Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 9

[Constance]

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.

"Awareness" is the term that needs to critiqued. The notion that recursive looping and supposed resulting 'transcendental' integration of information in computers is equivalent to 'awareness' in humans is an example of wish-fulfillment in the reasoning of proponents of general AI. Even knowing one day "everything a human brain can do" will not bring us to an understanding of what embodied consciousness in our species and others can and does do out of the influences of subconscious mentation.

I remember writing the same objection here when we first discussed Tononi's Integrated Information Theory. That was at a time when Tononi issued a fourth version of IIT that attempted to take account of phenomenological experience. What he produced at that point was inadequate to account for the 'phenomenology of perception' as analyzed by Merleau-Ponty and other phenomenological philosophers. We need the insights of the phenomenologists to begin to understand the nature of consciousness, but we also need the insights of evolutionary biologists, affective neuroscientists, psychologists who have uncovered to various extents the subconscious influences affecting what we become conscious of (and how we become conscious of it), philosophers that have struggled for several millenia with the mind-body problem in both the East and the West, and also the history of what can be called 'spiritual experiences' in human beings as pursued in both psychical and paranormal research and in the history of mysticism. What a long way we have yet to go in plumbing the origins and depths of consciousness.

 

[Constance]

@Soupie, here are just two recent posts of yours over the last week or so in which you continue to substitute various terms -- which each require definitions, and have attained definitions in consciousness studies -- for one another as somehow equivalent to one another in their reference. This becomes immensely confusing and unsatisfactory. In the first post below you equate 'phenomenology' with 'introspection'. In the second post below you equate 'phenomenality' with 'feeling'. Both feeling and introspection are components of -- but not the only components of -- consciousness understood phenomenologically, through analyses of experience in phenomenological philosophy.

Earlier you have attempted to equate 'feeling' with 'mind' and simultaneously with 'life'. Along the way you also introduced yesterday the terms 'structure' and '3rd person perspective' without accounting for how these properties and perspectives appear out of the undifferentiated 'substrate' of 'feeling'/'mind'/'life' which you claim can explain everything that exists (including individually realized consciousness) without involving physical and biological evolution and development over time.

You also wrote in response to a post from Steve that "I question whether the "pond" is ever in a homogenous state. The pond may be intrinsically heterogenous, arising from yet more primal processes." This suggests the appearance of at least a hairline crack in the original undifferentiated substrate you've been arguing for. Do you then have to begin again with a description of the elements of an intrinsically heterogenous substrate beneath the 'homogenous' substrate you've been representing, and ask what the sub-substrate presents in the evolution of awareness, consciousness, being, and thinking?

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.

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.

Again, 'phenomenality' is not just bodily 'feeling'/sensation but also primordial reflexive awareness. This reflexive awareness seems to be the earliest germinal form of the vast unexplored territory characterized as protoconsciousness. Protoconsciousness proceeds through evolution to what the phenomenologists refer to as prereflective consciousness, states of existence in which human and other animals become aware of the environments in which they exist and act so as to maximize their capabilities to act/interact in those environments in order to survive and thrive. Prereflective consciousness finds its way in environing 'worlds' before it reaches the cusp of entering into reflective consciousness and achieving the capacity of 'self-awareness' by which consciousnesses begin to sense and reflect on distances and differences between themselves and their environments. In time this recognition of distance and difference lays the groundwork for reflective thinking {Mind} from which the mind-body problem originates in philosophy.

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

Again, phenomenality/phenomenal experience is not yet consciousness, but leads to the development of consciousness.

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).

Again, 'consciousness' is not merely 'feeling'/sensation; and 'reflexivity' as sensed in lived experience occurs well before pre-reflective and reflective consciousness develop in our species [and perhaps in some other species]. {Note that this gradual development of consciousness is evidently the case in both the evolution of species and in the development of consciousness in infants of our species.} Reflexivity, first sensed in germinal bodily awareness, really is the originary key to the long evolution of protoconsciousness in living species and to the later development of prereflective and reflective consciousness/mind in members of our species (and perhaps in some other species).

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.

These "epistemological problems" are indeed hard problems and must be resolved before any of us can construct a viable ontology of life, consciousness, and mind.

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.

Again, phenomenology -- as a descriptive discipline analyzing lived phenomenal experience and the evolution of consciousness and mind out of that experience -- cannot and does not begin with 'introspection', which is a later achievement of evolving and developing consciousness. You are misapplying the term 'phenomenology' and the entire understanding of experienced being on which it is built.

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.

It seems to me that this 'pond', as you describe it, would have to be a supernatural Singular and Creative Mind from which all existential experience, sense of being, consciousness of being, and activities of mind realized on earth and in the cosmos as a whole must be understood as expressions or effects. This ontological concept originates in theology, and in its way it is a beautiful idea. But the gap between what we experience within the constraints of the world we exist in and the Mind of God is a very great gap indeed, a gap that seems untraversible except perhaps, as the early Greeks envisioned it, when crossing the waters of the River Lethe.

Here's another perspective, one that suggestively raises the question whether whatever larger World exists across that final river, beyond embodied life and mind, might somehow be prefigured in our embodied experience of the world we find ourselves existing in now.


The River of Rivers in Connecticut

There is a great river this side of Stygia,
Before one comes to the first black cataracts
And trees that lack the intelligence of trees.

In that river, far this side of Stygia,
The mere flowing of the water is a gayety,
Flashing and flashing in the sun. On its banks,

No shadow walks. The river is fateful,
Like the last one. But there is no ferryman.
He could not bend against its propelling force.

It is not to be seen beneath the appearances
That tell of it. The steeple at Farmington
Stands glistening and Haddam shines and sways.

It is the third commonness with light and air,
A curriculum, a vigor, a local abstraction . . .
Call it, once more, a river, an unnamed flowing,

Space-filled, reflecting the seasons, the folk-lore
Of each of the senses; call it, again and again,
The river that flows nowhere, like a sea.

Wallace Stevens

 

[smcder]

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.

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

This looks to be an interesting paper ... Bruce Mangan's "Sensation's Ghost" mentioned in section 1 is intriguing:

"This type of anoetic consciousness may include aspects of the ‘‘fringe consciousness” that has been extensively discussed by Mangan (2001) along with the accompanying dozen commentaries. In our view, this ‘‘free water of consciousness”, that has been underestimated empirically, is largely affective (Panksepp, 2003), based on ancient systems that encode basic (primary-process) emotional and motivational survival values, that are encapsulated within the concept of raw affective consciousness (Panksepp, 2008)."

And from the abstract of Mangan's "Sensation's Ghost"

ABSTRACT: Non-sensory experiences represent almost all context information in consciousness. They condition most aspects of conscious cognition including voluntary retrieval, perception, monitoring, problem solving, emotion, evaluation, meaning recognition. Many peculiar aspects of non-sensory qualia (e.g., they resist being 'grasped' by an act of attention) are explained as adaptations shaped by the cognitive functions they serve. The most important nonsensory experience is coherence or "rightness." Rightness represents degrees of context fit among contents in consciousness, and between conscious and non-conscious processes. Rightness (not familiarity) is the feeling-of-knowing in implicit cognition. The experience of rightness suggests that neural mechanisms "compute" signals indicating the global dynamics of network integration."

 

[Constance]

The Mangan paper does indeed sound very interesting. Here is a link to a pdf of it:

http://www.theassc.org/files/assc/2509.pdf

ETA: Not just interesting but extremely important. Here is a portion of the introduction:

"1. Introduction <1>

This paper has three related aims. The first is to establish that non-sensory experiences constitute a basic, if neglected, category of conscious contents. The second is to identify some of the cognitive functions that nonsensory experiences appear to execute in consciousness. The third is to argue that the limited capacity constraint on consciousness has shaped the particular way these functions are instantiated -- if so, we can then to a degree explain why non-sensory experiences have the peculiar phenomenological character they do. So I intend to consider non-sensory experiences at three interlocking levels of analysis: descriptive, functional, explanatory. The explanatory level is by far the most speculative, and while it depends on the first two, they do not depend on it.

Today when people consider the subjective aspect of consciousness, they often talk about "qualia." In principle this term can refer to the qualitative feel of any experience. But in practice it is usually applied to cases in which we attend to strongly felt and easily named sensations -- the blare of a trumpet, a twinge of back pain, the saturated red of a ripe tomato. The leading examples of what it is like to be conscious are now usually drawn from vivid sensory experiences of this sort. For better or worse, these are the paradigm cases which tend to guide people's intuitions about the nature of consciousness and its relation to the far more complex cognitive system in which consciousness is embedded.

Paradoxically, it may be easier to understand the interplay of conscious and nonconscious processes, and to begin to explain why qualia feel the way they do, by considering two less obtrusive aspects of our phenomenology -- the indistinct peripheral-sensory experiences that surround the focus of attention, and those experiences that have no sensory content at all. Of the two, non-sensory experiences are probably of greater cognitive importance. In any case, I will restrict myself to considering peripheral-sensory experiences only to the degree they throw light (which is considerable) on the phenomenology and function of non-sensory experiences.

These two aspects of experience are closely related, both in their phenomenology and in their cognitive functions. For something like the indistinct, spreading, blurred quality of peripheral-sensory experiences is also found in non-sensory experiences. Many descriptive terms in English naturally apply to both cases. For example, in what is probably the single most useful and evocative treatment of non-sensory experiences (at least given the aims of cognitive research), William James often likened non-sensory experiences to a "penumbra" or "fringe" of "vague" experiences -- even though James himself recognized that non-sensory experiences pervade the entire field of consciousness, and are not just creatures of the periphery. <2> And non-sensory and peripheral-sensory experiences are involved with the same inclusive cognitive functions: Both represent context information in consciousness; and by virtue of this capacity, both help mediate the voluntary retrieval of new information into consciousness.

But they also differ in basic ways. Non-sensory experiences are just that -- without sensory content. Peripheral-sensory experiences have sensory content, albeit fuzzy or slurred. And non-sensory experiences are, again, not just peripheral, but pervade the entire field of consciousness. So in terms of the standard Gestalt figure/ground distinction, the figure is the region of focal-sensory contents, the ground of peripheral-sensory contents. Non-sensory contents, however, pervade both the figure and the ground. Then, too, the scope of the context information sensory and non-sensory contents provide is hugely different. Peripheral-sensory experiences represent information about the immediate environmental surround. Non-sensory experiences represent virtually everything else of cognitive importance in consciousness. Non-sensory experiences constitute, among other things, those aspects of consciousness that turn a naked focal-sensory content into an interpreted, meaningful perception. In the ground, non-sensory experiences constitute, among many other things, the feeling of immanence -- i.e., the feeling that much more detailed information is available on the periphery for retrieval if needed.

It will take a good deal of exposition to unpack and qualify what I have said so far, and that will be the job of the next few sections. For now, to make things a bit more concrete, let me briefly consider one non-sensory experience from among the virtual infinity that can occupy consciousness -- familiarity. . . . ."

 

[Soupie]

Earlier you have attempted to equate 'feeling' with 'mind' and simultaneously with 'life'. Along the way you also introduced yesterday the terms 'structure' and '3rd person perspective' without accounting for how these properties and perspectives appear out of the undifferentiated 'substrate' of 'feeling'/'mind'/'life' which you claim can explain everything that exists (including individually realized consciousness) without involving physical and biological evolution and development over time.

You also wrote in response to a post from Steve that "I question whether the "pond" is ever in a homogenous state. The pond may be intrinsically heterogenous, arising from yet more primal processes." This suggests the appearance of at least a hairline crack in the original undifferentiated substrate you've been arguing for. Do you then have to begin again with a description of the elements of an intrinsically heterogenous substrate beneath the 'homogenous' substrate you've been representing, and ask what the sub-substrate presents in the evolution of awareness, consciousness, being, and thinking?

These are very valid criticisms. I do have plans to write my model/approach up as an essay. In the essay, I will strive to thoroughly define terms and be consistent with terms.

It could be, Constance, that you and I are so far apart on how we conceptualize the phenomenon of consciousness that you will never be able to understand the approach I am articulating. As I've always argued, please be clear about times when you don't understand what I'm saying and times when you simply disagree. Having said that, I know that difference isn't always clear.

First of all, when it comes to consciousness, the thing that I am trying to understand is what is commonly referred to as phenomenal consciousness. However, I avoid this term because I think all consciousness is phenomenal. What is phenomenal consciousness?

If we take pain, green, sweet, sour, anger. What do they all have in common? The fact that they "feel" like something. They also all have structure. But structure is a phenomenon that can be accounted for in physical terms. Structure in itself is not a mystery. What can't be accounted for in physical terms is this feeling itself. Not any particular feeling per se, but the phenomenon of feeling itself. This is essentially the Hard Problem.

I will try to use the phrase "consciousness (feeling)." But we have to be clear that I do not have in mind any particular feeling, but only feeling itself.

So my approach to consciousness is related to the Hard Problem. How does consciousness [ie, phenomenal consciousness, feeling, phenomenality, etc.] arise and/or emerge from physical processes? The Mind-Body problem (as I understand) asked a similar but less presumptuous question. It asks: How are the body and mind related? Unlike the HP, it doesn't assume that the mind (consciousness (feeling)) arises and/or emerges from the physical body.

In various posts and comments you have made, I sometimes get the sense that you seek to explain the origin of consciousness in personal terms. A crucial assumption I am making is that consciousness arises/emerges at the sub-personal level. Whether that be from a sub-personal physical process or a sub-personal process that is sub-physical. (And indeed, I am arguing that consciousness arises at a sub-physical level.)

Another thing I am doing is distinguishing consciousness (feeling) and mind. Like "pain, green, sweet, sour, and anger" the mind consists of consciousness (feeling) and structure. I use the term consciousness (feeling) to pick out "feeling" and I use the term mind to pick out structured consciousness (feeling).

Now to your questions: I am not equating "feeling" with life and mind.

I am arguing that consciousness (feeling) is a substrate from within which life and mind arise.

You ask how this consciousness (feeling) substrate could be heterogeneous and homogeneous. I'll use the example of a pond.

A pond is a substrate within which a whirlpool can form. We can imagine the pond being perfectly calm and smooth. In this case, the pond in is a homogeneous state.

However, at the same time, we know that a pond consists of water molecules. And each water molecule consist of H2O. Which is heterogeneous.

So, haha, I can see how this may be hopelessly confusing! In any case, what I am suggesting is that consciousness (feeling) as substrate is similar by analogy.

Consciousness (feeling) as a substrate can theoretically be in a homogeneous state like the pond, but also like the pond, the sate of the pond can become heterogeneous, i.e., multiple whirlpools can arise within it.

At the same time, this consciousness (feeling) as substrate--analogously to the pond--is itself made up of a more primitive substrate. In the case of water, that substrate is water molecules, in the case of consciousness (feeling), I think it is beyond our ken to know as this process/substrate will be sub-physical and sub-personal.

How can I even suggest that consciousness (feeling) can be a substrate?

It stems from my conception of perception, which again you and I may simply disagree on. I'll share two sections from a paper which pretty thoroughly encapsulates my approach to perception:

I will underline key statements of the text and highlight in red statements which address concerns you've voiced in the past with brain-based models of perception.

The Machine behind the Stage: A Neurobiological Approach toward Theoretical Issues of Sensory Perception

"When a neuroscientist considers perception or any other mental process, the starting point is the existence of a biological ‘machine’ (Ryle, 1949), the brain, the activation of which generates all mental states and events that appear to us as if taking place on the stage of a ‘Cartesian Theater’ in the mind (Dennett, 1991). There are two main consequences arising from this thesis. The first one is the fact that the only direct cause of any mental state/event is a given pattern of brain activation: perception is created by a perceptual system, and behind each and every percept there is a certain neuronal activation, fully responsible for causing this percept. What produces the neuronal activation is a separate question: it can be physical objects sending light to the eye, artificial brain stimulation by an electrode, an epileptic seizure, magic mushrooms, auto-activation while dreaming, and many more. All these alternative brain-stimulation events can theoretically have an identical result: a specific brain-activation pattern, leading to the formation of a specific percept. The Causal Theory of Perception (see Grice, 1961; Lewis, 1980; Snowdon, 1981) is a philosophical standpoint in harmony with this view, although too much energy is wasted in trying to accurately define what veridical perception is and how it differs from illusions and hallucinations. Trying to semantically categorize different perceptual experiences into different groups can indeed be an interesting, challenging game. Regarding the nature of perception, however, it does not offer much more insight on top of the fact that specific, individual perceptual experiences are caused by specific, individual brain activation patterns. To deny that the latter is neither identical with nor constitutive of the experience itself (Child, 1994, pp. 161–162) is a step back toward dualism.

The second consequence of a brain-centered theory of perception is that, since the percept is the creation of a given neuronal system, its characteristics will depend on and directly reflect the properties of this system. This does not imply that perception is of an esoteric nature and in complete isolation from the physical world. Such isolation would miss the point, since perceptual systems have evolved in order to enable organisms to interact with their environment. In the example of vision, light falling on objects activates the brain by the process of phototransduction, during which photoreceptors at the retina transform electromagnetic energy into electrochemical activation, which in turn sends a neural signal to the rest of the visual brain. This light has specific characteristics which are determined by the properties of the reflecting object (i.e., carries information), and so determines the characteristics of the elicited brain activation. Thus, the characteristics of a percept are dictated by both the perceptual system which creates it and the properties of the physical object we are looking at. In this way we can acquire objective knowledge about the world, albeit in a very subjective manner. Perception is therefore characterized by an objective subjectivity or, to say it perhaps better, a subjective objectivity. Objectivity, since the transformation from the physical to the perceptual world follows certain constant, reliable rules. Subjectivity, since each percept is created by a perceptual system and therefore its characteristics depend on the properties of the latter: the same chair looks different to a human, a cat or a bat, and perhaps looks different even between two humans. Plato has realized that what we perceive are ‘reflexions of reality’ (Plato: The Republic, Book VII). The nature of these reflections depends on the nature of the perceptual system that both creates and perceives them."

In essence, I believe that perception is a simulation of the world by a perceptual system that has evolved/arisen within the world.

Earlier, I had mentioned that "structure" was something that can be accounted for in physical terms. I know this controversial ( as of course everything I'm saying is). [And it appears that "phenomenology" might be a better term than "structure."] But below is an example of what I mean:

"A good example in order to understand how percepts are psychological entities created by the brain rather than physical entities existing in the physical world is color. The science of color supports the view that phenomenal character is a property of the experience (Byrne, 2002, p. 9) rather than not (Tye, 2000), and its phenomenology can be nicely connected with known facts about the anatomy and physiology of the visual system. Metamers, for example, are stimuli with a different light composition that look exactly the same color, nicely demonstrating that color vision does not necessarily inform us about the precise properties of objects in the real world4. Instead, the phenomenon is explained by the neurophysiological fact that there are three different cone types with different sensitivities across the visible spectrum. The Trichromatic Theory of Color Vision (see Blake and Sekuler, 2006, p. 246) can also explain the fact that any triplet of primary5 colors can give rise to the full gamut of the colors we perceive. Furthermore, the fact that a color cannot be red and green (or blue and yellow) at the same time, together with the fact that we need four (rather than three) names in order to roughly describe all the colors that we perceive, is a direct consequence of the way the cone input combines upstream from the retina to create opponent color-pairs (see Blake and Sekuler, 2006, p. 258). Finally, the fact that neuronal circuits in the brain compare lights coming from different part of the visual field is responsible for the well-known phenomena of color constancy and color induction6 (Land, 1977). Color vision thus nicely demonstrates that the characteristics of the visual experience are determined by the way in which the perceptual system is constructed. To say it with a philosopher’s words, ‘colors are a feature of the way we process visual information rather than a feature of the objective, mind-independent world’ (Fish, 2010, p. 145)."

So what all this is saying is that perceptions are directly correlated with states of the brain/organism, and only indirectly correlated with states of the external world via evolution. Because organisms and their perceptual systems have evolved to enable the organism to interact with the world.

We may just simply disagree on all the above. And if that's the case, you will certainly reject what I am going to say next.

The one thing that a brain-based model of perception cannot answer is how consciousness (feeling) exists. So it can provide an explanation of the phenomenology (structure) of colors. What it can't explain is why color (i.e., the phenomenal, feeling aspect) exists! In other words, a brain-based model of perception can in principle explain the full phenomenology of the mind, but it can't explain the origin of the substrate of the mind, consciousness (feeling) itself.

Another way of thinking about this is to say that certain qualities will always be left out of a simulation, due to the fact that there will always be a dissociation between the simulated and the simulation.

In this case, the quality that cannot be captured is consciousness (feeling) itself. The perceptual simulation cannot fully capture consciousness (feeling) because it is the very substrate within which arises.

How does this consciousness (feeling) substrate appear within the simulation that is human perception? I am arguing that it appears as matter. It appears to have extension in space, mass, spin, and all the other properties that we ascribe to matter.

I'm saying that matter and consciousness (feeling) are ontologically identical, but that consciousness (feeling) is presented/simulated in perception as matter.

This is how mind and matter are related. This is how the 1st person perspective and the 3rd person perspective are related.

There much much more to be said here and haggled over. One thing is the fact that our mind sometimes seems to go away, during sleep, anesthesia, coma, etc. How can this be if consciousness (feeling) is a substrate? It has to do with the mind and consciousness (feeling) being distinct. Just as a pond and a whirlpool are distinct, so too are consciousness (feeling) and minds.

 

[smcder]

These are very valid criticisms. I do have plans to write my model/approach up as an essay. In the essay, I will strive to thoroughly define terms and be consistent with terms.

It could be, Constance, that you and I are so far apart on how we conceptualize the phenomenon of consciousness that you will never be able to understand the approach I am articulating. As I've always argued, please be clear about times when you don't understand what I'm saying and times when you simply disagree. Having said that, I know that difference isn't always clear.

First of all, when it comes to consciousness, the thing that I am trying to understand is what is commonly referred to as phenomenal consciousness. However, I avoid this term because I think all consciousness is phenomenal. What is phenomenal consciousness?

If we take pain, green, sweet, sour, anger. What do they all have in common? The fact that they "feel" like something. They also all have structure. But structure is a phenomenon that can be accounted for in physical terms. Structure in itself is not a mystery. What can't be accounted for in physical terms is this feeling itself. Not any particular feeling per se, but the phenomenon of feeling itself. This is essentially the Hard Problem.

I will try to use the phrase "consciousness (feeling)." But we have to be clear that I do not have in mind any particular feeling, but only feeling itself.

So my approach to consciousness is related to the Hard Problem. How does consciousness [ie, phenomenal consciousness, feeling, phenomenality, etc.] arise and/or emerge from physical processes? The Mind-Body problem (as I understand) asked a similar but less presumptuous question. It asks: How are the body and mind related? Unlike the HP, it doesn't assume that the mind (consciousness (feeling)) arises and/or emerges from the physical body.

In various posts and comments you have made, I sometimes get the sense that you seek to explain the origin of consciousness in personal terms. A crucial assumption I am making is that consciousness arises/emerges at the sub-personal level. Whether that be from a sub-personal physical process or a sub-personal process that is sub-physical. (And indeed, I am arguing that consciousness arises at a sub-physical level.)

Another thing I am doing is distinguishing consciousness (feeling) and mind. Like "pain, green, sweet, sour, and anger" the mind consists of consciousness (feeling) and structure. I use the term consciousness (feeling) to pick out "feeling" and I use the term mind to pick out structured consciousness (feeling).

Now to your questions: I am not equating "feeling" with life and mind.

I am arguing that consciousness (feeling) is a substrate from within which life and mind arise.

You ask how this consciousness (feeling) substrate could be heterogeneous and homogeneous. I'll use the example of a pond.

A pond is a substrate within which a whirlpool can form. We can imagine the pond being perfectly calm and smooth. In this case, the pond in is a homogeneous state.

However, at the same time, we know that a pond consists of water molecules. And each water molecule consist of H2O. Which is heterogeneous.

So, haha, I can see how this may be hopelessly confusing! In any case, what I am suggesting is that consciousness (feeling) as substrate is similar by analogy.

Consciousness (feeling) as a substrate can theoretically be in a homogeneous state like the pond, but also like the pond, the sate of the pond can become heterogeneous, i.e., multiple whirlpools can arise within it.

At the same time, this consciousness (feeling) as substrate--analogously to the pond--is itself made up of a more primitive substrate. In the case of water, that substrate is water molecules, in the case of consciousness (feeling), I think it is beyond our ken to know as this process/substrate will be sub-physical and sub-personal.

How can I even suggest that consciousness (feeling) can be a substrate?

It stems from my conception of perception, which again you and I may simply disagree on. I'll share two sections from a paper which pretty thoroughly encapsulates my approach to perception:

I will underline key statements of the text and highlight in red statements which address concerns you've voiced in the past with brain-based models of perception.

The Machine behind the Stage: A Neurobiological Approach toward Theoretical Issues of Sensory Perception

"When a neuroscientist considers perception or any other mental process, the starting point is the existence of a biological ‘machine’ (Ryle, 1949), the brain, the activation of which generates all mental states and events that appear to us as if taking place on the stage of a ‘Cartesian Theater’ in the mind (Dennett, 1991). There are two main consequences arising from this thesis. The first one is the fact that the only direct cause of any mental state/event is a given pattern of brain activation: perception is created by a perceptual system, and behind each and every percept there is a certain neuronal activation, fully responsible for causing this percept. What produces the neuronal activation is a separate question: it can be physical objects sending light to the eye, artificial brain stimulation by an electrode, an epileptic seizure, magic mushrooms, auto-activation while dreaming, and many more. All these alternative brain-stimulation events can theoretically have an identical result: a specific brain-activation pattern, leading to the formation of a specific percept. The Causal Theory of Perception (see Grice, 1961; Lewis, 1980; Snowdon, 1981) is a philosophical standpoint in harmony with this view, although too much energy is wasted in trying to accurately define what veridical perception is and how it differs from illusions and hallucinations. Trying to semantically categorize different perceptual experiences into different groups can indeed be an interesting, challenging game. Regarding the nature of perception, however, it does not offer much more insight on top of the fact that specific, individual perceptual experiences are caused by specific, individual brain activation patterns. To deny that the latter is neither identical with nor constitutive of the experience itself (Child, 1994, pp. 161–162) is a step back toward dualism.

The second consequence of a brain-centered theory of perception is that, since the percept is the creation of a given neuronal system, its characteristics will depend on and directly reflect the properties of this system. This does not imply that perception is of an esoteric nature and in complete isolation from the physical world. Such isolation would miss the point, since perceptual systems have evolved in order to enable organisms to interact with their environment. In the example of vision, light falling on objects activates the brain by the process of phototransduction, during which photoreceptors at the retina transform electromagnetic energy into electrochemical activation, which in turn sends a neural signal to the rest of the visual brain. This light has specific characteristics which are determined by the properties of the reflecting object (i.e., carries information), and so determines the characteristics of the elicited brain activation. Thus, the characteristics of a percept are dictated by both the perceptual system which creates it and the properties of the physical object we are looking at. In this way we can acquire objective knowledge about the world, albeit in a very subjective manner. Perception is therefore characterized by an objective subjectivity or, to say it perhaps better, a subjective objectivity. Objectivity, since the transformation from the physical to the perceptual world follows certain constant, reliable rules. Subjectivity, since each percept is created by a perceptual system and therefore its characteristics depend on the properties of the latter: the same chair looks different to a human, a cat or a bat, and perhaps looks different even between two humans. Plato has realized that what we perceive are ‘reflexions of reality’ (Plato: The Republic, Book VII). The nature of these reflections depends on the nature of the perceptual system that both creates and perceives them."

In essence, I believe that perception is a simulation of the world by a perceptual system that has evolved/arisen within the world.

Earlier, I had mentioned that "structure" was something that can be accounted for in physical terms. I know this controversial ( as of course everything I'm saying is). [And it appears that "phenomenology" might be a better term than "structure."] But below is an example of what I mean:

"A good example in order to understand how percepts are psychological entities created by the brain rather than physical entities existing in the physical world is color. The science of color supports the view that phenomenal character is a property of the experience (Byrne, 2002, p. 9) rather than not (Tye, 2000), and its phenomenology can be nicely connected with known facts about the anatomy and physiology of the visual system. Metamers, for example, are stimuli with a different light composition that look exactly the same color, nicely demonstrating that color vision does not necessarily inform us about the precise properties of objects in the real world4. Instead, the phenomenon is explained by the neurophysiological fact that there are three different cone types with different sensitivities across the visible spectrum. The Trichromatic Theory of Color Vision (see Blake and Sekuler, 2006, p. 246) can also explain the fact that any triplet of primary5 colors can give rise to the full gamut of the colors we perceive. Furthermore, the fact that a color cannot be red and green (or blue and yellow) at the same time, together with the fact that we need four (rather than three) names in order to roughly describe all the colors that we perceive, is a direct consequence of the way the cone input combines upstream from the retina to create opponent color-pairs (see Blake and Sekuler, 2006, p. 258). Finally, the fact that neuronal circuits in the brain compare lights coming from different part of the visual field is responsible for the well-known phenomena of color constancy and color induction6 (Land, 1977). Color vision thus nicely demonstrates that the characteristics of the visual experience are determined by the way in which the perceptual system is constructed. To say it with a philosopher’s words, ‘colors are a feature of the way we process visual information rather than a feature of the objective, mind-independent world’ (Fish, 2010, p. 145)."

So what all this is saying is that perceptions are directly correlated with states of the brain/organism, and only indirectly correlated with states of the external world via evolution. Because organisms and their perceptual systems have evolved to enable the organism to interact with the world.

We may just simply disagree on all the above. And if that's the case, you will certainly reject what I am going to say next.

The one thing that a brain-based model of perception cannot answer is how consciousness (feeling) exists. So it can provide an explanation of the phenomenology (structure) of colors. What it can't explain is why color (i.e., the phenomenal, feeling aspect) exists! In other words, a brain-based model of perception can in principle explain the full phenomenology of the mind, but it can't explain the origin of the substrate of the mind, consciousness (feeling) itself.

Another way of thinking about this is to say that certain qualities will always be left out of a simulation, due to the fact that there will always be a dissociation between the simulated and the simulation.

In this case, the quality that cannot be captured is consciousness (feeling) itself. The perceptual simulation cannot fully capture consciousness (feeling) because it is the very substrate within which arises.

How does this consciousness (feeling) substrate appear within the simulation that is human perception? I am arguing that it appears as matter. It appears to have extension in space, mass, spin, and all the other properties that we ascribe to matter.

I'm saying that matter and consciousness (feeling) are ontologically identical, but that consciousness (feeling) is presented/simulated in perception as matter.

This is how mind and matter are related. This is how the 1st person perspective and the 3rd person perspective are related.

There much much more to be said here and haggled over. One thing is the fact that our mind sometimes seems to go away, during sleep, anesthesia, coma, etc. How can this be if consciousness (feeling) is a substrate? It has to do with the mind and consciousness (feeling) being distinct. Just as a pond and a whirlpool are distinct, so too are consciousness (feeling) and minds.

This fuller reply makes it easier to see these thoughts as a form of idealism:

Idealism - Wikipedia

key point:

Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing.

https://www.quora.com/What-are-some...sm-i-e-reality-is-just-a-construction-of-mind


two types of idealism

1) Berkeley's ontological idealism: something mental is the ultimate foundation of all reality. All that exists are ideas and the minds, that have them. Collapse the distinction between knowledge and what is known. The theory that all that exists are minds and their ideas, is a form of skepticism. (see above)

2) Kant's epistemological idealism: *although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, everything that we can know about this mind-independent reality is a construction activity of the mind. Stress the subjectivity of a portion of what pretends to be our knowledge of things. Our representation of things, above all space and time, are not determinations that belong to things in themselves but features of our own minds. Epistemological idealism begins with the insight that our knowledge in some way or another always reflects the structure of our own consciousness and thought.

 

[Constance]

@Soupie, thank you for your effort to flesh out the components of your theory and to relate them to one another. I have a few comments to make about the following paragraphs:

Plato has realized that what we perceive are ‘reflexions of reality’ (Plato: The Republic, Book VII). The nature of these reflections depends on the nature of the perceptual system that both creates and perceives them."

I highlighted the verb 'realized' because it presumes [and claims] that Plato discovered and described the 'true' nature of 'reality'. I don't think he did since he projected a concept of Reality {What-Is} as consisting of 'ideal' forms existing behind the world of phenomenal appearances. Secondly, I think we need to distinguish between the meanings of the terms 'reflexion' and 'reflections' (the former referring to 'reflexivity' in lived experience, a characteristic of awareness and consciousness that we still need to explore in detail). Thirdly, I continue to disagree with your proposition in the last sentence that the perceptual system as described neurologically "both creates and perceives" what we see and otherwise sense in the physical/tangible environments in which we exist. One further note: for Plato what we see are "shadows" of Reality rather than things illuminated by and reflecting light.

So what all this is saying is that perceptions are directly correlated with states of the brain/organism, and only indirectly correlated with states of the external world via evolution. Because organisms and their perceptual systems have evolved to enable the organism to interact with the world.

Here you seem to open the way to acknowledging the actuality of the environing and experienced world and the correlations between what we see [and otherwise sense and feel] with what is there. No doubt our brains' [and other creatures' brains'] visual systems enable us to see something rather than nothing, also to hear, touch, taste and smell something rather than nothing. I think the Mangan paper Steve called to our attention will go a long way in developing all of our thinking about the relationship between what we experience sensorally and also nonsensorally, the latter developing in consciousness and mind upon the basis of the former.

The one thing that a brain-based model of perception cannot answer is how consciousness (feeling) exists. So it can provide an explanation of the phenomenology (structure) of colors. What it can't explain is why color (i.e., the phenomenal, feeling aspect) exists!

Indeed. And what we feel and what we think are inescapably parts of the inescapable structure of 'reality as we experience it', out of which individual experience we reflect on and think about the relationship of our own awareness, feeling, consciousness, and mind -- our being -- to the world in which we exist.

In other words, a brain-based model of perception can in principle explain the full phenomenology of the mind, but it can't explain the origin of the substrate of the mind, consciousness (feeling) itself.

'In principle'? Or in fact? Neuroscience has not proved that the brain's visual system "both creates and perceives" what is experienced by any living organism equipped with eyes, much less "explain the full pheonomenology of the mind." Vision is not the only sense through which organisms, including us, sense (and increasingly cognize) the presence of an environing world and their own presence within it. You stake much of your ontology on a particularly reductive attempt to reduce perception to a mechanical brain process isolated in the brain rather than experienced through a complex of sensory experiences integrated in the development of consciousness. And again, 'consciousness' is not a synonym for either 'feeling' or 'mind', and none of these terms, imo, can factically or rationally be claimed to identify an ontological substrate for the plenitude and plurality of the world as it is experienced and 'realized' variously by innumerable species of living beings.

From the Mangan paper:

"... James himself recognized that non-sensory experiences pervade the entire field of consciousness, and are not just creatures of the periphery. <2> And non-sensory and peripheral-sensory experiences are involved with the same inclusive cognitive functions: Both represent context information in consciousness; and by virtue of this capacity, both help mediate the voluntary retrieval of new information into consciousness.

But they also differ in basic ways. Non-sensory experiences are just that -- without sensory content. Peripheral-sensory experiences have sensory content, albeit fuzzy or slurred. And non-sensory experiences are, again, not just peripheral, but pervade the entire field of consciousness. So in terms of the standard Gestalt figure/ground distinction, the figure is the region of focal-sensory contents, the ground of peripheral-sensory contents. Non-sensory contents, however, pervade both the figure and the ground. Then, too, the scope of the context information sensory and non-sensory contents provide is hugely different. Peripheral-sensory experiences represent information about the immediate environmental surround. Non-sensory experiences represent virtually everything else of cognitive importance in consciousness. Non-sensory experiences constitute, among other things, those aspects of consciousness that turn a naked focal-sensory content into an interpreted, meaningful perception."

 

[Soupie]

In principle'? Or in fact? Neuroscience has not proved that the brain's visual system "both creates and perceives" what is experienced by any living organism

Neither haha! I clearly misspoke there. Correct, the perceptual system clearly cannot explain the full phenomenology of the mind.

I would change that to fully explain all that is perceived. But it is in principle. It may not be practical.

But an even bolder claim that I might make would be to say that organism/brain processes taken as a whole, can in principle fully explain subjective experience.

Back to perception for a moment:

One might ask that if perception is brain-based, why do perceptions not resemble the brain?

For example, why do colors look so differently from the neurological processes that present them?

But the argument here is not that colors simulate the brain, colors simulate an aspect of the mind-independent world. In the case of colors, they simulate EM waves.

Of course, colors and EM waves don't necessarily resemble one another either haha.

Another question is why do colors have the qualities they do? For example, why green, yellow, and blue. Why not bufgt, zergle, and fuyt?

I'm not sure a neurophysiological model can ever answer that question, and that is curious.

 

[smcder]

Entitled Opinions (about Life and Literature)

"This week our new show features a fascinating conversation with computer scientist Sam Ginn about the Singularity, and the importance of Martin Heidegger in thinking about Artificial Intelligence. This show has already been posted on our website as well as on iTunes."


... at this very moment (Sat night) only the first 30 minutes is available due to technical issues ... ;-)

 

[smcder]

@Soupie in italics

Yes, getting matter from consciousness-as-substrate is easier than getting consciousness (feeling) from matter.
Yes, getting consciousness(feeling) from matter is easier than getting matter from consciousness-as-substrate

How do you get matter from mind?
How do you get mind from matter?

The answer is that we already do. All 3rd person knowledge comes directly through 1st-person experience (and intersubjective experience).
The answer is that we already do. All 1st person experience comes from an objective, physical source - namely the brain.

Said differently: How the mind (consciousness) relates to the body (matter) is an open question, but it is a fact to say that matter is only ever known within (a) the mind.
Said differently: How the brain (consciousness) relates to the body(matter) is an open question, but it is a fact to say that the mind is only ever known within (a) brain.

In other words, we already know that consciousness can contain matter.
In other words, we already know that matter can contain consciousness.

Another response is that while consciousness-as-substrate just is feeling, that does not mean that consciousness-as-substrate doesn't have other properties or that other properties cannot or do not emerge from consciousness-as-substrate.

Another response is that while brains just are matter, that does not mean that matter doesn't have other properties or that other properties cannot or do not emerge from matter.

Again, the MBP is an open question. However, via introspection, we know that consciousness (aka the stream of consciousness) is diverse, dynamic, structured, patterned, and differentiated.

Again, the MBP is an open question. However, via observation, we know that the activity of the brain is diverse, dynamic, structured, patterned, and differentiated in direct correlation with the reported contents of consciousness.

So it is self-evident that consciousness (and therefore my theoretical consciousness-as-substrate) is not homogeneous.

So it is self-evident that the brain (and therefore my theoretical matter as substrate) is not homogenous.

Therefore, consciousness (no matter its relation to the body) must have properties which allow it to be heterogenous.

Therefore, the brain (no matter its relation to consciousness) must have properties which allow it to be heterogeneous.

 

[smcder]

1. In other words, we already know that consciousness can contain matter.

questions/problems
If consciousness can contain matter, why can't we know everything? Why are there individual minds and/or why are they inaccessible to one another? The hard problem for this view is the emergence of individual minds out of an undifferentiated pool of consciousness -

And why is there anything to know in the first place? Why does consciousness differentiate into "other minds"? The Singularity state of consciousness in some forms of Idealism is a blissful undifferentiated sea of oceanic feeling and returning to a state of "no wind" is the goal of some religions ... the obvious question is why did things ever get complicated in the first place?

2. In other words, we already know that matter can contain consciousness.
questions/problems
If matter can contain consciousness ... the biggest question is how ... the Big Bang initiates physics and somehow, from physics consciousness emerges ... it seems to be non-physical ... but the physicalist is going to assert just as confidently that matter can contain mind, that mind is physical is obvious - that was the point of the exercise just above.

I think in both cases it's the intuition of "pure" that creates the problems - pure consciousness shouldn't have structure, should be undifferentiated feeling and pure matter should be "brute" matter ... but if consciousness is physical it will have the structure of matter and if matter is consciousness ... well, we expect it to be malleable like consciousness ... but these intuitions it seems to me are central to misunderstanding either position ... the other problem is that we've made dualism anathema and as a result, can't stop talking about it - it seems clear mind has material properties and that matter plays some role in consciousness ... one traditional approach has been layers - the "sheaths" of the ethereal body ... now what is the equivalent of that layered regression to the physical?


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

Which @Constance succinctly critiqued:

The notion that recursive looping and supposed resulting 'transcendental' integration of information in computers is equivalent to 'awareness' in humans is an example of wish-fulfillment in the reasoning of proponents of general AI.

recursive looping takes matter to mind




and ethereal bodies of increasing density take mind to matter



the problem seems to be that no matter how solid thoughts grow and never mind how ethereal the body gets ... taking that last step is a real Zeno!

 

[smcder]

Again, it seems to me just as hard to get matter/minds from consciousness-as-substrate as to get mind from "brute" matter - further evidence is that both require "emergence" to get there ...

@Soupie

Emergence is not a term that is central to my argument, except to say that consciousness-as-substrate must have properties that allow complex processes to emerge within it.

OK, that alone makes "emergence" central to your argument!

And

"what-it-is-likeness just is the pond

The ripples that arise (emerge) within it just are minds"

"Yes. But if we assume the "pond" was ever in a state of singularity, then the SIIL would not be like anything we could identify with (being the super very complex patterns of ripples within this pond that we are).

There wouldn't be any subject/ego, memory, introspection, emotion, pain, joy, imagination, etc.

However, this pond is filled with uber complex ripples such as ourself, and since we clearly are SIILs, and since we are subsystems within the pond, then yes, there is SIIL to be the pond."

So that means that subject/ego, memory, introspection, emotion, pain, joy, imagination, etc. emerge from the "pond" ...

 

[smcder]

Again ...

Idealism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

"At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, idealism, understood as a philosophical program, may be sharing the fate of many other projects in the history of modern philosophy. Originally conceived in the middle of the eighteenth century as a real alternative to materialistic and naturalistic perspectives, it may now become sublated and integrated into views about the nature of reality that ignore metaphysical oppositions or epistemological questions connected with the assumption of the priority of mind over matter or the other way round. Instead the focus may be shifting to establishing a “neutral” view according to which “anything goes” (Feyerabend) as long as it does not contradict or at least is not incompatible with our favored metaphysical, epistemological and scientific (both natural and social) methods and practices."

 

[Soupie]

@Soupie in italics

Yes, getting matter from consciousness-as-substrate is easier than getting consciousness (feeling) from matter.
Yes, getting consciousness(feeling) from matter is easier than getting matter from consciousness-as-substrate

How do you get matter from mind?
How do you get mind from matter?

The answer is that we already do. All 3rd person knowledge comes directly through 1st-person experience (and intersubjective experience).
The answer is that we already do. All 1st person experience comes from an objective, physical source - namely the brain.

Said differently: How the mind (consciousness) relates to the body (matter) is an open question, but it is a fact to say that matter is only ever known within (a) the mind.
Said differently: How the brain (consciousness) relates to the body(matter) is an open question, but it is a fact to say that the mind is only ever known within (a) brain.

In other words, we already know that consciousness can contain matter.
In other words, we already know that matter can contain consciousness.

Another response is that while consciousness-as-substrate just is feeling, that does not mean that consciousness-as-substrate doesn't have other properties or that other properties cannot or do not emerge from consciousness-as-substrate.

Another response is that while brains just are matter, that does not mean that matter doesn't have other properties or that other properties cannot or do not emerge from matter.

Again, the MBP is an open question. However, via introspection, we know that consciousness (aka the stream of consciousness) is diverse, dynamic, structured, patterned, and differentiated.

Again, the MBP is an open question. However, via observation, we know that the activity of the brain is diverse, dynamic, structured, patterned, and differentiated in direct correlation with the reported contents of consciousness.

So it is self-evident that consciousness (and therefore my theoretical consciousness-as-substrate) is not homogeneous.

So it is self-evident that the brain (and therefore my theoretical matter as substrate) is not homogenous.

Therefore, consciousness (no matter its relation to the body) must have properties which allow it to be heterogenous.

Therefore, the brain (no matter its relation to consciousness) must have properties which allow it to be heterogeneous.

There's several of these that I would quibble with, and will address at some point. So, I think this is a good thought experiment but would disagree that it works.

The difference between what I am saying and panpsychism, I think, is that I am not saying that consciousness (feeling) is a property that this substrate has along with mass, extension, spin, etc.

I am saying that this substrate just is consciousness (feeling).

But what I am really, really trying to say is, I think, what @Michael Allen has been trying to say. Consciousness (feeling) isn't anything special, or additional, it just is matter. When I think of this consciousness (feeling) substrate, I really just think of it as Being.

There is a difference between this substrate and the complex structures that arise within it. Structures that are minds or subjective experience or memory.

Consciousness (feeling) isn't something that emerges from some physical processes. It is the substrate of everything. Being is the substrate of everything.

Within this substrate arise organisms with minds and subjective experience.

The notion that there are two, ontologically distinct substances or substrates is due to perception and how perception works. Perceptuon is a process of simulation which leads to the illusion of dualisms.

Re arise versus emerge. I'm not suggesting that matter is something irreducible that emerges from mind or vice versa.

So when I use the word emerge I mean it in the sense of "form." I pattern forming within a substrate.

 

[smcder]

What are the top three challenges to your view and what's your response?

 

[smcder]

There's several of these that I would quibble with, and will address at some point. So, I think this is a good thought experiment but would disagree that it works.

The difference between what I am saying and panpsychism, I think, is that I am not saying that consciousness (feeling) is a property that this substrate has along with mass, extension, spin, etc.

I am saying that this substrate just is consciousness (feeling).

But what I am really, really trying to say is, I think, what @Michael Allen has been trying to say. Consciousness (feeling) isn't anything special, or additional, it just is matter. When I think of this consciousness (feeling) substrate, I really just think of it as Being.

There is a difference between this substrate and the complex structures that arise within it. Structures that are minds or subjective experience or memory.

Consciousness (feeling) isn't something that emerges from some physical processes. It is the substrate of everything. Being is the substrate of everything.

Within this substrate arise organisms with minds and subjective experience.

The notion that there are two, ontologically distinct substances or substrates is due to perception and how perception works. Perceptuon is a process of simulation which leads to the illusion of dualisms.

Re arise versus emerge. I'm not suggesting that matter is something irreducible that emerges from mind or vice versa.

So when I use the word emerge I mean it in the sense of "form." I pattern forming within a substrate.

"
I am saying that this substrate just is consciousness (feeling).

But what I am really, really trying to say is, I think, what @Michael Allen has been trying to say. Consciousness (feeling) isn't anything special, or additional, it just is matter. When I think of this consciousness (feeling) substrate, I really just think of it as Being."

1. I'm not sure your response is responsive to mine - my point is that it is just as difficult to get mind into purely material terms as it is to conceive of matter in purely psychical terms - to say that mind encompasses matter is as controversia-ble (having as much potential for controversy) as to say that matter encompasses mind ...

2. consciousness, feeling and (B)eing (why is Being capitalized?) unfortunately consciousness, feeling and Being all lack specific definition as you use them - and all three cover an enormous amount of connotative and denotative ground in their every day work in the English language. This needs to be made precise.

3. this is a biggie, because it's where you've stashed your dualism ...

There is a difference between this (substrate) and the complex (structures) that arise within it. Structures that are minds or subjective experience or memory.

The notion that there are two, ontologically distinct substances or substrates is due to perception and how perception works. Perceptuon is a process of simulation which leads to the illusion of dualisms.

Re arise versus emerge. I'm not suggesting that matter is something irreducible that emerges from mind or vice versa.

So when I use the word emerge I mean it in the sense of "form." I (pattern) forming within a (substrate).

What's dualistic is pattern and substrate - another miracle occurs when you go from pure, patternless, undifferentiated potential to structure/perception/form - and if consciousness/feeling/(B)eing as you have suspected might not be ever undifferentiated - then you can always back up to a more primal substrate. A substrate isn't a magic pool out of which you can take various things ex nihilo (yes, if you reach down far enough) and call them by various names, the very word has a duality.

 

[smcder]

Divine simplicity - Wikipedia

 

[smcder]

"The difference between what I am saying and panpsychism, I think, is that I am not saying that consciousness (feeling) is a property that this substrate has along with mass, extension, spin, etc.

I am saying that this substrate just is consciousness (feeling).

But what I am really, really trying to say is, I think, what @Michael Allen has been trying to say. Consciousness (feeling) isn't anything special, or additional, it just is matter. When I think of this consciousness (feeling) substrate, I really just think of it as Being."

It just sounds an awful lot like God:

In Western Christian Classical theism, God is simple, not composite, not made up of thing upon thing. Thomas Morris notes that divine simplicity can mean any or all of three different claims:

1. God has no spatial parts (spatial simplicity).
2. God has no temporal parts (temporal simplicity).
3. God is without the sort of metaphysical complexity where God would have different parts which are distinct from himself (property simplicity).

In other words, property simplicity (or metaphysical simplicity) states that the characteristics of God are not parts of God that together make up God. God is simple; God is those characteristics. For example, God does not have goodness but simply is goodness."

 

[Soupie]

What are the top three challenges to your view and what's your response?

(1) What I would call the boundary problem. Which may just be the combination problem. It feels like there is a boundary between my mind and not-my mind. But a la the framing problem, all boundaries are scale dependent. So is the boundary between my mind and not-my mind real? If so, how? If not, how?

Synchronous neural firing seems to play a role here and information processing, i.e. neural signaling.

(2) Related to the above: Why and how are some neurophysiological processes sometimes correlated to one, unified subjective experience and other times not?

It's one thing to say that all processes are constituted of consciousness (feeling) but that only some of them at any given time are involved in a unfied stream of subjective experience.

Although there are some models out there which I feel are making headway here.

(3) Just the general, mainstream notion that consciousness (feeling) itself is created in the brain and not just subjective experience. I don't see this view going away anytime soon.

As I said a few months ago, if the view I express is correct, then it doesn't matter if scientists believe it or not. They will be able to create thinking, feeling machines simply by mimicking the structure of organisms. They won't have to worry about creating consciousness (feeling) itself because they can't, it's the substrate they're already working with.

But due to their human perceptual systems, they just see physical matter. It is what it is.

 

[smcder]

@Soupie writes:

It could be, Constance, that you and I are so far apart on how we conceptualize the phenomenon of consciousness that you will never be able to understand the approach I am articulating. As I've always argued, please be clear about times when you don't understand what I'm saying and times when you simply disagree. Having said that, I know that difference isn't always clear.

In what way could we know if we understand your view, so that we can know if we disagree, misunderstand ... or slightly different, understand what you are saying but think it is incoherent or unlikely to be the case?