Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6

[Constance]

Re LOTH

I believe it's a model for conceptual thinking, not phenomenal consciousness. I agree that the former builds off the latter.

Isn't the problem we've been studying in this thread (especially recently) the problem of defining how phenomenal consciousness enables conceptual thinking (which includes the human development of language as one of the means/tools of conceptual thinking)? Studying language itself will not answer this question. It helps to recognize that other animal species (dolphins, whales, elephants, some birds) also develop languages of their own, which has only been recognized in recent decades.

 

[Constance]

Konrad Werner, "Towards a PL-Metaphysics of Perception: In Search of the Metaphysical Roots of Constructivism," is a key paper from the second section of the current issue of Constructivist Foundations I linked above. It is followed by commentaries from other scholars of this movement.

You can download the entire issue from the site or link to single papers from the table of contents page. Here is the link to and the abstract of the Werner paper on the unavoidable ground of metaphysics in this and other approaches to the mind-body/mind-world problem.

I think we could make significant progress in our recent effort to clarify terms in consciousness studies if we read and discuss this paper. Hope you guys agree.

Abstract

"Context: Metaphysics of perception explores fundamental questions regarding the structure and status of the perceived world (or the world qua perceived). As such, it must not be separated from metaphysics per se. Problem: Although philosophy should be distinguished from the history of philosophy, it is nevertheless, say, sensitive to history. It means that in doing philosophy in general and metaphysics in particular, we re-establish, re-think ideas - questions and answers - of our antecessors; we set them anew so that they are vivid roots of contemporary thinking. My point is that movements in contemporary philosophy and cognitive science, such as radical constructivism or enactive and embodied cognition, need a metaphysical grounding. Method: I present a more elaborate account of PL-metaphysics as proposed by Jerzy Perzanowski, i.e., the stream of ideas grounded first of all in the conceptions of Plato and Leibniz. PL-metaphysics shall be compared to what I call, in the same spirit, DL-metaphysics, i.e., the stream grounded in the ideas of Descartes and Locke. On this basis, I propose to reconsider radical constructivism and pursue the question whether PL-metaphysics has anything interesting to offer in this field. Results: PL-metaphysics does have something interesting to offer due to the fact that according to it, perception is not conceived of as a transmission from an “objective” reality to the internal mental realm; as a result of perception, reality is actualized in some way, i.e., it acquires some presentation(s) or appearance(s). By virtue of perception, the apparent world comes to existence. This, however, does not mean that the apparent world is a projection of mind, that it exists “in the head.” Implications: PL-metaphysics reconciles realism with constructivism. As such, it might be considered either an alternative to constructivism or an improvement and completion of this position. Constructivist content: The article refers to non-Cartesian movements in contemporary philosophy, including radical constructivism, enactive and embodied cognition.

Keywords: Perception, metaphysics, radical constructivism, realism, appearance, Jerzy Perzanowski, Plato, Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz, Ernst von Glasersfeld.

Werner K. (2015) Towards a PL-Metaphysics of Perception: In Search of the Metaphysical Roots of Constructivism. Constructivist Foundations 11(1): 148–157

 

[Pharoah]

"Our bodies and brains carry information about properties that are not properties of ourselves, although the explanation of how this comes to be the case often involves properties of ourselves. Thus, my brain may carry information about which of two animals is the faster runner. That's a fact about how things are which is not a fact about me. And, plausibly, the account of how come my brain carries this information relates to its relevance to my chances of survival. However, our brains also carry information about how things around us are in relation to ourselves. We often have a sense of whether or not some approaching object will hit us if we do not move quickly. The latter is a kind of subjective information; in that sense, it is observer dependent. The paper draws attention to this important distinction and gives a number of insightful examples with useful discussion and elaboration. However, the point is far from new and nowhere that I could see was there anything that would address the worries philosophers have when they worry about consciousness. We learn about the science but there is nothing for philosophers of consciousness that is new."
Philosophical Quarterly reviewer's comments of my paper: it's all been said before apparently. It's a pity the reviewer doesn't say who has said it all before. This is so depressing. It's like having a toddler for a teacher.

 

[Constance]

Sorry to hear about this, Pharoah. Just blow it off and send it to a different journal. We've cited papers here from a variety of journals. I'd suggest spending an afternoon browsing the recent copies of philosophy journals in a university library. I'll do some browsing too.

 

[Constance]

Btw, have you tried this one --

Journal of Consciousness Studies | Imprint Academic

 

[Constance]

Or Consciousness and Cognition

 

[Pharoah]

Sorry to hear about this, Pharoah. Just blow it off and send it to a different journal. We've cited papers here from a variety of journals. I'd suggest spending an afternoon browsing the recent copies of philosophy journals in a university library. I'll do some browsing too.

Thanks for this... for some reason I feel better already
I read recently, that one of the most rejected best sellers of all time is "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance". Written over a four year period between the hours of 2 and 6am, it was then rejected 127 times. So just pick that arse up Pharoah and send it off again.
I have researched about 40 potentially journals and have a narrowed target list. PQ was not on that list, but was a suggestion of Kim Sterlney. He also suggested Nous which is not in my priority list either. My next on the list is either Biosemiotics or Dialogue (I think from memory).

 

[Constance]

Those last two sound very good and also appropriate for your theory.

I just came across this page discussing philosophy journals with some good advice in the comments section. Good luck.

Ranking Journals in Philosophy of Mind | The Brains Blog

 

[Constance]

This might also be useful, Pharoah:

Consciousness Researcher Database

 

[Constance]

And here's a search cache for interdisciplinary journals in science and philosophy:

Google

 

[Pharoah]

Thx

 

[Randall]

"Our bodies and brains carry information about properties that are not properties of ourselves, although the explanation of how this comes to be the case often involves properties of ourselves. Thus, my brain may carry information about which of two animals is the faster runner. That's a fact about how things are which is not a fact about me. And, plausibly, the account of how come my brain carries this information relates to its relevance to my chances of survival. However, our brains also carry information about how things around us are in relation to ourselves. We often have a sense of whether or not some approaching object will hit us if we do not move quickly. The latter is a kind of subjective information; in that sense, it is observer dependent. The paper draws attention to this important distinction and gives a number of insightful examples with useful discussion and elaboration. However, the point is far from new and nowhere that I could see was there anything that would address the worries philosophers have when they worry about consciousness. We learn about the science but there is nothing for philosophers of consciousness that is new."
Philosophical Quarterly reviewer's comments of my paper: it's all been said before apparently. It's a pity the reviewer doesn't say who has said it all before. This is so depressing. It's like having a toddler for a teacher.

Never mind what the reviewer says. All that really matters is that you have made some progress in your own journey. Just making the submission is cause for celebration! In another 5 years you might have a complete paradigm shift. Who knows? Given the depth of this mystery it can probably happen to anybody ( except me of course ) .

 

[Pharoah]

Never mind what the reviewer says. All that really matters is that you have made some progress in your own journey. Just making the submission is cause for celebration! In another 5 years you might have a complete paradigm shift. Who knows? Given the depth of this mystery it can probably happen to anybody ( except me of course ) .

@ufology: Yes, it is progress...
@Constance:
Consciousness and Cognition is experimental findings only
Journal of Consc Studies: Have tried them. JCS a non-starter. Not sure what they are looking for.
Both Biosemiotics and Dialogue are not appropriate either.

I am going for Erkenntnis. Dialectica look promising too.
First I'm going to review the paper to try to figure out why my view on observer-dependence isn't obvious.
Btw, this is the paper's work in progress link: http://mind-phronesis.co.uk/Erkenntnis-18-11-15.pdf
Need a new title: I am open to suggestions.

Incidentally, @Constance, this—http://mind-phronesis.co.uk/Info-essay-18-11-15-draft.pdf— is the draft paper I am preparing for The Monist call for papers (subject "What is information...? Calls for Papers «). Comments welcome.

 

[Soupie]

Constructivist approaches focus on self-referential and organizationally closed systems

Such systems strive for control over their inputs rather than their outputs. Cognitive system (mind) is operationally closed. It interacts necessarily only with its own states (Maturana & Varela 1979). The nervous system is “a closed network of interacting neurons such that any change in the state of relative activity of a collection of neurons leads to a change in the state of relative activity of other or the same collection of neurons” (Winograd & Flores 1986, p. 42). This is a consequence of the neurophysiological principle of undifferentiated encoding: “The response of a nerve cell does not encode the physical nature of the agents that caused its response.” (Foerster 1973/2003, p. 293). Humberto Maturana (1978) suggests that we can compare the situation of the mind with a pilot using instruments to fly the plane. All he does is “manipulate the instruments of the plane according to a certain path of change in their readings” (p. 42). In other words, the pilot doesn’t even need to look “outside.” The enactive cognitive science paradigm expresses clearly: “...autonomous systems stand in sharp contrast to systems whose coupling with the environment is specified through input/output relations. ...the meaning of this or that interaction for a living system is not prescribed from outside but is the result of the organization and history of the system itself.” (Varela, Thompson & Rosch 1991, p. 157).

Good stuff, Constance. Thanks for sharing this!

I think I'm groking this rejection of representationalism. (Although I could be totally wrong!) And if I have it right, I actually agree. I've articulated it myself in this discussion.

When we have an experience of standing in a field looking at a rose bush, that phenomenal experience might be said to be a virtual representation of a real, objective, external rose bush generated by our nervous system and brain.

Representationalism

"Representationalism is the philosophical position that the world we see in conscious experience is not the real world itself, but merely a miniature virtual-reality replica of that world in an internal representation. Representationalism is also known (in psychology) as Indirect Perception, and (in philosophy) as Indirect Realism, or Epistemological Dualism."

What I hear the Constructivists saying is that while there is a real, objective, external stimulus out there, it is nothing like a rose bush. It is much, much more than a rose bush.

This is why I prefer the term/concept Intentionalism; phenomenal consciousness is, roughly speaking, "about" external stimuli in the environment—but our experiences of these stimuli do not fully and completely "replicate" them nor even approach exhausting them. Our experiences of reality, it seems, must pale in comparison to its full richness and complexity.

 

[Constance]

I'll read both of those drafts, Pharoah. I was searching for a current link to a journal I (seem to) remember from graduate school days entitled Mind and World. I haven't located a reference to that journal yet {might be a figment of my imagination}, but I did linkl to this book by MacDowell, which you might have read. If not, it might be useful for you to read it and refer to it, in agreement or disagreement, in continuing expansion of your paper (s).

Ref http://www.amazon.com/dp/0674576101/?tag=rockoids-20

I also reread the reviewer's comment you most recently received and quoted above:

"Our bodies and brains carry information about properties that are not properties of ourselves, although the explanation of how this comes to be the case often involves properties of ourselves. Thus, my brain may carry information about which of two animals is the faster runner. That's a fact about how things are which is not a fact about me. And, plausibly, the account of how come my brain carries this information relates to its relevance to my chances of survival. However, our brains also carry information about how things around us are in relation to ourselves. We often have a sense of whether or not some approaching object will hit us if we do not move quickly. The latter is a kind of subjective information; in that sense, it is observer dependent. The paper draws attention to this important distinction and gives a number of insightful examples with useful discussion and elaboration. However, the point is far from new and nowhere that I could see was there anything that would address the worries philosophers have when they worry about consciousness. We learn about the science but there is nothing for philosophers of consciousness that is new."

I agree with your response to those comments above:

"Philosophical Quarterly reviewer's comments of my paper: it's all been said before apparently. It's a pity the reviewer doesn't say who has said it all before. This is so depressing. It's like having a toddler for a teacher."

It hasn't "all been said before." The papers we've been citing and discussing here have all presented various productive additions to the body of philosophy and science relevant to the yet-unsolved body/mind and body/world problems since the advent, just 25 years ago, of interdisciplinary consciousness studies. I doubt that your reviewer is aware of how much depth of insight has been achieved into the complex nature of conscious by the range of interdisciplinary work in consciousness studies. Your theory makes progress on disclosing that complexity, but the reviewer doesn't recognize it. Perhaps what's needed for future reviewers of your paper is the addition of a section in which you identify the progress that has been made and is continuing to be made in understanding consciousness through interdisciplinary research and thinking. If you wanted to write that overview I think it would make your paper's significance much clearer and its value apparent..

 

[Constance]

I thought this recent post of yours was especially clear in expressing the role of phenomenal experience as it grounds protoconceptual thinking in the evolution of species.

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6

Can the reviewer have missed the significance of this recognition in your paper, a perspective in the thick of things in current consciousness research?

 

[Constance]

Also Pharoah, have you yet added Akins's insights to either of the two papers you are currently working on? Like Panksepp, as I see it, she contributes significantly to the question of how consciousness and conceptualization evolve from the ground of experience in the evolution of species. To me this work explores the missing link for comprehension of the essentially monistic relation of mind and physical nature.

 

[Pharoah]

@Soupie. I, like you (perhaps), reject existing reprsentational accounts. However, that is not to say that there could not be a representational account that would work (like HCT for xample).
@Constance I haven't made a full assssment of Fodor's lOTH because I cannot decipher his text. I gave up trying to work out what I felt was not right about it.
It is hekpful when you tell me where my words clarify... as in #173.
I reference Atkins in the information paper. I am very intersted to read more of her work. I am also keen to read a couple of papers by Glasersfeld on radical constructivism.
To me, the reviewer's comments are surreal... nothing else worth saying about it really. I won't be adding an historical overview.

 

[Randall]

First I'm going to review the paper to try to figure out why my view on observer-dependence isn't obvious.
Btw, this is the paper's work in progress link: http://mind-phronesis.co.uk/Erkenntnis-18-11-15.pdf

"Observer-dependent" yields several results starting on page 11. For your view to be more obvious, perhaps start with an introduction to your view on observer-independence, define what it is, and follow it with examples, rather than starting with the illustrative example and then saying: "From this position, we can highlight a subtle distinction ..."

Need a new title: I am open to suggestions.

How about simply: "An Objective-Subjective Bridge"

If you haven't already viewed this video ( posted earlier ) perhaps check it out. Of particular relevance is around 27:25: "... those features of the world that exist independent of our feelings and attitudes; I'll call those observer-independent, from those features of the world that are observer relative ..." and it carries on from there:

​

 

[Constance]

Good stuff, Constance. Thanks for sharing this!

I'm not ready to say that constructivism as described in those brief ten points is good stuff. As the author of the list says toward the end, "this list is deliberately painted with a big brush." For one thing, I think the author is misleading in the sentences he quotes from Varela (1979). Constructivism seems to share with phenomenology an antidualistic premise and motivation but it remains to be seen whether constructivism is philosophically well grounded in other respects. It might well be worthwhile to read a number of the articles available online in the Constructivist Foundations journal to find out. The paper I linked a day later is an indication of philosophically foundational differences among those calling themselves constructivists, linked in this post:

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6


You also wrote:

"I think I'm groking this rejection of representationalism. (Although I could be totally wrong!) And if I have it right, I actually agree. I've articulated it myself in this discussion.

When we have an experience of standing in a field looking at a rose bush, that phenomenal experience might be said to be a virtual representation of a real, objective, external rose bush generated by our nervous system and brain.

Representationalism

"Representationalism is the philosophical position that the world we see in conscious experience is not the real world itself, but merely a miniature virtual-reality replica of that world in an internal representation. Representationalism is also known (in psychology) as Indirect Perception, and (in philosophy) as Indirect Realism, or Epistemological Dualism."

What I hear the Constructivists saying is that while there is a real, objective, external stimulus out there, it is nothing like a rose bush. It is much, much more than a rose bush.

This is why I prefer the term/concept Intentionalism; phenomenal consciousness is, roughly speaking, "about" external stimuli in the environment—but our experiences of these stimuli do not fully and completely "replicate" them nor even approach exhausting them. Our experiences of reality, it seems, must pale in comparison to its full richness and complexity.[/QUOTE]

Why is it necessary that consciousness replicate its environment in order for consciousness to be the viable means by which we live and act meaningfully in the environment in which we find ourselves existing?

Re your last sentence: "Our experiences of reality, it seems, must pale in comparison to its full richness and complexity,"

I would say the opposite, that the world as experienced, sensed, felt, engaged, lived, and contemplated by our species and others is where the lights turn on and the colors and sounds arise, and meaningful action and value appear in the midst of what would otherwise remain unsensed and unknown. The handful of strong and weak forces identified so far by physicists as constituting the substructure of the physical universe never ask themselves what is 'real'. Without life and consciousness there would be no questions and no answers, however partial they are in the world as consciously and temporally lived by us and other aware beings.