Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 5

[Constance]

But could it be this way for Dennett?

Could it be that for him experience IS nothing other than the judgements we form about it which can be described in purely functional, physicalist terms?

Only if he is a zombie.

 

[Constance]

Experiments can be interpreted to show that cognitive exercises physically change the brain - for example CBT for OCD (Schwartz) being as effective as drugs and Im also a living example of that.

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Also demonstrated by the neuroscientific experiments imaging changes in the brain both during meditation by skilled practitioners and over time as these practices continue. By now this should be beyond question.

 

[smcder]

Only if he is a zombie.

Lol right ... If so then we'd have to take zombie arguments seriously!

I think it IS possible to be confused about ones own phenomenal experience though.

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[Constance]

cf to Blocks experience that half his students dont get the HP...

The hard problem is easier to grasp for people who are in touch with themselves bodily, emotionally, and mentally -- who are in touch with their lived experience, reflection on it, and thought about it and about experience in general. Someday someone will analyze how early and later childhood experiences [and training/brainwashing] as well as the outer-directedness (and invisible objectivist presuppositions about the nature of reality) encouraged and made automatic by contemporary lifestyles in the West prevent individuals from attending to their inner lives and analyzing their own experience and consciousness of it.

 

[Constance]

But I think Im just understanding that the phenomenological is prior, is the prior - and appreciating the point you made about interpretation / Derrida - Malabou's analysis of plasticity too ... thats what I think is the power of philosophy such that it will never stand in a "hand off" relationship to science, thus a reminder that there are enterprises distinct from science (at the least) if not capable of subsuming science at least always able to critique it and very powerfully, any given position/explanation for which a scientific basis is claimed (see "Is Evolution a Social Construct?" - Michael Ruse)

I could not agree more.

 

[Constance]

Lol right ... If so then we'd have to take zombie arguments seriously!

I think it IS possible to be confused about ones own phenomenal experience though.

It is possible if one ignores one's own phenomenal experience. Many people do these days.

 

[smcder]

It is possible if one ignores one's own phenomenal experience. Many people do these days.

Taylor Carman would say he is mistaken about how it seems to him.

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[Constance]

I wonder if he would read, several times, enough to follow and understand its meditation, this long poem by Stevens:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Stevens_Description.pdf

 

[smcder]

I wonder if he would read, several times, enough to follow and understand its meditation, this long poem by Stevens:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Stevens_Description.pdf

I just read it aloud. Not trying to understand it - just read it and hear the rhythms. Next is to listen to it read ... and then read it again to myself ... and then set to work on meanings and seemings.

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[smcder]

I couldn't find Stevens reading it. I may record it and listen to it that way.





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[smcder]

WWMPD?

http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ipjp/article/download/65527/53213

Merleau-Ponty on Human Motility and Libet’s Paradox

Abstract
In 1979, neuroscientists Libet, Wright, Feinstein and Pearl introduced the “delay-and-antedating”
hypothesis/paradox based on the results of an on-going series of experiments dating back to 1964 that
measured the neural adequacy [brain wave activity] of “conscious sensory experience”. What is
fascinating about the results of this experiment is the implication, especially when considered in the
light of Merleau-Ponty’s notions of “intentionality” and the “pre-reflective life of human motility”,
that the body, and hence not solely the mind, is a thinking thing. The experiments and conclusions of
Libet et al. have attracted considerable academic attention and have been used in the development of
psychological theories on automotivism and the adaptive unconscious. Moreover, they have
engendered a series of important considerations in respect of the question of free will. This paper
outlines the connections between the findings of Libet et al. and Merleau-Ponty’s ontology as
presented in the Phenomenology of Perception (1945/1962). It is not our intention to argue that the
former amounts to new wine in old bottles, but rather to show counterfactually (since we offer no new
scientific data and assume the conclusions of the experiments) that Merleau-Ponty’s ontology provides
a theoretical framework which explains the experimental data obtained by Libet et al., and provides
further speculative confirmation of the work stemming from neuro-physical research and emerging
theories on the adaptive unconscious.

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[Randall]

Evolution of p-consciousness - Evolution of consciousness: Phylogeny, ontogeny, and emergence from general anesthesia

Good find! Though it doesn't answer everything, the conclusions certainly make sense to me.

 

[Michael Allen]

Hmm. I usually think of the self-recogition/self-comprehension of Dasein {i.e., of "be=ing in the [or a] world"} in existentially primordial terms, as a difference in perception, experience, and thought {the perceptual synthesis that Kelly and Kelly discuss} that makes a singular difference in subsequent thought, even constitutes a singularity in the transcendence of prereflective experience in its passage into reflective experience. This recognition of the interplay and interdependence of one's own mobile, partial, and changing point of view with what one sees and understands about the environing world brings about the 'standing out' [ek-stase, ekstatic situation] of consciousness in the world as Heidegger made clear. This revelation of the nature and significance of one's perception changes everything. Here consciousness enters an unending meditation on the nature of 'reality'.

ETA -- a 'reality' open-ended on both sides of the perceptual synthesis since things in the world are also subject to change, exist in change.

It is very instructive to note the various models of consciousness that endure and impress people the most (mostly...statistically speaking...)...impress meaning that people are more likely to be "inspired" by a model of consciousness that least resembles the actual structure of their own... This can almost be a self-evident axiom, if only the foundation didn't rest on something so fragile. Human consciousness is very fragile and it is very important that the framework and infrastructure hide this very fact from the substructure we often identify as an "ego"---a useful fiction...fertile fallacy.

There are of course many opportunities for a system to be right for the wrong reason...but when does a reason every account for this:

Feedback relations can spontaneously appear in 3 dimensions....maybe in 4 spatial ...but I suspect that an odd number accounts for the instability of low entropy lattices of matter (natural ground state...or empty information container that can model itself recursively)...mathematically the firmware (most real) of the "universe" may have all the relational infrastructure necesssary for the emergence of self-referencing...self-modelling relations aka consciousness...your "experience" thereof is another "given" in that you cannot ever "explain" it any more than a Euclid Axiom can explain itself...or the "being" of a thing explain itself.

Actually Heidegger sidestepped the most grand question of all...the question of why we have experience of "things" differentiated in the way we do....the answer to this question is understanding why we think it is so horribly mysterious...when we realize that the entire question is based on a framework of relations between Dasein and world through the articulated framework of tools, methods, goals, means, ...etc...then we understand that our very framework of construction to comprehend the world does that apply to the understanding or knowledge...or satori...of the universe. This is where metaphysics and human understanding must cease in representing itself representing itself in itself in the world in itself while itself is in the universe .....I know I messed that last sentence up ...somehow...

 

[Randall]

... This is where metaphysics and human understanding must cease in representing itself representing itself in itself in the world in itself while itself is in the universe .....I know I messed that last sentence up ...somehow...

I think that actually made sense to me, but like you say, sometimes we can be right for the wrong reasons . For why we have experience of "things" differentiated in the way we do. I'd stick with the idea that as we evolved it proved to be advantageous for survival, so the trait was passed along to successive generations.

 

[smcder]

It is very instructive to note the various models of consciousness that endure and impress people the most (mostly...statistically speaking...)...impress meaning that people are more likely to be "inspired" by a model of consciousness that least resembles the actual structure of their own... This can almost be a self-evident axiom, if only the foundation didn't rest on something so fragile. Human consciousness is very fragile and it is very important that the framework and infrastructure hide this very fact from the substructure we often identify as an "ego"---a useful fiction...fertile fallacy.

There are of course many opportunities for a system to be right for the wrong reason...but when does a reason every account for this:

Feedback relations can spontaneously appear in 3 dimensions....maybe in 4 spatial ...but I suspect that an odd number accounts for the instability of low entropy lattices of matter (natural ground state...or empty information container that can model itself recursively)...mathematically the firmware (most real) of the "universe" may have all the relational infrastructure necesssary for the emergence of self-referencing...self-modelling relations aka consciousness...your "experience" thereof is another "given" in that you cannot ever "explain" it any more than a Euclid Axiom can explain itself...or the "being" of a thing explain itself.

Actually Heidegger sidestepped the most grand question of all...the question of why we have experience of "things" differentiated in the way we do....the answer to this question is understanding why we think it is so horribly mysterious...when we realize that the entire question is based on a framework of relations between Dasein and world through the articulated framework of tools, methods, goals, means, ...etc...then we understand that our very framework of construction to comprehend the world does that apply to the understanding or knowledge...or satori...of the universe. This is where metaphysics and human understanding must cease in representing itself representing itself in itself in the world in itself while itself is in the universe .....I know I messed that last sentence up ...somehow...

"impress meaning that people are more likely to be "inspired" by a model of consciousness that least resembles the actual structure of their own..."

This indicates that your model of consciousness allows for multiple structures of individual consciousness but most people's do not, is that correct?

Can you give examples of two different structures of consciousness?

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[smcder]

@Constance

If you read "Merleau-Ponty on Human Motility and Libet'sParadox" (2007) - T. Brian Mooney

http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ipjp/article/download/65527/53213

... let me know if it's a good reading of MP and particularly what you think of this concluding statement:

"Indeed, we may be coming to a point where neuroscience can provide an
alternative language to articulate Merleau-Ponty’s ontological speculations."

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[smcder]

@Pharoah - youve read Searle, if you have thoughts Id be interested

@Soupie
@ufology

From John Searle's paper on free will above ... @Soupie it covers our discussion earlier on the C&P and takes it further including a diagram similar to what we constructed discussing the man at the stop light (p 13 it wont copy here).

@ufology compare the two hypotheses with the ideas of determinism, the experiments showing that decisions occur before conscious awareness and causal sufficiency.

Here are the two hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1

"let us suppose that the antecedently insuffi-
cient psychological conditions leading up to the choice of Aphroditeat t2, the conditions that led us to the postulation of the gap, are
matched at the lower neurobiological level by a sequence of neuro-
biological events each stage of which is causally sufficient for thenext. On this hypothesis we would have a kind of neurobiologicaldeterminism corresponding to a psychological libertarianism. Parishas the experience of free will, but there is no genuine free will at
the neurobiological level. I think most neurobiologists would feelThat this is probably how the brain actually works, that we have theexperience of free will but it is illusory; because the neuronalprocesses are causally sufficient to determine subsequent states ofthe brain, assuming there are no outside stimulus inputs or effectsfrom the rest of the body. But this result is intellectually very unsat-
isfying because it gives us a form of epiphenomenalism. It says thatour experience of freedom plays no causal or explanatory role in our
behaviour. It is a complete illusion, because our behaviour is entirelyfixed by the neurobiology that determines the muscle contractions.
On this view evolution played a massive trick on us. Evolution gaveus the illusion of freedom, but it is nothing more than that—an
illusion."

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[Constance]

Hypothesis 2

"Hypothesis 2 we suppose that the absence of
causally sufficient conditions at the psychological level is matchedby an absence of causally sufficient conditions at the neurobiologi-cal level. Our problem is, what could that possibly mean? There are
no gaps in the brain. In order to take seriously the hypothesis thatthe free will that is manifested in consciousness has a neurobiologi-cal reality, we have to explore the relation of consciousness to neu-
robiology a little more closely. Earlier I described consciousness asa higher level feature of the brain system. The metaphor of higher
and lower, though it is common in the literature (my own writingsincluded), I think is misleading. It suggests that consciousness is, so
to speak, like the varnish on the surface of the table; and that iswrong. The idea we are trying to express is that consciousness is afeature of the whole system. Consciousness is literally present
throughout those portions of the brain where consciousness is cre-
ated by and realized in neuronal activity. It is important to empha-
size this point, because it runs contrary to our Cartesian heritage
that says consciousness cannot have a spatial location: consciousness
is located in certain portions of the brain and functions causally, rel-
ative to those locations.
I explained earlier how consciousness could function causally, by
giving an analogy between the consciousness of the brain and the
solidity of the wheel, but if we carry that analysis a step further, we
see that on Hypothesis 2 we have to suppose that the logical features
of volitional consciousness of the entire system have effects on the
elements on the system, even though the system is composed entirely
of the elements, in the same way that the solidity of the wheel has
effects on the molecules, even though the wheel is composed of
molecules.
The point of the analogy was to remove the sense of mystery
about how consciousness could affect neuronal behaviour (and thus
move human bodies) by showing how, in unmysterious cases, a sys-
tem feature can affect micro-level elements in a system composed
entirely of the micro-level level elements, in which all causal pow-
ers are reducible to the causal powers of the micro-level elements.
But of course any analogy goes only so far. The analogy: solidity is
to molecular behaviour as consciousness is to neuronal behaviour, is
inadequate at, at least, two points. First, we take the wheel to be entirely deterministic, and the hypothesis we are examining now is
that the conscious voluntary decision-making aspects of the brain
are not deterministic. Second, the solidity of the wheel is ontologi-
cally reducible to the behaviour of the molecules, and not just
causally reducible. In the case of consciousness, though we suppose
that consciousness is causally reducible to the behaviour of the
micro elements, we cannot make a similar ontological reduction for
consciousness. This is because the first person ontology of con-
sciousness is not reducible to a third person ontology.


*So far then, in our preliminary formulation of Hypothesis 2 we have three claims.

First, the state of the brain at t1 is not causally sufficient to determine the state of the brain at t2.

Second, the movement from the state at t1 to the state at t2 can only be explained by features of the whole system, specifically by the oper-
ation of the conscious self.

And third, all of the features of the con-scious self at any given instant are entirely determined by the state
of the micro elements, the neurons, etc. at that instant. The systemic features are entirely fixed at any given instant by the micro


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Steve, what is the source of the hypotheses discussed or quoted in these last two posts?

 

[Pharoah]

@Pharoah - youve read Searle, if you have thoughts Id be interested

@Soupie
@ufology

From John Searle's paper on free will above ... @Soupie it covers our discussion earlier on the C&P and takes it further including a diagram similar to what we constructed discussing the man at the stop light (p 13 it wont copy here).

@ufology compare the two hypotheses with the ideas of determinism, the experiments showing that decisions occur before conscious awareness and causal sufficiency.

Here are the two hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1

"let us suppose that the antecedently insuffi-
cient psychological conditions leading up to the choice of Aphroditeat t2, the conditions that led us to the postulation of the gap, are
matched at the lower neurobiological level by a sequence of neuro-
biological events each stage of which is causally sufficient for thenext. On this hypothesis we would have a kind of neurobiologicaldeterminism corresponding to a psychological libertarianism. Parishas the experience of free will, but there is no genuine free will at
the neurobiological level. I think most neurobiologists would feelThat this is probably how the brain actually works, that we have theexperience of free will but it is illusory; because the neuronalprocesses are causally sufficient to determine subsequent states ofthe brain, assuming there are no outside stimulus inputs or effectsfrom the rest of the body. But this result is intellectually very unsat-
isfying because it gives us a form of epiphenomenalism. It says thatour experience of freedom plays no causal or explanatory role in our
behaviour. It is a complete illusion, because our behaviour is entirelyfixed by the neurobiology that determines the muscle contractions.
On this view evolution played a massive trick on us. Evolution gaveus the illusion of freedom, but it is nothing more than that—an
illusion."

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@Constance My thoughts on searle, for what theyre worth - http://mind-phronesis.co.uk/searle-intentionality.pdf

 

[Constance]

@Constance
"Merleau-Ponty on Human Motility and Libet'sParadox" (2007) - T. Brian Mooney
http://www.ajol.info/index.php/ipjp/article/download/65527/53213
... let me know if it's a good reading of MP and particularly what you think of this concluding statement:
"Indeed, we may be coming to a point where neuroscience can provide an
alternative language to articulate Merleau-Ponty’s ontological speculations."

Yes, it is a good representation of MP's thinking concerning bodily consciousness and prereflective consciousness.

Re the concluding statement you quoted --

"Indeed, we may be coming to a point where neuroscience can provide an
alternative language to articulate Merleau-Ponty’s ontological speculations." --

I think it's likely valid and is supported by MP's thinking and also by the excellent paper you linked before that one:

Evolution of consciousness: Phylogeny, ontogeny, and emergence from general anesthesia, at Evolution of consciousness: Phylogeny, ontogeny, and emergence from general anesthesia

There are three other strongly related papers at PubMed (linked alongside that paper) that we should also read in order to understand the direction these neuroscientists are taking. This work really is the beginning of a new paradigm. I'll link those papers with either abstracts or extracts later today.