Consciousness and the Paranormal

[smcder]

No, I absolutely agree. While I think all organisms - on account of being made of the same stuff and being a result of the same processes - have the same potential to evolve (and thus experience) consciousness, I also think some degrees of self-awareness are tantamount to qualitative differences. (Haha, is that cheating?)

Think of the development of a baby and the gradual emergence of self-awareness (I probably have the progression way out of order):

No self-awareness <----> Self-awareness

I'm separate from mum; I'm separate from Dad and sister/brother; I'm a person too; I'm a person that is uncomfortable right now; I'm a girl; I'm a girl person that is hungry; I'm a girl person that is fast; I'm a girl person that is mad; I'm a girl person that is making mum angry; I'm a girl person who's a daughter that will some day die, etc.

Crude, I know. But that might be one way to "quantify" just how self-aware a person is, and likewise a non-human. They may be aware they are a unique self distinct from everything else (reality) but their awareness may end there (or not).

Yes, semantics. A better word might be "distinct."

It's the beginning of reductionism. It's a powerful tool that was externalized via language. Yes, Eden is def a metpahor; what did Adam and Eve do in the Garden? They named the animals. They peeled them from the rest of reality, just as man was beginning to peel himself from reality. Again, the example of Hellen Keller illustrates this well: language allows us to pull things from the oneness. When HK grokked language, she began to peel herself and everything else out of the oneness of being. What a profound moment that must have been.

How about the first human to do so... Wow.

Did "teenagers" exist before someone coined the term? Of course. But now that we've named them, they exist in a way they didn't before... There is a self-awareness (albeit cultural) now of this made up thing, teenagers.
It all depends on what perspective you're viewing it from. What metric is one using? Survival in the wilderness? Or simply being a kind neighbor?

I like it. I think of Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Ben Franklin, and Herman Hesse. Tesla should prob be in there too.

No, I absolutely agree. While I think all organisms - on account of being made of the same stuff and being a result of the same processes - have the same potential to evolve (and thus experience) consciousness, I also think some degrees of self-awareness are tantamount to qualitative differences. (Haha, is that cheating?)

YES

;-) No, I think we've got it now - what you mean by not being qualitatively different is:

While I think all organisms - on account of being made of the same stuff and being a result of the same processes - have the same potential to evolve (and thus experience) consciousness

now . . . why didn't you just say that in the first place! ;-) Seriously, that clears it up - hooray for Socrates!

Yes, semantics. A better word might be "distinct."

It's the beginning of reductionism.

So that's where it started!

How about the first human to do so... Wow.

Lonely! I wonder if someone out there has made a "next step" taken consciousness to a new level or has some kind of level or quality of intelligence that is unique and is therefore commensurately as lonely as that first moment of human self-awareness?

smcder: Maybe there is something "noble" about it, or superior? Why not. Judged by the fruits, etc. We treat these words as somehow wrong or something, our egalitarian culture maybe.

soupie: It all depends on what perspective you're viewing it from. What metric is one using? Survival in the wilderness? Or simply being a kind neighbor?

Well, I was using "The Tao" - like CS Lewis does in The Abolition of Man - meaning natural law I think . . . because you can't make an absolute value judgement without an absolute place to stand. If we surrender that, then we have to go looking for metrics or create them. Some say that is what is wrong today . . . others call those people . . . well, religious, I guess - though I've never run into any one with any authority who hasn't established a pretty firm place to stand on . . . or many other people for that matter.

And here I'm thinking recently and often of scientism. I looked in the library today under keyword and subject both and didn't find any books on scientism. Nasr says it's hidden and therefore more dangerous (think about a hidden religion, one whose adherents don't even know they are religious much less members in good standing of a well-defined and very powerful religion) and he says that tremendous resistance is raised at the mention of it (. . . let's see what happens . . . )

I was trying to make a list of beliefs associated with scientism:

1. linear or continuous progress - that the future, in the long run, things will be better and directly because of science and technology
2. we will eventually solve any problem or find any answer with science - the mention of New Mysterianism always gets a response here on this thread and good ones too, I'm not an adherent, there are real problems - but part of the response might come because it represents a limit on human ambition in terms of knowledge - by making arguments that show we can't know everything . .. I find that idea is in me, I'm struggling to become aware of to what extent. Particularly as I get older and realize I will never achieve or know everything I want to.
3. knowledge is always good, more knowledge is always better and we have unlimited capacity for knowledge
4. science can tell us what to do

I don't know if that's right and if it is - it's sure not complete . . . number 4 I am trying to get my head around right now.

Science can't tell us anything in the same way a watch can't tell time. We have to ask it questions.

It can't tell us the best way to raise our kids. We can say "how can I, as a parent, maximize my kids height or athletic ability?" and then we have to make ethical choices around the answers returned.

Or let's say we are presented with technology for interstellar travel but it will cost us the Earth (but we'll, or some of us, will be away to the stars) science can't tell us what to do there - so what does tell us? If Nasr is right, what informs those decisions is mostly unconscious.

 

[Constance]

I think the following exchange between Soupie and Steve {smcder} could be used to focus discussion on the key unanswered questions a) of the relationship between consciousness (including the subconscious and collective unconsciousness) and the world in which consciousness finds itself, and b) of what we can justifiably refer to as 'reality'.

Soupie's remarks appear below in italics and Steve's in roman type:


Being self-aware - having an ego - isolates us from the rest of reality.

(maybe this is just semantic, how can anything be isolated from reality? yet I know what you mean)

When the ego melts aways, we merge back into reality. We experience a “oneness” with reality. Such an experience is profound and, I imagine, perceived as mystical/magical by the experiencer.

Actually it sounds like a good working definition of mystical to me, which means the experiencer's perceptions are accurate?

This oneness with reality is what I imagine non-self-conscious others experience. There is nothing “noble” or superior about it per se, it’s just another way of being.

Maybe there is something "noble" about it, or superior? Why not. Judged by the fruits, etc. We treat these words as somehow wrong or something, our egalitarian culture maybe. That's different from saying one human is worth more than another . . . but of course we make that judgement every day.


Soupie also wrote:

. . . the example of Hellen Keller illustrates this well: language allows us to pull things from the oneness. When HK grokked language, she began to peel herself and everything else out of the oneness of being. What a profound moment that must have been.

''From this the poem springs: that we live in a place
That is not our own and, much more, not ourselves
And hard it is in spite of blazoned days.''

Wallace Stevens,"Notes toward a Supreme Fiction."

 

[Soupie]

Re: Helen Keller's experience:

The most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan,
came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrast between the two lives which it
connects. ...

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the
great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited
with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without
compass or sounding-line and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was. ...

It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old. The morning after my teacher came she gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman had dressed it; but I did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word "d-o-l-l." I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it.

Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letter for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. One day [a month later],while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled "d-o-l-l" and tried to make me understand that "d-o-l-l" applied to both. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed it upon the floor.

She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly.

I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow."

According to the same source, later in her first book, Helen wrote:

When I learned the meaning of 'I' and 'me' and found that I was something, I began to think. Then consciousness first existed for me.

I find it interesting that she had the capacity for consciousness before she experienced consciousness. It was language (reductionism) that allowed her to experience consciousness. In her case, the "oneness" was experienced as a tangible, white darkness, and language (and consciousness) allowed everything to emerge from the darkness, including her self.

Sources:

http://www.usi.edu/libarts/english/EnglishUCC/eng100/Helen Keller The Day Language.pdf

HELEN KELLER LANGUAGE ANDCONSCIOUSNESS

 

[smcder]

I think the following exchange between Soupie and Steve {smcder} could be used to focus discussion on the key unanswered questions a) of the relationship between consciousness (including the subconscious and collective unconsciousness) and the world in which consciousness finds itself, and b) of what we can justifiably refer to as 'reality'.

Soupie's remarks appear below in italics and Steve's in roman type:


Being self-aware - having an ego - isolates us from the rest of reality.

(maybe this is just semantic, how can anything be isolated from reality? yet I know what you mean)

When the ego melts aways, we merge back into reality. We experience a “oneness” with reality. Such an experience is profound and, I imagine, perceived as mystical/magical by the experiencer.

Actually it sounds like a good working definition of mystical to me, which means the experiencer's perceptions are accurate?

This oneness with reality is what I imagine non-self-conscious others experience. There is nothing “noble” or superior about it per se, it’s just another way of being.

Maybe there is something "noble" about it, or superior? Why not. Judged by the fruits, etc. We treat these words as somehow wrong or something, our egalitarian culture maybe. That's different from saying one human is worth more than another . . . but of course we make that judgement every day.


Soupie also wrote:

''From this the poem springs: that we live in a place
That is not our own and, much more, not ourselves
And hard it is in spite of blazoned days.''

Wallace Stevens,"Notes toward a Supreme Fiction."

I think the following exchange between Soupie and Steve {smcder} could be used to focus discussion on the key unanswered questions a) of the relationship between consciousness (including the subconscious and collective unconsciousness) and the world in which consciousness finds itself, and b) of what we can justifiably refer to as 'reality'.

Ok, let's focus! Where do we start? Is the Wallace Stevens poem your signature or part of the post?

 

[Tyger]

Not entirely sure I subscribe to the whole of this but some of it definitely resonates for me -

LINK: Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World: Here's Why - disinformation

Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World: Here’s Why

TEXT: "Anthropologist Joe Henrich and colleagues have studied the American mind, and comparing it to the rest of the world, their findings suggest that the nation’s citizens are the “weirdest” in the world. Must explain why journalists like Louis Theroux and Jon Ronson spend so much of their time here.

"I had to wonder whether describing the Western mind, and the American mind in particular, as weird suggested that our cognition is not just different but somehow malformed or twisted. In their paper the trio pointed out cross-cultural studies that suggest that the “weird” Western mind is the most self-aggrandizing and egotistical on the planet: we are more likely to promote ourselves as individuals versus advancing as a group. WEIRD minds are also more analytic, possessing the tendency to telescope in on an object of interest rather than understanding that object in the context of what is around it.

"The WEIRD mind also appears to be unique in terms of how it comes to understand and interact with the natural world. Studies show that Western urban children grow up so closed off in man-made environments that their brains never form a deep or complex connection to the natural world. While studying children from the U.S., researchers have suggested a developmental timeline for what is called “folkbiological reasoning.” These studies posit that it is not until children are around 7 years old that they stop projecting human qualities onto animals and begin to understand that humans are one animal among many. Compared to Yucatec Maya communities in Mexico, however, Western urban children appear to be developmentally delayed in this regard. Children who grow up constantly interacting with the natural world are much less likely to anthropomorphize other living things into late childhood."

From the blog -

"IN THE SUMMER of 1995, a young graduate student in anthropology at UCLA named Joe Henrich traveled to Peru to carry out some fieldwork among the Machiguenga, an indigenous people who live north of Machu Picchu in the Amazon basin. The Machiguenga had traditionally been horticulturalists who lived in single-family, thatch-roofed houses in small hamlets composed of clusters of extended families. For sustenance, they relied on local game and produce from small-scale farming. They shared with their kin but rarely traded with outside groups.

"While the setting was fairly typical for an anthropologist, Henrich’s research was not. Rather than practice traditional ethnography, he decided to run a behavioral experiment that had been developed by economists. Henrich used a “game”—along the lines of the famous prisoner’s dilemma—to see whether isolated cultures shared with the West the same basic instinct for fairness. In doing so, Henrich expected to confirm one of the foundational assumptions underlying such experiments, and indeed underpinning the entire fields of economics and psychology: that humans all share the same cognitive machinery—the same evolved rational and psychological hardwiring.

"The test that Henrich introduced to the Machiguenga was called the ultimatum game. The rules are simple: in each game there are two players who remain anonymous to each other. The first player is given an amount of money, say $100, and told that he has to offer some of the cash, in an amount of his choosing, to the other subject. The second player can accept or refuse the split. But there’s a hitch: players know that if the recipient refuses the offer, both leave empty-handed. North Americans, who are the most common subjects for such experiments, usually offer a 50-50 split when on the giving end. When on the receiving end, they show an eagerness to punish the other player for uneven splits at their own expense. In short, Americans show the tendency to be equitable with strangers—and to punish those who are not.

"Among the Machiguenga, word quickly spread of the young, square-jawed visitor from America giving away money. The stakes Henrich used in the game with the Machiguenga were not insubstantial—roughly equivalent to the few days’ wages they sometimes earned from episodic work with logging or oil companies. So Henrich had no problem finding volunteers. What he had great difficulty with, however, was explaining the rules, as the game struck the Machiguenga as deeply odd.

"When he began to run the game it became immediately clear that Machiguengan behavior was dramatically different from that of the average North American. To begin with, the offers from the first player were much lower. In addition, when on the receiving end of the game, the Machiguenga rarely refused even the lowest possible amount. “It just seemed ridiculous to the Machiguenga that you would reject an offer of free money,” says Henrich. “They just didn’t understand why anyone would sacrifice money to punish someone who had the good luck of getting to play the other role in the game.”

"The potential implications of the unexpected results were quickly apparent to Henrich. He knew that a vast amount of scholarly literature in the social sciences—particularly in economics and psychology—relied on the ultimatum game and similar experiments. At the heart of most of that research was the implicit assumption that the results revealed evolved psychological traits common to all humans, never mind that the test subjects were nearly always from the industrialized West. Henrich realized that if the Machiguenga results stood up, and if similar differences could be measured across other populations, this assumption of universality would have to be challenged.

"Henrich had thought he would be adding a small branch to an established tree of knowledge. It turned out he was sawing at the very trunk. He began to wonder: What other certainties about “human nature” in social science research would need to be reconsidered when tested across diverse populations?

"Henrich soon landed a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to take his fairness games on the road. With the help of a dozen other colleagues he led a study of 14 other small-scale societies, in locales from Tanzania to Indonesia. Differences abounded in the behavior of both players in the ultimatum game. In no society did he find people who were purely selfish (that is, who always offered the lowest amount, and never refused a split), but average offers from place to place varied widely and, in some societies—ones where gift-giving is heavily used to curry favor or gain allegiance—the first player would often make overly generous offers in excess of 60 percent, and the second player would often reject them, behaviors almost never observed among Americans.

"The research established Henrich as an up-and-coming scholar. In 2004, he was given the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for young scientists at the White House. But his work also made him a controversial figure. When he presented his research to the anthropology department at the University of British Columbia during a job interview a year later, he recalls a hostile reception. Anthropology is the social science most interested in cultural differences, but the young scholar’s methods of using games and statistics to test and compare cultures with the West seemed heavy-handed and invasive to some. “Professors from the anthropology department suggested it was a bad thing that I was doing,” Henrich remembers. “The word ‘unethical’ came up.”

"So instead of toeing the line, he switched teams. A few well-placed people at the University of British Columbia saw great promise in Henrich’s work and created a position for him, split between the economics department and the psychology department. It was in the psychology department that he found two kindred spirits in Steven Heine and Ara Norenzayan. Together the three set about writing a paper that they hoped would fundamentally challenge the way social scientists thought about human behavior, cognition, and culture."

The rest of the article - really interesting - is at this link: Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society

 

[Soupie]

Anthropologist Joe Henrich and colleagues have studied the American mind, and comparing it to the rest of the world, their findings suggest that the nation’s citizens are the “weirdest” in the world...

Regarding the idea that the psychology - on the average - of Americans is unique from the rest of the world is not too surprising.

America is a nation of immigrants, including the “native” American Indians that arrived there from Asia and/or Europe.

While it’s true that this could be said about all continents/nations outside of Africa (according to CS), America is the most recent continent to be settled in this way.

So essentially America is composed of immigrants. What do we know about immigrants? In most cases, they are people who choose to leave their native culture, family, and geography for something new and alien. They are progressives, pioneers, risk-takers, explorers, entrepreneurs, outsiders, people on the fringe, and individualists.

Furthermore, America itself is a microcosm of this global phenomenon; if America is a nation of immigrants, then California is a state of immigrants from the other United States. It could be argued that California is to the USA, as the USA is to the world.

So of course, for better or worse, the psychology of Americans is unique compared to the rest of the world.

 

[smcder]

Regarding the idea that the psychology - on the average - of Americans is unique from the rest of the world is not too surprising.

America is a nation of immigrants, including the “native” American Indians that arrived there from Asia and/or Europe.

While it’s true that this could be said about all continents/nations outside of Africa (according to CS), America is the most recent continent to be settled in this way.

So essentially America is composed of immigrants. What do we know about immigrants? In most cases, they are people who choose to leave their native culture, family, and geography for something new and alien. They are progressives, pioneers, risk-takers, explorers, entrepreneurs, outsiders, people on the fringe, and individualists.

Furthermore, America itself is a microcosm of this global phenomenon; if America is a nation of immigrants, then California is a state of immigrants from the other United States. It could be argued that California is to the USA, as the USA is to the world.

So of course, for better or worse, the psychology of Americans is unique compared to the rest of the world.

WEIRD minds are also more analytic, possessing the tendency to telescope in on an object of interest rather than understanding that object in the context of what is around it.

 

[smcder]

""

 

[smcder]

Not entirely sure I subscribe to the whole of this but some of it definitely resonates for me -

LINK: Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World: Here's Why - disinformation

Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World: Here’s Why

TEXT: "Anthropologist Joe Henrich and colleagues have studied the American mind, and comparing it to the rest of the world, their findings suggest that the nation’s citizens are the “weirdest” in the world. Must explain why journalists like Louis Theroux and Jon Ronson spend so much of their time here.

"I had to wonder whether describing the Western mind, and the American mind in particular, as weird suggested that our cognition is not just different but somehow malformed or twisted. In their paper the trio pointed out cross-cultural studies that suggest that the “weird” Western mind is the most self-aggrandizing and egotistical on the planet: we are more likely to promote ourselves as individuals versus advancing as a group. WEIRD minds are also more analytic, possessing the tendency to telescope in on an object of interest rather than understanding that object in the context of what is around it.

"The WEIRD mind also appears to be unique in terms of how it comes to understand and interact with the natural world. Studies show that Western urban children grow up so closed off in man-made environments that their brains never form a deep or complex connection to the natural world. While studying children from the U.S., researchers have suggested a developmental timeline for what is called “folkbiological reasoning.” These studies posit that it is not until children are around 7 years old that they stop projecting human qualities onto animals and begin to understand that humans are one animal among many. Compared to Yucatec Maya communities in Mexico, however, Western urban children appear to be developmentally delayed in this regard. Children who grow up constantly interacting with the natural world are much less likely to anthropomorphize other living things into late childhood."

From the blog -

"IN THE SUMMER of 1995, a young graduate student in anthropology at UCLA named Joe Henrich traveled to Peru to carry out some fieldwork among the Machiguenga, an indigenous people who live north of Machu Picchu in the Amazon basin. The Machiguenga had traditionally been horticulturalists who lived in single-family, thatch-roofed houses in small hamlets composed of clusters of extended families. For sustenance, they relied on local game and produce from small-scale farming. They shared with their kin but rarely traded with outside groups.

"While the setting was fairly typical for an anthropologist, Henrich’s research was not. Rather than practice traditional ethnography, he decided to run a behavioral experiment that had been developed by economists. Henrich used a “game”—along the lines of the famous prisoner’s dilemma—to see whether isolated cultures shared with the West the same basic instinct for fairness. In doing so, Henrich expected to confirm one of the foundational assumptions underlying such experiments, and indeed underpinning the entire fields of economics and psychology: that humans all share the same cognitive machinery—the same evolved rational and psychological hardwiring.

"The test that Henrich introduced to the Machiguenga was called the ultimatum game. The rules are simple: in each game there are two players who remain anonymous to each other. The first player is given an amount of money, say $100, and told that he has to offer some of the cash, in an amount of his choosing, to the other subject. The second player can accept or refuse the split. But there’s a hitch: players know that if the recipient refuses the offer, both leave empty-handed. North Americans, who are the most common subjects for such experiments, usually offer a 50-50 split when on the giving end. When on the receiving end, they show an eagerness to punish the other player for uneven splits at their own expense. In short, Americans show the tendency to be equitable with strangers—and to punish those who are not.

"Among the Machiguenga, word quickly spread of the young, square-jawed visitor from America giving away money. The stakes Henrich used in the game with the Machiguenga were not insubstantial—roughly equivalent to the few days’ wages they sometimes earned from episodic work with logging or oil companies. So Henrich had no problem finding volunteers. What he had great difficulty with, however, was explaining the rules, as the game struck the Machiguenga as deeply odd.

"When he began to run the game it became immediately clear that Machiguengan behavior was dramatically different from that of the average North American. To begin with, the offers from the first player were much lower. In addition, when on the receiving end of the game, the Machiguenga rarely refused even the lowest possible amount. “It just seemed ridiculous to the Machiguenga that you would reject an offer of free money,” says Henrich. “They just didn’t understand why anyone would sacrifice money to punish someone who had the good luck of getting to play the other role in the game.”

"The potential implications of the unexpected results were quickly apparent to Henrich. He knew that a vast amount of scholarly literature in the social sciences—particularly in economics and psychology—relied on the ultimatum game and similar experiments. At the heart of most of that research was the implicit assumption that the results revealed evolved psychological traits common to all humans, never mind that the test subjects were nearly always from the industrialized West. Henrich realized that if the Machiguenga results stood up, and if similar differences could be measured across other populations, this assumption of universality would have to be challenged.

"Henrich had thought he would be adding a small branch to an established tree of knowledge. It turned out he was sawing at the very trunk. He began to wonder: What other certainties about “human nature” in social science research would need to be reconsidered when tested across diverse populations?

"Henrich soon landed a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to take his fairness games on the road. With the help of a dozen other colleagues he led a study of 14 other small-scale societies, in locales from Tanzania to Indonesia. Differences abounded in the behavior of both players in the ultimatum game. In no society did he find people who were purely selfish (that is, who always offered the lowest amount, and never refused a split), but average offers from place to place varied widely and, in some societies—ones where gift-giving is heavily used to curry favor or gain allegiance—the first player would often make overly generous offers in excess of 60 percent, and the second player would often reject them, behaviors almost never observed among Americans.

"The research established Henrich as an up-and-coming scholar. In 2004, he was given the U.S. Presidential Early Career Award for young scientists at the White House. But his work also made him a controversial figure. When he presented his research to the anthropology department at the University of British Columbia during a job interview a year later, he recalls a hostile reception. Anthropology is the social science most interested in cultural differences, but the young scholar’s methods of using games and statistics to test and compare cultures with the West seemed heavy-handed and invasive to some. “Professors from the anthropology department suggested it was a bad thing that I was doing,” Henrich remembers. “The word ‘unethical’ came up.”

"So instead of toeing the line, he switched teams. A few well-placed people at the University of British Columbia saw great promise in Henrich’s work and created a position for him, split between the economics department and the psychology department. It was in the psychology department that he found two kindred spirits in Steven Heine and Ara Norenzayan. Together the three set about writing a paper that they hoped would fundamentally challenge the way social scientists thought about human behavior, cognition, and culture."

The rest of the article - really interesting - is at this link: Why Americans Are the Weirdest People in the World - Pacific Standard: The Science of Society

Just finished it . . . what do you make of it Tyger?

 

[smcder]

Re: Helen Keller's experience:

According to the same source, later in her first book, Helen wrote:

I find it interesting that she had the capacity for consciousness before she experienced consciousness.

I find it interesting that she had the capacity for consciousness before she experienced consciousness. It was language (reductionism) that allowed her to experience consciousness. In her case, the "oneness" was experienced as a tangible, white darkness, and language (and consciousness) allowed everything to emerge from the darkness, including her self.


When I learned the meaning of 'I' and 'me' and found that I was something, I began to think. Then consciousness first existed for me.
In her case, the "oneness" was experienced as a tangible, white darkness, and language (and consciousness) allowed everything to emerge from the darkness, including her self.

Sources:

http://www.usi.edu/libarts/english/EnglishUCC/eng100/Helen Keller The Day Language.pdf

HELEN KELLER LANGUAGE ANDCONSCIOUSNESS

I don't follow this:

It was language (reductionism) that allowed her to experience consciousness.

"When I learned the meaning of 'I' and 'me' and found that I was something, I began to think. Then consciousness first existed for me."

It is fascinating to think about being able to remember the first time self-consciousness emerged for you as an individual. Ray Bradbury claims to remember the day he was born and his story The Small Assassin comes from that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/books/chapters/0724-1st-weller.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I'm not even sure what my earliest memory is . . .

 

[Constance]

I don't follow this:

It was language (reductionism) that allowed her to experience consciousness.

"When I learned the meaning of 'I' and 'me' and found that I was something, I began to think. Then consciousness first existed for me."

I think that what Helen Keller was getting at was that the natural semiotic relationship Anne Sullivan brilliantly demonstrated for her that day located Helen's sense of herself for the first time in a world that was meaningful and could be comprehended {a world she could 'make sense of'}. Prior to what Sullivan showed her about the nature of reality, Helen's lack of primary sensory contact with the world in which she and others existed had limited her ability to 'see' or even sense her relationship to, with, and in this world and with the others she lived with. She lacked the plenum of contextual information that normally 'sensed' individuals receive and integrate every minute of every day in childhood through the integrated sensorium with which nature provides most of us. She "began to think" on the basis of realizing that she "was something" -- i.e., a being situated in a world of things and other beings that could be comprehended by the nature of their relationship to and with one another. Sullivan gave this radically isolated and confused child a revelation that she was part of an integrated and meaningful reality that she could come to understand through the medium of signs and symbols traced on the palm of her hand. Equally important, I think, was that Sullivan opened up for Helen at the same moment the sense of human caring and solidarity, of the human desire to help and guide others in and through a world that had seemed opaque for her. That seems obvious in what Helen herself later wrote in the text Soupie quoted about what happened next, after she returned to the house:

"On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow."

She had, of course, thrown and broken the doll that Anne Sullivan had given her out of her own continuing frustration at her inability to understand what the gift meant and what Anne meant by inscribing the word 'doll' on her palm {something that Helen's family members had done in the past without Helen being able to understand the connection being attempted}. Now, understanding all these attempts to break through the silence and darkness in which she had lived alone for nearly seven years, Helen felt "repentance and sorrow" for not understanding those gestures, but of course she shouldn't have blamed herself. Anne Sullivan did work a miracle in opening the world up for Helen but there was nothing 'reductive' in the experience itself, though it involved the use of language understood by many in our culture as 'reductive' of the world. The tools of communication represented in language can't not be reductive of the plenitude of experience in and of the world, but we are still on the way to understanding the nature of language as a contingent existential expression of ourselves as individual conscious beings needing, attempting, together to make sense of what-is and of what we should do in and with this local world, this planet, this existence we have with one another.

 

[Constance]

I want to add to this sentence from my post

"Equally important, I think, was that Sullivan opened up for Helen at the same moment the sense of human caring and solidarity, of the human desire to help and guide others in and through a world that had seemed opaque for her."

that Helen Keller dedicated her life to guiding anyone who read her subsequent works in making sense of the world in socially progressive terms. Her remarkable life's work is summarized at this wikipedia entry:

Helen Keller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[smcder]

I don't follow this:

It was language (reductionism) that allowed her to experience consciousness.

"When I learned the meaning of 'I' and 'me' and found that I was something, I began to think. Then consciousness first existed for me."

It is fascinating to think about being able to remember the first time self-consciousness emerged for you as an individual. Ray Bradbury claims to remember the day he was born and his story The Small Assassin comes from that.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/books/chapters/0724-1st-weller.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

I'm not even sure what my earliest memory is . . .

I think it's the use of "reductionism" above that confuses me ... That's the philosophical position that the whole = sum of the parts (is that correct? If so how does that fit with "emergence"? Consciousness or even water ... Hydrogen and oxygen don't seem to carry wetness in some proportion such that we expect it when we put them together - water has all new properties that can't be predicted from two Hs and an O ... ) don't want to get bogged down ...

But surely she was conscious before? She was able to go back into her experiences immediately and structure them, give them meaning - so it wasn't a blank slate, a formless void and then she spoke and there was the light of understanding ... It's very hard to imagine and maybe NOT the same as every child experiences in normal development ... The closest might be a feral child ... If there are good histories available?

But that language reduces experience - I think so ... I can't put all my experiences into words and on the other hand - words in other languages seem to allow me new experiences somehow ...

 

[smcder]

"On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow."

If this happened immediately after getting language - then she surely had the concepts of repentance and sorrow "somewhere" ready to go, right? Or are we saying she developed that rapidly after acquiring some concept of language? But did she even have the words for repentance and sorrow then?

- this might be unlike a child learning his first words ... Or?

 

[smcder]

Regarding the idea that the psychology - on the average - of Americans is unique from the rest of the world is not too surprising.

America is a nation of immigrants, including the “native” American Indians that arrived there from Asia and/or Europe.

While it’s true that this could be said about all continents/nations outside of Africa (according to CS), America is the most recent continent to be settled in this way.

So essentially America is composed of immigrants. What do we know about immigrants? In most cases, they are people who choose to leave their native culture, family, and geography for something new and alien. They are progressives, pioneers, risk-takers, explorers, entrepreneurs, outsiders, people on the fringe, and individualists.

Furthermore, America itself is a microcosm of this global phenomenon; if America is a nation of immigrants, then California is a state of immigrants from the other United States. It could be argued that California is to the USA, as the USA is to the world.

So of course, for better or worse, the psychology of Americans is unique compared to the rest of the world.

Do we know that about immigrants? The head of the family may have chosen to leave etc but did the whole family in every case? And this choice I bet wasn't always made by sheer force of pioneer spirit. this study calls into question previous sociological studies ... So do we have good information on the psychology of immigrants?

The study indicates the impact of culture and environment over genetics. And Children would regress to the mean from any extreme characteristics of immigrants, right? Children of immigrants aren't immigrants and so on.

I also suspect many immigrants just don't fit the mold above and/or that it varies by time and place ... From every time and place surely Some were dragged kicking and screaming by sheer force of family or perhaps they had some essential survival skill the family needed. And some drag-ees surely stayed on to thrive even as some drag -ears went back home?

It's not exactly the same - but I grew up in a small but rapidly developed urban area and recently moved to a very rural area - there are differences in people to be sure ... Are they tougher than city people? Only in some ways. There are many survival skills - tough, hard bitten and well armed has real limitations compared to genial (but savvy) and possessing many useful skills... As John Michael Greer says - if Attilla the Hun comes to your door being able to brew good beer may be the most practical survival strategy.

There are as many stories of how and why people came here as there are people.

I could see my "average" neighbor varying in some ways now from my average city neighbor and those differences increasing the longer the persons been out here - both by something innate and the effect of living out here. But I think both groups would show a lot of variability as to any given personality trait.

 

[smcder]

No, I absolutely agree. While I think all organisms - on account of being made of the same stuff and being a result of the same processes - have the same potential to evolve (and thus experience) consciousness, I also think some degrees of self-awareness are tantamount to qualitative differences. (Haha, is that cheating?)

Think of the development of a baby and the gradual emergence of self-awareness (I probably have the progression way out of order):

No self-awareness <----> Self-awareness

I'm separate from mum; I'm separate from Dad and sister/brother; I'm a person too; I'm a person that is uncomfortable right now; I'm a girl; I'm a girl person that is hungry; I'm a girl person that is fast; I'm a girl person that is mad; I'm a girl person that is making mum angry; I'm a girl person who's a daughter that will some day die, etc.

Crude, I know. But that might be one way to "quantify" just how self-aware a person is, and likewise a non-human. They may be aware they are a unique self distinct from everything else (reality) but their awareness may end there (or not).

Yes, semantics. A better word might be "distinct."

It's the beginning of reductionism. It's a powerful tool that was externalized via language. Yes, Eden is def a metpahor; what did Adam and Eve do in the Garden? They named the animals. They peeled them from the rest of reality, just as man was beginning to peel himself from reality. Again, the example of Hellen Keller illustrates this well: language allows us to pull things from the oneness. When HK grokked language, she began to peel herself and everything else out of the oneness of being. What a profound moment that must have been.

How about the first human to do so... Wow.

Did "teenagers" exist before someone coined the term? Of course. But now that we've named them, they exist in a way they didn't before... There is a self-awareness (albeit cultural) now of this made up thing, teenagers.
It all depends on what perspective you're viewing it from. What metric is one using? Survival in the wilderness? Or simply being a kind neighbor?

I like it. I think of Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Ben Franklin, and Herman Hesse. Tesla should prob be in there too.

It's the beginning of reductionism. It's a powerful tool that was externalized via language.

There's that reductionism again! I think we're using it in different ways.

The "powerful tool" here is reductionism?

Yes, Eden is def a metpahor;

Psychologist Jordan Peterson ties it in with research that ties the development of human visual acuity (he says humans are second only to birds of prey) to the detection of large, predatory reptiles (he also ties it in with fruit and with women) . . . so it's a very deep metaphor . . . how would they have known that bit about the reptiles?

Herman Hessa - I had just picked up a book by Hesse, Fairy Tales right before I read your post above the first time - so it caught my eye. I'd only read Steppenwolf and Siddhartha.

In The Beautiful Dream, he writes:

". . . and as far as talent is concerned, there is such an excess that our artists will soon become their own audiences, and audiences made up of ordinary people will no longer exist."

 

[smcder]

I think that what Helen Keller was getting at was that the natural semiotic relationship Anne Sullivan brilliantly demonstrated for her that day located Helen's sense of herself for the first time in a world that was meaningful and could be comprehended {a world she could 'make sense of'}. Prior to what Sullivan showed her about the nature of reality, Helen's lack of primary sensory contact with the world in which she and others existed had limited her ability to 'see' or even sense her relationship to, with, and in this world and with the others she lived with. She lacked the plenum of contextual information that normally 'sensed' individuals receive and integrate every minute of every day in childhood through the integrated sensorium with which nature provides most of us. She "began to think" on the basis of realizing that she "was something" -- i.e., a being situated in a world of things and other beings that could be comprehended by the nature of their relationship to and with one another. Sullivan gave this radically isolated and confused child a revelation that she was part of an integrated and meaningful reality that she could come to understand through the medium of signs and symbols traced on the palm of her hand. Equally important, I think, was that Sullivan opened up for Helen at the same moment the sense of human caring and solidarity, of the human desire to help and guide others in and through a world that had seemed opaque for her. That seems obvious in what Helen herself later wrote in the text Soupie quoted about what happened next, after she returned to the house:

"On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow."

She had, of course, thrown and broken the doll that Anne Sullivan had given her out of her own continuing frustration at her inability to understand what the gift meant and what Anne meant by inscribing the word 'doll' on her palm {something that Helen's family members had done in the past without Helen being able to understand the connection being attempted}. Now, understanding all these attempts to break through the silence and darkness in which she had lived alone for nearly seven years, Helen felt "repentance and sorrow" for not understanding those gestures, but of course she shouldn't have blamed herself. Anne Sullivan did work a miracle in opening the world up for Helen but there was nothing 'reductive' in the experience itself, though it involved the use of language understood by many in our culture as 'reductive' of the world. The tools of communication represented in language can't not be reductive of the plenitude of experience in and of the world, but we are still on the way to understanding the nature of language as a contingent existential expression of ourselves as individual conscious beings needing, attempting, together to make sense of what-is and of what we should do in and with this local world, this planet, this existence we have with one another.

So it does seem like she had a lot of structure in place before she got this rush of awareness, because she was then able to immediately go back and make sense of previous experience and to feel complex feelings like repentance and sorrow - is that right?

I think about learning German - I lived in Germany as an exchange sudent and I remember that process of first picking up words that I heard every day, even if I didn't know what they meant, then phrases started "popping out" - in the meantime I was dreaming in German but had no idea what it meant, which is a very strange thing - then not too long after I was thinking in German. And at that point you realize that some words, some concepts come with a language - a simple example is "doch" which is like OK and sure but not used entirely in exactly the same way and a kind of sharp, inhaled "ja" which is done with a nod of the head to indicate you understand or for the speaker to keep going - the first time I heard it, I thought the person was choking but by the time I returned home I was doing it unconsciously .. . .

I also got the definite impression that hearing/understanding, speaking, reading and writing are not all in the same "place" within the mind.

 

[Soupie]

@scmder

As you've got a smattering replies, I'll try to touch on some of your questions and comments at once.

I don't have a formal education in philosophy, nor pretend to be even an amature philosopher. So typically when I use a term, I tend to mean its standard dictionary definition rather than in reference to a formal philosophy. I apologize if that's confusing or even upsetting to some.

Re: reductionism: I simply mean it in the sense that man uses language, art, symbols, etc. to "isolate" or "make distinct" things, objects, ideas, states of being/feeling, etc. from the oneness of reality.

What is the "oneness of reality?" To me, that is the sea of quantum particles that CS tells us reality is composed of. I believe that all matter/energy is connected via this sea of particles; moreover, this sea of particles is in constant flux.

Humans use symbols to label what they feel are distinct "pieces" of this sea of particles, this oneness.

However, these things that we identify aren't really distinct.

Consider the idea of a "species" in biology. Have you ever tried to determine the criteria for a species? All species are one; they are life.

Re: Helen Keller: I do think her experience is non-typical, of course. However, having a mind is different from having consciousness. One definition of consciousness is "being aware that one is aware."

Helen Keller had a mind: she was aware of her surroundings and she experienced emotions. She wrote this in an essay about the day at the well:

[Anne] brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the sunshine. This
thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.

She also says at one point that she did not "think" before she had language.

I believe that animals have minds and emotions, just as HK did before acquiring language; in other words, they are aware. However, like HK, they are not aware that they are aware.

Either an awareness of being aware allows one to use language, or language (symbolic thought) allows one to become aware that they are aware.

I tend to the think it's the latter: Once one has the capacity to represent in their mind (what are perceived as) distinct elements of reality via symbols, then they can formulate a symbol that represents their self: then they are aware that they are aware. Or, perhaps we can say: they are aware that they exist. Or that they are a something that exists and is distinct from other things that exist. (As stated previously, I do think some non-human animals are conscious; I think some non-human animals are aware that they are aware, though not to the same degree as humans.)

However, this does not mean that all our symbols which represent distinct elements of reality actually are distinct elements of reality. Categories help us make sense of reality but are not to be confused with reality.

 

[smcder]

@scmder

As you've got a smattering replies, I'll try to touch on some of your questions and comments at once.

I don't have a formal education in philosophy, nor pretend to be even an amature philosopher. So typically when I use a term, I tend to mean its standard dictionary definition rather than in reference to a formal philosophy. I apologize if that's confusing or even upsetting to some.

Re: reductionism: I simply mean it in the sense that man uses language, art, symbols, etc. to "isolate" or "make distinct" things, objects, ideas, states of being/feeling, etc. from the oneness of reality.

What is the "oneness of reality?" To me, that is the sea of quantum particles that CS tells us reality is composed of. I believe that all matter/energy is connected via this sea of particles; moreover, this sea of particles is in constant flux.

Humans use symbols to label what they feel are distinct "pieces" of this sea of particles, this oneness.

However, these things that we identify aren't really distinct.

Consider the idea of a "species" in biology. Have you ever tried to determine the criteria for a species? All species are one; they are life.

Re: Helen Keller: I do think her experience is non-typical, of course. However, having a mind is different from having consciousness. One definition of consciousness is "being aware that one is aware."

Helen Keller had a mind: she was aware of her surroundings and she experienced emotions. She wrote this in an essay about the day at the well:

She also says at one point that she did not "think" before she had language.

I believe that animals have minds and emotions, just as HK did before acquiring language; in other words, they are aware. However, like HK, they are not aware that they are aware.

Either an awareness of being aware allows one to use language, or language (symbolic thought) allows one to become aware that they are aware.

I tend to the think it's the latter: Once one has the capacity to represent in their mind (what are perceived as) distinct elements of reality via symbols, then they can formulate a symbol that represents their self: then they are aware that they are aware. (As stated previously, I do think some non-human animals are conscious; I think some non-human animals are aware that they are aware, though not to the same degree as humans.)

However, this does not mean that all our symbols which represent distinct elements of reality actually are distinct elements of reality. Categories help us make sense of reality but are not to be confused with reality.

I like this:

Re: reductionism: I simply mean it in the sense that man uses language, art, symbols, etc. to "isolate" or "make distinct" things, objects, ideas, states of being/feeling, etc. from the oneness of reality.

I use words in idiosyncratic ways and get a bit of a picture or sensation with some words which can be confusing and then some words I just don't like: "dongle" for example. I HATE that word.

But if I seem picky it is I who apologize. I also don't know much about philosophy formally but I do like to pretend so you have to watch me. (I also have some legal training - so consider yourself warned ;-) I'm not always driving at a specific point except to confirm my general thesis that "it's not that simple" - and/or to try and open up a discussion if I feel a particular comment has the effect of closing it down - otherwise I try to be hard to offend.

I like this question too:

Either an awareness of being aware allows one to use language, or language (symbolic thought) allows one to become aware that they are aware.

My dog Harley - we have five, six temporarily - when he gets jealous of the others crowding around me he runs to the window and barks then when the others go running to the window he happily trots over to get my full attention. Well, half the time - the other half he just looks around in confusion.

 

[Randall]

Regarding the idea that the psychology - on the average - of Americans is unique from the rest of the world is not too surprising ...

Not to mention that before moving to British Columbia Canada Joseph Henrich was a faculty member at Emory University, a private research university located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, USA ( part of metropolitan Atlanta ). The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory. There's not much weirder than Canadians and Methodists, so no wonder everyone else looks strange to him ( har har har ).