Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 8

[Randall]

You overrate the internet in spades. You seem to see it as a guide to all human knowledge and insight. Here is a timely statement by Noam Chomsky:

www.alternet.org/media/noam-chomsky-random-exploration-through-internet-cult-generator

So says the old guy with the YouTube video ( ironically ) seen below in front of stacks of books that would only occupy a few megabytes of space on a chip less than the size of his fingernail ... lol ... but don't get me wrong. I like Chomsky ...

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[Constance]

Here is a very good paper clarifying Direct Realism by examining critiques of it and articulating corresponding defenses.

Pierre Le Morvan, Arguments Against Direct Realism and How to Counter Them

http://www.tcnj.edu/~lemorvan/DR_web.pdf

 

[Randall]

Here is a very good paper clarifying Direct Realism by examining critiques of it and articulating corresponding defenses. Pierre Le Morvan, Arguments Against Direct Realism and How to Counter Them http://www.tcnj.edu/~lemorvan/DR_web.pdf

Why setup the discussion to either confirm or counter a specific position, or for that matter a number of specific positions, when no single specific position appears to be sufficient to address the issues? It should be obvious to any reasonably intelligent person with even a minimal amount of knowledge about how sensory perception works, that perceptual representations resulting from external stimuli make us aware that something external appears to exists out there, and that such perceptions are also affected to some extent by pre-existing experiences with similar perceptions. It's not a one or the other situation. Neither is either mutually exclusive of the other, except perhaps at some point ( who knows when exactly ) at the very beginning before any memories have been formed.

 

[Constance]

No I don't think this is it. I thought it linked from here but I dont see it now

egtheory.wordpress.com

Entry entitled:

Kooky history of the quantum mind: reviving realism

I remember your linking this blog, and its interesting comments, when @Soupie first began talking about Hoffman's theory.

 

[Constance]

"In this paradigm all systems are observers and have experiential awareness, without which they could not interact; this is a form of pan-psychism, in particular pan-proto-experientialism, Russellian monism, Type F monism or Neutral monism (Google Russellian "Type F" "Neutral monism"). These are the view that consciousness is constituted by the intrinsic properties of reality. “On this view, phenomenal or proto-phenomenal properties are located at the fundamental level of physical reality, and in a certain sense, underlie physical reality itself.” (The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind)

from http://www.anandavala.info/article/What-is-Consciousness.pdf

 

[smcder]

Here is a very good paper clarifying Direct Realism by examining critiques of it and articulating corresponding defenses.

Pierre Le Morvan, Arguments Against Direct Realism and How to Counter Them

http://www.tcnj.edu/~lemorvan/DR_web.pdf

"Direct Realists hold that perception is an immediate or direct awareness of mind independent physical objects or events in the external world; in taking this awareness to be immediate or direct, Direct Realists deny that the perception of these physical objects or events requires a prior awareness of some tertium quid ( e.g., a reified appearance, sense-datum, sensum, idea, quality-instance, species) mediating between the mind and external physical objects or events.

Direct Realism is thus logically incompatible with Indirect Realism and with Idealism and Phenomenalism."

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[smcder]

tertium quid (n.)

- something indeterminate between two other things, 1724, Latin, literally "third something," from tertius "third, a third," from the root of tres"three" (see three).

A loan-translation of Greek triton ti(Plato), used in alchemy for "unidentified element present in a combination of two known ones."

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[smcder]

(my summary)

1. Idealists, Phenomenalists and Indirect Realists’ (oh my!) deny that perception is an immediate or direct awareness of mind-independent physical objects or events in the external world.

2. Idealists and Phenomenalists further deny the *existence of mind-independent objects or events.

2a. For Idealists and Phenomenalists, perception is an awareness of (mind-DEPENDENT) objects or events.

3a. Idealists take perceived objects to be ontologically dependent on being perceived ( esse est percipi ).

3b. Phenomenalists take perceived objects to be ontologically dependent on the possibility of being perceived ( esse est posse percipi ).

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[smcder]

The arthur then extinguishes between Direct and Naive Realisms ... Naive realism holding WYSIWIGly that you see eggsactly what is there. So to defeat NR is not to defeat DR.

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[smcder]

Finally, holding DR for visual perception does not commit one to holding it for other senses.

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[smcder]

@Constance

DH's CR theory claims that evolutionary simulations show that evolution "maximizes evolutionary fitness by driving truth to extinction"

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160421-the-evolutionary-argument-against-reality/

The comments point to criticism of this claim and of assumptions DH made in his simulations.

@Soupie has said, I believe, that he does not necc. support DH version of CR in all its details.

I thought Carrol said he wrote about evol and perception but I cant find it.

He does say some, other, interesting, things here:

The Big Questions

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[smcder]

After going through the arguments and their "defeaters" Morvan concludes:

"Though Descartes ridiculed the species (among other things) of the scholastic Representationists, he espoused a doctrine of perceptual experience very much akin to theirs, where (cartesian) ideas replaced (scholastic) species in the roles of (i) perceptual intermediaries between the mind and external objects, and as (ii) representations of external objects.

A key negative tenet of scholastic Representationism, namely that perceptual experience does not consist in a direct or immediate intuition or presentation of external objects, and a key positive tenet of scholastic Representationism, namely that appearances are the immediate objects of perceptual experience, were adopted by Descartes and subsequently became two of the most deeply entrenched tenets of Modern Philosophy, tenets espoused in variant ways by (among others) the Rationalists, the Empiricists, Kant, 39 the Absolute Idealists, and a whole host of twentieth century thinkers espousing positions including (but not limited to) various versions of the Sense-Datum Theory and Phenomenalism. 40

If the reasoning of this paper is sound, the eight main arguments against Direct Realism fail to defeat it. Hence, insofar as Indirect Realism, Idealism, Phenomenalism, and even External-World Skepticism are motivated, whether implicitly or explicitly, by the presumed untenability of Direct Realism, the defeat of these putative defeaters undercuts an important motivation for each of these views.

Worth noting as well is that the contemporary resurgence of Direct Realism represents, in an important sense, a return to, and vindication of, tenets espoused by the scholastic Perceptionists centuries ago."

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[Soupie]

When it comes to Consciois Realism don't confuse it with Hoffman's Interface Theory. They are related but distinct.

For example, Theise and Kafaros refer to their approach as "Non-Dual Conscious Realism."

I'll make a post asap attempting to clarify what I mean by my use of the terms Conscious Realism and Naive Realism.

Spoiler: They don't include conscious agents as fundamental (per se) nor do they deny Direct Realism.

 

[Soupie]

"In this paradigm all systems are observers and have experiential awareness, without which they could not interact; this is a form of pan-psychism, in particular pan-proto-experientialism, Russellian monism, Type F monism or Neutral monism (Google Russellian "Type F" "Neutral monism"). These are the view that consciousness is constituted by the intrinsic properties of reality. “On this view, phenomenal or proto-phenomenal properties are located at the fundamental level of physical reality, and in a certain sense, underlie physical reality itself.” (The Blackwell Guide to Philosophy of Mind)

from http://www.anandavala.info/article/What-is-Consciousness.pdf

This piece is authored by Ringland, whose systems approach to the Hard Problem I posted recently.

 

[Soupie]

Here is a very good paper clarifying Direct Realism by examining critiques of it and articulating corresponding defenses.

Pierre Le Morvan, Arguments Against Direct Realism and How to Counter Them

http://www.tcnj.edu/~lemorvan/DR_web.pdf

Wow. After reading this paper, one gets a sense of just how important semantics is in the arena of philosophy.

I agree with this author re Direct Realism in the sense that I agree that "perception" refers best to conscious experiences that are about external, physical (i.e. objective) events, i.e., events that are subject independent.

(The problem with this however is that there are conscious experiences that share very similar subjective qualities to "perceptions" that cannot be about external, physical events, because such external, physical events are not present when the subject is having the experience.)

I'll try to illustrate this:

(1) Subject a walks into a room and experiences a red apple on a shelf. Because there really is a red apple on a shelf, we say this person perceives a red apple. Direct Realism.

(2) Subject takes psychoactive drugs and experiences a red apple on a shelf. Because there really isn't a red apple on a shelf, we say this person does not perceive a red apple. Direct Realism.

For Direct Realism to hold, it must be made clear that the term "perceive" is only invoked when there is an objective event/Object external to the subject.

Thus all experiences that correspond to external objects/events are perceptions, but not all experiences are perceptions. When an experience does not correspond to an external events we must call it something other than a perception.

 

[smcder]

Ok re-reading your post ... So the arthur says he holds with tradition to discuss the direct realism in re: terms of visual perception and notes holding DR for visual perception does not per se commit one to DR in re other senses.

So given this and the discussion re: hallucinations, there does not seem to be a problem?


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[Soupie]

Ok re-reading your post ... So the arthur says he holds with tradition to discuss the direct realism in re: terms of visual perception and notes holding DR for visual perception does not per se commit one to DR in re other senses.

So given this and the discussion re: hallucinations, there does not seem to be a problem?


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Im not sure if we're on the same page or not. How about this:

Just as there can be hallucinations of a visual form, there can be hallucinations of other "sensory" forms. That is, there can hallucinated tastes, smells, sounds, etc.

What I'm suggesting is that on the current definition of perception as given above, there is no ontological distinction between a perception of a red apple and a hallucination of a red apple.

The only difference between a perception and a hallucination is that the perception corresponds to an objective, external event and a hallucination does not correspond to an objective, external event.

 

[smcder]

Not all experiences are perceptions ... This is what GS talks about in Cognitive Phenomenology?

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[smcder]

Im not sure if we're on the same page or not. How about this:

Just as there can be hallucinations of a visual form, there can be hallucinations of other "sensory" forms. That is, there can hallucinated tastes, smells, sounds, etc.

What I'm suggesting is that on the current definition of perception as given above, there is no ontological distinction between a perception of a red apple and a hallucination of a red apple.

The only difference between a perception and a hallucination is that the perception corresponds to an objective, external event and a hallucination does not correspond to an objective, external event.

Right and doesnt he address this in the section on hallucinations?

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[smcder]

Im not sure if we're on the same page or not. How about this:

Just as there can be hallucinations of a visual form, there can be hallucinations of other "sensory" forms. That is, there can hallucinated tastes, smells, sounds, etc.

What I'm suggesting is that on the current definition of perception as given above, there is no ontological distinction between a perception of a red apple and a hallucination of a red apple.

The only difference between a perception and a hallucination is that the perception corresponds to an objective, external event and a hallucination does not correspond to an objective, external event.

"Direct Realists hold that perception is an immediate or direct awareness of mind independent physical objects or events in the external world; in taking this awareness to be immediate or direct, Direct Realists deny that the perception of these physical objects or events requires a prior awareness of some tertium quid (e.g., a reified appearance, sense-datum, sensum, idea, quality-instance, species) mediating between the mind and external physical objects or events."

Sec. 1.6
P. 15

"The proponent of the argument employs the principle that if x and y are phenomenally indistinguishable, x and y are ontologically indistinguishable. But why suppose that phenomenology is such a reliable guide to ontology?"

Does CR require a tertium quid?

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