Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 2

[Tyger]

Continuation of 'Consciousness and the Paranormal Part I'
LINK: Consciousness and the Paranormal | Page 124 | The Paracast Community Forums

 

[Constance]

Could @Goggs Mackay place a link to Part I of the thread beneath the header for Part II for easy access back to the previous conversations, links, references, etc.?

 

[Constance]

Soupie's last post in Part I of this thread is a natural, also a very apt, place to take up the discussion of varieties of monism we'd been discussing when that thread was closed. I'll reproduce the post below. It contains a link to an earlier post by Soupie that presented informative extracts from David Chalmers's argument for "constitutive Russellian monism" which it is helpful to read again. Steve also posted a link last night to a paper critiquing that theory and arguing for another version of Russellian monism -- "intelligible emergentist Russellian monism." That paper is here: http://www.philipgoffphilosophy.com...34/against_constitutive_russellian_monism.pdf

Both the Chalmers extracts posted in a link in Soupie's post below and the Goff paper clarifying many distinctions involved in these varieties of monism are very helpful.

Soupie: At the conclusion of the following post, I included a block of text in which Chalmers discusses the issue of whether we are "subjects."

Consciousness and the Paranormal | Page 102 | The Paracast Community Forums

I don't fully grok this, but I think it may be related to thought that experience can and do exist in the absence of subjects. That is, subjects aren't fundamental.

Anyhow, i finished the article posted by Steve. Good article.

1) I'm not sure whether disproves the idea that phenomenal experience are constituted of micro/proto phenomenal experiences or not. Haha.

2) I'm not sure it disproves constitutive Russelian monism as I understand it due to the inclusion of the "self experiencing anger" issue.

For example, I'm not [sure] how we can logically say:

There is a hurricane = There are "units" temporarily arranged hurricane-like

But we cannot logically (as opposed to technically) say:

There is an (instance of) anger = There are "units" temporarily arranged anger-like

At the end of the day, I'm not focused so much on whether physical particles also have (proto)phenomenal properties. I'm more interested in the structure of phenomenal objects/entities."

 

[Soupie]

Here's a promising article on the topic "subject of experience."

http://consc.net/neh/papers/neh/strawson1.doc

What is the relation between an experience, the subject of the experience, and the content of the experience?


Galen Strawson Unfinisheddraft

________________________________________________________


‘Eventually meditators…come to see that the perceiver is only the subject side of a momentary experience, an aspect of the perception or thought itself’.

________________________________________________________


1 Introduction

2 Subjects of experience—thick, traditional, thin

3 Terms and assumptions

4 ‘[E = S:C]’

5 The Subject thesis: polarity

6 ‘[E = S = C]’?

7 ‘The thoughts themselves are the thinkers’

8 Pause

9 Object and property

10 [E = S = C]

11 Conclusion

...

 

[Constance]

Thanks for the link, Soupie. Strawson is an excellent philosopher. I like his note 4, on the first page:

"[4] ‘Representationists’ deny it (they sometimes deny their denial). They are the principal remaining representatives of an extraordinary sect (now slowly expiring) whose members single-handedly made the twentieth century the silliest in the history of philosophy. Members of the sect typically pursue the project of trying to define the mental reductively in non-mental terms. In order to do so they have to deny the existence of experiential qualitative character—however evasive they are about this. (The idealist project of defining the physical in non-physical terms is far less mad—infinitely less mad, strictly, because the reductionist project involves the denial of a certainty.)"

 

[Constance]

This should be helpful:

David Chalmers, "The Combination Problem for Panpsychism"

The Combination Problem for Panpsychism

 

[smcder]

Thanks for the link, Soupie. Strawson is an excellent philosopher. I like his note 4, on the first page:

"[4] ‘Representationists’ deny it (they sometimes deny their denial). They are the principal remaining representatives of an extraordinary sect (now slowly expiring) whose members single-handedly made the twentieth century the silliest in the history of philosophy. Members of the sect typically pursue the project of trying to define the mental reductively in non-mental terms. In order to do so they have to deny the existence of experiential qualitative character—however evasive they are about this. (The idealist project of defining the physical in non-physical terms is far less mad—infinitely less mad, strictly, because the reductionist project involves the denial of a certainty.)"

I can't get to anything on the Chalmers site ... I get an error message about the server ...

@Constance - I only read the first bit and conclusion before the site went down and Strawson succeeds in convincing me he is likely wrong (rhetoric backfiring) I think of others cases where convergence is misread, either way I like his reasoning,his use of and confidence in intuition and his Mysterianism!

"But there are, perhaps, strong reasons of elegance in its favour, reasons of the sort that are so telling in science. It may be added that reasons, like arguments, are only a small part of philosophy."

The note on the denial of experience makes more and more sense to me and I'm not sure it's a "verbal dispute" - I don't think so ...it seems you have to grasp it all at once or not at all,


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[Constance]

We should have been there:

PANPSYCHISM, RUSSELLIAN MONISM AND THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL
August 23rd-24th 2013, University of Oslo, Georg Morgenstiernes hus [map], Room 652 (on the top floor)

It seems that physics can only tell us about the relational or dispositional structure of the physical. Fundamental physical properties such as spin, mass and charge can be exhaustively characterized in terms of their relations to other fundamental properties. But there is reason to think that relations need relata with intrinsic properties, and dispositions need categorical grounds. What can we say about this aspect of the physical, if physics is silent about it? Some hope that a scientific revolution could eventually give us access to physical intrinsic properties; others think we will always remain ignorant about them. But some suggest that we should consider the fact that mental properties are intrinsic and categorical, and are in fact the only such properties we know with certainty to exist. Could mental properties be the intrinsic ground of everything physical? This is what Russellian monist panpsychism affirms. This conference will explore the details and motivations of this radical metaphysical view.

Conference: Panpsychism, Russellian monism and the nature of the
physical

But there are or will be papers from it, and according to google Chalmers and Goff have been involved in dialogue. Finding the papers available online is another problem.

 

[smcder]

We should have been there:

PANPSYCHISM, RUSSELLIAN MONISM AND THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL
August 23rd-24th 2013, University of Oslo, Georg Morgenstiernes hus [map], Room 652 (on the top floor)

It seems that physics can only tell us about the relational or dispositional structure of the physical. Fundamental physical properties such as spin, mass and charge can be exhaustively characterized in terms of their relations to other fundamental properties. But there is reason to think that relations need relata with intrinsic properties, and dispositions need categorical grounds. What can we say about this aspect of the physical, if physics is silent about it? Some hope that a scientific revolution could eventually give us access to physical intrinsic properties; others think we will always remain ignorant about them. But some suggest that we should consider the fact that mental properties are intrinsic and categorical, and are in fact the only such properties we know with certainty to exist. Could mental properties be the intrinsic ground of everything physical? This is what Russellian monist panpsychism affirms. This conference will explore the details and motivations of this radical metaphysical view.

Conference: Panpsychism, Russellian monism and the nature of thephysical

But there are or will be papers from it, and according to google Chalmers and Goff have been involved in dialogue. Finding the papers available online is another problem.

Let's email Chalmers.



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[Constance]

Check this search page first:

Search - CenturyLink

There's a lot there, but several links haven't opened. Could be a temporary problem.

 

[Constance]

This one now works:

Chalmers, Panpsychism and Panprotopsychism

http://consc.net/papers/panpsychism.pdf
David J. Chalmers
1

 

[Constance]

And so does this one:

Modality and the Mind-Body Problem: Reply to Goff
and Papineau, Lee, and Levine

David J. Chalmers

http://consc.net/papers/modality.pdf

We're cooking now.

 

[smcder]

Here's a promising article on the topic "subject of experience."

And I thought you said you weren't a Buddhist?

;-)


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[Soupie]

Here's a promising article on the topic "subject of experience."

Okay, I'm working my way through this article, and while I'm not finished, several of the authors concepts resonate deeply, very deeply, with me. I'm anxious to read where he goes with it.

I see that the author identifies as materialist and apparently is a monist... Interesting.

Anyhow, this partially summative paragraph captures many of the ideas I've clumsily tried to share here:

Thin subjects certainly exist, then, and are to be counted among the objects, on the present scheme of things; although objects are processes, wholly constituted out of time-matter, process-stuff, and although ‘subjectivity’ may turn out to be helpful alternative to ‘subject’, in certain contexts, by the time I have finished. I take it, as a materialist, that that all thin subjects are entirely constituted out of process-stuff in the brain. Cerebral process-stuff is constantly being recruited or corralled into one transient subject-constituting (and, equally, experience-constituting) piece or synergy of process-stuff after another. This, I propose, is what the conscious life of a human being consists in. ...

After I finish this article, I'd like to find one by Chalmers (and others) addressing the same topic.

 

[smcder]

Okay, I'm working my way through this article, and while I'm not finished, several of the authors concepts resonate deeply, very deeply, with me. I'm anxious to read where he goes with it.

I see that the author identifies as materialist and apparently is a monist... Interesting.

Anyhow, this partially summative paragraph captures many of the ideas I've clumsily tried to share here:

After I finish this article, I'd like to find one by Chalmers (and others) addressing the same topic.

It's a good article - I look forward to your thoughts when you finish. Found other articles on Strawson/Buddhism (analytical philosophy and philosophical Buddhism generally)



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[smcder]

If you're waiting for the movie:

I believe Hugh Jackman is slated to play Strawson in the big screen epic ...

In this scene, entitled "duel with the dualists" Jackman/Strawson single handedly engages a small horde of crazed dualists (aided by metaphysical zombies)

The Wachowski brothers are on board to direct.

-API


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[smcder]

Galen Strawson, REAL physicalist

or

Consciousness Acknowledged!


Strawson waxes freely on the kind of free will we can have (as opposed to the kind we might want ... but wait, how can we want ... never mind ), high quality qualia and cognitive phenomenology (thinking acknowledged!)

Right now I'm concerned that given the identity of S E and C - I AM Galen Strawson's hair!

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[smcder]

At the end Strawson says he's a "naive" moral realist and compares moral truths to mathematical truths - noting that the physicalist who denies consciousness denies these moral truths but then also will have a problem with mathematics.


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[smcder]

@Soupie

You might enjoy the resources found here

mind_dust - the mental as funda-mental

... And learn a little German in the process!




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[Tyger]

At the end Strawson says he's a "naive" moral realist and compares moral truths to mathematical truths - noting that the physicalist who denies consciousness denies these moral truths but then also will have a problem with mathematics.

Interesting comment. A koan upon which to meditate.