Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4

[smcder]

@smcder: I myself can't see how this happens ... how something of a different order altogether (experience) arises from electro-chemical interactions. And I don't think you can see it either, I think you are simply claim it - based on the idea of emergence, but emergence itself isn't something you can see or have any intuitions about - it's just a statement that more complex things come out of interactions according to simple rules.

If you do actually see this, then what imagery, what metaphor, what comparisons, what intuitions fo you have about it and can you make to something that we do know about?

@Soupie: I’m not claiming that phenomenal experience arises from electro-chemical interactions.

I’m saying that phenomenal experience/feeling is fundamental. I’m not saying -- in this present discussion -- that feeling emerges from two neurons firing together. (Although it might.)

I’m saying that feeling is fundamental to all interactions of matter/energy. Fundamental = It just is.

Then what I’m saying is that the actions of neurons (and perhaps other special physical structures) interacting with one another in such a way facilitate the shaping of this fundamental experience/feeling into what we know as our phenomenal, narrative landscape.

So, no, I can’t see how “phenomenal feeling” emerges from matter, hence phenomenal feeling is fundamental.

Yes, I can see how a process of billions of integrated, synchronizing neurons can take this fundamental, phenomenal feeling and shape it into a process of experience we call mind.

Above you said it is difficult for you to see how qualia or whole minds are fundamental.

But here you say:

I’m saying that phenomenal experience/feeling is fundamental.

"qualia are individual instances of subjective, conscious experience"

So you do see qualia as fundamental. And instances of subjective, conscious experience are fundamental, so its a short step to say mindedness is fundamental. If we are to avoid "what it is like" emerging or coming out of physical processes (or mental processes) - then we say it to is fundamental ... there is something it is like to be a quark ... as Russell would say, it's the intrinsic nature of a (any) thing.

And again:

I’m saying that feeling is fundamental to all interactions of matter/energy. Fundamental = It just is.

Qualia by any other name, mindedness, feeling = what it is like ...

And again:
So, no, I can’t see how “phenomenal feeling” emerges from matter, hence phenomenal feeling is fundamental.

But now you do something very strange - which is throw away all the advantage of saying phenomenal feeling is fundamental:

Then what I’m saying is that the actions of neurons (and perhaps other special physical structures) interacting with one another in such a way facilitate the shaping of this fundamental experience/feeling into what we know as our phenomenal, narrative landscape.

Because now you are saying that neurons and physical structures some how interact with one another in such a way that this fundamental thing (feeling/experience) emerges into something entirely new - which is a mind, a self-aware mind ... (whole minds aren't fundamental, so whole minds have to emerge from these interactions) so that is why I say you've just shifted emergence along a bit and shifted the hard problem a long, but solving the hard problem is what motivated panpsychism in the first place.

Again:

Yes, I can see how a process of billions of integrated, synchronizing neurons can take this fundamental, phenomenal feeling and shape it into a process of experience we call mind.

So what if feeling is fundamental(?) because a "process of experience" (mind) still has to emerge and that's no easier to see than feeling emerging from matter, so no I don't think you can "see" this either.

matter:feeling
qualia:mind
mind:self-awareness

So for me panpsychism has lost its appeal because its no easier to account for mind from qualia or self-awareness from mind than mind from matter.

Or do we want to say mind and self-awareness are fundamental?

And that is why I asked if you were getting minds and brains confused.

Its also why the hard problem is the problem of why I am me and not you. Nagel's whole essay is on subjectivity, subjectivity is had by a subject, by a "me" - what it is like to be means something has a subjectivity, an individuality - it only makes sense for what it is like to be a bat if you are talking about what it is like to be a (particular) bat.

You can see this immediately because if Nagel asked "what it is like to be a human?" you would know he means what it is like to be a particular human ... so, what it's like to be me and not you ... its our initial tendency not to assign individuality to a bat that prevents you from seeing it right off.

 

[Soupie]

@Soupie: Yes, I can see how a process of billions of integrated, synchronizing neurons can take this fundamental, phenomenal feeling and shape it into a process of experience we call mind.

@smcder: And I don't think you can't actually "see" this in any meaningful way ... and you can't understand "how" in any meaningful way ... what you really mean by I can see how is just that you think it could be the case that ... and that's based on a metaphorical sense of fundamental phenomenal feeling be something that can be shaped ... into a "process of experience" (what is a process of experience)?

@Soupie: You are correct. I can conceive of fundamental protoconsciousness or raw, undifferentiated feeling/experience could be combined/shaped into differentiated qualia such as pain, sadness, anger, mental images, bitter, sweet, etc.

@smcder: ...can explain to me how?

No. My guess/assumption is that the process involves neurons (and in non-humans, physical structures with similar physical properties/structures as neurons), chemicals, electricity, and communication (cause-effect interactions).

@smcder: what is a process of experience

@Soupie: A stream of phenomenal, discursive consciousness.

@smcder: Or do you think consciousness, mind, these fundamental things are like (or are) a fluid or malleable substance?

@Soupie: No, I think they are intentional information.

@smcder: Above you said it is difficult for you to see how qualia or whole minds are fundamental.

But here you say:

I’m saying that phenomenal experience/feeling is fundamental.

"qualia are individual instances of subjective, conscious experience"

So you do see qualia as fundamental.

@Soupie: No, I do not see qualia as fundamental.

As I noted earlier, I think of qualia as individual instances of green, red, pain, hunger, sour, bitter, etc.

I do not think of such things as fundamental.

What I do think of as fundamental is raw, undifferentiated feeling/experience. What does it feel like to be raw, undifferentiated feeling/experience? I don’t know.

An imperfect analogy might be white light is to colored light as raw feeling is to sadness, joy, anger, sweet, burny, cold, etc.

@Soupie: So, no, I can’t see how “phenomenal feeling” emerges from matter, hence phenomenal feeling is fundamental.

@smcder: So what if feeling is fundamental(?) because a "process of experience" (mind) still has to emerge and that's no easier to see than feeling emerging from matter, so no I don't think you can "see" this either.

If one can see atoms, one can see how molecules are constituted of atoms.

If one can see that mental is a property of all matter/energy (panpsychism), then one can see how minds are constituted by mental atoms.

@smcder: Or do we want to say mind and self-awareness are fundamental?

@Soupie: I certainly do not, at all. No.

 

[Soupie]

@smcder

If qualia and minds are fundamental, why is it that some minds lack particular qualia such as green?

 

[Pharoah]

@Pharoah, I wonder if you would be willing to share with us your email conversations with Panksepp and his responses to HCT.

panksepp wasn't interested in HCT per se. Except inasmuch as I might use it to present to him some "differential predictions". I thought I understood what he meant by this and applied myself to the task only to find that he was not satisfied by my answers. Exasperated, I asked my brother what "differential predictions" might mean (he being a scientist of some distinction). He said he had no idea. So unless Panksepp can articulate what he wants of HCT—what he means by "differential prediction"— I cannot further our dialogue. When I asked him directly I received no response.
I think Panksepp is close to retirement and is fixed in a certain mode of interest. Furthermore, like many research scientists I know, he does not think much of philosophers 'and their theories'. To be honest, nor do I

 

[Pharoah]

Have you heard of dyslexie or other fonts for dyslexic readers?

yes... I think they might help some. My standard of reading and writing is such that I would not benefit from these fonts now, though, as a child and teenager I would have I think. If, like me as a youngster, you are unable to tell the difference between a 'b' and a 'd', subtle distinctive features in their designs might be all that would be required; 'b's should look chubby, and 'd's skinny because I can relate to this kind of distinction (rather than one being one way round in opposition to the other) ie treating them like personalities rather than linguistic symbols. Actually, now that I think about it, I would have just forgotten which one represented what, so perhaps I would have been just as confused.

 

[Constance]

I think it's amazing that, suffering from dyslexia, you would pursue a text-based discipline like philosophy, and even prefer to read texts from the long episode of analytical philosophy of language. More power to you if you can read those texts with patience and pleasure. I can't.

 

[Constance]

panksepp wasn't interested in HCT per se. Except inasmuch as I might use it to present to him some "differential predictions". I thought I understood what he meant by this and applied myself to the task only to find that he was not satisfied by my answers. Exasperated, I asked my brother what "differential predictions" might mean (he being a scientist of some distinction). He said he had no idea. So unless Panksepp can articulate what he wants of HCT—what he means by "differential prediction"— I cannot further our dialogue. When I asked him directly I received no response.
I think Panksepp is close to retirement and is fixed in a certain mode of interest. Furthermore, like many research scientists I know, he does not think much of philosophers 'and their theories'. To be honest, nor do I

We did drop Panksepp in our thread(s) at the point when your discussion with him was discontinued. We hadn't gotten to the most productive aspects of his developing research at that point. I'll bring those papers forward again if we're actually going to read and discuss them here. Otherwise not.

If you're interested, Pharoah, please re-send me the link to the google thread you set up back then.

 

[smcder]

panksepp wasn't interested in HCT per se. Except inasmuch as I might use it to present to him some "differential predictions". I thought I understood what he meant by this and applied myself to the task only to find that he was not satisfied by my answers. Exasperated, I asked my brother what "differential predictions" might mean (he being a scientist of some distinction). He said he had no idea. So unless Panksepp can articulate what he wants of HCT—what he means by "differential prediction"— I cannot further our dialogue. When I asked him directly I received no response.
I think Panksepp is close to retirement and is fixed in a certain mode of interest. Furthermore, like many research scientists I know, he does not think much of philosophers 'and their theories'. To be honest, nor do I

If I remember correctly he just wanted to test HCT experimentally - he wanted HCT to predict the outcome of experiments in a way that differentiated it from other theories - ie good theories are tested by making more (and more accurate) predictions.

I'll see if I can find the text.

What does your brother think of HCT? What is his field?

 

[smcder]

.

 

[Constance]

Here are a couple of responses I found to this ... the first is more generally on the analytic/continental split and the internecine warfare I sensed might lie behind Blake's review ... the second is a 2013 response to Blake from Harmon:

How not to to engage with other humanists; Nathan Brown and the continental/continental divide - New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

terence blake | Search Results | Object-Oriented Philosophy

I also did a search in Harmon's blog for "Terence Blake" and found just a few entries, but they are worth reading.

I didn't see anything at either of the pages you linked that responded to the Terence Blake critique of Harman's pamphlet. At the second link Harman offers a few brief and nonsubstantive blog-paragraphs and indicates that he will be responding to Blake and other critics in a next book. The lengthy comments at the first linked page indicate what a mess has evolved from Harman's OOO. I'm no longer sure it's worth the time it would take to read all of Harman and those adhering to his ideas and departing from them, still loosely gathered under the rubric 'speculative realism'. I think Terence Blake identifies a significant problem in Harman's thinking and that no one has yet taken it on.

 

[Constance]

If qualia and minds are fundamental, why is it that some minds lack particular qualia such as green?

Why not just cut through the apparent hangup about 'qualia' -- the need to think of each 'quale' felt on a planet filled with innumerable and various living, experiencing, creatures as a thing-in-itself that can't 'exist' unless all creatures can experience it? Cut through that to the base of the [I]experience[/I] of qualia: the [COLOR=#0000ff][U]preconscious affectivity[/U] [/COLOR]of living organisms from the most primordial all the way up to ourselves. At the level of mammalian evolution this is about subconscious [I]feeling[/I] borne by the open-ended sense of presence of the self within a complex environing world just beyond the skin or shell. In 'higher' mammals like us, qualia also rise to consciousness in experience. Eventually they have been named and turned into a concept poorly understood in philosophy of mind.

[URL='http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3653226/']What Affective Neuroscience Means for Science Of Consciousness[/URL]

 

[smcder]

I didn't see anything at either of the pages you linked that responded to the Terence Blake critique of Harman's pamphlet. At the second link Harman offers a few brief and nonsubstantive blog-paragraphs and indicates that he will be responding to Blake and other critics in a next book. The lengthy comments at the first linked page indicate what a mess has evolved from Harman's OOO. I'm no longer sure it's worth the time it would take to read all of Harman and those adhering to his ideas and departing from them, still loosely gathered under the rubric 'speculative realism'. I think Terence Blake identifies a significant problem in Harman's thinking and that no one has yet taken it on.

I'm not sure either ... OOO is a very broad movement and I just haven't read enough.

That was all I could find at the time in the way of a response to Blake's critique ... I was hoping for more.

Harmon linked to a twitter exchange between Blake and a couple of others which I found bizarre:

Oh my God - Terence Blake - Oh my God (with tweets) · Recursive_idiot · Storify

I don't have the full context but thay may be why it's hard to find a response to Blake.

I still think of surrealism/dadaism when I think of OOO - the value of those movements was to help break up the art world and bring in new ideas, maybe that is the real value of OOO, but I just don't know.

 

[smcder]

One other bit from Blake on Harman:

IN PRAISE OF GRAHAM HARMAN | AGENT SWARM

IN PRAISE OF GRAHAM HARMAN
Posted on December 6, 2014by terenceblake

I have done enough critical analysis of Harman’s OOP (for example: PLURALIST THOUGHTS ON GRAHAM HARMAN’S MONIST IDEALISM) to permit myself to indicate 2 points that I find positive in his philosophy

1) Anti-scientism: Harman assigns only a regional validity to scientific truths and denies the pretention of scientists to cognitive hegemony

2) Anti-literalism: Harman defends the use of “allusive” language and style against the primacy of referential language and literal understanding

No argumentative strategy can succeed in its critique of Harman if it does not acknowledge the positive nature of these two hypotheses and their ensuing suggestions.

 

[smcder]

panksepp wasn't interested in HCT per se. Except inasmuch as I might use it to present to him some "differential predictions". I thought I understood what he meant by this and applied myself to the task only to find that he was not satisfied by my answers. Exasperated, I asked my brother what "differential predictions" might mean (he being a scientist of some distinction). He said he had no idea. So unless Panksepp can articulate what he wants of HCT—what he means by "differential prediction"— I cannot further our dialogue. When I asked him directly I received no response.
I think Panksepp is close to retirement and is fixed in a certain mode of interest. Furthermore, like many research scientists I know, he does not think much of philosophers 'and their theories'. To be honest, nor do I

Fom Part 2, you posted:

Panksepp has asked me, "Do you have a set of differential predictions that may help me focus on what differences there may be between my empirical work & perspectives, and your HCT formulation? I do see the many surface similarities. . . but are there differential empirical predictions that HCT would make that Affective Neuroscience views would not?"

 

[smcder]

Panpsychism And/Or Eliminativism « The Pinocchio Theory

On speculative realism

 

[smcder]

@smcder

If qualia and minds are fundamental, why is it that some minds lack particular qualia such as green?

That's based on your def of qualia more commonly defined as "phenomenal character"

more than

Raw undifferentiated feeling/experience

May be needed to be fundamental:

Proto conscious affectivity?

Intention
Mindedness
What it is like
Etc

Otherwise you lose the whole point of Panpsychism

 

[Soupie]

That's based on your def of qualia more commonly defined as "phenomenal character"

more than

Raw undifferentiated feeling/experience

May be needed to be fundamental:

Proto conscious affectivity?

Intention
Mindedness
What it is like
Etc

Otherwise you lose the whole point of Panpsychism

As i understand it, the whole point of panpsychism is that the universe is awash with consciousness. Taken in the context of the current, dominant physicalist paradigm, this means that all matter/energy is conscious.

However, there are different flavors of panpsychism. As chalmers explains, to be a panpsychist does not mean one must asseert that, say, electrons have minds like ours. But to be a panpsychist might mean that one believes even electrons have some form of consciousness. There is something it is like to be an electron. That is, it feels like something to be an electron.

How this relates to the hard problem: the hard problem -- as explained by chalmers -- is to explain how feeling emerges from physical processes.

Panpyschism avoids the hard problem by suggesting that feeling (consciousness), like matter/energy, just is.

And what i am saying is that in the same way that all the plethora of physical structures in our reality are constituted of (raw) energy, so might all the plethora of phenomenal structures in our reality be constitued of (raw) consciousness.

 

[Soupie]

Here are some pages from Mind in Life that seem directly relevant to our current discussion. Though the term "information" is not used, the approach outlined in the first two pages is compatable with my approach. The following discussion regarding reduction and transcendence is excellent as well. How do we describe the obvious relation between matter and mind without reducing mind to matter or matter to mind?

 

[smcder]

dueling citations:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.49.6666&rep=rep1&type=pdf

 

[Soupie]

Im still digesting these pages myself.

The statement "the perceived would only be explicable to the perceived itself" resonates strongly with me.

It is why i remain a dualist. I hate to do this, but i have to go back to my phrase, the mind is green.

The brain is not green. Green does not exist in the brain. The brain is physical, green is not physical. There is no part of the brain that is green.

The mind is green. Or perhaps, green is the mind. (For the sake of confusion, im just using green as an example, one could use any qualia: pain, sadness, sour, etc.) The mind is sour.

But the brain and sour are distinct. The brain is not sour.

The perceived (green or sour) is only explicable to the perceived.

Green is only explicable to green. Sour is only explicable to sour. Or, more appropriately, green is only explicable to the mind. Sour only explicable to the mind.

But how does green become explicable to itself? Or as i have have asked: how does awareness become aware of itself? How does awareness become explicable to itself?

This to me is a separate issue to the hard problem. The hard problem asks how perception exists. The question im asking is how does perception become aware of itself.

Its very likely that i am misunderstanding MPs statement. And im still trying to understand verals rebutal of it.