Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6

[Soupie]

The "philosophy of brains" blog continues to be a rich source of new thinking and models of brains and minds.

A gentleman named Andy Clark has made a few fascinating blog posts in regards to his new book: Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action, and the Embodied Mind (Oxford University Press NY, 2016).

Here's an excerpt from his second blog post. I think @Constance and @Pharoah may find his ideas particularly stimulating. It also speaks to our discussion about how "meaning" and "understanding" might arise without presupposing an observer/understander.

He is exploring the notion that perception involves a complex, multi-layered process of predicting sensory stimuli.

Expecting Ourselves

"What does it take to be a creature that has some sense of itself as a material being, with its own concerns, encountering a structured and meaningful world? Such a being feels (from the inside, as it were) like a sensing, feeling, knowing thing, and a locus of ‘mattering’. In Surfing Uncertainty I describe (see previous posts) an emerging bundle of research programs in cognitive and computational neuroscience that – and I say this with all due caution, and a full measure of dread and trepidation – may begin to suggest a clue. I don’t think the clue replaces or challenges the other clues emerging in contemporary neuroscience. But it may be another step along the road. ...

But what about sentience itself – that hard-to-pin-down feeling of stuff mattering and of truly ‘being in the world’? Here, recently-emerging work by Anil Seth and others highlights an under-appreciated feature of the total sensory stream that the agent is trying to predict. That feature is the the stream of interoceptive information specifying (via dense vascular feedback) the physiological state of the body – the state of the gut and viscera, blood sugar levels, temperature, and much much more (Bud Craig’s recent book How Do You Feel offers a wonderfully rich account of this).

What happens when a unified multi-level prediction engine crunches all that interoceptive information together with the information specifying organism-salient opportunities for action? Such an agent has a predictive grip on multi-scale structure in the external world. But that multi-layered grip is now superimposed upon (indeed, co-computed with) another multi-layered predictive grip – a grip on the changing physiological state of her own body. Agents like this are busy expecting themselves!

And these clearly interact. As your bodily states alter, the salience of various worldly opportunities alters too. Such estimations of salience are written deep into the heart of the predictive processing model, where they appear (as we just saw) as alterations to the weighting (the ‘precision’) of specific prediction error signals. As those estimations alter, you will act differently, harvesting different streams of exteroceptive and interoceptive information, that in turn determine subsequent actions, choices, and bodily states.

Your multi-layer action-generating predictive grip upon the world is now inflected, at every level, by an interoceptively informed grip on ‘how things are (physiologically) with you’. Might this be the moment at which a robot, animal, or machine starts to experience a low-grade sense of being-in-the-world? Such a system has, in some intuitive sense, a simple grip not just on the world, but on the world as it matters, right here, right now, for the embodied being that is you. Agents like that experience a structured and – dare I say it – meaningful world: a world where each perceptual moment presents salient affordances for action, permeated by a subtle sense of our own present and unfolding bodily states. ..."

There are some exciting things going on in neuroscience, cognitive science, and robotics.

 

[Constance]

Here's an excerpt from his second blog post. I think @Constance and @Pharoah may find his ideas particularly stimulating. It also speaks to our discussion about how "meaning" and "understanding" might arise without presupposing an observer/understander.

I'll read it and discuss it with you, but only after you've read and responded to the last paper I linked -- Galen Strawson, "Cognitive Phenomenology: Real Life."

You won't find Strawson as difficult to read as you find Husserl, Heidegger,
and Merleau-Ponty, even as explicated through Evan Thompson's clarifying lens.

 

[Constance]

@Pharoah might be interested in the call for papers for the Minds Online Conference described on the blog @Soupie cited at

Expecting Ourselves

 

[Constance]

"Your multi-layer action-generating predictive grip upon the world is now inflected, at every level, by an interoceptively informed grip on ‘how things are (physiologically) with you’."

It seems undeniable that in the case of mammals and humans the living being is 'inflected' {does that mean 'affected' in Clark?} also by emotion, per Panksepp, and by increasing levels of cognition in higher animals including humans, per Strawson and phenomenological philosophy. If 'inflected' does not mean 'affected' in Clark, what does Clark mean by the term 'inflected'?

 

[Soupie]

I believe it does essentially mean affected, but I understand his use of inflected. How we perceive exteroceptive stimuli is subtlety informed by our perception of interoceptive stimuli.

And I agree that perception is shaped by emotion and cognition as well.

 

[Constance]

How we perceive exteroceptive stimuli is subtlety informed by our perception of interoceptive stimuli.

And also, I still maintain, by qualitative experiences in and of the world we inhabit.

 

[Randall]

How we perceive exteroceptive stimuli is subtlety informed by our perception of interoceptive stimuli.

Would you mind clarifying the above. It seems to me that how we perceive exteroceptive stimuli is neurologically, and once it's perceived that way, it becomes our perception ( of the causal factor for the stimuli ). The "subtlety informed" seems redundant and confusing. What exactly are you saying there?

 

[Soupie]

And also, I still maintain, by qualitative experiences in and of the world we inhabit.

Would you mind clarifying the above. It seems to me that how we perceive exteroceptive stimuli is neurologically, and once it's perceived that way, it becomes our perception ( of the causal factor for the stimuli ). The "subtlety informed" seems redundant and confusing. What exactly are you saying there?

When I use the term perception, I mean it in the sense of conscious perception. So to perceive something is to consciously perceive something. I'll try to use the modifier "conscious" for clarity's sake moving forward.

So my comment:

"How we perceive exteroceptive stimuli is subtley informed by our perception of interoceptive stimuli," could be restated:

"How we consciously experience exteroceptive stimuli is subtley informed by our conscious experience of interoceptive stimuli."

What do I mean by that? Take a look at Clark's comment:

"Your multi-layer action-generating predictive grip upon the world is now inflected, at every level, by an interoceptively informed grip on ‘how things are (physiologically) with you’."

The idea behind Predictive Processing is that organisms (brains) do not just passively receive stimuli, but are continuously, actively predicting it. In other words, what we consciously perceive of the world is a mixture of external stimuli being processed from the bottom up via sensory organs and specialized brain regions and the top down via higher-order, more-global networks.

What the author is saying above, is that the same holds true for stimuli coming from within the organism. And we (our brains) are actively attempting to predict this internal stimuli as well.

Our brains, then, are actively receiving and predicting a constant stream of external stimuli and a constant stream of internal stimuli. I believe what the author is saying that this "grip" on how things are internally inflects/affects our "grip" on how things are externally.

For example, how we perceive a buffet when we are hungry will differ from how we perceive it when we are sick.

That of course is an extreme example, and the interplay between world, brain, and body is typically much more subtle and nuanced.

 

[Constance]

That all seems to make sense so long as it includes direct and unified perception via the five major senses of the local environment in which the being exists. What fuller expression of Clark's description should I read in addition to the blog?

 

[Soupie]

That all seems to make sense so long as it includes direct and unified perception via the five major senses of the local environment in which the being exists. What fuller expression of Clark's description should I read in addition to the blog?

I'm looking for a nice 20-25 page paper myself, but so far I've found:

http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/tesfat...ainsSituatedAgentsFutureCogSci.AClark2012.pdf

http://www.lorentzcenter.nl/lc/web/2014/627/presentations/Andy Clark - Expecting the World.pdf

This work seems to dovetail nicely with the neurophenomenological, enactive approach.

 

[Randall]

... What do I mean by that? Take a look at Clark's comment: ...

OK done: So what's your interpretation of "interoceptively informed" in your own words? Let's see if we're on the same page here.

 

[Soupie]

OK done: So what's your interpretation of "interoceptively informed" in your own words? Let's see if we're on the same page here.

Interoceptively informed grip.

My post above answers your question.

Our brains, then, are actively receiving and predicting a constant stream of external stimuli and a constant stream of internal stimuli. I believe what the author is saying that this "grip" on how things are internally inflects/affects our "grip" on how things are externally.

For example, how we perceive a buffet when we are hungry will differ from how we perceive it when we are sick.

Our predictive processing of our internal states (interoceptive stimuli) informs how we predictively process exteroceptive stimuli (the external world).

Our internal states affect how we perceive the external world.

 

[Constance]

This work seems to dovetail nicely with the neurophenomenological, enactive approach.

I wonder if any neurophenomenologists have read Clark in detail and have found, or not found, a comprehensive agreement with his description of the relationship of inner neurophysically structured expectations and the experienced qualities of conscious existence in the world? My impression is that correspondences in Clark's claims with neurophysical recognitions accepted by neurophenomenologists only go a limited distance in expressing a physiological and 'informational' openness to actual experience in and of the world, beyond which neurophenomenologists recognize the characteristics of experientially lived presence to phenomenal reality.

Our predictive processing of our internal states (interoceptive stimuli) informs how we predictively process exteroceptive stimuli (the external world).

Our internal states affect how we perceive the external world.

I think it becomes a question of the degree of 'internal' informing [as "predictive processing"] one is willing to accept at this point in neurological research as explanatory of the wide range of human behavior, activity, thought, and expression demonstrated in our species' history. Surely, as you say, our "internal states affect how we perceive the external world"; but that does not mean that these neurophysically/informationally affective processes produce the whole of the effects of conscious (and preconscious) presence in and experience of the world, which is always an interactive experience between the subjective and objective poles of reality in the temporal space of lived reality.

I'll read with interest the two sources re Clark's ideas that you linked above.

 

[Constance]

@Soupie, I've now read the two sources you linked and will comment on them tonight or tomorrow. I wish that @Pharoah would also read and comment on them since they seem to me to be highly relevant to his Hierarchical Construct Theory. I wonder in the first place whether something like 'predictive processing' as described by Clark is not implicit in HCT, whether or nor he has followed the development of this hypothetical approach to accounting for consciousness and mind.

 

[Constance]

Re your response to @ufology's request that you state in your own words your interpretation of the phrase "interoceptively informed," it seems to me that ufology would need to read both the sources you linked to obtain a full 'grip' on what Clark is attempting to sell. (though I do think it's unlikely that ufology will object to Clark's and his predessors' thinking in whole or in part)

Interoceptively informed grip.

My post above answers your question.

Our predictive processing of our internal states (interoceptive stimuli) informs how we predictively process exteroceptive stimuli (the external world).

Our internal states affect how we perceive the external world.

 

[Randall]

Re your response to @ufology's request that you state in your own words your interpretation of the phrase "interoceptively informed," it seems to me that ufology would need to read both the sources you linked to obtain a full 'grip' on what Clark is attempting to sell. (though I do think it's unlikely that ufology will object to Clark's and his predessors' thinking in whole or in part)

Tagging me is getting my attention and I have no interest in addressing your comments. You're past remarks have gotten me to the point where I don't care if you make any valid points or not. Better that you stay on your side of the room and let me interact in peace with participants who I can still communicate with.

 

[Constance]

@Soupie, the link below goes to the Clark paper you cited and the 25 commentaries on it that followed, all appearing in BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2013), pp. 1 - 73. The commentary by Froese and Ikegamib, copied below, sums up my own general response to Clark's hierarchical predictive processing hypothesis as argued in his target paper, though I'll add several additional comments later.

"The brain is not an isolated “black box,” nor is
its goal to become one"

Tom Froese and Takashi Ikegamib

Abstract: In important ways, Clark’s “hierarchical prediction machine”
(HPM) approach parallels the research agenda we have been pursuing.
Nevertheless, we remain unconvinced that the HPM offers the best clue
yet to the shape of a unified science of mind and action. The apparent
convergence of research interests is offset by a profound divergence of
theoretical starting points and ideal goals.

We share with Clark a commitment to exploring the deep continuities
of life, mind, and sociality (Froese & Di Paolo 2011). Similar to the enactive notion of “sense-making,” Clark’s “hierarchical prediction machine” (HPM) entails that perceiving cannot be separated from acting and cognizing. Nevertheless, we disagree with Clark’s theoretical premises and their ideal
consequences.

Clark begins with the assumption that the task of the brain is
analogous to establishing a “view from inside the black box.” On
this view, the mind is locked inside the head and it follows that,
as Clark puts it, “the world itself is thus off-limits” (sect. 1.2,
para. 1). This is the premise of internalism, from which another
assumption can be derived, namely that knowledge about the
world must be indirect. Accordingly, there is a need to create an
internal model of the external source of the sensory signals, or,
in Clark’s terms, of “the world hidden behind the veil of perception”
(sect. 1.2, para. 6). This is the premise of representationalism.

It is important to realize that these two premises set up the basic
problem space, which the HPM is designed to solve. Without them,
the HPM makes little sense as a scientific theory. To be sure,
internalism may seem to be biologically plausible. As Clark
observes, all the brain “knows” about, in any direct sense, are the
ways its own states (e.g., spike trains) flow and alter. However,
the enactive approach prefers to interpret this kind of autonomous
organization not as a black-box prison of the mind, but rather as a
self-organized perspectival reference point that serves to enact a set
of meaningful relations with its milieu (Di Paolo 2009). On this
view, mind and action are complex phenomena that emerge from
the nonlinear interactions of brain, body, and environment (Beer
2000). Such a dynamical perspective supports a relational, direct
realist account of perception (Noë 2004; 2009).

An enactive approach to neuroscience exhibits many of the
virtues of the HPM approach. Following the pioneering work of
Varela (1999), it is also formalizable (in dynamical systems
theory); it has explanatory power (including built-in context-sensitivity);
and it can be related to the fundamental structures of lived
experience (including multistable perceptions). Indeed, it
accounts for much of the same neuroscientific evidence, since
global self-organization of brain activity – for example, via neural
synchrony – requires extensive usage of what Clark refers to as
“backward connections” in order to impose top-down constraints
(Varela et al. 2001).

Advantageously, the enactive approach avoids the HPM’s
essential requirement of a clean functional separation between
“error units” and “representation units,” and it exhibits a different
kind of neural efficiency. Properties of the environment do not
need to be encoded and transmitted to higher cortical areas, but
not because they are already expected by an internal model of
the world, but rather because the world is its own best model.
The environment itself, as a constitutive part of the whole
brain-body-environment system, replaces the HPM’s essential
requirement of a multilevel generative modeling machinery (cf.
Note 16 in the target article).

The enactive approach also avoids absurd consequences of the
HPM, which follow its generalization into an all-encompassing
“free-energy principle” (FEP). The FEP states that “all the quantities
that can change; i.e. that are part of the system, will change
to minimize free-energy” (Friston & Stephan 2007, p. 427).
According to Clark, the central idea is that perception, cognition,
and action work closely together to minimize sensory prediction
errors by selectively sampling, and actively sculpting, the stimulus
array. But given that there are no constraints on this process
(according to the FEP, everything is enslaved as long as it is
part of the system), there are abnormal yet effective ways of reducing
prediction error, for example by stereotypic self-stimulation,
catatonic withdrawal from the world, and autistic withdrawal from
others. The idea that the brain is an isolated black box, therefore,
forms not only the fundamental starting point for the HPM, but
also its ideal end point. Ironically, raising the HPM to the status
of a universal principle has the opposite effect: namely, making
it most suitable as an account of patently pathological mental
conditions.

Similar concerns about the overgeneralization of the FEP have
been raised by others (Gershman & Daw 2012), and are acknowledged
by Clark in his “desert landscape” and “dark room” scenarios.
The general worry is that an agent’s values need to be partially
decoupled from prediction optimization, since reducing surprise
for its own sake is not always in the organism’s best interest. In
this regard the enactive approach may be of help. Like Friston, it
rejects the need for specialized value systems, as values are
deemed to be inherent in autonomous dynamics (Di Paolo et al.
2010). But it avoids the FEP’s problems by grounding values in
the viability constraints of the organism. Arguably, it is the organism’s
precarious existence as a thermodynamically open system in
non-equilibrium conditions which constitutes the meaning of its
interactions with the environment (Froese & Ziemke 2009).

However, this enactive account forces the HPM approach to
make more realistic assumptions about the conditions of the
agent. Notably, it is no longer acceptable that the FEP requires
a “system that is at equilibrium with its environment” (Friston
2010, p. 127). This assumption may appear plausible at a sufficiently
abstract level (Ashby 1940), but only at the cost of obscuring crucial differences between living and non-living systems (Froese & Stewart 2010). Organisms are essentially non-equilibrium systems, and thermodynamic equilibration with the environment is identical with disintegration and
death, rather than optimal adaptiveness. However, contra to the motivations for the FEP (Friston 2009, p. 293), this does not mean that organisms aim to ideally get rid of disorder altogether, either. Living beings are precariously situated between randomness and stasis by means of self-organized criticality, and this inherent chaos has implications for perception
(Ikegami 2007). Following Bateson, we propose that it is more important to be open to perceiving differences that make a difference, rather than to eliminate differences that could surprise you."

http://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~karl/Whatever next.pdf

 

[Constance]

Tagging me is getting my attention and I have no interest in addressing your comments. You're past remarks have gotten me to the point where I don't care if you make any valid points or not. Better that you stay on your side of the room and let me interact in peace with participants who I can still communicate with.

I'm so glad you feel that way. I blocked you several months ago and have mostly avoided reading your comments except when someone else responds to one or more of them, and unfortunately I needed to refer to your question to Soupie to place her post in context. Rest assured that my intention was not to 'tag' you or to re-enter into attempted dialogue with you. Go your way in peace and I'll do likewise.

 

[Randall]

What kind of sociopath would be glad they were able to make someone feel so bad, that they couldn't communicate with them or want anything to do with them, and then delude themselves into thinking that's a peaceful solution? For the love of nonexistent God, may the universe illuminate your heart where that darkness dwells.

 

[Soupie]

To be sure, internalism may seem to be biologically plausible. As Clark observes, all the brain “knows” about, in any direct sense, are the ways its own states (e.g., spike trains) flow and alter. However, the enactive approach prefers to interpret this kind of autonomous organization not as a black-box prison of the mind, but rather as a self-organized perspectival reference point that serves to enact a set of meaningful relations with its milieu (Di Paolo 2009). On this view, mind and action are complex phenomena that emerge from the nonlinear interactions of brain, body, and environment (Beer 2000). Such a dynamical perspective supports a relational, direct realist account of perception (Noë 2004; 2009).

Based on what we know about reality, the brain, and conscious perception, I don't see how naive/direct realism can be the case.

Naïve realism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I know you, Constance, have an affinity for this approach, but I have zero affinity for it.

If you know of a short (15-20 pg) paper that presents a strong case for naive realism, however, I'd gladly read it.