Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6

[smcder]

Interesting. I would say for an individual from any culture I'm aware ever existed. Which peoples/culture are tou refering to? Aboriginal dreamtime? Or the Buddhist maya?

It will be interesting to see if the phenomenal internalist apporach gains more ground if/when virtual reality use because mainstream.

Please list all the cultures you are aware of ever existing and their psychological and linguitic structures ... ;-)

 

[Constance]

FFS, beware the boldface key. It seems the Paracast's software becomes compulsive about maintaining BF once it's been used -- will not give it up.

@Gene Steinberg, can you do something about this glitch? Editing the posting screen repeatedly to remove boldface type did not work. I finally switched the whole post to italic, below. That stopped working as well. Who are you hiring to muck about with the software these days?

 

[Constance]

Trying to post one more time:

I don't think there is a difference.


(However, in (1.), if we want to be picky, I'd point out that

[a] people don't experience entities in the external world to be "phenomenal" objects in the external world.

They experience them to simply be objects in the external world.)

[a] They do when they apply the methods of phenomenology developed by Husserl, understood by Velmans to yield "critical realism."

What you refer to in your second claim {software will not allow me to type the second letter of the alphabet, bracketed or not} is what Husserl called 'the natural attitude', which must be overcome in order to avoid falling into 'naive realism'.


If you would finally take the time to read phenomenological philosophy it would constitute an intellectual break-through for you concerning the nature and intrinsic significance of perception in both prereflective and reflective experience. Until you do so, you will continue to misunderstand what 'experience' is ==> the primordial and evolving nexus of world and mind, 'subjectivity' and 'objectivity', grounded in awareness, affectivity, protoconsciousness, and consciousness as experienced by living beings. Then you will also be relieved of your futile desire to define 'reality' in solely objective, reductive, terms, recognizing that and how 'lived reality' adds to our comprehension of the complexity of 'what-is'.



Again, this book may help: The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience* (but you also need to read the major works of Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty for a full understanding of phenomenology).


*Amazon description: The Embodied Mind provides a unique, sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimension of human experience. The authors argue that only by having a sense of common ground between mind in Science and mind in experience can our understanding of cognition be more complete. Toward that end, they develop a dialogue between cognitive science and Buddhist meditative psychology and situate it in relation to other traditions such as phenomenology and psychoanalysis.

 

[Constance]

I haven't read Velmans' books, but I have read several papers and explanations of his Reflexive Monism. It it not clear to me how Reflexive Monism differs from the phenomenal internalism account. For instance Velmans says:

The reflexive model then adds what the subject actually experiences to the model, namely a phenomenal cat out in the world. Central to the model is the recognition that an entity in the external world is (reflexively) experienced by the subject to be a phenomenal object in the external world, not in the brain as reductionism would have it and not “in the soul” as the ancients supposed...​

The underlined assertion is absurd. I don't know any phenomenal internalist who would argue that people experience objects to be in the brain. Ridiculous.

So you don't think we live in an actual, palpable world where cats also exist? Or do you think our brains invent the category 'cats' without our experiencing the phenomenal appearances of cats to our sensorium? So when I'm lately working out the mats forming in my cat's long fur as her body sheds her undercoat I'm experiencing an illusion generated in my brain?

Re this statement from above: "I don't know any phenomenal internalist who would argue that people experience objects to be in the brain." What/who do you identify as 'phenomenal internalists'? And what is it that you think they think?

You then quote (not enough) from what Velmans writes in the paper at hand:

As Sheldrake notes, this is an ancient problem, and one ancient solution was that some extromissive physical influence emanates from the eyes to light up or otherwise influence the world. Given the evidence from staring experiments in Sheldrake (2005a), this is a view that he adopts himself in Sheldrake (2005b). In the reflexive model, however, “perceptual projection” simply refers to an empirically observable effect, for example, to the fact that this print seems to be out here on this page and not in your brain. In short, perceptual projection is an effect that requires explanation; perceptual projection is not itself an explanation. We know that preconscious processes within the brain produce consciously experienced events that may be subjectively located and extended in the phenomenal space beyond the brain, but we don’t really know how this is done. We also know that this effect is subjective, psychological and viewable only from a first-person perspective. In the reflexive model, nothing physical is assumed to project from the brain. This raises a vexing question: some experiences might seem to be beyond the brain, but if they are not physically “projected”, are such experiences really where they seem?

Why stop there? Why not read beyond that paragraph to attempt to grok Velman's subsequent reflections?

Again, re the underlined statement, I don't see how Reflexive Monism differs from "standard" phenomenal internalism. Ie, experience of self, the world, and self-in-the-world, is generated in the brain and is perceptually (but not physically) projected/mapped onto/into the external real world.

Again, what is 'phenomenal internalism' and where can we read a statement of its beliefs, presuppositions, arguments? Your underscored statement represents a hypothesis of some cognitive scientists; it is not an established fact, though you wish to take it as if it were a fact.​

My effort here is not to argue for or against external and internal approaches to consciousness, but to undertand how Velmans distinguishes his RM from phenomenal internalist approaches.

Then why don't you read more carefully, in this paper and elsewhere, to find out what Velmans theory is? That you "don't see how Reflexive Monism differs from 'standard phenomenal internalism'" is a biographical footnote expressing your confusion, and includes a reference to a supposed school of thought {'phenomenal internalism'} that remains to be identified and explicated.

 

[Constance]

Hm, but I came away with the same sense as Lehar. If Velmans asserts that conscious experience supervenes on the brain alone,

He doesn't say that.

but that conscious experience exists outside the real skull by way of perceptual projection,

Nor does he claim that.

then it would seem that Velmans is endorsing the idea that conscious experience can move through physical space. Ie, it eminates from the brain out into/onto real spacetime.

You're still assuming that experience of the world originates in the neurons. But I assume you're familiar enough with your own experience in the world to recognize that your awareness and consciousness accompany you as you move about in the world. In fact, it is this experience -- the recognition that one's self-awareness and 'other'-awareness are one's constant companions in existence -- that motivates the movement from prereflective consciousness to reflective consciousness. These developments result from the innate reflexivity of biologically embodied consciousness, about which Velmans, like the Continental phenomenologists, attempts to inform us. Reflexivity is not a substance.

ETA: your second sentence above -- "Ie, it eminates from the brain out into/onto real spacetime" -- again misunderstands Velmans. Read the paper again and pay attention to what he writes concerning the relationship of our phenomenal understanding of space and time as learned in existing in our temporally and environmentally integrated mileau to what we learn more abstractly about space, time, and spacetime in physics. The plane of our existence here and now is as 'real' as the measurements of the cosmos made in physics.

Ill have to look for a richer explanation of Velmans' position.

Good idea if you can't understand what he writes.

 

[Soupie]

Couldn't we shift our sense of things and experience entities in the external world to be "phenomenal" objects in the external world? Would you think some philosophers already do?

I think you would if you grew up in a culture where experience is "only" phenomenal and not "real, direct reality" and there may well be or have been such cultures - the language would support this. And the very idea of a "real, direct reality" is the one our culture embraces now

Then I would say for someone all of those are compatible with experiencing "phenemonal reality" in the same way you say that you currently experience" reality".

As I initially answered, no, imo, I don't think there are philosophers whose experience feels like a simulation. There may be philosophers who have believed so fiercly and for such a length of time that their experience is not reality but instead a virtual, phenomenal reality that this thought is always present as they reflect on their experience, but I still do not think their experience would feel like a simulation.

However, I do think some individuals with neurologic disorders may have experience/consciousness that feels as if its a dream, hallucination, or simulation. We've talked about a disorder here in this thread in the past where people feel as if they have no free will or feel as if they are not a self.

There are times when experience may feel like a hallucination or simulation to neurotypical individuals as well, of course. The experience of deja vu always knocks me for a loop when I experience it from time to time.

And as you say, yes, I can conceive of a culture in which the members beliefe that their experience is a phenomenal simulation of a separate, distinct reality of which they cannot distinctly access, however I would argue that their experience still would not feel like it was a simulation. So, they may have a cultural belief that their experience was a simulation, but it wouldnt feel different from our experience.

Speaking of, I wanted to expand on the notion that this very view might indeed take root with the mainstreaming of VR.

That's a fairly tame video, but as the technology continues to progress, one can see how people will begin to find Lehar's shocking assertion less shocking. That is, as VRs become more detailed and life-like, people will begin to think that if VRs can exist in a pair of goggles, maybe our phenomenal reality can exist in the (vastly more powerful) brain.

In the paper I linked above by Langitz, he writes about false awakenings. These are dreams in which people experience waking up, only to find that after some time, they are in fact still dreaming. When they do finally wake up, they are at first uncertain if they are truly "awake." These experiences are understandibly powerful. While ive never had one, I have had terrifying dreams that I thought were real. Where ive thought my life was ruined. When i wake from those dreams, i have felt immense relief that they were dreams!

As more and more people use increasingly realistic vrs for extended lengths of time, months and years, I expect people to experience vr false awakenings. Situations in which people arent sure—even if momentarily—they are experiencing "reality" (normal experience) or virtual reality. I do think people will begin to wonder if normal experience is a virtual reality. The research, neurological evidence, and philosophical arguments will be there waiting for them.

 

[Soupie]

Feels like a "simulation"? Something can feel like a simulation only in relation to something "real".

What you said was:

People don't experience entities in the external world to be "phenomenal" objects in the external world. They experience them to simply be objects in the external world.)

How do you equate that with feeling like your experience is a simulation?

When we see a yellow flower in a vase across the room, it feels like there is a yellow flower in a vase out there across the room.

When we see a yellow flower in a vase across the room, it doesn't feel like the yellow of the flower, and other qualities of the experience, are phenomenal qualities instantiated in our body/brain and internally mapped onto/into an external, buzzing, vibrating conglomeration of fundamental particles.

In the first instance, what we experience feels real. In the second instance, what we experience feels fake, manufactured, or simulated.

 

[smcder]

When we see a yellow flower in a vase across the room, it feels like there is a yellow flower in a vase out there across the room.

When we see a yellow flower in a vase across the room, it doesn't feel like the yellow of the flower, and other qualities of the experience, are phenomenal qualities instantiated in our body/brain and internally mapped onto/into an external, buzzing, vibrating conglomeration of fundamental particles.

In the first instance, what we experience feels real. In the second instance, what we experience feels fake, manufactured, or simulated.

And everyone has always felt that way?

(And see @Constance point above about phenomenology - what happens when you bracket your assumptions (above) and you really look at your experience.)

 

[Soupie]

And everyone has always felt that way?

Everyone has always had experience that felt real (ie, naive realism)? As I said earlier, so far as I am aware, yes. Id love to hear about any group of people who had experience that felt fake, simulated, internally generated, or otherwise non-real.

(And see @Constance point above about phenomenology - what happens when you bracket your assumptions (above) and you really look at your experience.)

If I'm making a glaring assumption, I'd appreciate it if you would point it out to me.

 

[smcder]

Everyone has always had experience that felt real (ie, naive realism)? As I said earlier, so far as I am aware, yes. Id love to hear about any group of people who had experience that felt fake, simulated, internally generated, or otherwise non-real.


If I'm making a glaring assumption, I'd appreciate it if you would point it out to me.

"fake, simulated, internally generated, or otherwise non-real."

to me that reads differently from where you started:

(However, in (1.), if we want to be picky, I'd point out that people don't experience entities in the external world to be "phenomenal" objects in the external world. They experience them to simply be objects in the external world.)
----

If I'm making a glaring assumption, I'd appreciate it if you would point it out to me.

you as in "one" not as in you specifically:

(And see @Constance point above about phenomenology - what happens when one brackets one's assumptions (above) and one really looks at one's experience.)

 

[Soupie]

fake, simulated, internally generated, or otherwise non-real."

to me that reads differently from where you started:

(However, in (1.), if we want to be picky, I'd point out that people don't experience entities in the external world to be "phenomenal" objects in the external world. They experience them to simply be objects in the external world.)

Hm, no, not from my perspective. A distinction is often made—as in Velmans' paper we've been discussing—between "real" reality and "phenomenal" reality. Velmans introduced the idea that phenomenal reality may be a virtual, simulated reality.

Thus, in this context, saying that one experiences objects to be phenomenal objects in the world is equivalent to saying that one experiences objects to be virtual, simulated objects in the world.

My point was that—although one may conceive of objects to be phenomenal/virtual/simulated—people do not experience objects to be phenomenal.

It may not have been clear, but I've been arguing the same point throughout.

And here is another, frankly incredible, virtual/augmented reality tech that is sure to change how people conceptual think about the world. Holopresence:

 

[Pharoah]

I found the following to be anpretty quick, helpful paper:

https://college.lclark.edu/live/files/13713-bryce--representational-and-hard-problempdf

I don't agree with all the thought experiments, but the overall conclusion seems right.

Author talks about the cases for content externalism and content internalism, and how both might relate to representationalism.

@Pharoah, would HCT be considered a content externalist or content internalist approach to consciousness? Either way, you might be interested to read the author's conclusion about what these approaches say about the HP.

I had a look at the paper you linked here... I kind of rejected the author's premise from the start so found the rationale wanting — internalism/ externalism does not really figure in my thinking. It is good to see everyone back again... I was missing the slugging and squashing etc

 

[Soupie]

internalism/ externalism does not really figure in my thinking.

Huh? I don't think that's possible, Pharoah.

The question is as follows: According to HCT, does consciousness supervene on intrinsic states of the organism (internalism) or does consciousness supervene on the environment (externalism)?

 

[Pharoah]

Huh? I don't think that's possible, Pharoah.

The question is as follows: According to HCT, does consciousness supervene on intrinsic states of the organism (internalism) or does consciousness supervene on the environment (externalism)?

I am not sure I understand supervenience. From what I gather, supervenience simply states an interesting pattern of co-variation between two qualified sets. I have been curious about its useage in texts because it often describes relations between sets that are complex, not even remotely understood, and that are from different realms or boundaries of understanding.
I didn't read more that 20% of the article because I just thought it was so flawed from the off, that there was no point... so I remain ignorant of what internalism and externalism mean. The distinction does not make sense to me from what I have seen. Sorry not to be more helpful.

 

[Pharoah]

Given my recent information essay I found the following rather interesting:
"A property of an object or system is epistemologically emergent if the property is reducible to or determined by the intrinsic properties of the ultimate constituents of the object or system, while at the same time it is very diYcult for us to explain, predict or derive the property on the basis of the ultimate constituents. Epistemologically emergent properties are novel only at a level of description. . . . Ontologically emergent features are neither reducible to nor determined by more basic features. Ontologically emergent features are features of systems or wholes that possess causal capacities not reducible to any of the intrinsic causal capacities of the parts nor to any of the (reducible) relations between the parts. (Silberstein and McGreever, 1999, p. 186) "
Epistemological emergence = weak
Ontological emergence = strong emergence

 

[Soupie]

Given my recent information essay I found the following rather interesting:
"A property of an object or system is epistemologically emergent if the property is reducible to or determined by the intrinsic properties of the ultimate constituents of the object or system, while at the same time it is very diYcult for us to explain, predict or derive the property on the basis of the ultimate constituents. Epistemologically emergent properties are novel only at a level of description. . . . Ontologically emergent features are neither reducible to nor determined by more basic features. Ontologically emergent features are features of systems or wholes that possess causal capacities not reducible to any of the intrinsic causal capacities of the parts nor to any of the (reducible) relations between the parts. (Silberstein and McGreever, 1999, p. 186) "
Epistemological emergence = weak
Ontological emergence = strong emergence

As I noted a few weeks back, emergence and downward causation are central to HCT. I'm glad you're addressing them.

Re internalism and externalism:

If HCT is "the" theory of consciousness, as you assert that it is, then it will have to answer whether consciousness is solely instantiated by the organism (internalism) or whether consciousness is instantiated by the organism and the environment (externalism).

There are a slew of various thought experiments to aid one in thinking about this, but the following is the easiest way for me to think about it:

An internalist would argue that for one to experience the color yellow, internal states of the organism are necessary and sufficient.

An externalist would argue that for one to experience the color yellow, internal states of the organism are necessary but not sufficient; in addition to internal states, certain external elements would be necessary as well.

Based on my admittedly poor understanding of HCT, I believe it is an internalist model. I believe that HCT holds that environmental stimuli trigger the instantiation of phenomenal qualities, but that those phenomenal qualities supervene on the internal states of the organism alone.

 

[smcder]

When we see a yellow flower in a vase across the room, it feels like there is a yellow flower in a vase out there across the room.

When we see a yellow flower in a vase across the room, it doesn't feel like the yellow of the flower, and other qualities of the experience, are phenomenal qualities instantiated in our body/brain and internally mapped onto/into an external, buzzing, vibrating conglomeration of fundamental particles.

In the first instance, what we experience feels real. In the second instance, what we experience feels fake, manufactured, or simulated.

f objects to be phenomenal/virtual/simulated—people do not experience objects to be phenomenal.

It may not have been clear, but I've been arguing the same point throughout.

And here is another, frankly incredible, virtual/augmented reality tech that is sure to change how people conceptual think about the world. Holopresence:

[/QUOTE]

1. When we see a yellow flower in a vase across the room, it doesn't feel like the yellow of the flower, and other qualities of the experience, are phenomenal qualities instantiated in our body/brain and internally mapped onto/into an external, buzzing, vibrating conglomeration of fundamental particles.

I disagree based on personal experience.

 

[smcder]

Hm, no, not from my perspective. A distinction is often made—as in Velmans' paper we've been discussing—between "real" reality and "phenomenal" reality. Velmans introduced the idea that phenomenal reality may be a virtual, simulated reality.

Thus, in this context, saying that one experiences objects to be phenomenal objects in the world is equivalent to saying that one experiences objects to be virtual, simulated objects in the world.

My point was that—although one may conceive of objects to be phenomenal/virtual/simulated—people do not experience objects to be phenomenal.

It may not have been clear, but I've been arguing the same point throughout.

And here is another, frankly incredible, virtual/augmented reality tech that is sure to change how people conceptual think about the world. Holopresence:

All kinds of confusion here - and I don't read Velman's as saying that phenomenal reality may be a virtual, simulated reality ... and then to conflate that with VR adds to this confusion. @Constance? @Pharoah?

Thus, in this context, saying that one experiences objects to be phenomenal objects in the world is equivalent to saying that one experiences objects to be virtual, simulated objects in the world.

My point was that—although one may conceive of objects to be phenomenal/virtual/simulated—people do not experience objects to be phenomenal.

Naïve realism, also known as direct realism or common sense realism, is a philosophy of mind rooted in a theory of perception that claims that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world. In contrast, some forms of idealism assert that no world exists apart from mind-dependent ideas and some forms of skepticism say we cannot trust our senses.

So an Idealist and a Skeptic will have different experiences of the world. We can't talk about what others experience based only on our own experiences. In Buddhism "conventional reality" and "ultimate reality" are fundamental ideas and adepts can move fluidly between them.

I went through a period of time where I went through a sense of the world exactly as you describe the flowers above. More recently I went through waves of what has been described as "de-conditioning" in which my view and experience of the world changed several times.

 

[Soupie]

All kinds of confusion here - and I don't read Velman's as saying that phenomenal reality may be a virtual, simulated reality ... and then to conflate that with VR adds to this confusion.

You're confused or you think I'm confused?

Velmans is not arguing for the simulation theory of phenomenal consciousness, but he introduces the idea via Lehar.

I'm not conflating this with VR. I'm saying that as VR becomes mainstream, the idea that phenomenal consciousness is a simulation a la Lehar will become less shocking/unpalatable.

Make sense?

 

[Constance]

I'm not conflating this with VR. I'm saying that as VR becomes mainstream, the idea that phenomenal consciousness is a simulation a la Lehar will become less shocking/unpalatable.

Make sense?

No. VR would not have been called 'virtual' if we did not all [excepting bona fide psychotics] already recognize the nature of the actual reality we're born into and live in. Nor will widespread virtual reality machines and computer programs replace the actualities of lived experience in the world for anyone that uses VR as entertainment or artform [with the possible exception of some deeply estranged people who might indulge in VR experiences as a total option to existing in the actual situations of real life].

That virtual reality can only be virtual does not mean that phenomenally experienced actuality is also 'virtual'. Though in both cases the same phenomenological character of perception and consciousness continues to apply in what one perceives in virtual reality as in actual lived reality in the palpable world. You won't be able to understand that statement, however, unless, until, you read ------ and comprehend -- phenomenological philosophy.