Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6

[Constance]

Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight

Say that it is a crude effect, black reds,
Pink yellows, orange whites, too much as they are
To be anything else in the sunlight of the room,

Too much as they are to be changed by metaphor,
Too actual, things that in being real
Make any imaginings of them lesser things.

And yet this effect is a consequence of the way
We feel and, therefore, is not real, except
In our sense of it, our sense of the fertilest red,

Of yellow as first color and of white,
In which the sense lies still, as a man lies,
Enormous, in a completing of his truth.

Our sense of these things changes and they change,
Not as in metaphor, but in our sense
Of them. So sense exceeds all metaphor.

It exceeds the heavy changes of the light.
It is like a flow of meanings with no speech
And of as many meanings as of men.

We are two that use these roses as we are,
In seeing them. This is what makes them seem
So far beyond the rhetorician’s touch.

Wallace Stevens
From The Auroras of Autumn

 

[Soupie]

"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. ...

I went through a period of time where I went through a sense of the world exactly as you describe the flowers above.

Please elaborate.

 

[Pharoah]

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.

I do argue that qualitative value or meaning is observer-dependent not -independent... so phenomenal identity does not exist without the organism and consciousness does not exist without the organism etc. Not convinced that internalism vs externalism is about this distinction.

The thing about emergentism—the doctrine—is that it is not really about emergence . Few would disagree with the following,
one's own mental state "emerged" some time after conception;
some time in the past human consciousness did not exist but that this 'property' (whatever one wishes to call it) emerged; or
that living organisms came into existence (emerged) about 3.5billion years ago
Who says things don't emerge?
The question is, what is the doctrine trying to say emergence is? As a counter argument to reductionaism, I reject the doctrine, because I think emergence can be reductively explained.

Downward causation: is a misnomer. Causes have an effect, and all effects become the cause of another effect. What is 'downwards' about this? Downward causation is a term that has emerged from emergentism.

 

[Soupie]

Not convinced that internalism vs externalism is about this distinction.

Externalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Externalism is a group of positions in the philosophy of mind which hold that the mind is not only the result of what is going on inside the nervous system (or the brain) but also of what either occurs or exists outside the subject. It is often contrasted with internalism which holds that the mind emerges from neural activity alone. Externalism articulates the belief that the mind is not just the brain or what the brain does."

There are many modes of externalism/internalism, but "content internalism/externalism," if I gather correctly, applies to phenomenal consciousness, where much of our focus has been in this discussion.

Internalism importantly is related to biological models of consciousness. That is another way of framing it.

That is, if one thinks that consciousness is instantiated via biological processes intrinsict to the organism, they likely hold an internalist view of consciousness.

Is HCT a biological model of consciousness?

 

[smcder]

Please elaborate.

I can re-iterate:
"When I saw a flower in a vase across the room, it felt like the qualities of the experience, were phenomenal qualities instantiated in my body/brain and internally mapped onto/into an external, buzzing, vibrating conglomeration of fundamental particles."

 

[smcder]

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?

At a minimum, I think you are confusing! ;-)

But if you're not confused much of the time - what you are doing probably isn't philosophy.

 

[smcder]

I do argue that qualitative value or meaning is observer-dependent not -independent... so phenomenal identity does not exist without the organism and consciousness does not exist without the organism etc. Not convinced that internalism vs externalism is about this distinction.

The thing about emergentism—the doctrine—is that it is not really about emergence . Few would disagree with the following,
one's own mental state "emerged" some time after conception;
some time in the past human consciousness did not exist but that this 'property' (whatever one wishes to call it) emerged; or
that living organisms came into existence (emerged) about 3.5billion years ago
Who says things don't emerge?
The question is, what is the doctrine trying to say emergence is? As a counter argument to reductionaism, I reject the doctrine, because I think emergence can be reductively explained.

Downward causation: is a misnomer. Causes have an effect, and all effects become the cause of another effect. What is 'downwards' about this? Downward causation is a term that has emerged from emergentism.

You fellows are pretty keen on re-writing the book on philosophy!

 

[smcder]

Externalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Externalism is a group of positions in the philosophy of mind which hold that the mind is not only the result of what is going on inside the nervous system (or the brain) but also of what either occurs or exists outside the subject. It is often contrasted with internalism which holds that the mind emerges from neural activity alone. Externalism articulates the belief that the mind is not just the brain or what the brain does."

There are many modes of externalism/internalism, but "content internalism/externalism," if I gather correctly, applies to phenomenal consciousness, where much of our focus has been in this discussion.

Internalism importantly is related to biological models of consciousness. That is another way of framing it.

That is, if one thinks that consciousness is instantiated via biological processes intrinsict to the organism, they likely hold an internalist view of consciousness.

Is HCT a biological model of consciousness?

Internalism = mind can be in a brain in a vat?
Externalism = mind needs a brain in a skull in a body in an organism in an environment in a world in a universe ...

 

[smcder]

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.

I agree in that "supervenience" has wide usage and this is confirmed in the SEP.

This brings up the issue of terminology/jargon - and my recent experience learning languages - there is an enormous article on supervenience in the SEP and this is the basic definition:

A set of properties A supervenes upon another set B just in case no two things can differ with respect toA-properties without also differing with respect to theirB-properties. In slogan form, “there cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference”.

... and there are also grammars and dictionaries of languages with very precise definitions ... and then there is the way a word is used in real-life (highly dependent on where, when and who is using it) and all the new ways a word is being stretched and used that won't be captured, even in the most up to date web page for some time ... and there is denotation and connotation and there is human wit and guile ... so the way we mostly learn to use a word is through usage and context - seeing lots of examples of it - that requires a lot of reading of the literature in which it is used and seeing which words it co-occurs with ... if we don't have that familiarity, it may be best to re-write without that terminology.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie

I think we would do well to read the Lehar paper (bladerunner PDF) I posted above and also some of Velman's more recent papers. This one was from 2004, I think?

 

[Soupie]

if we don't have that familiarity, it may be best to re-write without that terminology.

In the past, when ive tired to use my own terms, phrases, and explanations, you've encouraged me to find philosphers/philosophies that align with my own views.

But now when I introduce POM terms it creates wild confusion, anger, and anxiety, haha. I'm using them "incorrectly."

Listen, the confusion is mutual. The four of us have confused one another and remain confused by one another throughout this discussion. (Please don't try to convince me that you actually understand @Constance approach to consciousness. You obviously both reject materialism, but that is exactly where your agreement ends.)

The paper I posted by Velmans previously to the simulation/perceptual projection one underlined the fact that there is little to no agreement or understanding of consciousness among the leading philosophers of mind.

Any wonder that the four of us confuse each other?

I would say, smcder, that you are likely the leadt confusing of thenfour of us, but that is due to the fact that you are not defending or articulating an approach to consciousness. When you have hinted at an approach and I have asked for more, it hasnt come. Im sure confusion would follow if you did proceed. Its the nature of the topic.

 

[smcder]

In the past, when ive tired to use my own terms, phrases, and explanations, you've encouraged me to find philosphers/philosophies that align with my own views.

But now when I introduce POM terms it creates wild confusion, anger, and anxiety, haha. I'm using them "incorrectly."

Listen, the confusion is mutual. The four of us have confused one another and remain confused by one another throughout this discussion. (Please don't try to convince me that you actually understand @Constance approach to consciousness. You obviously both reject materialism, but that is exactly where your agreement ends.)

The paper I posted by Velmans previously to the simulation/perceptual projection one underlined the fact that there is little to no agreement or understanding of consciousness among the leading philosophers of mind.

Any wonder that the four of us confuse each other?

I would say, smcder, that you are likely the leadt confusing of then four of us, but that is due to the fact that you are not defending or articulating an approach to consciousness. When you have hinted at an approach and I have asked for more, it hasnt come. Im sure confusion would follow if you did proceed. Its the nature of the topic.

I think in some cases we can look and see which terms are very broadly used throughout philosophy (supervenience seems to be one - this is discussed early in the SOP article) and which are fairly clearly defined in limited usage - for example downward causation in its original use seems to make sense to me - (Principia Cybernetica entry) or we can try to find a balance based on the terminology that we are all familiar with.

For now, maybe clearing the desk and focusing on one thing - maybe the Lehar paper - if that is your interest - it gives his arguments, responses and responses to those responses. Or we could look at later papers by Velmans.

 

[smcder]

Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight

Say that it is a crude effect, black reds,
Pink yellows, orange whites, too much as they are
To be anything else in the sunlight of the room,

Too much as they are to be changed by metaphor,
Too actual, things that in being real
Make any imaginings of them lesser things.

And yet this effect is a consequence of the way
We feel and, therefore, is not real, except
In our sense of it, our sense of the fertilest red,

Of yellow as first color and of white,
In which the sense lies still, as a man lies,
Enormous, in a completing of his truth.

Our sense of these things changes and they change,
Not as in metaphor, but in our sense
Of them. So sense exceeds all metaphor.

It exceeds the heavy changes of the light.
It is like a flow of meanings with no speech
And of as many meanings as of men.

We are two that use these roses as we are,
In seeing them. This is what makes them seem
So far beyond the rhetorician’s touch.

Wallace Stevens
From The Auroras of Autumn

Strauß Rosen im Sonnenlicht
Sagen, dass es eine grobe Effekt, schwarz Rot ist
Rosa Gelbs, orange Weiße, zu veil, wie sie sind
Alles andere in der Sonne des Raumes zu sein,

Zu viel, wie sie sind, durch Metapher geändert werden soll,
Zu wirklich, Dinge das real in sein
Machen Sie alle Vorstellungen von ihnen weniger Dinge.

Und noch diese Effect ist eine Folge der Art wie
Wir fühlen und deswegen, ist nicht Echt,
ausgenommen im unser Gefuhl davon es, unser
sense von der fruchtbarste Rot.

 

[Pharoah]

@Soupie I'm neither externalist nor internalist as far as I can make out.
I sometimes wonder what an entity would want to hear about our world if it were entirely internally embodied, possessing no access to the external world. I have spent quite some time on this.... z.

 

[smcder]

In the past, when ive tired to use my own terms, phrases, and explanations, you've encouraged me to find philosphers/philosophies that align with my own views.

But now when I introduce POM terms it creates wild confusion, anger, and anxiety, haha. I'm using them "incorrectly."

Listen, the confusion is mutual. The four of us have confused one another and remain confused by one another throughout this discussion. (Please don't try to convince me that you actually understand @Constance approach to consciousness. You obviously both reject materialism, but that is exactly where your agreement ends.)

The paper I posted by Velmans previously to the simulation/perceptual projection one underlined the fact that there is little to no agreement or understanding of consciousness among the leading philosophers of mind.

Any wonder that the four of us confuse each other?

I would say, smcder, that you are likely the leadt confusing of thenfour of us, but that is due to the fact that you are not defending or articulating an approach to consciousness. When you have hinted at an approach and I have asked for more, it hasnt come. Im sure confusion would follow if you did proceed. Its the nature of the topic.

I think @Constance expresses herself clearly and consistently. Some of the most interesting things she has said have not received any response here - I am trying to find some examples from the end of part 5/beginning of part 6 where she discusses God and the soul.

But here is an example:
I think Pharoah is pointing to the apparent fact that protoconscious and conscious organisms develop the capacity to form their own representations of their environments out of sensory 'gifts of nature' -- the capability of feeling and eventually seeing, hearing, tasting the world and thus sensing, even prereflectively, their situation in that world as an individual relationship to the world. My only disagreement with HCT at this point is, as it was in earlier versions, that it does not recognize the implicitly felt 'knowledge' existing in organisms even before the development of the sensory organs of direct perception of their environment. I think we need to recognize that that primordial level of 'knowing' remains significant even in humans equipped with reflective thinking and conceptual thinking.

It's difficult to talk about it as 'knowing' since in the history of both our philosophy and our science we have disregarded the question both of what consciousness is and the conditions in which it begins to exist.
Perhaps it helps to think of the seed of consciousness as first expressed in 'affectivity' {Panksepp's definition} as being similar to the early development of the fertilized egg in the womb.

In its ontogeny, the developing foetus passes through physical forms that developed during the evolution of species. The developing foetus also becomes increasingly 'aware' of its environment (not only within the womb but in later weeks of pregnancy of sounds heard and feelings of others sensed outside the womb). The foetus feels those feelings expressed by others. It is on the way to being outside the womb, where it will see and hear and feel the reality of others and itself more fully and in its early years develop the capacity to think about what and who it is as an existing being in a complex, changing, and never fully understood 'world'.
In the earliest awakenings of consciousness in the primordial organism, it feels that it is ‘there’ without understanding what or where ‘there’ is. That is a kind of yet-inchoate knowledge that we have yet to recognize as real and productive in the development of consciousness and mind.

 

[smcder]

We could also read the 45pp Thompson and Zhavi paper @Constance linked above. It provides a very clear explanation of the phenomenological reduction:

The philosophical procedure by which this correlational structure is investigated is known as the phenomenological reduction. ‘Reduction’ in this context does not mean replacing or eliminating one theory or model in favour of another taken to be more fundamental. It signifies rather a ‘leading back’ (re-ducere) or redirection of thought away from its unreflective and unexamined immersion in experience of the world to the way in which the world manifests itself to us. To redirect our interest in this way does not mean we doubt the things before us or somehow try to turn away from the world to look elsewhere. Things remain before us, but we envisage them in a new way, namely, strictly as they appear to us.
Thus, everyday things available to our perception are not doubted or considered as illusions when they are ‘phenomenologically reduced’, but instead are envisaged and examined simply and precisely as perceived (and similarly for remembered things as remembered, imagined things as imagined, and so on). In other words, once we adopt the phenomenological attitude, we are interested not in what things are in themselves, in some naïve, mind-independent or theory-independent sense, but rather in exactly how they appear, and thus as strict relational correlates of our experience.

 

[Pharoah]

I think @Constance expresses herself clearly and consistently. Some of the most interesting things she has said have not received any response here - I am trying to find some examples from the end of part 5/beginning of part 6 where she discusses God and the soul.

But here is an example:
I think Pharoah is pointing to the apparent fact that protoconscious and conscious organisms develop the capacity to form their own representations of their environments out of sensory 'gifts of nature' -- the capability of feeling and eventually seeing, hearing, tasting the world and thus sensing, even prereflectively, their situation in that world as an individual relationship to the world. My only disagreement with HCT at this point is, as it was in earlier versions, that it does not recognize the implicitly felt 'knowledge' existing in organisms even before the development of the sensory organs of direct perception of their environment. I think we need to recognize that that primordial level of 'knowing' remains significant even in humans equipped with reflective thinking and conceptual thinking.

It's difficult to talk about it as 'knowing' since in the history of both our philosophy and our science we have disregarded the question both of what consciousness is and the conditions in which it begins to exist.
Perhaps it helps to think of the seed of consciousness as first expressed in 'affectivity' {Panksepp's definition} as being similar to the early development of the fertilized egg in the womb.

In its ontogeny, the developing foetus passes through physical forms that developed during the evolution of species. The developing foetus also becomes increasingly 'aware' of its environment (not only within the womb but in later weeks of pregnancy of sounds heard and feelings of others sensed outside the womb). The foetus feels those feelings expressed by others. It is on the way to being outside the womb, where it will see and hear and feel the reality of others and itself more fully and in its early years develop the capacity to think about what and who it is as an existing being in a complex, changing, and never fully understood 'world'.
In the earliest awakenings of consciousness in the primordial organism, it feels that it is ‘there’ without understanding what or where ‘there’ is. That is a kind of yet-inchoate knowledge that we have yet to recognize as real and productive in the development of consciousness and mind.

I don't recall reading this.
HCT "does not recognize the implicitly felt 'knowledge' existing in organisms even before the development of the sensory organs of direct perception of their environment."
Is this, your understanding of HCT, still the case @Constance?
"In the earliest awakenings of consciousness in the primordial organism, it feels that it is ‘there’ without understanding what or where ‘there’ is. That is a kind of yet-inchoate knowledge that we have yet to recognize as real and productive in the development of consciousness and mind."
"without understanding what or where 'there' is": What and where are a particular relational knowledge, and even knowing what and where does not ncessarily imbue a sense of self realisation. So "the feeling that it is there" is of a special kind; a kind coloured by primal reactionary instincts, maybe at first emerging from a sensorily deprived immersion bath of pre-existence.

 

[smcder]

@Constance

from The Auroras of Autumn

I read the Spanish first and translated it, and only then looked at Stevens original, so first is the Spanish, my rough translation (I've actually edited it in some places after reading Stevens original) and then Stevens' original bold ... I think this is a good way to learn Stevens and Spanish ... in some cases a more direct translation seemed available and it would be great to talk to the translator to see if this is something about the language or a personal choice they made.

Now, if I did this for a few hundred more of Stevens poems ... ;-)

Aquí es donde vive la serpiente, la sin cuerpo.
Su cabeza es aire. En cada cielo, por la noche,
Debajo de su cola se abren ojos que nos miran.
Here is where the serpent lives, without a body
His head is air. In each heaven, at night,
Below its tail its open eyes are watching us.

This is where the serpent lives, the bodiless.
His head is air. Beneath his tip at night
Eyes open and fix on us in every sky.

?O esto es otro culebrear wriggle fuera del huevo,
Otra imagen al final de la caverna,
Otra sin cuerpo para la vieja piel?
Or this is another wriggling out of the egg
Another image at the end of the cave,
Another bodiless for the old skin?

Or is this another wriggling out of the egg,
Another image at the end of the cave,
Another bodiless for the body's slough?
Aquí es donde vive la serpiente. Éste es su nido,
Estos campos, estas Colinas, estas teñidas (tintado) distancias
y los pinos encima, ya lo largo y al costado del mar
Here is where the serpent lives. This is its nest,
These fields, these hills, these stained distances,
and the pines above, and along the coast of the sea.

This is where the serpent lives. This is his nest,
These fields, these hills, these tinted distances,
And the pines above and along and beside the sea.
Esto es forma engullendo lo informe,
engullir en pos de
Piel relampagueando hacia desapariciones anheladas,
Y el cuerpo de la serpiente relampaguendo sin piel.

This is form gobbling after formlessness,
Skin flashing toward disappearances you crave,
And the body of the serpent flashing without skin.

This is form gulping after formlessness,
Skin flashing to wished-for disappearances
And the serpent body flashing without the skin.

 

[Constance]

I agree in that "supervenience" has wide usage and this is confirmed in the SEP.

This brings up the issue of terminology/jargon - and my recent experience learning languages - there is an enormous article on supervenience in the SEP and this is the basic definition:

A set of properties A supervenes upon another set B just in case no two things can differ with respect toA-properties without also differing with respect to theirB-properties. In slogan form, “there cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference”.

... and there are also grammars and dictionaries of languages with very precise definitions ... and then there is the way a word is used in real-life (highly dependent on where, when and who is using it) and all the new ways a word is being stretched and used that won't be captured, even in the most up to date web page for some time ... and there is denotation and connotation and there is human wit and guile ... so the way we mostly learn to use a word is through usage and context - seeing lots of examples of it - that requires a lot of reading of the literature in which it is used and seeing which words it co-occurs with ... if we don't have that familiarity, it may be best to re-write without that terminology.

"... and there are also grammars and dictionaries of languages with very precise definitions ... and then there is the way a word is used in real-life (highly dependent on where, when and who is using it) and all the new ways a word is being stretched and used that won't be captured, even in the most up to date web page for some time ... and there is denotation and connotation and there is human wit and guile ... so the way we mostly learn to use a word is through usage and context - seeing lots of examples of it - that requires a lot of reading of the literature in which it is used and seeing which words it co-occurs with ... if we don't have that familiarity, it may be best to re-write without that terminology."

Or as Humpty-Dumpty said in Alice in Wonderland, "Words mean exactly what I say they mean."

 

[smcder]

"... and there are also grammars and dictionaries of languages with very precise definitions ... and then there is the way a word is used in real-life (highly dependent on where, when and who is using it) and all the new ways a word is being stretched and used that won't be captured, even in the most up to date web page for some time ... and there is denotation and connotation and there is human wit and guile ... so the way we mostly learn to use a word is through usage and context - seeing lots of examples of it - that requires a lot of reading of the literature in which it is used and seeing which words it co-occurs with ... if we don't have that familiarity, it may be best to re-write without that terminology."

Or as Humpty-Dumpty said in Alice in Wonderland, "Words mean exactly what I say they mean."

;-)