Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 7

[smcder]

Graziosi on epiphenomenalism wnich he. Sees as wrong and harmful.

Sources of Error: Epiphenomenalism (part 1)

See also his links to discussion on conscious entities blog

 

[smcder]

Another claim/idea I want to question is that a sense of free will, a sensation as Pearl puts it - is undeniable and universal. Pearls argument depends on it: a sense of free will confers computational advantage. So everyone has to have it - it can go wrong but it has to be there. The trouble is a sense of free will is hard to compare to other undeniable sensations ... like pain.

 

[smcder]

Is it an "undeniable" sense of free will that confers the computational advantage or is it whatever allows us to form a sense of free will that confers the advantage?

The experience of the nerve signals "pain" is idiosyncratic and culturally moderated ... similarly "free will" as we have it in the modern Western culture is an "undeniable sense" ... of what? I can think of it right now as the awareness of and reltionship to agency in our immediate experience.

 

[smcder]

A car's parking brake fails and it rolls out into the street and kills little Johnny .... we fix the faulty mechanism in the car and put it back on the road but we put the owner in jail.

If both are deterministic machines ... then why do we do this?

 

[Soupie]

Michael Shermer on IT

Did Humans Evolve to See Things as They Really Are?

Smcder what are your thoughts on these articles and their handling of Hoffman's insight? I'll share mine when I have time. Spoiler: they miss his insight entirely but that's okay because they are likely physicalists who don't grok the significance of the hp.

Interesting to note that the one author connected Hoffman's thesis with Heidegger's as I did.

Hoffman's insight is so powerful because it explains why the hp exists, it also opens the doorway for mental causation and free will.

That's some heavy lifting.

 

[smcder]

Smcder what are your thoughts on these articles and their handling of Hoffman's insight? I'll share mine when I have time. Spoiler: they miss his insight entirely but that's okay because they are likely physicalists who don't grok the significance of the hp.

Interesting to note that the one author connected Hoffman's thesis with Heidegger's as I did.

Hoffman's insight is so powerful because it explains why the hp exists, it also opens the doorway for mental causation and free will.

That's some heavy lifting.

I think they raise some real concerns about Hoffmann's theory.

 

[smcder]

The assoc w Chopra bothers me and google search bothers me ... All I find is Hoffman presenting the paper, LOTS of these links and lots of youtube vids but not critique or response to it in the normal places ... Will keep looking.

 

[smcder]

Interface theory of perception can overcome the rationality fetish

"might be preaching to the choir, but I think the web is transformative for science. In particular, I think blogging is a great form or pre-pre-publication (and what I use this blog for), and Q&A sites like MathOverflowand the cstheory StackExchange are an awesome alternative architecture for scientific dialogue and knowledge sharing"

Anyine been to the cstheory stackexchange??

 

[Constance]

Interface theory of perception can overcome the rationality fetish

"might be preaching to the choir, but I think the web is transformative for science. In particular, I think blogging is a great form or pre-pre-publication (and what I use this blog for), and Q&A sites like MathOverflowand the cstheory StackExchange are an awesome alternative architecture for scientific dialogue and knowledge sharing"

Anyone been to the cstheory stackexchange??

Anyone been to the cstheory stackexchange??

I haven't yet, but I'll look for it now.

 

[Constance]

Evolutionary Theory of Consciousness: why, how and what

Thanks for linking us to the above. I'm most eager to read the linked page and also the completed paper linked there. I'm especially interested in finding out what this author means in the highlighted comment in this paragraph:

"The subjects I plan to cover are: IIT, the Bayesian Brain and Predictive Coding, but also the ones I’ve deliberately ignored in the paper, for example the explicitly non-representational theories that cluster around the embodied cognition approach (ETC seems completely incompatible with this approach."

Please let me know if you come across that discussion in the author's wordpress pages since he evidently does not take up embodied cognition in his completed paper on ETC.

 

[Constance]

"The why question is largely subjective, but obviously experience does seem to provide motivation foraction, and motivation for action can be useful for survival andperpetuation of the species"

EDITED

And WHAT is subjectivity?

HOW does experience provide motivation?

Those are not largely subjective questions.

The lengthy comments section following the Anil Seth paper linked by @Soupie includes a number of posts concerning consciousness understood in terms of subjectivity understood as Awareness. You'll be familiar already with many of the sources those posters refer to in Eastern philosophy and meditation disciplines.

 

[Constance]

Graziosi on epiphenomenalism wnich he. Sees as wrong and harmful.

Sources of Error: Epiphenomenalism (part 1)

See also his links to discussion on conscious entities blog

Reposting this as a reminder to myself to read Graziosi's posts on that blog. Thank you for that reference.

 

[Soupie]

I think they raise some real concerns about Hoffmann's theory.

I think there are "concerns" with his theory and the association with Chopra bothers me as well. But all that being true, his fundamental insight still stands and neither article, so far as I could see, challenged it. (Also, we have to keep in mind that both authors take it for granted that consciousness is physical.)

The insight that has me so hot and bothered is this: physical reality is secondary to consciousness.

As the first article's author noted, this "insight" is not really Hoffman's. Others have likely expressed it, maybe Kant, maybe Heidegger, etc.

But Hoffman's use of the interface metaphor makes this insight accessible.

Also, the hard problem is a strong indication that we are missing a huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to explaining the nature of reality. The problem of unifying quantum and classical physics is an indicator too. Not to mention the problem of sensed mental causation and free will.

Why quantum mechanics might need an overhaul

"Quantum mechanics stirred up consternation from its beginnings. More than a century ago, physicists such as Max Planck, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr showed that standard 19th century physics was inadequate for explaining various features of heat, light and atoms. By the 1920s, other physicists, including Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger, Paul Dirac and Max Born, developed those early realizations into the full-fledged quantum mechanical math that today lies at the foundation of physical understanding of just about everything. Quantum mechanics, Weinberg noted, is the “basis of our understanding of not only atoms, but also atomic nuclei, electrical conduction, magnetism, electromagnetic radiation, semiconductors, superconductors, white dwarf stars, neutron stars, nuclear forces and elementary particles.”

But quantum theory’s explanatory power has come at a substantial price: the need to accept counterintuitive weirdness about reality that many physicists, including such pioneers as Einstein and Schrödinger, refused to accept.

One such objectionable aspect was the quantum rejection of Newtonian determinism, the belief that all events are fully determined by preceding circumstances. You can calculate exactly where a baseball will land, for instance, if you know its velocity and direction when it gets hit by a bat. Quantum mechanics, to the contrary, imposes a probabilistic element into the description of natural processes. When an electron bounces off an atom, no one can predict exactly which direction the electron will go; quantum mechanics just permits you to calculate the odds that it will go one direction or another. A mathematical formula called the wave function provides the instructions for calculating where an electron is likely to be — when you make a measurement of the electron, you are most likely to find it where its probability wave is most intense. Repeated measurements would find a range of results corresponding to the probabilities that the quantum math specifies.

Einstein objected, saying God does not play dice. He further objected to another weird aspect of quantum mechanics, involving its description of pairs of particles separated at birth. Two photons emerging from a single atom, for instance, could fly very far apart yet share a single quantum description; making a measurement on one can reveal something about the other, no matter how far away it is.

Attempts to explain these conundrums fall into two broad categories, Weinberg said: “instrumentalist” and “realist.” Instrumentalists contend that the wave function is merely a tool for calculating the results of experiments — there’s no way to know anything more about reality. Devotees of the realist approach contend that the wave function is a real thing out in the world, evolving over time, and at a fundamental level it is responsible for what’s really happening.

Weinberg finds the instrumentalist view unattractive. It’s “so ugly to imagine that we have no knowledge of anything out there — we can only say what happens when we make a measurement,” he says. “The instrumentalist approach takes the attitude that we just don’t know what’s going on out there.”"

Interface theory provides new approaches to these problems. It explains why consciousness does not seem to supervene on the physical, but also why our subjective mental events seem to causally impact the (perceived) physical world.

(What-is (Consciousness (Conscious Perception of What-is)))

We are conscious, feeling entities existing within what-is, we have evolved to perceive what-is in our particular human-way, and we use these perceptions—and the emotions, thoughts, and motivation the engender—to consciously and willfully interact with what-is.

 

[Randall]

Correlation with ... What? With what you're trying to prove = circularity

The correlation mentioned was in reference to the EM fields in the EM field theory of consciousness. There is no circularity there.

 

[Randall]

And WHAT is subjectivity?

In the context of the post I had made, the reference to being subjective was in the context of personal meaning. For example one might ask why one wants to experience music, and the answer might be because it brings enjoyment to the experiencer.

HOW does experience provide motivation?

What kind of "how" are you referring to? Do you mean, "To what extent ..."? Or do you mean, "In what way ..."? Please clarify the context of the question.

 

[smcder]

The correlation mentioned was in reference to the EM fields in the EM field theory of consciousness. There is no circularity there.

Correlation of EM fields to what?

EM fields = cs in EM field theory?

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[smcder]

In the context of the post I had made, the reference to being subjective was in the context of personal meaning. For example one might ask why one wants to experience music, and the answer might be because it brings enjoyment to the experiencer.
What kind of "how" are you referring to? Do you mean, "To what extent ..."? Or do you mean, "In what way ..."? Please clarify the context of the question.

Experience as mental causation ... specifically does the phenomenal experience of pleasure itself motivate or just the underlying neural activity ... this goes back to Kim's idea of "over determination".

A neural network learns from experience by simulating neural activity mathematically, but we don't suppose experience is present ... so why is it present in organisms?

Is it an epiphenomenon, a "brute fact" of biological neurons firing (which could involve substrate dependence) and so there wouldn't be any extra cost ... You'd get experience for free ... but the neurological experiments might (do they?) indicate that the neural machinery for cs experience, P consciousness is separate from that which does the actual decision making (unconscious)... if so why wire up both systems? Wouldn't an organism without P consciousness be able to react faster?



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[Randall]

Correlation of EM fields to what?

The idea is that if EM fields are the physical component of consciousness, then EM fields will correlate directly to the manifestations that we identify as evidence of consciousness. For example when a subject claims to be experiencing music, there will be a corresponding EM field someplace that is experienced as music, and when that particular EM field is not present, then no music will be experienced.

EM fields = cs in EM field theory?

Like most other theories, I imagine there are a number of interpretations, however IMO a correlation between EM fields and consciousness doesn't equate to consciousness = EM fields. If that were the case then that would imply that all EM fields are conscious. That makes no more sense than because all planets have mass, all mass is therefore planetary.

 

[Randall]

Experience as mental causation ... specifically does the phenomenal experience of pleasure itself motivate or just the underlying neural activity ...

It seems abundantly self-evident that the experience of pleasure motivates people to acquire that which causes it, and one of the primary experiences in that department is the sexual experience, which just so happens to be intimately connected to the survival of the species, and could therefore be considered a crucial component of that drive. It's also well established fact that the opposite ( the experience of pain ) causes withdrawal from the cause, and that also provides incentives not to become injured or starved, again playing a crucial role in survival.

In this context I really don't see what the big mystery of "why" is all about. It's obvious. Overdetermination is irrelevant because subjective experience happens regardless. Not everything in the universe abides by maxims like Overdetermination or Ockham's Razor. They're not physical laws. They're just points to ponder. Is there some finer point you are trying to make with your line of questioning? If so why not just state it?

 

[smcder]

The idea is that if EM fields are the physical component of consciousness, then EM fields will correlate directly to the manifestations that we identify as evidence of consciousness. For example when a subject claims to be experiencing music, there will be a corresponding EM field someplace that is experienced as music, and when that particular EM field is not present, then no music will be experienced. Like most other theories, I imagine there are a number of interpretations, however IMO a correlation between EM fields and consciousness doesn't equate to consciousness = EM fields. If that were the case then that would imply that all EM fields are conscious. That makes no more sense than because all planets have mass, all mass is therefore planetary.

But consciousness, phenomenal cs specifically, is a type of EMF? It's an identity theory? What other types of EMF are there ....and in what way do they differ ... ?