Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 9

[smcder]

When the pond is in a homogenous state it just is feeling.

It is only when the pond is in a heterogenous state that qualities emerge such as emotions, sensations, perceptions, conceptions, etc.

Zahavi argues "what it is like" requires self-awareness.

 

[Soupie]

Zahavi argues "what it is like" requires self-awareness.

But couldn't we argue that self-awareness requires WIIL?

 

[smcder]

But couldn't we argue that self-awareness requires WIIL?

I don't think that helps because what would "there is something it is like" be like if you weren't aware of it? ... that's even worse than if a tree falls in the forest ... !

If a thought occurs in the mind and no one is there to think it ... then that's just neurons firing.

The argument goes like this:

1. The whole point of starting with consciousness as fundamental is to avoid the hard problem, which is how to get to "there is something it is like" from brute matter

2. panpsychism says there is something "mind-like" in all matter but few would say "there is something it is like" to be a quark (or whatever the most fundamental bit of matter is) - BUT if there is nothing it is like to be a quark then you are right back to the hard problem ... some have framed this as the combination problem, BUT if the minimal mind qualities don't include "something it is like" then I'm not sure what mind properties a quark has that help you solve the hard problem, even in combination ... because you are still going from

basic mind like properties ... (gap) to something it is like

so if a quark isn't self-aware, then there is nothing it is like to be a quark and you still have to get something it is like out of non self-aware matter (i.e. the hard problem) so either quarks or the most fundamental aspect of matter is self-aware or the hard problem ...

 

[smcder]

I would agree that we have very good reason to believe that 'feeling' evolves with life, but so far there are no good physical theories of how 'feeling' could emerge from a feeling-less, physical substrate.

Imho and one that I know you don't share, the best physical theories of the emergence of 'feeling' from a non-feeling substrate are information-based theories.

http://journal-cdn.frontiersin.org/article/250524/files/pubmed-zip/versions/1/pdf

"This article argues that qualia are a likely outcome of the processing of information in local cortical networks. It uses an information-based approach and makes a distinction between information structures (the physical embodiment of information in the brain, primarily patterns of action potentials), and information messages (the meaning of those structures to the brain, and the basis of qualia). It develops formal relationships between these two kinds of information, showing how information structures can represent messages, and how information messages can be identified from structures. The article applies this perspective to basic processing in cortical networks or ensembles, showing how networks can transform between the two kinds of information. The article argues that an input pattern of firing is identified by a network as an information message, and that the output pattern of firing generated is a representation of that message. If a network is encouraged to develop an attractor state through attention or other re-entrant processes, then the message identified each time physical information is cycled through the network becomes “representation of the previous message”. Using an example of olfactory perception, it is shown how this piggy-backing of messages on top of previous messages could lead to olfactory qualia. The message identified on each pass of information could evolve from inner identity, to inner form, to inner likeness or image. The outcome is an olfactory quale. It is shown that the same outcome could result from information cycled through a hierarchy of networks in a resonant state. The argument for qualia generation is applied to other sensory modalities, showing how, through a process of brain-wide constraint satisfaction, a particular state of consciousness could develop at any given moment. Evidence for some of the key predictions of the theory is presented, using ECoG data and studies of gamma oscillations and attractors, together with an outline of what further evidence is needed to provide support for the theory."

I've yet to see a biologically-based theory that came close to explaining 'feeling.'

Searle would say that IS a biological theory - at least if you want consciousness as self-awareness/something it is like. This seems to me to be saying that if you just keep layering on information you will get consciousness ... but we can still imagine a software program that keeps analyzing its own output in a feedback loop and becomes quite sophisticated in its use of awareness, eventually doing everything a human brain can do but without conscious awareness ... just like the kidney simulation that never gets the keyboard wet.

 

[Soupie]

I don't think that helps because what would "there is something it is like" be like if you weren't aware of it? ... that's even worse than if a tree falls in the forest ... !

If a thought occurs in the mind and no one is there to think it ... then that's just neurons firing.

The argument goes like this:

1. The whole point of starting with consciousness as fundamental is to avoid the hard problem, which is how to get to "there is something it is like" from brute matter

2. panpsychism says there is something "mind-like" in all matter but few would say "there is something it is like" to be a quark (or whatever the most fundamental bit of matter is) - BUT if there is nothing it is like to be a quark then you are right back to the hard problem ... some have framed this as the combination problem, BUT if the minimal mind qualities don't include "something it is like" then I'm not sure what mind properties a quark has that help you solve the hard problem, even in combination ... because you are still going from

basic mind like properties ... (gap) to something it is like

so if a quark isn't self-aware, then there is nothing it is like to be a quark and you still have to get something it is like out of non self-aware matter (i.e. the hard problem) so either quarks or the most fundamental aspect of matter is self-aware or the hard problem ...

Yeah. I follow you. But I ultimately disagree with this reasoning.

I think phenomenality (feeling) can exist in the absence of a reflexive phenomenal awareness of phenomenality.

No unlike the case in which someone may be reflexively aware of phenomenality (consciousness) but be unable to report it to others.

In order to report that one is conscious, one needs to be reflexively aware of consciousness (feeling), and in order for one to be reflexively aware of consciousness (feeling), one must be (literally) consciousness (feeling).

I would agree that there is a gap between the existence of consciousness, reflexive consciousness, and the ability to verbally report reflexive consciousness, but these are epistemological problems, not hard problems.

 

[Soupie]

basic mind like properties ... (gap) to something it is like

This is why I make a distinction between consciousness-as-substrate and minds.

I am arguing that phenomenality/feeling isn't a property of minds, but rather a substrate within which minds manifest.

I have used the phrase SIIL to pick out phenomenality/feeling itself, and not any particular, structured SIIL.

As noted earlier, I would argue that autonoetic consciousness is property of a mind.

If we start with feeling-as-substrate and consider, say, an autopoetic structure, I can see how we can get to sensing, feeling, thinking, self-reflexive systems (organisms).

 

[Soupie]

The trick is seeing that the mind and the organism are identical, they only appear to be two correlated systems due literally to the "perceptual gap."

 

[smcder]

Yeah. I follow you. But I ultimately disagree with this reasoning.

I think phenomenality (feeling) can exist in the absence of a reflexive phenomenal awareness of phenomenality.

No unlike the case in which someone may be reflexively aware of phenomenality (consciousness) but be unable to report it to others.

In order to report that one is conscious, one needs to be reflexively aware of consciousness (feeling), and in order for one to be reflexively aware of consciousness (feeling), one must be (literally) consciousness (feeling).

I would agree that there is a gap between the existence of consciousness, reflexive consciousness, and the ability to verbally report reflexive consciousness, but these are epistemological problems, not hard problems.

What you're not doing is showing that phenomenality(feeling) can exist in the absence of a reflexive phenomenal awareness of phenomenality.

Let's get a definition of phenomenality(feeling) in the absence of (let's simplify it) "awareness". What would phenomenality(feeling) be in the absence of "awareness"? - describe/explain phenomenality(feeling) without reference to awareness ... describe what is it like to be a quark?

 

[smcder]

This is why I make a distinction between consciousness-as-substrate and minds.

I am arguing that phenomenality/feeling isn't a property of minds, but rather a substrate within which minds manifest.

I have used the phrase SIIL to pick out phenomenality/feeling itself, and not any particular, structured SIIL.

As noted earlier, I would argue that autonoetic consciousness is property of a mind.

If we start with feeling-as-substrate and consider, say, an autopoetic structure, I can see how we can get to sensing, feeling, thinking, self-reflexive systems (organisms).

A substrate, by definition, has to have properties on which, in this case, minds can manifest. What properties does phenomenality/feeling have on which minds can manifest? What is pure/phenomenality feeling ... and you have to be able to describe it without reference to what it is like - if what it is like requires awareness ...

 

[Soupie]

What you're not doing is showing that phenomenality(feeling) can exist in the absence of a reflexive phenomenal awareness of phenomenality.

Let's get a definition of phenomenality(feeling) in the absence of let's simplify it and say "awareness". What would phenomenality(feeling) be in the absence of "awareness"? - describe/explain phenomenality(feeling) without reference to awareness ... describe what is it like to be a quark?

I think it's like many other phenomena; we can't directly observe/measure it. We have to infer that it's there.

 

[Soupie]

A substrate, by definition, has to have properties on which, in this case, minds can manifest. What properties does phenomenality/feeling have on which minds can manifest? What is pure/phenomenality feeling ... and you have to be able to describe it without reference to what it is like - if what it is like requires awareness ...

If we start with introspection, phenomenology, we must infer that phenomenality-as-substrate must have properties which allow it to manifest in all the varieties that our very streams of consciousness manifest.

 

[Soupie]

What you're not doing is showing that phenomenality(feeling) can exist in the absence of a reflexive phenomenal awareness of phenomenality.

Let's get a definition of phenomenality(feeling) in the absence of (let's simplify it) "awareness". What would phenomenality(feeling) be in the absence of "awareness"? - describe/explain phenomenality(feeling) without reference to awareness ... describe what is it like to be a quark?

What is it like to be a bat?

 

[smcder]

What is it like to be a bat?

Come on.

 

[smcder]

If we start with introspection, phenomenology, we must infer that phenomenality-as-substrate must have properties which allow it to manifest in all the varieties that our very streams of consciousness manifest.

All that says is that my experience is my experience.

 

[Soupie]

Come on.

But it is relevant. It's the same problem. Do we know for certain that a bat or a squid or an amoeba has autonoetic consciousness?

We don't.

I think it makes sense to speculate that a self, non-self quality/SIIL might be one of the most prismative minds, but there still needs to be a substrate within which this feeling of self, non-self can emerge.

Chalmers has used the term proto-consciousness. I think of this as phenomenality sans structure, where structure just is the SIIL.

 

[Soupie]

Didn't get a chance to read the whole thing:

Philosophy | How we can be: Tim Crane on the mind–body problem

 

[smcder]

But it is relevant. It's the same problem. Do we know for certain that a bat or a squid or an amoeba has autonoetic consciousness?

We don't.

I think it makes sense to speculate that a self, non-self quality/SIIL might be one of the most prismative minds, but there still needs to be a substrate within which this feeling of self, non-self can emerge.

Chalmers has used the term proto-consciousness. I think of this as phenomenality sans structure, where structure just is the SIIL.

I'll have a closer look at what Chalmers says about proto-conscious - if I recall, this is prior to his introduction of the combination problem.

"I think of this as phenomenality sans structure, where structure just is the SIIL."

Let's break this down:

1. You are claiming that your are able to think of phenomenality without structure
2. structure just is something it is like

therefore

3. you claim to be able to think of phenomenality without something it is like

So again, I ask you to define phenomenality without using something it is like.

 

[Constance]

Reposting this post by Steve from yesterday so that we might pursue the 'experiential' nature of reflexivity and its philosophical meaning vis a vis the evolution of reflective consciousness from prereflective consciousness:

"Consciousness is best understood in context, as one element of an interactive waking state in which the greater part of cognitive processing takes place in a nonconscious fashion. But if conscious and nonconscious processing are combined in the waking state, what distinguishes the former form the latter, what is consciousness, and what is its purpose? The answer to the second question depends crucially on our conclusion regarding the first. What is the property in virtue of which a state is conscious rather than nonconscious? In the following, it will be argued that of the answers most frequently proposed— intentionality, subjectivity, accessibility, reflexivity—only the final characteristic, reflexive, autonoetic awareness, is unique to the conscious state. Reflexivity can best be explained not as the product of a self-representational data structure, but as the expression of a recursive processing regime, in which cognition registers the properties of the processing state to a greater extent than properties of the content represented. And the principal characteristic of a reflexive processing state is cognitive reflexivity or autonoetic awareness."

Definition

Autonoetic consciousness is the human ability to mentally place ourselves in the past, in the future, or in counterfactual situations, and to thus be able to examine our own thoughts. Our sense of self affects our behavior, in the present, past and future."

I think we need to read the following paper as an aid to understanding the evolution of reflexivity in living species:

Marie Vandekerckhove, Jaak Panksepp, The flow of anoetic to noetic and autonoetic consciousness: A vision of unknowing (anoetic) and knowing (noetic) consciousness in the remembrance of things past and imagined futures

Abstract: In recent years there has been an expansion of scientific work on consciousness. However, there is an increasing necessity to integrate evolutionary and interdisciplinary perspectives and to bring affective feelings more centrally into the overall discussion. Pursuant especially to the theorizing of Endel Tulving (1985, 2004, 2005), Panksepp (1998a, 2003, 2005) and Vandekerckhove (2009) we will look at the phenomena starting with primary-process consciousness, namely the rudimentary state of autonomic awareness or unknowing (anoetic) consciousness, with a fundamental form of first-person ‘self-experience’ which relies on affective experiential states and raw sensory and perceptual mental existences, to higher forms of knowing (noetic and autonoetic) and self-aware consciousness. Since current scientific approaches are most concerned with the understanding of higher declarative states of consciousness, we will focus on these vastly underestimated primary forms of consciousness which may be foundational for all forms of higher ‘knowing consciousness’.

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/95b1/87b876eb74b8e9cc9a8bc468bd9845ee3a71.pdf

It seems to me that @Soupie's metaphor of a 'pool' of consciousness out of which all physical and mental manifestations of being evolve and develop might be better understood as an intrinsic primordial pool of unconsciousness/preconsciousness giving way to subconsciousness in/by virtue of the evolution of both physical and mental aspects of being. These two aspects of being do not necessarily signify a profound duality in being, though our species has been prone to think that they do, as in the continuing influence of Descartes' meditations. What can we discover about the nature of consciousness and mind as evolved from states of preconscious and subconscious being far back in the evolutionary history of our species' experiences and conceptualizations?

I'm convinced that we possess, both individually and collectively, subconscious 'minds'-- that the subconsciousness we carry along with us into the world as we experience it thinks, and has always thought, prereflectively and, with time and experience in species like ourselves, even reflectively. So that there exists within ourselves a mind meditating beneath the increasingly categorical thinking of what we call 'waking consciousness', which is only partially conscious of what-is.

 

[Constance]

But couldn't we argue that self-awareness requires WIIL?

That seems to be circular as a response to Steve's preceding post. Thus you seem to present a tautology.

 

[Soupie]

I'll have a closer look at what Chalmers says about proto-conscious - if I recall, this is prior to his introduction of the combination problem.

"I think of this as phenomenality sans structure, where structure just is the SIIL."

Let's break this down:

1. You are claiming that your are able to think of phenomenality without structure
2. structure just is something it is like

therefore

3. you claim to be able to think of phenomenality without something it is like

So again, I ask you to define phenomenality without using something it is like.

I can only think of it in terms of various analogies.

For example: whirlpool is to pond, as mind is to phenomenality

And I would go further and say:

Pond is to water molecules, as phenomenality is to process X

Where process X is perhaps ineffible or unknowable to us.