Philosophy, Science, & The Unexplained - Main Thread

[Randall]

Maybe I'm making an assumption here . . .

to make sure - are you wanting me to respond to this as an answer to the "hard problem" of consciousness as posed by Nagel and Chalmers? Because that is how I have been reading it. Specifically you offer this video in answer to:

Nagel:

"There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all."

Chalmers:

"It is undeniable that some organisms are subjects of experience. But the question of how it is that these systems are subjects of experience is perplexing. Why is it that when our cognitive systems engage in visual and auditory information-processing, we have visual or auditory experience: the quality of deep blue, the sensation of middle C? How can we explain why there is something it is like to entertain a mental image, or to experience an emotion? It is widely agreed that experience arises from a physical basis, but we have no good explanation of why and how it so arises. Why should physical processing give rise to a rich inner life at all? It seems objectively unreasonable that it should, and yet it does.

If any problem qualifies as the problem of consciousness, it is this one. In this central sense of "consciousness", an organism is conscious if there is something it is like to be that organism, and a mental state is conscious if there is something it is like to be in that state. Sometimes terms such as "phenomenal consciousness" and "qualia" are also used here, but I find it more natural to speak of "conscious experience" or simply "experience". Another useful way to avoid confusion (used by e.g. Newell 1990, Chalmers 1996) is to reserve the term "consciousness" for the phenomena of experience, using the less loaded term "awareness" for the more straightforward phenomena described earlier. If such a convention were widely adopted, communication would be much easier; as things stand, those who talk about "consciousness" are frequently talking past each other."

The short answer is, "Yes", but bearing in mind the specifics of what is actually being said here rather than what we may think we already know or don't know, or what somebody else says someplace else about it, and with some reflection on the WILTBAB paper, for example, is perceptual experience a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something ( e.g. a bat or other life form ), and what degree of importance are we assigning to the words "like" and "be" in relation to the problem. To answer these questions in a way I can get traction means I need an answer that goes something like:

Yes, perceptual experience is a substantial part of what it's like to be something ( a bat or whatever the case may be ), but we don't actually have to be the bat to know what this is "like" because the word "like" implies "similar" and therefore a virtual representation would suffice. Or alternately one of the other combinations contained in the post and some rationale as to why that makes more sense than the others. Is that helpful?

 

[smcder]

The short answer is, "Yes", but bearing in mind the specifics of what is actually being said here rather than what we may think we already know or don't know, or what somebody else says someplace else about it, and with some reflection on the WILTBAB paper, for example, is perceptual experience a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something ( e.g. a bat or other life form ), and what degree of importance are we assigning to the words "like" and "be" in relation to the problem. To answer these questions in a way I can get traction means I need an answer that goes something like:

Yes, perceptual experience is a substantial part of what it's like to be something ( a bat or whatever the case may be ), but we don't actually have to be the bat to know what this is "like" because the word "like" implies "similar" and therefore a virtual representation would suffice. Or alternately one of the other combinations contained in the post and some rationale as to why that makes more sense than the others. Is that helpful?

I agree with:

Yes, perceptual experience is a substantial part of what it's like to be something ( a bat or whatever the case may be),

I have problems with:

but we don't actually have to be the bat to know what this is "like" because the word "like" implies "similar" and therefore a virtual representation would suffice.

At best, I would want to say that I now know a little bit about what it is "like" for me
to be a bat - or, maybe even better, what it would be like for me to have the perceptual systems of a bat - but my best guess is that none of that is anything like what it is actually like to be a bat. In an early post I talked about somehow being able to be hooked up to someone else telepathically and still not knowing what it is like to be that person . . .

but

I don't think the hard problem requires you to know what it's like to be a bat.

 

[Randall]

I agree with:

Yes, perceptual experience is a substantial part of what it's like to be something ( a bat or whatever the case may be),

I have problems with:
but we don't actually have to be the bat to know what this is "like" because the word "like" implies "similar" and therefore a virtual representation would suffice.

At best, I would want to say that I now know a little bit about what it is "like" for me
to be a bat - or, maybe even better, what it would be like for me to have the perceptual systems of a bat - but my best guess is that none of that is anything like what it is actually like to be a bat. In an early post I talked about somehow being able to be hooked up to someone else telepathically and still not knowing what it is like to be that person . . .

but

I don't think the hard problem requires you to know what it's like to be a bat.

OK, I think we take this in baby steps now. I swear back there someplace you were saying that the hard problem requires that we can demonstrate what it's like to be something, so maybe you were expressing what you believed the intent of the WILTBAB paper was rather than your own assessment, and I got the two confused. So let's get that cleared up first. If you don't think the hard problem requires you to know what it's like to be a bat, what exactly are you saying?

 

[smcder]

OK, I think we take this in baby steps now. I swear back there someplace you were saying that the hard problem requires that we can demonstrate what it's like to be something, so maybe you were expressing what you believed the intent of the WILTBAB paper was rather than your own assessment, and I got the two confused. So let's get that cleared up first. If you don't think the hard problem requires you to know what it's like to be a bat, what exactly are you saying?

It requires that, using a purely physical description, we can give an account of or that there is something that it is like to be a bat. That is awkward, awkward language and I suspected the problem might lie there and my loose usage of objective/subjective and physical . . . more and more I like this statement of the problem from Nagel:

"There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all."

 

[Constance]

It follows that if perceptual experience is a subjective experience ( which it is ), and it is a substantial part of "what it's like" to be something, then the issue of "objectively accounting for what it's like to be something" can be done by the objective analysis of perceptual mechanisms and properties, and the validity of that analysis is demonstrated by the ability to relay that experience back to us ( as in the video I posted ).

Try this:
Perceptual experience is a part of our conscious experience of ourselves in a physical world. It’s foundational in the sense that it brings consciousness into the vicinity of ‘things’ and enables the exploration of the relationship between consciousness (subjectivity) and things in their thingness (objectivity). That relationship is much more complicated than perception itself. It is what Husserl called ‘lived reality’. Lived reality is more than, and can’t be described in terms of, what we refer to as ‘objective reality’ or even in terms of what we can come increasingly to understand to be the nature of our relationship with physical being.

 

[smcder]

The evidence of millennia is not enough - backing into the barn with blinders on....

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

LINK: Listen to a choir of crickets slowed down to 'human' pace | Earth Touch Web TV

It's not about thinking. Using the lower mind will get one no where except in a circle. It's about experience.

That's a beautiful sound, Tyger! I live way out in the country and never get tired of the cricket sound at normal speed, but I have a new appreciation now.

 

[Constance]

Oh goody ... more poetry. it seems to me that the key line in this one is:

"So sense exceeds all metaphor"

It's true that in much poetry some lines are more significant than others, but especially with a poet such as WS one line, such as the one you chose to foreground, is often a stage in the sequence of his meditation on the problem he is concerned with. Even the last lines in his poems are not necessarily conclusions to the thread of his thought in that poem, which is why one needs to read all of Stevens (and many times) in order to 'get' him/what he is doing and saying. Also, of course, most poets can't sum up the idea/ideas expressed in a poem in a single line; otherwise they would give us that single line in place of the poem.

Poetry, like all artworks, requires interpretation based on the reader's, listener's, viewer's experience of the work [see phenomenological aesthetics], which requires openness to the work, engagement with it as a whole and in terms of its parts, sensitivity to its expressiveness as well as to that which it expresses, and more. The experience of an artwork is an encounter between the subjectivity of the artist and the subjectivity of the reader, listener, viewer, and in both cases is open-ended, like consciousness itself.

 

[Constance]

to clarify: the line you've chosen is indeed a key line in the poem but it's not the only line that presents a key to the poem's meaning, which can only be reached by reading the whole poem (again in the context of all of Stevens's poetry).

 

[smcder]

This is off-topic, but I'm curious if anyone on here reads the Arch-Druid report by John Michael Greer?

The Archdruid Report

and if so, what that person's thoughts on it are . . .

 

[Jeff Davis]

to clarify: the line you've chosen is indeed a key line in the poem but it's not the only line that presents a key to the poem's meaning, which can only be reached by reading the whole poem (again in the context of all of Stevens's poetry).

I am more grateful than you know for this today. Truly. I had no idea this man was this heavy. To me, and...I Skip that, lets go straight to the meat of the matter beiggin' my pardon vegetarians.

These verses spoke deeply to me. This is how I understood these words today.

The value you place on perspective is soon found to be transient, and yet, the most value of status is contained in the background that serves to illuminate the objects of our desire initially. No amount of incidentally imagined, subsequently described tactility, can adequately sum the equation of being. Being (which is synonymous with experience) is the absolute apex of comprehensible valuation, and yet, it represents the blankest of slates. And what is this slate? I don't know exactly either, but do know that it's synonymous with consciousness and the cleaner it is, the more so those initial informational intakes stand out and surface accurately and efficiently. Getting caught up in trivial details is an exact opposite here. I think they call that allegory or something like that.

The harder we try, the lesser we get.

The more we practice purity of mind (meditation/zen) the greater our valuation is as everything attains acute accuracy within our perspective. We are the very essence of the slate. We are the background on which EVERYTHING is superimposed. The quietest mind is the most powerful of all as everything that demonstrates within it is free of the polluting toxins of prejudice.

Being is the country side that the lush valley of knowing resides within. Where would such an attribute be apart from it's whole?

The more beauty you assume, the more beauty you become.

I closed my eyes after reading this several times and went to that blank space in me where trainedobserver has assured me all my BS comes from. I typed this out and I mean I was moved.

This is what the poem initially said to me: "Yes, that in and of the magic that we are, according to the simplest and most innocently agile imaginings, towering above all is the experience of being. Simply being, as every beauty we first behold."

It took me 10 seconds, if that, to write that down after going blank for a very short while. Maybe 40 seconds. It states exactly, from a much deeper place within me, precisely what all the words above that I put together state, and it was spontaneous.

This is what I have come to call this "intuitive thinking". It's weird, but it's honestly not bullshit in the least.

I believe, that after many years now as a primarily improvisational musician, the habit of shutting down the left brain's cognitive features, and then encouraging that blank slate state (say that 10 times real fast) to take over more or less on autopilot feeling mode as I tune in to the other musicians, has really exercised this blank facility to the point where it's become apart of expressing myself in other ways such as writing.

This poem provided this thread with a serious dimensional aptitude it positively did not possess prior. Einstein, or Planck, would be pleased. They NEVER wanted us leaving out the most critically important aspects of science that there are. Namely, imagination and heart.

 

[Randall]

to clarify: the line you've chosen is indeed a key line in the poem but it's not the only line that presents a key to the poem's meaning, which can only be reached by reading the whole poem (again in the context of all of Stevens's poetry).

And fortunately it doesn't take long to read that particular poem. Let's have a closer look at how, contrary to the claims in Steve's poem, metaphor can and does exceed sense ( perception ), and how the "rhetorician" can and does reach farther than what mere sensory perception alone can convey. For example, let's take the first 3 lines and translate them into the metaphor represented by the colors of the flowers according to the standard symbolism for floral colors. First we have Steve's lines, then those same lines again, but expressed in metaphor:

Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight

Say that it is a crude effect, black reds,
Pink yellows, orange whites, too much as they are
To be anything else in the sunlight of the room,

-------- The same lines above in metaphor --------

Say that it is a raw, bewitching passionate desire,
Feminine compassion, joyful innocence, too much as they are
To be anything else in the divine light of the room

-------------------------------------------------------

So what's the point? No matter how pure Steve's perceptual experience is compared to inferior rhetorical descriptions, the symbolic aspect of flowers cannot be detected by perceptual experience alone, and therefore metaphor can and actually does "exceed sense". The work below makes ample use of metaphor in a way that makes Steve's poem pale in comparison.

Beauty by Tri N Tran

I am the resplendent shine of a flower,
Fiery in crimson joy upon the soil,
Scintillating, an ember in cyan,
I, never, fade in your world.

I am the tiny wings of a rose,
Luminous at dusk and blazing at dawn,
Gleaming in happiness like a polar star,
Illuminate your galaxy all the time.

I am the comely face of divine creation, gazing at yours.

The Rose Above The Sky - Bruce Cockburn

​

 

[Randall]

It requires that, using a purely physical description, we can give an account of or that there is something that it is like to be a bat. That is awkward, awkward language and I suspected the problem might lie there and my loose usage of objective/subjective and physical . . . more and more I like this statement of the problem from Nagel:

"There can be a purely physical description of the neurophysiological processes that give rise to an experience, and also of the physical behavior that is typically associated with it, but such a description, however complete, will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all."

The quote above is describing the WILTBAB paper's basic premise, which you had just stated you don't think is necessary. So have you changed your mind, or am I interpreting what you mean by "like" in a way that doesn't mean "agree". Please clarify.

 

[Tyger]

I'm not really in this conversation - just on the sidelines - with an occasionally totally off-the-wall comment to make. Kinda like stream-of-consciousness.

In another place there was a discussion going forward and I mentioned astrological influences which got this query: "People don't really believe all this - do they?"



To which I replied - which I know will endear me here amongst the literati -

For myself - yes and no. I do - but not in a superstitious way.

I'm with Shakespeare's Cassius, in Julius Caesar:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."


However, this as well from Hamlet:
"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."



Even as we note with our modern discursive minds - through pure observation - that certain times of the year produce people inclined in certain observable ways - so one never knows from whence the influences flow. 'Tis a mighty mystery - yet.......

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

Listen to a choir of crickets slowed down to 'human' pace
LINK: Listen to a choir of crickets slowed down to 'human' pace | Earth Touch Web TV

The bottom line is that some people have heard the crickets' choir singing - but some 'heard' far more all along because they possessed keener organs of perception. Perception - and what one perceives in realms finer than the physical is inevitably conveyed in the language of metaphor.

 

[Randall]

I'm not really in this conversation - just on the sidelines - with an occasionally totally off-the-wall comment to make. Kinda like stream-of-consciousness.

In another place there was a discussion going forward and I mentioned astrological influences which got this query: "People don't really believe all this - do they?"



To which I replied - which I know will endear me here amongst the literati -

For myself - yes and no. I do - but not in a superstitious way.

I'm with Shakespeare's Cassius, in Julius Caesar:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."


However, this as well from Hamlet:
"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."



Even as we note with our modern discursive minds - through pure observation - that certain times of the year produce people inclined in certain observable ways - so one never knows from whence the influences flow. 'Tis a mighty mystery - yet.......

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

Listen to a choir of crickets slowed down to 'human' pace
LINK: Listen to a choir of crickets slowed down to 'human' pace | Earth Touch Web TV

The bottom line is that some people have heard the crickets' choir singing - but some 'heard' far more all along because they possessed keener organs of perception. Perception - and what one perceives in realms finer than the physical is inevitably conveyed in the language of metaphor.

That link to the crickets is actually pretty cool, and I think that astrology might fit in with the general topic of the unexplained, so your post isn't necessarily off topic. Astrology goes back to the origins or astronomy when it was used to make predictions about life, like when to plant and when to reap, when migrations of game would happen, when high water would happen. These are very general things to predict based on natural cycles that take place over time, so it has it's basis in real life events. The magical part kicks in when predictions get into details that aren't statistically supported by natural cyclical changes, and yet there are times when it seems more than sheer coincidence. We ( my other half and I ) always read our daily horoscope just for the fun of it because the messages are generally OK and serve more as a "thought for the day" than a hard and fast "take it literal" thing. Thanks for your comment .

 

[smcder]

The quote above is describing the WILTBAB paper's basic premise, which you had just stated you don't think is necessary. So have you changed your mind, or am I interpreting what you mean by "like" in a way that doesn't mean "agree". Please clarify.

It requires that, using a purely physical description, we can give an account of or that there is something that it is like to be a bat.

or if you prefer:

or how there is something that it is like to be a bat - an accounting of subjective experience, not an experiencing of it . . .

( - back to the computer analogy, or - you can give an account of a chemical reaction without being able to "experience" it - that doesn't even mean anything, right? That's what I take they are pointing out as "the hard problem" - why explaining subjective experience is different than explaining some other physical process)

. . . .to my mind is different from requiring an individual to know what it is like to be a bat. It may be that solving the hard problem would result in one person knowing what it is like to be another person or even a bat - though I am doubtful of the latter, but I don't take the phrase:

"will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all."

to imply that solving the hard problem would necessarily result in a person knowing what it is like to be something else . . . in Nagel's new book Mind and Cosmos and in Chalmers' panpsychism (as far as I understand it) - consciousness being fundamental is a piece of solving the hard problem, but I don't take it that they expect anyone to know what it's like to be something else . . .

Why do you think that it requires knowing what it is like to be a bat?

 

[smcder]

The quote above is describing the WILTBAB paper's basic premise, which you had just stated you don't think is necessary. So have you changed your mind, or am I interpreting what you mean by "like" in a way that doesn't mean "agree". Please clarify.

Nagel is questioning physicalism - he's saying if it is true, then a purely physical accounting of the neurophysiology of a bat will tell you what it is like to be a bat:

This bears directly on the mind-body problem. For if the facts of
experience—facts about what it is like for the experiencing organism—are
accessible only from one point of view, then it is a mystery how the true
character of experiences could be revealed in the physical operation of
that organism. The latter is a domain of objective facts par excellence—
the kind that can be observed and understood from many points of view
and by individuals with differing perceptual systems. There are no
comparable imaginative obstacles to the acquisition of knowledge about
bat neurophysiology by human scientists, and intelligent bats or Martians
might learn more about the human brain than we ever will.

He doesn't (at this point) think physicalism is necessarily false:

What moral should be drawn from these reflections, and what should be
done next? It would be a mistake to conclude that physicalism must be
false. Nothing is proved by the inadequacy of physicalist hypotheses that
assume a faulty objective analysis of mind. It would be truer to say that
physicalism is a position we cannot understand because we do not at
present have any conception of how it might be true. Perhaps it will be
thought unreasonable to require such a conception as a condition of
understanding. After all, it might be said, the meaning of physicalism is
clear enough: mental states are states of the body; mental events are
physical events. We do not know which physical states and events they
are, but that should not prevent us from understanding the hypothesis.
What could be clearer than the words 'is' and 'are'?

but it isn't complete . . . in his latest book (out this year or last) Mind and Cosmos he has moved to a position that "the mental is an irreducible aspect of reality":

Mind, I suspect, is not an inexplicable accident or a divine and anomalous gift but a basic aspect of nature that we will not understand until we transcend the built-in limits of contemporary scientific orthodoxy.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/the-core-of-mind-and-cosmos/?_r=0

Which sounds to me a bit like Chalmers' panpychism . . .

 

[Tyger]

Marcel Proust once wrote, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

 

[Randall]

It requires that, using a purely physical description, we can give an account of or that there is something that it is like to be a bat.

or if you prefer:
or how there is something that it is like to be a bat - an accounting of subjective experience, not an experiencing of it . . .

( - back to the computer analogy, or - you can give an account of a chemical reaction without being able to "experience" it - that doesn't even mean anything, right? That's what I take they are pointing out as "the hard problem" - why explaining subjective experience is different than explaining some other physical process)

. . . .to my mind is different from requiring an individual to know what it is like to be a bat. It may be that solving the hard problem would result in one person knowing what it is like to be another person or even a bat - though I am doubtful of the latter, but I don't take the phrase:

"will leave out the subjective essence of the experience – how it is from the point of view of its subject — without which it would not be a conscious experience at all."

to imply that solving the hard problem would necessarily result in a person knowing what it is like to be something else . . . in Nagel's new book Mind and Cosmos and in Chalmers' panpsychism (as far as I understand it) - consciousness being fundamental is a piece of solving the hard problem, but I don't take it that they expect anyone to know what it's like to be something else . . .

Why do you think that it requires knowing what it is like to be a bat?

I'm getting the feeling that the Trickster is messing with us from the sidelines, casting spells of confusion and conjuring up a metaphorical house of mirrors. So I'm not sure how to proceed. My initial reaction was to respond to your question: "Why do you think that it requires knowing what it is like to be a bat?", with, "I don't think that." I thought that's something you were claiming because you posted the paper and made some comment along those lines someplace that I took to mean that.

What I think is still the same as what I posted here: https://www.theparacast.com/forum/threads/philosophy-science-and-the-unexplained.14196/page-8#post-174078 | In other words, I don't think the hard problem is a valid problem in the first place, though I do think it's an interesting exercise coming to that conclusion. Perhaps at some future point it will be reformulated in such as way that it is more coherent, and when that happens, perhaps I'll change my view. I'm not entirely sure where that leaves us. It looks like you still think there's some merit in the hard problem. In contrast I would submit that we exit the house of mirrors and continue the quest in another direction.

The idea of consciousness existing in the form of a field is about as close as I think we've gotten to a real explanation so far. But I don't know where to take it from there. The thread has many other possibilities besides the topic of consciousness, so maybe by going to one of those, we'll run across something that is applicable and we can revisit the issue later. For example a lot of people use the word "dimensions" to describe alternate realities or planes of consciousness, and I have a problem with that because it seems to me the word is used too casually in a folk philosophy manner. Or maybe you have a suggestion? I'm listening.

 

[smcder]

The quote above is describing the WILTBAB paper's basic premise, which you had just stated you don't think is necessary. So have you changed your mind, or am I interpreting what you mean by "like" in a way that doesn't mean "agree". Please clarify.

so when you put forward your video as an answer to the hard problem, I say 1) its not a purely physical description (in the sense Nagel means it - which is a strictly physical description of the underlying structure of consciousness - for physicalism that would be the neurophysiology of the animal) and 2) in any event it doesn't show me what it is like to be a dog or cat or bat (which is what is necessary to solve the "hard problem") -

but

the hard problem is a challenge to physicalism in the first place (as Nagel presents it) so, saying the hard problem can't be solved by a physical explanation or doesn't make sense from a physicalist perspective, isn't the same as saying the hard problem is nonsense or meaningless - now, if you're not trying to solve it with physicalism (perhaps your field theory is not physicalist?) then it may not be relevant to that explanation . . . and that may be where all the confusion comes in . . . ?

 

[smcder]

I'm getting the feeling that the Trickster is messing with us from the sidelines, casting spells of confusion and conjuring up a metaphorical house of mirrors. So I'm not sure how to proceed. My initial reaction was to respond to your question: "Why do you think that it requires knowing what it is like to be a bat?", with, "I don't think that." I thought that's something you were claiming because you posted the paper and made some comment along those lines someplace that I took to mean that.

What I think is still the same as what I posted here: https://www.theparacast.com/forum/threads/philosophy-science-and-the-unexplained.14196/page-8#post-174078 | In other words, I don't think the hard problem is a valid problem in the first place, though I do think it's an interesting exercise coming to that conclusion. Perhaps at some future point it will be reformulated in such as way that it is more coherent, and when that happens, perhaps I'll change my view.
I'm not entirely sure where that leaves us. It looks like you still think there's some merit in the hard problem. In contrast I would submit that we exit the house of mirrors and continue the quest in another direction.

The idea of consciousness existing in the form of a field is about as close as I think we've gotten to a real explanation so far. But I don't know where to take it from there. The thread has many other possibilities besides the topic of consciousness, so maybe by going to one of those, we'll run across something that is applicable and we can revisit the issue later. For example a lot of people use the word "dimensions" to describe alternate realities or planes of consciousness, and I have a problem with that because it seems to me the word is used too casually in a folk philosophy manner. Or maybe you have a suggestion? I'm listening.

have a look at my last post - . . . ;-)

Trickster, indeed . . . but also remember, I did go to law school . . . :-(