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Consciousness and the Paranormal

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Apoplectic About Outsourcing Apps | The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast | A Philosophy Podcast and Blog

“I bought an iPhone. The iPhone has already taken over some of the central functions of my brain . . . The iPhone is part of my mind already . . . [Clark’s] marvellous book . . . defends the thesis that, in at least some of these cases the world is not serving as a mere instrument for the mind. Rather, the relevant parts of the world have become parts of my mind. My iPhone is not my tool, or at least it is not wholly my tool. Parts of it have become parts of me . . . When parts of the environment are coupled to the brain in the right way, they become parts of the mind.”

...

" In fact, subjective experience, generally speaking, is what we seem to be increasingly tempted to outsource."
 
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@smcder It is sometimes objected that distinct physical and mental states could not interact, since there is no causal nexus between them. But one lesson from Hume and from modern science is that the same goes for any fundamental causal interactions, including those found in physics. Newtonian science reveals no causal nexus by which gravitation works, for example; rather, the relevant laws are simply fundamental. The same goes for basic laws in other physical theories. And the same, presumably, applies to fundamental psychophysical laws: there is no need for a causal nexus distinct from the physical and mental properties themselves.

By far the most influential objection to interactionism is that it is incompatible with physics. ...

Where did you get this text from? Is there a link to the full article/book? Re: the bolded line: I would add the phrase "our current understanding of" physics.

@smcder I think the experiments I referred to are covered here: Neuroscience of free will - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll check them out. The experiment I linked to was from 12/13, so it's very recent. The jury is obviously still out on this, but I think the tide is shifting. Research into the Executive Functions has shed incredible light on the function of self-awareness:

Amazon.com: Executive Functions: What They Are, How They Work, and Why They Evolved (9781462505357): Russell A. Barkley PhD ABPP ABCN: Books

This groundbreaking book offers a comprehensive theory of executive functioning (EF) with important clinical implications. Synthesizing cutting-edge neuropsychological and evolutionary research, Russell A. Barkley presents a model of EF that is rooted in meaningful activities of daily life. He describes how abilities such as emotion regulation, self-motivation, planning, and working memory enable people to pursue both personal and collective goals that are critical to survival. Key stages of EF development are identified and the far-reaching individual and social costs of EF deficits detailed.
My own intuitive belief is along these lines as well: It has been suggested that consciousness mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious.

While cancelling actions (what I would call impulse control or inhibiting) is one important (social) function of self-awareness, there are several others. The executive functions have been called the "I." The "I" is whatever we are self-aware of at any given moment. Recall that until Helen Keller attained self-awareness, she had no sense of "I" and she was wild and out-of-control. She was guided only by the unconscious; she was essentially operating via stimulus (experience) and unconscious (non-self-aware) response.

From the evolutionary perspective, I believe the unconscious (non-self-aware) mind developed first and effectively guided (and guides) organisms through life. I believe all organisms that process information (and according to ITT create integrated information) have minds.

The unconscious is vast and deep. Organisms - especially complex ones - are receiving, processing, and storing staggering amounts of information. Staggering. The processing power of organisms and the efficiency (size and power consumption) with which they do it is without precedent.

I believe the conscious (self-aware) mind developed second. I don't believe all organisms are self-aware. I believe the self-aware "layer" of mind serves the functions outlined by Barkley: emotion regulation, self-motivation, planning, and working memory enable people to pursue both personal and collective goals that are critical to survival.

I believe this extra, self-aware layer of mind does have causal influence over the organism. I'm not sure what the mechanism is. This may not jive with deterministic physics, as it is currently understood, but science currently only looks at the objective level of reality, but mind is something ontologically distinct - the subjective; and self-aware mind is something perhaps ontologically distinct from that. "The paradox to be explained is not that body and mind communicate but that cognition and consciousness communicate." Chalmers

The above is all incredibly naive and simplistic, I know. (That's because, as you know, it's my self-aware mind trying to make sense of reality.) Another approach to the unconscious/conscious layers/aspects of minds is perhaps the two hemispheres of the brain. @smcder linked to this book some time ago: The Master and His Emissary.

I'm not sure that the two hemispheres are analogous with the conscious and unconscious aspects of mind, but they play a role.

Again, the PEL episode about Jung really touches on the unconscious/conscious aspects of mind.

Another way of thinking about the unconscious and conscious - by way of EF - is to think of it like a large corporation, like a construction company. The unconscious mind would be all the workers, equipment, and the knowledge and data they gather. The conscious mind would be the foreman "in charge" of steering the operation in a certain direction.

While the foreman does have "control" over the company, it is extremely limited, and he is only aware - at any given moment - of a small fraction of the huge amount of data being processed and exchanged, not to mention the thousands of decisions his employees are making beneath him.
 
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@smcder It is sometimes objected that distinct physical and mental states could not interact, since there is no causal nexus between them. But one lesson from Hume and from modern science is that the same goes for any fundamental causal interactions, including those found in physics. Newtonian science reveals no causal nexus by which gravitation works, for example; rather, the relevant laws are simply fundamental. The same goes for basic laws in other physical theories. And the same, presumably, applies to fundamental psychophysical laws: there is no need for a causal nexus distinct from the physical and mental properties themselves.

By far the most influential objection to interactionism is that it is incompatible with physics. ...

Where did you get this text from? Is there a link to the full article/book? Re: the bolded line: I would add the phrase "our current understanding of" physics.

@smcder I think the experiments I referred to are covered here: Neuroscience of free will - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll check them out. The experiment I linked to was from 12/13, so it's very recent. The jury is obviously still out on this, but I think the tide is shifting. Research into the Executive Functions has shed incredible light on the function of self-awareness:

My own intuitive belief is along these lines as well: It has been suggested that consciousness mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious.

While cancelling actions (what I would call impulse control or inhibiting) is one important (social) function of self-awareness, there are several others. The executive functions have been called the "I." The "I" is whatever we are self-aware of at any given moment. Recall that until Helen Keller attained self-awareness, she had no sense of "I" and she was wild and out-of-control. She was guided only by the unconscious; she was essentially operating via stimulus (experience) and unconscious (non-self-aware) response.

From the evolutionary perspective, I believe the unconscious (non-self-aware) mind developed first and effectively guided (and guides) organisms through life. I believe all organisms that process information (and according to ITT create integrated information) have minds.

The unconscious is vast and deep. Organisms - especially complex ones - are receiving, processing, and storing staggering amounts of information. Staggering. The processing power of organisms and the efficiency (size and power consumption) with which they do it is without precedent.

I believe the conscious (self-aware) mind developed second. I don't believe all organisms are self-aware. I believe the self-aware "layer" of mind serves the functions outlined by Barkley: emotion regulation, self-motivation, planning, and working memory enable people to pursue both personal and collective goals that are critical to survival.

I believe this extra, self-aware layer of mind does have causal influence over the organism. I'm not sure what the mechanism is. This may not jive with deterministic physics, as it is currently understood, but science currently only looks at the objective level of reality, but mind is something ontologically distinct, the subjective, and self-aware mind is something perhaps ontologically distinct from that. "The paradox to be explained is not that body and mind communicate but that cognition and consciousness communicate." Chalmers

The above is all incredibly naive and simplistic, I know. (That's because, as you know, it's my self-aware mind trying to make sense of reality.) Another approach to the unconscious/conscious layers/aspects of minds is perhaps the two hemispheres of the brain. @smcder linked to this book some time ago: The Master and His Emissary.

I'm not sure that the two hemispheres are analogous with the conscious and unconscious aspects of mind, but they play a role.

Again, the PEL episode about Jung really touches on the unconscious/conscious aspects of mind.

Another way of thinking about the unconscious and conscious - by way of EF - is to think of it like a large corporations, like a construction company. The unconscious mind would be all the workers, equipment, and the knowledge and data they gather. The conscious mind would be the foreman "in charge" of steering the operation in a certain direction.

While the foreman does have "control" over the company, it is extremely limited, and he is only aware - at any given moment - of a small fraction of the huge amount of data being processed and exchanged, not to mention the thousands of decisions his employees are making beneath him.

For hemisphers see Ian machilchrist . Com master and his emissary




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Will read in detail I see now u have mcgilchrist reference


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Some participating in this thread might find Logotherapy interesting:

Logotherapy was developed by neurologist and psychiatristViktor Frankl. It is considered the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy"[1][2] after Freud'spsychoanalysis and Adler'sindividual psychology. Logotherapy is based on an existential analysis[3] focusing on Kierkegaard's will to meaning as opposed to Adler's Nietzschean doctrine of will to power or Freud's will to pleasure. Rather than power or pleasure, logotherapy is founded upon the belief that it is the striving to find a meaning in one's life that is the primary, most powerful motivating and driving force in humans.[4] A short introduction to this system is given in Frankl's most famous book, Man's Search for Meaning, in which he outlines how his theories helped him to survive his Holocaust experience and how that experience further developed and reinforced his theories.
 
  1. I'll be away until tonight but I want to insert a thought before I lose it. It seems to me that bringing the subconscious and unconscious into Tonini's IIT theory forces us to entertain the phenomenological insights into consciousness, including that of Kierkegaard above. Human consciousness does integrate information and feeling from those sub-liminal levels or layers of consciousness, but I think it is/will be a problem of much deeper complexity for Tononi to represent that information in his system.
 
Working with a smart phone for the first time really - I realize there's plenty of AI out there - but it ain't working for us , it is working for The Man.


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@smcder It is sometimes objected that distinct physical and mental states could not interact, since there is no causal nexus between them. But one lesson from Hume and from modern science is that the same goes for any fundamental causal interactions, including those found in physics. Newtonian science reveals no causal nexus by which gravitation works, for example; rather, the relevant laws are simply fundamental. The same goes for basic laws in other physical theories. And the same, presumably, applies to fundamental psychophysical laws: there is no need for a causal nexus distinct from the physical and mental properties themselves.

By far the most influential objection to interactionism is that it is incompatible with physics. ...

Where did you get this text from? Is there a link to the full article/book? Re: the bolded line: I would add the phrase "our current understanding of" physics.

@smcder I think the experiments I referred to are covered here: Neuroscience of free will - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll check them out. The experiment I linked to was from 12/13, so it's very recent. The jury is obviously still out on this, but I think the tide is shifting. Research into the Executive Functions has shed incredible light on the function of self-awareness:

My own intuitive belief is along these lines as well: It has been suggested that consciousness mostly serves to cancel certain actions initiated by the unconscious.

While cancelling actions (what I would call impulse control or inhibiting) is one important (social) function of self-awareness, there are several others. The executive functions have been called the "I." The "I" is whatever we are self-aware of at any given moment. Recall that until Helen Keller attained self-awareness, she had no sense of "I" and she was wild and out-of-control. She was guided only by the unconscious; she was essentially operating via stimulus (experience) and unconscious (non-self-aware) response.

From the evolutionary perspective, I believe the unconscious (non-self-aware) mind developed first and effectively guided (and guides) organisms through life. I believe all organisms that process information (and according to ITT create integrated information) have minds.

The unconscious is vast and deep. Organisms - especially complex ones - are receiving, processing, and storing staggering amounts of information. Staggering. The processing power of organisms and the efficiency (size and power consumption) with which they do it is without precedent.

I believe the conscious (self-aware) mind developed second. I don't believe all organisms are self-aware. I believe the self-aware "layer" of mind serves the functions outlined by Barkley: emotion regulation, self-motivation, planning, and working memory enable people to pursue both personal and collective goals that are critical to survival.

I believe this extra, self-aware layer of mind does have causal influence over the organism. I'm not sure what the mechanism is. This may not jive with deterministic physics, as it is currently understood, but science currently only looks at the objective level of reality, but mind is something ontologically distinct, the subjective, and self-aware mind is something perhaps ontologically distinct from that. "The paradox to be explained is not that body and mind communicate but that cognition and consciousness communicate." Chalmers

The above is all incredibly naive and simplistic, I know. (That's because, as you know, it's my self-aware mind trying to make sense of reality.) Another approach to the unconscious/conscious layers/aspects of minds is perhaps the two hemispheres of the brain. @smcder linked to this book some time ago: The Master and His Emissary.

I'm not sure that the two hemispheres are analogous with the conscious and unconscious aspects of mind, but they play a role.

Again, the PEL episode about Jung really touches on the unconscious/conscious aspects of mind.

Another way of thinking about the unconscious and conscious - by way of EF - is to think of it like a large corporations, like a construction company. The unconscious mind would be all the workers, equipment, and the knowledge and data they gather. The conscious mind would be the foreman "in charge" of steering the operation in a certain direction.

While the foreman does have "control" over the company, it is extremely limited, and he is only aware - at any given moment - of a small fraction of the huge amount of data being processed and exchanged, not to mention the thousands of decisions his employees are making beneath him.

You should find the quote here:

Consciousness and its Place in Nature

Under type d dualism




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Hearing lips and seeing voices - audio illusion.


Is this an example of how the brain integrates information to create qualia? Note that the information being integrated trumps "reality."

For @smcder:

In the first clip, a person's lips are seen pronouncing the sound "bah." We also simultaneously hear the sound "bah."

In the second clip, a person's lips are seen pronouncing the sound "fah." We also simultaneously hear the sound "fah."

In reality, the sound we were hearing was "fah" both times, but because visual information takes precedence in the human brain, the visual information of the lips pronouncing "bah" produced the subjective qualia of the sound "bah" even though the sound was objectively "fah."
 
good talk on Jung and many other relevant things -

@Soupie right at 40:00 directly relevant to conscious agency - need to hear what comes before though



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Hearing lips and seeing voices - audio illusion.


Is this an example of how the brain integrates information to create qualia? Note that the information being integrated trumps "reality."

For @smcder:

In the first clip, a person's lips are seen pronouncing the sound "bah." We also simultaneously hear the sound "bah."

In the second clip, a person's lips are seen pronouncing the sound "fah." We also simultaneously hear the sound "fah."

In reality, the sound we were hearing was "fah" both times, but because visual information takes precedence in the human brain, the visual information of the lips pronouncing "bah" produced the subjective qualia of the sound "bah" even though the sound was objectively "fah."

i have no doubt the brain can be fooled ...?

it would probably even work on me if i could watch video ...



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