Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 7

[smcder]

Certainly what some Eastern/Western conceptions of Free Will hold is that the acts of our will occur over a long period of time and are complex and this is one of the main critiques of those types of experiments.

 

[Soupie]

@Soupie is this not your position also??

Yes, it is. If that's not clear, I find that baffling. I don't think that ways I've articulated it over the past several weeks have been any less clear than the piece above. Nor @constances recent post articulating the same idea.

I have to be honest, it's a little frustrating to articulate a position—have people argue and confess confusion—only to articulate the same thing themselves.

The one thing I would question in the piece above is the "it's a one way street" comment.

While I think the perceptions we have of reality are very different from reality, there really is a reality, we are part of this reality, and we can influence this reality.

 

[smcder]

I think you've understood what the author of that paper is saying, and what he writes seems sound to me in opposing the idea that consciousness can collapse 'the quantum field' [ETA: if what he means by 'the quantum field' is the holistic holographically entangled quantum field]. I do think that consciousness in its temporally experiential open-endedness is affected by quantum entanglement as it functions in the universe in general and in local experience in living organisms. Perhaps one way of expressing this is to say that locality and nonlocality are integrated in q entanglement everywhere and everywhen [ETA: but that no individually situated consciousness operationally integrated in and with local, temporal, existential 'reality' can 'collapse' quantum entanglement as a whole, nor of course can any specific experiment undertaken in 'local reality' do more than interfere with quantum processes cut out from, isolated from, quantum interconnectedness extending beyond the scope of the experiment].

I am not an expert in QM either but I did spend years reading papers in QM and QFT and conversations among various quantum theorists interested in consciousness. I think that the core unresolved issues in quantum theory are deeply related to the complexity of consciousness as it is understood to involve the interaction of 'waking' consciousness/mind and the subconscious mind. Thompson's latest book, Waking, Dreaming, Being, provides evidence that the entire complex of consciousness remains integrated in dreaming and even in non-dreaming sleep in a minimal but continual state of awareness of being. I know you've read that book as well; do you think I've made a fair summary of his thesis in it? If not, I'm interested in any corrections you can provide.

I think that the core unresolved issues in quantum theory are deeply related to the complexity of consciousness as it is understood to involve the interaction of 'waking' consciousness/mind and the subconscious mind. Thompson's latest book, Waking, Dreaming, Being, provides evidence that the entire complex of consciousness remains integrated in dreaming and even in non-dreaming sleep in a minimal but continual state of awareness of being. I know you've read that book as well; do you think I've made a fair summary of his thesis in it? If not, I'm interested in any corrections you can provide.

I think that is right ... it's how I read his paper I posted above on dreamless sleep - that consciousness is continuous and integrated - aspects of anesthesia, which I also posted above, in which persons seem to be traumatized even when they cannot consciously recall their experiences - and other concerns in the medical community that anesthesia may not work as advertised - indicate several possibilities:

1. anesthesia does not eliminate awareness (hearing in particular seems to persist into deep states of anesthesia and sleep, which makes sense - of our physical senses it is the most omnidirectional and it is the last one to go at death according to many religious writings and also remains acute into deep states of meditation - in my own experience, as I tend to fatigue very rapidly and often go into kind of a hypnagogic state - I notice that very small sounds seem very amplified, I came to once with a start at what I thought was a gunshot and it was just my wife laying something on the table across the room - this acuity seems to counteract what I perceive to be a dulling of my sense of hearing as I age, but which may be an attentional deficit) ... so anesthesia does not eliminate awareness but only a full memory of it - a person may then exhibit signs of trauma or not - meaning that surgery might commonly be painful and even traumatic but we simply have no memory of it - anesthesia also has common long term memory effects and I've had three procedures in which I've been anesthetized in as many years and all I can say is ... what were we talking about?

2. anesthesia induces a state of Constant Momentary Anesthesia (CMA) in which you are aware of being surgered at every moment, but you instantly lose any memory of it - this possibility raises interesting ethical questions about torture ,,, which you can spin out for yourselves and which surgery back into an interesting light i.e. surgery is done for the benefit of the patient ... so let's say the surgeon comes to you and says:

1. imagine the most painful experience of your life, no "quantize" that experience into the briefest imaginable duration ... now, the question is, for you, any moment so painful that it could not be endured for the briefest possible moment of time ... and having made that decision, I am going to tell you that surgery is a series of such moments, punctuated by instantaneous forgetting and the appearance of another such moment ... now, do you want the surgery?

And if that doesn't sound like something Poe would come up with ...

 

[smcder]

Yes, it is. If that's not clear, I find that baffling. I don't think that ways I've articulated it over the past several weeks have been any less clear than the piece above. Nor @constances recent post articulating the same idea.

I have to be honest, it's a little frustrating to articulate a position—have people argue and confess confusion—only to articulate the same thing themselves.

The one thing I would question in the piece above is the "it's a one way street" comment.

While I think the perceptions we have of reality are very different from reality, there really is a reality, we are part of this reality, and we can influence this reality.

Let me see if I can find an example and I will see if I can explain why I think that happens.

 

[smcder]

Yes, it is. If that's not clear, I find that baffling. I don't think that ways I've articulated it over the past several weeks have been any less clear than the piece above. Nor @constances recent post articulating the same idea.

I have to be honest, it's a little frustrating to articulate a position—have people argue and confess confusion—only to articulate the same thing themselves.

The one thing I would question in the piece above is the "it's a one way street" comment.

While I think the perceptions we have of reality are very different from reality, there really is a reality, we are part of this reality, and we can influence this reality.

1. We need to see @Constance response, she said this made the most sense to her out of the comments following the article ...

this last part does seem confusing ... but I haven't read the article ... and this is just a comment on the article:

From a position of neurological solipsism both space and time are part of our brain function. Take sight for example: photons are reflected from an object's surface, go into the eyes and the resultant neurological processing creates the best example of virtual reality we have. The brain constructs from and in itself the 'external' visual world that we experience. This process is a one way street. Everything we see, including the space in which it is placed, is internal to the brain. Our sensory systems all work like this. So, as everything you see in the world is inside your head (including your head) things do not really have a distance between them and you because they are you. If distance in our individual neurological reality is not real then how long does it take for an object to travel a mile. Turtles all the way down. A real external reality that is external to this creative process is unknowable directly.

So he says that a real external reality is unknowable directly, that doesn't mean there isn't such a reality, but the confusion for me comes when he says "things do not really have a distance between them and you because they are you" seems to play on two different notions of distance ... and then he says if distance ... is not real, then how long does it take for an object to travel a mile ... (an expected question mark is missing signaling he may not have written what he intended ... Turtles all the way down. usually refers to some kind of infinite recursion and doesn't appear to be immediately helpful.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie

"the mind IS green" is the classic example ... more recently talking about why "consciousness seems to hang out there" with neural correlates was very confusing and talk about why doesn't it hang out in the bones, etc ... and then saying that one thing correlated with another but not a third, I'm not sure you understood my objection that correlation is transitive? conciousness/experience correlates with the neurons but not with the environment (even though the neurons correlate with the environment) you could say something about the degree or directness of the correlation but not that experience doesn't correlate at all with the environment - so perhaps you were trying to convey something else.

 

[Constance]

1. We need to see @Constance response, she said this made the most sense to her out of the comments following the article ...

this last part does seem confusing ... but I haven't read the article ... and this is just a comment on the article:

From a position of neurological solipsism both space and time are part of our brain function. Take sight for example: photons are reflected from an object's surface, go into the eyes and the resultant neurological processing creates the best example of virtual reality we have. The brain constructs from and in itself the 'external' visual world that we experience. This process is a one way street. Everything we see, including the space in which it is placed, is internal to the brain. Our sensory systems all work like this. So, as everything you see in the world is inside your head (including your head) things do not really have a distance between them and you because they are you. If distance in our individual neurological reality is not real then how long does it take for an object to travel a mile. Turtles all the way down. A real external reality that is external to this creative process is unknowable directly.

So he says that a real external reality is unknowable directly, that doesn't mean there isn't such a reality, but the confusion for me comes when he says "things do not really have a distance between them and you because they are you" seems to play on two different notions of distance ... and then he says if distance ... is not real, then how long does it take for an object to travel a mile ... (an expected question mark is missing signaling he may not have written what he intended ... Turtles all the way down. usually refers to some kind of infinite recursion and doesn't appear to be immediately helpful.

As you illustrate, Steve, the posted comment we're discussing is not well-written; it is open to different interpretations, and appears to contain and perpetuate contradictions. If we could figure out who 'Chris' is and contact him we could ask him to restate what he means more clearly, or ask him a series of questions that might reveal what he is actually trying to say. When I said that I found his post to be the most interesting one following that article, I was reading it very differently from the way @Soupie seems to read it.

Since Soupie read 'Chris' as expressing his own approach, and I found Chris to differ from much of what Soupie has been claiming, I want to ask @Soupie to identify the post of mine in which he concluded that what I was saying confirmed his own point of view [to the extent that I've been able to understand it, find it coherent].

 

[Soupie]

@Soupie

"the mind IS green" is the classic example ... more recently talking about why "consciousness seems to hang out there" with neural correlates was very confusing and talk about why doesn't it hang out in the bones, etc ... and then saying that one thing correlated with another but not a third, I'm not sure you understood my objection that correlation is transitive? conciousness/experience correlates with the neurons but not with the environment (even though the neurons correlate with the environment) you could say something about the degree or directness of the correlation but not that experience doesn't correlate at all with the environment - so perhaps you were trying to convey something else.

Regarding the correlation idea: Yes, experience does correlate with the environment. I never claimed it didnt. But indirectly and by way of the brain. (Btw, the video you posted on the "we create our reality." I like how he referred to the brain as a nexus between the external world and the internal, phenomenal world.)

As to "the mind is green" and "consciousness hangs out" they are difficult ideas. Period. Im saying and suggesting things that arent widely understood or agreed on.

Re: the gentleman chris' comment.

You make a point of his comment about distance and being everything. I love it. This is somehing ive been thinking about for a while now, would love to discuss it, but like the ideas above, i understand you and constance would never follow my train of thought.

But yes, if all that we experience is us (the mind is green), then everything we see (our perceptions) are us. Its a fascinating idea.

And we can circle back around to the whole "dome of the sky" discussion. Same thing.

But of course there really is an external reality "out there" beyond our perceptions, which our perceptions allow us to interact with.

@Constance

Here is the post in which you articulate a view which is essentially identical to the one ive been expressing and the one Chris expresses in is comment that you cited.

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 7

 

[smcder]

@Soupie

Here's an example ... I've highlighted some words for emphasis:

You say:

Regarding the correlation idea: Yes, experience does correlate with the environment. I never claimed it didnt. But indirectly and by way of the brain.

Earlier statements:

1. The contents of our consciousness are correlated not with the environmental energies (as those energies never directly interact with the brain) but rather with physiological states of the brain.

So that seems to contradict ... and also, you use "experience" and "contents of our consciousness" and you use "environment" and "environmental energies" ... might seem picky and for you, that's clear you mean the same thing because they are your ideas, but @Constance can tell you how important this kind of consistency is to getting your ideas across.

2. Again, this supports the notion that the perceptual contents of consciousness correlate to physiological brain states rather than states of the environment.

And here it's "perceptual contents of consciousness" and you say it correlates to physiological brain states (what other states of the brain would there be?) rather than so this, for me, also sounds like a contradiction to me ...

You do then add:

When they do correlate to the environment, it is only indirectly.

So we have:

1 Yes, experience does correlate with the environment. I never claimed it didn't.
2. The contents of our consciousness are correlated not with the environmental energies (as those energies never directly interact with the brain) but rather with physiological states of the brain.
3. Again, this supports the notion that the perceptual contents of consciousness correlate to physiological brain states rather than states of the environment.
4, When they do correlate to the environment, it is only indirectly.

Do you see how these statements would be confusing to a casual reader? Remember you are asking the reader for his/her finite attention - like the saying "the customer is always right" so "the reader is always right" (and not always too dumb to understand your ideas!) if you don't care about being understood - then it's ok - but if you want to know if your ideas are original or challenging, then you have to express them clearly and consistently and not not assume the reader has the entire contents of your head at their disposal, as you do when you write.

So one way I might say the above is:

• Our subjective experience correlates indirectly with the environment by way of its correlation with some physiological states of the brain.

Have a look and if that doesn't express the idea, let's see if we can figure out what will and then let's take a look at "consciousness hangs out" I'm confident we can express this in a way that even I and @Constance can understand ... ;-)

You make a point of his comment about distance and being everything. I love it. This is somehing ive been thinking about for a while now, would love to discuss it, but like the ideas above, i understand you and constance would never follow my train of thought.

Soupie ... are you pulling a Randall here? We're not stupid ... this comes across as fairly arrogant ... I'm sure you don't mean it that way but even if you do, if you can express the idea clearly, I'm sure I'll do my best to follow it ;-) ... again, should we try?

 

[smcder]

Regarding the correlation idea: Yes, experience does correlate with the environment. I never claimed it didnt. But indirectly and by way of the brain. (Btw, the video you posted on the "we create our reality." I like how he referred to the brain as a nexus between the external world and the internal, phenomenal world.)

As to "the mind is green" and "consciousness hangs out" they are difficult ideas. Period. Im saying and suggesting things that arent widely understood or agreed on.

Re: the gentleman chris' comment.

You make a point of his comment about distance and being everything. I love it. This is somehing ive been thinking about for a while now, would love to discuss it, but like the ideas above, i understand you and constance would never follow my train of thought.

But yes, if all that we experience is us (the mind is green), then everything we see (our perceptions) are us. Its a fascinating idea.

And we can circle back around to the whole "dome of the sky" discussion. Same thing.

But of course there really is an external reality "out there" beyond our perceptions, which our perceptions allow us to interact with.

@Constance

Here is the post in which you articulate a view which is essentially identical to the one ive been expressing and the one Chris expresses in is comment that you cited.

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 7

You make a point of his comment about distance and being everything. I love it. This is somehing ive been thinking about for a while now, would love to discuss it, but like the ideas above, i understand you and constance would never follow my train of thought.

But yes, if all that we experience is us (the mind is green), then everything we see (our perceptions) are us. Its a fascinating idea.

And we can circle back around to the whole "dome of the sky" discussion. Same thing.

But of course there really is an external reality "out there" beyond our perceptions, which our perceptions allow us to interact with.

I read this:

But yes, if all that we experience is us (the mind is green), then everything we see (our perceptions) are us. Its a fascinating idea.

And think "of course" and also for the last statement above - so I may be missing something but this feels like it is pretty clear to me ... the "dome of the sky" being inside your head, we discussed that quite a bit, I think and I came across it again in Sheldrake's lecture and I think it was Thompson, maybe, who also dissected the idea ... his remarks indicated to me that he probably understood the author's idea but rejected it and laid out the case against it. I think Sheldrake got it too.

For me, it's a bit of mental slight of hand - like an optical illusion, once you master it, you can shift back and forth between the two options - it can be a little jarring but this is one indicator about the quality of an idea: a truly profound idea, each time you come to it, it demands something from you - but an idea like this, has an initial shock and then it's kind of hard to replicate that feeling upon subsequent visits - it even has a mantra like feeling "the top of the skull is beyond the dome of the sky ... OM" ;-) whereas a really good idea can keep having a deep effect, not necessarily a surface shock and not necessarily an immediate reaction but you can know that it may well take a long time for the implications to fully play out.

 

[smcder]

And yes as one thinks about the ideas ... you get various shifts in understanding and perspective and it can be vertiginous ... the dream in which I woke, and had dream signs and did reality testing but there was always a suspicion that something wasn't quite right but I went with the reality and then I woke the second time, realizing in the process that I might never again be sure I was fully awake ... and in fact I've had that feeling for a few years, a feeling of something around the corner - some realization because these realizations have come before, so some sense that this kind of experience, this awakening, rapid change in consciousness is infinite, that "enlightenment" if that fits - is a never ending process and maybe that is frightening not reassuring - that your whole structure of experience isn't crystallized but can undergo a rapid change - an instant change - meditation may be part of this - but also just spending time with these feelings and thoughts that are on the periphery, that you can't define exactly and that recede when you try but which persist and may finally come to be expressible or at least manipulable internally, although I think a fair amount of our lives can't be shared and that's the essential loneliness of our situation.

 

[smcder]

Regarding the correlation idea: Yes, experience does correlate with the environment. I never claimed it didnt. But indirectly and by way of the brain. (Btw, the video you posted on the "we create our reality." I like how he referred to the brain as a nexus between the external world and the internal, phenomenal world.)

As to "the mind is green" and "consciousness hangs out" they are difficult ideas. Period. Im saying and suggesting things that arent widely understood or agreed on.

Re: the gentleman chris' comment.

You make a point of his comment about distance and being everything. I love it. This is somehing ive been thinking about for a while now, would love to discuss it, but like the ideas above, i understand you and constance would never follow my train of thought.

But yes, if all that we experience is us (the mind is green), then everything we see (our perceptions) are us. Its a fascinating idea.

And we can circle back around to the whole "dome of the sky" discussion. Same thing.

But of course there really is an external reality "out there" beyond our perceptions, which our perceptions allow us to interact with.

@Constance

Here is the post in which you articulate a view which is essentially identical to the one ive been expressing and the one Chris expresses in is comment that you cited.

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 7

I think @Constance is going to draw some distinctions in these views.

 

[smcder]

Hoffman's idea - has the opposite problem to physicalism - he has to derive physics from consciousness, says in a talk his theory will stand or fall on that - has he been able to do this?

 

[smcder]

Regarding the correlation idea: Yes, experience does correlate with the environment. I never claimed it didnt. But indirectly and by way of the brain. (Btw, the video you posted on the "we create our reality." I like how he referred to the brain as a nexus between the external world and the internal, phenomenal world.)

As to "the mind is green" and "consciousness hangs out" they are difficult ideas. Period. Im saying and suggesting things that arent widely understood or agreed on.

Re: the gentleman chris' comment.

You make a point of his comment about distance and being everything. I love it. This is somehing ive been thinking about for a while now, would love to discuss it, but like the ideas above, i understand you and constance would never follow my train of thought.

But yes, if all that we experience is us (the mind is green), then everything we see (our perceptions) are us. Its a fascinating idea.

And we can circle back around to the whole "dome of the sky" discussion. Same thing.

But of course there really is an external reality "out there" beyond our perceptions, which our perceptions allow us to interact with.

@Constance

Here is the post in which you articulate a view which is essentially identical to the one ive been expressing and the one Chris expresses in is comment that you cited.

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 7

Regarding the correlation idea: Yes, experience does correlate with the environment. I never claimed it didnt. But indirectly and by way of the brain. (Btw, the video you posted on the "we create our reality." I like how he referred to the brain as a nexus between the external world and the internal, phenomenal world.)

As to "the mind is green" and "consciousness hangs out" they are difficult ideas. Period. Im saying and suggesting things that arent widely understood or agreed on.

Re: the gentleman chris' comment.

You make a point of his comment about distance and being everything. I love it. This is somehing ive been thinking about for a while now, would love to discuss it, but like the ideas above, i understand you and constance would never follow my train of thought.

I definitely want to get your feedback to my expression of your ideas above, to see if my re-phrase indicates I have understood them correctly. I'd also like to try that with the idea: "the mind hangs out".

Your claim is that these are difficult ideas to grasp ... and my sense is that I understand these ideas and that the difficulty in communication has been more a matter of expressing the ideas clearly and consistently (terminology - maybe a small glossary could be made out?) ... so I want to find out which is the case ... I think we have to find this out or there is no moving forward in the discussion.

 

[Soupie]

Do you see how these statements would be confusing to a casual reader?

Oh yeah. But I would say that for the most part throughout this discussion I've always gotten the sense that you have followed what I'm saying. I've always tried to express my ideas in different ways, and I've tried to express them multiple times.

But when it comes to the topic of consciousness, confusion is inevitable. I mean, some people think color is "external" and when they perceive color, they are perceiving it "out there." Some people think color is "internal," but that there is a conscious homunculus that observes these internal perceptions. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

So when I say that I've discussed ideas that are confusing and controversial, I don't mean I'm some maverick thinker, just that articulating fringe speculations on an already confusing topic is bound to lead to more confusion.

Soupie ... are you pulling a Randall here? We're not stupid ... this comes across as fairly arrogant ... I'm sure you don't mean it that way but even if you do, if you can express the idea clearly, I'm sure I'll do my best to follow it ;-) ... again, should we try?

No, no, see above. It's just that I've held off on sharing some ideas and speculation because speculations that I consider fairly tame by comparison have led to mass confusion and gnashing of teeth.

I definitely want to get your feedback to my expression of your ideas above, to see if my re-phrase indicates I have understood them correctly. I'd also like to try that with the idea: "the mind hangs out".

You've got it. And you're right that this view is articulated by this Chris fellow. And also Kant and also Heidegger.

We can discuss "consciousness hangs out." The other way I've expressed this idea is "the contents of consciousness correlate to X." The reason I use the phrase "consciousness hangs out" is because we don't know where it originates from, but we do know where it "hangs out."

 

[smcder]

Oh yeah. But I would say that for the most part throughout this discussion I've always gotten the sense that you have followed what I'm saying. I've always tried to express my ideas in different ways, and I've tried to express them multiple times.

But when it comes to the topic of consciousness, confusion is inevitable. I mean, some people think color is "external" and when they perceive color, they are perceiving it "out there." Some people think color is "internal," but that there is a conscious homunculus that observes these internal perceptions. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

So when I say that I've discussed ideas that are confusing and controversial, I don't mean I'm some maverick thinker, just that articulating fringe speculations on an already confusing topic is bound to lead to more confusion.


No, no, see above. It's just that I've held off on sharing some ideas and speculation because speculations that I consider fairly tame by comparison have led to mass confusion and gnashing of teeth.


You've got it. And you're right that this view is articulated by this Chris fellow. And also Kant and also Heidegger.

We can discuss "consciousness hangs out." The other way I've expressed this idea is "the contents of consciousness correlate to X." The reason I use the phrase "consciousness hangs out" is because we don't know where it originates from, but we do know where it "hangs out."

Check out the app: Neuronify. I have Android don't know if it's for Iphone or not.

 

[Constance]

@Constance

Here is the post in which you articulate a view which is essentially identical to the one ive been expressing and the one Chris expresses in his comment that you cited.

Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 7

I'm afraid I don't see the 'essential identity' you do. Perhaps we can all make a collective effort in the thread to clarify the distinctions in our thinking about the relationship between consciousness/mind and world.

 

[Constance]

I think @Constance is going to draw some distinctions in these views.

For now I’ll simply second the recent comments you've made Steve. I agree that @Soupie is too casual and inconsistent in his use of some terms and concepts, and also that we all need to try to reach agreement on how we will use terms and concepts critical for discussing consciousness and its relation to the ‘world’. The ‘Chris’ post suggests but does not clearly articulate various ideas we entertain in this thread and as a result it is ultimately ambiguous. I suggest that we analyze that post sentence by sentence as an object lesson in how not to write about this subject matter. I’ll repost the Chris post here in a numbered sequence of sentences, numbered so that we can more efficiently refer to and compare them and what they seem to assert by the numbers.

1. From a position of neurological solipsism both space and time are part of our brain function.

2. Take sight for example: photons are reflected from an object's surface, go into the eyes and the resultant neurological processing creates the best example of virtual reality we have.

3. The brain constructs from and in itself the 'external' visual world that we experience.

4. This process is a one way street.

5. Everything we see, including the space in which it is placed, is internal to the brain.

6. Our sensory systems all work like this.

7. So, as everything you see in the world is inside your head (including your head) things do not really have a distance between them and you because they are you.

8. If distance in our individual neurological reality is not real then how long does it take for an object to travel a mile?

9. Turtles all the way down.

10. A real external reality that is external to this creative process is unknowable directly.

 

[smcder]

For now I’ll simply second the recent comments you've made Steve. I agree that @Soupie is too casual and inconsistent in his use of some terms and concepts, and also that we all need to try to reach agreement on how we will use terms and concepts critical for discussing consciousness and its relation to the ‘world’. The ‘Chris’ post suggests but does not clearly articulate various ideas we entertain in this thread and as a result it is ultimately ambiguous. I suggest that we analyze that post sentence by sentence as an object lesson in how not to write about this subject matter. I’ll repost the Chris post here in a numbered sequence of sentences, numbered so that we can more efficiently refer to and compare them and what they seem to assert by the numbers.

1. From a position of neurological solipsism both space and time are part of our brain function.

From a position of (if I understand "neurological solipsism correctly") neurological solipsism everything is a part of our brain function, everything IS our brain function from a position of NS ...

2. Take sight for example: photons are reflected from an object's surface, go into the eyes and the resultant neurological processing creates the best example of virtual reality we have.

So if our experience of sigh is virtual reality, then what is actual virtual reality ... virtual virtual reality? This brings up the question I asked @Soupie how could the brain more directly experience the world? We are only able to take a point of view (this is why I talk about POV being more fundamental than consciousness - as a way things are in the universe (maybe)) but we are able to take into account, within this point of view, the point of view of others - so we'd need to be able to distinguish our "real" view (which he calls virtual reality) from a virtual reality ... if we're living in an indistinguishable simulation or if we can't ever wake from layers of successive dreams - then in one sense, it doesn't really matter because either situation is our reality and if we can't (in principle) ever tell the truth of these things, which might to be the case, then it would be our reality and really wouldn't make a difference, because it couldn't.

3. The brain constructs from and in itself the 'external' visual world that we experience.

Again this seems like an "a-ha" moment that one could have very early in life ... I think most people do whether we are able to articulate it - so in some cases what happens is someone is suddenly able to articulate an insight they've had and it feels like a new insight to them.

4. This process is a one way street.

5. Everything we see, including the space in which it is placed, is internal to the brain.

6. Our sensory systems all work like this.

Again, some Kant here ... now Rupert Sheldrake means something every different when he talks about the "embodied mind" and this shouldn't be confused with Chalmers et al version of "embodied mind" I think that has caused some confusion here. Sheldrake makes perception a two way street with the images coming in but also the mind going out, literally, to what is perceived ("the sense of being stared at) I do think Sheldrake's theory is fascinating and he claims to have tremendous empirical support for it - and we can visit that too, but for now the "embodied mind" as I understand it and usually refer to it is about how we come out of the chance and necessity of our evolution - we come with certain capabilities and possibilities - and so we are an extension of that environment - we usually exclude our personal experiences from ecological considerations but that I think is what embodied mind is trying to say ... we've accepted that our bodies come out of an evolutionary environment and our senses but we tend to want to exempt our minds from this ... I'm not sure I'm 100% with this but let's tell that story for now that there is a natural history of our feelings, our wants and our sense of identity - that's another reason I'm skeptical of "free will" discussions in the absence of sociological and ecological considerations.

7. So, as everything you see in the world is inside your head (including your head) things do not really have a distance between them and you because they are you.

Here I think the logic begins to break down ...

8. If distance in our individual neurological reality is not real then how long does it take for an object to travel a mile?

... and it's not clear what he means here, maybe he is counter-arguing 7 - saying if everything is in the mind then why does it take a certain time for something to travel a mile or he may be saying that sense of time is subjective - clearly it can take 4 minutes to run a mile but running that mile can either feel like an eternity or it can be over in an instant ...

9. Turtles all the way down.

All I can think of is Terry Pratchett's great turtle Au'Tun (spelling?) in the Discworld series ...

10. A real external reality that is external to this creative process is unknowable directly.

Again, I really want to say "duh" but also I want to say it is as directly knowable as possible or even practical and so this is maybe not such a deep revelation ... it also plays into some questions I have about Hoffman's theory which maybe we'll discuss later. I guess basically I would ask someone who says this - what would it be like to directly know external reality?

I also wonder about his term "creative" here?

One last note on that is that Russell felt experience was the one thing we directly know, that knowledge of our inner states is direct knowledge ... I have an eye out for the quote I have in mind - but basically it's that the physical structure of atoms is objective reality and we can't know this directly but our subjective experience just is the direct knowledge of what it is likely for all the physical processes in our bodies.

1. From a position of neurological solipsism both space and time are part of our brain function.

2. Take sight for example: photons are reflected from an object's surface, go into the eyes and the resultant neurological processing creates the best example of virtual reality we have.

3. The brain constructs from and in itself the 'external' visual world that we experience.

4. This process is a one way street.

5. Everything we see, including the space in which it is placed, is internal to the brain.

6. Our sensory systems all work like this.

7. So, as everything you see in the world is inside your head (including your head) things do not really have a distance between them and you because they are you.

8. If distance in our individual neurological reality is not real then how long does it take for an object to travel a mile?

9. Turtles all the way down.

10. A real external reality that is external to this creative process is unknowable directly.

 

[Soupie]

Here's my attempt at a conceptual translation:


1. From a position of neurological solipsism both space and time are part of our brain function. [The brain is a black box. Even fundamental things like our experience of space and time are products of neural processes.]

2. Take sight for example: photons are reflected from an object's surface, go into the eyes and the resultant neurological processing creates the best example of virtual reality we have. [The brain somehow translates photons streaming onto our eyes into conscious visual perceptions of the world.]

3. The brain constructs from and in itself the 'external' visual world that we experience. [The way the world visually appears to us is created within the brain.]

4. This process is a one way street. [Physical processes affect mental processes, but not vice versa? If this is what he's saying, I disagree. I think the physical and the phenomenal are subsets of what-is, and thus can interact.]

5. Everything we see, including the space in which it is placed, is internal to the brain. [All conscious contents are created in the brain. Note that the contents can be created in the brain but not necessarily consciousness itself. Though Chris likely isn't arguing that specifically.]

6. Our sensory systems all work like this. [This doesn't just apply to sight, but all conscious sensory experience.]

7. So, as everything you see in the world is inside your head (including your head) things do not really have a distance between them and you because they are you. [If everything we see is generated in the brain, then the phenomenal objects we experience are really part of us. Even the appearance of our head is generated within our head!

However, I would importantly add, the "things" or processes in objective reality beyond our perceptions may really have a distance between them, if distance really is a feature of objective reality (what-is).]

8. If distance in our individual neurological reality is not real then how long does it take for an object to travel a mile? [How can we be sure distance is a real feature of objective reality and not merely a feature of our perceptual system (brain)?]

9. Turtles all the way down. [Its an unsolvable mystery? Not sure.]

10. A real external reality that is external to this creative process is unknowable directly. [Solipsism.]