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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 6
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Aren't computers wonderful? I marvel at the difference in the convenience of obtaining copies of major works to maintain at one's fingertips through our computers today and my days as a graduate student when everything had to be accessed in brick-and-mortar libraries and checked out only temporarily.
smcder
Paranormal Adept
"This sign I have had ever since I was a child. The sign is a voice which comes to me and always forbids me to do something which I am going to do, but never commands me to do anything..."
Actually... The truth is, I don't come up with any of it. I know when the thinking about it happens but it is not me that is doing it... and then when the thinking is done, it is revealed to me. And people say that I am absent when the thinking is happening... and in a way, I am, though where I go I am not too sure. I feel enslaved to it in a timeless nonexistent space.
"revealed" - by what agency? or do you just mean that you become aware of it? But you do understand it immediately when you do receive it or become aware or have it revealed? Revelations don't always come with understanding.
Absent - as in an "absence seizure" ... ? Do you have any awareness at this time?
In "What is Called Thinking," Heidegger distinguishes between philosophies of nature and philosophies of man. I think this distinction becomes highly relevant to the article Steve linked on Wigner. Can we think of mathematics as a philosophy of nature (much less a philosophy of man, mind, or being)?
Extract from the paper on Wigner: "The status of theories depends upon whether one subscribes to a philosophy of science that treats theories as mere devices for calculation or prediction (instrumentalism, conventionalism, some kinds of positivism), or to a philosophy that pays attention to the (apparent) explanatory power of theories (inductivism, fallibilism, some kinds of Platonism).^ These differences matter, because the criteria for (in)effectiveness vary between the two kinds of philosophy. The discussion that follows will apply to both of them, as does Wigner's article.''
Extract from the paper on Wigner: "The status of theories depends upon whether one subscribes to a philosophy of science that treats theories as mere devices for calculation or prediction (instrumentalism, conventionalism, some kinds of positivism), or to a philosophy that pays attention to the (apparent) explanatory power of theories (inductivism, fallibilism, some kinds of Platonism).^ These differences matter, because the criteria for (in)effectiveness vary between the two kinds of philosophy. The discussion that follows will apply to both of them, as does Wigner's article.''
Losing faith in the author of the paper on Wigner's mystery after reading this paragraph:
"In the discussion that follows, 'notion' is an umbrella term covering not only objects such as function and matrix but also concepts such as convexity, systems of symbols, and proof methods, that occur in mathematical theories; these latter are often called 'topics' when they include individual theorems or algorithms as well as largerscale bodies of results. The distinction between topic and notion resembles that made by phenomenologists between a part and a moment of a whole; for example, between the third chapter of a certain book and the price of that book [Smith 1982]."
Oh well, no one can read and understand everything.
"In the discussion that follows, 'notion' is an umbrella term covering not only objects such as function and matrix but also concepts such as convexity, systems of symbols, and proof methods, that occur in mathematical theories; these latter are often called 'topics' when they include individual theorems or algorithms as well as largerscale bodies of results. The distinction between topic and notion resembles that made by phenomenologists between a part and a moment of a whole; for example, between the third chapter of a certain book and the price of that book [Smith 1982]."
Oh well, no one can read and understand everything.
smcder
Paranormal Adept
You are still in your "Tractatus" phase ... before your turn ... I await the "late" Pharoah.
Sent from my LGLS991 using Tapatalk
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Bibliographical note. The text at the link consists of two parts of a collection of Heidegger's late lectures published as a book entitled What is Called Thinking. That book is regarded by many Heidegger scholars as being as significant as Being and Time and much more accessible. It presents H's developed later philosophy.
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One further bibliographical note to refer interested readers to another book by Heidegger, entitled On the Way to Language, described as follows at amazon:
"In this volume Martin Heidegger confronts the philosophical problems of language and begins to unfold the meaning behind his famous and little understood phrase 'Language is the House of Being'.
The "Dialogue on Language," between Heidegger and a Japanese friend, together with the four lectures that follow, present Heidegger's central ideas on the origin, nature, and significance of language. These essays reveal how one of the most profound philosophers of our century relates language to his earlier and continuing preoccupation with the nature of Being and human being.
On the Way to Language enables readers to understand how central language became to Heidegger's analysis of the nature of Being. On the Way to Language demonstrates that an interest in the meaning of language is one of the strongest bonds between analytic philosophy and Heidegger.* It is an ideal source for studying his sustained interest in the problems and possibilities of human language and brilliantly underscores the originality and range of his thinking."
*Perhaps of special interest to @Pharoah given the interest in it by analytic philosophers and to Steve @smcder because it includes Heidegger's dialogue concerning the Japanese philosopher Kuki with another Eastern philosopher.
"In this volume Martin Heidegger confronts the philosophical problems of language and begins to unfold the meaning behind his famous and little understood phrase 'Language is the House of Being'.
The "Dialogue on Language," between Heidegger and a Japanese friend, together with the four lectures that follow, present Heidegger's central ideas on the origin, nature, and significance of language. These essays reveal how one of the most profound philosophers of our century relates language to his earlier and continuing preoccupation with the nature of Being and human being.
On the Way to Language enables readers to understand how central language became to Heidegger's analysis of the nature of Being. On the Way to Language demonstrates that an interest in the meaning of language is one of the strongest bonds between analytic philosophy and Heidegger.* It is an ideal source for studying his sustained interest in the problems and possibilities of human language and brilliantly underscores the originality and range of his thinking."
*Perhaps of special interest to @Pharoah given the interest in it by analytic philosophers and to Steve @smcder because it includes Heidegger's dialogue concerning the Japanese philosopher Kuki with another Eastern philosopher.
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Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
Some good reading material @smcder, @Constance. I am particularly interest in the MH what is called thinking. Will take a look tonight.
@smcder I don't get 1,2,3... sheep.
Maths objects do not exist in the absence of intelligent agents... that is my view atm awaiting enlightenment @smcder.
You before SEP @smcder!! no question.
@Constance re music: are you familiar with minimalist and impressionist music? e.g. ravel or debussy quartet, john adams' shaker loops. These are constructed experiences; experiences that blur clarity and form... to create a wash...
@smcder I don't get 1,2,3... sheep.
Maths objects do not exist in the absence of intelligent agents... that is my view atm awaiting enlightenment @smcder.
You before SEP @smcder!! no question.
Sometimes I am not actively thinking, but I know that subconscious activity is going on; I have a sense that something interesting is happening, sometimes something important. I let my unknowing mind continue... like a nice dream: I do not interfere but encourage, not wishing to wake nor fall too distant. At some transitory point, I try to get a sense of what has been going on... I explore and focus on the 'dream's' meaning and direct a conclusion through which I become aware. Sometimes it is like trying to remember a name on the tip of the tongue, and I can't quite grasp it and I explore the subject matter. Sometimes the thoughts are lost in the abys that is my being.
@Constance re music: are you familiar with minimalist and impressionist music? e.g. ravel or debussy quartet, john adams' shaker loops. These are constructed experiences; experiences that blur clarity and form... to create a wash...
Yes, I'm familiar with Ravel and Debussy, used to play some of the latter's music on the piano. I've preferred jazz to classical music since I was in my late teens but studied jazz piano only briefly. I would like to hear more about your view of minimalist and impressionist music as 'constructed experiences'. I take it you mean experiences on the part of the listener, created for the listener as well as for the composer and performer(s).. Jazz by contrast is living experience and expression for the musician, forged in the moment and, in group performances, created from an uncanny shared consciousness among the musicians that enables their individual improvisations and the unity accomplished in skillful performance together. The listener can appreciate all these qualities in the music. I also often find myself improvising a singing line along with the recorded performance by the musicians.
The consciousness shared by improvisational jazz musicians in performance is also partly subconscious, so that the activity of the musicians is both prereflective and reflective and indeed mindful. Nat Hentoff, a major jazz critic during his lifetime, answered the question 'what is jazz' with the statement that "in jazz you get the message when you hear the music."
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smcder
Paranormal Adept
It does nt surpris me that someone might misinterprt MH. Which is clearly not a bad thing. As Searle said... It allows others some creative and argumentative wriggle room. Make it too simple and straightforward and one's work sounds like something anyone else could have written [words to that affect]. Searle basically admits to writing not too straightforwardly, (as far as I can make out in his preface to "Intentionality").
I'll try to find the Searle quote. Sounds like a good idea for publication, etc - ego - but not for communicating ideas. For that purpose, sounding like anyone could have written it isn't a bad thing at all. Otherwise one becomes the cliched "unrecognized genius" - if only people could understand me, they would see how smart I am, but rather the more clearly you can write about complex ideas (Russell) that also takes intelligence - but it may not be recognized ... the point of thinking well though is to clearly lay out an idea so it can be seen if it's any good or not. When we get away from that, we are hiding behind words.
If we can’t convey our ideas and have them read back to us, said back to us in another person’s language that we can agree on …. then we can’t confirm our ideas – all of our other ideas are confirmed constantly this way – time, place, identity – even our most abstract ideas.
If we can’t convey our ideas – then how are we communicating them to ourselves? In our own untranslatable private language ... made up of what? images? kinesthetics, sensations - how would we recognize an idea without language?
smcder
Paranormal Adept
1 2 3 sheep is simple - if the shepherd invented three, then did he invent all those other qualities of "three" I listed above at the same time?
If all intelligent agents disappeared tomorrow, how many planets would there be - what would the relationship between a circle and its radius be?
Then bring all the intelligent agents back - and according to you numbers re-appear, then where were they in the meantime?
Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
@Constance re impressionist and minimalist music. Constructed experiences, i.e. composed... and in a way that denies and suspends clarity. I just thought this of interest given the phenomenologist's exploration of experience and existence.
btw, all good performers (of the classical tradition) are improvisatory during performance.
Jazz performance follows a form too (structural, melodic, and harmonic). Admittedly, the degrees of freedom in Jazz are more acute but they are no more spontaneous than classical (I would say).
Hans Keller theorises that great music suspends the expected, so that it always sounds like invention (no matter how often it is heard).
@smcder re Searle:
p. x ". . . anyone who attempts to write clearly runs the risk of being 'understood' too quickly, and the quickest form of such understanding is to pigeonhole the author with a whole lot of other authors that the reader is already familiar with."
Perhaps not quite what I said... ?
@smcder re number
I think the very notion of number—of quantity—is a human construct about reality:
In a way, it relies on the regularity of what we think 'what is'. But, of course, we do not really know 'what is'. Quantity relies on an assumption that two separate things can be classed as examples of a single type of thing. Thus, earth is an example of a type called 'planet' as is Jupiter etc. From this assumption, we can say there are 9 planets (give or take). But imo this notion of identity by type does not exist without intelligence. So, in the absence of intelligence, quantity does not exist.
Alternatively, I like the idea that all things, though classifiable by type by certain intelligence agents, are in reality entirely unique. . . there is no number greater than 1. The fact that I am the only one of me is testament to this stance and an unavoidable conclusion of the phenomenological approach . . . hey, I'm a phenomenologist!
And!!!. . . my alternative makes maths so much easier to do!
Concerning a circle, the circle does not exist without intelligence. The identity, 'circle', requires an assumption that each tangential point is related to the next by form, and through form, by distance. But, outside of intelligence, I am not sure there is such a class of identities called 'circle' in virtue of this form.
You could argue that I am sounding like a skeptic. But, I don't think of myself as a skeptic. I think I am expressing a positive alternative about reality.
btw, all good performers (of the classical tradition) are improvisatory during performance.
Jazz performance follows a form too (structural, melodic, and harmonic). Admittedly, the degrees of freedom in Jazz are more acute but they are no more spontaneous than classical (I would say).
Hans Keller theorises that great music suspends the expected, so that it always sounds like invention (no matter how often it is heard).
@smcder re Searle:
p. x ". . . anyone who attempts to write clearly runs the risk of being 'understood' too quickly, and the quickest form of such understanding is to pigeonhole the author with a whole lot of other authors that the reader is already familiar with."
Perhaps not quite what I said... ?
@smcder re number
I think the very notion of number—of quantity—is a human construct about reality:
In a way, it relies on the regularity of what we think 'what is'. But, of course, we do not really know 'what is'. Quantity relies on an assumption that two separate things can be classed as examples of a single type of thing. Thus, earth is an example of a type called 'planet' as is Jupiter etc. From this assumption, we can say there are 9 planets (give or take). But imo this notion of identity by type does not exist without intelligence. So, in the absence of intelligence, quantity does not exist.
Alternatively, I like the idea that all things, though classifiable by type by certain intelligence agents, are in reality entirely unique. . . there is no number greater than 1. The fact that I am the only one of me is testament to this stance and an unavoidable conclusion of the phenomenological approach . . . hey, I'm a phenomenologist!
And!!!. . . my alternative makes maths so much easier to do!
Concerning a circle, the circle does not exist without intelligence. The identity, 'circle', requires an assumption that each tangential point is related to the next by form, and through form, by distance. But, outside of intelligence, I am not sure there is such a class of identities called 'circle' in virtue of this form.
You could argue that I am sounding like a skeptic. But, I don't think of myself as a skeptic. I think I am expressing a positive alternative about reality.
Can you clarify further what you mean by 'denying and suspending clarity'?
Re improvisational jazz performances, I do think that these are far more spontaneous than classical music performed according to the composer's intentions as expressed in the sheet music itself.
Pharoah
Paranormal Adept
I suppose it is easier to think of impressionist paintings where the image of a scene—a composed experience of reality—is blurred: clarity is suspended thereby engaging the viewers imagination of what might be rather than what is. In expressionist music, while for example, a scale is a run of notes, it is a run that is blurred (but to an extent that does not make it a nondescript altering of pitch like that of a glissando). Minimalism similarly, blurs melodic and harmonic form, not to the extent that there is none at all, but to the extent that it engages the imagination. I just think that they present experiences in an interesting way, and might inform the discussions here.
Jazz: Definitely more spontaneous in the selection of notes. . .
smcder
Paranormal Adept
@Pharoah
Post #349 in C&P 2
"Russellian monism consists of the following two claims: i) that science describes physical entities structurally but does not capture their intrinsic nature, and ii) that the intrinsic nature of physical entities is integral to the explanation of phenomenal consciousness. This view is 'monist' in that both the physical properties described by science and phenomenal properties are ultimately grounded in a single class of property - the intrinsic properties of physical entities."
Russellian Monism - Bibliography - PhilPapers
Post #349 in C&P 2
"Russellian monism consists of the following two claims: i) that science describes physical entities structurally but does not capture their intrinsic nature, and ii) that the intrinsic nature of physical entities is integral to the explanation of phenomenal consciousness. This view is 'monist' in that both the physical properties described by science and phenomenal properties are ultimately grounded in a single class of property - the intrinsic properties of physical entities."
Russellian Monism - Bibliography - PhilPapers
Yes, there are certainly similarities in impressionistic painting and music -- levels of ambiguity and a greater challenge to the viewer or listener to 'make sense' of what's given on the canvas or in the performance of the music. I think both genres, evolving through modernism and postmodernism, have called for more attention and reflection by viewers/listeners. Jazz developed through those same periods as well and in similar ways. Postmodernism and deconstruction, as well as the concept of 'narrativity' on the part of readers of literary works, have increasingly required readers to recognize ambiguity in that which is written (the text on the page) and to recognize thereby their own contributions to the reading of the work. I think all of this has expressed an underlying recognition in western culture of the phenomenological nature of human experience (unfolding in temporal interractions with that which is encountered in the world).
And also in the chords and harmonics connected with the core melodic line. Modern jazz involves transpositions into and out of related keys, major and minor, led by one of the instrumentalists and immediately followed by the others. Drummers, bassists, pianists, and others (while performing foregrounded solos in the context of ongoing accompaniment) also often signal changes in rhythms and time signatures, and skilled jazz musicians react immediately to these changes. It's why no modern, improvisational, jazz piece is ever realized the same way twice.
I was searching for a reference posted in Part 1 of this thread and came across the following post by Steve, which we might contemplate to good purpose at this point. Part 1 was written more than two years ago and I had forgotten how much thinking and how many productive references it contained concerning 'paranormal' or anomalous cognition.
Consciousness and the Paranormal
Consciousness and the Paranormal
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