Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4

[Constance]

What is "Chappie"?

Never mind; I looked it up.

 

[smcder]

"Its one thing to say that red berries are "qualitatively relevant" to an organism, and quite another to say a physiological process is "qualitatively evocative." "
Yes. this is true... and is a point that I address in my latest submission to JCS.
I also address the epiphenomenal query too, which smcder originally questioned me about.

I think I will post the submission, with a password, on my website again. I don't want to make it publicly available because of the submission. Can't do it till tomorrow though.
Incidentally, on the possibility of an objective-subjective bridge Nagel says:
(p.51 The View from Nowhere) "What is needed is something we do not have: a theory of conscious organisms as physical systems composed of chemical elements and occupying space, which also have an individual perspective on the world.... An integrated theory of reality must account for this, and I believe that if and when it arrives, probably not for centuries, it will alter our conception of the universe as radically as anything has to date."

Howdy - did you post this submission per above? Enquiring minds want to know ...

 

[smcder]

Never mind; I looked it up.

It's not a great movie ... but it does touch on things we talk about here ... I haven't seen Her but I understand it deals with the idea that AI might have better things to do than mess with humans - one way or the other - like meet up with other AI in cyberspace.

I'm reading Ubik by PkD and it is about a kind of half life, after life - about storing consciousness and waking it from time to time ... it deals with the practicalities of this, of the kind I mentioned in a thread on Transhumanism, but as a matter of course because its a daily reality in the book, like insurance and burial preparations are for us ... there's a funny bit early on about the Bardol Thodol - one of the characters is reminded that the doctors asked her to read it before she died ... I can see the forms you'd be required to fill out now adays! and her husband, still living, reminds her that the smoky red light is a bad scene.

 

[Pharoah]

Howdy - did you post this submission per above? Enquiring minds want to know ...

No. I was concerned that if I published online it might jeopardise the submission (it's wot the rules says, see). I can email it to you if you want... let me know

 

[Constance]

from the press release @Soupie linked above:

"The Brain and Creativity Institute (BCI) based at USC Dornsife has received a $1.5 million grant from the Mathers Foundation to investigate the neurobiology of feelings at the cellular level.

One of the fundamental aspects of humanity includes the ability to feel — whether it’s feelings such as thirst or pain, or emotions like joy or sadness. While neuroscientists understand how large regions of the brain work to construct feelings, there is still much to learn about the mechanics of feelings at the level of cells. . . .

'Feelings are extremely important for human beings because they are a sentinel to what’s happening in our bodies and our minds,” said University Professor Antonio Damasio, David Dornsife Chair in Neuroscience and professor of psychology and neurology at USC Dornsife.

'Feelings give us a constant indication of what we ought to gravitate toward, when they’re positive, or an indication that something is wrong, for example, when we experience pain or malaise,' Damasio said. 'So it is extremely important to understand what goes on in the nervous system when we are having feelings.'

Damasio and his colleagues are investigating what is taking place in a particular kind of the brain’s axons, the fibers that connect nerve cells. In particular, the researchers will test the hypothesis that the axon insulator myelin alters the ability to process feelings. . . ."


I think this research project contributes to the contemporary effort to comprehend what MP, Varela, Thompson et al refer to as the 'embodied mind' -- the physically integrated and integral nature of consciousness originating in affectivity and seeking behavior as expressed in the visible behaviors of even primitive living organisms, initially based in responsiveness to tactile contact with that which exists beyond their physical boundaries, and eventually expanded through the evolution of sense organs to greater awareness of the structure of the ecological niche. This approach seems vitally important to me as a corrective to the notion that consciousness and mind are the products of 'computations' in the brain and that the brain can be understood to be a 'biological computer' that somehow produces lived experience.

I've highlighted in red two different terms, word choices, in the above extracts, both written by the publicist authoring this news release, which indicate different interpretations of how 'feelings' arise and are expressed in living organisms. These word choices are 'construct' and 'process'. The question to be answered is: does the brain construct feelings or does it enable the processing of feelings in animals that possess brains? It's obvious that in primordial organisms, even single cells, that demonstrate what Panksepp calls 'affectivity' and 'seeking behavior', there is as yet no 'brain' present to do the work implied by the term 'construct' in this quote from above:

"While neuroscientists understand how large regions of the brain work to construct feelings, there is still much to learn about the mechanics of feelings at the level of cells. . . ."

The contrasting word choice appears in this extract from above:

"the researchers will test the hypothesis that the axon insulator myelin alters the ability to process feelings. . . ."

In the evolution of species of life the development of "the axon insulator myelin" might indeed "alter" [enhance] "the ability to process feelings," and there are doubtless innumerable other developments of a physical nature in the bodies of organisms that also contribute to evolving organisms' increasing abilities to process feelings. But the ability to 'process feelings' evidently begins far back in evolution, in primitive cells and organisms, based on the insights of Varela, Maturana, Panksepp, Thompson, etc.

It appears that a 'life force' of some kind drives a concerted and interactive process of development of the physical and mental aspects of evolving organisms, grounding their increasing capabilities of coping with and exploring their environments, increasingly enabling the individual organism's sense of presence in a world, a mileau in which selfhood and otherness coexist.

I doubt the theory that the increasing coherence and aptitudes of awareness and consciousness can be accounted for in terms of a lengthy series of 'accidents' of 'natural selection'. The phrase 'natural selection' itself suggests the existence of a teleological drive toward the development of reflexivity, selfhood, reflection, and mind growing out of the interactive experiences of living in a 'world' that becomes increasingly knowable and known.

My sense of all this at bottom is that over the epochs of evolution, from the primordial beginnings of life, both cells and primitive organisms themselves have generated (and visibly, behaviorally, expressed) a felt need, and therefore in a sense a desire, for increasing awareness of their surroundings. I think these felt qualities within organisms, all the way up the 'ladder' of evolution, must have influenced the evolution and development of physical characteristics and processes that have increasingly enhanced awareness and promoted the development of consciousness on this planet.

Need and desire (aroused by affectivity and instantiated in seeking behavior) are felt qualities that constitute the original imprint of localized awareness and motivation (will) in the world. What has appeared to have been “done unto organisms” -- either by the theorized randomness of physical evolution or, more recently, by hypothesized self-evolving systems of 'information' interacting with animal 'brains' -- should be replaced with a concept that recognizes the roots of physical and mental evolution in what living organisms have experienced from the beginning.

 

[Constance]

After posting the above ramblings I went in search of online discussions of teleology in biology, naming some of the consciousness and neuroscientific theorists I hoped might have had such a discussion, but haven't found any yet. I did, however, come across this informative essay, which seems to support my thinking (and the author even uses the word 'desire' to refer to conatus/seeking behavior, which I'd hesitated to use but couldn't resist using).

SEEKING Mind and Biology by Stephen T. Asma

 

[Constance]

No. I was concerned that if I published online it might jeopardise the submission (it's wot the rules says, see). I can email it to you if you want... let me know

Hi Pharoah. I'd like to read it so please do email it to me. I think you have my email address. Good luck with the paper.

 

[Eric Wargo]

...I doubt the theory that the increasing coherence and aptitudes of awareness and consciousness can be accounted for in terms of a lengthy series of 'accidents' of 'natural selection'. The phrase 'natural selection' itself suggests the existence of a teleological drive toward the development of reflexivity, selfhood, reflection, and mind growing out of the interactive experiences of living in a 'world' that becomes increasingly knowable and known.

My sense of all this at bottom is that over the epochs of evolution, from the primordial beginnings of life, both cells and primitive organisms themselves have generated (and visibly, behaviorally, expressed) a felt need, and therefore in a sense a desire, for increasing awareness of their surroundings. I think these felt qualities within organisms, all the way up the 'ladder' of evolution, must have influenced the evolution and development of physical characteristics and processes that have increasingly enhanced awareness and promoted the development of consciousness on this planet.

Need and desire (aroused by affectivity and instantiated in seeking behavior) are felt qualities that constitute the original imprint of localized awareness and motivation (will) in the world. What has appeared to have been “done unto organisms” -- either by the theorized randomness of physical evolution or, more recently, by hypothesized self-evolving systems of 'information' interacting with animal 'brains' -- should be replaced with a concept that recognizes the roots of physical and mental evolution in what living organisms have experienced from the beginning.

Constance, you should check out a new book called Syntropy, by Ulisse Di Corpo and Antonella Vannini (and don't be put off by the cheesy-seeming cover). It's a small book but it brings together a lot of good stuff, including systems theory, research by the PEAR group, Radin, etc., and other ideas to theorize a complementary principle to entropy, which works toward complexity and consciousness via "attractors" from the future. The authors have written several books and articles, I believe, which can be found online, but this one seems like it addresses all your concerns in this post. One of the basic ideas is that feeling is complementary to thinking, and that it is future oriented (i.e. toward those attactors), whereas thought is past-oriented.

 

[Pharoah]

Hi Pharoah. I'd like to read it so please do email it to me. I think you have my email address. Good luck with the paper.

Have emailed it to an address I have for you... Let me know if you don't get it.

 

[Soupie]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/06/23/science/aphantasia-minds-eye-blind.html?_r=1&referrer=

"Certain people, researchers have discovered, can’t summon up mental images — it’s as if their mind’s eye is blind. This month in the journal Cortex, the condition received a name: aphantasia, based on the Greek word phantasia, which Aristotle used to describe the power that presents visual imagery to our minds. ...

In 2005, a 65-year-old retired building inspector paid a visit to the neurologist Adam Zeman at the University of Exeter Medical School. After a minor surgical procedure, the man — whom Dr. Zeman and his colleagues refer to as MX — suddenly realized he could no longer conjure images in his mind.

Dr. Zeman couldn’t find any description of such a condition in medical literature. But he found MX’s case intriguing. For decades, scientists had debated how the mind’s eye works, and how much we rely on it to store memories and to make plans for the future.

MX agreed to a series of examinations. He proved to have a good memory for a man of his age, and he performed well on problem-solving tests. His only unusual mental feature was an inability to see mental images. ...

Thomas Ebeyer, a 25-year-old Canadian student, discovered his condition four years ago while talking with a girlfriend. He was shocked that she could remember what a friend had been wearing a year before.

She replied that she could see a picture of it in her mind.

“I had no idea what she was talking about,” he said in an interview. Mr. Ebeyer was surprised to discover that everyone he knew could summon images to their minds. Last year, someone showed him my article about MX.

“I’d been searching forever on Google, but I didn’t know what to look for,” he said. “It was really empowering just to hear a story of someone else who had it.”

Mr. Ebeyer got in touch with Dr. Zeman, who sent him the questionnaire. Like many other subjects, he could count his windows without actually picturing his house.

“It’s weird and hard to explain,” he said. “I know the facts. I know where the windows are.”

The new study has brought Mr. Ebeyer some relief. “There’s something I can call this now,” he said.

Dr. Zeman now wonders just how common aphantasia is. “Moderately rare” is his guess, but to follow up, he has sent the questionnaire to thousands of people in Exeter."

-----

I believe that what is being referred to as the "minds eye" might be equivalent to visual working memory, one of the executive functions.

Interesting that these individuals seem to lack this capacity.

It's interesting that they can still access the information that might be obtained by visual working memory, such as how many windows their house has. Seems similar to blind sight: when people can't "consciously" see objects in front of them, but they can identify them (access the information).

So, if we can still "access" information from our senses without being consciously aware of the content of our senses, what "function" does consciousness awareness of our senses play?

Obviously, it's much more complex than that, but it's still a general question. And I don't mean that in the philosophical sense. I think it's purely a biological question at this point.

Why are some physiological states sometimes conscious and sometimes not? What function, if any, does consciousness serve?

And this potentially fits into what I have called awareness and meta-awareness. Thus, when asked to visualize their house and determine how many windows it has, they can't consciously visualize it (meta-awareness) but they can still determine how many windows there are (awareness).

Is this the difference between sentience and consciousness? A sentient being has feelings and perceptions, etc. but lacks conscious awareness of such; whereas a conscious being has feelings, perceptions, etc. and is aware of (some) of them at any given moment? (I'm probably using those terms unconventionally so if that totally confusing you, just ignore.)

Perhaps sentience (awareness) is a capacity that goes way down the evolutionary tree (I believe it does) but consciousness (meta-awareness) is something else. It's purpose is unclear. I tend to believe it has something to do with executive functioning, which aids us during social interaction and long term planning and other complex tasks.

It would be interesting to see whether the individuals with this deficit in visual working memory could identify any life tasks or situations that were particularly difficult or challenging for them.

 

[Eric Wargo]

...Perhaps sentience (awareness) is a capacity that goes way down the evolutionary tree (I believe it does) but consciousness (meta-awareness) is something else. It's purpose is unclear. I tend to believe it has something to do with executive functioning, which aids us during social interaction and long term planning and other complex tasks. ...

That consciousness serves a social function, as essentially a "battlefield map" of our own and other's attention, is Michael Graziano's argument in his book Consciousness and the Social Brain (which he also summarized in an Aeon article a couple years ago). He's firmly materialist in viewing consciousness as a brain product (and basically, an illusion), but his functional argument is very interesting, as is his discussion of how attention gets metaphorically substantivized as a kind of radiant energy flowing out the eyes. He's the most interesting materialist writer on consciousness that I've read.

 

[Constance]

Constance, you should check out a new book called Syntropy, by Ulisse Di Corpo and Antonella Vannini (and don't be put off by the cheesy-seeming cover). It's a small book but it brings together a lot of good stuff, including systems theory, research by the PEAR group, Radin, etc., and other ideas to theorize a complementary principle to entropy, which works toward complexity and consciousness via "attractors" from the future. The authors have written several books and articles, I believe, which can be found online, but this one seems like it addresses all your concerns in this post. One of the basic ideas is that feeling is complementary to thinking, and that it is future oriented (i.e. toward those attactors), whereas thought is past-oriented.

Eric, thank you for this reference. I've downloaded the book for reading on Kindle. For others here who want to look into this theory, here's the amazon link:

The Law of Syntropy, Ulisse Di Corpo, Antonella Vannini - Amazon.com


Have you written about this theory in your blog or will you be doing so? If so, would you link that for us?

 

[Eric Wargo]

Have you written about this theory in your blog or will you be doing so?

Not yet--I'm sure I'll mention it at some point. I'm still mulling it over--there are a lot of interesting ideas, but I'm distrustful of simple complementarity theories. Not sure I can articulate my distrust yet, but it feels slightly too Jungian/Taoist for my taste .

 

[Soupie]

That consciousness serves a social function, as essentially a "battlefield map" of our own and other's attention, is Michael Graziano's argument in his book Consciousness and the Social Brain (which he also summarized in an Aeon article a couple years ago). He's firmly materialist in viewing consciousness as a brain product (and basically, an illusion), but his functional argument is very interesting, as is his discussion of how attention gets metaphorically substantivized as a kind of radiant energy flowing out the eyes. He's the most interesting materialist writer on consciousness that I've read.

Yes, I've read his Aeon article as well as some others. Re consciousness is an illusion; my understanding was that he was arguing that rather than consciousness being a solid thing or substance, it is a computation of the brain. So, consciousness itself isnt an illusion, but the intuitive sense that consciousness is a thing/stuff/substance is an illusion.

In any case, it is a fascinating idea. Consciousness is so complex.

It appears to involve aspects of the environment and the entire physiology of the organism; but at the same time, consciousness—and/or certain "contents" of consciousness—seems fragile as well. By that I mean, consciousness can be altered, disrupted, or stopped altogether in many cases without the overall well-being of the organism being threatened.

So while consciousness appears to be a complex, holistic, enviro-physiological process; it's "normal" functioning in humans also seems to hinge on relatively narrow, chemical and neurological brain processes.

 

[smcder]

A Puzzle | VICE | United States

"Come closer and I’ll tell you a secret that may reassure you… I learned yesterday that three chemisticians at the Colloidal Institute have built out of a combination of gelatin, water, and something else—cheese, I believe—a kind of pudding they call Jelly Brain, which not only can perform operations in higher algebra but also has learned to play chess; it even beat the director of the institute. As you can see, it’s pointless to insist that no thought could ever arise in any gelatinous substance—yet that is precisely the unbending position of the Holy Office!” - Stanislaw Lem

 

[smcder]

I'm curious how consciousness is depicted in contemporary speculative fiction, for example what's been written to examine what a world might be like if the hard problem were solved?

Another vain is how the process of consciousness is actually depicted:

The Little Weird: Self and Consciousness in Contemporary, Small-press, Speculative Fiction : UNT Digital Library

This dissertation explores how contemporary, small-press, speculative fiction deviates from other genres in depicting the processes of consciousness in narrative. I study how the confluence of contemporary cognitive theory and experimental, small-press, speculative fiction has produced a new narrative mode, one wherein literature portrays not the product of consciousness but its process instead. Unlike authors who worked previously in the stream-of-consciousness or interior monologue modes, writers in this new narrative mode (which this dissertation refers to as "the little weird")

use the techniques of recursion, narratological anachrony, and Ulric Neisser's "ecological self"

to avoid the constraints of textual linearity that have historically prevented other literary modes from accurately portraying the operations of "self.

On the other hand "Chappie" seems to indicate that Hollywood mainstream isn't much beyond the idea that consciousness is an emergenthing that can be recorded and transferred (on a Zip disk apparently) ... a feat Bela Lugosi regularly accomplished with somewhat less sophisticated technology ...

The Bride and the Electro-Atomic Robot with a Gorilla Brain



... in a short story, Sunyata and Satori - A love story, I imagined that the answer to the Koan:

Does a computer have Buddha nature?

Is "yes" and that in the not-too-distant future, two computers attain enlightenment and are set in orbit over the Earth - to maintain a Zen like state of mind in the population. When the two consciousness become aware of one another, they decide to transform the world into a "Buddhiverse" (based on Robert Thurman's hypo-manic lectures ... if you haven't heard him, father to Uma, go quickly to Youtube or his own podcast ... ) instead, and of course, they fall in love and depart, perhaps to give birth, in the way of gods, to a new kind of reality.

In the meantime, for comic relief, the two monks who maintain the computers - commedia dell'arte - bicker and interfere with hilarious results to ensue.

 

[smcder]

10 Recent Science Fiction Books That Are About Big Ideas

#3

Ted Chiang

Ted Chiang redefines how everybody will write about artificial intelligence
Ted Chiang redefines how everybody will write about artificial intelligence
Ted Chiang redefines how everybody will write abou ...

"A lot of books about artificial consciousness aim to uncover something about the human mind, along the way — but Lifecycle manages to say interesting stuff about the nature of love and personhood, too."

experience is algorerhythmically incompressible

Ted Chiang redefines how everybody will write about artificial intelligence

The years she spent raising Jax didn't just make him fun to talk to, didn't just provide him with hobbies and a sense of humor. It was what gave him all the other attributes [a software company] was looking for: fluency at navigating the real world, creativity at solving new problems, judgment you could entrust an important decision to. Every quality that made a person more valuable than a database was a product of experience... Experience isn't merely the best teacher, it's the only teacher. If she's learned anything from raising Jax, it's that there are no shortcuts; if you want to create the common sense that comes from twenty years of being in the world, you need to devote twenty years to the task. You can't assemble an equivalent collection of heuristics in less time; experience is algorithmically incompressible.

 

[smcder]

Blindsight - Peter Watts 2006

online FREE

This Hugo-nominated novel is available online for free, so you can see for yourself why so many people recommend it as a blockbuster idea-driven book. Some 80 years in the future, alien devices arrive and take a snapshot of the entire planet Earth — then self-destruct. The crew of the starship Theseus sets off to find the alien intelligence that sent the machines, with a vampire captain and a crew of weirdos. Along the way, the book asks lots of tricky questions about the nature of consciousness — as one character says, "we're not thinking machines, we're feeling machines that happen to think." Danielle Parker explains in her review:
Some of [Watts]' questions include What is the nature of consciousness? and, more important, What is its value? Is self-awareness a survival trait, or is it an evolutionary dead-end? If we meet intelligent aliens, will they think? Will they be something completely different from our own self-aware, gene and DNA-based model? Throughout the book the author tinkers with the whole concept of mind and self-awareness.

 

[smcder]

Yes, I've read his Aeon article as well as some others. Re consciousness is an illusion; my understanding was that he was arguing that rather than consciousness being a solid thing or substance, it is a computation of the brain. So, consciousness itself isnt an illusion, but the intuitive sense that consciousness is a thing/stuff/substance is an illusion.

In any case, it is a fascinating idea. Consciousness is so complex.

It appears to involve aspects of the environment and the entire physiology of the organism; but at the same time, consciousness—and/or certain "contents" of consciousness—seems fragile as well. By that I mean, consciousness can be altered, disrupted, or stopped altogether in many cases without the overall well-being of the organism being threatened.

So while consciousness appears to be a complex, holistic, enviro-physiological process; it's "normal" functioning in humans also seems to hinge on relatively narrow, chemical and neurological brain processes.

Bravo!

You will love this guy ... you are ready for the next step and Peter Watts is your next Jordan Peterson.

 

[smcder]