Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[Soupie]

?Did I say something stupid? Please let me know what it was.

What you thought I said was the opposite of what I said. What you said is what I said.

 

[Constance]

And yet we both apparently speak English.

 

[Soupie]

And yet we both apparently speak English.

With all do respect Constance, you've regularly misunderstood pretty straightforward things that have been said here in this thread. Most recently before me, you misunderstood smcder's rhetorical question about introspection.

On the other hand, this is a language-challenged topic.

In any case, no we don't know the totality of what-is, we only have a filtered, subjective version of it that is different from all other organisms and people. (Which is precisely what I said in my initial comment.)

 

[exo_doc]

It is my position that there is no distinction between living and non-living, that consciousness is the only real thing there is - everything else being a mirage or perception based illusion.
All matter is living matter with thoughts, feelings, and some form of psyche. It is our primitive, extremely limited senses that limit our observing this.
It is also my position that dogs, dolphins, worms, gnats, amoeba, etc have emotions....some easier to detect than others. All have self awareness too.
Any separation we feel between yourself, an oak tree, whales, elephants....or rocks, mountains, oceans...or even distant stars and galaxies is purely illusion. Everything is connected to each other to the point that there really is no separation.....everything is actually just ONE thing presenting a multitude of sides, such as a disco ball may make thousands of images, yet they all stem from the one ball.

All of this may become accepted sooner than we think:

Freaky Physics Experiment May Prove Our Universe Is A Two-Dimensional Hologram
.
.
.

 

[Constance]

Illusion is too strong of a word. Our phenomenal experiences of reality are filtered and subjective. That is, the information we receive and integrate from the environment will be different from all other organisms, including humans for a plethora of reasons.

Thus, our inner world isn't so much an illusion as it is a filtered, specialized version of the totality of what-is.

My first response to the above, which didn't go well, was based on what I intended to ask you after I'd responded to more of the post, which I'd read through before I began responding to it. That question was going to be : do you think that information theory will ultimately enable our species to comprehend "the totality of what-is"? And if so, do you think that that totality might be reducible to computationally derived mathematical equations?

I read the following two papers and while they were interesting, I found them ultimately unsatisfying. Also, both seem to take a physicalist stance. And both are restricted by the limitations of language: the first gets bogged down over the meaning of thing/object, the second over the meaning of substance. Both papers I feel suffer from lacking a Whiteheadian approach to the nature of reality.

Galen Strawson: The Self

(iii) The discussion of materialism has many mansions, and provides a setting for considering the question ‘What is a thing or object?’ It is a long question, but the answer suggests that there is no less reason to call the self a thing than there is to call a cat or a rock a thing. It is arguable that disagreement with this last claim is diagnostic of failure to understand what genuine, realistic materialism involves.

http://www.timcrane.com/uploads/2/5/2/4/25243881/inaugural.pdf

Persons are substances in this sense, beings with a special balance of psychological and bodily characteristics. It is worth noting that something like this idea is suggested by some famous remarks of Descartes, which are rather out of harmony with his dualistic view of soul and body:

‘I am not lodged in my body like a pilot in his ship, but, besides ... I am joined to it very closely and indeed so compounded and intermingled with my body, that I form, as it were, a single whole with it.’

Hm, that quote by Descartes dovetails nicely with the information philosophy theory of mind, in my opinion, as the physical brain and the informational mind share just such a relationship as described.

What I'm missing is an account of what you refer to as "the information philosophy theory of mind." If you've provided one here and I've missed it, would you link it for me? If not, would you supply a characterization of this theory? I'm especially interested in how you read that quotation from Descartes in terms of 'the information philosophy theory of mind'.

I haven't read the following yet but it's on deck: https://ethik.univie.ac.at/fileadmi...__T._1990_There_is_no_quest.._Physicalism.pdf

However, I'm not too interested per se as I don't think our understanding of the physical world is complete by any means, and I think any dualistic version of reality is false. What I'm saying is that any suggested dichotomy between mental/physical or mind/body is a false one.

But "our understanding of the physical world" does not need to be complete in order for us to realize that we live in a physical world, indeed a material world. It's clear that you wish to hold strictly to (or to ultimately arrive at) one form or another of monism, but that doesn't require that no distinctions can be made between the mental and the physical, the mind and the body. These distinctions {between the subjective and objective poles of the 'reality' in which we presently exist} are ultimately unavoidable for embodied consciousnesses living in an environing material world. It seems to me that the only option to working within and through our situated experiences in the world toward an understanding of the nature of 'reality' is to live in the hope that some explanation might one day be discovered that translates all distinctions and differences discovered in embodied conscious [and subconscious] experience into one homogeneous and fully explanatory substance [all is mind/all is matter] or explanatory abstraction, the current candidate for that position being 'information'.

Regarding the value of phenomenology and introspection: I do value it, however I think it's value is finite. We know that what people think and experience is often not isomorphic with reality, indeed, as per above, cannot be. Furthermore, cognitive distortions and sensory illusions are well documented. I don't think I need to list them here.

Furthermore, while phenomenology can be used to explore the structure of the mind from the inside, what it can tell us about its nature and origin is limited.

Not as limited as most approaches to consciousness and mind are, soupie, which you can only find out by reading that philosophy. If/when you do you will find that phenomenological philosophy has not "explore[d] the structure of mind from the inside" but has, rather, explored the structure of human experience as an interface and interaction between what you refer to as the 'inside' and the 'outside'. As I've pointed out earlier this week, even scientists working in heavily materialist-dominated scientific disciplines have begun to understand this. They recognize that consciousness (and protoconsciousness) cannot be accounted for in solely materialist terms. How far informational systems theories can take us in understanding how consciousness arises in a physical world and makes the difference that it makes remains to be seen. That information might prove out to account fully for life and consciousness is an interesting theory {it has long interested me, in part because it might account for what appears to be the persistence of consciousness following the death of the body}, but it's still just a theory. And the types of informational theories of consciousness we've most frequently encountered appear to be reductive in terms of consciousness -- that is, the 'information' originates and develops its integrations outside of consciousness, without the use of consciousness.

I'm sure the following will fall on deaf ears but I was recently considering working memory: Working memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roughly speaking, working memory is an important facet of intelligence. It's the process/system by which an organism (brain) temporarily holds "information" in mind for on the fly use and manipulation.

For instance, one is using WM when they are doing mental math, trying to recall a phone number they were just told, or trying to mentally picture a room and rearrange the furniture.

Some people have a much stronger WM capacity than others. Many people who struggle with math have poor WM and thus struggle with mental math, etc.

For example, if you were to ask people to visualize the following list of animals as you read it out loud and ask them repeat the list back to in reverse, you would find that people would have varying amounts of success:

Pig horse dog mouse cat fish shark whale

My wife would be able to repeat the list back to me in reverse with almost no problem. I would probably only recall the first two. Honestly.

What is going on here? Why can some brains maintain phenomenal mental images of these animals and some can't? It's not that these people (brains) can't produce phenomenal images of each animal individually, because they can. It's just that the can't maintain these phenomenal images all at once while some people can.

My conclusion is that there must be some intimate relationship between brains, phenomenal experience (mind), and information. As noted, I believe the mind is information.

Why would working memory 'fall on deaf ears here'? It's a well established fact that the brain does not have immediate access to all the memory it appears to store. I can agree with your last statement concerning 'some intimate relationship among brains, minds, and information', but, as before, I dispute your idea that 'mind' is equivalent only to 'phenomenal information' which you've earlier restricted merely to qualia. Also, to the extent that you appear to think that it is brains that do all the 'thinking' on the basis of their access to 'information', I have to disagree.

Re: NDE and sustained personality change. Similar phenomenon have been recorded with DMT and psilocybin trips.

If you're suggesting that this phenomenon means physicalism is false or that dualism is correct, I don't follow.

Likewise with psi phenomena.

Similarities among some NDE and drug-induced experiences is a topic that should be explored in depth before conclusions can be drawn. Likewise with psi phenomena -- a major subject matter that grows in significance yet continues to receive no attention and investigation by most scientists and philosophers. I'm not suggesting anything about the truth or falsity of 'physicalism' in accounting partially or fully for the above phenomena since I don't know how you're defining that term. (e.g., quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon and might help to account for those phenomena) I've never held a brief for dualism, though I think it is obvious that subjectivity and objectivity are integrated in our phenomenal experience of the world* , which reveals the integrated nature of 'reality' as we can know it in this world.

*[even Descartes seems to have realized that at some point in his lengthy meditations]

 

[smcder]

Illusion is too strong of a word. Our phenomenal experiences of reality are filtered and subjective. That is, the information we receive and integrate from the environment will be different from all other organisms, including humans for a plethora of reasons.

Thus, our inner world isn't so much an illusion as it is a filtered, specialized version of the totality of what-is.



I read the following two papers and while they were interesting, I found them ultimately unsatisfying. Also, both seem to take a physicalist stance. And both are restricted by the limitations of language: the first gets bogged down over the meaning of thing/object, the second over the meaning of substance. Both papers I feel suffer from lacking a Whiteheadian approach to the nature of reality.





"Hm, that quote by Descartes dovetails nicely with the information philosophy theory of mind, in my opinion, as the physical brain and the informational mind share just such a relationship as described.

I haven't read the following yet but it's on deck: https://ethik.univie.ac.at/fileadmi...__T._1990_There_is_no_quest.._Physicalism.pdf

However, I'm not too interested per se as I don't think our understanding of the physical world is complete by any means, and I think any dualistic version of reality is false. What I'm saying is that any suggested dichotomy between mental/physical or mind/body is a false one.

Regarding the value of phenomenology and introspection: I do value it, however I think it's value is finite. We know that what people think and experience is often not isomorphic with reality, indeed, as per above, cannot be. Furthermore, cognitive distortions and sensory illusions are well documented. I don't think I need to list them here.

Furthermore, while phenomenology can be used to explore the structure of the mind from the inside, what it can tell us about its nature and origin is limited.

I'm sure the following will fall on deaf ears but I was recently considering working memory: Working memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roughly speaking, working memory is an important facet of intelligence. It's the process/system by which an organism (brain) temporarily holds "information" in mind for on the fly use and manipulation.

For instance, one is using WM when they are doing mental math, trying to recall a phone number they were just told, or trying to mentally picture a room and rearrange the furniture.

Some people have a much stronger WM capacity than others. Many people who struggle with math have poor WM and thus struggle with mental math, etc.

For example, if you were to ask people to visualize the following list of animals as you read it out loud and ask them repeat the list back to in reverse, you would find that people would have varying amounts of success:

Pig horse dog mouse cat fish shark whale

My wife would be able to repeat the list back to me in reverse with almost no problem. I would probably only recall the first two. Honestly.

What is going on here? Why can some brains maintain phenomenal mental images of these animals and some can't? It's not that these people (brains) can't produce phenomenal images of each animal individually, because they can. It's just that the can't maintain these phenomenal images all at once while some people can.

My conclusion is that there must be some intimate relationship between brains, phenomenal experience (mind), and information. As noted, I believe the mind is information.

Re: NDE and sustained personality change. Similar phenomenon have been recorded with DMT and psilocybin trips.

If you're suggesting that this phenomenon means physicalism is false or that dualism is correct, I don't follow.

Likewise with psi phenomena.

Gone just two days and you're doing philosophy by pronouncement (or Soupie says) again! ;-)

No ... "Illusion" is just the right strength for the rhetorical role it plays in my statement ... I know you're not tone deaf! (See The Goldilocks Principle for more info)

"Both papers I feel suffer from lacking a Whiteheadian approach to the nature of reality."

What the hell does this mean? What is it that you know about Whiteheadian approaches to the nature of reality? Did you slip out and read his works while we weren't looking?? I don't know much about Whitehead, besides my father reading excerpts as bedtime stories when mom wasn't around to read Shakespeare - I'm not much kidding, did wonders for my social life in elementary school I will tell you.

Alfred North Whitehead (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

As for working memory, all sorts of factors come into play - training (ars memoria for example), motivation - not everyone is going to find memorizing a random list interesting enough to do well on it ... I bet you have substantial memory skills in your particular expertise? ... women in our society often get handed everyday tasks that involve some of these general skills because men are busy with the "important" stuff ... my father has a horrific working memory but that's because he found other people to do this for him - secretaries and my mom - but then again when he is paying attention, he remembers EVERYTHING and in order. I do the cooking and grocery shopping in our family and right now I can go through the kitchen mentally ( visually) and tell you what we have and don't have ... But I didn't get past giraffe on your list above. I doubt working memory as tested in the example and spelling actually correlate with real intelligence to any degree.

"It's not that these people (brains) can't produce phenomenal images of each animal individually, because they can. It's just that the can't maintain these phenomenal images all at once while some people can."

I do have to ask though, how did you and your wife's brains happen to synchronize into parallel biological states such that they had the filtered and subjective perception of "being in love"? A torrid tale of pheromones and immune systems, social conventions and mores - no doubt ... but who's telling it and what does it signify?

"Re: NDE and sustained personality change. Similar phenomenon have been recorded with DMT and psilocybin trips."

Right ... and ...?

"If you're suggesting that this phenomenon means physicalism is false or that dualism is correct, I don't follow."

Yeah, I don't follow that either, nor in and of itself does it follow ... so I'm not sure why I would be suggesting that ... so I'm probably not.

 

[smcder]

And yet we both apparently speak English.

It's often said that the English and Americans are separated by a common language ... Oscar Wilde?

 

[smcder]

Burnt ... you're a fast reader!

 

[smcder]

Illusion is too strong of a word. Our phenomenal experiences of reality are filtered and subjective. That is, the information we receive and integrate from the environment will be different from all other organisms, including humans for a plethora of reasons.

Thus, our inner world isn't so much an illusion as it is a filtered, specialized version of the totality of what-is.



I read the following two papers and while they were interesting, I found them ultimately unsatisfying. Also, both seem to take a physicalist stance. And both are restricted by the limitations of language: the first gets bogged down over the meaning of thing/object, the second over the meaning of substance. Both papers I feel suffer from lacking a Whiteheadian approach to the nature of reality.





Hm, that quote by Descartes dovetails nicely with the information philosophy theory of mind, in my opinion, as the physical brain and the informational mind share just such a relationship as described.

I haven't read the following yet but it's on deck: https://ethik.univie.ac.at/fileadmi...__T._1990_There_is_no_quest.._Physicalism.pdf

However, I'm not too interested per se as I don't think our understanding of the physical world is complete by any means, and I think any dualistic version of reality is false. What I'm saying is that any suggested dichotomy between mental/physical or mind/body is a false one.

Regarding the value of phenomenology and introspection: I do value it, however I think it's value is finite. We know that what people think and experience is often not isomorphic with reality, indeed, as per above, cannot be. Furthermore, cognitive distortions and sensory illusions are well documented. I don't think I need to list them here.

Furthermore, while phenomenology can be used to explore the structure of the mind from the inside, what it can tell us about its nature and origin is limited.

I'm sure the following will fall on deaf ears but I was recently considering working memory: Working memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roughly speaking, working memory is an important facet of intelligence. It's the process/system by which an organism (brain) temporarily holds "information" in mind for on the fly use and manipulation.

For instance, one is using WM when they are doing mental math, trying to recall a phone number they were just told, or trying to mentally picture a room and rearrange the furniture.

Some people have a much stronger WM capacity than others. Many people who struggle with math have poor WM and thus struggle with mental math, etc.

For example, if you were to ask people to visualize the following list of animals as you read it out loud and ask them repeat the list back to in reverse, you would find that people would have varying amounts of success:

Pig horse dog mouse cat fish shark whale

My wife would be able to repeat the list back to me in reverse with almost no problem. I would probably only recall the first two. Honestly.

What is going on here? Why can some brains maintain phenomenal mental images of these animals and some can't? It's not that these people (brains) can't produce phenomenal images of each animal individually, because they can. It's just that the can't maintain these phenomenal images all at once while some people can.

My conclusion is that there must be some intimate relationship between brains, phenomenal experience (mind), and information. As noted, I believe the mind is information.

Re: NDE and sustained personality change. Similar phenomenon have been recorded with DMT and psilocybin trips.

If you're suggesting that this phenomenon means physicalism is false or that dualism is correct, I don't follow.

Likewise with psi phenomena.

"Illusion is too strong of a word. Our phenomenal experiences of reality are filtered and subjective. That is, the information we receive and integrate from the environment will be different from all other organisms, including humans for a plethora of reasons.

Thus, our inner world isn't so much an illusion as it is a filtered, specialized version of the totality of what-is."

The point stands - how does your filtered, specialized version justify your confidence in your position (composed only, as you say, of filtered, specialized content - i.e. your subjective experience) and dismissal of other positions? On this view - a kind of reverse solipsism, no view is any more supported than any other ...

"And both are restricted by the limitations of language: the first gets bogged down over the meaning of thing/object, the second over the meaning of substance. "

The meaning of substance was clear (see: Aristotle)

"I haven't read the following yet but it's on deck: https://ethik.univie.ac.at/fileadmi...__T._1990_There_is_no_quest.._Physicalism.pdf

However, I'm not too interested per se as I don't think our understanding of the physical world is complete by any means, and I think any dualistic version of reality is false. What I'm saying is that any suggested dichotomy between mental/physical or mind/body is a false one."

You're not saying it ... your proclaiming it! ;-)

Not to be harsh, but I would say don't bother reading something that you've already taken a dismissive attitude toward based on the title. (And this isn't the first time either ... ) based on previous experience you've not benefitted from such readings.

"Regarding the value of phenomenology and introspection: I do value it, however I think it's value is finite. We know that what people think and experience is often not isomorphic with reality, indeed, as per above, cannot be. Furthermore, cognitive distortions and sensory illusions are well documented. I don't think I need to list them here.

Furthermore, while phenomenology can be used to explore the structure of the mind from the inside, what it can tell us about its nature and origin is limited."

Tell me what else you have going brother, that isn't of finite value? And how you have pre-determined that nothing about the nature and origin of the mind can be determined by exploring it's structure from the inside?

It's also the only thing we have direct knowledge of ... your buddy Russell said that.

If a spaceship landed on the Earth would you take the view that we shouldn't have a look inside because what could that tell us about it's nature and origin ... ?

All I have is my own subjectivity - that's where it all comes IN ... I haven't found an objective place to stand and look comfortably out from, have you?

How do you think we know about cognitive distortions and sensory illusions in the first place? Or anything else for that matter?

Would it behoove us to take a closer look at that very thing itself and not assume because we have one, we know all about it?

It took 2500 years for Heidegger to figure out that no one had even noticed Being in itself ... perhaps, it's just that obvious?

 

[smcder]

Illusion is too strong of a word. Our phenomenal experiences of reality are filtered and subjective. That is, the information we receive and integrate from the environment will be different from all other organisms, including humans for a plethora of reasons.

Thus, our inner world isn't so much an illusion as it is a filtered, specialized version of the totality of what-is.



I read the following two papers and while they were interesting, I found them ultimately unsatisfying. Also, both seem to take a physicalist stance. And both are restricted by the limitations of language: the first gets bogged down over the meaning of thing/object, the second over the meaning of substance. Both papers I feel suffer from lacking a Whiteheadian approach to the nature of reality.





Hm, that quote by Descartes dovetails nicely with the information philosophy theory of mind, in my opinion, as the physical brain and the informational mind share just such a relationship as described.

I haven't read the following yet but it's on deck: https://ethik.univie.ac.at/fileadmi...__T._1990_There_is_no_quest.._Physicalism.pdf

However, I'm not too interested per se as I don't think our understanding of the physical world is complete by any means, and I think any dualistic version of reality is false. What I'm saying is that any suggested dichotomy between mental/physical or mind/body is a false one.

Regarding the value of phenomenology and introspection: I do value it, however I think it's value is finite. We know that what people think and experience is often not isomorphic with reality, indeed, as per above, cannot be. Furthermore, cognitive distortions and sensory illusions are well documented. I don't think I need to list them here.

Furthermore, while phenomenology can be used to explore the structure of the mind from the inside, what it can tell us about its nature and origin is limited.

I'm sure the following will fall on deaf ears but I was recently considering working memory: Working memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roughly speaking, working memory is an important facet of intelligence. It's the process/system by which an organism (brain) temporarily holds "information" in mind for on the fly use and manipulation.

For instance, one is using WM when they are doing mental math, trying to recall a phone number they were just told, or trying to mentally picture a room and rearrange the furniture.

Some people have a much stronger WM capacity than others. Many people who struggle with math have poor WM and thus struggle with mental math, etc.

For example, if you were to ask people to visualize the following list of animals as you read it out loud and ask them repeat the list back to in reverse, you would find that people would have varying amounts of success:

Pig horse dog mouse cat fish shark whale

My wife would be able to repeat the list back to me in reverse with almost no problem. I would probably only recall the first two. Honestly.

What is going on here? Why can some brains maintain phenomenal mental images of these animals and some can't? It's not that these people (brains) can't produce phenomenal images of each animal individually, because they can. It's just that the can't maintain these phenomenal images all at once while some people can.

My conclusion is that there must be some intimate relationship between brains, phenomenal experience (mind), and information. As noted, I believe the mind is information.

Re: NDE and sustained personality change. Similar phenomenon have been recorded with DMT and psilocybin trips.

If you're suggesting that this phenomenon means physicalism is false or that dualism is correct, I don't follow.

Likewise with psi phenomena.

What prompted you to quote from Corinthians?

 

[Soupie]

do you think that information theory will ultimately enable our species to comprehend "the totality of what-is"? And if so, do you think that that totality might be reducible to computationally derived mathematical equations?

No on both accounts.

What I'm missing is an account of what you refer to as "the information philosophy theory of mind." If you've provided one here and I've missed it, would you link it for me? If not, would you supply a characterization of this theory? I'm especially interested in how you read that quotation from Descartes in terms of 'the information philosophy theory of mind'.

The brain is an information processor; the mind is information. Descartes describes the body and mind as being intimately, deeply enmeshed; I see the physical brain and informational mind having such a relationship.

Brains are arguably the most complex objects in the known universe. By what exact process brains are able to create phenomenal, self-aware information from non-phenomenal, non-self-aware information, I haven't a clue. But that's what I think they do. (Disclaimer: I could be wrong about that. )

It's clear that you wish to hold strictly to (or to ultimately arrive at) one form or another of monism, but that doesn't require that no distinctions can be made between the mental and the physical, the mind and the body.

I agree. I think there is a distinction of course. However, it's my view that ultimately both body and mind stem from the same source. (Same disclaimer as above.)

And the types of informational theories of consciousness we've most frequently encountered appear to be reductive in terms of consciousness -- that is, the 'information' originates and develops its integrations outside of consciousness, without the use of consciousness.

Hm, I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Why would working memory 'fall on deaf ears here'?

I've posted other, non-philosophical articles and papers here before that haven't generated any or much discussion. I didn't think there would be much interested in WM.

Also, to the extent that you appear to think that it is brains that do all the 'thinking' on the basis of their access to 'information', I have to disagree.

Again, not certain what you mean here. To clarify, I really believe the entire organism and even their environment generate the informational mind, not just the brain. However, I usually write brain/CNS to be concise. But I really believe the entire organism and their surroundings all partake in the generation of mind.

 

[Soupie]

"Both papers I feel suffer from lacking a Whiteheadian approach to the nature of reality."

What the hell does this mean?

I believe reality is a dynamic process composed of a fundamental substance that temporally differentiates into things that we macro humans perceive as objects. An idea that I've stated here many times.

You introduced me to Whitehead, and I thought his process philosophy held a similar view. Sorry if that created confusion.

Anyhow, in hindsight, I suppose in that paper Strawson was trying to convince his fellow materialists that the mind is worthy of being called a thing or object? I take it that some materialists don't think the mind exists at all. I suppose I was just disappointed to read the paper and have the concluding argument question whether the mind is an object like a banana. On a good day I can recognize that this is (very) important work, and on bad days it comes off as arguing over semantics.

"Re: NDE and sustained personality change. Similar phenomenon have been recorded with DMT and psilocybin trips."

Right ... and ...?

These powerful, inner experiences are life changing?

"If you're suggesting that this phenomenon means physicalism is false or that dualism is correct, I don't follow."

Yeah, I don't follow that either, nor in and of itself does it follow ... so I'm not sure why I would be suggesting that ... so I'm probably not.

Sorry, I can't find it now (I just skimmed several pages back) but you mentioned the gentleman becoming more moral after the NDE and said it would need to be accounted for...

Sorry I can't find the quote (I'll continue to look) but I took it to mean you didn't think the NDE and the life change could be accounted for with a physicalist paradigm.

"Thus, our inner world isn't so much an illusion as it is a filtered, specialized version of the totality of what-is."

The point stands - how does your filtered, specialized version justify your confidence in your position (composed only, as you say, of filtered, specialized content - i.e. your subjective experience) and dismissal of other positions? On this view - a kind of reverse solipsism, no view is any more supported than any other ...

I understand what you're saying. It's a point you've made many times.

Yes, ultimately we can't know anything outside our skulls. But my answer to your question would be replication (by others) and accurate prediction. And yes, we still can't know that the repetition and predication by others is really real outside our skulls.

And this is why I say illusion is too strong of a word; we know that one person's perspective of things is very, very limited... but not a complete and utter nonsense illusion. So, with the help of such tools as the scientific method, some more sense can be made of the reality outside our skulls. (But never a perfect, isomorphic understanding for a number of reasons.)

Also, I'm not as confident in my position as I may appear. I'm very willing to admit that I may be completely wrong, and everyone/anyone else may be completely right.

"What I'm saying is that any suggested dichotomy between mental/physical or mind/body is a false one."

You're not saying it ... your proclaiming it!

Ah, I see. Yes, that is my opinion, nothing more.

Not to be harsh, but I would say don't bother reading something that you've already taken a dismissive attitude toward based on the title.

Not so much dismissive as not interested.

I'm personally not concerned about labels like physical, spiritual, mental, etc. As you know, it is my opinion that everything in reality stems from one source. So while I love reading about theories and models and whatnot, I'm not (super) interested in reading a long paper that argues that there is more to reality than what we currently consider physical, because I already agree.

Tell me ... how you have pre-determined that nothing about the nature and origin of the mind can be determined by exploring it's structure from the inside?

It's also the only thing we have direct knowledge of ... your buddy Russell said that.

In an earlier comment you said (or were quoting):

In phenomenology then we have a philosophy of consciousness built from the ground up on observation of the very thing itself...

I'm dubious that a mind can determine its own nature and origin by looking at itself. Kind of like how Peterson had said a person left to themself will grow a wild, bushy narrative that requires interaction with another person to get trimmed down into shape.

I think introspection is very important to the study of consciousness; I think we need to look in and out to study consciousness. I agree that only by doing both will we make any progress.

 

[Soupie]

What prompted you to quote from Corinthians?

To illustrate that it's widely and historically known that ones perspective is limited.

 

[smcder]

I believe reality is a dynamic process composed of a fundamental substance that temporally differentiates into things that we macro humans perceive as objects. An idea that I've stated here many times.

You introduced me to Whitehead, and I thought his process philosophy held a similar view. Sorry if that created confusion.

Anyhow, in hindsight, I suppose in that paper Strawson was trying to convince his fellow materialists that the mind is worthy of being called a thing or object? I take it that some materialists don't think the mind exists at all. I suppose I was just disappointed to read the paper and have the concluding argument question whether the mind is an object like a banana. On a good day I can recognize that this is (very) important work, and on bad days it comes off as arguing over semantics.

These powerful, inner experiences are life changing?

Sorry, I can't find it now (I just skimmed several pages back) but you mentioned the gentleman becoming more moral after the NDE and said it would need to be accounted for...

Sorry I can't find the quote (I'll continue to look) but I took it to mean you didn't think the NDE and the life change could be accounted for with a physicalist paradigm.

I understand what you're saying. It's a point you've made many times.

Yes, ultimately we can't know anything outside our skulls. But my answer to your question would be replication (by others) and accurate prediction. And yes, we still can't know that the repetition and predication by others is really real outside our skulls.

And this is why I say illusion is too strong of a word; we know that one person's perspective of things is very, very limited... but not a complete and utter nonsense illusion. So, with the help of such tools as the scientific method, some more sense can be made of the reality outside our skulls. (But never a perfect, isomorphic understanding for a number of reasons.)

Also, I'm not as confident in my position as I may appear. I'm very willing to admit that I may be completely wrong, and everyone/anyone else may be completely right.

Ah, I see. Yes, that is my opinion, nothing more.

Not so much dismissive as not interested.

I'm personally not concerned about labels like physical, spiritual, mental, etc. As you know, it is my opinion that everything in reality stems from one source. So while I love reading about theories and models and whatnot, I'm not (super) interested in reading a long paper that argues that there is more to reality than what we currently consider physical, because I already agree.


In an earlier comment you said (or were quoting):

I'm dubious that a mind can determine its own nature and origin by looking at itself. Kind of like how Peterson had said a person left to themself will grow a wild, bushy narrative that requires interaction with another person to get trimmed down into shape.

I think introspection is very important to the study of consciousness; I think we need to look in and out to study consciousness. I agree that only by doing both will we make any progress.

Much better!

 

[smcder]

To illustrate that it's widely and historically known that ones perspective is limited.

Re: Working memory and deaf ears:

are you familiar with "g" and the quest for it?

Galton tied it to reflex speed, Cattell tried to measure it with progressive matrices ... the idea of a single measure correlating with general intelligence then fell out of favor - Sternberg developed his idea of the Triarchic Mind and went on to study creativity and wisdom - he found that IQ per se correlated best with other IQ tests and a limited set of academic skills like the memorization task, upon which such tests are based ... Daniel Goleman wrote "Emotional Intelligence" and from there people began studying every aspect of human ability and calling it intelligence ... Herrnstein and Murray tried to bring back an interest in G with The Bell Curve and Stephen J Gould rebutted best with The Mismeasure of Man and cognitive science had a good start with putting thinking back on the table then almost immediately lost it's way ... this is where @Constance point about reductive theories leaving consciousness out of the integration of information comes in - why on Earth do we have it if we won't let it serve any function?

...
and now I'm sorry, but I've forgotten what the question was?

 

[smcder]

@Soupie

Mind-Body Problem

"Information philosophy views the mind as the immaterial information in the brain, which is seen as a biological information processor. Mind is software in the brain's hardware. The "stuff" of mind is pure information. Information is neither matter nor energy, though it needs matter for its embodiment and energy for its communication."

... right?

"When mind and body are viewed today as a dualism, the emphasis is on the mind, that is to say the information, being fundamentally different from the material brain. Since the universe is continuously creating new information, by rearranging existing matter, this is an imprtant and understandable difference. Matter (and energy) is conserved, a constant of the universe. Information is not conserved, it is the source of genuine novelty."

"A mind-body dualism coincides with Plato's "ideas" as pure form, Its ontology is different from that of matter. The ancients asked about the existential status of Platonic Ideas.

On the other hand, monists can see the mind-body distinction as pure physicalism, since information embodied in matter corresponds to a mere reorganization of the matter. This was Aristotle's more practical view. For him, Plato's Ideas were mereabstractions generalized from many existent particulars."

This is what you are saying about false distinctions and that ultimately everything comes down to one basic stuff bad information is just how the stuff is arranged?

(It seems like that final bit makes a call for meta-information and from there an infinite regress? With meta-information dependent on information for its existence and so on ...$

 

[Soupie]

...this is where @Constance point about reductive theories leaving consciousness out of the integration of information comes in - why on Earth do we have it if we won't let it serve any function?

Ok, I think I get what you're saying. I do think the mind can process information. This would be metacognition, thinking about thinking.

The current scientific consensus I believe is that our actions are controlled unconsciously. However, I don't think this means we lack free will.

A paper I posted awhile back offered an interesting theory as to why we have reflective consciousness: To predict the behaviors of others, and also to predict our own behavior.

So while our on-the-fly behavior is controlled unconsciously, I think our ability to meta cognate allows us to physically change our brain and thus our future behavior.

Circling back to phenomenal experience, which I think preceded reflective consciousness in the evolution of mind, my contention has been that zombies are not possible; phenomenal experience will always result from information integrated in the manner performed by organisms.

As I've said in the past, these phenomenal experiences (integrated information) can exist but be non-reflective. That is, there may be no conscious "sense of self" attached to these phenomenal experiences. (It's a question I've been trying to answer throughout this discussion.)

However, once a mind achieves the capacity to self-reflect or meta cognate, access to phenomenal experience occurs and it becomes phenomenal consciousness. There is now a "sense of experiencing self."

These now-conscious experiences are used by the organism to shape future behavior.

This is all just my very humble opinion.

 

[smcder]

I believe reality is a dynamic process composed of a fundamental substance that temporally differentiates into things that we macro humans perceive as objects. An idea that I've stated here many times.

You introduced me to Whitehead, and I thought his process philosophy held a similar view. Sorry if that created confusion.

Anyhow, in hindsight, I suppose in that paper Strawson was trying to convince his fellow materialists that the mind is worthy of being called a thing or object? I take it that some materialists don't think the mind exists at all. I suppose I was just disappointed to read the paper and have the concluding argument question whether the mind is an object like a banana. On a good day I can recognize that this is (very) important work, and on bad days it comes off as arguing over semantics.

These powerful, inner experiences are life changing?

Sorry, I can't find it now (I just skimmed several pages back) but you mentioned the gentleman becoming more moral after the NDE and said it would need to be accounted for...

Sorry I can't find the quote (I'll continue to look) but I took it to mean you didn't think the NDE and the life change could be accounted for with a physicalist paradigm.

I understand what you're saying. It's a point you've made many times.

Yes, ultimately we can't know anything outside our skulls. But my answer to your question would be replication (by others) and accurate prediction. And yes, we still can't know that the repetition and predication by others is really real outside our skulls.

And this is why I say illusion is too strong of a word; we know that one person's perspective of things is very, very limited... but not a complete and utter nonsense illusion. So, with the help of such tools as the scientific method, some more sense can be made of the reality outside our skulls. (But never a perfect, isomorphic understanding for a number of reasons.)

Also, I'm not as confident in my position as I may appear. I'm very willing to admit that I may be completely wrong, and everyone/anyone else may be completely right.

Ah, I see. Yes, that is my opinion, nothing more.

Not so much dismissive as not interested.

I'm personally not concerned about labels like physical, spiritual, mental, etc. As you know, it is my opinion that everything in reality stems from one source. So while I love reading about theories and models and whatnot, I'm not (super) interested in reading a long paper that argues that there is more to reality than what we currently consider physical, because I already agree.


In an earlier comment you said (or were quoting):

I'm dubious that a mind can determine its own nature and origin by looking at itself. Kind of like how Peterson had said a person left to themself will grow a wild, bushy narrative that requires interaction with another person to get trimmed down into shape.

I think introspection is very important to the study of consciousness; I think we need to look in and out to study consciousness. I agree that only by doing both will we make any progress.

"I'm personally not concerned about labels like physical, spiritual, mental, etc. As you know, it is my opinion that everything in reality stems from one source. So while I love reading about theories and models and whatnot, I'm not (super) interested in reading a long paper that argues that there is more to reality than what we currently consider physical, because I already agree."

1. I'm not sure that's what the article says ... (the argument against MR)

2. I'm not sure you do agree ...

"As you know, it is my opinion that everything in reality stems from one source."

Monism --> materialism (by definition - everything is made of "primordial stuff" that is ultimately simple physically and conveniently complex property-wise, having physical, phenomenal and perhaps informational properties, though I haven't seen anything in your position to prevent us from reducing information to the arrangement of "stuff" just as we've done with the physical and phenomenal) --> determinism (meta-cognition is a lousy place to hide free will, btw, it's the first place determinists are gonna look ... see: compatibilism")

So the idea you would need to agree to is that everything cannot possibly be explained by a current or a future physics. Are you taking that step?

In other words, I think where you are being conciliatory is in the "-->" and hoping we won't notice ... oldest trick in the book! ;-)

The other argument is that for AI to be possible, not mind-machine (cyborg) where we supply the consciousness and not "growing/evolving" hard or wet or soft-ware through evolutionary processes opaque to our understanding ("I don't know how it works - I just put it in and turned the crank twenty million times and voila!") because we don't know what principles might be hidden in those twenty million cranks) but real true put together by hand AI requires something like physicalism, materialistic monism (the current scientific consensus if you're keeping up with the Jones' and the Kurzweils).

Opposition to either one of those statements puts you in "spooky" territory that I've not seen you willing to go before.

 

[smcder]

Ok, I think I get what you're saying. I do think the mind can process information. This would be metacognition, thinking about thinking.

The current scientific consensus I believe is that our actions are controlled unconsciously. However, I don't think this means we lack free will.

A paper I posted awhile back offered an interesting theory as to why we have reflective consciousness: To predict the behaviors of others, and also to predict our own behavior.

So while our on-the-fly behavior is controlled unconsciously, I think our ability to meta cognate allows us to physically change our brain and thus our future behavior.

Circling back to phenomenal experience, which I think preceded reflective consciousness in the evolution of mind, my contention has been that zombies are not possible; phenomenal experience will always result from information integrated in the manner performed by organisms.

As I've said in the past, these phenomenal experiences (integrated information) can exist but be non-reflective. That is, there may be no conscious "sense of self" attached to these phenomenal experiences. (It's a question I've been trying to answer throughout this discussion.)

However, once a mind achieves the capacity to self-reflect or meta cognate, access to phenomenal experience occurs and it becomes phenomenal consciousness. There is now a "sense of experiencing self."

These now-conscious experiences are used by the organism to shape future behavior.

This is all just my very humble opinion.

You don't have to be THAT humble ...

 

[smcder]

"I'm personally not concerned about labels like physical, spiritual, mental, etc. As you know, it is my opinion that everything in reality stems from one source. So while I love reading about theories and models and whatnot, I'm not (super) interested in reading a long paper that argues that there is more to reality than what we currently consider physical, because I already agree."

1. I'm not sure that's what the article says ... (the argument against MR)

2. I'm not sure you do agree ...

"As you know, it is my opinion that everything in reality stems from one source."

Monism --> materialism (by definition - everything is made of "primordial stuff" that is ultimately simple physically and conveniently complex property-wise, having physical, phenomenal and perhaps informational properties, though I haven't seen anything in your position to prevent us from reducing information to the arrangement of "stuff" just as we've done with the physical and phenomenal) --> determinism (meta-cognition is a lousy place to stick free will, btw, it's the first place determinists are gonna look ...)

So the idea you would need to agree to is that everything cannot possibly be explained by a current or a future physics. Are you taking that step?

In other words, I think where you are being conciliatory is in the "-->" and hoping we won't notice ... ?

The other argument is that for AI to be possible, not mind-machine (cyborg) where we supply the consciousness and not "growing/evolving" hard or wet or soft-ware through evolutionary processes opaque to our understanding ("I don't know how it works - I just put it in and turned the crank twenty million times and voila!") because we don't know what principles might be embedded in those twenty million cranks - if I were Mother Nature, deep time is where I'd hide my secrets from prying eyes) but real true put together by hand AI requires something like physicalism, materialistic monism (the current scientific consensus if you're keeping up with the Jones' and the Kurzweils).

Opposition to either one of those statements puts you in "spooky" territory that I've not seen you willing to go before.