Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 5

[Soupie]

Yes... but what i think is the key is the notion of innate mechanism being qualitatively differentiating: one might say that they have flavours—in the way they modulate primal motivation, attentiveness etc. When these affectations are then evaluated every millisecond, an organism is effecting its individuated experiential landscape. What it does affects what it perceives affects what it does moment by moment, all because of the character of its qualitative evaluation. This is the phenomenal experience.

I still feel that you're making a conceptual leap from the objective concept of quality to the subjective experience of quality.

It's one thing to say (objectively) that via evolution a qualitative correspondence between organisms and environmental stimuli is established; it's quite another to say that organisms qualitatively experience environmental stimuli.

In my opinion, you've done the former but haven't established the latter. As I continue to read your latest paper, I'll look to see where and how you establish the latter.

 

[Soupie]

@smcder @Constance

Here is the abstract to an article I have been trying to find. I believe the article details a model of consciousness that was referred to in the anesthesia/consciousness article smcder posted a while back. Incidentally, this model seems to jive really well with my (limited) understanding of neurophenomenological dynamic systems approach to the brain (and consciousness).

REM sleep and dreaming: towards a theory of protoconsciousness

J. Allan Hobson

Abstract

Dreaming has fascinated and mystified humankind for ages: the bizarre and evanescent qualities of dreams have invited boundless speculation about their origin, meaning and purpose. For most of the twentieth century, scientific dream theories were mainly psychological. Since the discovery of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, the neural underpinnings of dreaming have become increasingly well understood, and it is now possible to complement the details of these brain mechanisms with a theory of consciousness that is derived from the study of dreaming. The theory advanced here emphasizes data that suggest that REM sleep may constitute a protoconscious state, providing a virtual reality model of the world that is of functional use to the development and maintenance of waking consciousness.

I was able to get a full version of this article. If anyone wants a copy, PM me. I will also post a review with extracts here when I read it.

 

[Constance]

I finished the article on conceptual dualism by Jack. It was a very good, quick read. His central premise is:

"This question speaks to a central and theoretically significant aspect of the account I offer, namely the idea that our neural structure constrains our cognition and gives rise to the perceived problem of consciousness."

I don't think he provides compelling evidence for this hypothesis... at all, but the paper is extremely interesting and makes some interesting observations along the way.

And while he doesnt imo confirm his hypothesis, I think we do have to take seriously the possibility that our neurology (or nature) restrains us from fully experiencing and forming coherent conceptions about what-is.

The following senstence almost caused my head to explode:

"According to this view the explanatory gap is genuine, but it isn’t a feature of the world, it lies in our heads."

Let me re-write this phrase:

According to this [conceptualization] the explanatory gap [between subjectivity and the concept of objectivity] is genuine, but it isn't a feature of the [concept of an objective] world, it [is subjective].

In other words, the Hard Problem exists because of the concept that there exists an objective reality "out there." Furthermore, this concept is accompanied by the concept that this objective reality is causal and deterministic.

It's a very robust concept. But at the end of the day, it's a concept. As Nagel, Chalmers, etc. have pointed out, if our concepts can't account for subjectivity, or worse, deny subjectivity, then the solution is to develop even more robust concepts (not the elimination of subjectivity—the very thing allowing one to possess a concept in the first place).

It's easy to see how concepts could be wrong; they do not cohere with our experiences.

But what of the concept that it is our concepts that our correct and our subjective experiences that are "wrong?"

For example, if we hold to a concept that there exists an external, objective, deterministic what-is "out there," how do we square that with our subjective experience of a sense of free will?

One can't deny that they have a sense of free will (unless of course, as is apparently the case for some individuals, one does not experience a sense of free will).

I think that these "senses," sense of free will, sense of self, include elements of conceptual thinking — perhaps innate, instinct-like, human senses.

Thus, I think these senses, like abstract concepts, may be "wrong." That is, not all subjective experiences can currently be explained via a coherent conceptual worldview.

Circling back around, the concept that the explanatory gap is a feature of subjectivity and not objective reality is correct but only because objective reality is also a feature of subjectivity.

Our concepts (narratives) are, among other reasons, maintained and modified in an effort to make sense of our subjective experiences and in this way anticipate future subjective experiences. Concept formation occurs unconsciously as well as consciously.

One could argue that—for the purposes of historical survival—a conceptual worldview needed not include a concept of how concepts exist.

However, for reasons of cultural, moral, and technological sophistication, such concepts are now needed.

Cultural: What are the causes of mental illness and therefore the most effective treatments? What are the causes of anti-social behaviors and therefore the most effective responses?

Moral: Which organisms/systems have experiences and how shall they be treated? Are people in vegetative states with minimal brain function having experiences? Is it more humane to keep them alive with machine or allow them to die?

Technological: Can we/should we create systems capable of having experiences? Can we/should we — and to what extent — merge with our technologies?

A really productive {indeed a brilliant} post, Soupie. I'll respond at this point to this portion specifically:

"For example, if we hold to a concept that there exists an external, objective, deterministic what-is "out there," how do we square that with our subjective experience of a sense of free will?"

I think the error in our thinking as conditioned by dominant materialist/objectivist/physicalist science has been that 'what is out there' is deterministic to the extent that we have no free will, no range of optional behaviors from which to choose. 'How do we square subjective experience with concepts of what-is as 'objective'? Try phenomenological philosophy.

 

[Pharoah]

I still feel that you're making a conceptual leap from the objective concept of quality to the subjective experience of quality.

It's one thing to say (objectively) that via evolution a qualitative correspondence between organisms and environmental stimuli is established; it's quite another to say that organisms qualitatively experience environmental stimuli.

In my opinion, you've done the former but haven't established the latter. As I continue to read your latest paper, I'll look to see where and how you establish the latter.

@Soupie "Doing the former" is a major achievement when you consider the philosophical orthodoxy and one of the JCS referees accepted this too (i.e. the one without any criticisms curiously) which I was very pleased about.

So moving forward:
Imagine that every colour, say, is qualitatively differentiated in the way it modulates primal directives, affects attention, focus, excite or interest etc. Couple this with other variations in visual sensing such as saturation, contrast, movement, size.
What you have is multiple competing stimuli vying for motivational primacy.
If an organism evaluates these potentials every second, it is thinking (without words or concepts or anything we might recognise from our human perspective) something like, "hmm that is of interest, that is irrelevant, Will that satiate my current homeostatic imbalance... I will explore this way, I will explore that way... I assimilate this or that, I evaluate the qualitative relevancy of this over the other" etc...
This is the phenomenon of experiencing qualitative relevancies; operating off those affective motivations.

If you sit on a train, even without thinking (or despite your attempts to do otherwise) your eyes are motivated toward one movement over another, to this or that shape, etc... Your eyes are drawn by processes outside of your decisions in awareness, to explore phenomenally cogent contexts—as they seem most of interest to your particular persuasions of the moment. This is phenomenal experience at work... with no labels, no concepts, no decisions (in awareness), but all qualitatively relevant.

This is what I am saying is happening in even very simple insects... and this is what I am saying is phenomenal consciousness

 

[Constance]

Yes... but what i think is the key is the notion of innate mechanism being qualitatively differentiating: one might say that they have flavours—in the way they modulate primal motivation, attentiveness etc. When these affectations are then evaluated every millisecond, an organism is effecting its individuated experiential landscape. What it does affects what it perceives affects what it does moment by moment, all because of the character of its qualitative evaluation. This is the phenomenal experience.

Look again at this section of @Soupie's first post today:

"I think that these "senses," sense of free will, sense of self, include elements of conceptual thinking — perhaps innate, instinct-like, human senses.

Thus, I think these senses, like abstract concepts, may be "wrong." That is, not all subjective experiences can currently be explained via a coherent conceptual worldview.

Circling back around, the concept that the explanatory gap is a feature of subjectivity and not objective reality is correct but only because objective reality is also a feature of subjectivity.

Our concepts (narratives) are, among other reasons, maintained and modified in an effort to make sense of our subjective experiences and in this way anticipate future subjective experiences. Concept formation occurs unconsciously as well as consciously."

These recognitions turn us toward the recognitions residing in hermeneutic phenomenology, which comprehends the hermeneutic circle involved in how we think about what we experience and what ideas we bring to it. As one phenomenologist said [but I've forgotten who it was] 'making sense of the hermeneutic circle depends on recognizing where we come into it, the point at which we engage it.'

 

[Jeff Crowell]

I'm starting to hate this thread. Look, it's simple; if you perceive it with one of your physical senses and others around you do, too, then it set, somehow, in reality. If only you perceive it and they don't, there's something broken and it's probably with you. As evidenced by this horrifically long thread, you can literally drive yourself insane trying to prove or disprove perception of reality on some other scale. I've decided I'm going to trust my senses to a degree and anything else I'm going to chalk up to my relative craziness and say it didn't really happen. That's how I'm going to stay happy (ignorance is bliss).

There. I did it.

All mysteries in the universe solved.

We can close this thread now, and there's no more need for paranormal investigations or research into UFO's.

I'm going to go apply for a job at the government, now.

Peace!

J.

 

[Constance]

As I understand it, Panksepp's theories are constructed on the research.. The research was not designed to prove theory.

His research led to [grounded] a new theory, a theory that works against the dominant suppositions of cognitive neuroscience. All the more reason why we have to take his research findings and resulting theory seriously and incorporate it into how we think about consciousness.

I probably have read all the papers you have linked by Panksepp. Have you read Barrett's of mice and men paper on Panksepp? I have to say, her paper critiquing Panksepp made a lot of sense to me.

I remember the Barrett paper, which we discussed during the period we posted in the Google forum you provided for a while. We need to understand Barrett's presuppositions as a cognitive psychologist in order to see why she resisted Panksepp's emerging insights.

I feel that I have an account for prereflexivity in HCT... you may think otherwise.

I still have to get back to your current paper and will do so today if possible, otherwise tomorrow.

As for protoconsciousness... not sure I know what it means.

Last night I did a search for papers and books focused on 'protoconsciousness' and will copy links to some of them in a next post. As in all consciousness research, this term is used in different ways depending on the concepts with which individual authors begin. But it's clear from the variety of thinking about protoconsciousness that it is widely recognized as part of the initiating structure of consciousness in evolution.

Theoretically HCT indicates a greyscale in the extent of phenomenal consciousness sophistication. It comes with survival advantages whose potential can only be realised through the continuing development of neural mechanisms. The increase in brain size is largely to facilitate the benefits of increasingly sophisticated phenomenal accuity. I'm not sure where protocs comes into it... but tell me what I am missing if I am missing something

This paragraph summarizes your own interpretation of how consciousness is grounded, seeded, in living organisms. I think it would be useful for the purposes of your paper's publication if you also explored and recognized opposing interpretations, esp in phenomenological philosophy and in Panksepp's research, forthrightly contrasting your interpretation with these others.

 

[Pharoah]

I'm starting to hate this thread. Look, it's simple; if you perceive it with one of your physical senses and others around you do, too, then it set, somehow, in reality. If only you perceive it and they don't, there's something broken and it's probably in you. As evidenced by this horrifically long thread, you can literally drive yourself insane trying to prove or disprove perception of reality on some other scale. I've decided I'm going to trust my senses to a degree and anything else I'm going to chalk up to my relative craziness and say it didn't really happen. That's how I'm going to stay happy (ignorance is bliss).

There. I did it.

All mysteries in the universe solved.

We can close this thread now, and there's no more need for paranormal investigations or research into UFO's.

I'm going to go apply for a job at the government, now.

Peace!

J.

"I know what you are thinking: you're asking yourself, 'why did I take the red pill... why didn't I take the blue one?' "

 

[Constance]

I'm starting to hate this thread. Look, it's simple; if you perceive it with one of your physical senses and others around you do, too, then it set, somehow, in reality. If only you perceive it and they don't, there's something broken and it's probably in you. As evidenced by this horrifically long thread, you can literally drive yourself insane trying to prove or disprove perception of reality on some other scale. I've decided I'm going to trust my senses to a degree and anything else I'm going to chalk up to my relative craziness and say it didn't really happen. That's how I'm going to stay happy (ignorance is bliss).

There. I did it.

All mysteries in the universe solved.

We can close this thread now, and there's no more need for paranormal investigations or research into UFO's.

I'm going to go apply for a job at the government, now.

Peace!

J.

You're clearly correct, as I see it, in the comment I've highlighted in blue. As Merleau-Ponty recognized, we experience our existence in the world from the basis of a "perceptual faith" that what we encounter in the world is real -- actual -- despite our inability to know it "in itself." The consequence is that we need to "multiply" our own perspectives on what we encounter in order to more adequately approach the 'thing' through the affordances of its phenomenal appearances to us, and furthermore entertain the perspectives of others of our species on what is encountered phenomenally -- a considerable 'multiplication of perspectives' on the basis of the concordance of which we can more confidently rely as we attempt to understand the nature of what-is in its entirety. Thus our shared descriptions of the world are more reliable, though they remain provisional given the limits of our understanding. To accept this is to accept the existentiality of our existence, a sustained openness to what-is as we experience it locally and eventually think about the nature of our situated be-ing, and then think from that basis about the possible nature of that which extends beyond the limits of our experience and proximal knowledge.

 

[Constance]

@Soupie, @Pharoah, @smcder, have any of you come across the work of J. Allen Hobson? Here are links to his work and his thinking that I assembled in a Word doc last night. How does IA Jack's paper relate to Hobson's thinking?


See at amazon his recent book
Brain Growth -- The Illusion and the Reality of Being: A BIT of Dream Life,
which is available on Kindle for $2.99.

And see amazon's list of all his books for the history of his research.


Short intro to Hobson: Science

From/at his home page: Home

INTERVIEW WITH HOBSON: https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/IJoDR/article/viewFile/9539/pdf_33

 

[Soupie]

Imagine that every colour, say, is qualitatively differentiated in the way it modulates primal directives, affects attention, focus, excite or interest etc. Couple this with other variations in visual sensing such as saturation, contrast, movement, size.

What you have is multiple competing stimuli vying for motivational primacy.

Okay, I can conceive this. (But let's replace "color" with EM waves.)

So let's say we have an organism that can neurophysiologically sense three kinds of properties:

EM wave length
Size of objects
Movement of objects

Different variations of these three properties are qualitatively differentiated for the organism; that is simply to say, some EM wavelengths are good, some bad; some object sizes are good, some bad, etc.

Depending on the various varieties of properties sensed by the organism, various neurophysiological processes such as arousel, attention, flight, fight, etc. are triggered.

However, this all occurs mechanistically via physical, objective, neurophysiological processes. Phenomenal consciousness has not emerged and plays no role. Is that right?

If that is not right, and I have it wrong, perhaps you can modify the above to illustrate what I am not following.

If an organism evaluates these potentials every second, it is thinking (without words or concepts or anything we might recognise from our human perspective) something like, "hmm that is of interest, that is irrelevant, Will that satiate my current homeostatic imbalance... I will explore this way, I will explore that way... I assimilate this or that, I evaluate the qualitative relevancy of this over the other" etc...

This is the phenomenon of experiencing qualitative relevancies; operating off those affective motivations.

And now, boom, we have phenomenal experience. And affect too.

"If an organism evaluates these potentials... it is thinking. ... This is the phenomenon of experiencing qualitative relevancies..."

I don't think so, Pharoah. Imo I think you are making some huge conceptual leaps here.

(1) Organism can physically differentiate multiple stimuli

(2) Organism can physically differentiate variation within multiple stimuli

(3) Variated stimuli (that are qualitatively relavent to the organism), once physically recognized, trigger various physical processes within the organism: attention, arousel, approach, withdrawal, etc.

(4) Organisms must physically differentiate a massive amount of physical environmental stimuli, physically evaluate them, and physically (mechanistically) choose (amplify/attenuate) which to respond to.

While the neural processes would be complex and sophisticated, it is very conceivable and indeed likely that all of what you describe above could be accomplished neurophysiologically—that is, physically and objectively.

Again, I'm not seeing why phenomenal experience, affectivity, and thinking must enter the picture. And I'm definitely not seeing how they enter the picture.

As it is now, you just have phenomenal experience emerging out of no where.

 

[Soupie]

If an organism evaluates these potentials... this is the phenomenon of experiencing qualitative relevancies...

This appears to be your central premise, Pharoah. Unfortunately, I don't think you've established why or how this process correlates with—or is identical to—phenomenal consciousness.

To complicate matters, in your account above, you seem to invoke affectivity and thinking as well.

(1) As I've noted, that an environmental stimuli may be good or bad for an organism's homeostasis at any given moment (that is, is qualitatively relevant to the organism) does not mean the organism will experience this qualitity.

Fire is qualitatively bad for dry wood. Dry wood does not qualitatively experience fire.

(2) Now, you say: Environmental stimuli trigger various physiological states within the organism such as attention, arousel, fight, flight, etc.

Sure, but both the "triggering" and the response will be physiological. There is no need to call into being phenomenal or affective experience.

(3) Finally, you say that the organism must needs "evaluate" this bombardment of qualitatively relevant stimuli and "decide" which stimuli to respond to.

Both the evaluating of stimuli and deciding of which to respond will require physical processes. Indeed, it's easy to conceive of purely physical processes by which an organism might do both.

Thus, I don't see why or how phenomenal consciousness would be involved in this (1) (2) (3) process at all.

 

[Constance]

Maxime Doyon, The 'As-Structure' of Intentional Experience in Husserl and Heidegger

This paper is available whole in its 'penultimate draft' at the academia.edu link below. Since the author requests that quotations be taken only from the forthcoming publication of the paper [in
Breyer, T. & C. Gutland (eds.), Phenomenology of Thinking. Investigations into the Character of Cognitive Experiences,
Routledge 2015], I cannot provide extracts in this post. I do recommend reading this paper as an aid to understanding phenomenological theories of consciousness.

The "As-Structure" of Intentional Experience in Heidegger and Husserl

 

[smcder]

Yes... but what i think is the key is the notion of innate mechanism being qualitatively differentiating: one might say that they have flavours—in the way they modulate primal motivation, attentiveness etc. When these affectations are then evaluated every millisecond, an organism is effecting its individuated experiential landscape. What it does affects what it perceives affects what it does moment by moment, all because of the character of its qualitative evaluation. This is the phenomenal experience.

yeah but there is still no reason why the experience is phenomenal
and
yeah but there is still no reason why the experience is phenomenal

there is ever clearer to me, as I can find no single example of something that only occurs when one is consciously aware, except I posted something the other day

velmans

that was I think the single motorneurone at the base of the thumb, within 10 minutes people could play a "drumroll" on the biofeedback machine by activating this individual neurone

AND

they controlled for subconscious learning, only when the subject was consciously aware of the biofeedback where they able to learn to control this unit, the firing of which is otherwise not normally accessible to consciousness ...

does this mean that the only things we have to be conscious of are things we move into consciousness that normally aren't there?

other than that - any specific thing we can do consciously, we seem to be able to do unconsciously ... even complex learning, obviously shifting something the other way requires consciousness by definition, but even complex learning can occur the other way: I woke up knowing more German, calculus, etc than I did before going to bed, so complex learning, at least some aspects of it, can occur subconsciously (or maybe it requires consciousness in dreams? if so, its different than the intentional learning process of study - but may require consciousness in the dream state

 

[smcder]

@Soupie "Doing the former" is a major achievement when you consider the philosophical orthodoxy and one of the JCS referees accepted this too (i.e. the one without any criticisms curiously) which I was very pleased about.

So moving forward:
Imagine that every colour, say, is qualitatively differentiated in the way it modulates primal directives, affects attention, focus, excite or interest etc. Couple this with other variations in visual sensing such as saturation, contrast, movement, size.
What you have is multiple competing stimuli vying for motivational primacy.
If an organism evaluates these potentials every second, it is thinking (without words or concepts or anything we might recognise from our human perspective) something like, "hmm that is of interest, that is irrelevant, Will that satiate my current homeostatic imbalance... I will explore this way, I will explore that way... I assimilate this or that, I evaluate the qualitative relevancy of this over the other" etc...
This is the phenomenon of experiencing qualitative relevancies; operating off those affective motivations.

If you sit on a train, even without thinking (or despite your attempts to do otherwise) your eyes are motivated toward one movement over another, to this or that shape, etc... Your eyes are drawn by processes outside of your decisions in awareness, to explore phenomenally cogent contexts—as they seem most of interest to your particular persuasions of the moment. This is phenomenal experience at work... with no labels, no concepts, no decisions (in awareness), but all qualitatively relevant.

This is what I am saying is happening in even very simple insects... and this is what I am saying is phenomenal consciousness

@Soupie
*It's one thing to say (objectively) that via evolution a qualitative correspondence between organisms and environmental stimuli is established

@Pharoah
"Doing the former" is a major achievement when you consider the philosophical orthodoxy and one of the JCS referees accepted this too (i.e. the one without any criticisms curiously) which I was very pleased about.

And how you do that, that is what I need to understand as being different from other theories out there ... the status quo, standard theories, whatever you want to call them, based on TENS, based on needing this information, to me give the same account, the same why it shows up, but they don't show that it has to show up - it doesn't show why zombies have to be impossible, as I pointed out above, almost anything can happen unconsciously, outside of our conscious awareness - so given consciousness we have explanations for why, but they are based on consciousness being causally effective (and we dont have an explanation for that causality, from a physicalist perspective, everyone as far as I know, admits that) but they don't say why consciousness has to be given.

Given another substrate, or another architecture, it still seems to me conceivable that complex cognition might evolve somewhere without consciousness ... take sillicone based - Ive seen speculation that it is very slow, the pressure that causes (hypothetical) alien intelligence in sillicone might mean omitting consciousness because it is too slow ...

one other note,

without words or concepts or anything we might recognise from our human perspective

I think we might, we might even bring in this "anything" into conscious awareness after the fact or on the fly, we can do some remarkable things with our consciousness

yesterday as i was driving to work I played around with moving everything inside and outside, thats easy for external things - but I brought all my bodily sensations outside too or at least to the surface and then drove (and this was a little terrifying at 6omph) everything outside IN, but I couldnt process all of that inside fast enough, i had to leave it out there (notice, no "" on out there) ... the natural intuition of consciousness as fluid (not as a fluid) arises from being able to play around with it.

As an aside try this too, get a pot of water hot and then intend to bring it to the boiling point with your intention, just a pure intention, dont imagine a laser beam coming out of your head or anything else, just the sheer intent to make the water boil ... THIS IS AN IMAGINATIVE EXPERIENCE ... but when the water boils you can see the sense that you made it happen form, you could say this is how people get superstitious (watch a MLB pitcher at work) ... but it's very interesting to watch it and you'll never look at a pot of water the same. There is a kind of tangible intention that goes from you to the pot that is not physical.

also an aside - I am kind of getting more and more convinced that what it is like to be a bat, isn't all that alien, and that imagination brings a lot of it to us - in other words our intuition about animals isnt so anthropomorphic after all ... I live with five dogs and I think I have become as much dog as they have human ... and that they have me as trained as I have them ... or more ... I spend more time with them than humans and ive gradually become aware of a frustration that other humans cant communicate with me the way I communicate with my dogs

 

[Constance]

I'm going to quote a portion of note 5 in Doyon's paper ["The 'As-Structure' of Intentional Experience in Husserl and Heidegger"] as an orientation to phenomenological analysis for those not yet familiar with it:

Phenomenological philosophy distinguishes “between a narrow and a broad concept of intentionality: whereas the former is object-directed in the conventional sense of the word, the latter is more broadly conceived as openness towards alterity and includes all the various non-objectifying forms of conscious experience.”

This is why Merleau-Ponty moved in his later philosophy beyond the rigid 'subject-object' dualism still influential in his Phenomenology of Perception. We are still all, to varying extents, overly influenced by the pronounced undertow of this dualism carried in our science and in our philosophy since Descartes. This is a habit of thinking that needs to be overcome in order to understand and apply phenomenological insights to our descriptions of what-is.

 

[Pharoah]

This appears to be your central premise, Pharoah. Unfortunately, I don't think you've established why or how this process correlates with—or is identical to—phenomenal consciousness.

To complicate matters, in your account above, you seem to invoke affectivity and thinking as well.

(1) As I've noted, that an environmental stimuli may be good or bad for an organism's homeostasis at any given moment (that is, is qualitatively relevant to the organism) does not mean the organism will experience this qualitity.

Fire is qualitatively bad for dry wood. Dry wood does not qualitatively experience fire.

(2) Now, you say: Environmental stimuli trigger various physiological states within the organism such as attention, arousel, fight, flight, etc.

Sure, but both the "triggering" and the response will be physiological. There is no need to call into being phenomenal or affective experience.

(3) Finally, you say that the organism must needs "evaluate" this bombardment of qualitatively relevant stimuli and "decide" which stimuli to respond to.

Both the evaluating of stimuli and deciding of which to respond will require physical processes. Indeed, it's easy to conceive of purely physical processes by which an organism might do both.

Thus, I don't see why or how phenomenal consciousness would be involved in this (1) (2) (3) process at all.

@Soupie re: Both this message above and the previous message.
What then, is the phenomenon of experience, an experience of?
you say, in (1) "that an environmental stimuli may be good or bad for an organism's homeostasis at any given moment (that is, is qualitatively relevant to the organism) does not mean the organism will experience this qualitity."
I don't say this, so...
And the burning wood thing is just silly.

you say in (2) "Sure, but both the "triggering" and the response will be physiological. There is no need to call into being phenomenal or affective experience."
I don't say this, so...
You really could be a referee for JCS.

you say in (3) "Both the evaluating of stimuli and deciding of which to respond will require physical processes. Indeed, it's easy to conceive of purely physical processes by which an organism might do both."
And... your point is...? That a solution to phen consc requires non-physical processes??
"Thus, I don't see why or how phenomenal consciousness would be involved in this"
This idea, namely, that phen consc "is involved in.." is not the way I speak of phen consc. It is not something that gets involved. Rather, the degree of sophistication of an organism's phen exp is instantiated by the sophistication of the evaluative and differentiating capabilities.

@Soupie In the post that preceded this one that I have responded to, you say,
"While the neural processes would be complex and sophisticated, it is very conceivable and indeed likely that all of what you describe above could be accomplished neurophysiologically—that is, physically and objectively... I'm not seeing why phenomenal experience, affectivity, and thinking must enter the picture."
Indeed, in relation to points 1 to 3, neural processes can be very complex without phenomenal experience entering the picture.
Point 4 is,
"(4) Organisms must physically differentiate a massive amount of physical environmental stimuli, physically evaluate them, and physically (mechanistically) choose (amplify/attenuate) which to respond to."
An organism does not evaluate the physical stimulus (itself)—I never say that—but rather, the qualitatively represented (as agreed) character instantiated by those physical stimuli... If an organism continually evaluates those qualitatively represented characteristics instantiated by environment (on a continual basis)... soupie, you say "that organism is not experiencing qualitatively: there is no phenomenal experience" . So, what is it experiencing: what is phenomenal experience?"

 

[Constance]

. . . does this mean that the only things we have to be conscious of are things we move into consciousness that normally aren't there?

other than that - any specific thing we can do consciously, we seem to be able to do unconsciously ... even complex learning, obviously shifting something the other way requires consciousness by definition, but even complex learning can occur the other way: I woke up knowing more German, calculus, etc than I did before going to bed, so complex learning, at least some aspects of it, can occur subconsciously (or maybe it requires consciousness in dreams? if so, its different than the intentional learning process of study - but may require consciousness in the dream state

We probably need at this point to read and understand Evan Thompson's most recent book, Waking, Dreaming, Being: Self and Consciousness in Neuroscience, Meditation, and Philosophy.

Consciousness includes the subconscious and indeed some experiences held in the collective unconscious. This is what I think Wolfgang Giegerich had in mind in using this title for one of his recent books on Jung: The Soul Always Thinks.

So I think the answer to your first question above -- "does this mean that the only things we have to be conscious of are things we move into consciousness that normally aren't there? -- is 'no.' Consciousness is not merely 'what we think about' but rather what we are aware of in the different levels of our consciousness, which play into what we think about.

 

[Pharoah]

@Soupie
*It's one thing to say (objectively) that via evolution a qualitative correspondence between organisms and environmental stimuli is established

@Pharoah
"Doing the former" is a major achievement when you consider the philosophical orthodoxy and one of the JCS referees accepted this too (i.e. the one without any criticisms curiously) which I was very pleased about.

And how you do that, that is what I need to understand as being different from other theories out there ... the status quo, standard theories, whatever you want to call them, based on TENS, based on needing this information, to me give the same account, the same why it shows up, but they don't show that it has to show up - it doesn't show why zombies have to be impossible, as I pointed out above, almost anything can happen unconsciously, outside of our conscious awareness - so given consciousness we have explanations for why, but they are based on consciousness being causally effective (and we dont have an explanation for that causality, from a physicalist perspective, everyone as far as I know, admits that) but they don't say why consciousness has to be given.

Given another substrate, or another architecture, it still seems to me conceivable that complex cognition might evolve somewhere without consciousness ... take sillicone based - Ive seen speculation that it is very slow, the pressure that causes (hypothetical) alien intelligence in sillicone might mean omitting consciousness because it is too slow ...

one other note,

without words or concepts or anything we might recognise from our human perspective

I think we might, we might even bring in this "anything" into conscious awareness after the fact or on the fly, we can do some remarkable things with our consciousness

yesterday as i was driving to work I played around with moving everything inside and outside, thats easy for external things - but I brought all my bodily sensations outside too or at least to the surface and then drove (and this was a little terrifying at 6omph) everything outside IN, but I couldnt process all of that inside fast enough, i had to leave it out there (notice, no "" on out there) ... the natural intuition of consciousness as fluid (not as a fluid) arises from being able to play around with it.

As an aside try this too, get a pot of water hot and then intend to bring it to the boiling point with your intention, just a pure intention, dont imagine a laser beam coming out of your head or anything else, just the sheer intent to make the water boil ... THIS IS AN IMAGINATIVE EXPERIENCE ... but when the water boils you can see the sense that you made it happen form, you could say this is how people get superstitious (watch a MLB pitcher at work) ... but it's very interesting to watch it and you'll never look at a pot of water the same. There is a kind of tangible intention that goes from you to the pot that is not physical.

also an aside - I am kind of getting more and more convinced that what it is like to be a bat, isn't all that alien, and that imagination brings a lot of it to us - in other words our intuition about animals isnt so anthropomorphic after all ... I live with five dogs and I think I have become as much dog as they have human ... and that they have me as trained as I have them ... or more ... I spend more time with them than humans and ive gradually become aware of a frustration that other humans cant communicate with me the way I communicate with my dogs

The zombie scenario is shown to be impossible by HCT (though I don't mention this in the paper). The hierarchy is necessary... you can't have conceptual constructs without the physiology and phenomen0logy; and you can't have the phenomenal experience without a qualitatively differentiating physiology. Each is built on top of the other. You can't miss one hierarchical layer out and say, "well it is conceivable." It is conceivable in another universe with different physical laws... but I 'm not particularly interested in that possibility.
Now, whilst epistemologically impossible according to HCT, I am told that the zombie argument is a metaphysical argument.
I don't get that because... anything is conceivable: so what? Pigs conceivably could fly... I don't get it.

 

[Constance]

The hierarchy is necessary... you can't have conceptual constructs without the physiology and phenomen0logy; and you can't have the phenomenal experience without a qualitatively differentiating physiology. Each is built on top of the other. You can't miss one hierarchical layer out and say, "well it is conceivable."

I have to read all of @Soupie's posts today to be sure I understand fully what he is arguing, but at this point it seems to me that your HCT is built on a foundation of objectivist/physicalist propositions rather than exploring what is experienced from the primordial layer of life upward -- which, some theorists think influences the evolutionary development of the brain's neuronal system.