Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6

[smcder]

Re the sentence highlighted in red, note that Panksepp says that the explanatory gap is "narrowed" by affective neuroscientific analysis, not that it is closed. Nor does he say that the explanatory gap can be dismissed through cognitive neuroscience or information theory or AI.

Re the blue-highlighted portion of the extracted text, we should discuss what we (from our diverse approaches) interpret Panksepp to mean in these statements. I'll start. I think he means to say that the explanatory gap is less a gap than current analytical POM proposes, and that we will recognize what the gap signifies when we better understand the evolution of consciousness, brain, and mind.

quoting from Panksepp in 1998: "Those types of arousal that are not resonant with the resting rhythms of the SELF, may generate withdrawal behaviours and be experienced as un- desirable. Those that are resonant with the resting rhythms or facilitate certain har- monics of those rhythms may be deemed desirable. At this level of analysis, the ‘explanatory gap’ between neural, bodily and affective activities appears narrowed considerably. In any event, whether such understandable neural dynamics actually mediate affective experience becomes an empirically testable proposition (Freeman, 1995; Panksepp, 1999a). Only with additional encephalization, and the emergence of sophisticated learning abilities, including facility with languages that can re-symbolize such basic neuronal firing patterns, might a ‘conceptual gap’ have emerged. In other words, I think the explanatory gap is constructed by the ways we think about these matters linguistically rather than by the underlying primary-process brain matters themselves."

This part:

At this level of analysis, the ‘explanatory gap’ between neural, bodily and affective activities appears narrowed considerably. In any event, whether such understandable neural dynamics actually mediate affective experience becomes an empirically testable proposition

I guess seems pretty obvious to me - I don't think we'd expect anything other than some correlation between these "activities" -

But this part, I'm less sure of:

Only with additional encephalization, and the emergence of sophisticated learning abilities, including facility with languages that can re-symbolize such basic neuronal firing patterns, might a ‘conceptual gap’ have emerged. In other words, I think the explanatory gap is constructed by the ways we think about these matters linguistically rather than by the underlying primary-process brain matters themselves."

I'm not sure exactly where the gap is? It must refer to the specifics of how the emotional "system" works and how it is experienced and talked about ... and it doesn't mention any other kind of thinking here than linguistically ... ? This must also be where the rival theory we looked at comes in - I think any theory that doesn't take into account what we do with our experiences is going to fall short - that was the cognitive revolution way, way back in response to Skinnerian behaviorism and see also my post above about psychotherapy - surely he's not talking about that?

 

[Constance]

I have sent emails to @Soupie @smder @Constance forwarding a paper that Jaak Panksepp has sent me. Not sure that it is open source, otherwise I'd put it on here for all to see.

Perhaps you can send the link to @Ron Away via the PM system here since he has recently joined us.

 

[Constance]

quoting from Panksepp in 1998:

"Those types of arousal that are not resonant with the resting rhythms of the SELF, may generate withdrawal behaviours and be experienced as un- desirable. Those that are resonant with the resting rhythms or facilitate certain har- monics of those rhythms may be deemed desirable. At this level of analysis, the ‘explanatory gap’ between neural, bodily and affective activities appears narrowed considerably. In any event, whether such understandable neural dynamics actually mediate affective experience becomes an empirically testable proposition (Freeman, 1995; Panksepp, 1999a). Only with additional encephalization, and the emergence of sophisticated learning abilities, including facility with languages that can re-symbolize such basic neuronal firing patterns, might a ‘conceptual gap’ have emerged. In other words, I think the explanatory gap is constructed by the ways we think about these matters linguistically rather than by the underlying primary-process brain matters themselves."

This part:

At this level of analysis, the ‘explanatory gap’ between neural, bodily and affective activities appears narrowed considerably. In any event, whether such understandable neural dynamics actually mediate affective experience becomes an empirically testable proposition

I guess seems pretty obvious to me - I don't think we'd expect anything other than some correlation between these "activities" -

But this part, I'm less sure of:

Only with additional encephalization, and the emergence of sophisticated learning abilities, including facility with languages that can re-symbolize such basic neuronal firing patterns, might a ‘conceptual gap’ have emerged. In other words, I think the explanatory gap is constructed by the ways we think about these matters linguistically rather than by the underlying primary-process brain matters themselves."

I'm not sure exactly where the gap is? It must refer to the specifics of how the emotional "system" works and how it is experienced and talked about ... and it doesn't mention any other kind of thinking here than linguistically ... ? This must also be where the rival theory we looked at comes in - I think any theory that doesn't take into account what we do with our experiences is going to fall short - that was the cognitive revolution way, way back in response to Skinnerian behaviorism and see also my post above about psychotherapy - surely he's not talking about that?

I think Panksepp's point is that the linguistic turn in analytical philosophy of mind has led to objectification, compartmentalization, and reification of aspects of consciousness/mind in categories taken to be radically separate from one another when in fact they are part of a single and holistic developmental process. Primitive organisms sense/feel their situation in a world beyond themselves, as do the numberless species of animals (including humans) that have evolved on our planet. Feeling is the base out of which prereflective consciousness develops, orienting all species to their environments before reflective consciousness emerges in humankind (and persuasively in some other 'higher' animals). The attainment of reflective consciousness is the ground out of which 'mind' develops, but mind (what we think about, increasingly understand, and choose to do) continues to be influenced by what has been experienced and learned in the long aeons of evolving prereflective consciousness in animals whose memories we carry with us into human experience of the world. To be sure, in our time we humans are increasingly alienated from seeing and understanding ourselves as products of evolution alongside the other animals. We like to think that what we feel and what we think are under our own intellectual control, but that's not the case. We are ontologically part of nature, a product of nature able to think about nature, thus evolved expressions of nature having unique responsibilities and obligations to others and even to 'things' to the extent that things 'thing' for us, become comprehensible to us as things, through the activities of our own reflective phenomenal consciousness. As de Waals, another brilliant biologist, has recognized, many of our best traits are inherited from our evolutionary forebears. (See Good-Natured: The Origin of Right and Wrong in Animals)
On earth, we are the high-water mark of the evolution of mind in life. Who knows what high-water mark of intelligence (and morality) life might have achieved elsewhere in the universe? We have a long way to go here, in any case, and many members of our species are becoming acutely aware of that in our time.

 

[smcder]

most excellente and promising! ...

Clearly, a sincere, scientifically guided conversation about the affective processes of animal brains is needed and is gradually emerging.

67
As resistance to the use of experiential (eg, affective) concepts in animal models diminishes, we should be able to develop new treatments for other disorders related to irritable imbalances of RAGE, FEAR, and PANIC systems. For instance, with the characterization of preclinical effects of many neuropeptides identified along emotional circuits

162 we can anticipate, just for
instance, that: (i) the Substance P–receptor antagonist aprepitant should exert measureable anti-irritability effects in humans, (ii) diverse neuropeptide antagonists, ranging from cholecystokinin (CCK) to corticotropinreleasing factor (CRF) antagonists may ameliorate diverse subtypes of anxiety; and (iii) to the degree that existing work on separation-distress circuitry of animals illuminates the neural infrastructure of panic attacks and borderline personality disorders, beside safe opioids, future molecules that stimulate oxytocin and prolactin receptors of the brain should provide benefits,
especially when combined with various psychotherapies.

 

[Constance]

The question I have concerns the ontogeny of emotions and the adaptive biochemical, biophysical, neurological processes that devclop to ameliorate these emotions. It seems to me that feelings are the trigger for development of bodily adaptations that return the animal, at least temporarily, to a condition of homeostasis when its sense of well-being or security has been disturbed. Here is a short paper that seems to address the question of how nature evolves mechanisms of physical sorts to support the animal’s survival in conditions of crisis produced by unmet needs. But what are its presuppositions concerning the ontogeny of feelings/emotions and bodily 'mechanism' responding to those feelings?


http://houptlab.org/papers/pdfs/Houpt025.pdf

 

[Soupie]

How do they do this?

He never ultimately addressed it in the paper. A pretty shitty paper all told.

I found the paper after reading the slides from one of his presentations called: why the hard problem is easy, and the easy problems hard. In the slides, he addressed mental causation. The paper seemed to be a companion piece to the presentation, but it didn't address causation. As noted, the paper is garabge.

Here's the slides: Why the "hard" problem of consciousness is easy and the "easy" probl…

Starting at slide #40 he begins to address mental causation. Slide #47-48 are the ones I had hoped he would elaborate on in the paper. The idea seems to be that virtual machines (and thus minds) exert "constraint" on the underlying substrate and in this way causally influence the physical substrate. (I think this is the typical approach to downward causation a la a wheel rolling down a hill constraining the movement of the particles, atoms, molecules, and chemicals of which it's made.)

The paper and most of the slides are a waste of time, but you may find slides #40 and up (mildly) interesting.

 

[Soupie]

Dan Haycock

"The hard problem of consciousness can be reframed as the hard problem of sensation. Consider the visual system: when I see an object, light reflected by that object is detected by my eye, turned into electrical impulses, and converted into a neural representation in the form of a pattern of neurons firing.

That pattern of firing neurons in some way corresponds to the image of the object projected onto my retina. But in addition to the neural representation, I also experience a visual image; I see the object. Why is it that that a neural representation creates a psychological, sensory representation (the percept)?

Why is it that this process gives rise to the subjective experience of sight? Explaining this gap between neural representation and psychological representation is crucial to understanding the relationship between neuroscience and psychology - between the brain and the mind.

There are two possibilities: either any representation which encodes information gives rise to a phenomenological space, or phenomenology arises from functional interactions within representational systems. The former seems implausible, lending itself not only to dualism but also to panpsychism. The firing of neurons in a specific pattern may give rise to vision, but there is no evidence to suggest that a series of light bulbs flashing in that same pattern would also produce vision.

Furthermore, if phenomenology were to directly arise from the very existence of a physical representation, why should any arrangement of physical matter changing in a pattern not give rise to a sensation or perception which is subjective to that physical arrangement?

The words "subjective to" indicate that a physical representation is not sufficient to generate a phenomenological space - awareness of that representation is a necessary component of subjectivity; of phenomenology itself. I suggest that sensory awareness is not just dependent on the ability to encode information, but also on the ability to decode that information. It is a mistake to think that a percept is somehow created through neural representation - the phenomenological world is created by interpreting representations as percepts.

I suggest that the process of decoding neural representations consists of deriving qualia from sensory input, and is thus the process by which the phenomenological world is constructed from brain activity. The biologist Gerald Edelman hypothesizes that the brain decodes sensory input by comparing it to categories of perception which are built up from memories of past experience. However, I suggest that sensory input is in fact matched to the archetypal matrix. ...

The same goes for all of the other senses. In contrast, to be unable to distinguish between shapes, sizes, distances, etc., would be blindness. The existence of archetypes is crucial for this process: without an archetypal matrix it would be impossible to interpret sensory input as a phenomenological world. The phenomenological world thus arises directly from the mechanics of the mind as described in the previous sections.

Edelman's theory that categories of perception are built up from memory has the implication that newborn babies do not perceive a sensory world. By explaining phenomenology through a recourse to archetypes, which are innate, I have provided a mechanism which explains how babies and animals appear able to sense immediately upon birth, and most likely even whilst in the womb."

This resonates deeply with something I wrote back in 2014:

[The] organism-structure behaves within the sea of dynamic quanta in a manner unlike all other structures. Unlike all other structures within the sea of quanta, this organism is able to differentiate the various patterns of quanta within the sea of quanta within which it is enmeshed and from which it is not truly distinct. This organism-structure is able to perform the unprecedented act of making sense of its environment. This act is none other than the manifestation of phenomenal experience. ...

How does a sensory processing structure (aka an organism) perform the unprecedented act of making sense of its environment? Sensory processing as used here is defined as: The process of differentiating a pattern of quanta from all other patterns of quanta.

This process entails:

(1) A variety of consistent or recurring patterns of quanta
(2) A structure with which the patterns of quanta can interact
(3) A mechanism by which the structure can internally transduce* the patterns of quanta with which it continuously interacts
(4) A mechanism by which the structure can recognize transduced, internal patterns ...

Collection of data about quanta > Transduction of collected data > Decoding of collected, transduced data > Derivation of meaningful information

A sensory processing structure is a structure that derives meaning from its interaction its relationship to its environment. That is, sensory processing structures organisms collect, transduce, and derive meaning from the continuous collection of data streaming in from the environment.

For example, the meaning an organism might make from one particular pattern of quanta is green. The meaning it might make from a different, particular pattern of quanta is hot. The meaning it might make from a different, particular pattern of quanta is sweet.

I didn't have a strong mechanism for step #4. Haycock's 'archetypal matrix' is very interesting. And I wonder if it is not in some ways analogous to @Pharoah's "evolved, innate, qualitatively relevant physiologies?"

 

[Constance]

Why is it that that a neural representation creates a psychological, sensory representation (the percept)?

How does the author know that "a neural representation creates a psychological, sensory representation"? If that were true, what would be the point of calling it a 'percept'?

 

[Pharoah]

@Soupie said the following in an email to me on receipt of the Panksepp pdfs:
"I appreciate how HCT outlines the evolved isomorphism between environmental stimuli and qualitatively relevant neurophysiological mechanisms. In my opinion, HCT has shown how organisms 'physically' represent (mirror) their environments; my main critique of HCT is that I don't see how it accounts for 'phenomenal' representation as well. I know we don't see eye-to-eye on this."

1. It is not so much that my attempts at explanation are unclear, I feel, but that it is unclear exactly what is meant by "phenomenal experience" in the first place and what, therefore, is required of explanation. We are taking it as read that we are talking about the same thing, but I could do with you, Soupie, articulating your idea as to what phenomenal experience encompasses.
Typically, philosophers say something like, "we all know what phenomenal experience is. It is the 'what it is like' to smell a rose, to experience a sunset, to appreciate the vivid colours of a rainbow" etc. But phenomenal experience is ineffable and the language used to articulate what it is like largely descriptive and emotive. To say 'we all know what phenomenal experience is' is to assume that we all assume the same thing. But I am not so sure that our interpretation of the apparent subtlety of phenomenal experience (above the water line) does not give a false sense of just how much beneath the surface may be hidden. @Constance, is there some phenomenology text that attempts to objectify the language by digging deep into sensory phenomenal experience such that we might say "that is what we want explained in our experience of phenomenal content"?

2. Now, @Soupie,
I think we might agree that colour is qualitatively relevant, so what does "isomorphism between environmental stimuli and qualitatively relevant neurophysiological mechanisms" mean to colour that does not incorporate "phenomenal representation" or phenomenal content? What is the nature of "quality"?; I mean, the nub of the question is, what could nature (i.e. life evolving in nature) make of the world qualitatively?
To explain the question further, we can say of qualities that, for example, such and such is a "good" quality relative to something else. So we have "good" and "bad" qualities. How does quality extend beyond the good and the bad? We might answer by saying that such and such is "exciting", "dull", "vivid" etc. These terms might be considered as subdivisions of the basic qualities of 'good' and 'bad'. In a way, they become not so much "qualities" but "flavours" of experience, because at one instance "exciting" might be good and at another instance bad, or we might say of two entirely different experience types as "exciting" i.e., these terms of reference being non-specific descriptives. And we might appreciate, or agree in principle, that in the natural world "flavours" of experience would have their biochemical equivalents; in a way, flavours could be explained by considering good and bad experiences in tandem with homeostatic drives and imperatives. But still, we may not feel happy that "phenomenal experience" is accounted for here. How can we then subdivide "flavours" of experience? More to the point, how has Mother Nature subdivided flavours of experience? There is a whole new world of static reality in phenomenal experience: colours are the colours they are and their phenomenal experience remains stable. They have their specificity unique to them. And because this specificity is unique, there must be a potentially infinite range of such specific experience types. There can be no such "specific" language. Our language is comparative and descriptive because it is founded on comparative conceptual principles about experience.

So, where we differ, @Soupie, is that I assume that the term "qualitatively relevant" encompasses all the possible subdivisions of qualitative experience including those ineffable ones which I cannot articulate below the flavours subdivision. That is a flaw in HCT: the flaw is the assumption (or belief) that phenomenal experience is, at some deep level, a qualitative aspect of an organisms relation to the world. I cannot articulate what those necessary subdivisions actually are. By definition there is no language. HCT explains why there is no language: the language lacks the necessary concepts; phenomenal experience is beneath conceptual analysis.
Can you express what gap we have here?

 

[Soupie]

I think we might agree that colour is qualitatively relevant, so what does "isomorphism between environmental stimuli and qualitatively relevant neurophysiological mechanisms" mean to colour that does not incorporate "phenomenal representation" or phenomenal content? What is the nature of "quality"?; I mean, the nub of the question is, what could nature (i.e. life evolving in nature) make of the world qualitatively?

You ask if I can express the gap. In the past, I've said that just because a stimulus is qualitatively relevant to an entity does not mean that the entity experiences this quality. Last time I have a silly example, and you took offense. I'll try another:

I have one of those little Roomba vacuum robots. It has sensors for noticing stair edges. You could say these sensors and the stair edges are qualitatively relevant to the Roomba. If it were to tumble down a flight of wooden stairs, it would be destroyed. You could say there is an isomorphism between the stair edge and the sensor mechanism designed to detect the edge and thus signal the machine to move away from the edge.

Does the Roomba have phenomenal experience of the stair edge? Why or why not?

I assume you will say it does not. Perhaps you can elaborate and thus explain what the Roomba would need to have in order to experience the stair edge.

 

[Soupie]

How does the author know that "a neural representation creates a psychological, sensory representation"? If that were true, what would be the point of calling it a 'percept'?

He's asking why they seem to be correlated, i.e. Why are neural representation and phenomenal representations correlated. I know you don't believe they are. Ignore in this case.

 

[smcder]

...



Sent from my LGLS991 using Tapatalk

 

[Pharoah]

You ask if I can express the gap. In the past, I've said that just because a stimulus is qualitatively relevant to an entity does not mean that the entity experiences this quality. Last time I have a silly example, and you took offense. I'll try another:

I have one of those little Roomba vacuum robots. It has sensors for noticing stair edges. You could say these sensors and the stair edges are qualitatively relevant to the Roomba. If it were to tumble down a flight of wooden stairs, it would be destroyed. You could say there is an isomorphism between the stair edge and the sensor mechanism designed to detect the edge and thus signal the machine to move away from the edge.

Does the Roomba have phenomenal experience of the stair edge? Why or why not?

I assume you will say it does not. Perhaps you can elaborate and thus explain what the Roomba would need to have in order to experience the stair edge.

Two points:
Firstly, I have never expressed the same point before, so I don't think you get what I am saying. I know I haven't because it has never occurred to me before.
Second, I've answered your Roomba question before. The stair edge is not relevant to the Roomba:
One cannot say that there is relevance simply by virtue of a thing being destroyed by something else. Yes, in your eyes there is relevance, because without Roomba you cannot vacuum your space. But for Roomba, there is no relevance, nor any qualitative correspondence between Roomba's sensors and the consequences of Roomba's motion. How is it relevant to Roomba whether it falls down the stairs or not?
If you saw a piece of dead wood in half, it is not relevant to the piece of wood that it has been sawn into two pieces is it? It is relevant to you if that piece of wood is the handle to your broom.

 

[smcder]

Compc

C

@Soupie said the following in an email to me on receipt of the Panksepp pdfs:
"I appreciate how HCT outlines the evolved isomorphism between environmental stimuli and qualitatively relevant neurophysiological mechanisms. In my opinion, HCT has shown how organisms 'physically' represent (mirror) their environments; my main critique of HCT is that I don't see how it accounts for 'phenomenal' representation as well. I know we don't see eye-to-eye on this."

1. It is not so much that my attempts at explanation are unclear, I feel, but that it is unclear exactly what is meant by "phenomenal experience" in the first place and what, therefore, is required of explanation. We are taking it as read that we are talking about the same thing, but I could do with you, Soupie, articulating your idea as to what phenomenal experience encompasses.
Typically, philosophers say something like, "we all know what phenomenal experience is. It is the 'what it is like' to smell a rose, to experience a sunset, to appreciate the vivid colours of a rainbow" etc. But phenomenal experience is ineffable and the language used to articulate what it is like largely descriptive and emotive. To say 'we all know what phenomenal experience is' is to assume that we all assume the same thing. But I am not so sure that our interpretation of the apparent subtlety of phenomenal experience (above the water line) does not give a false sense of just how much beneath the surface may be hidden. @Constance, is there some phenomenology text that attempts to objectify the language by digging deep into sensory phenomenal experience such that we might say "that is what we want explained in our experience of phenomenal content"?

2. Now, @Soupie,
I think we might agree that colour is qualitatively relevant, so what does "isomorphism between environmental stimuli and qualitatively relevant neurophysiological mechanisms" mean to colour that does not incorporate "phenomenal representation" or phenomenal content? What is the nature of "quality"?; I mean, the nub of the question is, what could nature (i.e. life evolving in nature) make of the world qualitatively?
To explain the question further, we can say of qualities that, for example, such and such is a "good" quality relative to something else. So we have "good" and "bad" qualities. How does quality extend beyond the good and the bad? We might answer by saying that such and such is "exciting", "dull", "vivid" etc. These terms might be considered as subdivisions of the basic qualities of 'good' and 'bad'. In a way, they become not so much "qualities" but "flavours" of experience, because at one instance "exciting" might be good and at another instance bad, or we might say of two entirely different experience types as "exciting" i.e., these terms of reference being non-specific descriptives. And we might appreciate, or agree in principle, that in the natural world "flavours" of experience would have their biochemical equivalents; in a way, flavours could be explained by considering good and bad experiences in tandem with homeostatic drives and imperatives. But still, we may not feel happy that "phenomenal experience" is accounted for here. How can we then subdivide "flavours" of experience? More to the point, how has Mother Nature subdivided flavours of experience? There is a whole new world of static reality in phenomenal experience: colours are the colours they are and their phenomenal experience remains stable. They have their specificity unique to them. And because this specificity is unique, there must be a potentially infinite range of such specific experience types. There can be no such "specific" language. Our language is comparative and descriptive because it is founded on comparative conceptual principles about experience.

So, where we differ, @Soupie, is that I assume that the term "qualitatively relevant" encompasses all the possible subdivisions of qualitative experience including those ineffable ones which I cannot articulate below the flavours subdivision. That is a flaw in HCT: the flaw is the assumption (or belief) that phenomenal experience is, at some deep level, a qualitative aspect of an organisms relation to the world. I cannot articulate what those necessary subdivisions actually are. By definition there is no language. HCT explains why there is no language: the language lacks the necessary concepts; phenomenal experience is beneath conceptual analysis.
Can you express what gap we have here?

@Soupie said the following in an email to me on receipt of the Panksepp pdfs:
"I appreciate how HCT outlines the evolved isomorphism between environmental stimuli and qualitatively relevant neurophysiological mechanisms. In my opinion, HCT has shown how organisms 'physically' represent (mirror) their environments; my main critique of HCT is that I don't see how it accounts for 'phenomenal' representation as well. I know we don't see eye-to-eye on this."

1. It is not so much that my attempts at explanation are unclear, I feel, but that it is unclear exactly what is meant by "phenomenal experience" in the first place and what, therefore, is required of explanation. We are taking it as read that we are talking about the same thing, but I could do with you, Soupie, articulating your idea as to what phenomenal experience encompasses.
Typically, philosophers say something like, "we all know what phenomenal experience is. It is the 'what it is like' to smell a rose, to experience a sunset, to appreciate the vivid colours of a rainbow" etc. But phenomenal experience is ineffable and the language used to articulate what it is like largely descriptive and emotive. To say 'we all know what phenomenal experience is' is to assume that we all assume the same thing. But I am not so sure that our interpretation of the apparent subtlety of phenomenal experience (above the water line) does not give a false sense of just how much beneath the surface may be hidden. @Constance, is there some phenomenology text that attempts to objectify the language by digging deep into sensory phenomenal experience such that we might say "that is what we want explained in our experience of phenomenal content"?

2. Now, @Soupie,
I think we might agree that colour is qualitatively relevant, so what does "isomorphism between environmental stimuli and qualitatively relevant neurophysiological mechanisms" mean to colour that does not incorporate "phenomenal representation" or phenomenal content? What is the nature of "quality"?; I mean, the nub of the question is, what could nature (i.e. life evolving in nature) make of the world qualitatively?
To explain the question further, we can say of qualities that, for example, such and such is a "good" quality relative to something else. So we have "good" and "bad" qualities. How does quality extend beyond the good and the bad? We might answer by saying that such and such is "exciting", "dull", "vivid" etc. These terms might be considered as subdivisions of the basic qualities of 'good' and 'bad'. In a way, they become not so much "qualities" but "flavours" of experience, because at one instance "exciting" might be good and at another instance bad, or we might say of two entirely different experience types as "exciting" i.e., these terms of reference being non-specific descriptives. And we might appreciate, or agree in principle, that in the natural world "flavours" of experience would have their biochemical equivalents; in a way, flavours could be explained by considering good and bad experiences in tandem with homeostatic drives and imperatives. But still, we may not feel happy that "phenomenal experience" is accounted for here. How can we then subdivide "flavours" of experience? More to the point, how has Mother Nature subdivided flavours of experience? There is a whole new world of static reality in phenomenal experience: colours are the colours they are and their phenomenal experience remains stable. They have their specificity unique to them. And because this specificity is unique, there must be a potentially infinite range of such specific experience types. There can be no such "specific" language. Our language is comparative and descriptive because it is founded on comparative conceptual principles about experience.

So, where we differ, @Soupie, is that I assume that the term "qualitatively relevant" encompasses all the possible subdivisions of qualitative experience including those ineffable ones which I cannot articulate below the flavours subdivision. That is a flaw in HCT: the flaw is the assumption (or belief) that phenomenal experience is, at some deep level, a qualitative aspect of an organisms relation to the world. I cannot articulate what those necessary subdivisions actually are. By definition there is no language. HCT explains why there is no language: the language lacks the necessary concepts; phenomenal experience is beneath conceptual analysis.
Can you express what gap we have here?

Its not that complicated ... why theres anything at all ...

 

[Pharoah]

...

Sent from my LGLS991 using Tapatalk

Has your phone @smcder acquired its own consciousness by any chance and started leaving its own provocative messages on this forum?

 

[Pharoah]

Compc

C



Its not that complicated ... why theres anything at all ...

?

 

[smcder]

What needs to be explained is clear. If we are going to get into what we mean by "experience" ...

 

[Soupie]

Two points:
Firstly, I have never expressed the same point before, so I don't think you get what I am saying. I know I haven't because it has never occurred to me before.
Second, I've answered your Roomba question before. The stair edge is not relevant to the Roomba:
One cannot say that there is relevance simply by virtue of a thing being destroyed by something else. Yes, in your eyes there is relevance, because without Roomba you cannot vacuum your space. But for Roomba, there is no relevance, nor any qualitative correspondence between Roomba's sensors and the consequences of Roomba's motion. How is it relevant to Roomba whether it falls down the stairs or not?
If you saw a piece of dead wood in half, it is not relevant to the piece of wood that it has been sawn into two pieces is it? It is relevant to you if that piece of wood is the handle to your broom.

So what (physical mechanisms) does the Roomba need in order to experience the edge of the stairs?

It has a mechanism for sensing/representing them. And a mechanism for moving away. What's missing?

 

[smcder]

"That is a flaw in HCT: the flaw is the assumption (or belief) that phenomenal experience is, at some deep level, a qualitative aspect of an organisms relation to the world"

But experience is ontologically "new" first appearing in this relation? Correct? And that this relation, phenomenal experience, is "beneath" conceptual analysis?

To our minds or to any possible mind?

McGinn?

 

[smcder]

Has your phone @smcder acquired its own consciousness by any chance and started leaving its own provocative messages on this forum?

Not provocative!