Randall
J. Randall Murphy
I got a really good chuckle out of that ( whether you meant it to be funny or not )
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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 5
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smcder
Guest
Cognitive scientist Guy Clacton on embodied spirituality:
Science and Spirituality: 'Effing the Ineffable' - RSA
"But now I think the scientists of embodiment are on to something. Here’s a few of the pioneers: Andy Clark, Francisco Varela, Susan Hurley, Jeffrey Gray, Mark Johnson and George Lakoff. Actually I have added one physicist – David Bohm - because he was really more of a psychologist. Let me try to give you a few illustrations of what they have been up to, and how this body of work is beginning to illuminate those elusive Glimpses. To do so in the time, I am going to have to ignore many of the technicalities, and make use of a variety of metaphors myself."
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Science and Spirituality: 'Effing the Ineffable' - RSA
"But now I think the scientists of embodiment are on to something. Here’s a few of the pioneers: Andy Clark, Francisco Varela, Susan Hurley, Jeffrey Gray, Mark Johnson and George Lakoff. Actually I have added one physicist – David Bohm - because he was really more of a psychologist. Let me try to give you a few illustrations of what they have been up to, and how this body of work is beginning to illuminate those elusive Glimpses. To do so in the time, I am going to have to ignore many of the technicalities, and make use of a variety of metaphors myself."
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smcder
Guest
Velmans on Free Will - esp. "Speech production" at 13:30 and after ...
And the quedtion re: "freedom from immediacy" a little before 29 min
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smcder
Guest
Max Velmans Publications, Goldsmiths, University of London
Good overview by Velmans of his work ...
"Current, comprehensive summary of my theoretical work that updates and deepens the analysis given in Edition 1. Part 1 reviews the strengths and weaknesses of all currently dominant theories of consciousness in a form suitable for undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers focusing mainly on dualism, physicalism, functionalism and consciousness in machines.
Part 2 gives a new analysis of consciousness, grounded in its everyday phenomenology,
*which undermines the basis of the dualism versus reductionist debate.
It also examines the consequences for realism versus idealism, subjectivity, intersubjectivity and objectivity, and the relation of consciousness to brain processing. Part 3 gives a new synthesis, with a novel approach to understanding what consciousness is and what consciousness does. It also introduces Reflexive Monism, an alternative to dualism and reductionism that is consistent with the findings of science and with common sense."
Also excellent, Steve. A lot of work, but you never mind that.
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smcder
Guest
A thing can be true and funny.I got a really good chuckle out of that ( whether you meant it to be funny or not )
T/\F
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The second edition of Understanding Consciousness is the text we might all easily read at this point for a complete presentation of Velmans' theory of reflexive monism. The description states that it is available as an ebook, but when I followed the link I could not access it. I'll try to find it through a search. Here is the description:
"Velmans, M. (2009) Understanding Consciousness, Edition 2. London: Routledge/Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis. (UK,USA). Also available as an Ebook
A current, comprehensive summary of my theoretical work that updates and deepens the analysis given in Edition 1. Part 1 reviews the strengths and weaknesses of all currently dominant theories of consciousness in a form suitable for undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers focusing mainly on dualism, physicalism, functionalism and consciousness in machines. Part 2 gives a new analysis of consciousness, grounded in its everyday phenomenology, which undermines the basis of the dualism versus reductionist debate. It also examines the consequences for realism versus idealism, subjectivity, intersubjectivity and objectivity, and the relation of consciousness to brain processing. Part 3 gives a new synthesis, with a novel approach to understanding what consciousness is and what consciousness does. It also introduces Reflexive Monism, an alternative to dualism and reductionism that is consistent with the findings of science and with common sense."
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smcder
Guest
Library find ...
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smcder
Guest
I'll have a look too.
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smcder
Guest
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Indeed. Someone once said that the best humor contains an element of truth.
Library find ...
There are probably several by now. I'm not sure they're helpful for understanding the poetry. I'd recommend this:
Wallace Stevens: Life as Poetry Hardcover– June, 1970
by Samuel French, Morse
I'd been intending to read it for years and received a used library copy last week. Morse was an early and especially insightful reader of Stevens's poetry and this book is an intellectual biography tracing the development of his thinking and poetic expression as well as a work of literary criticism. Morse edited and introduced a major collection of unpublished works of Stevens, material from his journals and correspondence, and a play he wrote in a collection entitled Opus Posthumous to make available all that had not been included in the Collected Poetry of WS. He identified the meditative quality of Stevens's poetry and understood its significance. Amazon has copies of WS: Life as Poetry available for as little as 1 cent plus shipping from used book sellers (how I got mine).
Randall
J. Randall Murphy
Good video, even if we've already covered all the essential issues. I liked his iceberg analogy. I had thought of using it myself, but I find the surfer analogy more appealing due to its dynamic and experiential nature. The part of icebergs that is above the water, I suspect, doesn't have much fun
. On the issue of embodiment, there are two distinct contexts. I'm not sure which you're referring to e.g. embodied cognition, or embodied imagination, but in any case, you may recall that I have often used the phrase brain-body system ( BBS ), and that is because in the context of our material selves, the body plays a crucial role in identity and appears to directly influence the mind via a chain of biological processes.Regarding Velman and the model he calls Reflexive Monism, he's onto some key points that I believe are perfectly valid, but I think that perhaps not all inferences drawn from it are necessary. For example on one level one could argue that depending on one's model of Physicalism, Reflexive Monism and Physicalism are essentially the same thing, the only difference being that Reflexive Monism focuses on the relationship between consciousness and other physical phenomena.
With respect to your emphasis on speech production, I suggest that this is the essential point, to quote:
"Literally it is the case that I'm only conscious of what I want to say, I've only realized what I want to say, once I've actually spoken. So the actual experience follows the processing to which it most obviously relates."
The above is entirely expected and logical when considered in the context of the BBS as the source of speech. This reminds me that I should rewind a bit, because if I recall correctly, at some point when I mentioned how I create music, you suggested ( to paraphrase ) that if I create the work as a whole in my mind, then the outcome could be looked at simply as brain function, not unlike a tape recorder, and therefore consciousness isn't really necessary, or is just along for the ride. It's not quite that simple. The work doesn't just appear in a flash as a completed work.
Typically, sound samples are drawn out of physical memory and evaluated for suitability and then pieced together with other sound samples. So this particular type of creative process requires the subjective experience of sound in order to work. However once it's all done, and after enough rehearsal, all the pieces come together, and that tape recorder analogy then works. I literally become a human jukebox and don't have to think much about what I'm doing. Indeed, if I did, it would cause some serious problems. Some riffs are so fast that they can't be played while trying to consciously "think them through".
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Steve wrote: "How is the pencil example different, fundamentally from the artificial arm example?
Both take some kind of ultimately physical input and in the end you have an experience."
Soupie responded with this question:
"And how are the pencil and artificial arm different from a real arm?"
They're not 'different' to the extent that embodied consciousness senses, feels, the actual world/environment (and thus itself as being a sensing being) through either and both. Elsewhere above Steve points out that one can transfer one's attention from that which is felt through the contact of the tip of the pencil (or other tool) with an object or surface or other living being to that which is felt at the juncture of one's hand or fingers with the pencil. What is felt at either and both junctures is contact and interconnection between conscious subjectivity and objective parts of the world. What is felt is ultimately the co-presence -- the being-together -- of the subjective and objective poles of reality in the actual experience of conscious beings. One needs to read MP for the full analysis and explication of this phenomenal connection between consciousness/mind and the physical world. It's why I've often used the word 'palpable' to point to the quality of embodied conscious experience in a world in which the subject exists within, and yet at a certain distance from, that which exists beyond the subject, which the subject approaches, always, from a situated perspective. Samuel Alexander, a philosopher Stevens read, referred to this subject-object relation as "compresence.” This concept cannot be understood apart from working through the experience that consciousness bears into the world, which marks a qualitative change in local being beyond the purportedly 'objective' [and objectively measureable] relations of one 'thing' to another 'thing' {ETA: -- the act of taking measurements obviously always requiring a conscious intention to undertake it and a resulting meaning only for that conscious individual and others}.
Complex systems theory and quantum theory seek a similar but more basic interaction, interrelation, enacted within the purely physical world at levels of fields and processes more fundamental than the interaction and interrelation of consciousness with things. The question some here are asking is whether what happens in interactions in purely physical systems can also account for consciousness. I think that those physical processes perhaps enabled over aeons of time the development of consciousness in living organisms, and perhaps even enabled the origin and development of life itself. But there is a profound difference between consciousness in human beings (and probably some other 'higher' animals) and fundamental physical processes. Contemporary physical science offers a promissory note that it will in time reduce the mental to the physical. I doubt that that expectation will be fulfilled. Meanwhile, that broadly broadcast expectation itself (based in materialist/physicalist presuppositions about the nature of 'what-is') has for more than a century turned scientists and thinkers away from the investigation of consciousness -- until the rise of interdisciplinary consciousness studies ~25 years ago.
Steve wrote: "How is the pencil example different, fundamentally from the artificial arm example?
Both take some kind of ultimately physical input and in the end you have an experience."
Soupie responded with this question:
"And how are the pencil and artificial arm different from a real arm?"
They're not 'different' to the extent that embodied consciousness senses, feels, the actual world/environment (and thus itself as being a sensing being) through either and both. Elsewhere above Steve points out that one can transfer one's attention from that which is felt through the contact of the tip of the pencil (or other tool) with an object or surface or other living being to that which is felt at the juncture of one's hand or fingers with the pencil. What is felt at either and both junctures is contact and interconnection between conscious subjectivity and objective parts of the world. What is felt is ultimately the co-presence -- the being-together -- of the subjective and objective poles of reality in the actual experience of conscious beings. One needs to read MP for the full analysis and explication of this phenomenal connection between consciousness/mind and the physical world. It's why I've often used the word 'palpable' to point to the quality of embodied conscious experience in a world in which the subject exists within, and yet at a certain distance from, that which exists beyond the subject, which the subject approaches, always, from a situated perspective. Samuel Alexander, a philosopher Stevens read, referred to this subject-object relation as "compresence.” This concept cannot be understood apart from working through the experience that consciousness bears into the world, which marks a qualitative change in local being beyond the purportedly 'objective' [and objectively measureable] relations of one 'thing' to another 'thing' {ETA: -- the act of taking measurements obviously always requiring a conscious intention to undertake it and a resulting meaning only for that conscious individual and others}.
Complex systems theory and quantum theory seek a similar but more basic interaction, interrelation, enacted within the purely physical world at levels of fields and processes more fundamental than the interaction and interrelation of consciousness with things. The question some here are asking is whether what happens in interactions in purely physical systems can also account for consciousness. I think that those physical processes perhaps enabled over aeons of time the development of consciousness in living organisms, and perhaps even enabled the origin and development of life itself. But there is a profound difference between consciousness in human beings (and probably some other 'higher' animals) and fundamental physical processes. Contemporary physical science offers a promissory note that it will in time reduce the mental to the physical. I doubt that that expectation will be fulfilled. Meanwhile, that broadly broadcast expectation itself (based in materialist/physicalist presuppositions about the nature of 'what-is') has for more than a century turned scientists and thinkers away from the investigation of consciousness -- until the rise of interdisciplinary consciousness studies ~25 years ago.
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Soupie
Paranormal Adept
Quotes are @smcder
Regardless, he paints a very compelling narrative of how self-replicating systems (organisms) with the capacity for goal-directed movement/behavior evolve out of nature. What I think is missing from his model/narrative is how these systems use information to initiate and guide goal-directed movement/behavior.
The question is: How does a physical organism consciously experience its physical environment?
The context was prosthetics. How do physical stimuli in the environment -- chemicals, sound waves, electromagnetic waves, etc. -- become correlated with conscious perceptions of the organism?
How does touching something with a pencil, a finger, or a prosthetic hand (in some cases) feel like something to the person?
Somehow the physical process of a hand rubbing, say, a bumpy texture feels like something to the person.
The physical process of touching is often correlated with the experience of what-it’s-like.
Assuming you agree that these two things are often correlated, how do you suppose they become correlated?
My approach is to say that when a physical organism physically interacts with the physical environment and reacts with goal-directed physical movement/behavior, this entails information processing. This information processing need not be computational, although some information processing in organism may be computational.
Information is the substrate of consciousness.
Consciousness does not appear to be constituted of a physical substrate such as atoms, molecules, or fields.
I argue that the substrate of conscious experience is information embodied by neurophysiological processes of the entire organism-system.
Can all conscious experience -- all the contents of consciousness -- be described as meaning an organism gives to physical stimuli it has the capacity to recognize?
[A note on the underlined phrase. I’ve stated this in various ways many times. @Constance in particular gets tripped up on this. I’ll try to clarify.
This process of a physical organism giving “meaning” to a physical stimuli occurs on the non-personal level. That is, the physical organism -- at this step -- is not giving conceptual meaning to physical stimuli. This is a non-personal process of (non-computational) information processing. As Metzinger said, at the personal (conscious) level, we don’t not experience the neurophysiological processes occurring in our bodies.
How might physical organisms reach a point in their evolution in which they can give meaning to physical stimuli? See @Pharoah work for a good model.]
But back to your question: Can all conscious experience be described as meaning an organism has given to a physical stimuli?
If we focus just on phenomenal and affective consciousness for the moment, I think the answer is yes. I do think all perceptions, sensations, moods, and emotions are non-conceptual meaning that organisms give* to various external and internal physical/physiological states/stimuli.
[The word “give” implies conscious intention, and as this process is sub-personal, it is not the right word to use. It may be causing confusion. I’ll try to think of a better word to use than “give.” Maybe acquired?]
A quick, primitive example:
An organism has evolved the capacity to locate and move toward green flowers. The organism does this by way of interacting with physical stimuli in the environment, in this case, electromagnetic waves reflecting off of the flower.
However, we can characterize this physical interaction and subsequent goal-directed movement as information processing. This information processing is the substrate of the physical organism’s conscious experience of a green flower and its conscious experience of a desire/urge to move toward the flower.
Essentially what I'm saying is that rather than having three processes happening between the body-brain-environment system — physical processes, information processing, and conscious experience — we have two: (1) physical processes, (2) information processing/consciousness.
It's more nuanced than that though, of course. Not all the information processes going on in the body-brain-environment system manifest as conscious experience.
I was pleasantly surprised to see IIT referenced so often in the excellent article you posted about consciousness and anesthesia. IIT suggests that information manifests as conscious experience when it is processed in a particular, integrated fashion. This hypothesis is based on scientific investigation of the brain. Regions of the brain strongly associated with consciousness appear to process information in this manner (integrated vs feed-forward).
Another interesting, but very different, model is Graziano's Attention Schema. In this approach, conscious experience is an informational model of the organism's state of neurophysiological attention. The purpose of such an informational model would be to aid the organism's behavioral control.
Could these two approaches be married? That is, the brain regions responsible for manifesting the model of attention do so by integrating information.
From the general discussion of consciousness. However, it seems we agree that consciousness is not a substance, either physical or supernatural, so we can move on.
Neither can I. We’ve both tried to point that out to him. I think he is missing something from his model, and what I think he is missing is the concept of information.
Regardless, he paints a very compelling narrative of how self-replicating systems (organisms) with the capacity for goal-directed movement/behavior evolve out of nature. What I think is missing from his model/narrative is how these systems use information to initiate and guide goal-directed movement/behavior.
Okay, please revisit that.
The question is: How does a physical organism consciously experience its physical environment?
The context was prosthetics. How do physical stimuli in the environment -- chemicals, sound waves, electromagnetic waves, etc. -- become correlated with conscious perceptions of the organism?
How does touching something with a pencil, a finger, or a prosthetic hand (in some cases) feel like something to the person?
Somehow the physical process of a hand rubbing, say, a bumpy texture feels like something to the person.
The physical process of touching is often correlated with the experience of what-it’s-like.
Assuming you agree that these two things are often correlated, how do you suppose they become correlated?
My approach is to say that when a physical organism physically interacts with the physical environment and reacts with goal-directed physical movement/behavior, this entails information processing. This information processing need not be computational, although some information processing in organism may be computational.
Information is the substrate of consciousness.
I agree. Let’s move on from this approach unless presented with evidence to the contrary.
I’m trying to present that case for why I think information is the substrate of conscious experience. That’s all I’m getting at.
Consciousness does not appear to be constituted of a physical substrate such as atoms, molecules, or fields.
I argue that the substrate of conscious experience is information embodied by neurophysiological processes of the entire organism-system.
That is a great question!
Can all conscious experience -- all the contents of consciousness -- be described as meaning an organism gives to physical stimuli it has the capacity to recognize?
[A note on the underlined phrase. I’ve stated this in various ways many times. @Constance in particular gets tripped up on this. I’ll try to clarify.
This process of a physical organism giving “meaning” to a physical stimuli occurs on the non-personal level. That is, the physical organism -- at this step -- is not giving conceptual meaning to physical stimuli. This is a non-personal process of (non-computational) information processing. As Metzinger said, at the personal (conscious) level, we don’t not experience the neurophysiological processes occurring in our bodies.
How might physical organisms reach a point in their evolution in which they can give meaning to physical stimuli? See @Pharoah work for a good model.]
But back to your question: Can all conscious experience be described as meaning an organism has given to a physical stimuli?
If we focus just on phenomenal and affective consciousness for the moment, I think the answer is yes. I do think all perceptions, sensations, moods, and emotions are non-conceptual meaning that organisms give* to various external and internal physical/physiological states/stimuli.
[The word “give” implies conscious intention, and as this process is sub-personal, it is not the right word to use. It may be causing confusion. I’ll try to think of a better word to use than “give.” Maybe acquired?]
A quick, primitive example:
An organism has evolved the capacity to locate and move toward green flowers. The organism does this by way of interacting with physical stimuli in the environment, in this case, electromagnetic waves reflecting off of the flower.
However, we can characterize this physical interaction and subsequent goal-directed movement as information processing. This information processing is the substrate of the physical organism’s conscious experience of a green flower and its conscious experience of a desire/urge to move toward the flower.
Essentially what I'm saying is that rather than having three processes happening between the body-brain-environment system — physical processes, information processing, and conscious experience — we have two: (1) physical processes, (2) information processing/consciousness.
It's more nuanced than that though, of course. Not all the information processes going on in the body-brain-environment system manifest as conscious experience.
I was pleasantly surprised to see IIT referenced so often in the excellent article you posted about consciousness and anesthesia. IIT suggests that information manifests as conscious experience when it is processed in a particular, integrated fashion. This hypothesis is based on scientific investigation of the brain. Regions of the brain strongly associated with consciousness appear to process information in this manner (integrated vs feed-forward).
Another interesting, but very different, model is Graziano's Attention Schema. In this approach, conscious experience is an informational model of the organism's state of neurophysiological attention. The purpose of such an informational model would be to aid the organism's behavioral control.
Could these two approaches be married? That is, the brain regions responsible for manifesting the model of attention do so by integrating information.
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I'm not seeing the underlined phrase in your post. Is it there?
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smcder
Guest
Good video, even if we've already covered all the essential issues. I liked his iceberg analogy. I had thought of using it myself, but I find the surfer analogy more appealing due to its dynamic and experiential nature. The part of icebergs that is above the water, I suspect, doesn't have much fun
Regarding Velman and the model he calls Reflexive Monism, he's onto some key points that I believe are perfectly valid, but I think that perhaps not all inferences drawn from it are necessary. For example on one level one could argue that depending on one's model of Physicalism, Reflexive Monism and Physicalism are essentially the same thing, the only difference being that Reflexive Monism focuses on the relationship between consciousness and other physical phenomena.
With respect to your emphasis on speech production, I suggest that this is the essential point, to quote:
"Literally it is the case that I'm only conscious of what I want to say, I've only realized what I want to say, once I've actually spoken. So the actual experience follows the processing to which it most obviously relates."
The above is entirely expected and logical when considered in the context of the BBS as the source of speech. This reminds me that I should rewind a bit, because if I recall correctly, at some point when I mentioned how I create music, you suggested ( to paraphrase ) that if I create the work as a whole in my mind, then the outcome could be looked at simply as brain function, not unlike a tape recorder, and therefore consciousness isn't really necessary, or is just along for the ride. It's not quite that simple. The work doesn't just appear in a flash as a completed work.
Typically, sound samples are drawn out of physical memory and evaluated for suitability and then pieced together with other sound samples. So this particular type of creative process requires the subjective experience of sound in order to work. However once it's all done, and after enough rehearsal, all the pieces come together, and that tape recorder analogy then works. I literally become a human jukebox and don't have to think much about what I'm doing. Indeed, if I did, it would cause some serious problems. Some riffs are so fast that they can't be played while trying to consciously "think them through".
(deleted) may try to re-edit and post later
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smcder
Guest
Is there something you want a response to specifically?
Im struggling with terminology used here, i found this article below - is it a good definition of the terms as you use them or ...?
Information processing, computation, and cognition
mputation and information processing are among the most fundamental notions in cognitive science. They are also among the most imprecisely discussed. Many cognitive scientists take it for granted that cognition involves computation, information processing, or both – although others disagree vehemently. Yet different cognitive scientists use ‘computation’ and ‘information processing’ to mean different things, sometimes without realizing that they do. In addition, computation and information processing are surrounded by several myths; first and foremost, that they are the same thing. In this paper, we address this unsatisfactory state of affairs by presenting a general and theory-neutral account of computation and information processing. We also apply our framework by analyzing the relations between computation and information processing on one hand and classicism, connectionism, and computational neuroscience on the other. We defend the relevance to cognitive science of both computation, at least in a generic sense, and information processing, in three important senses of the term. Our account advances several foundational debates in cognitive science by untangling some of their conceptualknots in a theory-neutral way. By leveling the playing field, we pave the way for the future resolution of the debates’ empirical aspects.
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