Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 8

[smcder]

"But why does Husserl oppose the attempt to implement a thorough naturalistic account of consciousness? Because naturalism in his view is incapable of doing full justice to consciousness. Not only has it – in the shape of experimental psychology – lost sight of (subjective) consciousness (Husserl 1987, 104), but even more importantly, naturalism treats consciousness as a real occurrent entity in the world, that is, it conceives of consciousness as an object in the world, on a par with – though possibly more complex than – volcanoes, waterfalls, ice crystals, gold nuggets, rhododendrons or black holes. But on Husserl’s view this is unacceptable since consciousness rather than merely being an object in the world, is also a subject for the world, i.e., a necessary condition of possibility for any entity to appear as an object in the way it does and with the meaning it has. To put it differently, according to Husserl, the decisive limitation of naturalism is that it is incapable of recognizing the transcendental dimension of consciousness.

• the decisive limitation of naturalism is that it is incapable of recognizing the transcendental dimension of conciousness

One way to interpret Kant’s revolutionary Copernican turn is by seeing it as amounting to the realization that our cognitive apprehension of reality is more than a mere mirroring of a preexisting world.

@Soupie this is the entry into modern philosophy of your "naive realism?"

Moreover, Kant transformed the pre-critical search for the most fundamental building blocks of reality into a reflection on what conditions something must satisfy in order to count as “real”; what is the condition of possibility for the appearance of objects? With various modifications this idea was picked up by Husserl and subsequent phenomenologists. Indeed, the reason why phenomenologists have emphasized the importance of the first-person perspective and investigated the fundamental structures of consciousness and selfhood in great detail has not been because they considered such an investigation a goal in itself – if so, phenomenology would have remained a form of philosophical psychology or philosophical anthropology – rather the analysis was motivated by transcendental philosophical considerations.

For me that last helps distinguish phenomenology from "introspection" in psychology.

 

[smcder]

I don't have the time here to compose entire papers, but I did add above that the PDF you posted does an excellent job of filling in a lot of the gaps.

Which PDF?

I do think you should compose an entire paper. And seek publication.

 

[smcder]

Because the video is about Naturalized Phenomenology, having some idea what "Naturalized" is in reference to might be helpful for those ( like me ) who don't retain an encyclopedic knowledge of philosophical concepts in memory. Like other aspects of philosophy, it points out that there is no consensus on exactly what Naturalism means. Therefore the question can be looked at a number of different ways. The common ground appears to be a move toward the application of the scientific method, and in that context, phenomenology and psychology seem pretty much synonymous, which is what I've been saying for some time now.

BTW: Thanks for the excellent more detailed discussion in the paper cited above: http://cfs.ku.dk/staff/zahavi-publications/naturalized_phenomenology.pdf/

OK, but I thought that it's saying phenomenology and psychology are not synonymous? Maybe that falls into the squishy area above ... I'm reading now about phenomenological psychology which is a form of philosophical psychology and probably wouldn't be what most people think of "psychology" which is empirical psychology ... so it would seem a bit tricky to say ph. and psy. are pretty much synonymous.

 

[Soupie]

Because naturalism in his view is incapable of doing full justice to consciousness. Not only has it – in the shape of experimental psychology – lost sight of (subjective) consciousness (Husserl 1987, 104), but even more importantly, naturalism treats consciousness as a real occurrent entity in the world, that is, it conceives of consciousness as an object in the world, on a par with – though possibly more complex than – volcanoes, waterfalls, ice crystals, gold nuggets, rhododendrons or black holes. But on Husserl’s view this is unacceptable since consciousness rather than merely being an object in the world, is also a subject for the world, i.e., a necessary condition of possibility for any entity to appear as an object in the way it does and with the meaning it has.

Yes, excellent.

However, I think this is hard for people to see. Also, one can be sympathetic to the naturalistic view as it has been so fruitful these past ~200 years. I expect scientists to continue seeking naturalistic origins for consciousness indefinitely, and while a full answer want be found due to the above (and Naive Realism) insights will be found.

Not until those exploring consciousness from the Conscious Realism stance can provide a predictive model of some type will the mainstream begin to listen. Naive Realism is to humans as water is to fish.

 

[smcder]

except understanding what it is like to be alive, and therefore -- lacking lived experience -- would be incapable of comprehending how and why we humans have produced the failing world we have indeed brought about on earth in our time. If AI were given enough data about human history, it's most logical response would be to obliterate human life and any life forms similar to it.



Still worse. At least half of what AI could scarf up from the internet would be at best contradictory or frivolous and at worst false concerning serious subject matter. How could AI's rapid-fire computational 'intelligence' evaluate sound interpretations of the phenomena of, say, climate change from incoherent ones and -- worse -- interpretations based not in science but in capitalist ideology and corporate bottom lines?

And even if AI could reach a conclusion about what it should do about climate change, how could its conclusions include the interests of the living species of earth, and especially the human race that largely cannot yet recognize the difference between facts and ideology (which AI might at some point recognize)? By that time, it's likely that AI would prefer to disappear us rather than risk our continuing meddling. And by that time, why should we care? Increasingly our confused and depressed species seems ready to kiss the earth good-bye anyway.

I'd also like to observe that just because computerized 'intelligences' process 'information', we have no reason to expect, much less conclude, that it will have a mainline into the 'information' that some people today think drives the evolution and the being of the universe/cosmos/multiverse, or whatever else exists beyond the horizons of what is visible to us or measureable by us. AI is just another attempt by hubristic homo sapiens to 'steal fire from the gods'.

I think sometimes that Transhumanism will come first, we will alter ourselves biologically and computationally, I guess becoming some kind of chimera/cyborg ... then if that gets to AI+ it might be smart enough not to go to AI++ ... so that something of humanity could be preserved. But the goal might not be simple intelligence increase, in the body-hacking/bio-hacking world, people have lots of goals ... and even in cognitive enhancement it might be about processing languages or increasing memory or mathematical ability ... and in popular culture, the X-men might be a better model: i.e. developing many kinds of abilities and then working together. The spate of books we have explored here that look at superhero/mythology might be useful in thinking about this "future humanity".

 

[smcder]

Yes, excellent.

However, I think this is hard for people to see. Also, one can be sympathetic to the naturalistic view as it has been so fruitful these past ~200 years. I expect scientists to continue seeking naturalistic origins for consciousness indefinitely, and while a full answer want be found due to the above (and Naive Realism) insights will be found.

Not until those exploring consciousness from the Conscious Realism stance can provide a predictive model of some type will the mainstream begin to listen. Naive Realism is to humans as water is to fish.

I think we want a technology of consciousness - a consumerism of consciousness ... to see it as a plastic thing ... if you don't like your mind, change it! cosmetic psychiatry, etc. But that's what drives the naturalistic view - going back to Bacon and the early programs of science (and before), it seems to me clear what we are up to an just what conquering nature (and ultimately death) mean.

As Robert Harrison put it - he wasn't so concerned for man that he finished the Tower of Babel, but for God.

 

[Randall]

OK, but I thought that it's saying phenomenology and psychology are not synonymous? Maybe that falls into the squishy area above ... I'm reading now about phenomenological psychology which is a form of philosophical psychology and probably wouldn't be what most people think of "psychology" which is empirical psychology ... so it would seem a bit tricky to say ph. and psy. are pretty much synonymous.

I'll attempt to clarify. What is actually being posited is that the primary difference between naturalized phenomenology and phenomenology itself is that phenomenology approaches the subject from what is loosely referred to as the phenomenological attitude, whereas psychology attempts to approach it using the scientific method, and is referred to ( in the paper ) as the psychologizing of phenomenology, so "naturalizing" is basically a euphemism for "psychologizing", the purpose of which is to bring phenomenology under the umbrella of psychology. At one point in the lecture it is made rather clear that phenomenology and psychology are the same in principle, but that psychology is still "naïve" in it's treatment of the transcendental facets of phenomenology ( review around 27:30 - 28:30 on the video ).

 

[smcder]

I'll attempt to clarify. What is actually being posited is that the primary difference between naturalized phenomenology and phenomenology itself is that phenomenology approaches the subject from what is loosely referred to as the phenomenological attitude, whereas psychology attempts to approach it using the scientific method, and is referred to ( in the paper ) as the psychologizing of phenomenology, so "naturalizing" is basically a euphemism for "psychologizing", the purpose of which is to bring phenomenology under the umbrella of psychology. At one point in the lecture it is made rather clear that phenomenology and psychology are the same in principle, but that psychology is still "naïve" in it's treatment of the transcendental facets of phenomenology ( review around 27:30 - 28:30 on the video ).

So you're equating "naturalized" phenomenology with psychology?

What do you see as the consequences? And what do you make of the "transcendental facets"?

 

[Soupie]

To no one in particular: What are the differences (if any) between naturalism, physicalism, and materialism?

 

[Constance]

I have several pages of this thread to catch up with but having just read the last few pages I want to suggest a further text that we can read, which covers the same territory Zahavi attempts to articulate in the videotaped lecture being discussed. I looked for a text rather than attempting to understand Zahavi's spoken lecture since I find it difficult to understand everything he is saying in the video. Here's the link, and I hope we can all read it in order to discuss all that he has to offer to this discussion of 'naturalism' and 'phenomenology' and the ways in which we actually can hope to unify or at least integrate them. We likely also need to read Husserl's paper 'The Crisis of the European Sciences' delivered early in the 20th century to understand what these terms/inquiries to be reconciled meant in the intellectual and scientific culture of that time. First this paper to clarify what's being taken from the videotaped lecture:

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ralization/links/0c960517e1ba00d66a000000.pdf

I think we want a technology of consciousness - a consumerism of consciousness ... to see it as a plastic thing ... if you don't like your mind, change it! cosmetic psychiatry, etc. But that's what drives the naturalistic view - going back to Bacon and the early programs of science (and before), it seems to me clear what we are up to an just what conquering nature (and ultimately death) mean.

As Robert Harrison put it - he wasn't so concerned for man that he finished the Tower of Babel, but for God.

I'm having trouble understanding what you mean in this post, and also what Robert Harrison meant in that last citation. Do you mean that we 'need' {by contrast with "want"} a technology of consciousness and a development and production of 'technologized consciousness', and if so why do you think so? What's wrong with the naturally evolved consciousness we possess?

 

[Soupie]

I think we want a technology of consciousness - a consumerism of consciousness ... to see it as a plastic thing ... if you don't like your mind, change it! cosmetic psychiatry, etc. But that's what drives the naturalistic view - going back to Bacon and the early programs of science (and before), it seems to me clear what we are up to an just what conquering nature (and ultimately death) mean.

As Robert Harrison put it - he wasn't so concerned for man that he finished the Tower of Babel, but for God.

Upon reflection, I suppose I (naively perhaps) view this desire/motivation as lacking malicious intent. We as a species are aware of course that wanting to be like god, to fly close to the sun, is a bad idea, but a large portion of the species is driven to conquer nature regardless. Even to the point of becoming martyrs for naturalistic truth in several cases.

But it's also true that a la Jung and others, our rationality comesa the cost of our vitality.

And we do know that a fully closed materialist, physicalist account of Being cannot be obtained, which leaves to door open imo for the possibility that a fully closed naturalist account of Being cannot be obtained either.

The laws of physics, as Ringland explains, describe the observable patterns of reality, but they don't inform us about the fundamental animating process of reality.

The billiard ball model of cause and effect that holds such explanatory power at the classical level fails at the quantum level.

 

[Constance]

To no one in particular: What are the differences (if any) between naturalism, physicalism, and materialism?

You're right: we certainly do need to sort out these terms and what they signify in the history of scientific theories. It seems to me that they cannot be understood or used as synonymns.

 

[smcder]

I have several pages of this thread to catch up with but having just read the last few pages I want to suggest a further text that we can read, which covers the same territory Zahavi attempts to articulate in the videotaped lecture being discussed. I looked for a text rather than attempting to understand Zahavi's spoken lecture since I find it difficult to understand everything he is saying in the video. Here's the link, and I hope we can all read it in order to discuss all that he has to offer to this discussion of 'naturalism' and 'phenomenology' and the ways in which we actually can hope to unify or at least integrate them. We likely also need to read Husserl's paper 'The Crisis of the European Sciences' delivered early in the 20th century to understand what these terms/inquiries to be reconciled meant in the intellectual and scientific culture of that time. First this paper to clarify what's being taken from the videotaped lecture:

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ralization/links/0c960517e1ba00d66a000000.pdf




I'm having trouble understanding what you mean in this post, and also what Robert Harrison meant in that last citation. Do you mean that we 'need' {by contrast with "want"} a technology of consciousness and a development and production of 'technologized consciousness', and if so why do you think so? What's wrong with the naturally evolved consciousness we possess?

I dont think anything's wrong with it! I was responding to the idea that naturalism has been "successful".

I think for many folks that means technology and so one hope behind naturalistic beliefs for some may be that we'll have a technology of consciousness.

 

[smcder]

I have several pages of this thread to catch up with but having just read the last few pages I want to suggest a further text that we can read, which covers the same territory Zahavi attempts to articulate in the videotaped lecture being discussed. I looked for a text rather than attempting to understand Zahavi's spoken lecture since I find it difficult to understand everything he is saying in the video. Here's the link, and I hope we can all read it in order to discuss all that he has to offer to this discussion of 'naturalism' and 'phenomenology' and the ways in which we actually can hope to unify or at least integrate them. We likely also need to read Husserl's paper 'The Crisis of the European Sciences' delivered early in the 20th century to understand what these terms/inquiries to be reconciled meant in the intellectual and scientific culture of that time. First this paper to clarify what's being taken from the videotaped lecture:

https://www.researchgate.net/profil...ralization/links/0c960517e1ba00d66a000000.pdf




I'm having trouble understanding what you mean in this post, and also what Robert Harrison meant in that last citation. Do you mean that we 'need' {by contrast with "want"} a technology of consciousness and a development and production of 'technologized consciousness', and if so why do you think so? What's wrong with the naturally evolved consciousness we possess?

There's also a copy available of the paper he reads in the video.

 

[Constance]

Upon reflection, I suppose I (naively perhaps) view this desire/motivation as lacking malicious intent. We as a species are aware of course that wanting to be like god, to fly close to the sun, is a bad idea, but a large portion of the species is driven to conquer nature regardless. Even to the point of becoming martyrs for naturalistic truth in several cases.

But it's also true that a la Jung and others, our rationality comesa the cost of our vitality.

And we do know that a fully closed materialist, physicalist account of Being cannot be obtained, which leaves to door open imo for the possibility that a fully closed naturalist account of Being cannot be obtained either.

The laws of physics, as Ringland explains, describe the observable patterns of reality, but they don't inform us about the fundamental animating process of reality.

The billiard ball model of cause and effect that holds such explanatory power at the classical level fails at the quantum level.

I agree with most of what you say here. Re your last statement, I think Kafatos makes great strides in reorienting us from classical ideas of causality to a deeper level of insight into how the world/universe/cosmos as we know it (to the extent that we have knowledge of it in terms of complex and interacting systems) is generated from the q substrate. 'Naturalism' as Kafatos understands it [though I don't recall his using this ambiguous term] is very different from the ideas of nature and naturalism held at the time of Husserl's 'Crisis' lecture.

Re your statement referring to Jung and others -- that rationalism comes at the cost of our vitality -- I think we need to investigate what Jung meant by 'rationalism', which I think likely corresponds with the closed, deterministic, concept of nature assumed by Husserl's audience for the Crisis lecture. Modern materialistic science, of course, claimed 'rationality' exclusively for its own worldview (and continues to do so), but phenomenology appropriately asks 'how rational is a system of thought that does not recognize the pre-rational history of consciousness, reflection, and mind that have enabled us to question the open-ended nature of what-is in our own existential situation in the world as we experience it and interrogate it?'

I copied out in Word this paragraph from the Zahavi paper linked above by Steve and which @Usual Suspect found illuminating:

"Every positive science rests upon a field of givenness or evidence that is presupposed but not investigated by the sciences themselves. In order to make this dimension accessible, a new type of inquiry is called for, a type of inquiry which “precedes all natural knowledge and science and points in a quite different direction than natural science” (Husserl 1984, 176). This, of course, is one reason why the phenomenological attitude has frequently been described as an unnatural direction of thought (Husserl 2001, I. 170). But to describe phenomenology as unnatural is of course also to deny any straightforward continuity between philosophy and natural science."

Re this statement you made: "We as a species are aware of course that wanting to be like god, to fly close to the sun, is a bad idea, but a large portion of the species is driven to conquer nature regardless." What members of our species have wanted and some still want in these regards is Transcendence with a capital T, whereas what we have and must deal with is a world in which our subjectivity {consciousness and mind} transcends -- in the philosophical meaning of that word, expressed with a lower-case t -- objects at the same time that objects transcend our subjectivity given our knowledge of objects only through the phenomena through which we recognize them. Consciousness and world interpenetrate one another and for us are inseparable. We are subjects and objects at once, as revealed in the inescapable nature of our consciousness itself as comprising subjective and objective poles of 'reality' in what we feel and think. We are still 'irrational' in many levels of our being, inherited from the emotional grounds of the pre-reflective consciousness of our evolutionary forebears, and we are also capable of rationality with the development of our minds, our ideas about what-is and what we are. Phenomenologists recognize both the prereflective consciousness by and through which we begin to experience our being-in-the-world {become oriented to the world in which we exist} and the reflective consciousness we develop out of it. It is with reflective consciousness that we become capable of standing-out from the environing world [ek-stase, as Heidegger expresses]. And from that point on we work toward an understanding our relation with 'what-is' in our local world and in the World [All-that-is] beyond our knowledge. We are still on the road to developing a rational interpretation of being and our being that recognizes the pre-rational roots of what we are, which reveal our primordial bond with nature -- our issuance as protoconsciousness, consciousness, and mind out of the evolution of life in a world previously evolving in what we recognize as simply physical processes. We are 'thrown' into this existentially situated 'world' and must make our way in it from what we can learn and more fully understand about needs and obligations in it.

That's a long screed and written off the top of my head so I might need to amend it when I read it later today. I've just realized I'm too late for an appointment I'd made and have re-scheduled it for an hour later.

 

[Constance]

There's also a copy available of the paper he reads in the video.

Good. Do you have the link?

 

[smcder]

Good. Do you have the link?

I hope so .... Will be tonight b4 I can post it.

 

[Randall]

So you're equating "naturalized" phenomenology with psychology?

That is what appears to be the gist of it, naturalization meaning to make phenomenology part of the natural sciences, which includes life sciences, which includes psychology and the various other studies intimately associated with it such as neuroscience. So I suppose, technically speaking, it isn't only about psychology, but I'm sure you get the idea. Psychology is where the main focus is in the natural sciences with respect to studying mental phenomena.

What do you see as the consequences? And what do you make of the "transcendental facets"?

Interesting question. I suppose that all depends on one's attitude ;-)

 

[Constance]

I dont think anything's wrong with it! I was responding to the idea that naturalism has been "successful".

'Naturalism' seems still to be a vague concept in this thread, and elsewhere in contemporary intellectual culture, with the exception of this attempt we're discussing to unify or integrate 'naturalism' with 'consciousness'. I also need to add that the 'successfulness' of many ideas, 'memes', impulses, and behaviors in the general culture we are living in does not mean much. Take the success of Donald Trump as an example.

I think for many folks that means technology and so one hope behind naturalistic beliefs for some may be that we'll have a technology of consciousness.

Those expectations and assumptions stand in the absence of needed critique in our culture as a whole. Our culture is in general, at this point in time, driven by 'memes' and sound-bites rather than informed and critical thought.

 

[smcder]

I hope so .... Will be tonight b4 I can post it.

Is it this one?

http://cfs.ku.dk/staff/zahavi-publications/naturalized_phenomenology.pdf