Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 8

[smcder]

I actually started this last night ...

By using the term ‘phenomenology’, Merleau-Ponty locates his work in the philosophical tradition effectively founded by Husserl, and implicitly endorses the latter’s opposition to scientific realism, to the view that one should accept the privileged status of the natural sciences as providing descriptions of the real nature of the world, however much these depart from our pre-scientific, common sense conceptions of it.

... implicitly endorses the latter's opposition to scientific realism

The real world is a world of phenomena not of “appearances”

• By contrast, Husserl maintains that the ‘real’ world is a world of phenomena, i.e. of things that appear to us; but not of ‘appearances’, in the sense of that behind or beyond which lies ‘the real’.
• Nor are those ‘phenomena’ the sense-data of empiricism: colour-patches, shapes, sounds, and so on. Rather, they are the objects as they appear to us, objects-for-consciousness. And conversely, our consciousness is (always) of objects: it is ‘intentional’, aimed or directed at something.

@Soupie how would this fit into "naive realism"? Maybe its "sophisticated realism" or "phenomenological realism"?

And how does this fit in with @ufology's notion that

• ... phenomenology is largely about our relationship to perceptual phenomena ... ?

 

[smcder]

A stocking-stuffer from Husserl ...

The key move made by Husserl in The Crisis is to claim that Galileo’s mathematized nature is not a direct representation of the real, but an abstraction from it. Mathematically expressible matter in motion is not ‘all that there is’: it is only an abstract model that may be useful in aiding our encounters with the lived world, the world which we perceive and within which we act. Scientific theories necessarily take this lived world as both their starting and finishing points, and hence must not be understood, as the scientific realist maintains, as undermining the claims to reality of the lived world, replacing it with a ‘scientific’ one, and then re-locating the lived world within the subject as the internal conscious effects of a scientifically characterized externality. And Husserl then proceeds to criticize orthodox psychology for its acceptance of this dualistic picture based upon scientific realism’s misrepresentation of the status of scientific knowledge.

 

[smcder]

Thus Merleau-Ponty, in his account of the human body, is not only challenging the possibility of conceptualizing it as a scientific ‘object’, and of conceptualizing humans as composed of such a body and an ontologically distinct consciousness; he is also proposing that humans in some sense are ‘bodies’, when this concept is properly understood. Further, to the extent that humans do indeed differ from other organic and inorganic beings, this is due not to their having some distinctive, non-bodily features, but rather to the distinctive character of their bodies.

 

[smcder]

The Schneider case and the discussion just after it of the organist at his new organ ... are fascinating, I feel like I am understanding something new.

 

[smcder]

"Both in the case’ of specific performing skills, and in our everyday dealings with the world, says Merleau-Ponty, we cannot regard our bodies as the object-like instruments of a guiding, knowing, intending consciousness. Instead, we must recognize that it is our bodies which themselves understand what to do and how to do it, and that it is the body’s intentionality which directs us towards the world. The concepts of ‘meaning’ — of intention, aim, understanding, direction/directedness, significance, etc — are applicable directly and literally to the body, not indirectly or metaphorically via a dualistic view of the body-as-object linked to an intentional consciousness.

• In particular, our bodies can properly be said to possess knowledge, and we must not restrict the concept of knowledge to cases involving reflective intellectual processes, the explicit articulation of beliefs, principles, theories, goals, and so on. Thus:

“Our bodily experience of movement is not a particular case of knowledge [i.e. intellectualist, theoretical ‘knowledge’]; it provides us with a way of access to the world and the object, with a ‘praktognosia’, which has to be recognized as original and perhaps as primary” (p.140).

By “original and (perhaps) primary” Merleau-Ponty means respectively the following: that the body’s praktognosia, i.e. practical knowledge, cannot be analytically decomposed into more primitive concepts, such as ‘body’ and ‘mind’; and that this praktognostic body in some sense forms the basis for all other kinds of relationship between the human subject and the world.

 

[Randall]

... No one can understand the concepts involved in interdisciplinary Consciousness Studies without engaging the detailed texts in which they are expressed by various philosophers, philosophers of science, quantum physicists, psychologists, neuroscientists, biologists, and other researchers.

The material reveals information that is not always interpreted the same way by everyone. Sometimes it's interpreted accurately, sometimes not, but when interpreted accurately, that information still has different relevance for each recipient. It's even possible that inaccurate interpretations might lead to unexpected but true insights. You need to handle that in whatever way is most relevant for you and the path you are on. So do I.

Then I can't see what you hope to gain by participating in your presuppositionally self-limiting way in the discussions in this thread.

What seems presuppositional and/or self-limiting to you is from my perspective exactly the opposite. Rather than dragging along freight cars of material that are irrelevant to my journey, I travel light and upgrade to new insights along the way. Nothing is being offhandedly dismissed. That might not seem sufficient to others, but it works fine for me.

Given your affinity for poetry as a means of expressing the phenomenological way you like to look at things, rather than posting another long lecture or the typical narrated documentary, I thought you might like to try another approach in another form of media. You might already be familiar with these films. I would not be surprised. They do not contain dialogue. They are more of an audio-visual experience and are not for those who need instant gratification, so these days not everyone can take them in all at once without fast forwarding. That defeats their purpose. If you don't have a decent sized screen or sound system, try to get them on DVD from your library. The one below is in HD. View in full screen.

Baraka

​

 

[smcder]

The material reveals information that is not always interpreted the same way by everyone. Sometimes it's interpreted accurately, sometimes not, but when interpreted accurately, that information still has different relevance for each recipient. It's even possible that inaccurate interpretations might lead to unexpected but true insights. You need to handle that in whatever way is most relevant for you and the path you are on. So do I. What seems presuppositional and/or self-limiting to you is from my perspective exactly the opposite. Rather than dragging along freight cars of material that are irrelevant to my journey, I travel light and upgrade to new insights along the way. Nothing is being offhandedly dismissed. That might not seem sufficient to others, but it works fine for me.

Given your affinity for poetry as a means of expressing the phenomenological way you like to look at things, rather than posting another long lecture or the typical narrated documentary, I thought you might like to try another approach. You might already be familiar with these works. I would not be surprised. These films do not contain dialogue. They communicate through imagery and sound. They are not an instant gratification experience, so these days not everyone can take them in the way they are meant to be experienced. If you don't have a decent sized screen or sound system, try to get them on DVD from your library. The one below is in HD. Go to screen.

Baraka

​

Baraka is good ... so it the trilogy beginning with Koyanasqaatsi. (sp?)

 

[Randall]

Baraka is good ... so it the trilogy beginning with Koyanasqaatsi. (sp?)

Exactly ... the third being Samsara.

 

[smcder]

A robot in every stocking ... my on the cheap DIY version using a 555 timer to compare the light from two photoreceptors.

The magnets on the wheels are rare earth (neodynium) magnets but have turned out to be too strong, sticking the wheels in place on the metal surface.

The goal is something like the "Wallbot"

A much simpler version of course ... we have a white board at the staff entrance and it's become a place to leave workplace graffiti, drawings, etc ... a morale booster ... so I want to put up a robot that sticks to the surface and is able to have simple interactions with people passing by.

 

[smcder]

Exactly ... the third being Samsara.

Naqoyqatsi is the third in the "Qatsi" trilogy, apparently Samsara is a sequel or paired film to Baraka.

The official site for the films SAMSARA and BARAKA

Naqoyqatsi - Wikipedia

Qatsi trilogy - Wikipedia

 

[Soupie]

The real world is a world of phenomena not of “appearances”

Coupled with the comments re scientific realism, this seems–without understanding the entire context of the statement—to be a rejection of Naive Realism in the sense ive been speaking about.

The reason there will never been a physical explanation for consciousness is because the physical (scientific) realm is merely how the real, phenomenal world appears to us as systems existing within the real, phenomenal world.

I have a lengthy post on a Systems approach to the Hard Problem coming soon.

Ps I listened to the Pederson/Rogan podcast several weeks ago. Was gonna give you a heads up. Sharp as always. I'm just happy that 60 million people got to hear him. That's the viewership Rogan has. Unbelievable.

 

[smcder]

Coupled with the comments re scientific realism, this seems–without understanding the entire context of the statement—to be a rejection of Naive Realism in the sense ive been speaking about.

The reason there will never been a physical explanation for consciousness is because the physical (scientific) realm is merely how the real, phenomenal world appears to us a systems existing within the real, phenomenal world.

I have a lengthy post on a Systems approach to the Hard Problem coming soon.

Ps I listened to the Pederson/Rogan podcast several weeks ago. Was gonna give you a heads up. Sharp as always. I'm just happy that 60 million people got to hear him. That's the viewership Rogan has. Unbelievable.

Rogan had an interesting interview with the Dilbert creator ... who was also trained as a hypnotist, not on-topic but very interesting. Yes, the Rogan phenomena is very interesting ... my son pointed me to these two episodes.

 

[Randall]

Naqoyqatsi is the third in the "Qatsi" trilogy, apparently Samsara is a sequel or paired film to Baraka. The official site for the films SAMSARA and BARAKA | Naqoyqatsi - Wikipedia | Qatsi trilogy - Wikipedia

Yes. Thanks. I was thinking more generally with my respect to the three I was most familiar with and thought you were asking a question, but maybe you meant "is" as opposed to "it" which I may have incorrectly presumed you meant as "it's" as a refernce to the other films I had alluded to. But if not a question then the question mark was just for the spelling, which I'm rarely sure of either. I knew of one other Qatsi film, and I vaguely recall seeing the second, but not a third. I'll have to check that out. I remember Koyaanisqatsi as the first film I experienced of this type, and consequently it made a powerful impression back then.

 

[Constance]

I have a lengthy post on a Systems approach to the Hard Problem coming soon.

Ps I listened to the Pederson/Rogan podcast several weeks ago. Was gonna give you a heads up. Sharp as always. I'm just happy that 60 million people got to hear him. That's the viewership Rogan has. Unbelievable.

Looking forward to the post you're writing. I also want to hear the 'Pederson/Rogan' podcast, but I can't find the link to it.

 

[smcder]

Looking forward to the post you're writing. I also want to hear the 'Pederson/Rogan' podcast, but I can't find the link to it.

 

[smcder]

keywords: naturalizing phenomenology, semiotics, C.S. Pierce

Naturalizing phenomenology - A philosophical imperative. - PubMed - NCBI

Looking at a non-reductionistic approach to science via the later work of M-P and Charles Sanders Pierce.

 

[Randall]

Perhaps of some relevance:

- Non-Reductive Physicalism and the Mind Problem1 - SUSAN SCHNEIDER - University of Pennsylvania
- Is “Nonreductive Physicalism” an Oxymoron?

 

[smcder]

Perhaps of some relevance:

- Non-Reductive Physicalism and the Mind Problem1 - SUSAN SCHNEIDER - University of Pennsylvania
- Is “Nonreductive Physicalism” an Oxymoron?

The compatibility of property dualism and substance materialism

"In this paper, I argue that Schneider’s case for incompatibility between these two positions fails. After briefly laying out her case for incompatibility, I present an account of substance—one that relies on a relational ontology—that makes the combination of substance materialism and property dualism unproblematic. Then I show that even under the theories of substance that Schneider considers—those that rely on a constituent ontology—there still is no incompatibility problem."

 

[smcder]

Perhaps of some relevance:

- Non-Reductive Physicalism and the Mind Problem1 - SUSAN SCHNEIDER - University of Pennsylvania
- Is “Nonreductive Physicalism” an Oxymoron?

... On the NRP question do they come to different conclusions?

 

[smcder]

"Schneider claims some of the most popular versions of physicalism are at odds with commonly accepted positions about substance and properties in the related field of metaphysics.[1][8][22][23][24][25] Further, the mathematical nature of fundamental physical theories undermines physicalism itself. Fundamental physical entities are defined mathematically, and the physicalist must consider what makes mathematical statements true. This is an issue dealt with in the field of philosophy of mathematics.[2][26]The most viable theories in that domain, when combined with a physicalist approach, yield unworkable versions of physicalism. At best, physicalism becomes a form of dualism – a dualism of the abstract and concrete. And it fares as poorly as substance and property dualism with respect to explaining mental causation. Physicalism, thus understood, loses its customary advantages over competing theories.[1][8][27]"