual acts (PP, 90–94). In perception, that is, we understand ourselves not as having but as being bodies."


. . . except in OBEs and NDEs. In the former, one's vision and consciousness are relocated outside, usually above, the body. This was undoubtedly the case in the spontaneous OBE I've described having when I was 21. But notably, it was not my 'egoic self' that seemed to take the outside perspective on my body, which remained facing toward the wall across the room. Undoubtedly all my prior experience in the world had been securely located from within my physically embodied immersion in the world. around me. During the OBE I was surprised but not concerned about my 'embodied and egoic existence' (rather, aloof from it), like the other consciousness I encountered later during the OBE when I overheard the thoughts it/she {I sensed it was a 'she'} was thinking.

It took me a long, (frankly frustrating) time to realize this contradiction in your approach to consciousness. That is, you would constantly refer me (in a corrective manner) to these philosophers who were clearly monists through and through, and in the next post, express an affinity for dualism. It was very confusing.

Regarding OBEs, the following showed up in my stream:

The Lessons of Out-of-Body Experiences

"Powerful, unnerving hallucinations show there’s something malleable about the way our brains construct our sense of self

About two months after his younger brother died of complications from HIV, Chris—a friend of mine in his 50s living in California—woke up early one morning. He got off the bed, stood up, stretched, turned around and got the fright of his life.

“The shock was electric,” Chris told me last year. “Because I was still lying in the bed sleeping, and it was very clearly me lying there sleeping, my first thought was that I had died.”

Of course, Chris hadn’t died. He was having what neuropsychologists call a doppelgänger experience: He found himself inhabiting an illusory body while his real, physical body was lying in bed. He says he’s not clear how long the feeling lasted. Eventually, “there was this enormous sucking sensation,” said Chris, making a long, drawn-out slurping sound. “I felt like I was dragged, almost thrown, back into the bed, smack into myself.” He woke up screaming. ...

Unnerving as they can be, out-of-body experiences, doppelgänger phenomena and other autoscopic hallucinations are probably our best window onto the way our brain constructs our sense of self, starting with the bodily self. Having a bodily self means several things. At its most fundamental, it anchors you in a body that feels like it is yours. You also feel that your body occupies a certain volume in physical space and that you are within that volume looking out with a perspective that feels like your own.

But as Chris’s experience shows, there are times—albeit rare—when we aren’t anchored in our physical body, suggesting that there is something malleable about the way our brains construct our bodily selves. ...

These experiments show us that, to create the bodily self, the brain has to integrate various sensations—such as touch, vision and many other types of internal and external information. There is no one place in the brain where this integration happens. Rather, researchers have identified a whole host of regions that are involved. The various illusions arise when the brain is fed conflicting information and tries to make the sense of it.

One can even fool the brain into embodying empty space. For example, in the rubber-hand illusion, if the experimenter takes the rubber hand away and instead moves the brush in the air in a manner suggestive of having a hand there while simultaneously stroking the hidden real hand, some people will soon start feeling touch in empty space. I can attest to this: I was taken aback by the weirdness of this illusion when I experienced it in Dr. Ehrsson’s lab.

But what these lab experiments and studies are showing us is that nothing is really leaving the body during an out-of-body experience. When the brain is operating on sensory information that is congruent (meaning that the sensations of touch match what the eyes are seeing, for example), the brain situates the self in the body and provides a sense of perspective and body ownership."​

But when the sensations aren’t congruent, because someone is being tricked by the rubber-hand illusion or suffering from some neurological aberration, the brain does its best to make sense of all the misleading data. The brain can miscalculate the coordinates for the self, positioning it outside the body or in another illusory body.​

There's a lot of literature about the sense of body self going awry in individuals:

The Man Who Saw His Double In The Mirror - Neuroskeptic

"During the previous 10 days, Mr. B. reported the presence of a stranger in his home who was located behind the mirror of the bathroom and strikingly shared his physical appearance. The stranger was a double of himself: he was the same size, had the same hair, body shape, and features, wore the same clothes, and acted the same way.

Mr. B. talked with this stranger and was puzzled because he knew much about him. Mr. B. even brought food to the mirror with cutlery for two persons. Eventually, the stranger became aggressive, and Mr. B.’s daughter decided to drive her father to the hospital.

…Mr. B. was well oriented and was perfectly able to recognize the members of his family."
​

We have really struggled to understand mental illness. However, it's clear that damage to the body-brain affects the mind.

I believe there are two causes of "mental illness." My belief is that consciousness/mind is information embodied by physical, biological processes in the body-brain. Consciousness/mind is essentially intentional information about the world (including the body itself). Said even simpler, consciousness is models of models of models...

When someone is suffering a mental illness 1) the physical substrate and thus physical processes embodying our models of the world are damaged, thus our models become damaged, and 2) sometimes the physical substrate/processes are fine and it's our models of the world (I'm ugly, I'm dumb, I'm a loser, etc.) that are damaged.

 

[Randall]

@ufology

"I'm now 57 years old and I've been exploring these topics for the majority of that time, hanging onto what is applicable, discarding that which isn't, and from all that, built what appears to be the most reasonable model I have yet to encounter so far, "

1 can you delineate "these topics"?

No time to write a detailed paper for you, but to summarize it as best as I can: The topics are the paranormal and the unexplained with a focus on UFOs, and existence, as in the existence of the universe we inhabit, with a lesser focus on how we as humans relate to it and understand it. So within that array of subject matter we find concepts like ghosts that come from other dimensions, and aliens that come from other worlds. What exactly do a statements like those mean and how are they possible, and if those answers aren't clear, what theories seem to hold the most promise?

2 What is this model specifically? What is it of and does it exist in written form? What are its commitments?

I use the word "model" as a convenience term to reference my present state of understanding with respect to the subject matter and the kinds of questions raised in 1. above, some of which intersect with the discussions in this thread. Again, no time for a lot of details, but to briefly summarize, within the context of the universe ( in an astronomical sense ), the structure of all things is physical in that they possess traits that cause them to behave in a certain manner that can be 1. detected and 2. described in some reasonably coherent manner.

However this doesn't explain the nature of existence at its fundamental level. The fundamental forces of nature are associated with what science calls subatomic particles, the composition of which isn't known, but that possess properties. However science doesn't know how fundamental properties ( e.g. gravity ) come to be associated with particles. Note here that the Higgs Boson is theorized to impart mass, but its discovery remains contentious. From what I can tell the experiment is inconclusive and leads to even more questions than answers. But not to digress.

Even if it turns out that particles transfer properties onto other particles, it doesn't explain the origin of the property itself. Ultimately, properties seem to be imparted onto whatever particle is associated with them in the first place, leading to patterns of interaction that are well defined, which has led some ( including myself ) to surmise that the astronomical universe is a sub-component of a larger multiverse, and possibly generated by a universe layered beyond our own. That's as far as I've got, but it has all kinds of ramifications for the subject matter we discuss. I'm not alone or the first one on this path. If you search around you can find all the bits and pieces out there in far greater detail than I've summarized here, though perhaps still not identical to the way I tend to look at it.

 

[Randall]

How does "the experience of pain" cause the brain to send signals?
brain signals > experience > brain signals

I don't know exactly how consciousness causes neurological reactions, it's just obvious that it does. For a theory as to how, I propose that the structure of consciousness is that of a physical field, analogous to EM fields, that can induce neurological processes in the brain which then activate the various parts of our body. We might call this, neurological induction by consciousness interaction ( NICI ). There's a new acronym LOL .

 

[Randall]

@ufology
You've committed what I believe to be a very common error in discussions of consciousness. You say: "Consciousness is that part of us that is experiencing..."

I don't see an error, just different contexts which refer to the same thing. When you say consciousness is experience, that's a personal subjective immersive context centered on consciousness alone, but you aren't made up of only your consciousness, and other individuals possess their own consciousnesses separate from yours. Therefore from the context of another person, your consciousness is a part of you ( not me or anyone else ) and it is specifically that part of you ( as opposed to your arms or your knees or the rest of you ) that is doing the experiencing. So I'd say we're both doing just fine in terms of usage.

 

[Constance]

It took me a long, (frankly frustrating) time to realize this contradiction in your approach to consciousness. That is, you would constantly refer me (in a corrective manner) to these philosophers who were clearly monists through and through, and in the next post, express an affinity for dualism. It was very confusing.

First, to clarify, the paragraph you seemed to be attributing to me was actually a quotation from the Taylor Carmen paper, but I posted it because I agreed with it. I'm sorry if I have frustrated you with what appeared to you to be contradictions in phenomenology, but I have been attempting all along to clarify in this thread the analysis of MP and other phenomenologists concerning the merged state of mind and body in consciousness. Phenomenologists are not 'dualists', but neither are they strict 'monists', for they recognize the complex integrated nature of the mind/body and subject/object relationships. I'm afraid that you will still find phenomenology to be confusing until you read more of it. I suggest you read Varela, Thompson, and Rosch's The Embodied Mind, Cognitive Science and Human Experience, which I should have recommended to you before I recommended Thompson's Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. The latter is Thompson's continuing work, after Varela's death, on their long collaborative research in cognitive science and their development together of neurophenomenology. The former book will give you a fuller understanding of the phenomenology [particularly that of MP] that guided their work, as it had earlier guided Varela's collaborative work with Maturana).

Regarding OBEs, the following showed up in my stream:

The Lessons of Out-of-Body Experiences

Thank you for that and the other link you provided in your post. I have read a number of such articles in recent years proffering physicalist hypotheses concerning OBEs. They remain hypotheses, conjectures, seeking to explain away spontaneous out-of-body and also near-death experiences, having provided as yet no.neurological or physical evidence to support them.

Re mental illness as an explanation for these experiences, do you think that medical and psychiatric professionals researching cases of these experiences in hospitals and follow-up consultations over the last 30 years have not looked for such explanations? Of course they have, and they have found none.

In the case of my OBE, you may recall that immediately after it occurred I sought advice at the University Counselling office. The head of that office, a psychologist, made an appointment for me with a neurologist located adjacent to the campus, to which I went at that point. The neurologist could find no medical explanation for what I'd experienced. He did not suggest that I see a psychologist or psychiatrist. Nor had the university counsellor made that suggestion. I wasn't mentally ill at the time of the OBE and have not been in the four+ decades since then. Or before that either.

 

[ALPHA ROMEO UNIFORM]

Yeah OBE they are interesting and frighting the sensation of moving through a small light and traveling above the clouds. Your breathing changes and able to see folks while floating above a ceiling . Is it the same as abduction sensation due to sleep paralysis or near death experience. The fact you could not breath maybe what human experience in death when a sudden accident nearly takes your life. The brain is still active while rest of the body has stopped working. A kick start like a engine and the brain organic computer reboots which picks another program close to the one you had before.

 

[Constance]

Hi blowfish. What you describe seems to be what's called 'an astral' experience. In my OBE, I was reading a novel for my next class at one moment and in the next 'I' was up in the corner across the room observing my body, which I observed from behind still at the desk facing toward the opposite wall. I was surprised to find my consciousness/mind up there in the far corner of the room, but I was not alarmed or in any distress (no trouble 'breathing', for example, though I wasn't aware of breathing).