Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6

[smcder]

@smcder Sometime again, maybe under your previous account, you speculated whether pov could be fundamental. You also recently wrote a little more about panenpsychism. I'll have to circle back and re read what you wrote.

However the following seemed in line with the above approach:

The Case Against Reality

"Hoffman: Here’s the striking thing about that. I can pull the W out of the model and stick a conscious agent in its place and get a circuit of conscious agents. In fact, you can have whole networks of arbitrary complexity. And that’s the world.

Gefter: The world is just other conscious agents?

Hoffman: I call it conscious realism: Objective reality is just conscious agents, just points of view. Interestingly, I can take two conscious agents and have them interact, and the mathematical structure of that interaction also satisfies the definition of a conscious agent. This mathematics is telling me something. I can take two minds, and they can generate a new, unified single mind. Here’s a concrete example. We have two hemispheres in our brain. But when you do a split-brain operation, a complete transection of the corpus callosum, you get clear evidence of two separate consciousnesses. Before that slicing happened, it seemed there was a single unified consciousness. So it’s not implausible that there is a single conscious agent. And yet it’s also the case that there are two conscious agents there, and you can see that when they’re split. I didn’t expect that, the mathematics forced me to recognize this. It suggests that I can take separate observers, put them together and create new observers, and keep doing this ad infinitum. It’s conscious agents all the way down.

Gefter: If it’s conscious agents all the way down, all first-person points of view, what happens to science? Science has always been a third-person description of the world.

Hoffman: The idea that what we’re doing is measuring publicly accessible objects, the idea that objectivity results from the fact that you and I can measure the same object in the exact same situation and get the same results — it’s very clear from quantum mechanics that that idea has to go. Physics tells us that there are no public physical objects. So what’s going on? Here’s how I think about it. I can talk to you about my headache and believe that I am communicating effectively with you, because you’ve had your own headaches. The same thing is true as apples and the moon and the sun and the universe. Just like you have your own headache, you have your own moon. But I assume it’s relevantly similar to mine. That’s an assumption that could be false, but that’s the source of my communication, and that’s the best we can do in terms of public physical objects and objective science.

...

Hoffman: The formal theory of conscious agents I’ve been developing is computationally universal—in that sense, it’s a machine theory. And it’s because the theory is computationally universal that I can get all of cognitive science and neural networks back out of it. Nevertheless, for now I don’t think we are machines—in part because I distinguish between the mathematical representation and the thing being represented. As a conscious realist, I am postulating conscious experiences as ontological primitives, the most basic ingredients of the world. I’m claiming that experiences are the real coin of the realm. The experiences of everyday life—my real feeling of a headache, my real taste of chocolate—that really is the ultimate nature of reality."

I like this bit:

Hoffman: The formal theory of conscious agents I’ve been developing is computationally universal—in that sense, it’s a machine theory. And it’s because the theory is computationally universal that I can get all of cognitive science and neural networks back out of it. Nevertheless, for now I don’t think we are machines—in part because I distinguish between the mathematical representation and the thing being represented. As a conscious realist, I am postulating conscious experiences as ontological primitives, the most basic ingredients of the world. I’m claiming that experiences are the real coin of the realm. The experiences of everyday life—my real feeling of a headache, my real taste of chocolate—that really is the ultimate nature of reality."

My simple thought is POV is fundamental, so (bio) logically it's there to be worked with (or toward) like any other fundamental.

Mind as we experience it then is the intersection of brain and this fundamental POV - we mistake the particulars of our situation for a permanent self - but if you look below that, maybe what you see is that fundamental POV- so reality is always very personal.

 

[Constance]

@Constance
1. Unsurprisingly, I reject your view that "our only avenue toward postulating the nature of Being as a whole is through analysis of our own experience of being-in-the-world."
The reason why I reject it is because our own experience, and our ability to think about our experience, are things existing 'on top' of, or are things presented to something already Being—as you say, "Being . . . evidently 'pre-exists' the evolution of consciousness in the world we know". Consequently, I do not have high hopes of exploring Being through the analysis of experience.

What alternative is there to our species' conscious exploration of the physical mileau in which we live if we are to manage our radically temporal existence (to the extent we can) and use intelligently (and ethically) the resources of the physical environment on which we depend for survival? Neither science nor philosophy could begin, much less make progress, without conscious exploration of the world in which we find ourselves existing (or, as Heidegger put it, the world into which we are 'thrown'). Experience is the ground of all concepts on the basis of which we can reason.

2. And Being "in the world we know" implies the existence of Being 'in a world that we do not'. I can accept therefore, Being, as something of this world but unknowable (perhaps revealed by emerging consciousness etc), or Being, as something not of this world and unknowable.

We don't know the extent of that which has been humanly conceptualized as 'Being' -- the whole within which all parts of the world/universe/multiverse/cosmos that we can learn about (and speculate about) have their being. I'm afraid that whether you can 'accept' it or not, you are an existential being living in a world known within horizons of knowability and which changes and apparently expands in breadth and complexity beyond the reaches of our species' minds.

3. Incidentally, nobody has overcome dualism.

Nobody you have yet read.

 

[Constance]

You were arguing that informational or neurobiological approaches to consciousness cannot be correct because "against such models" we have our experiences of the world. Ie, those models cannot be correct because, presumably, our experiences don't feel like information or neurological processes.

What I've said is that informational and neurobiological hypotheses and theories concerning consciousness are not sufficient to account for consciousness or mind as we experience them in ourselves and recognize them in others of our species.

The point I am making is that if one believes that consciousness emerged from non-conscious processes—as you do—then whatever those processes turn out to be, whether quantum, molecular, cellular (neuronal), or computational, our experiences will not "feel like" those processes.

Consciousness has emerged on the enabling basis of both neurophysiological evolution and the lived experiences of organisms and animals from which our species has evolved. What does Panksepp's affective neuroscience tell us about the evolution of affectivity, awareness, seeking behavior, emotion, protoconsciousness, and consciousness from primordial life forms to those existing in the present? Panksepp and his colleagues (some writing before Panksepp's time) have, along with phenomenologists and neurophenomenologists, germinated a sea-change in the thinking of leading cognitive neuroscientists and reduced the influence of computational theories of consciousness and mind.

Whichever natural processes turn out to be preconditions for consciousness, they will not "feel like" experience due to the fact that they are outside of consciousness.

What you find hard to accept is that consciousness and mind are borne out of nature and yield a bifurcation, a chiasm, in nature -- an emergence of further complexity in the evolution of nature itself.

It's as you say. We must be careful not to reify our experience of being. We mustn't assume the preconditions of being are similar to the preconditions of a ham sandwich.

What do you mean by 'reifying' our experience of being? Or if you're harking back to what @Michael Allen wrote some days ago (as you indicated you were doing several posts back), what do you think Michael means by 'reifying' our experience of being? It seems to me that you are looking here for another way to minimize or dismiss the significance [or even the possibility] of direct experience in and of the world as necessary for the evolution of consciousness.

 

[Soupie]

What you find hard to accept is that consciousness and mind are borne out of nature and yield a bifurcation, a chiasm, in nature -- an emergence of further complexity in the evolution of nature itself.

Honestly, I'm finding it hard to muster up a response. It's been two years, and I'm not sure we even use the term consciousness to represent the same concept.

If by consciousness you mean "conscious experience," then yes, I find it hard to accept that conscious experience emerged from a nature sans conscious experience.

What do you mean by 'reifying' our experience of being? Or if you're harking back to what @Michael Allen wrote some days ago (as you indicated you were doing several posts back), what do you think Michael means by 'reifying' our experience of being? It seems to me that you are looking here for another way to minimize or dismiss the significance [or even the possibility] of direct experience in and of the world as necessary for the evolution of consciousness.

"Reification (also known as concretism, hypostatization, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity. [1][2] In other words, it is the error of treating something which is not concrete, such as an idea, as a concrete thing. A common case of reification is the confusion of a model with reality: "the map is not the territory"."

Reification (fallacy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Our experience of the world should not be confused with the world. Our concepts about our experience of the world should not be confused with the world.

 

[Pharoah]

What alternative is there to our species' conscious exploration of the physical mileau in which we live if we are to manage our radically temporal existence (to the extent we can) and use intelligently (and ethically) the resources of the physical environment on which we depend for survival? Neither science nor philosophy could begin, much less make progress, without conscious exploration of the world in which we find ourselves existing (or, as Heidegger put it, the world into which we are 'thrown'). Experience is the ground of all concepts on the basis of which we can reason.

We don't know the extent of that which has been humanly conceptualized as 'Being' -- the whole within which all parts of the world/universe/multiverse/cosmos that we can learn about (and speculate about) have their being. I'm afraid that whether you can 'accept' it or not, you are an existential being living in a world known within horizons of knowability and which changes and apparently expands in breadth and complexity beyond the reaches of our species' minds.

Nobody you have yet read.

1. I can imagine, absurd as it may seem to experience, that time and space are curved. And that is why I can abstract possibilities that may or may not be justified by observation. Experience is deception.
Discuss.
2. I accept that I am an existential being . . . amen
3. It is funny how the shocking potency and draw of a writer's works' unavoidable conclusion seems so often to be the clearest indication of its flaw.

 

[Constance]

Honestly, I'm finding it hard to muster up a response. It's been two years, and I'm not sure we even use the term consciousness to represent the same concept.

After two years it's more than clear that we don't share a common understanding of what consciousness is. For example, I wouldn't refer to consciousness as a 'concept' but rather as an experiential phenomenon emerging from and linking us to nature.

If by consciousness you mean "conscious experience," then yes, I find it hard to accept that conscious experience emerged from a nature sans conscious experience.

Yes, you have long sought a way to separate consciousness [as you attempt to define it] from embodied experience, despite papers I've posted explicating the nature of preconscious experience and prereflective consciousness. I do hope you will read the two papers by Dorothee Legrand that I linked a few days ago.

"Reification (also known as concretism, hypostatization, or the fallacy of misplaced concreteness) is a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event, or physical entity. [1][2] In other words, it is the error of treating something which is not concrete, such as an idea, as a concrete thing. A common case of reification is the confusion of a model with reality: "the map is not the territory"."
Reification (fallacy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As before, it's not clear what work you want a reference to the term 'reification' to do as a critical response to the phenomenology of consciousness. No philosophy or theory of consciousness stands and works more in opposition to the reification of consciousness than phenomenology does. Or are you trying to suggest that in your view all references to and analyses of consciousness amount to "an abstraction . . . treated as if it were a concrete, real event or physical entity"? So again, please clarify in your own words what it is you wish to claim.

Our experience of the world should not be confused with the world. Our concepts about our experience of the world should not be confused with the world.

Who or what, in your view, is guilty of these transgressions? If you think that either or both errors are expressed in phenomenology, please defend your claim.


Here are some papers you might look into concerning the modern history of the term/concept 'reification' since Marx used it to refer to the objectification of human subjects in his critique of Capitalism.



Heidegger, Reification and Formal Indication

http://ojs.ub.gu.se/ojs/index.php/modernasprak/article/viewFile/3059/2615

The Reification of Consciousness: Husserl's Phenomenology in Lukacs's Identical Subject-Object

 

[Constance]

1. I can imagine, absurd as it may seem to experience, that time and space are curved. And that is why I can abstract possibilities that may or may not be justified by observation. Experience is deception.
Discuss.

Is it your view, then, that Einstein's theories of General Relativity and Special Relativity were works of imagination?

3. It is funny how the shocking potency and draw of a writer's works' unavoidable conclusion seems so often to be the clearest indication of its flaw.

How funny is it? And whose works do you have in mind?

 

[Pharoah]

@Constance
1. yes, insofar as he did not observe light bending round massive bodies before imagining that it would... which is not to say that it might not have been the other way round. Equally, I might imagine what processes give rise to consciousness without experiential confirmation or reference. Concptual formulations need experience to exist, but they are extensions to experience such that we can have concepts about things that are not experienced.
2. Actually, I was just confused by your cheeky wink.
The first time I heard the phrase 'I think therefore I am' I immediately thought, "well that's not right!". And I was thinking then about the idea that existentialists have overcome dualism... my reaction was "well that's not right" either. But in a curiously-funny way, this is what seems to makes their ideas potent. But don't take this seriously because I don't know what I am talking about

 

[Soupie]

After two years it's more than clear that we don't share a common understanding of what consciousness is. For example, I wouldn't refer to consciousness as a 'concept' but rather as an experiential phenomenon emerging from and linking us to nature.

The underlined is a description of your concept "consciousness." As we've been discussing, concepts should not be confused with the experiences they are about.

As before, it's not clear what work you want a reference to the term 'reification' to do as a critical response to the phenomenology of consciousness.

Phenomenology (philosophy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In its most basic form, phenomenology attempts to create conditions for the objective study of topics usually regarded as subjective: consciousness and the content of conscious experiences such as judgments, perceptions, and emotions. Although phenomenology seeks to be scientific, it does not attempt to study consciousness from the perspective of clinical psychology or neurology. Instead, it seeks through systematic reflection to determine the essential properties and structures of experience.[3]"

I think phenomenology is valuable and exciting. However, the properties and structures of human experience are limited; its not clear how identifiying these properties and structures alone can inform us about the nature of what-is nor the preconditions of experience. We must be careful not to reify the properties and structures of human experience.

Constance, can you explain just what phenomenology's "theory of consciousness" is? Also, you frequently use the phrase "direct experience." Can you please explain it?

 

[Constance]

@Constance
1. yes, insofar as he did not observe light bending round massive bodies before imagining that it would... which is not to say that it might not have been the other way round.

But physicists following Einstein have surely confirmed experimentally the validity of Einsteins' theories concerning relativity, or Einstein's theories would no longer be instrumental in and for science. It's correct that the human faculty of imagination is essential to the progress of physical science and also to our species' understanding of the nature of our perception.

Sartre and especially Merleau-Ponty expand our understanding of the role of imagination in perception. MP wrote that "imagination is present in the first human perception." He meant that the capacity to think beyond what is presented to consciousness (even prereflective consciousness) by the things encountered in the material/physical environment is born out of the visible and invisible nature of things in their spatial, three-dimensional relationships to one another in their spatial extension (the gestalt). Any individual first sees things from a given perspective (from one side) and through his or her movements toward and around them understands [knows] the depth of the world we live in, which is there for us to explore. In exploring the many perspectives from which we can observe given phenomenally presented things by merely walking around them in daylight (and also sensing and thinking about the changing conditions of the appearances of things in changing conditions of light and consequent color), we experience before we begin to reflect on it the depth of the given world we live in and the variety of ways in which it 'worlds' for us.

We learn, in short, that what we see is dependent on the perspectives we are able to take on it. Things seen are 'things as seen', things phenomenally presented to our sensorium, which do not give us 'the thing in itself' but the opportunity to view it and reflect on its 'objective' nature by multiplying our perspectives on it (MP). In science, philosophy, and art we recognize that we as a species need to multiply our perspectives on the physical world to gain the maximum access available to us in our need and desire to understand 'what is'. The nature of 'what-is' for consciousness and mind, then, becomes comprehensible despite our inability to know things in themselves (the ding an sich), as Descartes recognized. That recognition is, as MP writes, the real meaning of the cogito.

Equally, I might imagine what processes give rise to consciousness without experiential confirmation or reference.

Imagination serves us to the extent that it remains connected to the nature of what-is to the extent that we can assess it. Imagination as analyzed and theorized in phenomenological philosophy is not untethered fantasy. We must begin from the basis of what we actually experience in the world. If we actually are our neurons, as reductive materialists tell us, then that claim needs to be demonstrated, not merely hypothesized and then asserted. There is a long road ahead for that demonstration, in both detail and depth.

Concptual formulations need experience to exist, but they are extensions to experience such that we can have concepts about things that are not experienced.

Indeed. The question is always: what are the legitimate ways in which can ground our concepts in that which we actually experience in the world.

2. Actually, I was just confused by your cheeky wink.
The first time I heard the phrase 'I think therefore I am' I immediately thought, "well that's not right!".

Descartes' error was not in thinking that his ability to think constituted evidence of his own being. It was in his postulating that objective reality and consciousness/mind existed in two radically separated domains of being in which subjectivity and objectivity could not interact. Modern science following Descartes' influential ideas thenceforth concentrated exclusively on attempting to describe and measure matter and energy as exclusively physical entities, and the materialist/objectivist paradigm has continued to dominate science into our time -- but the dominance of that paradigm is weakening.

And I was thinking then about the idea that existentialists have overcome dualism... my reaction was "well that's not right" either. But in a curiously-funny way, this is what seems to makes their ideas potent. But don't take this seriously because I don't know what I am talking about

Existentialism developed out of phenomenology as expressed in Husserl's phenomenological methodology. Heidegger was a student of Husserl at one of the pre-war German universities. Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty all develop phenomenology, which is why it's necessary to read all of them for an understanding of this philosophical discipline in its overcoming of Descartes' radical dualism, developed out of the analysis of the interrelation and interaction of subject and object in existential (lived) experience. One needs to read all of these four philosophers in order to comprehend this interaction and interdependence, this chiasmic crossing of subject and object in the experienced world. Phenomenological philosophy not only "seems" to be potent; it is potent in its deepening analysis of the relation of consciousness and mind to the material world in which existents find themselves existing and thinking about the nature of 'what is'. To recognize 'what is' in terms of that which we can claim to 'know' requires immersion in the detailed development of the major works of these thinkers, a process aided by reading the papers I've linked throughout this thread by contemporary philosophers who further explicate these key works.

 

[Soupie]

My simple thought is POV is fundamental, so (bio) logically it's there to be worked with (or toward) like any other fundamental.

Mind as we experience it then is the intersection of brain and this fundamental POV - we mistake the particulars of our situation for a permanent self - but if you look below that, maybe what you see is that fundamental POV- so reality is always very personal.

When you say POV is fundamental, do you think there is one fundamental POV or multiple fundamental POV?

Do you have any thoughts about the process of how this POV or POVs interact with matter?

 

[Soupie]

Here are two presentations given by Neil Theise and Evan Thompson.

Non-Dual Conscious Realism ~ Neil Theise | Science and Nonduality

Theise outlines his metaphysical system, which includes an ontology for conscious experience. @Pharoah I think you would find some interesting and helpful parallels to HCT and the particular questions you are working on now.

01-31-2014: Zen Brain: Consciousness, Complex Systems, and Transformation (Part 2) - Upaya Zen Center

And here is a presentation given by Evan Thompson in which he discusses complex systems and mind. This presentation follows a presentation given by Theise. Not the one linked above, but one covering the same topics.

They differ on the ontology of sentience. I happen to think Theise stands on firmer ontological ground than Thompson.

[Also, Thompson mentions IIT in his presentation and suggests that his neurophenomenological approach is different, but does so very weakly in my opinion. Which relates back to his difference with Theise as to the ontology of sentience (experience).

I also think Thompson "contradicts" himself a bit. In his book "Mind and Life" Thompson stressed form over substance when it comes to mind and life. But whereas Theise sees sentience arising early in nature, Thompson argues weakly in my opinion that sentience arises only with autopoetic processes. Theise gently points out that the phenomena in autopoesis that might be said to give rise to sentience can be found in non-autopoetic processes.

And in regards to IIT, Thompson says his approach is differs because he focuses on neurobiological and electrochemical processes... But he never explains how the properties of these "substances" differentiate his neurophen approach from the ITT approach. Both approaches focus on the integrated behavior of neurons and how they correlate with subjective experience.

Also, while IIT does abstract subjective experience away from the body to an extent (which I think is warranted), I think many in the embodied, extended, enactive, etc. schools of thought go way too far. Its not as if IIT argues that the brain is not informed by the nature of the human body and nervous system. And I feel that those in the enactive camp restrict the abstract capabilities of the mind too much.)

 

[smcder]

When you say POV is fundamental, do you think there is one fundamental POV or multiple fundamental POV?

Do you have any thoughts about the process of how this POV or POVs interact with matter?

1. one like there is one gravity ... otherwise would it be fundamental?
2. directly, again, like gravity interacts with matter

 

[smcder]

The underlined is a description of your concept "consciousness." As we've been discussing, concepts should not be confused with the experiences they are about.


Phenomenology (philosophy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In its most basic form, phenomenology attempts to create conditions for the objective study of topics usually regarded as subjective: consciousness and the content of conscious experiences such as judgments, perceptions, and emotions. Although phenomenology seeks to be scientific, it does not attempt to study consciousness from the perspective of clinical psychology or neurology. Instead, it seeks through systematic reflection to determine the essential properties and structures of experience.[3]"

I think phenomenology is valuable and exciting. However, the properties and structures of human experience are limited; its not clear how identifiying these properties and structures alone can inform us about the nature of what-is nor the preconditions of experience. We must be careful not to reify the properties and structures of human experience.

Constance, can you explain just what phenomenology's "theory of consciousness" is? Also, you frequently use the phrase "direct experience." Can you please explain it?

"In its most basic form, phenomenology attempts to create conditions for the objective study of topics usually regarded as subjective: consciousness and the content of conscious experiences such as judgments, perceptions, and emotions. Although phenomenology seeks to be scientific, it does not attempt to study consciousness from the perspective of clinical psychology or neurology. Instead, it seeks through systematic reflection to determine the essential properties and structures of experience.[3]"

@Constance - am I right that this definition lacks something - specifically "adequacy"? ... I'm sensing this particularly around:

"Although phenomenology seeks to be scientific ..." ... ;-) phenomenology having quite a lot to say about science.

 

[Constance]

I wrote and Soupie quoted:

"After two years it's more than clear that we don't share a common understanding of what consciousness is. For example, I wouldn't refer to consciousness as a 'concept' but rather as an experiential phenomenon emerging from and linking us to nature."

Soupie responded:

"The underlined is a description of your concept "consciousness." As we've been discussing, concepts should not be confused with the experiences they are about."

If our concepts are not based in and constructed on the basis of our experiences in the world, what do you take to be the origin of our concepts? This is a critical question that you need to respond to if our discussion is to proceed.


You also wrote, apparently quoting a post of mine:

As before, it's not clear what work you want a reference to the term 'reification' to do as a critical response to the phenomenology of consciousness.

It would be helpful if you would link to the exchange in which that post took place. We can come back to it then.

You followed that quotation with this quotation from Wikipedia:

Phenomenology (philosophy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In its most basic form, phenomenology attempts to create conditions for the objective study of topics usually regarded as subjective: consciousness and the content of conscious experiences such as judgments, perceptions, and emotions. Although phenomenology seeks to be scientific, it does not attempt to study consciousness from the perspective of clinical psychology or neurology. Instead, it seeks through systematic reflection to determine the essential properties and structures of experience.[3]"

to which you responded as follows:

I think phenomenology is valuable and exciting. However, the properties and structures of human experience are limited; its not clear how identifiying these properties and structures alone can inform us about the nature of what-is nor the preconditions of experience. We must be careful not to reify the properties and structures of human experience.

Phenomenology does not "reify the properties and structures of human experience," it describes them in intricate detail. You will need to read the phenomenological literature in order to comprehend phenomenological philosophy.

You also go on to say: "the properties and structures of human experience are limited; its not clear how identifiying these properties and structures alone can inform us about the nature of what-is nor the preconditions of experience."

You seem to believe that within our species' experience in a local world we can comprehend the entirety of what-is. On what basis do you believe that? What we can understand about "the nature of what-is" -- which require's a God's eye view of all that is -- is limited to accurate description and analysis of that which we actually experience and what we can think on that basis concerning the extensive 'world'/universe/cosmos/potential multiverse within which we find ourselves existing. Human 'science' cannot obtain a God's eye view of all that exists in Being as a whole, though it can make and has made progress in understanding the 'universe' in which we appear to exist without knowing its full extent. Our perspectives on All-that-is are unavoidably limited. Nevertheless we can learn about some of the conditions of our own existence and thought, for our species' existence is imbued with thinking from the basis of what we experience.

Constance, can you explain just what phenomenology's "theory of consciousness" is? Also, you frequently use the phrase "direct experience." Can you please explain it?

I have quoted, cited, written about, and linked the major phenomenologists' writing at length for two years here to clarify phenomenology's theory of consciousness and the direct experience of being-in-the-world on which it is based. It's all still here in this thread, available for you to read again if you did not read or understand it before. I cannot summarize all that for you in a single post or even a dozen long posts. And why should I? The resources you need to read and understand it are still linked and explicated here, going back to Part I of this thread, for you to read again, or perhaps for the first time.

 

[Pharoah]

But physicists following Einstein have surely confirmed experimentally the validity of Einsteins' theories concerning relativity, or Einstein's theories would no longer be instrumental in and for science. It's correct that the human faculty of imagination is essential to the progress of physical science and also to our species' understanding of the nature of our perception.

Sartre and especially Merleau-Ponty expand our understanding of the role of imagination in perception. MP wrote that "imagination is present in the first human perception." He meant that the capacity to think beyond what is presented to consciousness (even prereflective consciousness) by the things encountered in the material/physical environment is born out of the visible and invisible nature of things in their spatial, three-dimensional relationships to one another in their spatial extension (the gestalt). Any individual first sees things from a given perspective (from one side) and through his or her movements toward and around them understands [knows] the depth of the world we live in, which is there for us to explore. In exploring the many perspectives from which we can observe given phenomenally presented things by merely walking around them in daylight (and also sensing and thinking about the changing conditions of the appearances of things in changing conditions of light and consequent color), we experience before we begin to reflect on it the depth of the given world we live in and the variety of ways in which it 'worlds' for us.

We learn, in short, that what we see is dependent on the perspectives we are able to take on it. Things seen are 'things as seen', things phenomenally presented to our sensorium, which do not give us 'the thing in itself' but the opportunity to view it and reflect on its 'objective' nature by multiplying our perspectives on it (MP). In science, philosophy, and art we recognize that we as a species need to multiply our perspectives on the physical world to gain the maximum access available to us in our need and desire to understand 'what is'. The nature of 'what-is' for consciousness and mind, then, becomes comprehensible despite our inability to know things in themselves (the ding an sich), as Descartes recognized. That recognition is, as MP writes, the real meaning of the cogito.

Imagination serves us to the extent that it remains connected to the nature of what-is to the extent that we can assess it. Imagination as analyzed and theorized in phenomenological philosophy is not untethered fantasy. We must begin from the basis of what we actually experience in the world. If we actually are our neurons, as reductive materialists tell us, then that claim needs to be demonstrated, not merely hypothesized and then asserted. There is a long road ahead for that demonstration, in both detail and depth.

Indeed. The question is always: what are the legitimate ways in which can ground our concepts in that which we actually experience in the world.

Descartes' error was not in thinking that his ability to think constituted evidence of his own being. It was in his postulating that objective reality and consciousness/mind existed in two radically separated domains of being in which subjectivity and objectivity could not interact. Modern science following Descartes' influential ideas thenceforth concentrated exclusively on attempting to describe and measure matter and energy as exclusively physical entities, and the materialist/objectivist paradigm has continued to dominate science into our time -- but the dominance of that paradigm is weakening.

Existentialism developed out of phenomenology as expressed in Husserl's phenomenological methodology. Heidegger was a student of Husserl at one of the pre-war German universities. Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty all develop phenomenology, which is why it's necessary to read all of them for an understanding of this philosophical discipline in its overcoming of Descartes' radical dualism, developed out of the analysis of the interrelation and interaction of subject and object in existential (lived) experience. One needs to read all of these four philosophers in order to comprehend this interaction and interdependence, this chiasmic crossing of subject and object in the experienced world. Phenomenological philosophy not only "seems" to be potent; it is potent in its deepening analysis of the relation of consciousness and mind to the material world in which existents find themselves existing and thinking about the nature of 'what is'. To recognize 'what is' in terms of that which we can claim to 'know' requires immersion in the detailed development of the major works of these thinkers, a process aided by reading the papers I've linked throughout this thread by contemporary philosophers who further explicate these key works.

@Constance
you said, "But physicists following Einstein have surely confirmed experimentally the validity of Einsteins' theories concerning relativity, or Einstein's theories would no longer be instrumental in and for science. It's correct that the human faculty of imagination is essential to the progress of physical science and also to our species' understanding of the nature of our perception."
The point is this: The imaginings were valid before they were verified experientially, which is to say that non-experiential analysis (abstraction, imagination, introspection whatever you like to call it) can acquire explanations for the experienced. Personally, I think that subjectivity is explainable without experiential validation, analysis or observation, which is why I disagree with your statement, "We must begin from the basis of what we actually experience in the world."

Existentialism does not overcome radical dualism. The problem, as I see it, is the conflation of existence and being. Existence does not account for Being. I am not sure that it even has anything to do with it. And Being is not accounted for in the concept of subjectivity and objectivity.

 

[Constance]

"In its most basic form, phenomenology attempts to create conditions for the objective study of topics usually regarded as subjective: consciousness and the content of conscious experiences such as judgments, perceptions, and emotions. Although phenomenology seeks to be scientific, it does not attempt to study consciousness from the perspective of clinical psychology or neurology. Instead, it seeks through systematic reflection to determine the essential properties and structures of experience.[3]"

@Constance - am I right that this definition lacks something - specifically "adequacy"? ... I'm sensing this particularly around:

"Although phenomenology seeks to be scientific ..." ... ;-) phenomenology having quite a lot to say about science.

Yes, Steve, you are correct in questioning the adequacy of that quotation from wikipedia. I wish we could move beyond wikipedia in discussing phenomenology and the complexity of what it opens up for critical thinking.

 

[Constance]

@Constance
you said, "But physicists following Einstein have surely confirmed experimentally the validity of Einsteins' theories concerning relativity, or Einstein's theories would no longer be instrumental in and for science. It's correct that the human faculty of imagination is essential to the progress of physical science and also to our species' understanding of the nature of our perception."

The point is this: The imaginings were valid before they were verified experientially, which is to say that non-experiential analysis (abstraction, imagination, introspection whatever you like to call it) can acquire explanations for the experienced. Personally, I think that subjectivity is explainable without experiential validation, analysis or observation, which is why I disagree with your statement, "We must begin from the basis of what we actually experience in the world."

I see that you disagree, but your disagreement is not based in reading and comprehending the major works of phenomenological philosophy. If you finally read those works we can have a substantive discussion. I look forward to that discussion, but I doubt at this point that you will do the necessary reading.

Existentialism [should be: phenomenological existentialism or existential phenomenology (both terms are used by scholars)] does not overcome radical dualism. The problem, as I see it, is the conflation of existence and being. Existence does not account for Being. I am not sure that it even has anything to do with it. And Being is not accounted for in the concept of subjectivity and objectivity.

You are talking here about philosophical works you have not read and thus do not understand. Let's talk again when you have read them, if you finally decide to do so.

 

[Soupie]

1. one like there is one gravity ... otherwise would it be fundamental?
2. directly, again, like gravity interacts with matter

I was thinking in the sense that matter can be considered fundamental and some think point particles or strings are the smallest unit of matter. But there's not just one, of course, there are multiple.

 

[Soupie]

If concepts are not based in and constructed on the basis of our experiences in the world, what do you take to be the origin of our concepts? This is a critical question that you need to respond to if our discussion is to proceed.

Constance, you, I, and everyone else in this thread had discussed at sickening length the fact that our concepts are based on our experiences. We get it already. Seriously.

Trying to have a discussion with you is exhausting. You are arguing, outright arguing with @Pharoah and I for no reason. No reason at all. We are all simply trying to discuss the problem of consciousness. Yes, yes, you love phenomenology and all it has to offer. That's great. It's wonderful. But it does not offer us an answer to the mind body problem. If it did there would of course be no mind body problem; or at the very least you have been able to articulate phenomenology's answer/response to the mind body problem by now. (It's been 2 years.)

You seem to believe that within our species' experience in a local world we can comprehend the entirety of what-is.

No, I don't believe that.

What some of us in this thread have been doing is having fun speculating about and exploring various approaches to "the entirety of what-is."

I have quoted, cited, written about, and linked the major phenomenologists' writing at length for two years here to clarify phenomenology's theory of consciousness and the direct experience of being-in-the-world on which it is based. It's all still here in this thread, available for you to read again if you did not read or understand it before. I cannot summarize all that for you in a single post or even a dozen long posts. And why should I? The resources you need to read and understand it are still linked and explicated here, going back to Part I of this thread, for you to read again, or perhaps for the first time.

You said the same about Velmans, and yet Pharoah was able to do so in a very nice post.

I find it hard to believe that you can't offer a brief outline of how phenomenological philosophy resolves the mind-body problem.